March Toward the Thunder by Joseph Bruchac

Author:Joseph Bruchac
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group

CHAPTER NINETEEN

SKILLYGALLEE AND SONG

Monday, May 30, 1864

Almost as soon as the men had dried themselves and put their uniforms back on the order came down that they were to break camp. Grant had ordered Meade to lead the Army of the Potomac across the Mattapony River, so Louis’s plan for marbles with Artis was not to be for now. A bigger game was about to be played in which men, and not balls of clay, were the pieces to be shot at.

They forded the Mattapony after another night march. Then it was across the North Ana River, where they engaged Lee’s grayback boys. All in a heat so great that Louis felt as if the buttons on his sack coat were about to melt.

Then it was fall back to find the enemy’s right flank and get around it.

Though it seems as if we’re wandering like the Hebrew tribes in the wilderness.

Cross the North Ana a second time. Turn toward Hanover-town and over the Pamunkey River to find the enemy at Tolopotomy Creek.

Shoot and shovel. Don’t try to make sense of it. Just do what you’re told.

“Move out, men!”

This time to Hanover Court House, where more soldiers in gray waited, dug in north of the Chickahominy River.

So many rivers that my head is swimming. But they say we’re now only ten miles from Richmond, the Southern capital. Take Richmond and we’ll have won the war.

And then, finally, after more than a week of marching and digging trenches, skirmishing, falling back, moving forward to dig in yet again, they came to a halt.

Corporal Hayes stroked his mustache as he looked over the top of their trench toward the heavily fortified Confederate lines a mile away. He turned to nod down at Louis and his mess mates laboring below him. “Dig in lads, build up them walls.”

“Lads?” Joker said in a low voice as he nudged Louis with his elbow. “Moles is more like it.”

Louis nodded as he levered up yet another spadeful of red earth. Moles.

“Corporal, sir, do you know the name of this place?” Joker asked, leaning for a moment on his shovel.

“Cold Harbor, I’m told,” Hayes replied in a monotone. “Remember that name, so you can say you were at the place where the battle was fought that broke the back of the rebellion?”

Strange. He’s not saying those words as if he believes them. More like a question. In fact, it seems as if everything Hayes says since he escaped from the Rebs has been a question. As if he’s doubting everything around him now.

Hayes gestured vaguely in the direction of the Rebel entrenchment that stretched for miles in each direction.

“The South’s worn out, so Grant says. All Lee has the heart to do is dig in.”

Dug in like an old wounded wolf. What was it mon père said? No animal more dangerous than a hurt one in his lair. The thought brought a tight feeling to his gut. Lee and his boys are just waiting for us fools to try to go in after them.

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