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Irving Morrell rolled into Bowling Green with a smile on his face. The burnt-out Confederate barrels he rolled past were what made him happy. The Confederates had fought hard outside-they’d fought hard, and they’d got smashed. The one thing they managed to do was empty out most of their big supply dump and wreck what they couldn’t take away. The U.S. Army wouldn’t be able to salvage much. Given what the CSA had in Kentucky, logistics was one of the enemy’s strengths. Some capable officer or another probably needed killing.
Almost without thinking about it, Morrell brought his left hand up to his right shoulder. It still twinged every now and again. Now both sides used snipers and bombs and any other way they could find to try to murder their foes’ better leaders. It hardly seemed like war. Neither USA nor CSA seemed to care. Any weapon that came to hand, either side would use. When this war ended, one country or the other would lie flat on its back. The wi
Somebody’d painted FREEDOM! on a wall. Somebody else-or maybe the same Confederate patriot-had added several blue X’s: quick and easy shorthand for the C.S. battle flag. The Stars and Stripes might fly over Bowling Green, but the people still longed for the Stars and Bars.
Only a long lifetime ago, this town-this whole state-belonged to the USA. They spent a generation back in the USA after the Great War. The Negroes in Kentucky had liked that fine. Most of the whites had hated it. They thought of themselves as Confederates, and didn’t want to be U.S. citizens. The ones who did fled north when the CSA won the plebiscite in early 1941.
All of a sudden, Morrell stopped muttering and swore with savage fluency. “What’s wrong, sir?” Frenchy Bergeron asked.
“Nothing,” Morrell said. That was so patently untrue, he had to amend it: “Nothing I can do anything about, anyway.” How many whites-and maybe even blacks-who fled Kentucky after the plebiscite were really Confederate spies? That hadn’t occurred to him till now. He hoped it hadn’t because he was i
“Thinking about the next big push, sir?” the gu
“I’m always thinking about that,” Morrell said, and Sergeant Bergeron chuckled. He was a good gu
A couple of artillery shells burst off to the south. The Confederates were fighting hard-if anything, harder than Irving Morrell had expected. No matter how hard they were fighting, they were still losing ground. They were losing it almost fast enough to suit Morrell’s driving perfectionism-almost, but not quite. When he conceived his plan, he wanted the CSA wrecked in a single campaigning season. Unless the bastards in butternut flat-out collapsed, he didn’t think he could bring that off. He would have to slice the Confederacy in half in two installments. John Abell was right about that.
“Ask you something, sir?” Frenchy Bergeron said.
“Sure,” Morrell answered. “What’s on your mind?”
“When do we go for Nashville?” Bergeron asked. Morrell started to laugh. The gu
“You bet it is,” Morrell said. “And that’s what’s so damn fu
He never denied the military talent facing him. After what happened in Ohio, after what came much too close to happening in Pe
“Nashville…Nashville could be a real bitch,” Bergeron said. “Uh, sir.”
Why do I always get gu
Meanwhile, Sergeant Bergeron was waiting for an answer. “I expect we’ll come up with something,” Morrell said.
“Oh, yes, sir,” Frenchy said. “Don’t want to try crossing the river where you did the last time, though. What do you want to bet Featherston’s little chums’ll be laying for us there?”
“Jesus!” Morrell exploded. “You really do belong on the General Staff!”
“Not me, sir. I don’t want to go back to Philly. The people back there, they just talk about what’s supposed to happen. Me, I want to make that shit happen myself. They’re smarter’n I am, but I have more fun.”
“I feel the same way,” Morrell said, which was only partly true. No way in hell did he think the high foreheads back in Philadelphia were smarter than he was. A lot of the time, he thought they thought they were smarter than they really were. Of course, Frenchy might have been sandbagging, too.
“You know what you’re go
He was about as far removed from the chain of command as a soldier could be. That didn’t necessarily mean he was wrong. If, say, Morrell got hit standing up in the cupola, which could happen easily enough, somebody who knew what things were like at the front might have to do some talking to keep an attack moving smoothly till Brigadier General Parsons could take over. It would be highly unofficial. Chances were it wouldn’t show up in the after-action reports. It could be important, though.
“You’re going to be an officer before this war is done,” Morrell said.
How many times had he tried to promote Michael Pound? How many times had Pound said no? Now Pound was a lieutenant himself, and proving he deserved his rank. Morrell hadn’t expected anything different. As for Frenchy Bergeron, he said, “I hope so, sir.”
“I’ll promote you right now if you want,” Morrell said. “Only thing I don’t like about the deal is that I’ll have to break in a new gu
“Thank you, sir!” Bergeron said. “You want to wait till we get past Nashville, then? I figure there’ll be a lot of fighting up to there, and you’ll need me.”
“Deal,” Morrell said at once. “And I think you’re right. Getting over the Cumberland won’t be fun. But if we made it across the Ohio, we can do that, too.”
The U.S. spearhead broke out of Bowling Green heading south three days later. Air strikes took out a battery of Confederate rockets before they could salvo. Hearing that cheered Morrell no end. Those damn things could hamstring an advance before it really got going.
As usual, Morrell’s place was at the front. He wanted to see what happened, not hear about it later from somebody else. Officers who served on the General Staff didn’t understand that. To them, war was arrows on a map. To Morrell, it was shells going off and machine guns hammering and barrels brewing up and sending pillars of noxious black smoke into the sky and prisoners staggering out of the fight with shell shock on their faces and with their hands in the air. It was exhaust fumes and cordite and the sharp stink of fear. To the men of the General Staff, it was chess. They didn’t understand both sides were moving at once-and trying to steal pieces and knock over the board.