Walk by Faith (2 page)

April 7, 1862, Tennessee

“I
f there's a hell on earth, Lieutenant, this is it.”

First Lieutenant Dawson Clements nodded in agreement. He sat huddled behind a mobile cannon with Sergeant Jared Bridger listening to the hideous screams and groans of the thousands of wounded who lay sprawled among thousands more dead soldiers.

“They say Shiloh is a biblical name meaning ‘place of peace,'” Dawson told the sergeant. He shivered, pulling his rubber poncho up over his head against the cold rain. “Pretty ironic, isn't it?”

Both men were painfully hungry, and neither had slept all night, mostly because of the haunting cries of the unattended wounded and the stench of blood that ran past them in rivulets along with the rainwater. Behind them, thousands more Union soldiers made temporary camp at Pittsburgh Landing, waiting for the arrival of relief troops.

“Grant says Buell will be here soon with a good seventy-five-hundred relief troops,” Dawson told his sergeant. “Come sunup we'll push those Rebels clear back past that little church and get this over with.” He watched Sergeant Bridger pull his ragged wool blanket over his head and felt bad that rubber ponchos were given only to the higher officers. The fact that he and the sergeant sat here talking alone was not particularly proper army protocol, but nothing about the past twenty-four hours had been normal or proper. They were simply taking advantage of this chance to rest and gear up for what looked to be another bloody onslaught a couple of hours from now, when the sun would rise on the horror in the fields around Shiloh, and General Grant would lead a new march to take back what the Confederates had claimed earlier today.

“I've never seen anything like this, sir. In all our battles out west against the Apache, the Comanche, the Cheyenne—none of it can compare to this slaughter. I've seen men walking around still alive with their guts hanging out, bodies on the ground with no heads, an arm with no body nearby. It will be a long time before I can go to sleep without the cries of those boys ringing in my ears. I'd rather be back out west.”

Dawson rubbed his eyes. “Well, we've got to go where they send us, Sergeant Bridger. That's what happens when you're dumb enough to join the army in the first place.”

Bridger chuckled. “I do wonder sometimes why I got myself into this mess.”

Dawson shifted to relieve a sore hip caused from a horse falling on him earlier in the day. “I know why
I
did. It was because I had nothing else to do with my life—no home, no family, no goals—”

And because I'd left a man behind me to die. For one quick moment a flash of memory from the day he'd run away actually made him wince.

“I was thirteen when I joined,” he continued. “I was big for my age so they believed me when I said I was sixteen. I fought in the Mexican War at fourteen years old, saved a major's life and that major's family had money. He sent me to Philadelphia to get a decent education and then made sure I was gradually promoted to where I am now. He was killed by Indians, and I still think about him. He did a lot for me, probably the only person in my life who ever cared if I succeeded at anything.”

Bridger frowned. “Sir, why are you telling me all this?”

Dawson shrugged. “Maybe because I know I might be dead in a couple of hours. Such thoughts make a man do and say things he never would normally.”

The sergeant grinned. “Maybe so.” He reached inside his Union blue jacket and pulled out a piece of paper. “Which prompts me to give this to you.”

Curious, Dawson took the paper. “What's this?”

“It's my will.”

“Your
will?
”

The sergeant nodded. “For what it's worth.”

“Why are you giving this to me?”

Bridger moved closer to the dwindling fire, the hot coals having a hard time keeping up with the rain. “Because earlier today you bayoneted a Graycoat who was about to shoot my head off. We were so busy fighting I never had a chance to thank you, sir, but I am grateful. I want you to know that. I have some money in a bank in St. Louis, and I've got no family left, so in case I'm the one who ends up with his face in the mud later today, I want somebody worthy to have my money. It's not a whole lot, but enough for a man to get a pretty good start in life. I hope you can put it to good use.”

Dawson put the note into his own pocket without reading it.

“Don't you want to know how much I've got?”

“No, because it won't matter,” Dawson said. “You're going to be just fine, Sergeant Bridger. You'll end up back out west with me once this war ends.” He leaned against a wheel of the cannon cart. “Tell me, how did a man on sergeant's pay manage to save up any money at all?”

A patient inside a nearby hospital tent let out a gut-wrenching scream that quieted both of them and sent shivers to Dawson's very bone marrow. He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Another man has lost a limb, most likely.”

More screams came from the tent, and in the distance the continued groans and sobbing of other wounded men pierced the dark night. Dawson's face burned from black powder that seemed to eat into his skin, and his eyes stung from it washing into them because of the rain, which the wind drove into his face in spite of the brimmed hat and the poncho he wore.

“Well, sir, to take your mind off that poor fellow in there, I'll tell you how I came to have that money. It came from my grandma.”

“I thought you said you had no family.”

Bridger chuckled. “I didn't know I did. My ma was good to me, but she was…well, let's just say she never knew who my pa even was. Funny how we've fought together out west and now here, but we never knew all this about each other. Anyway, I grew up helping out in a saloon where Ma worked, and when she died I joined the army—kind of like the reason you joined, I guess. Anyways, low and behold I got this letter about six months back from a woman who claims to have been my grandmother. I don't know how she found me, but she did. Come to find out, she lived in the same town where I grew up, St. Louis, Missouri. She wrote that her and my ma never got along, so I was never told about who she was or where she lived. The letter said she was soon to die of cancer and she wanted me to have some money she'd saved from working two jobs in her old age. Said it helped her passing to know somebody carrying her blood would go on in this life and maybe be a better person than she or my ma ever were.”

Dawson nodded in understanding, thinking how young Bridger was for being a sergeant; but then this war seemed to spur promotions that would never normally be given. Men were badly needed, and those with the slightest bit of army knowledge and any kind of schooling rapidly became in charge of the others. He was himself just twenty-nine, but before this war ended he could end up a general. He'd seen other colonels and generals who were barely any older.

“Anyway,” Bridger went on, “I couldn't think of one other person than you who ought to have the money in case I die. It's in the Federal Bank of St. Louis. So, if something does happen to me, it's yours. Just make sure there's a grave site someplace in St. Louis with my name on it, even if my body isn't there. Just something that shows I once existed. My name and birth date are on that piece of paper.”

Dawson reached out and touched his arm. “I'll do that, Sergeant, but like I said, you're going to be just fine.”

Bridger sighed. “I sure hope so, sir. I just—do you believe in God, sir?”

The question caught Dawson off guard, and it brought back painful memories. He could still see Preacher Carter's face plain as day, his scowl, his piercing dark eyes and sharp nose, his face red from giving Dawson another beating with his wide, black belt, screaming that he needed to “beat the devil” out of him again.

“Sure I do,” he answered Bridger, only because he knew that was what the man wanted to hear. “Why?”

“Well, I mean, do you really think a man goes to heaven when he dies, where everything is beautiful and peaceful and all that?”

Dawson decided this was not the time to tell a man there was also a hell, where some men, including himself, were bound to go no matter what. The worst part was that Preacher Carter would probably be there, too.

“Of course there's a heaven,” he answered, forcing himself to sound positive, “but you'll be an old man before you get there.”

“Lieutenant Clements!” A young private ran up to salute Dawson, interrupting the conversation. “I was told by a Major Coldwell to tell you to prepare the men and artillery for attack. We're going to sweep this whole area clean of Rebels forthwith! General Grant is mustering all troops as well as the new arrivals, sir.”

“They're here then?”

The private grinned broadly. “Yes, sir! All seventy-five hundred of them! They're coming off the steamboat right now at the landing!”

Dawson saluted in return. “Thank you, Private. Tell the major we'll have our cannon and rifles ready.”

“Yes, sir!” The private hurried away, excited now that it looked like enough help had come to turn this battle around. Dawson heard a man crying bitterly inside the hospital tent, and he supposed it was the same man who minutes ago had screamed in agony. For all he knew, after the next few hours of fighting he'd be missing a limb himself, or worse.

He stood and nodded to Sergeant Bridger. “Thank you for thinking of me, Sergeant. Go and prepare your men.”

The young man stood up with a tired groan, and the two men saluted one another. “Yes, sir.”

Their gazes held a moment. “God be with you, Sergeant,” Dawson told him, sure he detected a trace of tears in Bridger's eyes.

“And with you, sir. Once this is over we'll—”

A shot rang out before Bridger finished the sentence. His body lurched forward and fell, just missing landing in the campfire. In his back was a bloody, gaping hole.

Startled, Dawson watched a wounded and badly bleeding young Confederate soldier crawl toward him, a smoking pistol in his hand. It took Dawson a moment to realize what had just occurred.

While the wounded soldier fumbled with his pistol, Dawson quickly grabbed his musket, bayonet attached, from where it rested against a nearby log. Swiftly he jammed the tip of the bayonet against the Confederate man's forehead. “Don't bother reloading, mister!” he warned.

The young Rebel looked up at Dawson and grinned. “At least I got one more of you yellow-bellied Yanks before I meet my Maker.”

“And meet your Maker you
will!
” an enraged Dawson answered. He pulled the trigger of his loaded musket, wiping away not just the man's grin, but nearly his entire face. Never in his life had he considered committing such a heinous act, but in this moment of pain and disbelief, he didn't care.

Grief washed over him with the cold rain when he managed to turn his gaze to the young man who'd just willed him what little money he had in the whole world, and all because he'd saved his life earlier today. This time he'd failed him. He'd promised that boy that he'd be all right, but then such promises were only for God to make.

He knelt and gently he turned Bridger's body over, hoping beyond hope that he might still be alive.

“Sergeant,” he spoke, a sob engulfing him at the same time. He felt at the man's neck for a pulse, but there was none. He struggled to keep from breaking into all-out tears over the man's shockingly sudden death, as several men gathered to see what had happened.

“Sir, are you all right?” someone asked.

Dawson nodded. “Go away—all of you,” he told them gruffly. “Get ready for the advance.”

“Yes, sir. What about Sergeant Bridger? We can't bury him right now, sir. Grant is ordering—”

“I know what we have to do!” Dawson barked. “I'll be along!”

“Yes, sir.”

Dawson sensed the men leaving. Dawn was barely breaking, and men who'd lain wounded all night still cried and groaned throughout the surrounding woods and orchards. How strange that he should feel so sad over the death of a young man he'd known only as a fellow soldier for the past year and a half. Preacher Carter had been right. Maybe he
was
evil and deserved this constant punishment.

He removed his rubber cape and laid it over the sergeant to keep his body dry and respectfully covered until he could return and bury the man. Feeling numb and strangely removed from reality, he headed for duty. There was a little church situated somewhere south of them, and their goal was to reach it before the sun set again.

The cold rain began soaking his blue greatcoat and running down his neck under his shirt. He thought it only fitting and proper that he should suffer from its chilling wetness. The discomfort would help shroud his inner pain for the next few hours.