John Brown's Body by Jack Martin

Author:Jack Martin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Auto-ingested from 'John Brown's Body BODY styled for AeP.docx'
by 'Rebecca' on 17/10/2022 at 14:33
Content may have been edited since
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2022-10-26T18:22:10+00:00

Chapter Seven

TREASON DOTH NEVER PROSER; WHAT’S THE REASON?

“I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ to no damn Yankees,” said the dirty, starved man in butternut, sitting on a cracker box in Grant’s tent. “I knows my rights. I be a prisoner, an’ ain’t gotta say nothin’.”

Around the prisoner stood Generals Grant and McPherson, Colonel Rawlins, Major Parker, Lieutenant Bierce, Captain Clay, and Sergeant Lot. Even with the flaps of Grant’s large command tent folded wide open, the interior was stifling; it was near noon on a cloudless day in a Mississippi June. Yet despite their blue woolen uniforms, the assembled Federal soldiers were sweating less than the prisoner.

While the others glowered at the captured Confederate, pondering his fate, Bierce ruefully welcomed the newly-arrived Clay and Lot. “I need to apologize for interrupting your oh-so-important work of interviewing everyone who may have seen a rat go on Sherman’s boat just before Brown was shot, but I thought you might be interested in seeing something of what this army is up against. Colonel Rawlins and I have been trying to open a meaningful discussion with our friend for most of this morning, but he has remained disappointingly uncommunicative.

“Our friend here was picked up last night trying to crawl past General McPherson’s boys in the dark. Crawled right into the hands of some alert Iowa soldiers. They saw he was carrying dispatches from General Pemberton to General Johnston and immediately brought him to General McPherson; then McPherson brought him over here. Those dispatches are valuable enough, giving us a picture of the number of men in Vicksburg and the state of their supplies, but it would be most beneficial to obtain our friend’s personal impressions of what is happening inside Vicksburg.”

A loud boom sounded, followed a few seconds later by the sound of a distant explosion. The sides of the tent waved slightly with the force. It was one of Grant’s huge, thirteen-inch mortars, which, at quarter-hour intervals, hurled a two-hundred-pound explosive shell into the besieged city. General Grant, seeking some way to compel an early surrender of Vicksburg, short of starvation, had ordered the bombardment, feeling it would deprive the Confederate defenders of rest and attack their morale, and it worked. Used to it, the Federal soldiers did not respond at all to the sound of the artillery, but the surly Confederate cringed pitiably at the noise.

Bierce turned back to the prisoner, thrilled; the Rebel shrank visibly in his sight. “Ah, my friend, you have behaved quite courageously. Alas, only in dime novels does courage triumph. You have failed and are in the hands of the Federal government. We need to know information not included in those dispatches: the morale, the rumors, the attitude of soldiers toward their officers, all that kind of thing.”

“I ain’t a traitor,” responded the soldier sullenly.

“No, but you may be a spy.”

All the others in the room watched on in great interest.

The prisoner’s head jerked up. “What the hell do you mean? I’m a soldier, not some sneakin’ spy!”

“Very interesting,” Bierce said, deducing aloud.

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