Chickamauga
FICTION FROM THE PUBLIC
DOMAIN.
Editor’s Note: This amazing short story written in
1891 is a glimpse of post-American Civil War influenced fiction by one of the
leading authors/journalists of his day.
A thumbnail of the Battle of Chickamauga is posted below at the end of
Mr. Bierce’s short story.
RECOLLECTIONS OF THE CIVIL WAR
One sunny autumn afternoon a child strayed
away from its rude home in a small field and entered a forest unobserved. It
was happy in a new sense of freedom from control, happy in the opportunity of
exploration and adventure; for this child’s spirit, in bodies of its ancestors,
had for thousands of years been trained to memorable feats of discovery and
conquest—victories in battles whose critical moments were centuries, whose
victors’ camps were cities of hewn stone.
THE AUTHOR: Ambrose Bierce (born 1842) was an American
editorialist, journalist, short-story writer and satirist. Today,
he is best known for his short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek
Bridge" and his satirical dictionary “The Devil's Dictionary.”
In October 1913, the septuagenarian Bierce departed Washington,
D.C., for a tour of his old Civil War battlefields. By December he
had proceeded on through Louisiana and Texas, crossing by way
of El Paso into Mexico, which was in the throes of revolution.
After a last letter to a close friend, sent from there December 26, 1913,
he vanished without a trace, becoming one of the most notable
disappearances in American history. Investigations into his fate
have proved fruitless and, despite an abundance of theories,
his demise remains shrouded in mystery.
From the cradle of its race it had
conquered its way through two continents and passing a great sea had penetrated
a third, there to be born to war and dominion as a heritage.
The child was a boy aged about six years, the son of a poor
planter. In his younger manhood the father had been a soldier, had fought
against naked savages and followed the flag of his country into the capital of
a civilized race to the far South. In the peaceful life of a planter the warrior-fire
survived; once kindled, it is never extinguished. The man loved military books
and pictures and the boy had understood enough to make himself a wooden sword,
though even the eye of his father would hardly have known it for what it was.
This weapon he now bore bravely, as became the son of an heroic race, and
pausing now and again in the sunny space of the forest assumed, with some
exaggeration, the postures of aggression and defense that he had been taught by
the engraver’s art.
Made reckless by the ease with which he overcame invisible
foes attempting to stay his advance, he committed the common enough military
error of pushing the pursuit to a dangerous extreme, until he found himself
upon the margin of a wide but shallow brook, whose rapid waters barred his
direct advance against the flying foe that had crossed with illogical ease. But
the intrepid victor was not to be baffled; the spirit of the race which had
passed the great sea burned unconquerable in that small breast and would not be
denied.
 |
| Ambrose Bierce, 21, Union Army |
Finding a place where some bowlders in the bed of the stream
lay but a step or a leap apart, he made his way across and fell again upon the
rear-guard of his imaginary foe, putting all to the sword.
Now that the battle had been won, prudence required that he
withdraw to his base of operations. Alas; like many a mightier conqueror, and
like one, the mightiest, he could not curb the lust for war, nor learn that
tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star.
Advancing from the bank of the creek he suddenly found
himself confronted with a new and more formidable enemy: in the path that he
was following, sat, bolt upright, with ears erect and paws suspended before it,
a rabbit! With a startled cry the child turned and fled, he knew not in what
direction, calling with inarticulate cries for his mother, weeping, stumbling,
his tender skin cruelly torn by brambles, his little heart beating hard with
terror—breathless, blind with tears—lost in the forest! Then, for more than an
hour, he wandered with erring feet through the tangled undergrowth, till at
last, overcome by fatigue, he lay down in a narrow space between two rocks,
within a few yards of the stream and still grasping his toy sword, no longer a
weapon but a companion, sobbed himself to sleep.
The wood birds sang merrily above his head; the squirrels,
whisking their bravery of tail, ran barking from tree to tree, unconscious of
the pity of it, and somewhere far away was a strange, muffed thunder, as if the
partridges were drumming in celebration of nature’s victory over the son of her
immemorial enslavers. And back at the little plantation, where white men and
black were hastily searching the fields and hedges in alarm, a mother’s heart
was breaking for her missing child.
Hours passed, and then the little sleeper rose to his feet.
The chill of the evening was in his limbs, the fear of the
gloom in his heart. But he had rested, and he no longer wept. With some blind
instinct which impelled to action he struggled through the undergrowth about
him and came to a more open ground—on his right the brook, to the left a gentle
acclivity studded with infrequent trees; over all, the gathering gloom of
twilight. A thin, ghostly mist rose along the water. It frightened and repelled
him; instead of recrossing, in the direction whence he had come, he turned his
back upon it, and went forward toward the dark inclosing wood.
Suddenly he saw before him a strange moving object which he
took to be some large animal—a dog, a pig—he could not name it; perhaps it was
a bear. He had seen pictures of bears, but knew of nothing to their discredit
and had vaguely wished to meet one. But something in form or movement of this
object—something in the awkwardness of its approach—told him that it was not a
bear, and curiosity was stayed by fear. He stood still and as it came slowly on
gained courage every moment, for he saw that at least it had not the long
menacing ears of the rabbit. Possibly his impressionable mind was half
conscious of something familiar in its shambling, awkward gait. Before it had
approached near enough to resolve his doubts he saw that it was followed by
another and another. To right and to left were many more; the whole open space
about him were alive with them—all moving toward the brook.
They were men.
They crept upon their hands and knees. They used their hands
only, dragging their legs. They used their knees only, their arms hanging idle
at their sides. They strove to rise to their feet, but fell prone in the
attempt. They did nothing naturally, and nothing alike, save only to advance
foot by foot in the same direction. Singly, in pairs and in little groups, they
came on through the gloom, some halting now and again while others crept slowly
past them, then resuming their movement. They came by dozens and by hundreds;
as far on either hand as one could see in the deepening gloom they extended and
the black wood behind them appeared to be inexhaustible.
The very ground seemed in motion toward the creek.
Occasionally one who had paused did not again go on, but lay motionless. He was
dead. Some, pausing, made strange gestures with their hands, erected their arms
and lowered them again, clasped their heads; spread their palms upward, as men
are sometimes seen to do in public prayer.
Not all of this did the child note; it is what would have
been noted by an elder observer; he saw little but that these were men, yet
crept like babes. Being men, they were not terrible, though unfamiliarly clad.
He moved among them freely, going from one to another and peering into their
faces with childish curiosity. All their faces were singularly white and many
were streaked and gouted with red.
Something in this—something too, perhaps, in their grotesque
attitudes and movements—reminded him of the painted clown whom he had seen last
summer in the circus, and he laughed as he watched them. But on and ever on
they crept, these maimed and bleeding men, as heedless as he of the dramatic
contrast between his laughter and their own ghastly gravity. To him it was a
merry spectacle. He had seen his father’s negroes creep upon their hands and
knees for his amusement—had ridden them so, “making believe” they were his
horses. He now approached one of these crawling figures from behind and with an
agile movement mounted it astride.
The man sank upon his breast, recovered, flung the small boy
fiercely to the ground as an unbroken colt might have done, then turned upon
him a face that lacked a lower jaw—from the upper teeth to the throat was a
great red gap fringed with hanging shreds of flesh and splinters of bone. The
unnatural prominence of nose, the absence of chin, the fierce eyes, gave this
man the appearance of a great bird of prey crimsoned in throat and breast by
the blood of its quarry.
The man rose to his knees, the child to his feet. The man
shook his fist at the child; the child, terrified at last, ran to a tree near
by, got upon the farther side of it and took a more serious view of the
situation. And so the clumsy multitude dragged itself slowly and painfully
along in hideous pantomime—moved forward down the slope like a swarm of great
black beetles, with never a sound of going—in silence profound, absolute.
Instead of darkening, the haunted landscape began to
brighten. Through the belt of trees beyond the brook shone a strange red light,
the trunks and branches of the trees making a black lacework against it. It
struck the creeping figures and gave them monstrous shadows, which caricatured
their movements on the lit grass. It fell upon their faces, touching their
whiteness with a ruddy tinge, accentuating the stains with which so many of
them were freaked and maculated. It sparkled on buttons and bits of metal in
their clothing. Instinctively the child turned toward the growing splendor and
moved down the slope with his horrible companions; in a few moments had passed
the foremost of the throng—not much of a feat, considering his advantages. He
placed himself in the lead, his wooden sword still in hand, and solemnly
directed the march, conforming his pace to theirs and occasionally turning as
if to see that his forces did not straggle. Surely such a leader never before
had such a following.
Scattered about upon the ground now slowly narrowing by the
encroachment of this awful march to water, were certain articles to which, in
the leader’s mind, were coupled no significant associations: an occasional
blanket tightly rolled lengthwise, doubled and the ends bound together with a
string; a heavy knapsack here, and there a broken rifle—such things, in short,
as are found in the rear of retreating troops, the “spoor” of men flying from
their hunters. Everywhere near the creek, which here had a margin of lowland,
the earth was trodden into mud by the feet of men and horses.
An observer of better experience in the use of his eyes
would have noticed that these footprints pointed in both directions; the ground
had been twice passed over—in advance and in retreat. A few hours before, these
desperate, stricken men, with their more fortunate and now distant comrades,
had penetrated the forest in thousands. Their successive battalions, breaking
into swarms and reforming in lines, had passed the child on every side—had
almost trodden on him as he slept. The rustle and murmur of their march had not
awakened him.
Almost within a stone’s throw of where he lay they had
fought a battle; but all unheard by him were the roar of the musketry, the
shock of the cannon, “the thunder of the captains and the shouting.” He had
slept through it all, grasping his little wooden sword with perhaps a tighter
clutch in unconscious sympathy with his martial environment, but as heedless of
the grandeur of the struggle as the dead who had died to make the glory.
The fire beyond the belt of woods on the farther side of the
creek, reflected to earth from the canopy of its own smoke, was now suffusing
the whole landscape. It transformed the sinuous line of mist to the vapor of
gold. The water gleamed with dashes of red, and red, too, were many of the
stones protruding above the surface. But that was blood; the less desperately
wounded had stained them in crossing. On them, too, the child now crossed with
eager steps; he was going to the fire.
As he stood upon the farther bank he turned about to look at
the companions of his march. The advance was arriving at the creek. The
stronger had already drawn themselves to the brink and plunged their faces into
the flood. Three or four who lay without motion appeared to have no heads. At
this the child’s eyes expanded with wonder; even his hospitable understanding
could not accept a phenomenon implying such vitality as that. After slaking
their thirst these men had not had the strength to back away from the water,
nor to keep their heads above it. They were drowned.
In rear of these, the open spaces of the forest showed the
leader as many formless figures of his grim command as at first; but not nearly
so many were in motion. He waved his cap for their encouragement and smilingly
pointed with his weapon in the direction of the guiding light—a pillar of fire
to this strange exodus.
Confident of the fidelity of his forces, he now entered the
belt of woods, passed through it easily in the red illumination, climbed a
fence, ran across a field, turning now and again to coquet with his responsive
shadow, and so approached the blazing ruin of a dwelling. Desolation
everywhere! In all the wide glare not a living thing was visible. He cared
nothing for that; the spectacle pleased, and he danced with glee in imitation
of the wavering flames. He ran about, collecting fuel, but every object that he
found was too heavy for him to cast in from the distance to which the heat
limited his approach. In despair he flung in his sword—a surrender to the
superior forces of nature. His military career was at an end.
Shifting his position, his eyes fell upon some outbuildings
which had an oddly familiar appearance, as if he had dreamed of them. He stood
considering them with wonder, when suddenly the entire plantation, with its
inclosing forest, seemed to turn as if upon a pivot. His little world swung
half around; the points of the compass were reversed. He recognized the blazing
building as his own home!
For a moment he stood stupefied by the power of the
revelation, then ran with stumbling feet, making a half-circuit of the ruin.
There, conspicuous in the light of the conflagration, lay the dead body of a
woman—the white face turned upward, the hands thrown out and clutched full of
grass, the clothing deranged, the long dark hair in tangles and full of clotted
blood. The greater part of the forehead was torn away, and from the jagged hole
the brain protruded, overflowing the temple, a frothy mass of gray, crowned
with clusters of crimson bubbles—the work of a shell.
The child moved his little hands, making wild, uncertain
gestures. He uttered a series of inarticulate and indescribable cries—something
between the chattering of an ape and the gobbling of a turkey—a startling, soulless,
unholy sound, the language of a devil. The child was a deaf mute. Then he stood motionless, with quivering lips, looking down
upon the wreck.
THE END.
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA
September 18-20, 1863
Catoosa County and Walker County, Georgia
After the successful Tullahoma Campaign, Maj. Gen.
William Rosecrans continued the Union offensive, aiming to force Gen. Braxton Bragg’s
Confederate army out of Chattanooga. Through a series of skillful marches
towards the Confederate-held city, Rosecrans forced Bragg out of Chattanooga
and into Georgia.
Determined to reoccupy the city, Bragg followed the Federals
north, brushing with Rosecrans’s army at Davis’ Cross Roads. While they marched
on September 18th, his cavalry and infantry skirmished with Union mounted
infantry, who were armed with state-of-the-art Spencer repeating rifles.
Fighting began in earnest on the morning of the 19th near Chickamauga Creek.
 |
| Gen. George Thomas's stand against Rebel charges Harper's Weekly |
Bragg’s men heavily assaulted Rosecrans’ line, but the Union line
held. Fighting resumed the following day. That afternoon, eight fresh brigades
from the Army of Northern Virginia under Gen. James Longstreet exploited gap in the
Federal line, driving one-third of the Rosecrans’ army, including Rosecrans
himself, from the field. Only a portion of the Federal army under Gen. George Thomas, staved
off disaster by holding Horseshoe Ridge against repeated assaults, allowing the
Yankees withdraw after nightfall. For this action, Thomas earned the nickname
“the Rock of Chickamauga.”
The defeated Union troops retreated to Chattanooga where they
remained until late November.
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