Chapter 14

General Sherman disguised his troop movements by keeping the bulk of his forces in railway cars and inside of covered wagons of type being used to move the settlers into the unsettled western regions. The artillery was another matter, but he insisted each piece be covered with canvas and made to seem like farm implements rather than tools of war.

In all honest, I was convinced the Confederates had no idea where General Sherman actually was because they were looking for him all the way from the Mississippi River to Raleigh, North Carolina. The capital of North Carolina was on high alert expecting an invasion of Yankees determined to burn the entire city right down to the ground.

The Rebel cavalry was running in every direction like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off and the poor civilians were fit to be tied wanting protection from the northern invaders. It was strange how important the military seemed in the time of war and how ignored they were in times of peace.

The Colonel in charge of our detachment was a hard-charger from New York State. He wasn’t a graduate of the Academy at West Point and he didn’t have prior experience in actual combat, but he was filled with grandiose plans about how to end the war before Christmas. It was all I could do to stifle my laughter when I was close enough to hear his proclamations delivered in a tone of voice that absolutely demanded full attention. Wherever we went, he had a pair of “bulldog” bodyguards with him like he was the President of the United States.

They looked almost like twins and wore these long dust coats that collected more dust and dirt than it seemed physically possible. The Negro cook who was about the friendliest person in the camp let it be known that they were both the dreaded “Pinkerton’s” that had a reputation for fierce action.

I didn’t know why he had a bodyguard detail with him except for the fact he stood to inherit a large chunk of the existing railroads east of the Mississippi and his mother was distraught at the possibility of losing her only remaining son to some assassin’s weapon. I couldn’t help but think he was more likely to die from a bullet from some irate soldier tired of listening to his constant bullshit about his accomplishments and plans for military success.

We got hit two nights running by rogue units of Confederate cavalry and it made for a lot of excitement and drinking coffee in the middle of the night. It was more an annoyance than a threat and most of the troops ignored the orders to stay on the alert and just went back to sleep, myself included.

The next morning, I took out a patrol to scout out the road in front of us and discovered a pile of dead horses and Johnny Rebs stacked up neatly by the side of the road like they were set out for trash collection. Some of those boys were so shot up they looked like bloody Swiss cheese getting ready to turn moldy. The stink was overpowering and we all got out of that area as quickly as possible. It purely wasn’t typical of the enemy in the manner of taking care of the dead. Most of the front line units had lots of darkies to do the shoveling to bury the unfortunate dead and horses were generally cut up and cast into the forest to let the scavengers eat their fill. The smell alone was enough to make most men with common sense detour around those sites to preserve their sense of smell.

The bodies we came across were mostly skinny to an absolute caution and I came to the conclusion that these troops were part of the army from the losing battles in Tennessee and Georgia looking to find a place where the risk of getting killed was considerable less than in front of General Sherman’s war machine.

It was beginning to look like the Carolina’s were a big bust in terms of enemy resistance. That fact didn’t disappoint me none because the fighting on General Sherman’s “March to the Sea” was enough to keep my thirst for action sated for a long time to come. We were heading to Virginia and the final showdown. I had no doubt of the outcome having read all the history books diligently whilst a youngster in school and remembered the famous Photograph of General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at the courthouse without any difficulty.

When we transitioned from Carolina up into the Virginia area, we found dozens of “pockets” of Confederate resistance. The battle-trained Sherman forces generally just shot the rebels where they ran them down but the New York troops were more restrained and captured a whole gaggle of them and we had to corral them inside a pen of sorts and then we had to feed them and take care of their wounds and sickness just like they were our adopted children. Of course, that didn’t sit too well with most of the troops who had been facing the risk of death each day from Confederate snipers and the danger of getting cut in half by the rebel artillery. I knew a lot of them boys would just as soon cut their throats and leave them for the burial detail to clean up. I can’t claim to not have the same thoughts as well but I did my best to curtail them and act like a gentleman much against the demands of my nagging dark side.

There were rumors of a renegade Negro armed force that was terrorizing the countryside in southern Virginia. They were burning perfectly good barns and even raping the Confederate white women no matter how young or how old they might be. The whole concept of raping the enemy women was not condoned on either side, but there were some units that seemed to use it as a weapon to coerce the civilian populace to “donate” food and supplies without even being asked. I do know that General Sherman was firm on this atrocity and held instant Court Martials for troops that lifted the Confederate female’s skirts against their will and were stupid enough to brag about it.

I noticed that the raped females tended to keep the details to themselves and rarely complained to our officers for fear of being branded as a “poor victim”. I would have to say that the uniformed troops didn’t get involved in such matters, because most of the female civilians were friendly regardless of which side they favored. It was the rogue units, the deserters and the renegades that caused a ruckus in purposeful mean-spirited lessons to show their control of a situation. I came across one of those instances accidently and confess I was a mite hasty to head-shoot a pair of miscreants with their pants down and a poor female stretched out like a lamb for the shearing. She was too scared to even scream and I found that to be the most pathetic thing I had seen for quite a while. I think the poor thing was more upset to see the two dead yahoos than she was about being forced to spread her legs. I did my best to calm her down but she was inconsolable. I suspected it was because she was quite youngish and might not have had the advantage of experience in such matters.