It was July of 1861, and Lieutenant Paine reckoned he knew most of what soldiering was about.
He knew the weary, hot, dusty marching, as he and the rest of the young men had tramped to Yazoo City and then north to Corinth, over two hundred miles by paddle wheeler, by foot, and by rail.
He knew the muttering and the growling and the insubordination of the men, silent and otherwise. He learned when to cajole and when to yell and when to deliver a cuff to the ear or a boot to the ass. He learned how to do it in such a way that it got the job done and left no permanent and festering hatreds.
In Corinth he learned what an ungodly mess a cluster of officers could make of trying to create an army from a rabble. Officers who, a month before, had been cotton planters and merchants and politicians.
But not all of them. There were a handful of real soldiers, men who had resigned their commissions in the old army and come south to fight for their states. These men Robley watched close, and imitated, and tried to learn what he could about real soldiering.
He learned about indecision and infighting, about intrigue, about toadying and backstabbing and bootlicking. By his own inbred good sense and natural aversion to such things, and the honor instilled in him by his father, he learned to avoid it all, and to go about his business and look after the welfare of his men.
As a result of that policy, Robley Paine remained an officer, because in the Confederate Army the men voted their officers in, with a democracy that harked back to the army of 1776. Robley Paine was a near-unanimous choice for third lieutenant.
At length, under the direction of General J. L. Alcorn, the disparate young men from Mississippi were formed into companies: Company A, the Confederate Rifles, Company B, the Benton Rifles, Company C, the Confederates, and so on. The boys from Yazoo County formed Company D, named, to no one’s surprise, the Hamer Rifles. And finally the great lot of them were formed into the 18th Mississippi Regiment and sent north once again.
They traveled for eight days, marching, jostling onto railroad platforms, crushing into sweating railcars, rattling northeast. They covered nearly seven hundred miles and landed at last in the great ad hoc tent city of Camp Walker near Manassas Junction, Virginia.
Robley paused in his deliberate wandering, pulled off his kepi, wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his frock coat. He squinted around him, at the bored men on guard duty, the companies off in the distance, kicking up dust as they drilled, the men lounging around, reading, writing letters, playing cards. Things were getting mighty relaxed at Camp Walker. Laundry hung out in the sun, tables and chairs were set up outside the little tents, chickens ran around the dusty ground. They were only about twenty-five miles from Washington, D.C., the heart of the Union, and all the bluebellies gathering there, but no one of either side seemed overeager to do anything about it.
From the moment that he had signed his name to the enlistment roll, through the long march and wait and the endless drilling at Corinth, over the misery of eight days’ travel to Manassas, Robley had known several fears.
One was that he would miss the great battle that would decide the war. That one was a common fear. It was the only fear that the boys would gladly own up to, and did, often.
But also, in his heart, tucked away, he harbored the secret fear that that was what he wanted, that he hoped to miss the battle, that he was afraid to stand up in that great fight. That, too, was not an uncommon fear, but it was not so popular a topic.
All of that seemed long ago, and those fears were smothered under the weight of drilling, guard duty, mess duty, general boredom, and now fear that he or his brothers would fall victim to the measles, which were spreading like plague through the 3rd Brigade. After weeks of dull camp routine, the possibility of battle seemed so unlikely as to not warrant concern.
Yes, Robley figured he had already experienced just about all there was to soldiering. There were only two things left, that he knew of. One was the misery of a winter march or encampment, and the other was the horror of battle. The former he reckoned he could do without. The latter he was desperately eager to try, to be done with it, if only to discover the truth about himself.
Robley put his kepi back on, trudged to the end of the 18th Mississippi’s encampment. Coming from the other direction was Nathaniel Paine, alone.
“Couldn’t find him?” Robley said.
“No, sir.” Nathaniel pulled his kepi off, just as Robley had done, wiped his forehead. As soon as Robley had been promoted, Nathaniel had begun to address him as “sir,” with not the least hint of irony.
Robley frowned, looked around again. Miles of identical tents, thousands upon thousands of men. The Confederate Stars and Bars hung limp from a flagpole near the center of the camp. The two-story brick home of Wilmer McLean, headquarters of Brigadier General David Jones, stood brooding over the rows of Lilliputian tents.
Far off in the distance they heard the flat boom of cannon fire, the artillery units around Washington, D.C., exercising at their pieces. It had caused a stir in camp the first time they had heard it, but now it was hardly noticed.
“Fella told me he saw him with his bird, heading for the South Carolina boys,” Nathaniel added.
“All right. We’ll try there.” Robley headed off, with Nathaniel behind, and soon they crossed the largely invisible divide between the 18th Mississippi camp and the 5th South Carolina, with whom they were brigaded.
Near the center of the 5th South Carolina’s camp the tents were arranged in such a way as to form a parade ground, and at the far end of the parade there was a cluster of men in a circle, and Robley had a good idea that Jonathan might be among them. He was not a fellow to miss a frolic of any kind.
The brothers crossed the parade, peered through the group of men standing and kneeling, and Robley was not surprised to see Jonathan at the center of the circle, holding the fighting cock he had been training up for a week now. Money was passing around the circle of men.
Jonathan was in his shirtsleeves and his kepi was tilted back and his face was red with exertion and excitement. His light brown hair was plastered to the sweat on his forehead and he was grinning, and even Robley could appreciate how handsome and vital his brother looked.
“What y’all say your chicken’s name is?” Jonathan called to his opponent at the far end of the circle, a big Irish-looking fellow who also clutched a straining rooster. “Y’all said his name is Abe Lincoln, didn’t ya?”
“Abe Lincoln, my ass. Yankee Killer. Gonna git himself some practice now.”
“Yankee Killer? Well, hell, just put a uniform on him. He’s as much a man as any of you South Carolina boys.”
Robley could not help but smile. Jonathan had a quick wit about him. It got him in trouble more often then not.
Then, on some unseen signal, the birds were released. In a great welter of feathers and flying dust the fighting cocks fell on each other, flailing and lashing with dagger spurs. The roosters screamed and the men screamed and shouted and urged the animals on to greater violence.
A stream of blood made a red slash across the tan earth, and Robley winced and felt a rush of shame that he should have such a reaction. They were birds. How would he fare when men were being shot down around him?
The shouting of the men and birds built and Robley pushed his concerns aside, watched the battle of brilliant red and yellow and black feathers. Some of the watchers let out a wild, unearthly whoop, a pagan battle cry that came from some place deep inside, and it sent shivers down Robley’s spine.