The Grapple

With C.S. forces holding Lookout Mountain to the south and Missionary Ridge to the east, the defensive position should have been ideal. But Potter couldn’t get anybody to listen to him.

George Patton had gone up to talk to the President. Even so, he kept fighting the campaign his own way: hurling troops and-worse-armor into fierce counterattacks, trying to throw the men in green-gray back over the Te

“Dammit, we can hit them in the flank and smash them!” Patton shouted, again and again. “It worked in Ohio! It worked in Pe

He didn’t mention that it hadn’t worked in Kentucky and here in Te

And the Yankees had the firepower edge, damn them. Whenever the Confederates surged to the attack, they got hit by artillery fire the likes of which they’d never seen in the fondly remembered days of 1941. Fighter-bombers roared across the battlefield, adding muscle to the bombardment. They had a much better chance of getting away to do it again than the slow, ungainly Confederate Asskickers did.

Even more revolting, the United States had not only more barrels but also better barrels. The Confederates desperately needed a new model to match or surpass the latest snorting monsters from Pontiac. They needed one, but where was it? Where were the engineers who could design it? Where were the steelworkers and auto workers who could build it?

Clarence Potter knew where they were. Too damn many of them were in uniform, doing jobs for which they weren’t ideally suited, just like him. The Confederacy was ru

After Patton’s third ferocious lunge failed to wipe out or even shrink the Yankee bridgehead on the south bank of the Te

“What are we supposed to do?” Patton rasped. “We’ve got to stop those bastards any way we can. If they get into Chattanooga…If they get past Chattanooga…We’re screwed if that happens. How do we stop ’em?”

Though for all practical purposes only an amateur here, Potter raised his hand. Again, he thought of himself in short pants. He hadn’t been shy then, and he wasn’t shy now. Patton pointed to him. “Let’s make the enemy come to us for a change,” he said. “Let’s pull back into the city and give him the fun of digging us out. That worked up in Pe

“It means abandoning the river line,” Patton said.

“Are we going to get it back, sir?” Potter asked.

Patton gave him a dirty look. Chances were the general commanding had intended his remark to close off debate, not keep it going. Potter nodded to himself. Yes, Patton had more than a little Jake Featherston in him. Well, too bad. He shouldn’t have called this council if he didn’t want to hear other people’s ideas.

“We will if we can get some more air support,” Patton said.

“From where?” Potter said. “The damnyankees have had more airplanes than we do ever since the Pe

Patton’s expression turned to outright loathing. He’d been in charge of the Pe

“If the airplanes come-” Patton tried again.

“Where will we get them from?” Potter repeated. “We can’t count on things we don’t have, or we’ll end up in even hotter water than we’re in now.”

“You talk like a damnyankee,” Patton said in a deadly voice. “I bet you think like a damnyankee, too.”

“By God, I hope so,” Potter said, which made Patton’s jaw drop. “About time somebody around here did, don’t you think? They’ve done a better job of thinking like us than we have of thinking like them, and we’re paying for it.”

“You haven’t got the offensive spirit,” Patton complained.

“Not when we don’t have anything but our mouths to be offensive with, no, sir,” Potter said. “The more we keep charging the U.S. lines, the more they slaughter us, the worse off we are. Let them come to us. Let them pay the butcher’s bill. Let them see how well they like that. Maybe we’ll be able to get out of this war with our freedom intact.” He used the word with malice aforethought.

“I’ll report you to the President,” Patton said.

“Go ahead. It’s nothing I haven’t told him, too,” Potter said cheerfully. “Having people who love you is all very well, but you need a few men who are there to tell you the truth, too.” He mocked Featherston’s wireless slogan as wickedly as he took the Freedom Party’s name in vain.

Several officers moved away from him, as if afraid whatever he had might be contagious. He saw a few men nod, though. Some people still had the brains to see that, if what they were doing now wasn’t working, they ought to try something else. He wondered whether Patton would.

No such luck. Potter hadn’t really expected anything different. He thought about going over Patton’s aggressive head and complaining to Jake Featherston himself-thought about it and dismissed it from his mind. Featherston was as fanatic about the offensive as Patton was, or he would have pulled back sooner in Pe

“We open the new counterattack at 0800 tomorrow,” Patton declared. “General Potter, you will be generous enough to include your brigade in the assault?”

Potter didn’t want to. What was the point of throwing it into the meat grinder now that it was rebuilt to the point of becoming useful again? Wasted materiel, wasted lives the Confederacy couldn’t afford to throw away…But he nodded. “Yes, sir. Of course, sir. I don’t disobey orders.”

“You find other ways to be insubordinate,” Patton jeered.

“I hope so, sir, when insubordination is called for.” Potter was damned if he’d let the other general even seem to put him in the wrong.

He got the brigade as ready as he could. If they were going to attack, he wanted them to do it up brown. He didn’t think they could reach the objectives Patton gave him, but he didn’t let on. Maybe he was wrong. He hoped so. If they succeeded, they really would hurt the U.S. forces on this side of the Te

It all turned out to be moot.

At 0700, Confederate guns in Chattanooga, on Lookout Mountain, and on Missionary Ridge were banging away at the Yankee bridgehead. Potter looked at his watch. One more hour, and then they would see what they would see.

But then a rumble that wasn’t gunfire filled the sky. Potter peered up with trepidation and then with something approaching awe. What looked like every U.S. transport airplane in the world was overhead. Some flew by themselves, while others towed gliders: they were so low, he could see the lines co

One stream made for Missionary Ridge, while the other flew right over Chattanooga toward Lookout Mountain. “Oh, my God!” Potter said, afraid he knew what he would see next.

And he did. String after string of paratroopers leaped from the transports. Their chutes filled the sky like toadstool tops. Confederate soldiers on the high ground started shooting at them while they were still in the air. Some of them fired back as they descended. By the sound of their weapons, they carried captured C.S. automatic rifles and submachine guns. The damnyankees had seized plenty, and the ammo to go with them, in their drive through Kentucky and Te