“Indians,” Smoke said calmly.
“Were you actually engaged in battle?”
“I suppose you could call it that,” Smoke said. “The Indians were trying to kill us, we were killing them. Yes, you could say that was battle.”
“When and how did you meet John Jackson?”
“Preacher and I happened to come across him one day. It was in the middle of summer in 1869, and I was eighteen years old. But that’s getting a little ahead of the story.”
“Ahead of the story? What do you mean?”
“First, you need to know a little about John Jackson’s background. I mean, before he came West.”
“All right, please, go on,” Professor Armbruster said. “I would love to hear about Mr. Jackson’s background.”
Smoke continued with the story, talking in a deep, resonant voice that painted word pictures of the mountains, the streams, the cold of the winters, and the heat of the summers, the smell of smoke, drifting through the woods, the sound of woodpeckers and coyote and babbling brooks.
Armbruster asked no more questions; he didn’t have to. He had been transported back in time to visit with the man John Jackson before he had become known to history as, John “Liver-Eating” Jackson.
[This was the first time the actual discussion of “liver eating” was introduced in our discussion of John Jackson. Tales around the campfire say he’d cut out and eat the liver of every Crow he killed. He became known as “Liver-Eating” Jackson and “Dapiek Absaroka,” meaning “Crow Killer.” Throughout the Northern Rockies and the plains of Wyoming and Montana, Crow warriors who had come for him were found with their liver cut out, presumably eaten by Jackson.
I was most anxious to find out if this was true, but rather than press the issue at this point, I decided to let Smoke Jensen continue with the story at his own pace. And indeed, had I rushed him at this point, the story might have lost some cohesion, and that would not be fair to the eventual readers of this tale.—ED.]
CHAPTER THREE
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania—July 3, 1863
There had been fierce fighting for the two previous days and if Captain John Jackson, of the 151st Pennsylvania, had to give an honest account of who was winning the battle he would be unable to do so. So far John had seen nearly one-half of his company killed, or so badly wounded as to be taken from the field.
“Captain, would you like to take your lunch with me?” Lieutenant Sanderson asked. “We’ve got a quiet moment; I don’t know when we’ll get a better opportunity.”
“What are you offering for lunch, Bobby?” John asked his second in command. “Baked ham? Roast beef? Fried chicken, perhaps?”
“Ahh, you can have that anytime,” Sanderson said. “How about some nice hardtack, fried in bacon grease?”
“Absolutely,” John teased. “Who would want roast beef when we can have that?”
“I can also throw in a fresh peach that I took from a peach orchard,” Sanderson added.
“I thought the orchard had been picked clean.”
“It has,” Sanderson said. He smiled. “It just so happens that I’m one of the ones who picked it clean.”
“Cap’n, I believe them rebs is gettin’ ready to come at us,” one of his men said.
“I believe you are right, Sergeant Dunn,” John replied.
“It’s goin’ to get pretty hot,” Dunn suggested.
“Yes, but consider this. Would you rather be here, behind a stone fence, waiting for them? Or would you rather be one of those poor souls who are going to have to cross that field toward us?”
“Yes, sir, I see what you mean,” Dunn said. “I’d rather be here.”
“Here” was Cemetery Ridge.
At one o’clock two Confederate artillery pieces fired. John was sure that was a signal, because almost immediately afterward, a mile-long line of Confederate cannons began firing, keeping up a steady bombardment. John hunkered down against the stone fence as the missiles whistled and whizzed by overhead. Amazingly, the Confederates were, for the most part, overshooting their target, with the cannonballs bursting on the ridgeline behind the Union positions. The Federal artillery returned fire. The cannonading continued for one solid hour, with enough of the shells falling onto the waiting Union soldiers to do some physical damage, but causing considerably more fear and unease.
Then first the Confederate, then the Union artillery ceased fire and the loud thunder that had been washing across the field for nearly an hour grew silent.
As John listened, he could actually hear the sound of mockingbirds, and he marveled that nature could so turn off the folly of human warfare. Then he heard the faint notes of a bugle call as it rolled across the thousand yards that separated the two armies. That was followed by the long roll of drums.
“Here they come!” someone shouted.
“The rebs is attackin’!”
“They’re a-fixin’ to come at us!”
None of the proclamations were necessary, as every Union soldier in position could see the long gray line stretching out all the way across the field.
John stood up behind what was left of his company in order to be able to exercise command and control over his men. This also had the effect of inspiring his men, because while they could hunker down behind the stone wall, their commander was exposing himself to enemy fire.
For the moment all was quiet, save for chirping of the mockingbirds and the steady, rhythmic tat of the drums, urging the soldiers on. They were still too far away to separate the individual soldiers from the mass of gray. But he could see the flags . . . bits of red fluttering in the breeze, and the flag bearers who were taking the lead position of each of the committed units.
Slowly, steadily, inexorably, the Confederate soldiers, fifteen thousand in all, and under the command of General Pickett, moved across the field.
“Steady, men, hold your fire, hold your position,” John ordered.
The drumbeat cadence grew louder, and as the advancing army moved closer, John could hear the clank and rattle of their equipment, and the fall of their footsteps on the open ground.
“Stay in line, men, stay in line!” a Confederate officer called to his men, his words drifting across the distance between them. He was in front, holding a saber upon which he had placed his hat, and John couldn’t help but think of the courage it took to be exposed like this young Confederate officer was.
John did not believe he had ever seen a more magnificent sight, nor a more foolish one. What officer in his right mind would commit his men in such a way?
Suddenly one of the Confederate soldiers gave out a yell that John had heard before. It was what the others referred to as a rebel yell. The other Confederate soldiers joined in, and with that yell, the advancing soldiers stopped their measured march, and broke into a run. Thousands of throats roared their defiance, their shouts answered by many more thousand Union soldiers.
Union artillery opened up then, and John saw the awful effect of the grape and canister as it tore into the Confederate lines.
“Fire!” John shouted, and not only his men, but Union men all up and down Cemetery Ridge began shooting.
For a moment John forgot that he was standing in the open, then he heard the angry buzz of minié balls flying by him, and he moved quickly to the stone fence. That was when he saw the dashing young saber-brandishing young Confederate officer go down.
The deadly musket fire, to say nothing of the sustained grape and canister artillery fire, so devastated the Confederate advance that within moments the fifteen-thousand-man massed front was broken into several smaller units. Finally the front row of the Confederate soldiers actually managed to cross the stone wall, where they engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the Federals as the two bodies of men slashed at each other with sabers, thrust with bayonets, clubbed with rifle butts, and shot from point-blank range with pistols. But quickly the Confederate ranks, which had been so decimated by cannon and rifle fire during their long approach toward Cemetery Ridge, began to be overwhelmed by the superior numbers of the Union troops. Realizing they could not sustain the attack, those who could manage it broke off the engagement and retreated back across the broad field, leaving the dead and dying behind them.