I had already slept for about six hours. I woke up and went to the kitchen and munched on some crackers and drank some milk and went back to bed, a sure combination. It usually puts me back to sleep for 3-4 hours. Sometimes I have deep and extended dreams during this time period.
I will set this down so that you can see enough of it to understand what happened. This was a sequential dream, coming and going but always moving in one direction and not repeating itself. It probably took several hours to occur. For some reason I can experience very dense dreams, that are very wide scaled and detailed and realistic, occurring in steady streams accented by outbursts of imagination, and then filled in with details as my dreams continue and I try to make sense of what just happened. And yes, I do correct my dreams while I sleep. I learned how to do this during the Thirteen Year War at the Hideous Boston Horrid Zone, where everyone's dreams are constantly attacked by the Satanic and Queer Lying-Dead; now known as the Proudless Prideless Pervert Pretenders (PPPP-) (Minus the many Humans they have already killed).
I can also dream and hear and see and feel full scale theater-wide films never-before-existing in a matter of twenty minutes. I always wake up after such a dream feeling as though my skull was in a vice all night. I stay in bed and try to relax my brain for hours afterwards. This was not one of those. Those film dreams are so detailed it would take months to put one on paper. This dream was much more lazy and casual, but still quite detailed and emotional.
*************************
Chapter One:
There was a great deal of movement in a forwards direction. I saw many feet and lower legs running in the same direction as myself and I had a sharp impression of many bayonets being used against a mass of confused and gnarled and disjointed bodies, apparently the enemy. I could not seem to rise above waist level with my vision, and I missed a lot of the action -- but perhaps I was a horse and this is what us horses always see anyway.
I was somehow deaf to most of the sounds around me. The roars of cannons came to my mind as muffled bursts and what I heard most was the shuffle of pants and feet and the clang and smash of steel against steel. Steel rifles against steel swords and bayonets. I made a great effort to discharge my two revolvers into as many enemies before us as I could, and then with a greater effort I looked upwards and sideways. At an angle I could see many of my men shouting and screaming as they plunged their weapons into a resisting wave of blue enemies, most of which began to die on impact, but I could not hear the shouting. For a brief moment I was worried about that.
Then, there followed a time when I was walking on corpses and trying not to fall over dead horses, and they seemed endless. We stopped at a line of dense trees, in which I could see blue uniforms running away into the thickness, and I felt happy about that. We all just sort of stopped then, and cleaned up our grey and dusty clothes as though we had to go to a church meeting soon. Slowly, I walked back towards our own lines, carefully reloading my revolvers. My hearing began to return and I was giving orders to sergeants to get the battalion back into order. I told one sergeant major to bring all of our camp forwards to this new location and I arranged for the mass burial of the dead. I was hurried now, to claim this new ground knowing that living possession was crucial.
It was our light artillery which had turned the tide of battle, that and our limited supply of cavalry. I was later to learn that I had lost fourteen men, killed one hundred seventy-one enemies and captured two square miles of front line; there were no prisoners. When I heard of that it made me curse. One hundred and eighty-five men dead for two square miles of forests and meadows of Tennessee.
By now, my regiment was reduced by the war to 722 men, from the original complement of 1200. We had escaped becoming involved at Gettysburg due to the nature of our missions, but my regimental colonel had been killed in action months ago; placing me in command as an acting major with a battalion before he perished from his wounds. I only had enough men left alive to comprise a battalion anyway; and these I guarded as though they were sacred. Soon enough I was confirmed as a real major by letters from the confederate powers that be. At that time, I promptly called all of my officers and non-coms together and I read out a battery of promotions. Quickly I sent two first lieutenants to the eastern Tennessee command headquarters to beg or borrow or steal as many men as they could find to join our intrepid band of marauders; for that is what we were -- Confederate Marauders. Raiders. Mountebanks. Incursionists. Tricksters. Guerrilla Fighters. Specialized Assault Forces. Virginians all.
Sooner than I expected, I got some good news two days later when my lieutenants returned with 180 men under tow, all veterans and all from South Carolina. I had to ask how they came to be here, and they replied with southern laxity that they had taken a wrong left turn while advancing on Washington. Nonetheless, I was pleased to have them and they were integrated into the battalion immediately; spread out into groups of twenty each. What was more, seven wagons full of medical supplies and food stocks arrived, dragged and pushed into camp by the South Carolinians. I immediately dispatched four sergeants to the low lands to find as many broken horses as they could, and to return with them posthaste. I told them specifically that no explanations were needed to any civilians.
Now -- four days followed our latest charge against the enemy, in which we kept our camp secure and my long range scouts reported great movements of troops, blue and grey, to our west and north. I kept my own council and refused to break camp on any news. We were raiders, waiting for orders. We were well situated to cause havoc upon the enemy and soon enough we got such orders the next morning. Seventy-one horses arrived with four sergeants and thirty volunteer militia mounted on those horses, bringing my total to 932 men in all.
Meanwhile, I was standing in front of my tent, half shaven, receiving a dispatch from a sergeant courier from general headquarters. The Yankees had moved into the county just northeast of our own, now under our control, and we were to carry out a dogleg to the east and north, then attack their forwards ammunition dump from the northeast; thus destroying their supplies and causing confusion to the enemy at the same time.
I tossed and turned in bed for some reason, or because of some detail. I then experienced a horizontal dream blurring of time and space. Events moved past me and through me quickly and I was running against the tide with both of my revolvers uncased. Out of this I ran into another hot battle, shooting blue uniforms and seeing my men rush past me with many torches afire and held high. It was a night action and we were inside the enemy's ranks, his prized ammunition was ours, his secured areas breached. We shot everything in sight except ourselves and put the torch to it all -- except for the ammunition. I turned around and called downhill for the wagons. We had seized the dump and the opportunity to steal the goodies. Twenty-four wagons we loaded with precious ammunition and sent them south to our lines.
While this was underway, I spent a very pleasant hour looking over a shipment of twenty twelve-pounder cannons, which I decided would accompany us back to our side. They were sorely needed, but I insisted on taking all of the related wagons and supplies of gunpowder and shot as well; plus the many horses needed for this, so it proved to be an arduous task. I was rewarded by the thought that there would be many unhappy enemy officers at this place tomorrow.
We were by no means new to the pleasures of destroying enemy ammunition and supply depots. With finesse and style we set off tons of explosives that in turn caused the remainder of the dump to explode with great displays of pyroclastic eruptions that soared high into the atmosphere, blowing the place off the Tennessee map. Then, we quickly disappeared into the deep Tennessee night becoming surrounded by forests so thick that we could no longer see the inferno we had started behind us.
-----
It was a rescue mission that nearly killed us all and almost ruined our effectiveness as a raiding force. As the North steadily advanced on eastern Tennessee our forces became intensely embroiled in counter actions and offensives against them in central Tennessee. One such operation resulted in an entire division being trapped in a large valley just north of the Blue Ridge mountains by two Union divisions. Their retreat was cut off by a brigade of northern infantry which held a vital pass through those mountains. We should have used artillery to blast the Yankees out of there, but instead I was ordered to attack and open the pass by the brute force of small arms. I got about a third of the way into doing this when my losses told me that it was useless, so I withdrew my infantry and brought up my artillery instead. Using cannon barrages and dynamite satchels and mortars I successfully wiped the pass clean of Yankees, the survivors of which fled as usual into the wilderness.
Thereafter, we descended into the valley and dislodged one of the Union divisions with identical methods; causing widespread panic and sending many cowardly blue asses running north; hopefully to Hell. Why they had few artillery pieces of their own was never revealed to us, but we could guess.
This saved our southern division in distress, but it displeased our area commander. He saw my actions as a direct disobedience. Perhaps the news of our losses at Gettysburg this last July had addled his brain. He stupidly accused me of disobeying orders before a meeting of our division's officer corps. Now, if you do not know anything about such meetings I will explain. At officer corps meetings everyone is more-or-less equalized in rank. The idea of such meetings is to reduce formality and increase communications and comradery. It is much more social in intent than formal and official. It is also, customarily, a place and time when grievances can be aired and 'officer's fights' are allowed. Well, he called me an 'insubordinate coward' and in reply I knocked him on his butt with my right fist and challenged him to a duel of honor. With dozens of officers watching he could not refuse. Two days later he was buried with full honors and replaced by a more amiable fellow. This commander wanted nothing to do with me and my raiders and we were sent westwards into enemy territory and the worst fighting, to be disposed of.
I figured two could play at that game and I commandeered every scrap of ammunition and volunteers and supplies and mules and wagons and artillery I could find until I was beyond full brigade strength -- and -- on the first day of August I set off for Texas. Without telling anyone where we were going.
We got about eighty miles before we were swallowed up by the carnage and maelstrom of the war in central Tennessee. I left the east with 7,892 men including myself. I had been officially promoted to the rank of a full colonel by my new area commander, but I never knew if the paperwork was actually forwarded to Richmond for approval. Regardless, I had my own paperwork with signatures and I dressed the part of a full colonel and acted the part of a full colonel and I was addressed as such by everyone.
The nature of the fighting in western Tennessee was more of a desperate mixture of chaos and insanity than any semblance of a military order. Any unit of the Yankees that thought another unit was Confederates just hauled off and attacked them without checking their true identities; and most of the uniforms in central Tennessee were so beaten and disheveled that they blended together, neither grey nor blue. You could have three companies standing at attention before you in a field and one could be northern but you could not tell by their outward appearances which was which; and so much weaponry exchanges and equipment scavenging had already taken place that both sides were firing both side's weapons and artillery. Consequently, we marched into death scenes where Union Regiments had attacked each other, and the bodies all looked like us. At other times we marched into death scenes of horrendous proportions where the fighting had progressed (or digressed) into hand-to-hand combats by the thousands. All dead. Farmlands were strewn with the twisted and grimacing bodies of soldiers interlocked in frozen death, having fought to beyond exhaustion.
The so-called 'fog of war' had descended upon central Tennessee like a thick and smothering rug; then I was wounded in my lower left leg during a forwards skirmish. Soon thereafter, during our westwards march we were accosted by a Union brigade that sought to impede our journey. We won an artillery duel with them and they withdrew northwards across the farmlands.
It was the sight of their retreat that gave me a plan. I still had more than seven thousand men left alive, but about five hundred were walking wounded like myself. I decided to attack the retreating Union brigade with a battalion of walking wounded, led by myself. They were headed into hilly terrain with many misty valleys and rising ridges around them and we could disguise as a brigade ourselves and with the aid of two twelve-pounders (cannons) we could put on a show of pursuit. Meanwhile, the real brigade (6,500) would swing south and attempt to reach Texas through Mississippi.
We were five hundred in all, and we set off at a limping gallop, on foot of course, leading our horses. Despite some of the comical comments spoken and doubts of our success all around, the effort worked rather well; until we lost them in the clouds. We followed them across the corn fields to many lesser hills, popping away at their rear guards, until they lost us because we went up a high hill crowned by ridges of granite, and on the other side was a blanket of dense clouds. We got to the top and started back down the far side, but the clouds were thicker than dense fog and so thick you could cut them with your forearm. In there, only the dead could win a fight, so I called for a halt. I was being carried on a short wagon pulled by four soldiers with arm wounds at the time.
I intended to return by the path which we had taken up the hill, and I ordered my wagon brought around, but when we turned the clouds had blocked our exit and we heard close sounds of heavy combats down below south. It couldn't be my brigade I thought to myself. They should be a dozen miles south of here by now. We listened and heard the unmistakable sounds of mass yelling and shouting and volley fires and cannon shots that always attend a ground battle. We saw nothing but heard it all, as often happens with clouds. I heard no horses though. It could be the Yankees killing each other, I thought. How they could see each other in those ground clouds was beyond me, but I called for to make camp on the east side of the road which went right over the hill dividing it into two halves.
From my short-term memory (before the clouds closed in) I remembered the hill to be about three miles on a side at its base and one mile by such at the top, ringed with semi-circles of granite at the top and probably twelve hundred feet higher than its surroundings. In peacetime and clear visibility it would have been a noticeable promontory, surely an outstanding landmark. What lay around it I expected to be much lower hills covered by hillside farmlands.
I called for a quick and silent camp. While everyone went about that business I had one cannon crew stationed looking down each of the road paths leading upwards to us, and I had myself set down in my wagon looking down south. I sent four scouts into the clouds on each pathway downwards with orders to go no further than one hundred yards and stop. They took loaves of bread and slabs of meat with them and disappeared into the vapors.
I listened. It was too bad I had not known about this hill before I first saw it, there was room for the entire brigade in the forests up here. The combat below had moved westwards and only dying screamers were left behind in the clouds of the valley below. Within an hour they were all dead and silence covered us like molasses on pancakes. It was so god-damned quiet you could hear it. The silence I mean.
I must have tossed and turned at this time, readjusting myself in bed, for I thought more clearly and said to myself “That is your brain you are hearing. Total silence never exists if you are alive.”
I spent about three hours watching the scene as the starlight became more faint and the night came on. The clouds persisted all around us and if anything they became more impenetrable. I called for two walkers (we had no one who could run) and I sent one each down a side of the road to get reports. They came back with requests for blankets and news that everyone is dead in the valleys below.
My brigade sergeant major had checked on me twice to see if I needed anything, and subsequently I was wrapped in an overcoat and eating some hard tack while listening to the silence and a mild but steady wind in the upper tree branches all around me. He showed up again at sunset and I told him to start chopping deadwood and get as many safe fires going as possible. No one out there was going to see our campfires, they were either dead or too busy killing each other. I had the road scouts changed and by now it was fully dark. I decided to bed down on a mattress of leaves and grasses next to the cannon that faced down northwards. The gun crew there did likewise and we slept very heavily.
-----
Chapter Two:
I had given orders for two teams of thirty men to walk down each decline of the road, north and south, at first light. I wanted any and every farm that could be found to be plundered for food. They were to take ten horses each and shoot any livestock they could find; then to haul the bodies back up to the camp. This was done with precision, waking me up in the process. Eight cows, nine hogs and two deer resulted from this effort and I immediately ordered them to turn around and go back down for more. I then ordered the biggest portions to go to those of us who were both the least wounded, could walk swiftly, and could still shoot a rifle with accuracy. Tomorrow the 'Hunters' would venture further afield on foot. I also gave them orders to mark and report the presence of any herds of any kinds of animals that were edible.
Then the rains came. It began as and remained a drizzle, but it was steady and soon it soaked into everything and everyone. I retreated from the open spaces over the road, wagon and all, to a makeshift wigwam made for me out of heavy tree branches and mud where it was drier and much warmer inside and I had my own fire.
By now we had a perimeter established and I felt secure that no military units were going to be moving about in this weather, so why not make some raids? A good idea, but what was there to raid? My only map of the area was in my kit and fortunately that was also in my wigwam and it showed a small town in the valley down south and easterly. The fighting we had heard down there in the clouds had swept from the east to the infinite west so maybe the town was now deserted. It was after noon and the valley clouds were darker than our own skies up here, which I figured when combined with the tall corn fields would give twenty men on horses a chance to move slowly and with secrecy upon the town. I was not worried about their shooting at livestock. All day so far we had heard sporadic and distant gunfire, once an entire volley somewhere off to the far west. No one out there was keeping track of gunshots, just making their own if they had to.
By three that afternoon the chosen twenty left down the road on horseback and the camp went back to their fires and sleeping. I slept heavily again catching myself snoring twice, then someone kicked my boots and said “ers a report for you ta hear kernal serr!” It was my own version of 'Deaf Smith' except his name was Allowishious T. Wishbone (T for Terrible) and he had the perfect set of a mule's manners with his superiors. He had apparently been amongst the twenty dispatched into the southern valley and now he was back and busting with the 'news'. But, before he could speak again I heard the unmistakable sound of a herd of cattle coming up the hill. “We done got that feller with all the cattle with him that you wanted major!”
“What feller?!” “Well, what else did you find Allowishious? And who sent you along?”
I got out of my wigwam and pulled myself together while I heard the surprising news that only one person was left in that town and he had two things that we needed ... a herd of cattle and a lumber mill.
“Complete with hammers and nails?”
“Why yes serr ... and he done got a hardwares storr down there!” Allowishiuos pointed past me and southwards. What luck! But now I was faced with another decision. Stay or try to get back east to our lines. Then I decided that if we went anywhere it would be south to our lines. I would not be welcome on an eastwards course.
-----
I hobbled about for a while after sending Allowishious back down the road and the herd of cattle was absorbed by the camp, the rain had slackened off and it was time (and a chance) for me to slack off this war. We would stay here for as many weeks as we could before having to move south to our own lines for the winter; but down there starvation was starting to set in. Something occurred to me then; I remembered a report that I had seen at corp headquarters saying that last January, Abraham Lincoln had issued a pardon for all Confederate troops that would surrender and join the western service to fight the savage Indians and Mexico under the invading Frenchies. I just remembered it, and then quickly ignored it. But my thoughts did go back to our lines to the south where our armies were beginning to suffer from starvation.
I had 498 wounded and hungry men and Allowishiuos (unwounded) to think of. The war would have to wait or scream on without us. Here, we would bring up lumber and build shelters, starting for the worst wounded cases. There was a fresh water well up here protected by an old well house, and firewood was everywhere abundant, and now fresh meat and corn! Corn! August corn is grown enough to eat, ain't it! When do they plant around here? April! Then the corn is grown enough to mash and digest. I quickly sent twenty more men hobbling down the south pathway with empty packs on a mission to pick the biggest corn ears they could find in the center of those cornfields. Now, I was feeling better with myself. I was getting things done and soon we would have full bellies again; but I forgot the cooking utensils so I had twenty again men on horses ride down to the town and bring back every cooking pot and eating utensil they could carry. The men could use their canteen cups as food dishes.
'Boil the water' I said as I went back to sleep with my boots on.
-----
Eighteen days passed and they were peaceful for us. The war seemed to disperse away from our locality, and we were able to heal up somewhat considerable. I now had five classifications for my men ...
1. Defenders/Scouts
2. Foragers/Helpers
3. Sitters/Makers
4. Prone Wounded
and I had a special cadre of thirty hunters; men who were able to properly aim a rifle and hit something with it, plus get to somewhere where hitting something meant bringing in food. Nevertheless, I had them hunt in teams of fours as they were all shoulder wounds or hip and thigh injuries. I soon discovered that they were more successful if they went in teams of six with two horses. Two men would stay with the horses while out ahead four others would hunt, and the smell of the horses masked a lot of the smell of the hunters from their intended prey. The supply of fresh game kept rolling in from five teams of six hunters each, but they had to stretch farther outwards with each excursion as we were depleting the nearby sources.
We were in the month of September now, and on the night of the first Sunday of the month (the sixth) our regular routine was bothered by the appearance of a great fire somewhere to the west of our hill. We could not see the fire itself for the trees, from our camp, but the hellish glow of it filled the western night horizon. Defender Scouts reported that it was a town about six miles from the hill, and brigands had put the torch to it. The brigands were described as a pack of deserters and criminals and opportunists, about forty of them. This became the first challenge to our security on top of our newfound home, and we prepared to defend ourselves. If they attacked us, or even learned of our whereabouts, I wanted them all captured. No word of our existence must escape to the world at war.
This could best be achieved by the wounded duck routine. If, they rode north and kept on riding they would certainly never see us up here. But, if they tried to come up the road we would have to capture them or annihilate them if they refused to surrender. That meant getting all of them to accommodate our plans by riding together up the road and into the canyon-like sections that were lined with granite cliffs on each side. In there, they would have only two ways out, and if those ways were blocked they would be trapped. I certainly had enough Defender Scouts to get the job done. Three hunter teams were out foraging, but I had two here and they would be our wounded ducks. Twelve men on foot would walk down to the lowest part of the northern pathway where the granite cliff walls came to an end. They would wait and watch, and if the brigands came up the hill they would act frightened and hopeless and run up the hill in a disordered manner. Being savages the brigands would follow them, hoping to cut them down and strip them of everything.
All of this came to pass (no pun intended) about one hour before sunset. The next day we buried them in a mass grave down in the northern valley and we went through their papers and equipment and possibles. They had apparently gone through several towns recently, burning as they went. Their saddlebags were filled with both Yankee and Confederate paper monies and gold coins and newspapers. Also, they carried the 'Records of Births and Deaths' with them from three towns in Tennessee, for what reason we never learned, but we kept them anyway.
I was especially interested in the newspapers, which I devoured all the next night. Of course the viewpoints expressed were biased, but it appeared (at least in print) that the South was slowly losing Tennessee and I knew why. Poor military leadership on our side.
Another six days came and went with slightly colder temperatures setting in at night, each night. Those clouds that had bothered us so much on our arrival had departed within a few days, but our night fires were situated such that they could not be seen anywhere else in Tennessee. We stayed warm and fed and repaired ourselves as much as possible, then the clouds returned. Thick rolling clouds, churning and tempestuous and not willing to blanket the ground. Ground winds whipped across the lower farmlands creating a bottom layer of cloudless visibility that was good for about two miles in any direction, but right over that clearness the dense blanket of clouds hovered above and mixed and moved in great patterns that only Nature can achieve. Then, at a height of about one hundred fifty feet they too dissipated to endless clear air above. Thus, our visibility from the hill top was unlimited, except downwards through the clouds.
I felt a foreboding about this, and from it I resolved that our time here was coming to an end. I ordered the making of all sorts of crutches and wagons and aids for moving the men out of here. My only other choice was to dig in and wait for the world at war to find us. If the South lost Tennessee it would mean one last fight on this hill top, against overwhelming numbers. Probably 20 to 1 odds. That was unlikely however. The Yankees could just sit back and blast us off this hill with cannon barrages. Why waste men taking a hill that could be pulverized and burnt to the ground by artillery?
I decided that in the event of being surrounded and overrun by Yankees, I would send the worst wounded cases down to the enemy by the north pathway. The rest of us would descend the hill directly to the east and, staying together, we would try to get as far south as we could before we ran into a fight. It was as far as my thinking had progressed when the morning came that a great battle broke out in the clouds and fields to the north of our hill. It began at daybreak at the far northern reaches of that valley, and it swept like a flood towards our hill. It was a bizarre sight. The sounds were tremendous and the shouting and screams and cannon shots told us it was at least two opposing divisions locked in a death grip with each other. The larger explosions broke through the cloud banks and flew upwards, but as the fires grew below the clouds themselves turned into a blend of smoky grey and fire red, the red changing in intensity everywhere and always. I quickly had both of our cannons aimed down the northern pathway through the granite cliff sides, but the tide of battle reversed its course and moved away from us and then eastwards.
Then it faded out, the customary silence returned. I sent a hunter team down both pathways, and to east and west; but they only found masses of fresh dead to the north and hopeless wounded from both sides wandering and crawling in the corn fields to the east. For two days we ransacked the battlefield in the northern valley until we were almost exhausted. After some work we refit four more cannons out of the ruins of perhaps a dozen that had been left in the valley. We hauled up enough shot and powder to put up a prolonged defense, but my mind was working at cross purposes. I now had six cannons and I was preparing for a last stand battle on the hill, but my instincts told me to get moving south, and my caution told me the south was a deathtrap. In fact, very little in the way of a battle had taken place to the south -- possibly an indication that there was no one left alive down there.
The following morning was much clearer than the previous week had been and only a blue ground mist rose from the fields all around the hill as the star rose over the eastern horizon. From the mists to the north Yankee soldiers began to appear, very slowly and very poorly. I was immediately notified by the sentries at the northern approaches, and my haste to see what was happening drew a lot of attention from my fellows. They ran to the tops of the cliffs there, which were quickly covered by curious onlookers.
Slowly, dragging themselves and each other and some little donkeys with them, there appeared hundreds of disheveled and wounded and exhausted Yankees. They staggered as much as tried to walk and many just walked in place for minutes at a time getting nowhere until others behind them bumped into them and the bunch would move ahead with a start. The idea of them walking the distance from the valley floor down there to our summit up here was not imaginable, but they began to squeeze into the roadway and totter upwards as though drawn by some unseen force. Somewhere in my mind I realized that they were being pushed by an unseen force, certain death behind them.
The sentries down there walked amongst them checking them for weapons and they had none, nor could they speak. Many of them walked with heads down or dropped to their chests, all were the walking wounded at best, all were shell shocked (we knew the look of that very well). They slowly formed into a human chain about eight bodies wide and perhaps sixty long. They were utterly hopeless, as I had tested. I ordered a random sample of them to be knocked over. Those that were, were unable to rise again by themselves. I wondered how many hundreds or even thousands of them lay dying in the fields to the north because they had fallen over while trying to walk out of there.
Faced with this ghastly reality I ordered the pathway to the north to be opened. The Yankee death march continued slowly up the hill with our help. They were no good for walking up any incline and they sporadically would falter and fall backwards tumbling a dozen at a time. By the time they made it to the summit all of our walking wounded were down there between the granite cliffs helping the Yankees make it to the top. We put them right across from our own camp on the west side of the road.
They had officers amongst them who were as beaten down as the rest were, and they all lay on the ground wherever they came to a stop, often lying over each others arms and legs. Starvation was in their eyes. Their fingernails were all yellow from poor health. Their wounds refused to stop weeping. No wounds had been stitched no matter how dangerous. I ordered them to be sorted out by ranks if that was possible, but they could not answer our questions. I limped back to our side and sat on my wagon and looked at the mess of them. I despise Yankees. I loathe the sight of them. Killing them is a pleasure. They are just rats to me.
[[As if reminded by the seriousness of the dream I was having, I suddenly saw visions of the horrific 'Abomination of Boston' with its little Tin Drum. It was lying and intimidating and killing innocent People as it always does. It was throwing innocent People to the Horrids, crowds of Horrids that were the basis for the monstrosities shown in the film 'Omega Man'; except they were real and far worse. The crowds of Horrids were screaming for Human blood and gnashing their teeth and slashing themselves with leathermen whips and screaming hatred and obscenities against all real life in the Universe -- and -- they were standing in the senate chamber inside the Golden Pimple at the Hideous Boston Horrid Zone -- home of the queer government of Massaturds -- a place they now own. Their hatred and their venom rose and rose and rose until they were shrieking at their worst volumes ...]]
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Chapter Three:
And I remembered the Prime Directive ... 'Humans Shall Help Humans Always'.
The seriousness of the dream began to become more material and corporeal to me, I could genuinely feel the pain that was coming from the Yankees-near-Death. I limped back to their scattered masses and tried to sort out which one was the highest ranking officer. I found a major, with an open skull on top of his head. I began to speak to him ...
“That will not do. That is atrocious. That is all wrong. I have a surgeon.” and I looked at the top of his head which had been shaved bald by some faltering hand. From a wide bare spot of flesh there appeared a crack in the flesh and the skull. It was about four inches long and someone had tried to nail it shut. Thin nails were jammed into the skull on either side of the gash and then the nails were tied together by heavy black thread. This had the effect of closing the skull back together, at least mostly, and probably accounted for his still being alive. I paused for a moment and wondered if we had any means of keeping the skull plate together like this until it healed. But, if we kept it this way and the skull and flesh knitted back together how would we remove the nails? Probably with a steam pipe cutter and then we would file them down to skin level. I was not happy with any of that, and I picked him up bodily across my arms and began to limp over to our side carrying him and saying to him that it would be alright.
“Do Yankees speak English?” I thought. I really loath Yankees.
Now there was no question of leaving the hill. I was the commanding officer and the Yankees were technically my prisoners, putting them as my responsibility. Even the Yankees had some kinds of Gods that would search for me forever if I let these Yankees die as my prisoners. Everything about us changed, perforced. As a unit we had come together on the hill, and by the hill, as a single force. Albeit we were wounded in many places, but our confederate wounds were slight and trivial compared to the condition of the Yankee prisoners -- and did I mention? They all came up the hill covered in blue dust. From the tops of their heads to their boots they were smothered in blue dust, a fine blue dirt powder. That took a lot of washing to get rid of and in a strange way the dust had insulated them from further damage, keeping out infections and insects; which by now were swarming over the dead on the battlefield by the millions. Every available bug within twenty miles was down there feasting. But not on these Yankees because of the blue dust. Of course, whenever we washed it off really bad wounds were revealed underneath.
Our emphasis changed universally. We were now jailers with hundreds of responsibilities, 491 to be exact, and our own wounds became much more tolerable. The rains returned now, more heavy than before and we began the laborious process of hauling lumber up the hill again, to make more lean-to's and wigwams to put the worst Yankee wounded into. Many fires continued to blaze in the night across our expanded camp, and I rode down to the farmlands that night, to the west of the hill, and turning around I could see a dull red glow over the entire hill top in the rain; but it could not be helped. Every ten yards I rode over another dead soldier, no longer distinguishable as a Yankee or a Confederate. Who was alive to see? Sooner or later the winners, either or, would reach this area to lay claim to it permanently, and then they would find us. Until then, the Hell with all of them.
[[Then I was taken back to a hellish place inside the Hideous Boston Horrid Zone and I heard the vile screeching voice of a Killer Queer that had come to the nest of perverts next door. It was demanding the death of myself and Queen Barbara. It was saying that the population at the HBHZ was nothing but cowards and self-interested cattle. It said they had an inside agent that was telling them everything. It mentioned the Nulf Monster, which I already knew about. It demanded death. It threatened the perverts next door and said they would be de-funded if 'those two' are not killed. Then one faggot shouted it wanted nothing to do with killing and it ran out into River Street and jumped into a jeep and sped away quickly ...]]
And I remembered the Prime Directive ... 'Humans Shall Help Humans Always'.
I urged my horse back up the hill and personally inspected every soldier on either side, with sergeant majors as guides. I gave personal orders and they wrote them down. I wanted zero fatalities. So far we had been lucky with no casualties from wounds, but I wanted more than luck.
After this, I dropped into my wigwam. I fell to sleep immediately. Within twelve more days we had reset all of our defenses, knocked together another four twelve-pounder cannons from the wrecks on the battlefield to the north, blocked the road pathways with artillery and long riflemen, built rain proof shelters for all of the worst wounded, scavenged and then cleaned many canvas and burlap items from the battlefield to make tents out of for everyone, constructed wigwams at the sentry posts (north and south) and started to send out long patrols of six men each, on foot. I gave each patrol a destination because better maps had come to me from the battlefield. Each patrol was to reach a one day destination and camp overnight. They were to listen intently and watch all night for anything and everything, then return in the morning. This brought stories of horrendous wastage and burnt towns and destroyed railroads and crushed bridges and burnt forests and decimated croplands in all directions. We were an island of survivors, in a sea of blood.
As soon as I realized this I ordered a complete and total roster to be made of both forces, jailers and prisoners. From this, I promoted five sergeants to become second lieutenants in their respective armies. I imagined that there might be some clause or paragraph in the military regulations of both sides that allowed a prison warden to make such promotions, and if there was none, there should be so I started the tradition myself. The Yankee major was one of our worst bed cases, so he had nothing to say about it except when I showed him the roster he pointed (very slowly) to the name that he wanted for his replacement; a lieutenant Collin Andrew. I thanked the major and gave him some of our newest moonshine corn whiskey, aged eight days, and he nodded his thanks. It was potent stuff. If you have never had any -- try it.
I found Andrew and he was an arm injury, a Sitter/Maker. I promoted Andrew to the rank of Yankee Captain while thinking to myself that any Confederate Sergeant was twice the officer of any Yankee Captain, but I needed a command figure for the Yankees who were slowly recuperating at their own pace. Not that we mistreated them, we gave them plenty of whatever we had to give; and I now had eight hunting teams out because so many dead corpses in the vicinity was bringing in predators from far and wide. Here, we ate predators too.
I reckoned that by now there wasn't a herd of livestock left within eight miles of the hill, and even though our smokehouse was full of meat we still had a dismal prospect ahead of us -- Winter. I was now in the position (predicament) of hoping that one side or the other would find us before November. Otherwise, we would have to winter here and that meant losing at least a hundred men to starvation. In an attempt to prevent that I took two steps: First, to send very long range couriers to find our own lines and report our situation to the nearest Confederate General. Second, to prepare long range recon patrols to travel on horseback to find distant towns to check for plunder and/or herds of livestock to bring back to our area.
[[Then, with contempt I saw the continuing misadventures of 'Nulf and Natt'. The things were driving in a lavender Impala with no roof. I saw the memories of their grinning skulls of death without faces. I heard Nulf say -- “Ya, I used to pretend that Drof never existed too!” and they both laughed, and their laughter sounded like a circular saw blade cutting through little naked legs. I could see Natt the Bodysnatcher, it was driving erratically and grinning as much as Nulf was. They were on top of their world. Between them was the little black bag full of dead baby parts and Natt and Nulf laughed and drank raw chicken blood (with satanic ingredients); and Nulf called Natt the 'Great Thief of Babylon'! Yes! And, they grinned wider and squirmed with pleasure, and Nulf took something out of the little black bag and chewed on it with pleasure and said -- “Ya know! I used to pretend that your kind does not exist!” And they both laughed louder and their laughter sounded like a circular saw blade cutting through little arms; and Natt swerved the vehicle and changed lanes and they scared cowards that were driving in that lane. And yes, they do have chiseled teeth like saw blades!]]
And I remembered the Prime Directive ... 'Humans Shall Help Humans Always'.
I again made a personal inspection of all personnel and all preparations, with sergeant majors again, and out of nowhere I came up with the idea to have the surrounding farmlands searched for survivors of any kind, including domesticated animals. I designated the most fit and able one hundred soldiers to this task. They would start tomorrow morning.
With the Couriers I sent the following message to ...
Whomever Confederate General This May Concern:
I am Colonel Markel Peters of the Second Virginia Special Forces Regiment. I have been dispatched by Area Commander Eastern Tennessee to reach Texas as reinforcements with 7,892 regulars and cavalry and militia, with artillery. I have been forced to split my force with the majority traveling southwesterly through Mississippi. I have stayed on in Central Tennessee with 500 wounded and I now possess a height of advantage. I am wounded in lower left leg. I have encamped in a highly defensible position on top of a prominent height and I have now come into the possession of 491 Union prisoners. My force is recuperating, but the Union prisoners are in very poor shape physically. We are surrounded by many miles of carnage and ruination in all directions. The war has burnt out this area and passed it by, leaving us stranded as survivors. I do not have enough supplies for the upcoming winter. I request any and all possible aid and assistance, and orders. I have been forced by circumstances and necessity to make the following promotions within both rankings. This is mandatory for discipline and morale. I am now the jailer and warden of 491 Yankees.
List follows:
My Couriers will show you the way. Please advise.
Colonel Markel Peters
2nd VSF
I used two hunting teams combined to deliver this message, their mission to reach the nearest Confederate General available, and no one less than a General. Surely, this would be a surprise; as I assumed myself to be listed as 'Missing Believed Dead' by now.
I sent the Couriers out in the second week of October and they returned during the fourth week with a Confederate General. For this account he will remain nameless except that his initials were S.T.B. (T for Tiberius); and he brought a large wagon train of medical units and food supplies with him. He also said there had been a great victory for us in northwestern Georgia at a battle called Chickamauga, but overall the War was lost to the south. This was his last gesture to Tennessee. As soon as he returned to his headquarters he was pulling up stakes and leaving with his army for Savanna, Georgia. He promoted me to Brigadier on the spot, signed the paperwork and said it would reach Confederate Headquarters at Richmond, Virginia. Before he went I explained to him that this left me no other recourse than to combine the two units into one command and invoke Lincoln's proclamation of full pardon for any and all forces that serve in the West against the Apaches and the Mexicans. He agreed heartily and wished me Good Luck. He was quite amiable considering that he was caught in the position of a mortician talking to a future customer/subject/commodity.
I limped over to the pathway leading down south and I waved goodbye as his small company left for distant places and more fighting. For a long time I watched them go, until they had blended into the landscape.
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At the time I could not see it, but the skies overhead gave me an impression, so I walked through the Union side of the camp to the far west edge of the hill top, and there it was -- a golden sunset. Surely, I took this for a good omen and I sat down on some granite boulders and watched the west until it was very dark and many stars were overhead in the night. I had picked up a rag-tag bunch of Union walking wounded as I went through their camp. They were curious to see where I was going, and they were sitting on the ground near me. Most Unioners had regained their speech by this time, and when I turned to go to my wigwam we all had a conversation about our future. Some wanted to go home, but not like they were now. They were scarred and torn and maimed, and they doubted they could get home alive. Others wanted to go to a hospital as soon as possible. Others wanted to go west. I replied that we might be able to do all three things by volunteering for western service under Abraham Lincoln, even though us southerners would be treated poorly and with no respect. It would give everyone time to heal their wounds before we were shipped west.
At some kind of Union camp for those heading west we could regain weight, and forget the many atrocities we had seen, and plan for a new life after the hostilities in the west had ceased. Then, eventually, we would be returned to our original homes from whence we came before the war. I would make that a condition of our enlistment. Some of us would not come back alive, but those that did would have real status in the only real army left in the country.
About this, they ruminated and jawed as expected, while I limped back to my wigwam and went to sleep. My only concern about going west was how to keep us all together as much as possible. I thought I had a good chance at it because of the general overall decrepitude and disorganization of this area and the events of the war itself. It was a bloody and useless and senseless conflict, caused by competing big businesses, to see who or what would have hegemony over this continent. Never mind the cost in lives, business progress and domination had to be won by one side or the other, that was the northern business viewpoint; and while they were directed towards the war in the east a thousand of us might be able to wrangle a pass to the west.
We waited again, for two weeks and one day, then a Union major appeared out of nowhere. He was just there in the morning light in the valley on the south side of the hill, sitting at a campfire by himself and trying to make coffee. He and his horse were barely noticeable a mile out in a sea of unharvested broken corn. He did get a fire started and that gave him away. Of course, he got a dozen confederate bayonets in his coffee and soon thereafter I was being woken up with a great rush of bare feet and untied boots; as seen through the open doorway. It reminded me of what I had seen when this dream sequence began.
They hauled him before me as I got out of my wigwam, and it was Richard Carlson. I should have expected something like this. Carlson was always a very versatile actor, and here he was as a beleaguered and lost Union major. I took it all in stride and told him of our predicament as he gave our tailor his tattered coat to be mended and we gave him some boots; he was missing one. His horse dropped dead on the way up the hill, and he himself passed out as I was about to make a suggestion. So, we put him in a wigwam, ate the horse, and I added him to our total. He would take command of the Unionists, if he was able.
“Anymore like you out there?” I said to myself as I brought the total up to 992 soldiers and militia. To this had to be added 18 runaway slaves (all men) from Mississippi, seven wounded farmers (men), twenty-one women of various backgrounds, six more horses, nine dogs (all mutts), five cats (with the women) and sixteen children (five boys, eleven girls). This was the result of my previous order for a search for survivors. To my amazement they all wanted to go west with us.
The next morning was brisk and more chilly than yesterday. I was sitting on a stump in front of my wigwam, the day was bright with a few white clouds overhead. I was ruminating over the information that we had gathered from our new civilian members about events in Tennessee. I knew on a day like this visibility 'out there' was large and the need to move about before the rains set in was huge -- so -- whoever could move out there was moving out there -- so -- we would have to make our move very soon before we were discovered. To Memphis if possible, using a white flag if necessary. With Murfreesboro taken by the Union and the city of Chattanooga as their next goal I would have to cut directly through their lines of march to reach Memphis, but I wanted to get as far west as possible before surrendering. I figured this would make the idea of our joining the western service of Abraham Lincoln more feasible, being in Memphis rather than in Murfreesboro.
I put down my paperwork and looked around the camp at the activities. Everyone was starting to break camp. I had given the order for our departure at mid-morning tomorrow. What would the future bring, I wondered? To those of us who were trying so hard.
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and i beheld satan
it was sitting in a booth at a diner
a booth with its back against the wall
i sat across from the thing and watched closely
it was dirty pink and happy and gloating
it was eating babies from a big dish before it
i thought i recognized it but as several evils slapped together
it had a big head a fat head a bloated head
it was grinning and slurping baby juices
it looked at me and smiled
i was close to it i could smell the death
i looked about for a public/political school nearby
where did it come from i wondered just briefly
and from the creation force i brought forth
a circular saw blade of great size and shining and sharp
with this i cut off the head of satan with such force that
the blade remained in the wall where the head had been
the head disappeared and satan was not renewed
and throughout the universe the forrid abominations did die
they ran into walls exploding
they ran into telephone poles screaming
their axles melted into roadways and they twisted and died
into the pavement
and from the burning wrecks walked headless owners and operators
searching blindly for satan's orders
all falling and crying mutely into gutters on the left sides of the roads
shaking and thrashing like dying fish
and they were not renewed
and the lesie-turds did melt into their shoes screaming curses
to the failure of lies
and they were not renewed
and the politicians did burst into flames and die as infernos
cursing the people and the truth
and they were not renewed
and it was good
and on the following day did i rest and sharpen my brain
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Markel Peters
https://voices-of-iowa.blogspot.com/
https://voices-of-iowa-concise.blogspot.com/
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For those of you who may be new to life and literature and Reality, and particularly to the usage of Fiction in the service of Non-Fiction, I will explain the Forrids to you. During the beginning phase of this war against genocide, the Forrid Corporation openly and deliberately attacked the Human Species with the intent to kill. At the time, all of the imbeciles and fools and retards that owned Forrids (but were not part of the attack against us) failed to curtail and stop the attacks. Instead of reprimanding Forrid and taking all Forrid Abominations off of the highways and roads as required, they laughed and expected to see the poor and disgraced and overwhelmed Human Species grovel and squirm before the Queer God of the Forrids -- Drof -- while begging for mercy. In other words, they were total cowards and sick-sick-sick with the Queerism mental disease.
Now, they are all paying for that indiscretion and stupidity and cowardice. Forridism is a tool of the hideous Queerism Disease and as such it must be blunted and broken and destroyed if the Human Species is to avoid Genocide by Replacement, by the PPPP(-). That is being done today and will continue. Already, we Humans have made it forever obvious that no Human will ever own or operate Forrid Abominations (artificial pickup trucks). To see a Forrid Abomination is to see a worst-case pervert with seething hatred of all Humans. Now, everyone knows what we knew back then, when the Queer Forrids were ordered to attack Humanity. The process of removal continues. No perverts are going to pretend to be Humans and infiltrate our ranks. No highway or road of any description is safe with Forrid Abominations on it. That too is now obvious, even to the most brainless TV Watchers and Idiot Voters.
