Distant Flame

June 27, 1864

June 27,1864 KENNESAW MOUNTAIN N THECLEAR, STAR-WASHED night, Southern men improved their trenchworks on the slopes of Kennesaw Mountain and to its east and west, and Northern men watched the slopes and prayed. Now, not long before dawn, most of them slept, the Confederates in a great arc, with Hood's Corps on the left, Hardee's Corps in the center, and Loring's on the right. In Hardee's Corps, Cheatham's Division was on the left flank, followed in order by Cleburne, Bate, and Walker. In Loring 's Corps, French's Division came first, then General Walthall's and General Featherston's. Charlie had slept for three hours and awakened sorrowful and remembering , flexing and unflexing his hands on the barrel of his Enfield rifle, patting his cartridge box and knowing he had at least sixty rounds and fearing that today he must kill many men. In the faint trembling light of a few campfires, he almost remembered the carnage to come. This part of the battlefield wasn't even Kennesaw Mountain proper, or any mountain, but a hill southwest of the knob they called Little Kennesaw Mountain. "I'll have to say that all things being even, I'd rather be on a scout somewhere and you in a tree," said Duncan McGregor. He sat up from his bedroll. "Though the Lord knows them's magnificent works." "They are that," said Charlie. The Confederate trenches were nine I 218 PHILIP LEE WILLIAMS feet deep in places, thorned with abatis and spiked with cannon aimed with precise malevolence at the Union lines. The sappers had cut steps into the works so the gray-clad soldiers could step up and fire down. "This will be a murderous day if they come, Duncan." "I think they will come today," said Duncan. "I believe General Sherman has run out of patience with the rain and the rivers and these mountains. I believe he intends to throw them upon us. Are you all right, son?" "I feel unwell." "I thought so, but you must buck up and do your duty." Charlie turned sharply on Duncan, and his eyes glistened with the small flames of a dying campfire. "Duncan, something is terribly wrong here. I don't think we're meant to win this war. I have begun to think I want no part of it." "Do you aim to skedaddle, then?" "No. It's not that. I intend to do myduty." "As do I." "But I believe there's no accounting for the right. I can't see what's true here." Others began to rise. Dawn spread from the east with clouds of rose and amber and a gentle and prevailing wind from the northwest, and a sweeter day Charlie could not imagine. But as the sun rose, the temperature began to swell like a living, breathing creature, and a vast and noxious beast feasted upon them, a predator, so that by seven-thirty, men were shedding their coats and watching officers for signs. Charlie ate nothing and found a good position in the abatis where he could see the slope before him, and he aimed and reaimed the Enfield and liked its heft. His father's cousin Joseph Bearden made Enfields at the Cook & Brother Armory in Athens, but most of these rifles had come from England. A muzzle-loader like the Whitworth, it was accurate only to four hundred yards,but deadly anyway. "So how does it feel to be a soldier in the ranks again?" asked avery short man from Lowrey's Brigade who had slid down the lines looking for extra food. "You was a sharpshooter, but I heared you lost your Whitworth rifle. You's lucky they didn't tie you to a sour apple tree and shoot you." "I'm lucky all right," said Charlie softly. "Who the hell are you?" Isaac Kennon asked the man. Charlie had known Kennon in Dalton, a decent man who protected his friends. "Name's John Brown, from Lowrey's." Several men giggled. A Distant flame 219 "John Brown? Hell, you're the one we orta tie to a sour apple tree and shoot." "Go to hell, you son of a bitch, that was my daddy's name, too." "We know, they hung him in fifty-nine," said TyreeBaskins, another man from Govan's brigade whom Charlie knew in Dalton. "And if you don't...