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April 19, 1864
- University of Georgia Press
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April 19,1864 DALTON HE SNOW MELTED IN Cleburne's winter camp nine miles north of Dalton, and Charlie Merrill exulted in the warmth of late April, feeling strong, easy on his feet. Officers drilled the men, tightened discipline, worked them hard. The trees shot out green, and horses regained weight on forage as it grew. Spring was the season for sun-warmed amnesia, a time for men to deny the death rattle of winter limbs, to plant and pretend their escape was permanent and irreversible . A religious revival threatened to sweep the army, though it didn't quite get to Charlie's regiment. At night, the men still played poker and twenty-one, faro and chuck-a-luck. Sick call found fewer and fewer with rheumatism, pneumonia, scurvy, erysipelas, or jaundice. This day, there had been a grand review of Johnston's entire army, forty thousand men with a snap in their stride. General Patrick Cleburne rode at the head of his seven thousand men, who marched with their own battle flag. Ladies from Dalton came out and fluttered handkerchiefs at the dazzling movement, the boys sharp in butternut and gray, most with shoes, and all well fed and rested. Johnston had been pleased, but behind his smile, the small, neat general, almost a dandy, knew a force of Yankees more than twice the size of his army was no more than twenty miles north. Now, in the camp twilight, Charlie sat hunched on a rough stump and finished a letter he was writing for PriT A Distant Flame 27 vate Thomas Flournoy of Crossroads, Tennessee. Flournoy, a small man with no lips and enormous ears, stood nearby. This is what he had given to Charlie to "make pretty": Der mother, I tak pin in hand to writ you now. Wei, iff you wory aboun me, you are not in need of it none, becas we arefed good on cornbrade and beefs are you etin good I hope so we her rumors of gen's Lees caught that old ape linkin now that would be the end of this war well maybe it aint tru a man here don't know here they say we will havea us a big fought soone and I am so redy. It ended there, a scrawl down a stained sheet of lined paper, thick marks of pencil. The effort had almost exhausted Flournoy. "I just want you to pretty it up," said Flournoy. Charlie had done it several times for other men, and now they were coming to him, standing in line sometimes, offering him rations, which he refused. "Then it won't sound like you," said Charlie. Thinking: He doesn't want to sound like himself; he wants to sound like a thing he is not and never can be. No matter. Charlie looked at the man's gray teeth, and a warm kindness rose in him. Father, he thought. O my Father. This is what Charlie wrote: Dearest Mother, Do not worry about me, dear Mother, for I am safe, and the Army of Tennessee is gaining strength by the day. With God's grace, I shallsurvive until the end of this war,and I will comehome and be with you. I am eating very well now, and most of us haveshoes. The cold is over, thank God, and we expect to move into battle any day.I know that God will guide us with His strong hand and give to us the victory that must be ours . . . Charlie went on in this vein for a page and its back in fine print, giving a small amount of news wrapped in sentimental platitudes the men thought made them sound educated. When he got through, he read it to Flournoy, who was overcome with gratitude and mumbling emotion. [18.224.0.25] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 19:57 GMT) 28 PHILIP LEE WILLIAMS "I didn't know I could never sound nothing like that," he said. "You don't sound nothing like that," said Bob Rainey in between gulps from his canteen. "That letter's got perfume all over it, Charlie." "I suppose it does," said Charlie softly. He felt his own letter in his breast pocket. Sarah would be close to him when death came; he only hoped for thirty seconds to think of her bow-shaped mouth, her bluegray eyes, her lovely blond hair. Thirty seconds would be enough, then he would fall downward into darkness. "So, it's...