ALL THAT'S LEFT OF ME

By Jo Anzalone

Chapter 69:

Tom slept at the church the night of December 18th, getting up before dawn to check on

Jonathon.  Finding him somewhat conscious, he propped his head up with a couple of pillows

and, tearing little bites of bread off a small loaf, dipped them in milk and fed them slowly

to him.  Then he gave him a fairly large dose of laudanum, both because he knew that getting

Jonathon out of the church and into an ambulance would cause him a lot of pain, and because

he thought if the soldier were awake he might use what little remained of his strength to

resist.  He'd seen that shake of his head when Gray told him he was taking him home.

Before Gray had left the church late in the evening of the 18th, Tom had had a long talk with

him.  Among other things, Tom asked him about the still evident mark on his temple and Gray

explained about the gun butt in the trench and how he'd nearly been buried alive at Franklin.

Gray was a little taken aback when Tom asked him if he still had headaches from that and

the man's face split into a big smile when he replied he did. 

"Sounds like you went an' got yourself a wallopin' big concussion there, Gray. I'm surprised

you were able to do Nashville at all. I expect a man with such a concussion might need himself

a ride on an ambulance so's he don't go an' fall down while he's marchin' south."

"Ride? You mean...?"

"I been a medical assistant for some time now, Gray, know most of the drivers.  Talked to one

just a bit ago while you was havin' yourself a nap an' we made ourselves arrangements for

Johnnie here to have a place tomorrow.  I plan to have him all loaded before daylight an' then

I 'spect no one will have a thing to say about it.  Driver says he's got room on the seat for

another man who needs a ride.  I thought it'd be a good idea if that man was you.  That way

you an' me can change off lookin' after Johnnie."

The doctor, to whom Tom then privately explained the circumstances, came by and looked

Gray over, probing with his fingertips at his temple, asking him a few questions, agreeing

with Tom that Gray had suffered a concussion at Franklin and wrote an official request that

the soldier be permitted to serve as an ambulance attendant.  The army was in such a jumble

anyway that he probably could have just done so and no one would have noticed, but it didn't

hurt to have the doctor's request. 

When Gray later presented it to his company commander, the man looked up at him, cocking

an eyebrow.  He knew Gray really well, had known him for years back in Winston County.

"Why, Gray, you suddenly needin' to ride when you've walked from Franklin to Nashville

an' from Nashville back down here?"

Gray bit his tongue between his lips, looking away for a moment, then making a decision,

moved his gaze back to the man holding the doctor's request. "It's Johnnie, Sir. I found Johnnie

McDaniel yesterday an' he's bad off, real bad off, but I promised him back in Georgia I'd

get him home, Sir, an'...an'...."

"An' you want to ride in the ambulance with him. Is that it?"

"That's purty much it, Sir.  He means a lot to me an' we promised each other if one of us

needed takin', the other would see to it.  I got to see to it, Sir, I just got to!"

"An' this is true, Gray, what the doctor wrote here? You do have a concussion?"

So once again Gray told the story of what had happened to him during the Franklin battle.

"Unconscious for hours, were you?"

"Missed the whole night, Sir, missed the burial. Didn't wake up good till I was in the kitchen

of some nice folks in town."

The man signed the paper.  "Sounds to me like you just might be needin' a ride, Gray." He

smiled broadly.  He knew Jonathon well, too.  "Indeed it does."

Gray saluted. "Thank you, Sir.  Means more'n I can say."

Still smiling, the officer watched as Gray turned and left.  There were times in life when a

little bending of the rules was the right thing to do, even in war, maybe especially in war.

When Gray arrived at the church still well before light, Tom tied a strip of cloth around his

head.  "I know you don't need this, but it'll go a long way to keepin' folks from askin'

questions."

Gray touched the strip with his fingertips. "I feel a might funny 'bout this, Tom."

Tom nodded toward the sleeping Jonathon.  "You just take yourself a look at Johnnie, Gray,

an' think about what we're doin' an' then ask yourself if there's any need for feelin' funny."

It was raining intermittently the morning of the 19th and Tom covered Jonathon completely,

face and all, with an extra blanket as he and Gray carried the litter they'd put him on out

to the ambulance.  Once they had Jonathon inside, Gray climbed up on the seat beside the

driver and Tom handed him the blanket to wrap around himself.  Tom got in the rear, taking

his little seat, glancing around the dark interior, barely able to make out faces. Jonathon was

the only man lying down.  The ambulance was smaller than the one that had brought Jonathon

from Spring Hill to Columbia, and across from where he lay, four other soldiers sat, bandaged

in various places, but able to sit up.

Hood, in trying to get his army out of Tennessee, faced the constant prospect of Thomas' army

catching up with him.  His pontoon bridge across the Duck was dismantled, but he knew

Thomas had his own pontoons.  The South had a piece of luck when the detail in charge of

Thomas' pontoons took a wrong road so that when Thomas arrived at the rain-swollen Duck

River, his pontoons were not available.

Stephen Lee had left the army due to his wound, and Forrest was put in charge of the rear

guard.  Lee's men were in bad shape by then anyway.  They had handled the rear guard all

the way from Nashville to Columbia and had been badly mauled.  Now it was up to Forrest

to protect the army's rear until it could cross the Tennessee River.  He had 3,000 cavalrymen

and to that Hood added 1,900 infantry from his three corps. However when it was determined

that 400 of those infantrymen had no shoes, they were sent off to the wagon train, reducing

the number now attached to Forrest.

Three months earlier, Jefferson Davis had smilingly predicted that during the winter in

Tennessee there would be a Moscow-style retreat.  He had thought, however, it would be

the Federal army, not his.  Now the Army of Tennessee had over a hundred miles to make

its way through unremitting ice and snow, and the terrible cold. They headed straight south

toward the little town of Pulaski, along already rutted, mud-choked roads that became

steadily more rutted and impassable as wagon after wagon groaned its way along them.

Jonathon was constantly jarred and shaken as the wheels of the ambulance topped one

rut and dropped down into another.  He'd come to with no idea where he was, what was

going on, except that he hurt without ceasing.  Tom gave him what laudanum he could, but

there were long stretches when he simply lay there, his teeth clamped, his body cold. His

mind wandered and for a time he thought he was lost in the snow...someplace...and all the

branches around him were coated in ice.  He, too, was coated in ice and with each step he

took in the deep snow, his legs made a horrid crackling sound. He paused, shaking with

cold, aware of the stiffness in his limbs, then with the last of his strength pulled his left leg

up out of an icy drift, staring in horror as it simply broke off.

There was no blood; his leg just rested there in the snow where it had fallen, frozen solid.

He moaned on the cot, his head turning restlessly, and Tom leaned forward, whispering

comforting things that Jonathon didn't really hear. With each passing hour, Tom grew more

certain that Jonathon was not going to make it.

Though this map shows the route of Hood's army from Atlanta to Nashville (in red), it also shows the route of their retreat, well, the

general direction of their retreat, in the dotted red line. It's marked a little, um, widely, as they went into both Columbia and Pulaski,

but it gives you an idea of where they hit the Tennessee River, then how they headed west to Corinth in Mississippi and down to Tupelo,

which actually had the result of bringing Jonathon very close to his home. You can also see Murfreesboro, off to the right of Franklin,

to get an idea of where Forrest had been sent during the time the rest of the army was at Nashville.  Pulaski is where Schofield was

when he got word Hood was headed north to Columbia in November and it was from there he raced to get to Columbia before Hood

arrived.  That's why his name is printed just south of Pulaski.  The solid red line coming down from the upper left corner shows where

Forrest's cavalry came on their way to join Hood at Florence to begin the march up into Tennessee.  The big blue circle on the Alabama-

Georgia border marks the furthest point that Sherman followed Hood out of Atlanta.

December 19, 1864

Montgomery, Alabama

Dearest Auntie A, (NOTE: Jonathon's mother, Adeline, was not Addie's aunt, but since Addie's deceased mother and Adeline

had been like sisters most of their lives, I'm having Addie think of Adeline in terms of being her aunt, whom she has always called 'Auntie A')

I write to you today out of my sheer desperation.  It has been nearly three weeks now since

the disaster at Franklin and I do not know if Jonathon is alive. Please, Auntie A, if you have

heard from him, do send me news straight away.  I do not know if he has said anything to you

about the outcome of his visit to Carolina Crossing in March, but since then we have been

corresponding with some regularity.  In light of that, his continued silence since going up into

Tennessee has me quite frantic with worry for his safety.  I do not know how much longer I

can bear this silence.  All my life he has been to me like the face of the sun shining after rain

and since March, even more.  I love your son, Auntie A, with all my heart.  I have not said

such words to him in these plain terms, but I do believe he knows and I further believe my

feelings are returned.  It is only to you, nearly as dear to me as was my own mother, that I

can admit such things.  That you are his mother, now makes you doubly dear.  Please, please

let me know if he has sent you word of his well-being. I must know...I simply must.

With heartfelt affection,

Addie

By the 20th, Hood's entire army had moved south of Columbia. Lee's corps, now being

commanded by Carter Stevenson, was leading the way. It was 30 miles to Pulaski and Hood

wanted to make 15 miles a day.  For a time Hood rode among his infantry, saying to some

of them, "Boys, the cards were fairly dealt at Nashville, and Thomas beat the game." A

private, marching close to Hood's horse, looked up at him, smiling wryly. "Yes, General,

but the cards were damned badly shuffled!"  Hood frowned and spurred away, hearing the

hoots and yells of his men following after.

The wagons, in advance of the infantry and having left Columbia earlier, had arrived in

Pulaski late on the 20th. The little town was a horrible jumble of ambulances filled with

wounded, of wagons coated in mud, of artillery and straggling soldiers. Some of the army's

equipment had been sent down from Columbia by rail, but the railroad was out of operation

south of Pulaski and could be of no further service in helping the army in its retreat. The

morning of the 20th had been clear for a change, but by mid-afternoon a drenching rain had

poured down, turning to sleet by dusk.  On the morning of the 21st, the land would be covered

in snow. 

By the 21st the entire Army of Tennessee was gathered in and around Pulaski. It was 49

more miles to the river.  From Columbia to Pulaski and from Pulaski on, Wilson's Union

cavalry had kept up a running battle with Forrest's men, trying to cut them off, perhaps

flank Hood's army itself.  For ten days this would go on, wearing out both men and horses.

Wilson reported he'd lost 5,000 horses, dead or disabled. He wrote, "Hundreds lost their

hoofs entirely. I have never seen so much suffering."  The condition of Forrest's cavalry

was even worse. He would write, "In order to save the army, I was almost compelled to

sacrifice my command."

On the 22nd the temperature warmed...all the way up to 15 degrees.  On the 21st in Pulaski

Hood was reorganizing the supplies, needing horses that had been pulling wagons now to

pull artillery that had come down from Columbia on the train.  Wagons were emptied out,

their contents tossed aside, foraging parties were sent out into the countryside to try and

find areas where grass might still show and to bring it back for the horses.  The road he

would need to take south from Pulaski was kneaded red muck and he detailed other men

to fell trees to corduroy parts of it.  By afternoon Hood learned that Thomas had finally

been able to bridge the Duck at Columbia and the main body of his army was heading toward

Pulaski.  Stevenson's advance corps had already been started down the Lamb's Ferry Road

and when the news about Thomas arrived, he ordered the rest of his army to hurry after.

But six miles was all they were capable of that day. Men were marching barefoot, with their

pants so badly torn and shredded that their legs were blue. Again the army left its bloody

footprints in the snow. The luckier ones had a little parched corn in their pockets to eat. 

The others had nothing. Wagons broke down and were left, pontoons littered the roadside;

with unseeing eyes, dead horses and mules lay frozen everywhere, as were cast aside rifles,

ammunition boxes.  No one seemed to care. The army wasn't even marching in formation,

just trudging along in groups of between six to twenty men. When dark came, with even

colder temperatures, they huddled close to what campfires they could manage to build,

nothing for supper.  Hood, that night, was settled in a gracious residence, eating oyster

soup.

The 22nd had been a tense day for Gray and Tom. It had been decided to leave many of

the wounded in Pulaski and it was only through some fast talking and reliance on friendships

formed in the past, that Tom was able to get his ambulance included in the wagon train.

Then as it had slipped and slid all day on the icy ruts, they had lived in fear that it would

break down and have to be abandoned.  They had no idea what they would do were that the

case.  Before leaving Pulaski, Tom had scrounged extra blankets from supplies that were not

to be taken further, and he layered them around Jonathon, tucking pillows deeply about

his head in an effort to keep him from freezing. His very immobility increased the danger of

that and once in a while Tom would pull one of Jonathon's arms out from under the covers,

chaffing it and his hand to increase circulation before placing it back.  Afraid Jonathon

would freeze to death during the night, Tom suggested that despite the narrowness of the cot,

Gray get under the covers and lie down along his right side to keep him warmer with his

body heat.

In the pitch blackness, Gray lay there, his arm across Jonathon's chest, listening to the wind

flapping the canvas on the ambulance.  He talked for some while in a whisper, right into

Jonathon's ear, but his friend was entirely oblivious to anything that was said.  It made Gray

feel better, though, just to talk to him. He spoke of memories past, of times together when they

were younger before the war had come and set its giant boot down on their lives. He spoke of

how Jonathon's mother would take care of him, get him well again.  Then his words ended in

a painful catch in his throat. Not even Mrs. McDaniel could give Jonathon's leg back to him.

Jonathon was lost in a great, blank void of nothingness, with a horizon so distant as to be

unreachable.  He wasn't even cold anymore, or hungry.  He wasn't much of anything.

Holding on to his insensible friend in the frigid night, Gray remembered Jonathon running

through the tall, dry autumn grasses, laughing in the exuberance of his youth and health.

No one could keep up with him, not ever, none of them, but they never stopped trying, him,

Billy, Seth, Jimmie.  That world was gone, would never be again. Tears stung his eyes as for

the first time he wondered if his desperate push to keep Jonathon alive was actually the right thing.  He squeezed his eyes tightly closed for a long minute, then opened them and moved his hand up, tracing down Jonathon's perfectly still profile, which he could not see in the darkness. "No!" he whispered. "No! Not yet! I'm sorry, Johnnie, if it's not what you want, but I got to

get you home."  Then his face crumpled in grief and he moaned, "Forgive me, Johnnie. Oh,

God, please forgive me."  His tears were freezing on his cheeks and he wiped them away, nestling his face into one of the pillows surrounding the sides of Jonathon's head.

Addie's letter reached Louisville on the 23rd. Adeline read it silently, then looked up at

George, who was filling his pipe. "Addie loves Johnnie." When George cocked a brow,

she added, "I didn't know...no, that's not right. I guess I've always known. I guess I...she's

so young I didn't...no, Addie's never been really young."  She scanned the letter again.

"She wants to know if we've heard from him." A tear rolled down her cheek. "Oh, George,

why haven't we heard from him?"

"He's busy fightin' a war. Might not be anythin' more'n that, Sweetheart." George said that,

but he, too, had been very concerned at the lack of word after Franklin.

"It's not like him not to write...not to let us know he's all right. He always does, George. He

always does."

It was, indeed, the fact of that that concerned George the most.

"I don't know what to tell, Addie," Adeline sighed.

"You'll have to tell the child that we haven't heard from him either. Assure her that we'll

let her know as soon as we do."

"From this letter, I don't think she can well be called a 'child' any longer, George. This is

a letter from the heart of a woman."  She handed it to him to read.

For Hood's army, the 23rd came with a monumental struggle to get wagons up a steep hill

glazed with ice. These were Cheatham's wagons and he asked his adjutant to chose a hundred

men with good shoes to help get the wagons up the hill. Out of the entire army corps, the

adjutant found only twenty-five men with decent shoes. (There were 3 corps in Hood's entire army, so

this meant that the adjutant was looking through a full third of the Army of Tennessee for those 100 men and had only

found 25...just to put it into perspective.)

By nightfall on the 23rd the army was 2/3 of the way to the river from Pulaski. Hood had

sent his pontoon train on in advance, hoping it would arrive at the river and a temporary

bridge could quickly be assembled. But as he moved along the road, so many pontoon wagons

had been left, broken down and abandoned, that every man in the army began to be haunted

by the possibility there would not be enough boats left to bridge the wide river. Hood sent

200 men back to see what they could do about getting the broken pontoon wagons moving

again. Earlier he had also sent General Roddy to Decatur where the Yankees had abandoned

fifteen pontoon boats, with directions to float them down the river toward where Hood

intended to cross his army. It had become utterly critical now that Roddy arrive with those

pontoons before Thomas' army caught up with Hood's. With their backs to the river and

without enough pontoons, the Confederates would be little more than sitting ducks.

Christmas Day found Hood's advance at the Tennessee River. It was swollen, wider even than

usual, with masses of debris floating rapidly down it, debris that would be a threat to any

pontoon bridge. But Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Presstman got busily to work, trying to lay

the pontoons.  As the infantry moved up, they began to build earthworks during the cold,

drizzly hours of the day, "to protect the bridge in case the enemy should move on us." Forrest

was still in the rear, his cavalry fighting Wilson's as he tried to protect the Southern army

from Thomas' advance. But, best of all, Roddy and the pontoons from Decatur came floating

down the river just in time.

The Tennessee River in winter, though on a calm day and with a quiet current.

Presstman's engineers worked all day Christmas and all through the following night, battling

the swift current of the wide river, completing it just at dawn. At 8 o'clock and with a big

sigh of relief, the driver of the ambulance Jonathon was in crossed the pontoon bridge.

Artillery followed and more wagons but they were barely across when the echo of heavy

Naval artillery fire was heard from down the river. Federal Admiral Lee had come up with

his gunboats. But Lee was a deepwater man and very nervous about having his boats in a

river with shoals and shallows. After just a few minutes of firing at the Confederates, a whistle

blew, and he pulled back.  Wilson, who had been hoping the gunboats would stall Hood at

the river so he could catch the army, was angry and wrote, "The gunboats were within a

mile of the Rebel bridge at Bainbridge, and the local people say his vessels could have

reached it without trouble."  But it was too late. The admiral had pulled his boats back and

by the evening of the 26th Stevenson's and Cheatham's men were across, and on the 27th

Stewart's corps had joined them. It was dark on the 27th when Forrest and his battle-weary

cavalrymen trotted their horses across. It had taken 80 pontoons to make the long, rickety

bridge, but it had served its purpose. By the 28th only the rearmost infantry guard was left

to cross and they marched its length early that morning.  Then Presstman's engineers began

to dismantle the bridge as rapidly as they could, having it down by midafternoon, making Hood's withdrawal a fact. He was now in northern Alabama, but only with a fragment of

the army he'd taken up into Tennessee.

Thomas gave up the chase, left the army, and Grant broke up Thomas' command, sending

Schofield back east to help fight the Army of Northern Virginia around Petersburg, and

Smith's corps to the Gulf of Mexico to take Mobile. The remnants of Hood's army turned

westward, slogging through knee-deep mud and constant rain toward Corinth, Mississippi.

Gray hadn't been sure just where Hood would take the army once across the river, but

when he found out it was Mississippi, he poked his head through the flap of the ambulance,

grinning at Tom. "Perfect! Mississippi! Absolutely perfect!" He was going toward Mississippi

even if he'd had to hijack a wagon and drive it himself.