Was that real? Did he really see that?
“I don’t want to do this,” he said, words partially drowned by a crescendo of firing up on the smoke-wreathed ridge.
Kershaw, standing beside him, gave him an off-balance smile that displayed his crooked teeth. “Word is the Yankees is breaking all up and down de line. We win dis, we destroy Rosecrans’s army. Do dat and the Federals is gonna have to rethink dis whole thing. Might win us de war, suh. C’est bon!”
“I don’t want a disaster, Kershaw. I’ve lost too many as it is.”
Kershaw hesitated, looking hard into Butler’s eyes, seeming to read his soul. “Cap’n, yor in c’mand, mais oui?”
Go! Run! the voices whispered.
He was taking a breath to order just that, when Tom Hindman himself appeared through the trees. A bloody bandage swathed the neck of the “Lion of the South,” his glass-blue eyes agleam with pain and the thrill of battle.
“Butler? Who’d have guessed. Whose men are these?”
“Why … mine, Tom. Company A, Second and Fifteenth Arkansas.”
“Hello, General!” Willy Pettigrew called out with a wave. “We’s come to drive them damn Yankees off yonder hill fer ye!”
“Then, by all means, get to it, gentlemen,” Hindman cried. “Front and center! Double quick! The last charge is forming as we speak. Today, my fellow Arkansans, we win the war!”
The hearty cry that rose from his men sent a shiver of fear through Butler’s breast, but he could do nothing except follow along behind as his decimated company trotted forward, guns at the ready. Passing through the confusion of the rear were more wounded being carried back. Butler saw soldiers, sitting, gazes empty, shoulders fallen, seemingly in a daze.
On Hindman’s order a captain put them in line between two of Anderson’s Mississippi companies.
Shells screamed in from the Federal guns on the heights and exploded with loud pops overhead. Fragments of metal tore several of the Mississippians apart in the ranks off to Butler’s right.
“Forward at the quick step!” The order came down the line, and Butler, his heart pounding, his throat frozen, stood mutely.
“Cap’n?” Kershaw demanded, awaiting his order.
Unable to stop himself, Butler said, “Forward.”
Drowned by the swelling cheer, Kershaw waited until he could be heard to bellow, “Arkansas! Forward at the quick step!”
Like some slothful monster the ponderous gray line started, a surging thousand men, pouring around the trees while branches, leaves, and fragments of hot metal came falling from the savaged skies.
As they approached the edge of the trees, musket balls began to whiz past, cracked into the tree trunks. A few thudded into men; others hit damp soil with a phutt.
Then they were out, pouring across the Vittetoe Road. The real storm broke with an explosion of musketry from the crest of the ridge before them. The zipping and meaty impact of the minié balls staggered the entire line. Men fell. Others ducked or flinched. But onward they went, crouching down as if against a hard sleeting rain.
“Forward!” Kershaw’s bellow carried over the screaming men. “At ’em, boys! Arkansas!”
With an ululating scream, Butler’s men charged up the slope, past the splintered and fallen trees, scrambling over branches, stepping on and over mounds of dead and dying men who’d tried and failed at previous assaults.
Another blast of musketry flashed up on the crest—chained sparks of lightning amid the billowing of smoke. Butler saw Simon, Deveroux, McCreedy, and Smith fall.
Panting, he raced after his men as they ran full-bore up the slope. Into the Yankee guns.
Twenty-three left.
The devil’s voice keened in his ear, as though the beast rode upon his shoulder.
The slope here was torn—leaf mat, shattered wood, bruised leaves all making footing treacherous. Butler slipped on a dead man’s bloody intestines. Fell flat, just as a Federal howitzer unleashed a charge of grape that tore a swath in the air above his back.
As he thrashed his way to his feet, he felt the wet sprinkles, and instinctively glanced up at the late afternoon sky. Found it clear beyond the haze of smoke. Realized the light patter was blood and little bits of tissue blown out of his men by the grapeshot.
They lay before him, broken and bloody, some still, others writhing and kicking as they died. He stared. Barnabas O’Toole’s entire jaw was missing.
“Cap’n!” Kershaw was pulling on his arm, the man’s voice, disembodied, seeming to echo in Butler’s head. The Cajun pointed up the slope. “They’s breaking! We got ’em on the run!”
Butler scrambled up the slope and over the bleeding bodies of his men. Vail, Pettigrew, Baker, Templeton, and some of the others were just ahead of him. The crest was so close.
On either side, the Mississippians were screaming, shooting, some stumbling or falling as they were shot down.
Thick clouds of stinking smoke darkened the sky, the smell of burned powder, blood, damp soil, and bruised vegetation choked his nostrils.
An eerie howl broke Butler’s lips as he charged past the first dead Yankee soldier, and then there were others, blue-coated, blood-soaked, some in piles. He leaped across a rudimentary breastwork, locking eyes with a wounded Federal private who crouched down, eyes wide with terror, his gun across his lap.
Fragments of hot metal sliced the air past his head as Butler charged into the Union rear. Saw the blue line ahead of him stop in its flight. Even as he watched, the line re-formed. A Yankee captain, sword out, ordered his men to stand.
The Yankees leveled their rifles.
“No!” Butler screamed.
Perhaps twenty feet separated them as the volley flashed fire from the muzzles. Smoke jetted out along the line. Bullets smacked into flesh and bone. Butler’s soldiers stumbled and fell.
As Butler staggered, tried to see who remained, the Yankees shouted and charged.
This is the last.
A keening sounded in Butler’s ears; his pistol, like an extension of his hand, steadied as he raised it. Time seemed to slow into
