A Chain of Thunder Read online

  Her father came home a few weeks after, had visited the grave briefly, tears and several days of sad silence. But then he was gone again. Now, more than a year later, there had been no word at all, and Lucy had steeled herself against all of that, did not press the army or the officials in Jackson, did not really want to know where he had gone. If he had ever been a husband, he had rarely been a father. And most certainly, he was not one now.

  With the war growing closer to this part of Mississippi, the army came in greater numbers, outposts and defensive works spreading around the town. Lucy had been wary of soldiers, had heard too much talk of barbarism, that the army brought unruly men fueled by liquor and lust. She kept away from the camps, from the defensive works, avoided the men who paraded through the town in small groups. But soon the fear faded, none of the gossip coming to pass, no violation of some young innocent. Even the liquor seemed to affect the civilians more than it did the soldiers, and soon it was clear that the officers, those primly uniformed men on horseback, actually controlled these men. It was not a rabble. It was an army.

  Comfortable now with the presence of the soldiers, Lucy kept mostly to herself, minding the family’s home, sometimes helped by friendly neighbors. They were older women mostly, curious about this single girl who seemed to manage quite well. Their respect increased, though the help still came, lessons on cooking, on preserving meats, even a vegetable garden she tended herself. With her father absent for more than a year, talk of her disadvantages as an “orphan” simply drifted away. Not even the gossips taunted her, those who thrived mostly on vicious speculation. She was now an adult, in her own home, with every confidence that she could handle a household. To the neighbors, her greatest requirement was, of course, a husband. It was Lucy herself who realized with perfect logic that the opportunity had come to her along with this army. If it could be an officer, well, more the better.

  Until now, the artillery duels had been mostly brief affairs, mere target practice. Throughout the chilly winter and into spring, the townspeople had often drifted down among the gun emplacements to watch the drills, the preparation. The artillery officers had encouraged that, their men showing off their accuracy, seeking targets on the far side of the river. Some had been offered by Yankees, men or wagons rising high up on some levee, inviting a response from the Confederate cannoneers. She had heard the talk, that it was something of sport, to both sides surely, and rarely did any harm result. But along with that playfulness, the talk had grown that the Yankees across the river were many, and now they were in motion, great columns marching south. Few of the officers would speak openly of that, and if the commanders had any real information about what the enemy was doing, they kept that to themselves, and so the soldiers spread rumors of their own. The boasting had been endless, the Yankees marching away altogether, those men across the river making their escape all the way to New Orleans. The civilians had come to believe what the soldiers insisted was true, that Vicksburg was a fortress, impregnable, that the bluffs that rose so high above the river could never be conquered. The presence of the massive cannon had only increased that confidence, and Lucy had toured through the artillery camps, awed by the sheer immensity of the great black barrels. The artillerymen were awed right back, pausing to watch any young woman strolling through their camps.

  She kept her gaze on the river, could see more of the Yankee boats coming downstream from the far bend, outlined still by the great fires. The cheers were constant, louder when the impact on the boats could be seen, the destruction seeming to impact every boat that passed. Beside her, the old man spoke again, his cane pointing high in the air.

  “Damn fools! Sendin’ them boats down one at a time! Dang shootin’ gallery! Oh … well lookee there. They’s comin’ closer! And listen to them hound dogs! They know what’s happenin’. Even they hate the Yankees! They’re cheering us on, sure as can be!”

  The howling came all through the town, the dogs reacting to the sounds with as much enthusiasm as the people on Sky Parlor Hill. It was a strange sound, a chorus of howls, low-pitched and high, and Lucy sensed more than some echo of their masters’ devotion to the Cause. They’re afraid, she thought. They hear the screams of the shells and don’t know what it is. Maybe it hurts their ears. Glad I don’t have one. If he was that afraid, I wouldn’t know what to do. Like having a frightened child. I don’t envy the mothers.

  She tried to see the Federal gunboats that were easing closer to the near bank, but the lay of the land and the rows of buildings below the hill hid them from view. She caught a glimpse of one slipping into the firelight, the reflection revealing the immense ironclad.

  She moved closer to the old man and shouted above the din, “Are they coming? Will they land?”

  “Missy, I served in the navy for thirty-odd years, learned somethin’ about artillery. Hard to shoot pointing down. Some damn Yankee captain figured that out, too. Got hisself all shot to pieces, and so figured out that movin’ closer to this side might protect him. Not gonna work, though. They ain’t figuring on landing, no sir. There’s a pot full of sharpshooters down low on the river, and if’n they don’t kill every dang one of ’em, they’ll be haulin’ up prisoners!”

  She coughed, fought through the smell of the smoke, looked at the old man, tried to see his face in the glow of firelight, familiar, a man some said was addled. But his words held authority, and she kept close to him, with an instinct that he really did know what was happening. He pointed the cane, kept up his monologue, didn’t seem to care now if anyone heard him at all.

  “Yankee navy’s done for. Only thing that gave ’em hope. This is desperation, pure and simple! They’s making a run for it, headin’ to Orleens. I heerd word that a bunch of them Yankees upriver are already marchin’ back to Memphis. Them scoundrels can do whatever they want back east, Virginee and all, but out here … they got no hope. No hope a’tall.”

  His speech was becoming redundant, a hint of boastfulness that began to sound more like exaggeration than fact. Addled. She focused more now on the sights, the stink of smoke, more explosions on the river, the parade of boats still ongoing, endless. The big guns farther downriver began firing, one more part of the great Confederate gauntlet, and she understood now what the army had done, that no matter how many boats came past, the army’s guns were certainly too many, that Vicksburg was protected, invulnerable, just as the officers had claimed.

  She felt stiffness in her legs, her eyes fogging, the sleepiness coming now, a long night made longer by the steady roar. There was nowhere to sit, the dress too clumsy, but the sleepiness was growing, the sights and sounds from the river blending together in a dreamy haze. She turned, moved past the glow on a hundred faces, and back toward the winding pathway that led below. She thought of her young lieutenant, wondered where he was, if he was a part of this spectacle, the marvelous destruction of those who dared to disrespect the town, the army, the Cause. I’ll see him again, she thought. I’ll ask him all about guns and boats. She eased carefully down the path, smiled in the darkness, Yes, you will be proud of that, will try to impress me with all that you know, will show off in front of your men. And I will blush and hide my smile, and enjoy every moment.

  Behind her, up on the hill, people cheered again, the battle ongoing, the civilians knowing that no matter what the Yankees might believe about power, no matter the planning of their generals, the bravery of their sailors, tonight the vast fleet that dared trespass on this mighty river would be utterly destroyed.

  DOWNRIVER FROM VICKSBURG

  APRIL 16, 1863, MIDNIGHT

  He had watched the spectacle with furious impatience, nothing for him to do but sit perched on the small yawl boat, staring into the sea of flames that lined both sides of the river. The advantage the fires had given the rebel gunners gave him a vantage point as well, and he knew that the first of the big boats he saw would be the Benton, Admiral Porter’s flagship, leading the way. Sherman understood the plan, what the passage of the town and its batteries
meant to the entire campaign. An army this size demanded an enormous mountain of supplies, far more than could easily be transported along the river by wagon train. The possibility of raids from rebel forces west of the river was very real, not to mention the sheer logistics of hauling those supplies across the river itself. The plan for hauling so much of what the army needed had come from Porter himself, the navy extending a helping hand to the army’s strategy. Since Farragut was reluctant to make another foray upriver, and with most Federal supplies now coming through Memphis, the navy’s efforts would have to come from the north, from Porter’s fleet. On this night, Porter was doing exactly that. The fleet he was leading past Vicksburg consisted of seven of Porter’s ironclad gunboats, providing escort to three transport boats and ten barges, all hauling mountains of supplies that were essential to Grant’s plans to assault Vicksburg itself. Whether they would make the passing without enormous loss was a calculated risk Porter had worked out mostly on his own.

  Not even Grant had authority over Porter, the army and navy commands separate, answering only to their superiors, who were far away. David Dixon Porter had the lineage of a man whose destiny seemed unalterably linked to the sea. His father had been a navy commodore during the War of 1812, and Porter himself had served with considerable distinction in the Mexican War. At fifty, Porter was several years senior to both Grant and Sherman, but he carried none of the arrogance of seniority, as though any man of the sea would presume to know how to manage an army on land. Porter had been as cooperative to the generals as any one of them could have hoped, and Sherman knew that Grant and Porter had developed a close relationship, strategically and personally. It was no surprise to Sherman. He felt the same way toward both of them.

  The mutual respect between army and navy made for an effective partnership, and already Sherman had worked closely with Porter, months before, the first attempts to drive toward Vicksburg through the swamps and small rivers north of the town. Those campaigns had collapsed under the weight of geographical handicaps and a stubborn rebel army. After Sherman’s failed attempts to crush the rebels at Chickasaw Bayou, he had worked alongside Porter on a different plan, a plan that relied on what seemed to be the best use for the dismal waterways that snaked eastward from the Mississippi, again north of Vicksburg. Porter’s gunboats had attempted to drive upstream as a hard spear of firepower the rebels could not stop, eliminating the greatest threat to Sherman’s supporting infantry. But the plan had unraveled, ripped apart by rebel ambushes and the waterways themselves, too narrow for any good maneuvering for Porter’s gunboats. Like so much of the lowlands close to the big river, the creeks were narrow, thick with overhanging limbs and fallen logs that nearly trapped Porter completely. Worse, the rebels had made good use of the resources nature offered them, their engineers overseeing the cutting of trees to obstruct the passages behind as well as in front of Porter’s small fleet. With inevitable disaster facing the boats, Sherman had come to the rescue, leading infantry through the swamps and rugged patches of high ground that spread out from the creeks. Instead of a large-scale engagement across ridiculously difficult ground, the rebels had chosen to back away, their commanders too uncertain just how much strength Sherman was pushing their way. The maneuver gave Porter’s sailors and Sherman’s men the time they needed to clear the debris from the creeks, allowing the gunboats to slide back toward the Yazoo, and eventually, the big river. If there was humiliation in yet another failure to reach Vicksburg, Porter made no show of that, a graciousness Sherman appreciated. Sherman already knew of failure, from Bull Run to Shiloh, that stain that seemed to offer so much fuel to his enemies, mostly the newspapers. Whether his own men paid any attention to that, Sherman could not help the old torment, the fiery doubt that any time now, word would come that his enemies had used their influence to have Sherman swept out of command. It was an ongoing fear he had never been able to put away, not completely, not even with the successes the army had enjoyed.

  Since late in 1862, the strategies Grant had devised for grabbing Vicksburg had been a shambles, some of it caused by poor planning and miserable execution, some by the tenacity and bold maneuver of the rebels they confronted. Sherman knew that the reasons, legitimate or not, would make no difference to those in Washington, and he was surprised and enormously grateful that Grant was absorbing these failures with a calm inevitability. With each failure came understanding; with each disaster, something useful was learned. No matter Grant’s enemies, Washington had given him the precious gift of time. Sherman could not avoid his self-doubt, still suffered from bouts of anxiety that drove him awake through torturous nights. Sherman had wondered if Grant suffered as he did, if the quiet man with the soft temperament had masked his anxieties, if Grant feared the petty wrath of newspapers and desk-bound generals as much as Sherman. One clue to that came with the arrival of General John McClernand.

  At Shiloh, as a division commander, McClernand had done the job, had even helped rescue pieces of Sherman’s own division as they absorbed a brutal punch from the rebel assault. But McClernand was a political animal, said to be extremely close to Lincoln, and through McClernand’s strenuous efforts around Washington, he had managed to be assigned to the western theater with the inflated self-importance of a man who carries the full support of his superiors, and more, the power to run the show his own way. But Grant also had his supporters, and his rank, and was highly regarded by Lincoln as well.

  Sherman never had much respect for McClernand, and he wasn’t surprised that McClernand would arrive with noisy expectations that overall command would be his for the taking. But the command officially belonged to Grant. Now a disappointed McClernand was merely one of Grant’s three corps commanders, equal in authority, if not rank, to Sherman and James McPherson. It remained to be seen if McClernand would accept subservience to the man he had thought he was replacing.

  As much as Sherman despised McClernand, his feelings for James McPherson were a complete contrast. McPherson was an engineer first, a West Pointer who had already earned respect for his skills and leadership. At Shiloh, McPherson had done as much as any capable man could to prepare the army for the blow they intended to strike against Corinth. Bad weather and bad orders from General Halleck had been the greatest obstacles to McPherson’s success, but Sherman knew better than to fault a good man for any of that. Those plagues had affected the entire campaign. With Grant’s reorganization of his army, good men were needed at the top, and McPherson had both the background and the experience to fill the position. Though Sherman had to swallow hard serving alongside McClernand, he welcomed McPherson’s promotion.

  Sherman’s troops were camped far to the north, where Porter’s boats had begun their journey. Sherman himself had ridden downriver on the western shore, moving through the camps of the men who watched as he did, stunned by the amazing show of fire and smoke and thunderous artillery. Sherman had not come merely to sightsee. He had ordered four yawls, small, single-sailed vessels that could be transported by hand or mule team across the swampy ground west of the river. Their purpose was rescue. Sherman knew they were too small to be targets and could maneuver effectively around and past the larger boats and barges, offering aid to anyone from Porter’s fleet who might be in trouble. The yawls were unarmed, of course, manned by no more than three or four crew, men Sherman had chosen for their skills with the sail. At least if sailors went into the water, or any of the boats were badly crippled, Sherman could offer assistance once more.

  The larger ironclad drifted closer, a hulking shadow, no lights but for a flicker of fire high on one of her stacks. Sherman motioned to the helmsman behind him, pointed, the yawl easing closer, and Sherman shouted, “Ho there! Benton!”

  A voice came back toward him, very young, from the larger boat.

  “Who calls?”

  “General Sherman. I presume Porter is undamaged?”

  Another voice came now, older, grim and formal.

  “Sherman. Why in God’s name are you on this ri
ver? Are you mad?”

  Sherman hesitated, had been asked that question too many times already.

  “Perhaps. But I’m here to offer aid. Do you have casualties?”

  “One man injured, not badly. Much of the fleet is still taking punishment. Something of a heart-pounder, I have to say. Come aboard!”

  There was a stiffness to Porter’s words, and Sherman realized Porter had far more concerns than the condition of his own crew, and little time to be hospitable. He felt suddenly out of place, the small boat rocking unsteadily as the Benton drew closer, his small crew struggling to lower the sail, oars pushing her through black, choppy water. Dammit, what were you thinking? This man knows his job. I’m just in the way.

  The two boats came together, ropes tossed, and Sherman saw a figure bending low, one arm extended. For me, I presume. He grabbed the hand and was pulled harshly up, landing clumsily on the deck of the ironclad. Men were moving away from him, their own jobs to do, and Sherman felt more uneasy now, as though blundering into the urgency of someone else’s private matter. The voice came again, less formal now, a shadowy shape calling to him.