It was black dark and there was the disarming gush of the swollen, little stream, and I could only sense the rise of the earth above me. But I had done battle here before. I could feel it in my bones, as in the ghostly lines of Mary Fahl’s “Going Home,” from Gods and Generals:
“I know in my bones, I’ve been here before…the land feels the same, but the ground’s been torn.”
Cemetery Hill, consecrated by locale and deference as so many other lesser places of conflict throughout the Old South…where a handful of brave men met, fought and fell, died nonetheless…this one near the Federal side of the small, quaint burg of Paint Bank, Virginia. A tall, country meadow, steep and broad, topping to a slight bench that towers over a strategic swath of the Greenbrier Valley. You can greet Calvary from here.
It’s a lonely climb to the top, in the night. Evocative and eerie. So much of the past welded unforgettably to what poses as the present, and pretends for the future, while Fate ever decides the middle ground. So many mornings of my life I’ve spent like this, alone and humble in the dark, trodding sacred earth…en route to another poignant destination of my hunter or fisherman’s heart. Some beckoning, bittersweet place that lies just over the dawn.
For there are always those who have been before me. Including the other man I become when I go…me, myself and I.
I find my watch long before the sun stirs. There are minutes to think, minutes to feel, minutes to wander again the unfathomable territory between heart and home. To traverse anew the places and things I love. I relish these wistful, unbridled minutes in the dark, before the first cardinal sings. Before the geese fly, and the day is to be done. First light breaks across the far Allegheny ridges, the color of the pale, gray smoke from damp and distant musket fire. A Few minutes later, gilded with the faintest tinge of gold. The sun, yet in its bed, is still sleepy. Gathering itself to rise, to ascend the tall, timeless hills. When it finds its feet, it will light wispy curls of pink and apricot in the mists, which purl from the cool pant of Potts Creek at the valley floor.
Pretty now, the hill and valley, fresh with the mint-green nativity of another spring.
Three days we had battled here, two years before . A clash of tactics, long before there was first blood. For my enemy knew better than I, then, this hallowed ground. Entrenched, I had sought magnificently to pull him out, by ploy, challenge or enticement. Yet for two days his movement had been silent as grave dust. His adversarial forces unseen, as he mounted a masterful counter of stealth and evasion.
In this contest of life and death, there grew no malice between us. Just the blood passion that demanded we must meet. For either of us, there was no retreat.
So I had pressed him, again and again. Though it was only in the waning hour of the final day that I had at last found his weakness, and he had surrendered his guard, charging into my trap under a vivid flourish of red, white and blue. Where one of his greatest generals had met his doom, flopping out his life and surrendering his spurs, his beard in the dirt, while his comrade fled in utter retreat.
But now, the emerging morning was alive with his reveille. This time the challenge was his, and already three of his command had boomed the clarion herald of confrontation across the surrounding hills. Great thunderous gobbles that were clearly meant to declare his supremacy.
In an instant my blood was up, though I was enjoined on three sides. His offensive would not lay unanswered.
On every vantage he commanded the high ground. I must draw him down. Any attempt to better my position would be futile as Little Round Top. So I would divulge my presence, convince him I was vulnerable. He would come, hard and fast, out and down and from the flanks. He would come but be hard pressed to find me until he gained my field of fire, for my cover was almost indistinguishable from the landscape itself. His aggression and passion would be his downfall.
To complicate and control his advance, I would depend upon diversion and distraction, the abandonment created by deception. My small squad of decoys would provide the confusion, lead him to doom. I could see them faintly to fore, only a few yards removed, posturing in open Napoleonic rank under the gray mists of dawn. I smiled quietly. Their deployment was perfect.
All was ready.
The serenity of the morning lay like the soft hand of God upon the Virginia hills. With the first notes of my retort, would be loosed the Hounds of Hell.
Stand ready, Boys. Don’t forget to pull your ramrods…
The sharp cutts of the Marlin Watkin’s paddle call could have been a thousand Rebel Yells!
Gobble-obble-obble. Double gobbles…triple. Obble-obble-obble! The enemy was affronted, roaring, on the attack. Fast step. Coming, hard. Gobble-obble-obble. Obble-obble-obble.
Closer…closer. Thundering his dominion, again and again. I could hear now the drum and spit of his bugle corps. Now the actual beat of his double-step through the lush grass. And there he was, before us! Charging, beard swinging, colors flying, the ponderous black-green bellows of his breast flopping to-and-fro like Christmas pudding. A haughty Lieutenant alongside, two steps behind, reckless with colors as well. Into my rank of decoys he rushed, brandishing spurs, overwhelming and thumping grandly my small troop of feigning defenders.
Finding too late the peril of his predicament, as my arrow found its mark, and he fell, kicking. Blood to dust, his spurs cutting their last arcs in the sand. While his Lieutenant Wisely but quite indecorously withdrew.
So that I could breathe once more, so that the sweat on my brow would dry, so that my heart would fall back to parade rest in my chest.
In the Commonwealth, you can claim only one general a day, so I fell back against my rest, laid my bow aside. Fifteen minutes later, 60 yards to my left flank, stood three more inflamed commanders of the enemy front. I held my breath again, lest I was discovered. For I am now under orders not to engage.
Two tarried, while the fiercest sallied forth, spurs drawn. The last of my brave deflection squad was doomed.
Then evolved the strangest battlefield condition I had ever been called to witness. For this officer was no gentleman. Advancing unerringly toward the center of battle, rather than pour his assault upon the last of my brave men, he fell upon his fallen comrade. Catching him by his great snood and pulling. Arching his neck, sitting back on his haunches and straining with all his might. Time and again, until I thought he would pluck the queer appendage completely from its mortal moorings.
Until I wondered deeply of the motive behind such comportment. Revenge? Envy? Defilement?
Then, unsatisfied, he did something even more unspeakable…panting with the aftermath…stood, shook and straightened his uniform, and left. Rejoining his leering comrades and carrying them away. While I wished I could have shot him. Shot him dead.
The next two days calls me to other fronts, each time under heavy fire and harassment from the opposing forces. The hills reverberate with their never-ending challenge. Charge after charge, and on the third morning, Bigfoot Josh Duncan, my Sergeant-at-Arms steps on my bow in the dark. I miss two other generals point blank, because my sights have been disabled. Until I am forced to fix bayonet.
Though at the last minute both assailants turn away. Taking turns at deviant behavior with my distraction rank again.
I have been brought to it before…a strange, strange army, he is, this curious enemy of mine. Uncanny in cunning, but perverse of convention. So often, genius trades rank with insanity.
