The Last Confederate Coin

By Jonathan Jackson, Sr

From the recovery of the fabled gold coin after the Hunley submarine was recovered and sent to a preservation facility in the 20th century, the untold saga of Lt. Dixon, the CS Hunley, the love affair with Queenie Bennett of Mobile, Alabama, and the loss of three brave volunteer crews, on the first successful hunter-killer submarine, during the Civil War. Historically accurate in every detail, from the bloody battlefield at Shiloh, Tennessee, through the construction and testing, and two sinkings and recoveries of the Hunley, to the glorious and masterful conclusion, culminating in the successful destruction of the USS Housatonic, on blockade duty in Charleston, SC.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jonathan Jackson, Sr
• Release date: Sep 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9781387552474

Jonathan Jackson, Sr

I have worn many hats in my life--parts manager for an HVAC company, attorney, substitute school teacher, owner of a network and computer company, a writer, and of late, I have also become a farmer. I helped develop both aquaponic and hydroponic farming methods in Central Ohio, with my son, Jonathan M. Jackson, II. You can read my blog at http://buckeyeaquahydroponicfarms.weebly.com An ardent fan of Ohio State football, I organized the Lowcountry Buckeyes Fan Club, Inc., a non-profit business promoting OSU football with over 100 members in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. So if you see me in a cap, it will always have an "O" on it. All of my titles, including The Return to Brickendon Manor, Terror Times Thirteen, Terror Times Thirteen Volume Two, and I Rode With Morgan, and my latest. with co-author S.G. Garwood, The Last Confderate Coin, are available from Amazon as paperbacks, as Kindle downloads, and can be "borrowed" from the Kindle lending library, as well as 30,000 other retail and internet sources.

Book preview

PREFACE

May 23, 2001, Warren Lasch Conservation Center, Charleston Naval Base

The laboratory was unusually quiet as senior archaeologist, Maria Jacobsen breathed excitedly. Anyone observing would assume her slight trembling was caused by surging amounts of adrenalin. Had she really found it? She squinted in the luminous light, eyes broadening and her mouth dry. She’d been holding her breath for the last several seconds, and her voice was barely audible as she tried to shout, Bring the camera. Looking down at what she held, Maria heard her heart throbbing and ringing in her ears.

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Puzzled, a few scientists working nearby turned their heads with concern. Maria realized her quavering voice had managed to draw their attention. Looking around from her deeply entombed position inside the wreck, she glanced over her shoulder. Peering in was her team. They were at a loss for words at what Maria held.

The underwater vessel known as the H.L. Hunley vanished 136 years ago under dark seas, shrouded in a fog of mystery. Finally, she’d been found just a few miles from her final mission. Carefully raised from the harbor’s sandy bottom, her crews’ remains, along with dozens of personal items had been delicately removed. Some 1,600 hundred bones had been collected. The Hunley was basically, a large forensic scene spread out at Charleston’s old wartime Navy base. The waters off Charleston’s white dunes would no longer hold their secret. Now in the care of a specialized team, all were seasoned nautical research scientists. Shadowy legends and dark myths were on a collision course with the world’s first hunter-killer attack submarine. A long overdue destiny.

Knee deep inside the forward bulkhead, Maria had carefully sifted through decades of slippery, slimy muck. To her amazement she’d picked up a coin. It was encrusted, oily, and embedded in the sediment. Her eyes grew wide as she gently scraped, cleaned, and polished its surface. Her heart hammered away as she quietly read the engraved inscription, Shiloh. April 6, 1862. My Life Preserver. G.E.D. She proudly held the legendary long-lost coin for her colleagues to see. Her eyes glowed radiantly and she whispered, My God. Maria knew the folkloric tale surrounding Commander Dixon, and his epic mission. What could she confirm about this man? This was the most probable area of the submarine to locate his remains, if in fact he was trapped with the rest of his crew. He’d previously dodged death, too many times to count.

Some myths claimed he was a secret agent who’d eluded the grim reaper by surviving not only one, but two sinkings of this notoriously dreadful craft, to subsequently tell his epic saga in a Charleston coffeehouse. Near the end of the war, a man claiming to be Dixon, had convincingly related to a fellow patron, that he’d sunk the U.S.S. Housatonic on a bitter winter’s night. His crew drowned when the hatches flooded but he escaped. Really? Was it Lt. Dixon or an imposter? One couldn’t be certain.

With the discovery of this fabled gold coin kept for good luck, it would certainly enhance creditability, that one of the recovered skeletal remains was indeed George Dixon.

By the time the camera was set up and ready to shoot, the entire team had assembled due to the rapid dissemination of the news. Excitedly they chattered around the open section of the boat, smiling and high-fiving. Maria had the beveled coin shining brightly in her hands, wearing a million-dollar smile. How cool is this? she beamed. Jubilantly she handed it out to a colleague, making her way from inside the wreck. They walked to a table containing a strange combination of previously recovered artifacts, along with the coin. Unusual and somewhat unpredictable items were laid out, including fragments of a United States Navy peacoat, shreds of Confederate army uniforms, and even remnants of civilian clothing. There were buttons and tobacco pipes, pocketknives and jewelry.

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Maria looked down at the many objects recovered and then at her team. They were all gathered around talking about this coin. The coin stood out among everything, as the one item that could pinpoint a direct link to the mysterious Lt. George Dixon. Like a crime scene, Maria felt a deep sense of obligation to reconstruct a bygone era enveloped in dark mysteries. Until now Civil War buffs could only speculate at what she finally had on her hands. They had fueled the many myths and legends surrounding Dixon. Historians thrived upon it for decades, attaching embellishments to the romantic story.

However, the approach Maria and her team utilized, consisted of the latest in forensic science. There would be no romance here. No myths or folklore. Nothing but painstakingly tedious work. They would finally uncover the truth and bare it for the entire world to see.

Maria delicately positioned some of the bones from section AA, on an examination table. DNA had been collected and tagged days ago, so she picked up an upper left thigh bone, and studied it closely under a magna-light. She noticed what appeared to be fragments of a garish substance, imbedded in the bone. Scraping until some of it dislodged, it allowed her to examine the sample more closely under the microscope. Working on a hunch, she felt confident the osteological specimen from the section in which the coin was found, would reveal certain bone disfigurements. She was on the hunt for a particular deformity on this thigh bone, one to which she was privy. One inflicted by his fellow man, an enemy in blue, also long-since dead.

As far as DNA matching, finding even a collateral source from a descendant would prove nearly impossible after 136 years. Fortunately, that type of sampling would not be the only weapon in Maria’s arsenal. There were many ways available to reveal the secrets of human remains, and right now she held George Dixon squarely in her sights. Bones from skeletons combined with other archaeological and genealogical investigation could tell her many things. Their age for example, or when they had died; past wounds, bone breaks, and other types of injuries. She could even tell if they smoked.

Running a few more tests and scanning through several databases, her mouse clicking away like it was possessed, Maria stopped. Smothering a twisted smile her cheeks flushed as she read. From the samples scraped off the thigh bone, now under the microscope, she magnified a few clicks. Looking up, then back to the eyepiece, her face shifted from a scientific scowl to a confident demeanor. I’ll be darned. I knew it! she spoke aloud. The analysis and tests confirmed the fragments removed from the thigh bone were 19th century lead, with a small freckle of gold.

Everyone was still exuberant over the discovery of Dixon’s gold coin. A dizzying sensation floated around the lab, while the buzzing bounced giddily off the walls. Maria walked away from her scope, wiped her hands, and said, Gather around everybody. Quiet down. The chattering softened and her team looked to each other eagerly. "I believe with absolute certainty I have identified George Dixon to be among the crew of the Hunley." A burst of applause and spontaneous laughter followed her remark, and her team became emotionally charged, all over again. She too, was exhilarated. It was quite a breakthrough for history.

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With the conservatory in shadows, a calm silence hung over the tranquil Hunley. Some secrets still lay shrouded in mystery but the discovered coin and the injured thigh bone, lent credibility that Dixon perished with his entire crew. Some of the mysteries had revealed themselves, others must wait. Hours had passed and all was quiet. The only sound was the gentle hum of equipment and a tapping noise off in the distance.

Linda Abrams, a genealogist doing some late night DNA typing of other crew members, thought she was alone. Preparing to depart, she followed the irritating pecking noise, and saw that Maria’s office lights blazed brightly. With a sigh, she stopped and grabbed a couple of Diet Cokes, and looking in on her colleague, said, I’m surprised you’re still here, Maria. Thought I was alone. The pencil in Maria’s hand never missed a beat while she looked over at her friend. She noticed the soda being offered and gave Linda a tuckered-out laugh, saying, You know what I don’t get? Tap-tap-tap on the file before her, Why all the extravagant stories about Dixon? Collectively one would think he was some kind of James Bond of the South. Leaning back she grinned, took a sip, thanked Linda for the beverage and continued, Things are not what they seem. I’ve been pouring over every detail I have on Dixon and it doesn’t add up. I don’t totally believe the legends encircling the bent coin I found today. In fact, finding his remains has created a huge credibility gap with some of the myths. According to contemporary gossip, Dixon received the twenty-dollar gold coin as a good luck piece before he left Mobile. It was given to him from an unlikely sweetheart named Bennett–Queenie Bennett also from Mobile. She would likely have been a young teenager when Dixon arrived in Alabama. He was no less than five years older and perhaps even fifteen. How likely is it that they were lovers?

Shrugging and raising an eyebrow, Linda said, Hard to believe in those days…but then, life spans were shorter and girls were considered spinsters at twenty-one…who knows?

Maria replied, From what we know about Bennett’s family, they were not extraordinarily wealthy; well to-do though. Those were the beginnings of hard times for Southerners. Where does a teenage girl come up with twenty dollars in gold in 1861? Rather unlikely. Maria began shuffling through some documents, then said, Here Linda, look at this. Dixon worked on a steamboat in the 1860’s as an engineer. He wore finely tailored clothes, diamond pins, and plenty of gold jewelry. He was also a card player and lived better than most. The outbreak of war put a hold on his fancy lifestyle. He sounds like a regular Casanova steaming up and down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Men who live like that would pay little notice to a thirteen or fourteen year-old, let alone be enticed into a relationship. None of his known correspondence mentions her by name, even to his closest friend. Why nothing mentioning her? One would think that if she really did give him that gold coin that saved his life at Shiloh, so much so he had it engraved to memorialize the occasion, he would at least write to her. Or mention her in his letters from Charleston. Hastily Maria pulled up some other notes.

With an expression of admiration, Linda watched her friend dig in tenaciously. However, fatigue from an extraordinarily long day, motivated her to say, Maria you look like you’re in a boxing match. Depart I say, and let’s be done with this for tonight.

Maria nodded her assent, and they walked out of the lab into the parking area. To the night air, the trees and the nearby lapping waters of the Cooper River, she said, Commander Dixon, we don’t know yet what happened. Regardless, you sir have held on to these secrets for far too long. The coin I found today, changed your life and altered the course of history as we know it. What a remarkable conundrum you’ve possessed for thirteen-plus decades. You and your crew were valiant and determined patriots of the highest order. You helped shape the future of naval warfare, and to this day, it has never been the same. If only I can help you tell your story as the facts unfold. The world’s first hunter-killer submarine: what a remarkable tale it will be. It happened here in this beautiful seaside city but it began in a quiet peach orchard, near a church called Shiloh.

PART ONE

Dixon

A battle, a bullet, and destiny

Chapter One

Near Duncan Field, Hell’s Hollow

Northeast of the church

Shiloh, Tennessee

April 7, 1862

5:00 AM

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Duncan Field

Fighting to keep his eyes open and just breathe, Dixon gulped down some sour air with that sickly-sweet taste of death on it. His blood ran cold at the dismal position he woke to find himself in. Screams of agony had wailed all night, eventually wasting away into pitiful mournful moans. A ghoulishness had settled around him and even Mother Nature was filled with loathing at the Spring morning drawing closer. What he saw was the ragged edges of dawn, peeping through the trees like a frightened child. He was shivering so violently that his teeth rattled like woodpeckers on a hollow trunk. Much more of this and he believed he wasn’t going to make it. His eyes grew heavy and he closed them recalling the sweet scent of peach blossoms on the wind yesterday. The air was alive with their aromas, and everything dripped thickly in beautiful colors. Opening his eyes he prayed the gullywashing misery of freezing rain would cease. If he survived the night, he knew the enchanting grace of this southern orchard would never be the same.

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Thunderclaps of lightning attacked the sky whipping it into a frenzy of electric discharges. Freezing rain was steady and torrential and had Dixon soaked to the bone. Lying on his side in three inches of frigid water he shook and trembled uncontrollably. Powerless to sit up and crawl for help, he just laid there in the muck, letting the drizzle pound his sooty face. The rumbling of thunderbooms vibrated the sloshy ground giving the impression of incoming artillery. With each thump Dixon somehow found the strength to give a jittery shudder when the dazzling lightning split the sky. It illuminated the earth in shimmering forks and flickers, and eerie images began to form around him. What he discovered was he was far from being alone.

What was left of Sergeant George Dixon and Company A of the Twenty-First Alabama, were scattered indiscriminately all over the lower hillside as if tossed from a tornado. They’d literally been chewed up and spewed out with everything imaginable from the military. It littered the entire countryside looking more and more like Hell had unleashed its demons in Tennessee. Hilariously they had visited these armies in a murderous rage and now stood back admiring their work. Everything in their path lay wasted in death and destruction, and in their wake were bullet riddled canteens, moaning men, and torn haversacks. Stretched out in every direction were bent and severed rifles next to clumps of ammunition pouches and tattered shards of shredded men. There were pieces of broken swords glimmering in the rain, and bayonets scattered, lying stained and crusty. Artillery field pieces were entangled, bent and broken, and every dozen feet or so wrecked wagons and crushed caissons lay in heaps. On all sides of these were the horses; hundreds upon hundreds of dead horses. Each of them askew with stiff and pointy legs and bloated bodies. The gaseous process from the decaying flesh left a steamy stench drifting in the morning air. It was clawing at the back of Dixon’s throat with a sickening sensation. All around him the animals and men alike, had become stiff and bloated. Like ballooned manikins, their tunics had become swollen tight, popping and splitting their buttonholes and pants. Sadly, the poor devils looked awkwardly funny. His whole squad had been decimated. All of them. Over the next few days, their fate would end up in the hands of Union burial details whose callous treatment became brutal and heartless.

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Burial Trench

With no more ceremonial dignity given a stray dog, forty-foot long muddy pits would be carved out of the Tennessee turf, then mules would be harnessed and ropes strung throughout the corpses. Five and six at a time were dragged stiff and bloated into the shallow ditches by the hundreds. When the pits were overflowing and full, the Federal soldiers walked along the edges, kicking and stomping with cruelty, the jutting arms and feet that protruded, the corpses desperately pleading for some small measure of Christian mercy. Some looked up with sightless cloudy eyes like dead fish. Others had pools of water filling their sockets and smearing their sooty faces, giving them a snaky demeanor. What they were met with were shovels and picks, packing them tighter and tighter before tossing in on top of their sad faces the soggy Tennessee soil. To know those boys would be laid out and wasted like that, all tightly packed together in those gory pits was an abomination. They were sticky and slimy and looked like the lost souls of the damned.

Struggling against the pull on his eyelids, Dixon blinked trying to clear the cobwebs and stay awake. He didn’t know what day it was, or how long he’d been out. He remembered setting his friend, Big Nate, gently down after being harpooned from behind, and then the next moment he was spinning, laying flat on his back unable to breathe or move. The world had looked cockeyed when he stared down his drawn out hand. His pistol was looking back at him sitting alone in the mud. It was within inches of his stretched out fingers, but it might as well have been miles, because he couldn’t move a muscle. He started feeling the coppery taste of his own death creeping down the back of his throat. Wincing in agony thinking his back was broken, or that he was bleeding out somewhere, he gulped down some more sour air. Nothing was as it should be or where it was supposed to be. The world was sideways. Mumbling helplessly he swore, trying to sit up but unable, he looked towards his frozen legs and was racked with a bone-rattling shiver. Strangely something warm and oozy was spilling out of him. Reaching down, his hand felt to him like he’d dipped it in a bucket of wet liver. His head fell back with a splash. He closed his eyes in disbelief, and cried, Oh dear God, sweet Jesus look at me now.

He knew a hideous sight was waiting to greet him at sunrise, one full of broken bodies being besieged by a rank stench in the freezing drizzle. Blind terror swam in his thoughts of what laid around him. A prickly sensation crawled down his spine. He believed the steamy patches were his friends’ souls, rising on the wind.

The tears came pouring out, fat and heavy mixing into the muddy Tennessee soil. It was then he remembered…God have mercy he remembered it all, all of what had happened yesterday, April 6, 1862.

Chapter Two

The Hornet’s Nest

Shiloh, Tennessee

Sunday, April 6, 1862

3:00 PM

"Get up! he screamed. He was in a rampage with his face all distorted. He was barking up and down the line with veins bulging and popping out on his forehead, and to the boys waiting around him, he looked freakishly insane. I said, get up you fools! Spittle was flying from his commands, and fear was dancing behind his eyes when he told them, If you boys don’t get moving, each and every one of you is going to die right here in your boots!"

The faces looking back at him were young and confused, dirty and tired, and all of them were restless and rattled from a full day’s battle. The captain was franticly looking for one of his sergeants to help him, when he zeroed in on George Dixon. His grimy face was hunkered down in the wet leaves like the rest of the regiment. Sergeant Dixon, Get ‘em up for God’s sake! They’re forming another line to flank us. They’re going to reach the river! We’ll be cut to pieces! That’s Sherman’s boys down there; he may appear to be whipped but he’s far from finished.

Dixon was watching Captain Gage’s face turn red and noticed a vein throbbing on his forehead. He hung his head and wiped away some sweat, then glanced at his unit. Boys. Just boys, he thought; teenagers mostly. All right you grungy dogs, Dixon yelled. Check your loads and get ready! He scooted down behind each of them tapping them gently saying, Get ready... hold your fire and aim low. When I say, pour it on ‘em, you pour it on ‘em. The rest of you idiots wait on my command! His eyes were bright, alive, and dangerous. Thrusting his fist upward to gain their attention, they were all looking at him and waiting, either grinning or shivering. All those young faces were coal black dirty, and red with emotion. Obviously some were terrified, but others appeared to have never enjoyed anything so much. It was those who carried a rebellious grin behind their eyes that made Dixon smirk.

The 21st Alabama was ready.

Fix bayonets! bellowed the captain.

You heard the captain boys, said Dixon. Let’s cut the Yankee vermin down before they reach the river. ON YOUR FEET!

Dixon stood next to his closest friend and tapped him on the back saying, James I need to create a diversion once we break out. Those Yankee boys need to think we’re pulling off down the road. Once they do, we’ll hit ‘em in their rear ends, cut ‘em off, and mop this mess up. He gave James a wicked grin and winked at his friend, when the air shifted around them, pulling the hairs on their necks straight up. Dixon just had time to turn his face when an electric charge walked up and down their skin. From out of nowhere, a withering volley of minie’ balls started dancing through the trees like angry bees.

Christ Almighty, said Dixon. Turning he screamed, GET YOUR HEADS DOWN! Do it! Do it now!

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A Yankee volley started peppering everything for fifty yards. Those stupid enough to raise their heads had them shot off. The air was filled with the sounds of snapping limbs and snapping bones. It was a devastating and massive stroke. Dixon could hear the crackle of shattering teeth and the forlorn, solid thuds as the bullets found their marks. With no place to go but back down into the wet leaves, the whizzing of angry hornets overhead was deafening. Through one eye, with his face in the mud, Dixon saw pink and white flowers start to drift down from the shattered dogwood branches. Lifting slightly, they were blanketing everyone in soft colors. For some reason, he thought it was strangely beautiful.

Snapping himself out of the reverie he’d fallen into, he barked, Wait! Wait! Wait! They’re fixing to reload. Looking around, he became transfixed on a seventeen-year-old private, named Casey Johnson. Dixon knew him well. He was twisting slowly and trying to stand. He couldn’t quite get there, falling over into a rubber-legged-jig. Eventually he landed sideways with a neat minie-ball hole clearly visible in the middle of his forehead. His sightless eyes were staring back at Dixon when a swarm of gnats dove into them crawling around in a thirsty attack.

Jesus! said Dixon. Then he hollered, They’re reloading! Move your nappy hides! UP! UP ON YOUR FEET!

Suddenly there was the thunderclap of artillery, and the sky opened up, raining down shells through the trees. Staring upward in disbelief, it seemed the heavens were on fire.

Oh my God. Get your heads back down! DO IT NOW!

A steady thump of shells began walking in closer and closer with blistering accuracy. It left a stench of gunpowder that was blue and blinding when it settled like a sinister specter. Captain Gage was becoming unhinged as the shelling bounced them up and off the ground. Looking up, Dixon watched several exploding shells split the sky sending down fiery hot shards of jagged metal. Captain Gage was screaming at him but he couldn’t hear a thing; time appeared to have come to a stand-still. They’d both bounced into the air together when Captain Gage stopped barking commands. Dixon felt something whisk past his face and turned. To his astonishment he was looking at the headless corpse of his captain. He was perched on all fours perfectly balanced, spraying a steamy fountain of blood out of the neckpiece of his uniform. It was gushing out in two foot bursts, soaking Dixon and the leaves around them. Dixon was trying to get his mind around what he was looking at, when the ground shook again and he watched the captain’s head roll sideways into a shallow gully, with a scream still etched in his features.

He’d been decapitated as true and clean as if by a French guillotine.

What Dixon realized was that the entire regiment was in great peril of being completely annihilated. The captain had pumped his heart dry all over Dixon, and it was all he could do to catch his breath and try to escape the indiscriminate slaughter. With a few desperate croaks to gain his voice back, he shouted, PUCKET! Where are you, you crazy bonehead?

Crawling out of the gore, the bile built in his throat.

Pucket!

Sir!

Get your ugly butt over here! said Dixon.

Creepy crawling down out of the fog, Corporal Pucket dropped down next to his sergeant with a nasty grin plastered on his face.

Pucket you’re the meanest most vicious scoundrel I know, Dixon began. If you possess even one redeeming virtue, I’m not aware of it.

Corporal Pucket just grinned at his sergeant’s flattery.

You’re also the best sharpshooter in the army.

He bowed his head and then hawked out a gob of rich brown tobacco juice, and said, What’cha need Sarge? I’m ready to get out this thicket of Blackjack and kill me some Yankees. This the best them bluebellies got? A zipping bullet whizzed past them both, making Dixon flinch, but his sharpshooter never even gave it any notice other than to look around. Annoyed.

Dixon gazed into his eyes and watched him spit out another gob while looking around the tree line. Everything imaginable was hanging in the scrub-brush around them. The Blackjack was full of uniforms and pieces of anatomy. It was all laid out in every direction, a clutching hand here, or a missing boot there. The soldiers’ wide eyes looking but seeing nothing. Every grotesque position, pain could inflict on the human body, had rolled through his men in a horrifying wave. There was nothing left but complete carnage. Dixon knew he had to get what was left of them out of this gully.

Pucket get down here! Look off to that ridgeline, see it? Dixon grabbed him by the collar and pointed. I need you to snake your way up and over there, and take out that fire team manning those artillery pieces. If you don’t, they’re going to take us apart one at a time until we’re all blasted to kingdom-come.

Pucket looked back at Dixon grinning and spitting, and then said, Well with all these here blooms a fallin’, I was beginning to wonder if this was a fight or a wedding.

He spit out one last gobby stream of juice, with it dribbling off his chin, and then winked at Dixon. George Dixon watched him shimmy off down the tree-line grinning and cursing about stinking Yankees.

Dixon crouched there, thinking about his chances, while the shelling continued to rain down bouncing all around them. Booming thunderclaps were peeling off one barrage after the other, walking in closer and closer. Bouncing and hugging the dirt, Dixon watched a terrified rabbit hustle from his hole, looking around. Seeing Dixon, he ran over snuggling up next to him. He looked down at the rabbit and watched him close his tiny brown eyes tightly, and tremble.

KEEP YOUR HEADS DOWN! Dixon shouted.

The trees above them began to shatter when a jagged slice of fiery hot shrapnel went zinging past him and the rabbit’s face. He watched it tear into one of his men’s arm, ripping it clean off at the shoulder joint. It hung there freely swinging, attached only by a piece of stringy muscle. With a pitiful wail he became crazed with pain screaming, Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! His eyes were as big as saucers as he jumped up in the middle of the hailstorm begging the Yankees to finish him. Dixon was screaming at him to get down when he passed out, white as a sheet.

He started pulling his men together, cursing Pucket for all he was worth to take the shots. James! he screamed. "Help me get these men through the gap. James looked at his friend with horror in his eyes seeing how coated he was in a bloody mess. His hair was soaked and matted, and he had pink and white flowers stuck to the side of his face.

George here, take this, handing him a handkerchief. Wipe your face. Christ, I thought you were shot in the head.

I’m ok, Dixon said. But we need to get out of here.

Looking around he asked, You seen Poe? These God-forsaken shells have got us scattered all over this briar patch.

After a few moments, it became deathly still, and a silence swept over their position. They started making their way through the only gap available, when Dixon slapped Big Nate and McCoy on the back, to keep them moving into the orchard.

Pucket, you glorious ol’ coot! You did it, Dixon mumbled. He was the last through the Blackjack when he looked up, hearing a lone shell screeching in right on top of them. He watched it sail right over, landing on the edge of the peach grove. With a sickening thump it detonated throwing a stinking cloud high into the air. The shell had burrowed deeply into a pile of soggy manure.

Everything was covered in a repulsive stench, hanging and dripping off the peach trees. The disgusting dung assaulted their eyes with a noxious bite. That’s when they heard it. Dixon and his men looked at each other as a haunting sound rolled over their position.

What in God’s name? someone muttered.

They all turned deeper into the orchard and ended up looking down at a private, howling his head off. He was pasty looking and bleached-white. He looked up at Dixon saying, MY GOD! MY GOD IN HEAVEN! Please help me, it hurts somthin’ fierce. Make it stop.

He’d tried to conceal himself behind the pile of manure when the shell roared in. The blast had opened him up from his kneecaps to his buttocks, his clothes shredded, leaving the rich, dark foulness, packed tight under his translucent skin. His legs looked like a big bulgy greasy sausage.

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Standing there, wide-eyed, they gaped down at the boy, knowing there was nothing they could do to ease his suffering. They stumbled past, not wanting to look but it was such a strange sight, they were compelled to take a quick glance. It took Dixon’s breath away and his blood felt like curdled milk. His eyes filled with tears as he realized he had to keep his men moving. There was nothing to be done for the crying soldier but it made his heart quiver. Keep it moving, he erupted.

He gathered them together in the orchard and admonished them to check their loads and set a picket line. Drawing his own pistol, he began to reload, when indiscriminate firing poured in from the far treeline. Once again minie’ balls split the air, kicking up dirt around their feet, and snapping branches. HOLD YOUR FIRE!!

The fat, happy bullets buzzed and slapped everything in a twenty-yard diameter when suddenly, the 21st was overrun by routed Yankees. Dixon aimed, fired, reloaded, and fired, continuing without thought, to pump lead at anything wearing blue. The bullets flew in every direction and bodies piled up around their position.

Aim low boys and pour it on ‘em!

Dropping down to reload, he turned and saw Big Nate lurch up on his toes. He’d been harpooned through the back with a bayonet, and was trying to scream. The tip had burst through his chest and pink bubbles formed in his nostrils. The Yankee had him good and was pushing and scooting him along, while Big Nate tried to wrench free.

Setting the cap, Dixon was filled with bloodlust. Running over, he stuck the barrel in the soldier’s ear and blew half his head away. As the Yankee fell with the rifle, the bayonet came free of Big Nate’s back. Falling to his knees, he made a sad grimace at Dixon, and died without speaking. Grabbing his friend, he gently laid him down, as Pucket ran up brandishing a pistol and a knife. It seemed he was attacking in all directions at once, in a murderous rage, firing and slashing like a madman.

While trying to mentally digest the last 60 seconds, Dixon felt as though kicked by a mule, and he spun, breathless, onto his back. The world went sideways, then blurry, and then black.

Chapter Three

The thundering skies had settled to a soft, distant rumble and the freezing rain had nearly stopped. On his back, weak, wet, and chilled, Dixon’s eyes settled on the intervening orchards, noticing the difference in the landscape compared to yesterday. The narrow belt of trees, which once gently sloped to the lazy pace of southern farms, had been substituted for a countryside caught in a murderous rage. The luxuriant growth, flowering blooms, and chitter-chatter flapdoodle of wildlife was gone. In its place was raw-boned, withered, scraggly pieces of underbrush and scrub crushed flat. Along with that, all the hardwoods and softwoods were stripped of every stitch of vegetation, down to their stems and stalks, as if a horde of hungry locust had raped the forest. Nothing left was green, it was all brown. Everything had been stomped upon, lopped on, and cropped, chopped off, right down to their stubby and broken trunks. Struggling against the pull of his eyelids, he felt the ground beneath him resume its spinning as he attempted to take in this nightmare vision.

For many of the young men responsible for this wholesale carnage of the landscape and butchery of mankind, it was their first taste of battle. For some, the unexpected shock of a mauling blood-bath was too much. Others grinned like demons released from the pit to wreak havoc upon anyone wearing blue.

Sherman’s entire division had collapsed, scattered like spooked deer, and Wallace’s Division, now commanded by Brig. Gen. Benjamin Prentiss, ironically a southerner fighting for the North, had routed and crumbled, following a deadly crossfire from the Confederates who had invaded the Hornet’s Nest. This left Grant with five divisions in a desperate struggle for survival. It had come down to bayonets and muskets being wielded like clubs. It had turned into a brutal and barbaric hand to hand slaughter, leaving no man standing.

It looked hopeless for the Union Army of the Tennessee, as the Confederates had pushed hard and relentlessly laid them low. The darkness and the gunboats on the river, saved Grant from total annihilation. The Army of Mississippi had its hard-fought victory on the blood-soaked fields of Shiloh but it was short-lived. As for the 21st Alabama and a lone sergeant named Dixon, the aimlessness of chance had halted them in their tracks and their ultimate battle was just beginning.

After Gen. Johnston had bled to death and Beauregard had taken command, he and his staff planned a massive and devastating assault on the Union right flank for the next morning. He would sweep their batteries and push Grant into the Tennessee River to be destroyed. That was the plan when the day started but a courier arrived and delivered sad news: Van Dorn’s reserves were too far out to assist Beauregard with much-needed fresh troops. As the night turned to daybreak, twenty-thousand Yankee reinforcements had been added to Grant’s tight line. Without Van Dorn, Beauregard was finished, the battle lost, the game over.

In spite of General Beauregard personally stepping in to retrieve the 18th Louisiana regimental flag and leading them in a defiant charge, the exhausted Confederates could not maintain the initiative. By 1:00 PM, unit commanders were ordered to deploy effective counter-fire and withdraw from their respective positions. In a full-scale, shrewd, and well executed withdraw, the Army of the Mississippi began a muddy excursion, extricating them from the sodden fields of Tennessee. This was a march which would not soon be forgotten by either side, and Beauregard would make fools of those attempting to pursue.

The Union Army would be made a laughing stock for permitting the Confederates to escape to Corinth, Mississippi, and Grant would face harsh criticism from his regional commander, Gen. Halleck. Frankly though, the boys in blue were glad to have rid themselves of the feisty rebels; they’d had enough and were happy to see them depart.

From God’s vantage,