He pointed his arm out straight to signal that the guns had ceased firing. Wheat waved his men forward. The Tigers, moving forward with fixed bayonets and bowie knives at the ready, began infiltrating their way past the remains of the buildings demolished by Alexander’s artillery. Alexander heard rifle shots coming from the riddled buildings followed by screams as the Tigers cleared out the Rebels with bayonets and knives. The fighting lasted about twenty minutes, then the shooting and screaming ceased. Alexander heard the noise of other firefights echoing from other points in the city.
He watched as one deranged Confederate, slashed from head to toe with oozing wounds, came running back down the street waving a pile of bleeding guts from his bayonet like a flag.
“What you going to do with them guts, boy?” shouted a shock-crazed sergeant cradling a shattered arm as he propped himself up in a doorway.
“I’m gonna cook ‘em and eat ‘em!”
“Save some for me,” yelled the sergeant. “I can’t stand no more o’ that hardtack!” The sergeant howled with devilish laughter. Perhaps he was delirious from opium pills.
“Sure, Sarge!” yelled the boy. He dropped the rifle with its pile of gore still dangling from the bayonet. He hollered out the “Yip, yip, yeeee--eeee--yoooowwwwhhhooooooo” that had become known as the Union Yell. It faded as he ran off toward the river front.
Alexander was surprised at how little the sight affected him. A few days ago he might have vomited. Since then he had seen too much of the hand-to-hand city fighting that had driven the sanity from the young boy’s mind.
The walking wounded began coming in, followed by the severely wounded carried on doors that had been blasted off their hinges. The Rebel and Confederate soldiers were placed side by side in the basement of the building that Alexander was operating from. Their wounds were washed and then bound with scraps of cloth by the Tigers’ ever-present retinue of army camp whores, most of whom looked tougher than the men. Some spoke in Louisiana Cajun while others sounded like local girls the Tigers had picked up after Alexander’s artillery knocked down the cat houses by the riverfront.
Alexander heard these women use language that would have made the roughest stevedore blush. Yet their feminine nature showed itself in the tenderness of care they gave to the wounded of both sides. Some went to fetch pails of boiled water from the kettles in the makeshift hospitals closer to the riverfront. They passed around bottles of whiskey to the seriously wounded of both sides to ease their agony.
The lightly wounded and uninjured Rebel prisoners were being collected separately from the seriously wounded. They were watched carefully by armed Confederates prior to being escorted to the riverfront for processing as prisoners. One of the slightly injured men was a Rebel lieutenant.
“Care for a smoke,” Alexander asked the Rebel officer. When the Rebel nodded Alexander took a few pinches of tobacco out of his pouch, rolled them in a leaf, and passed it to him. A Confederate soldier used his smoke to light the Rebel’s.
“Much obliged,” said the Rebel.
Alexander lit his own and set down next to the Rebel.
“Not meaning to disturb you, but how long have you been in this war, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Been in it since the beginning,” answered the Rebel, after relishing a puff of smoke. “I was with Jacob Loomis’ men at Delphi. I was here during the Partisan War. That was more of a riot than a battle. This is a real war we’ve got on our hands.”
“It’s been a knock-down, drag-out fight,” Alexander agreed. “It’s cost us a lot of good men.” Including twenty-two of my best gunners killed by our own gun when it exploded.
“It wouldn’t have cost you anything if you’d go back home and leave us go in peace,” replied the Rebel. “We shouldn’t be fighting a war between brothers.”
“The politicians won’t leave the question of war up to us soldiers,” Alexander responded, not wishing to start an argument about which side was guilty of starting the war. “If they did there wouldn’t be any wars. I don’t know of any soldier who wouldn’t prefer peace. We’re the ones who do the dying when the talking stops.”
“Ain’t that ever so right,” replied the Rebel. “Nobody on our side wants to fight, I can tell you that. For us it’s a question of a border. Horace Greeley has proposed one that everybody up here thinks is fair. All your side has to do is accept it. That would end the fighting tomorrow.”
“President Davis is sworn to uphold the Constitution,” replied Alexander. “He won’t allow you Abolitionists to kidnap your states and take them out of the Union. No president of any party would allow that.”
The Rebel laughed. “Funny how we heard nothing but talk of Secession by the South for all these years. You people bent our ears back with your talk about how the states are sovereign. We are only exercising are rights under your doctrine!”
“Not everybody in the South agreed with that doctrine,” said Alexander. “We never had to put it to the test, Thank God. Stephen Douglas and Jefferson Davis put our Fire Eaters down. You Abolitionists should have calmed down too and let Douglas and Davis sort out our differences by Constitutional means.”
“I’m no Abolitionist, not by a longshot,” retorted the Rebel, between puffs of smoke billowing out of his mouth with gusto. “I’m no friend of slavery, of course, but I’m of no mind to tell you fellows what you should do with your Negroes. That’s something you’ll have to figure out for yourselves in your own good time.”
“If you don’t care about slavery why are you fighting to leave the Union?”
“I’m fighting for the United States of Free America. Nothing against you Southerners, but we don’t want to be governed by you. We’re a different people.”
“You are?” asked Alexander.
“We’re mostly city people. You folks are farmers and plantation crackers. Not saying you’re bad people, but you’re holding us back. We want a government that builds our canals and railroads, protects our industries, and opens the West for settlement. We want to get on with our business in a new country where we don’t have to be bothered by you or your Negroes. We’d still like to be your friends, of course, but living in a country of our own making. I’m ready and willing to die fighting for my country. Are you willing to die to force me to be part of yours?”
“I’m sorry it’s come to that,” said Alexander. “I’m a West Pointer. Some of my friends are fighting on your side. I wish we had all tried a little harder to live with each other before we resorted to war.”
The Rebel nodded and puffed. “Maybe so,” he said noncommittally, not wanting to carry on a fruitless discussion about who to blame either. “Trouble is the fighting got started and took on a life of its own.” He sighed and let out a cloud of smoke. “That’s how most wars get started, isn’t it?”
“Reckon so,” replied Alexander. “What’s your name, by the way?”
“Jeremiah Sloan, but call me Jerry.”
“Pleased to meet you, Jerry. I’m Porter Alexander. I hope we’ll live long enough to meet in peace one day.”
“Much obliged for the smoke,” the Rebel said again. “God be with you.”
The Confederate guards motioned the Rebel lieutenant to join the group of walking wounded they were escorting to the river.
Alexander watched them go. He puffed on his hand-rolled cigar while deciding that now would be a good time to advance his observation post across Seventh Street in order to call in artillery fire when the next forward movement began. But he would take a few minutes to rest first. He thought about his conversation with the Rebel lieutenant.