Chapter 4

The rumors were flying everywhere back at the camp.

Some were certain we were going to Pennsylvania and do some support work for General Meade.

Others were hearing reports that Grant needed reinforcements down in Vicksburg in the strategic move for control of the Mississippi.

The last rumor and probably the most accurate was that the entire Army of the Cumberland was to fight in the campaign to take the key position of Chattanooga and establish a base line for the push into Georgia and Atlanta. I remembered from my rudimentary studies of the period that the whole campaign got off to a bad start with the Union loss at Chickamauga and caused Lincoln to consider shuffling his military leadership positions yet another time.

The camp was in a chaotic uproar of displacement and there were a constant stream of wives, mothers, and ordinary girlfriends coming in an out to cry and sob telling their loved ones to use the utmost caution in their confrontation with the Johnny Rebs. It seemed to me entirely reminiscent of the mob scene at Camp Pendleton when almost an entire division got sent to Vietnam for reinforcements after Tet.

We also got resupplied with a fresh shipment of Spencer repeating rifles and enough ammo to fill two freight cars. Apparently, the word had gotten out that distance wasn't the main consideration but that the volume of firepower and close in accuracy was much more important when meeting on a smoke-covered battlefield. The bayonets were a joke just like in most other wars but they still were carried out of a sense of tradition.

Right from the very beginning, the food and water situation was tight but we were able to supplement our rations with things we were able to find around us donated, bought or stolen from the general populace.

Remembering my military service from the far-away future, I spent a lot of time cleaning my Spencer and checking my allotment of ammo from the supply car. Most of the bored soldiers were playing cards using bullets as their wagers but it was merely a subterfuge for items of value that they were loath to display for officers to take umbrage at gambling.

I looked around at the group and thought that cannon fodder didn't change no matter which century they fought in or on which side they happened to fight on. I knew from my high school textbooks that the casualties in these bloody American Civil War campaigns were many and that the wounded generally were doomed to losing limbs and lives because of non-existent medical facilities. I remembered a scene from a butcher shop of a field hospital tent in some film that showed the gory parts of that great struggle. I showed in great detail the distasteful aspects of actual medical care on the battlefield. I noticed that the medical part of the long train was filled with dark-skinned workers to carry the stretchers and clean up the chaos of shattered flesh. They were all wearing the uniform of the Union Army and seemed out of place because they were a lot happier than the rest of us behaving like a herd of cattle or sheep being taken to the slaughter house for processing.

A young lad from New York called Timmy asked me,

"Why do you constantly clean your rifle, sir?"

I looked at him and saw myself the first time I had gone into the blood and gore blasting caps with no urge to destroy only a heartfelt desire to remain in the land of the living. As time went on, I became more of a robotic performer using my well-trained skills to dispatch as many of the enemy as possible in the hope that victory would put an end to the excess of violence and chaos in the cauldron of war.

"It is best to be prepared for any emergency, young man, and your sergeant should have told all of you that your rifle is your best friend and needs constant attention before, during and after any fight."

He looked me straight in the eye and confided,

"I have only been off the boat about week or thereabouts and they done conscripted me telling me I owed duty to my new country. I don't mind serving in the army, but I wonder if us "Yankees" might not have talked it over a bit more with the "Johnny Rebs" before the shooting started."

I had to laugh but it was not in derision but in agreement with his assessment.

I had always thought the Civil War was more a dispute of two incompatible cultural systems rather that a struggle over any specific issue or valued principle. It seemed that the vile practice of slavery was only being held onto in the southern states because of economic necessity and not from any design of evil as stated by the fiery "abolitionists" in the north.

The masters and the slaves of the south were not much different than the employers and the workers in the north that sometimes struggled under even more stressful conditions of existence. Still, slavery was in itself an evil that was totally out of place in a democratic society and it needed to be torn out by the root just like a noxious weed in the middle of a beautiful garden. Unfortunately, the tearing out of that weed meant the loss of a lot of nearby productive plants that would help the people grow into an even greater country minus the stain of slavery in its core of infrastructure. I knew from my history books that not much thought had been given to the aftermath of the conflict because despite the uneven odds between the two sides, the outcome was in doubt right up until the bitter end.