A Chain of Thunder Read online

  “Get down here, Sherman. They’ve got sharpshooters all along that bank. Wouldn’t do for me to tell Grant you were lost at sea.”

  Sherman followed into an opening, one hand touching the steel planking on the ship’s bulkhead. Behind him, the single staff officer remained on the yawl, Sherman’s instructions to stay out of the way. Sherman stepped down into a wave of heat, caught the sharp stink of men and smoke and powder. To one side, the row of big guns erupted, a blast of fire through their portholes that punched Sherman against a bulkhead. He fought to right himself, pain in his shoulder, his eyes trying to wipe away the blindness. On the far side of the deck, he could hear the gunners heaving and wrestling with their pieces, reloading with manic efficiency, and farther away, a steady chorus of artillery, the glow from the fires.

  Porter shouted out, “Hold fire, Lieutenant! We’re far past the worst of it, and I don’t want them tossing a lucky one this way! Nothing much we can do now but wait here! We get a bit farther down, we’ll anchor, wait for daylight!”

  “Aye, sir! We’ll drop anchor on your command.”

  Sherman could see the officer now, the man moving away, one part of this immense machine of boilers and pulleys and smoke. God, he thought, there’s a reason I’m not in the navy. Too much damned work. And these boys stink a lot worse than anybody I’ve got.

  There was the glow of a lantern now, deep in the bowels of the boat, and Sherman blinked through the smoke, fought the smells, saw Porter waiting for him, a sharp wave, bringing Sherman down into a small office.

  Porter looked back, past Sherman, barked out again, “Prepare to fire the boilers!”

  “Sir! We’ve lost our stacks!”

  “So, we’ll breathe smoke for a while. Better than drifting in the current. Once the transports are clear of the town, we’ll put them on the west shore. There’s a gap in the rebel guns up ahead.” He looked at Sherman. “I assume we can count on your sharpshooters and artillery to keep any pesky rebs on their side of things. We still have the batteries at Grand Gulf to deal with, and I want everyone gathered up and ready for another fight!” He turned to the officer again. “Make sure the general’s yawl is secured alongside. He’s sure as hell not going to want to bunk with you wharf rats.”

  Sherman could see Porter’s face clearly in the lamplight, intense weariness, the tension, a face blackened with soot and sweat. “Not sure why you’re here, Cump. When I heard what you were planning, I thought Grant might grab you by the collar and keep you upriver.”

  Sherman put one hand against the bulkhead and steadied himself.

  “He agreed this might be a good idea. Couldn’t just sit up there and watch all of this like some damn Fourth of July fireworks show. Just thought we might be of assistance. Any of your people end up on the east side, not much I can do to help. But if they come over here, I can pick them out of the water.” He felt suddenly foolish, thought, Can’t sailors swim? Well, maybe not if they’re wounded.

  Porter surprised him, nodded, a smile cracking the grime on the man’s face.

  “Good. We’ll probably need the help. Not too bad so far. We took a storm of shot, but it was mostly high up. Lost our stacks, caught a few right against the bulkheads. Thank God for iron. I think the rebel guns might be set at a high angle; almost everything went overhead. When it got really hot, we eased closer to them, hugged the east shore as close as I dared. No way they could get their bigger guns pointed that low. Helped. They had infantry out there, sharpshooters, but they didn’t hit anything, even with some of the crew exposed on deck.”

  Sherman could see the tension returning to Porter’s face, felt the impatience, knew the man was thinking more about what was still happening on the river. But Sherman couldn’t help the curiosity, had so little experience on any gunship, certainly not under fire.

  “I’m surprised … well, impressed. You made it through. That’s a good sign. Grant’s up there chewing his fingers off waiting for a report.”

  “We drifted mostly, kept ’em quiet. The barges might still be a problem, but I haven’t heard about any disasters yet. Look, Cump, I need to get topside.…”

  Sherman backed away, and Porter moved past, and once more the orders came. Sherman felt a rumble beneath his feet, engines coming to life, but the boat was still drifting, swinging slowly to one side. Sherman moved through the darkness, tried to avoid the crew, climbed up to the open deck, the vast glow of fire still to the north. He could see the other boats clearly, some as far down as the Benton, others still running the hottest part of the gauntlet, abreast of the town. But they came on, steady, some drifting sideways, no control but their rudders and the current. Sherman felt a bolt of alarm at that, boats out of control, saw two of the barges close together, a collision, one gunboat sideways as well. But the firing from the boats still answered the shore batteries, a chaos of splashes and blasts that seemed to swarm around every boat, streaks of fire launched up toward the town. Behind him there was a metallic splat, and he realized suddenly it was a musket ball, impacting the steel plate. The word burst in his brain. Sharpshooters. All right, Sherman, being out on this river might be the first stupid thing you did today, so don’t get yourself shot. He eased past a quickly moving deckhand, slipped around away from the firelight. A hand touched his shoulder, startling him. Porter.

  “Hell of a show, Cump. But by damned, it’s working. Most of the gunboats are past the worst of it, and the barges, too. Can’t wait to gather up those damn cowards we left behind. A few nooses might tighten up their damn morale.” Sherman didn’t know what he meant, and Porter seemed to read him, slapped him on the back. “Most of the crews of the damn transport boats wouldn’t make the trip down. Too damn scared. Said they didn’t sign up to be shot at. Wouldn’t do to put them to work at gunpoint, so I called for volunteers from the troops you had camped nearby. Bunch of Illinois fellows, mostly. Not sure who they belong to, but their officers were obliging. I guess some of ’em know a good deal about riverboats. They manned the transports and several of the barges. I owe you for that. Or maybe General McPherson. Not sure. Let’s just say, the army did its part. But those damn civilian sailors … well, sometimes it’s good to sort out the vermin.”

  Sherman knew nothing of this, thought, It has to be McPherson’s men. Damn good job. Grant will hear of that, for certain.

  “Oh God. Direct hit.”

  The words came from farther along the deck, and Porter responded, moved toward the bow, a clear field of vision toward the worst of the chaos. Sherman followed, saw a burst of flames on one of the larger boats. He wanted to ask, Transport? But Porter moved away, disappeared down inside, shouting orders. Sherman stared out to the flames, remembered his binoculars, focused, could see men leaping into the water, small splashes, flailing arms. He felt helpless, the job he came here for now so necessary … and you’re watching like some damn schoolboy. The Benton swung about, slow and ponderous, and Sherman saw a smaller boat moving closer to the burning wreck, perfect silhouette, one of his yawls, thought, I’ll be damned. We’re not sightseers after all.

  He watched for agonizing minutes, saw the burning hulk drifting closer, men scampering over a blazing deck, what he had to believe were the last on board, the captain, certainly, a desperate effort to steer the boat away from the rebel shore.

  “Ho there! Is General Sherman there?”

  The voice came off to one side, and Sherman saw another of the yawls.

  “Here! What’s wrong?”

  “Sir! One of the gunboats took a hit! We’ve pulled some people out of the water! They’re mostly unhurt.”

  “Good! Get ’em to shore!”

  Sherman felt a wave of satisfaction. By damned, we did the job. I knew this was the right thing to do. That idiot McClernand’s probably sitting over in that swamp somewhere hoping I’m out here drowning. Not tonight.

  Porter was there again, another slap on Sherman’s back.

  “Fine work! Fine work indeed! The Henry Clay got hit pretty badly. She�
��s done for, most likely. Hope like hell we didn’t lose too many people. Good crew.”

  Sherman was curious now, saw more of the larger boats drifting past, the fires upriver beginning to die down, the thunder from the artillery duels more piecemeal now.

  “How’d they do? How many got through?”

  “Best I can tell right now, the Clay is the only loss. We’ll know more by daylight. I imagine you’ll see Grant before I do. Or send him a courier. Not much I can do from down here. Tell him that Rear Admiral Porter reports the mission has been a success. At least most of those supplies will be waiting right where he wanted them. The next job is yours.”

  NEAR LAKE PROVIDENCE, LOUISIANA

  APRIL 16, 1863

  He had seen the great glow of fire from the river, had stood with so many others as the strange orange haze filled the horizon. Almost immediately they could hear the rumble of the big guns, and all through the camps, the chattering began, excited speculation what it all meant. The distant glow had broken through the darkness like the faraway signs of a massive forest fire, but there were no answers, nothing to dull the growing talk, speculation that spread like a fire of its own. For the Wisconsin men, the camps were well back of the river, too distant to actually see the bluffs that protected Vicksburg, to see whose artillery was doing the work, and what their targets might be. Some were not convinced it was artillery at all, some believing it to be exactly what it seemed, a fire; those men had a reputation for nervous talk, jabbering that the fire might be sweeping through the swamps, an unstoppable hell coming toward them. But Bauer knew enough of artillery to know the difference, said it aloud, artillery, others agreeing with him. But still the curiosity was rampant, just who it was and whom they were shelling. And what would happen next.

  With the cannonade ongoing toward midnight, rumors began to spread of a great battle, a surprise assault from a massed rebel army. The officers were quick to silence that, to avoid the burst of panic that too many recalled from Shiloh. The voices of authority, Colonel Allen, his adjutants, rode through the men with loud observations of their own, a confident air designed to defuse what they all knew could become a full-blown stampede. Bauer heard those voices, stern and reassuring, that the direction of the sounds was too obvious, coming from the river itself. Vicksburg and any great rebel army was over there, the other side, and anyone in authority knew that most of Grant’s entire army was here, west of the river. If there was an attack at all, it was not troops. The roar of the artillery fire was different than what they had heard so many times before, so much of it the deep thumping of the heaviest guns, far larger than anything the army had in the field. Bauer reached the same conclusion as the officers who paraded past. If there was a battle, the field was water. It had to be the navy. Even more reassuring, the men began to realize that there were no orders coming their way, no sudden train of supply wagons bringing ammunition or rations, no preparation to break camp. Bauer had noticed that immediately, and like the other veterans, it gave him more relief than confidence. Every one of those men understood what happened after the usual artillery barrage. That’s when the infantry took over. But throughout the regiment, there was always the stupidity of the raw recruits, the “fresh meat.” As the battle exploded along the river, those men absorbed it all with raucous enthusiasm, anxious to rush out through the night and see it for themselves, to join into whatever fiery collision was happening far beyond the swamps and lakes that separated them from the river itself. Bauer could only wonder at their disappointment when that order never came.

  After two long hours, Bauer had become bored, the rumble of sounds seeming not to change, no movement one way or the other, just a steady roar that rolled at them straight from what the officers insisted was Vicksburg. All through the vast sea of encampments, men still gathered, many of them staring blankly at what Bauer thought resembled a sunset. But soon, many returned to their campfires, to their card playing or the discreet passing of a bottle. Bauer was bored with that as well, rarely enjoyed either vice, knew that reveille would come far too quickly. Though the chatter would flow through the camps for another hour, he had left all of that behind, drifting back to the tent, sleepy acknowledgment toward the others who moved as he did, who shared the wisdom of experience, that if it was an artillery battle after all, it was someone else’s affair. Until the orders came to do otherwise, they were going to bed.

  In early fall word had come in a letter from a neighbor, that both of Bauer’s parents had fallen gravely ill. Within days, another letter arrived with the awful news that his father had died. The news was jolting in its suddenness, but the letter gave no real details what had happened, the letters coming as a courtesy from someone Bauer knew well. He had sought answers, had spoken to the sergeant, hoping for some dispensation, perhaps a brief furlough to allow him to see to his mother, if only to find out just how serious her condition was. Instead Bauer had been given the astonishing option of a ninety-day furlough, enough time to return to Milwaukee not only to care for his mother, but, as her only child, to have time to handle his family’s affairs. He knew the furlough was no haphazard luxury doled out to anyone who lost a family member. The hints came first from Sergeant Champlin, the man showing surprising compassion, and Bauer knew that Champlin would sympathize more than most. He too had lost most of his own family not long after Shiloh. But there had been no allowance then for anyone to journey home from the miserable siege of Corinth.

  As Bauer suffered the agony of ignorance about just what had happened to his family, Champlin had made his way up the chain of command, and the 16th’s commander, Colonel Ben Allen, had agreed with Bauer’s company commander that Bauer had served too well under fire, and with the regiment encamped in relative boredom at Memphis, what seemed to be a fairly quiet autumn for the army, Allen rewarded Bauer with generous consideration. Bauer had been seriously impressed by that, wasn’t sure even now if the colonel actually knew who he was. But Allen was very aware of the names and the service of his veterans, the men who had struggled through the horror of Shiloh, had survived the waves of disease that crushed the army during the siege of Corinth. And there was no doubt among any of the officers, or Sergeant Champlin, that Bauer was no shirker. Unlike those few who had used any furlough to escape their service, when his ninety days had passed, he’d be back.

  The time in Milwaukee had been dismal, consuming most of the autumn, and so he had missed the two fights that erupted in Mississippi, Iuka and a second conflict at Corinth, more horror stories embraced by the newspapers, tales of inept generals and the exaggerated barbarism of the enemy. Bauer knew too much of combat now to believe much of what he read, and through the fog of sensationalism, it was clear that both fights had been Federal victories. That was at least good for the morale of the civilians. But then came the inevitable lists of dead, one more reminder that the war was not just some vaguely tragic event confined to some far-off place.

  In October, when word came of the victory at Corinth, Mississippi, the news that so aroused the town had only confused him. He had already done his part at Corinth, had marched into the rail center with the rest of the regiment, only to find that Beauregard’s rebels had slipped away, avoiding what should have been a crushing blow by overwhelming Federal numbers. But that was May, months before, and as he read the newspaper accounts, he had to wonder if somehow it had taken six months for an account of the siege of Corinth to reach Wisconsin. But the details and the names were very different, and Bauer finally understood that this had been another fight at Corinth, and very soon some of the louder mouths in the town were trumpeting as fact that Lincoln and Henry Halleck had ruined their best chance to win the war west of the mountains by scattering their mighty army to the four winds, while the rebels had grown healthy again. Whatever truth there was to any of that, the battles spoke for themselves, and Bauer had read the accounts with gnawing helplessness. His own regiment, the 16th Wisconsin, had taken part in yet another fight for the same ground at Corinth that the Fe
deral troops had occupied once before, filling the same works and occupying the same fortifications they had drained of troops the summer before. And this time Bauer had missed it.

  The lengthy stay in Milwaukee continued to be far worse than he had expected, and not just for his absence from battle. His arrival home came two weeks after his father’s funeral, and his mother’s condition kept him closer to her for a long terrible month of suffering before she too succumbed to what the doctors told him was consumption. He knew a great deal more now about medicine and sickness, had spent too many nights enduring the awful noises of men around him plagued with various ailments that always infected the army. But those ailments had risen from the swampy water and muddy terrain that spread throughout Mississippi and Tennessee, places he had learned to despise. His parents had been strong, hearty, no hint that disease would suddenly strike them down.

  While in Milwaukee, he had learned of many other deaths, some of them soldiers, who had returned from the battlefields with festering wounds that only grew worse, or troops who brought home sickness that never improved, their joyous homecoming wiped away by some plague that always seemed to overwhelm the doctors. He was surprised to learn of a smallpox outbreak, causing weeks of panic in the town, the older citizens especially aware that smallpox could sweep away entire families. The newspapers had jumped on that with stern warnings, that those who had ignored the availability of the vaccine should be made to comply with the governor’s call for the entire population to receive the medicine. Those vaccinations had been available for years now, and Bauer’s family had long ago visited their doctor, accepting the needle pricks without protest. It had amazed Bauer that so many in the town, and in the army, had responded instead with outcries against the vaccinations that seemed born of nothing more than superstition. Though the outbreaks had become much less frequent, the disease still came, suddenly bursting through those families who had thought themselves protected solely by the Hand of Providence. As had happened in every city, with each outbreak, more of the people lined up at the doctor’s office, forcing themselves to accept that it could be Providence after all that had given them the vaccine.