William Forstchen - Men of War

So strange, home. Maine, the Republic, the memory of peace. Even in the midst of a civil war, everyone knew that there would be a day when it would come to an end, when both sides, North and South, would go home to their farms, villages, towns, and pick up the threads of their lives. Perhaps that was some of the uniqueness of America, the sense that war was an anomaly, an interruption of what was normal, a tragic third act of a play that had to be waded through so there could be the final resolution and running down of the curtain. Then the audience could get up, go home, and resume their lives.

He knew so much of the old world was not that way. Strange, though he had never been there, this place made him think of Russia. It wasn’t just the Rus, descendants of early medieval Russians, that he had found here and forged a nation out of. No, it was the land itself, the impenetrable northern forests, and out here the vast open steppes, the endless dome of the sky, the scent of sage and dried grass, or the cold driving wind of winter. This is what Russia must be like, he thought. The history, the same as well. A land of ceaseless bloodletting, of vast armies sweeping across the dusty ocean of land. War, when fought, was with implacable fury, no quarter asked or expected! Here it was the norm, the ever-present reality.

He wondered yet again if his dream of the Republic could ever take root in this land. The necessity of war and survival had united Yankee, Rus, and Roum together, at least for the moment, but would that hold if they ever won and drove the barbarians back? Could the Republic survive peace?

He heard someone approaching, but didn’t bother to turn. The limping stride and smell of tobacco indicator enough of who it was. Hans settled down by his side with a groaning sigh, reached over, and, like Andrew, plucked up a handful of sage, rubbing it between his hands, inhaling the scent.

“Long way from Kansas to here,” Hans announced.

Andrew said nothing, knees drawn up under his chin as he looked off to the east. The light was slowly rising, only a matter of minutes now. He heard the clatter of a rifle dropping, a muffled curse, and looked to his left; down in the ravine below a column of troops waited, more felt than seen, the hissed warning of a sergeant barely audible as he tore into the fumble-fingered soldier. At the head of the ravine engineering troops had positioned bridging pontoons and dozens of the flimsy canvas assault rafts. He couldn’t see them, but he knew they were there; the men of the 9th Corps had rehearsed this assault a score of times along the Tiber over the last two months.

To the right he heard the hissing of a steam engine, one of the land ironclads, Timokin’s regiment, deployed in the next ravine. He wondered if the sound carried across the river, so still was the air. We should have gone yesterday, he thought. The fog cloaking the river was thicker then. There’s still time to call it off, wait for fog, rain … maybe we should go an hour earlier, in the complete dark.

“Nervous, son?”

“Huh?” Andrew looked over at his old friend.

“I am.”

Startled, Andrew said nothing. Hans was always the rock, the pillar; not once had he ever expressed fear when battle was nigh. Andrew remembered Antietam, his first fight, waiting in the predawn darkness of the East Woods. He had been so frightened that after trying to choke down a breakfast of hardtack and coffee, he had crept off to vomit. But until five minutes before the assault went in, Hans had made a great display of sitting with his back to an elm tree, fast asleep. The old sergeant latter confided that it had all been an act, he had been wide-awake, heart racing like a trip-hammer, but figured that such studied indifference was a better tonic to the boys than going around whispering nervous encouragements.

“You don’t think it will work?” Andrew asked.

Hans looked over at him. “We did plan it together, but a frontal assault across a river, Andrew? Risky business. I fear at best it’s an even chance. From what little we’ve figured of Jurak we know he’s damn smart. He must have figured this one out as well, knew we’d finally have to come in frontally.”

“And you have another suggestion,” Andrew asked, trying to mask the note of testiness in his voice.

Hans put his hand out, letting it rest on Andrew’s shoulder.

“Responsibility of command, Andrew. At Gettysburg you held when I would have pulled out. It shattered the regiment but saved the old First Corps. You led the assault at Cold Harbor when I would have told Grant to go to hell and ordered the boys to lie down. Maybe you’ve got more nerve than me.”

Startled, Andrew said nothing.

“I’m getting far too old for this.” Hans sighed, taking off his hat to run his fingers through his sweat-soaked wisps of gray. “There always seems to be one more campaign, though, always another campaign.”

“But there are times we do love it,” Andrew whispered. “Not the killing, not the moments like this one with the doubt and fear. But there are moments, the quiet nights, the army encamped around you, the moment of relief when you know you’ve won, the pride in the eyes of those around you.”

Surprised Hans looked over at him and nodded. “If this is the last campaign, what becomes of us then?”

Andrew chuckled softly. “I wish.”

“Your instinct is telling you don’t attack this morning, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Then listen to it.”

Andrew sighed, “We’ve been over it before, Hans. We can’t flank, we can’t break out from the southern pocket, they won’t attack. We have to end the stalemate. The president ordered this assault. And remember, we planned this one, and all the time we planned it we figured we could pull it off.”

“So why the cold feet at this last minute?” Hans asked. Andrew looked at his friend.

“You first. Why you?”

Hans sighed. “Gut feeling that they’re on to us over there. That this is what they want us to do and fully expect us to do.”

Andrew plucked up another twist of grass, taking pleasure in the scent of sage.

“There are no alternatives now,” Andrew said.

“What Vincent suggested, it is a thought.”

Andrew shook his head.

“Maybe six months from now, with four times the amount of equipment to even hope that it’d work. Right now it would be nothing more than a mad suicidal gesture. Vincent’s dreaming if he thinks we could deliver the killing blow that way. There simply isn’t enough to do it.”

“It’s because you know I would do it-that I’d have to go. That’s what’s stopping you from considering it.” Andrew looked over at his friend in the shadows. “Hans,” and he hesitated for a moment, “if I thought that sacrificing you would end this war, would save your child, my children, I’d have to order it.”

Hans laughed softly.

“I’m not sure if you’re just a damn good liar or you really mean that. Strange though, I do hope you’re not lying. We’re soldiers, Andrew, we all know what the job means, and I hope that from the beginning I taught you the sacrifice required of command, even when it comes to your closest friend.”

“I sacrificed my brother, didn’t I?”

Hans said nothing in reply.

Andrew dropped the fistful of grass, reached out, and let his hand rest on Hans’s shoulder for a moment, then shyly let it fall away.

“So why the butterflies in your stomach now?” Hans asked, shifting the subject.

“I’m not sure, and that’s what troubles me. At Cold Harbor I knew it was suicide but I went in because it was an order. I knew if I refused they’d take the Thirty-Fifth from me and the boys would have to go anyhow. I saw Chamberlain do the same damn thing two weeks later at Petersburg. He knew it was senseless, but he led his brigade in anyhow.”