Shiloh by Shelby Foote

Author:Shelby Foote [Foote, Shelby]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: War, Historical
ISBN: 9780679735427
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 1952-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

"Where will I find the 1st Minnesota Battery?"

"Never heard of them." That was always the answer.

Once I saw a man huddled in a poncho, leaning back against the trunk of a big oak. But when I went over to ask him, I saw his face and backed away. He could have told me, maybe, but I didn’t ask him. It was General Grant. He had that same worried look on his face, only more so. Earlier he'd tried to get some sleep in the log house where I saw the surgeons, but the screams of the wounded and the singing of the bone-saws drove him out into the rain. Remembering all I saw when I went past—surgeons with their sleeves rolled high and bloody arms and legs thrown in a pile outside an open window—I couldn’t say I blamed him.

It went on that way: "Never heard of them," until finally I gave up trying to locate the battery. I thought I'd better find the division first; then maybe I could find the battery. But that was no better, for no one could tell me about the division either, until at last I came on a fellow leaning back in a fence comer with a blanket pulled over his head like a cowl on a monk.

"The Sixth?" he said, holding the edges of the blanket up close beneath his chin. His voice shook because his fist was against his windpipe. "Man, that’s Prentiss' division. They surrendered before sundown, the whole kit and kiboodle. By now you’ll find them marching down the Corinth road, under a rebel guard."

So that was that. There was no use beating around the wet woods any longer, looking for an outfit ten miles away on the opposite side of the lines by now.

It sort of took the wind out of me, knowing that now I had no chance to get back to the ones I'd walked away from, no chance to make it up to them the way I'd planned. Then for a minute I had a crazy notion to go back to the big oak near the log house and report to Grant: "General, here's an unattached cannoneer, got his nerve back at last and wants a share in the fighting tomorrow morning."

It was just a notion; of course I'd never do a thing like that. But then I remembered the siege guns, the ones strung out along the ridge where the campfires were. I'd never served any piece larger than a twelve-pounder, but I thought I might be of some use swabbing the bore or carrying ammunition or something— this six-foot-five of mine always came in handy when heavy work was called for. So I went back the way I came, past the sleeping men and the log hospital where they were still hard at work (the amputation pile reached the window ledge now, beginning to spread out into the yard) and up to where the line of campfires began on the ridge. That was when I saw for the first time that all the cannons weren’t big ones.

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