The Smoke at Dawn: A Novel of the Civil War (9 page)

Bragg expected this powerful force of horsemen to fight off any confrontation with Federal troopers, allowing Wheeler to maintain a strong force in the Federal rear that would crush any attempt to resupply the Federal troops in the town. But Wheeler had overplayed his hand.

The plan was to reinforce Wheeler by additional cavalry units under the commands of Stephen D. Lee and Phillip Roddey, who were ordered to join Wheeler from their bases in Alabama and Mississippi. But Wheeler’s impatience pushed him into action before Lee and Roddey could reach him. Undermanned for such an ambitious raid, Wheeler was now in danger from rapidly gathering Federal cavalry. His only choice was escape, which meant a retreat back across the Tennessee River. As gleefully as Bragg had received word of the blow to the Federal supply train, his own prejudice against the vainglory
and haphazard efforts of cavalry blossomed once more. What he did not expect was that one of those men, Nathan Bedford Forrest, would not meekly accept the order to strip himself of manpower just to fuel the ambitions of Joe Wheeler.

Bragg heard the commotion outside, saw Mackall backing into the room, pushed by heavy boot steps, the man now pushing past him. It was Forrest.

Bragg sat motionless, saw a look he had seen before, a red fury, but this time, Forrest’s anger wasn’t directed at any Yankee. Forrest spun toward him, ignored the pair of aides who stood back to one side, papers in their hands. Bragg tried to avoid Forrest’s glare, stood, said, “General Forrest … it is late.”

Another man scrambled in behind Forrest, and Mackall said something, a hesitant greeting, the man unfamiliar to Bragg. He moved up close behind Forrest, put a hand on Forrest’s shoulder. Forrest shook the hand away, and the man looked at Bragg with obvious concern, made a short bow, quick, soft words.

“Sir, I am Dr. James Cowan, General Forrest’s surgeon. We regret the sudden intrusion.”

Bragg made a brief nod to Cowan, his eyes still on Forrest, a quick glance toward the pistol at Forrest’s side. “Doctor, is it? Welcome to my headquarters. General Forrest …”

Bragg held out a hand, as though Forrest should take it, but it was a gesture born of fear, nothing friendly in Bragg’s mind. Forrest ignored the hand, stared hard at him, no ebb in the man’s temper. Bragg sat down again, felt pushed backward by Forrest’s anger, and Forrest spoke now, slow and deliberate, his words slicing the air between them like the blade of a knife.

“You have pursued a cowardly and contemptible persecution of me since Shiloh, and you have kept up such behavior ever since. You take me to be your foe because after every fight, my reports contain facts, while you only tell Richmond damned lies. You have robbed
me of my command before, and now you do it again. I have trained and equipped my men from the spoils we have gained against the enemy, and because I will not fawn upon you as so many others have done, you offer me only revenge and spite. You have made every attempt to ruin my career, and now you are doing so again. I command a brigade of men who have never been bested, men who have sacrificed themselves, men who have won a reputation for successful fighting second to none in this army. You take advantage of your position as commanding general, and in order to further humiliate me, you take these brave men from me. I have stood your meanness as long as I intend to. You have played the part of a damned scoundrel and are a coward, and if you were any part a man I would slap your jaws and force you to resent it. You may as well not issue any more orders to me, for I will not obey them, and I will hold you personally responsible for any further indignities you endeavor to inflict upon me. You have threatened to arrest me for not obeying your orders promptly. I dare you to do it! And I say to you that if you ever again try to interfere with me or cross my path it will be at the peril of your life!”

Forrest turned quickly, marched from the room, the doctor taking a last hesitating glance at Bragg. Then he, too, was gone, and Mackall stared toward the doorway, his mouth slightly open.

“What … should I do, sir?”

Bragg felt frozen in his chair, realized his uniform was soaked with his sweat. He tried to speak, his voice held by the tightness in his throat, and he coughed, forced a response. “You will do nothing.”

“Sir, he … that was … he risked his life saying such things. He threatened you!”

“You will do nothing, do you hear?”

Bragg felt his hands shaking, worked the cold out of his fingers, sat straight, fought to breathe. He wanted to stand, to show Mackall he had the strength, but there was no power in his legs. He heard the hoofbeats, Forrest riding away, and Mackall said, “It was unwise of him to bring a witness … or to speak such things in our presence, in the presence of your aides.”

Bragg felt a bolt of fire through him, stood now, his fists on the
small desk, looked at the other two men, young, standing silently with wide eyes, their backs pressed against the wall.

“You will say nothing about this! Nothing! Do you understand?” He fought to stay upright, the cold deep in his gut, his hands steadying on the rough wood of the desk. He forced the words out slowly, the fear subsiding, the image of Forrest’s glare fading. “Nothing more. It is merely … the solution I have searched for. General Forrest has done us a service. He knew certainly that his days in this army were few. No doubt he will remove himself from this command. That is … a convenience. Think nothing more of it.”

Mackall made a silent gesture, ordering the aides away, the two men responding gratefully, a quick exit. Mackall sat on a small camp stool, still stared at the open doorway. More aides were there now, word spreading through the headquarters, and Mackall said, “Away! All of you! There is nothing of concern here!”

The men obeyed, quick glances at Bragg, who sat back, his hands still quivering. He planted them in his lap, tried still to calm himself, said to Mackall, “There is work to be done, yes? The staff shall be kept busy. Do your duty, General. In the morning … the sun shall rise on this army, and it shall be a new day. We shall put our minds to work on solving what troubles us. Nothing further will be heard from General Forrest. And so, I am confident that this one … 
trouble
 … has been handled quite nicely.”

He had never been so bored in his life. The daily walks had become a drudgery, and he forced the pains from his legs, shoved through the weakness, pushed air in and out of his lungs, fighting the temptation to stop, to rest on some moldy tree stump. For all the boredom, he knew better than to complain, accepted easily that doing anything out of doors was far more satisfying than more dismal conversation with the doctors. And in their insistence that he take the lengthy walks, Bauer understood the message the doctors were giving him: After several agonizing weeks, he was finally healing.

The illness had come to him at the end of July, and Bauer was one of many. It had to do with the swamps, the summer heat, the lack of clean drinking water from the lack of rain. The army seemed to plant the troops in a place guaranteed to create sickness. In Bauer’s case, what had seemed to be dysentery had turned even uglier. A fever spread through the entire brigade, long nights of drenching sweat, his joints stiff and swollen, which seemed to mystify the doctors. And there were deaths, Bauer absorbing the unavoidable sadness of a man beside him suddenly taken away, the tearful reaction of silent nurses,
the dull stares from overworked stretcher bearers. The glorious mansions around Natchez had become crushingly depressing places, the finest homes now pressed into service as hospitals. To some, the death of the man beside you was welcome, a silent farewell as the man was taken away, the most devout reassuring themselves that one more man was now in that “better place,” their suffering ended. To Bauer, it just meant that, once again, death had missed
him
.

The route was laid out, a wide path that carried him through the most dismal wood and swamp bottoms he had ever seen. If he needed some boost of enthusiasm, something to ease the monotony, it was first, that he was alive at all, and second, the aches and agonies from his illness were noticeably diminished.

The orderly who followed him was there for discipline, to keep Bauer honest, a task that Bauer had to believe was as boring as his own. He glanced back from time to time, the orderly nowhere in sight, hanging back, he thought, to perhaps catch him in some improper disregard for the doctor’s instructions. Bauer had begun to imagine that the orderly might be back there performing some indiscreet act of his own, probably with a flask of spirits. It was speculation that offered Bauer at least some kind of break from the fog that still filled his head, what the doctor assured him was only the aftereffects of the drugs they had given him.

He stared into a deep hole in the woods, a cavelike tunnel through dense brush over a carpet of black water. There was too much of that, too many places that reminded him of the endless swamps that seemed to fill every low place in this part of the world. Any soldier who had served this long close to the Mississippi River had seen for himself that such places held terrifying and dangerous creatures: alligators, snakes, other critters that belched out groans and shrieks that had inspired numerous legends. Even now, the talk in the hospital was of some man-ape creature, who slogged his way through the deepest mud holes, silent, efficient, sure to attack anyone foolish enough to tread too near the swampy bottoms. His brain tried to focus, the talk even from the doctors of that demon of the deep woods, and Bauer wondered now if the tale had begun from the imaginations of the medical men, to keep anyone, patient or orderly, from slipping off on some indiscreet mission that had nothing to do
with medicine. This was, after all, Natchez, and many of the troops had found that the gentility of this Southern community masked the availability of a different kind of creature, one who smelled of perfume. Bauer stopped, looked back, saw the man now, coming around the curve behind him. No, he’s too efficient. Takes his orders too seriously. Bauer began to move again, the stiffness in one knee tormenting him. A man-beast, he thought. A great hairy ape. That kind of tale is good for tormenting new recruits, give them a healthy fear of these swamps. Most of the fresh-faced boys tried to laugh it off, just some fairy tale, but Bauer knew that several of them slept with their muskets.

He saw another gap in the thickets to one side, more black water, thought, No shortcut that way. I’ve seen at least one alligator in that hole, and I know full well there are snakes out here big enough to swallow me right up to my neck. That doctor knew just where he was sending me. If I tried to slice off a mile or two from this hike, I might never be heard from again. They’d find me when some gator spit out my bones. Or maybe I’d come out the other end. Either way, Fritz, stay on the road. Damn it all anyway. My legs are doing just fine.

He winced, the strain in his calves giving the lie to his attempt at bravado. His lungs ached as well, but the pungent stench of the swampy water was far better than what waited for him at the hospital. Okay, just keep walking. Can’t be too much more of this. Your gut’s doing okay, for now. That’s a good thing, for certain. A man ain’t built for permanent squatting. I’ve hugged my knees so much, they’re rougher ’n my pants legs.

The trail curved around a muddy water hole, and the smell curled his nose, as it always did. That’s gotta be where they get our rations from, he thought. Fill the canteens with something you can’t even see through.

He knew it hadn’t really been like that in Natchez, and not for a long time anywhere else. The food had improved considerably since the long marches had stopped, their supplies coming in regularly from upriver. Some men still griped, always griped, but he knew better, had heard plenty of stories from the rebels they had captured at Vicksburg, many of those men, and the civilians along with them, enduring Grant’s siege by drinking water straight from the Mississippi
River. Bauer had experienced that misery back before Shiloh, the soldiers often forced to drink right out of the Tennessee. There was sickness then, too, dysentery, or something close enough, sweeping through the regiment. Bauer had dodged that one, one of those pieces of good fortune that some insisted on labeling
fate
. Bauer didn’t have much faith in that, believed instead that he had just been lucky, or that by sheer strength of will, he had kept the diseases away. The inspiration for anyone to stay healthy came from any visit to a field hospital, miserable bloody places that no one wanted to see, sick or not. But his luck had run out. At least the hospital’s a big damn house, he thought. Mansion. Some rich rebel long gone, figuring us nasty old Yankees are gonna burn his place, or tear everything to shreds. Good. Keep outta the way, let us do our business. My business is to get this affliction outta my body and get strong enough so the doctor’ll send me back to the regiment. Mansion or not, right now, a tent would be a whole lot nicer than big rooms full of puking soldiers.