An M-1 at Fort Donelson

Illustration by Jonathan and Lisa Hunt

It was a wet winter in north central Tennessee, rainy and chilly in Stewart County, and rivers and branches were on the rise. The day had been mild, almost like spring; there had been a rare winter thunderstorm and just before it quit raining a lightning bolt split the big old oak down by the creek.

The smell of ozone still hung in the air when Jem Hardaway caught sight of the stranger, afoot—on shank’s mare, Aunt Jessie called it—plodding through the woodlot toward the house.

Jem, sitting on the white-columned veranda, called over his shoulder: “Rich, bring me my gun.”

“Yas suh, Mistuh Jem,” said the slave, and disappeared into the house.

It might be an unnecessary precaution. There hadn’t been any Yankee raiders in this area and the white trash stayed away from Five Oaks. But the word had come down that Fort Henry, twelve miles west, had fallen and Federal scouts might be out.

Jem sat in the wicker-backed chair, rocking gently and looking out at the twilight sky. Jem’s grey coat lay across his shoulders against the cold, moist breeze from the southwest. Thin curry-comb clouds skimmed across the sky and black Uncle Jobe, quoting his ancient joints, was predicting snow in the next few days.

The stranger was hallway up the winding road through the woodlot when Rich reappeared with Jem’s gun, a three-foot Sharps carbine with iron-bound walnut stock, made by S. C. Robinson in Richmond. It was not a common gun and Jem was fond of it.

Jem saw that the man also carried a musket loosely under his arm but he was not in uniform. A hunter, maybe—but his olive-brown jacket and trousers were clothes such as Jem had never seen.

Jem laid his carbine across his knees and shifted in his rocker, easing the wounded hip. The spotted guineas went pot-racking around the corner of the house as the stranger opened the gate to the front yard, their red-wattled heads jerking back and forth in alarm. He came up the weathered brick walk toward Jem.

The stranger was elderly, maybe sixtyish, wearing a cap of the same color as his clothes which from its shape could be either Confederate or Yankee. A tentative smile was on his face and he lifted his free hand in a half-hearted flap of greeting.

“Evenin’,” said Jem flatly, shifting the carbine slightly to point in the newcomer’s general direction. The man stopped at the foot of the wooden porch steps, looking up at him.

“Hello,” said the man. “I’m looking for the way to Fort Donelson.”

It wasn’t a Yankee accent but it wasn’t from around here, either.

“You can go east to the Nashville and Charlotte Road or the other way to Wynn’s Ferry Road and turn no’th,” said Jem. The man wasn’t likely a Yankee scout if he was headed for Donelson. The fort was a Confederate stronghold. “ ’Bout the same distance either way. But it’s four or five miles to Dover. You don’t aim to walk it tonight, do you?”

“I don’t know what else. I don’t have a horse.”

“Well, it’s gettin’ dark for travelin’ when you don’t know your way. Come up and set a spell, and we’ll have us a whiskey.”

As the man came up the steps Jem turned and held out the carbine to Rich.

“Rich, hold this firearm for me,” he said. Rich could handle the carbine and would react instantly if the stranger made the wrong move. “And holler to Tammie to fix us a pair of hot toddies. Tell her we’ve got company for supper.”

“Thanks,” said the stranger. “That’s the kind of Southern hospitality I’ve always heard about. I’m Harry Vick. Harry Maitland Vick. From… from Union City.”

“Lieutenant Jem Hardaway, C.S.A., Colonel Forrest’s Tennessee Cavalry.” Jem waved him to another of the wicker-backed rockers. Vick sat down and Jem noticed his shoes: heavy shoes, farm-type shoes, now splashed with mud. Shoes that meant business.

Jem looked at the newcomer’s weapon curiously as he laid it on the porch floor beside him, and commented, “Uncommon-lookin’ musket. Foreign?”

“Garand M-l,” replied the other.

It must be foreign. Jem had never heard the name. Vick picked it up and handed it to him for inspection.

“Breech-loader?” asked Jem, not able to make too much out of the strange mechanism. He handed it back and indicated his Sharps. “Mine is. You get any flashback?”

“Not so you’d notice,” replied Vick briefly.

Tammie, a saucy-looking black girl of thirteen, brought their drinks. The two men sat and sipped at the warm whiskey as the twilight deepened.

“What you want to get to Fort Donelson for?” Jem asked. “Sellin’ supplies?”

Jem thought he had Vick pegged now: a trader, maybe agent for some company. Maybe the strange breech-loading gun was a sample. Only thing was, it looked like if he was going to offer a new kind of gun to the Army he’d take it up with somebody like General Johnston at Bowling Green, not a subordinate like General Tilghman at Fort Donelson.

Vick evaded the question. Instead of settling back expansively and touting the superiority of his wares, as Jem expected, he countered.

“You say you’re a lieutenant,” said Vick. “Why aren’t you on the line somewhere, with the Federals cornin’ down through Kentucky?”

“I don’t know that they’re movin’ east from Fort Henry,” demurred Jem, sensing criticism. “I’m with Forrest’s cavalry and by rights I ought to be at Donelson. I took a minie ball in the hip on a raid. It’s not a bad wound but, livin’ so close, I came home to heal. I’m due back with my troop at Donelson in a week.”

“Too late. It’ll be in Union hands,” said Vick positively. “Fort Henry fell four days ago.”

“So they say. We heard the artillery here.”

“Three days from now Grant will move on Fort Donelson with fifteen thousand troops under McClernand, Smith, and Wallace, and he’ll take it unless I can get over there and get my job done. If Donelson falls it’s the beginning of the end for the South.”

Jem stared at him. Vick spoke with the confidence of some general on President Davis’s staff with an overall view of the wartime situation.

“Just who are you?” demanded Jem. “How do you know what the Yankees figure on doin’—if you do? And what makes you think fifteen thousand Bluebellies can take a fort like Donelson? There’s more Confederates there than that and it takes a five-to-one advantage to capture a strongpoint.”

“That’s the way it should be,” said Vick. “But Floyd will lose his nerve and surrender Donelson. More important than Donelson, if Grant lives he’ll win the war for the North.”

“Floyd? General Tilghman’s in command at Donelson.”

“Not any more. Tilghman was captured at Fort Henry. Pillow arrived at Fort Donelson today and Floyd will take over from him four days from now.”

Vick took a large, appreciative swig of his toddy, looking thoughtfully out over the yard. It was winter-bare, its flower beds asleep, its trees leafless. A Dominecker hen clucked among the fallen, sodden leaves. Beyond the white picket fence half a dozen horses nosed at what grass they could find in the woodlot.

“Well now, Mistuh Vick,” Jem drawled, “I don’t reckon you got second sight to prognosticate what Gen’l Floyd or that Yankee Gen’l Grant’s goin’ to do but, still and all, you do seem to know a lot about troop movements on both sides. I’d like to know how that is.”

“Take my word for it, I know what’s going to happen here,” replied Vick. “The Union general, Grant, is one of the two keys to the fall of Fort Donelson. And if you’ll help me get to that area in time, I think I know a way to assassinate Grant.”

Corporal Harry Vick was wearing this same uniform, not quite so tight on him, with helmet instead of fatigue cap, as his unit, the Second Battalion of the Rainbow Division’s 222nd Infantry, crossed the Rhine on Easter Eve to be greeted by an overly friendly German population. Staring at the welcoming throng, Corporal Jerry McKenneth commented scornfully, “No, not a single Nazi in that bunch!”

After that things toughened up and there were heavy battles at Wurzburg and Donauworth before they conquered Munster and crossed the Lech. Then an escapee from the concentration camp at nearby Dachau stumbled up, crying desperately for aid, and the men of the Second Battalion raced for the camp ahead of their armor, in jeeps and trucks, on bicycles, any way they could get there.

Vick was in one of the few jeeps in which, along with an armored car, General Linden sped ahead of his troops to the camp. Beside Vick bounced Giszczewski, that pigheaded Yankee from Detroit who contended stubbornly about the terrible way black people were treated in the south.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Vick would argue in exasperation. “There’s segregation but hell, Giszczewski, all those tales about them being mistreated are Yankee propaganda.”

“You can’t tell me,” Giszczewski maintained. “I know. I spent six months in the South once.”

Such disputes were still regionally based in those waning days of World War II. To Vick there was no inconsistency that he should feel close comradeship with fellows from Vermont, from Illinois and New York, and yet hold to his passionate conviction that their grandfathers should have lost the War Between the States (if, indeed, they had even fought in it).

“I suppose you’ve never read Uncle Tom’s Cabin?” George Lassiter, a PFC from Massachusetts, contributed once to the argument between Vick and Giszczewski.

“Of course I have,” said Vick. “A long time ago. To the extent it wasn’t abolitionist propaganda it described conditions that undoubtedly occurred but rarely. I’m not a racist and I’ve no sympathy for the Klan and nuts like that. But the historical fact is that slaves were generally treated well, even with affection. Look at it reasonably, George: a slave-owner wouldn’t damage valuable and expensive property.”

“That’s the whole point,” said Lassiter. “Property. Human property. Slavery was an evil that could no longer be condoned.”

It was a running argument forgotten as they moved through the poplars outside Dachau and exchanged fire with a few SS defenders. The skirmish was over quickly—the men of the 45th (Thunderbird) Division coming in from the east were the ones who ran into the sharpest fighting.

They approached the main gate by way of the marshaling yard, where trainloads of deportees arrived and departed—and Vick was sickened to see dozens of boxcars filled with piled corpses, from Birkenau.

“God!” muttered Giszczewski in horror. “God, God, God!” He turned away and vomited.

At the Jourhaus, the main gate with its inscription ARBEIT MACHT FREI, a tank had to take out the SS guards in a watchtower before they could enter. They were greeted by an SS lieutenant, blond and perfumed, impeccably uniformed, who surrendered the camp with a Nazi salute and a “Heil Hitler!” The major just ahead of Vick spat in the lieutenant’s face and growled, “Du Schweinehund!” A few minutes later Vick heard a burst of machine gun fire; he learned later the outraged men of the 45th summarily exterminated the scores of SS guards remaining in the Dachau Konzentrationslager. Even their dogs were shot.

Vick would never forget the aura of horror into which they walked that day in Dachau: the thousands of skeleton-thin prisoners, screaming and yelling in their prison-stripe garb, the mountain of pitiful corpses outside the crematorium, the arched ovens with vault-like doors opening on human ashes… the stench of death everywhere.

The memory of Dachau was dulled for Vick over those forty years before he found the opportunity to go back in time, but it did not vanish. It was a memory put to one side because there was no way to cancel its horror.

The gathering darkness converted the two men to mere shadows and Rich, in the background, was invisible. It was getting uncomfortably cold on the veranda. Before Jem could sort out Vick’s peculiar response the front door opened and the silhouette of a very large black woman was framed in it.

“Suppuh’s on table, Mistuh Jem,” she announced.

“Be right there, Aunt Jessie,” said Jem, arising. “I reckon you’re ready for somethin’ to eat, Mr. Vick—and a warm fire.”

Rich took charge of both men’s guns and Vick followed Jem into the house. It was not a mansion like some in Nashville but it was spacious, with white-columned veranda two stories tall. Jem’s folks had lived their lives here and he had been born in the big bedroom upstairs. They passed through the tall-ceilinged hall, past the musty-scented parlor, Tammie preceding them with a lighted candelabrum. When they turned into the dining room, where a fireplace at one end sent out a welcome warmth, Prudence was already there, seated at the foot of the table in a low-cut, hoop-skirted red dress with puffed sleeves. She arose as the two men entered.

“Mr. Vick, this is my second cousin, Prudence Hardaway,” Jem introduced them. “My parents are dead and Pru’s stayin’ here to run the place while I’m away. We’ll be married as soon as the South wins this war—I’m guessin’ late this year or next.”

“Glad to meet you, Miss Hardaway,” said Vick and took the seat she indicated halfway down the table between them. “You have a nice place here.”

Prudence rang a small bell beside her plate and Aunt Jessie came in from the kitchen.

“Aunt Jessie, you may start serving now,” instructed Prudence.

“Miss Hardaway, I wish you and the lieutenant all happiness,” said Vick courteously, “but I’d advise you folks not to wait but get married now. This war’s going to last into 1865 and times will be hard for the South—if I fail.”

“Mr. Vick,” Jem informed Prudence, seating himself at the head of the table, “fancies he knows what’s goin’ to happen, ahead of time. Mr. Vick, that’s the second time you’ve said the South is going to lose the war unless you… get to Fort Donelson, I think you’re sayin’. Now, sir, I don’t like to doubt the prediction—I don’t say ‘gumption’—of a guest, but I question if any one individual can decide the course of this war.”

Vick smiled at him. Slaves brought in the food: fried chicken, potatoes, snap beans canned in jars from the previous summer, spiced peaches, good strawberry wine from last spring.

“Grant is such an individual, who will determine the course of the war,” Vick said. “Before you dispute my word, think where the South would be now if it weren’t for General Lee.”

“Lee? He’s doin’ all right in Virginia but General Albert Sidney Johnston’s the military genius of this war,” said Jem.

“Johnston’s made a mistake about Fort Donelson,” replied Vick wryly. “It’s mistakes like that that’ll lose the Civil War for the South.”

“The War for Southern Independence, Mr. Vick,” corrected Prudence somewhat stiffly.

Jem was puzzled and a little irritated at Vick’s air of absolute certainty about the way things were going to happen. But Vick did seem very sure of his knowledge of Yankee troop movements and it might be wise to listen to what he had to say.

“The South’s going to win the war, Mr. Vick,” Jem said. “If you’re right that we’ve lost Fort Henry then it’s a setback, but even if Donelson should fall—which I doubt—this is only the rim of the Confederacy. Our generals are better’n the Yankees have and we fight for a sacred cause, our freedom, our Southern ideals of chivalry and liberty. The rabble Lincoln’s gathered for his armies will get tired of fightin’ to put money in the bankers’ pockets after a few more defeats like Bull Run. But you’ve got me curious. What makes you think Donelson’s goin’ to fall?”

“Accept my premise that I know what I’m talking about,” said Vick. “At least till you hear me out. Lieutenant, I was born in the South, my ancestors were Southerners from long before the Civil… the War for Southern Independence… and I want to change the way things are going to happen and see that the South does win the war.”

Jem stared at the man.

“By killin’ Grant? With that gun of yours?” he asked.

“With that gun.”

Jem was impressed by the man’s earnestness. He looked down the table at Prudence. There was a mixture of concern and amusement in her blue eyes. Pru was a level-headed young woman. She would make him a right wife.

Pru always brought that song to Jem’s mind: I dream of Jeannie with the light brown hair…

“As I see it, Mr. Vick, all you’re so sure’s goin’ to happen is just guesswork, because it hasn’t been decided yet,” he said tolerantly. “Why Fort Donelson, particularly?”

“Fort Henry didn’t fall through any failure of Southern arms but because it was built on such low ground the Tennessee River flooded it out and its troops were armed with shotguns and 1812 flintlocks,” said Vick. “Donelson’s on high ground and strong enough to hold. But when Grant brings his forces against it in the next few days it will fall because of indecision on the part of the Confederate generals there. Nashville and all of western Tennessee will follow.”

Vick paused to take out his handkerchief and wipe his brow. With the fire, the room was rather warm.

“Even with Grant deep in northern Mississippi and Lee failing in his invasion of Maryland,” he went on, “by the end of next year there’s going to be such widespread weariness with the war in the North that so influential a force as the Chicago Tribune will urge that a boundary be set by armistice and the Confederacy recognized as an independent nation. If Donelson could hold and western Tennessee be kept, that peace movement could succeed and leave the South free.”

Again Jem was impressed in spite of himself. Conquest of West Tennessee? Lee’s invasion of Maryland? Vick was pretending to a knowledge of the general military picture that Jem, in active military service, lacked.

“My goodness!” interposed Prudence, almost crossly. “Jem, I wish you gentlemen could find a better subject to discuss than the war, at dinner! I’m tired of hearin’ about it.”

“Honey, the war’s here and it’s something we have to live with till it’s over, whether we like it or not,” said Jem.

He studied Vick’s face, down the table. Vick was something past middle age, with short-clipped grey hair, but he appeared in good physical shape for his age. And Jem thought he had Vick figured out now.

Both the North and the South had secret agents all through each other’s territory—it was easy, since they shared the same language and basically the same culture. These agents were civilians—spies—but they reported directly to the military and operated under military orders. Vick was evidently a Confederate spy and with Grant’s movement southward through Kentucky he had been assigned to gather information on the Union forces’ movements and plans.

Through his spy work Vick apparently had discovered this minor general, Grant, was more important than the South realized, indeed was the linchpin of a broad Western strategy by the Union. Vick had been assigned to make his way to Fort Donelson and assure that the fort hold out if possible… and he must be a top-flight agent if his assignment included an effort to assassinate Grant, with a special weapon.

They finished dinner and the house servants began clearing away their plates.

“I don’t know anything about your gun,” said Jem, “but assassinatin’ a Yankee general ain’t all that simple or I reckon we’d’ve been doin’ it all along. We can talk about it some more alter supper. We’re pretty informal here, Mr. Vick, and Pru’ll join us in the parlor while we have brandy and cigars. Aunt Jessie’ll have the house servants fix up one of the sleepin’ rooms for you tonight. You can’t go on in the cold, a lost stranger in the night.”

They had sweet potato pie for dessert, then repaired to the little-used parlor, where another wood fire burned in a wide fireplace, keeping the room pleasantly warm. Rich brought the men peach brandy and cigars, and Tammie served coffee to Prudence.

“Now then, the problem with your plan is, you’re not likely to get anywhere close enough to Grant to get a shot at him,” Jem opened. “Tarnation, man, if these Yankee generals weren’t well guarded in the middle of their outfits don’t you think our cavalry’d have picked off a few of them by now? We been try in’.”

“Your cavalry doesn’t have advance knowledge of where they’re going to be. Six days from now Grant’s going to leave his headquarters in front of Fort Donelson to ride downriver and meet with Commodore Foote, who’ll have been wounded the day before in an unsuccessful gunboat attack on the fort. There’ll be only one orderly with him.”

Now that had to be pure fantasy! There was no way Vick could know in advance that a Yankee admiral would be wounded or that Grant would choose to go to a conference with him without adequate protection. It was hard to sift the fire from the smoke in the things Vick said.

“There’ll be Yankee troops in the area, if they’re plannin’ an attack,” Jem pointed out.

“The 20th Ohio, moving into position from the river landing. We can be in the woods a good distance from the road and get him. Up to twelve hundred yards away.”

“Twelve hun… what kind of musket you reckon you’ve got there, mister? And you said ‘we.’ ”

“You know the country and I need a guide.”

Jem squirmed.

“Mr. Vick, you talk like you know a lot about troop movements,” he said, “but I don’t reckon you know much about actual fightin’. If you turn out to be right and Yankee troops move on Fort Donelson, patrols from both sides are goin’ to be out. One thing don’t make sense to me in what you just said is that Yankee general’d have to be tetched in the head or drunk to ride out by himself. There’ll be Confederate scouts prowlin’ through them woods… and Yankee scouts too, and some of them could pick us off.”

“I don’t know if he’ll be drunk—they say he likes his liquor—but Grant’s going to take that risk,” said Vick confidently. “I tell you, I know that. And I’m willing to take the risk to knock him off—if you’ll show me the way up there.”

Jem looked him over, swirling the brandy in his glass. It was good peach brandy from his own trees, clear as water.

He considered Vick’s request. The man’s insistent claim to foreknowledge defied good sense. But Jem was a fighting man and he didn’t know much about the spy business. Maybe the Confederacy had such an efficient organization it had an agent on Grant’s personal staff and was privy to the way the general operated in intimate detail.

“We-e-ell, I am used to striking sudden-like, with Forrest’s riders,” he decided, “and I got nothin’ against turkey-shootin’ a Yankee general. I’m prob’ly makin’ a mistake but I’ll go along with you and see what happens. When you figure on goin’?”

“We have to get up there day after tomorrow and wait for him,” said Vick. “Grant and the federal troops will be moving into the area the next day and the way north from here’ll be blocked.”

“All right, then. We’ll rest here tomorrow and give my leg one more day of healin’, then we’ll get an early start the next day. The ground up there’s flooded and the roads’re in pretty bad shape.”

They said their good nights, Prudence left for her boudoir and Tammie led Vick upstairs to the spare bedroom. In the hall Aunt Jessie was waiting to light the way for Jem, a kerosene lamp in her ample hand.

“Where’s Rich, Aunt Jessie?” asked Jem.

“He went out to the bahn, Mistuh Jem,” said the old mammy. “He wanted to make sure them triflin’ stable nigguhs put yo’ horse up right.”

“Well, I won’t wait up for him. When he comes back you tell him I want him to pack up some things tomorrow for a ride north day after tomorrow, early. I want him to go with me to show Mr. Vick the way to the fort.”

Aunt Jessie stuck out a belligerent lower lip.

“You ain’t gon’ do no such thing, Mistuh Jem,” she announced firmly. “The doctor done said you don’ go back to soldierin’ till next week and you’s gonna stay right here and heal that hip like he said.”

Jem laughed.

“Aunt Jessie, I’m not the little boy you can order around, not any more,” he said. “And you can’t tell on me to Miss Vinnie any more when I don’t pay attention to you. I’m goin’ and I’ll be all right. You just see to it Miss Pru doesn’t have any trouble keepin’ the servants in line while I’m gone. Now let’s go upstairs so I can get some sleep.”

“Mistuh Jem, Miss Prudence gon’ th’ow a fit, you goin’ off again so soon when you don’ have to,” she surrendered with a resigned shake of her head. “But you always was a hard-headed little scalawag. Don’ you go off to sleep too quick now, because when Rich gets back I’m aimin’ to send him upstairs to rub some warm salve on that hip o’ yourn.”

Jem was in bed dozing off when Rich appeared to massage his hip with salve. Jem told him what Vick had said and what he had in mind to do. The slave shook his head, his competent hands busy.

“You b’lieve that, Mistuh Jem?” he asked. “That there white man ain’t no Suth’n agent. If he’s sayin’ he knows some Yankee gen’l’s gon’ ride up that road by hisse’f he’s jest tetched in the haid—and if you believes him and goes up there and gets yo’se’f shot by some Yankee in them woods, you’s tetched in the haid.”

Jem chuckled, not taking offense. Jem and the slave had grown up together and there was considerable affection between them. Rich felt privileged to talk straight to him much as Aunt Jessie did.

O mirabile dictu! To be in dreamed-of Gilead, and Gilead as sweet and scented as those dreams! Tammie turning down Vick’s big four-poster bed, Tammie young and black and alive in her simple home-spun frock, was a miracle of substantiality.

He was in the Old South, the historic South, in person, in the body. This gracious land! He felt like hugging the little slave girl—but the gesture probably would frighten her, make her think he wanted something of her tonight he didn’t.

Uncle Toni’s Cabin… the thought quivered with scorn. Tammie and Rich and Aunt Jessie were cared for better, were visibly more content, than the jobless and hopeless blacks in the inner cities of his own 20th century.

When Tammie left and he was undressing for bed Vick felt that in a very real sense he was home again. It was so much like his bedroom in the rambling pre-Civil War house during his boyhood in rural West Tennessee. There had been no slave-girl to turn down the covers but the bed with its tall headboard under the fourteen-foot ceiling wasn’t too different from this four-poster—and the lights were kerosene lamps, the roads were dirt, automobiles were few and he was seven years old before he saw his first radio.

There was no servile “yassuh, mas-tuh” and “nawsuh, mastuh” for young Harry Vick from the colored family always esconced in the cabin across the woodlot to work in the fields. Sometimes when they had rabbit or possum he got to eat supper with them. The black boys of his own age wrestled with him (and usually whipped him) and argued with him over who should get to ride the horse and who was relegated to the mules; the black girls lit on him for inadvertently using the word “nigguh” and his first sex experience was with one of them. Flora, who cooked and kept house, sleeping on a shuck mattress in the little room off the kitchen, fussed at him for not eating a proper breakfast.

But of course racial segregation was strict, and accepted. Despite the informality of his conversation and relations with the black folk on the farm, Harry was the young master, and knew it. Reading books like Two Little Confederates and The Klansman, he was imbued with the viewpoint and values of Southern chivalry by Granny—actually his great grandmother.

Granny had Thurman, their black chauffeur, park the Graham-Paige at the curb in front of Verhine’s Department Store, largest in town. Granny liked Mr. Verhine personally and always greeted him pleasantly on the street, sometimes stopping to chat with him. But she made no move to leave the parked car, instead handing Thurman a list of items to buy in the store.

“Why can’t we go in, Granny?” asked Harry, who liked to watch the overhead baskets traveling across the store with their orders and their cargoes of merchandise.

“I will never set foot in a Yankee store,” replied Granny firmly and righteously.

Granny had lived through “the Wah” and Reconstruction. She remembered the invading Union armies, the burning of once-stately mansions, the ravaged fields, near-starvation, the arrogance and sometimes violence of once-slaves egged on by scalawags and carpetbaggers.

It was largely from Granny’s girlhood reminiscences that Harry acquired his image of the Old South as a gracious land, dreaming peacefully amid its fields and forests and streams, its courtly inhabitants served by loyal, polite black slaves who were cared for and appreciated—treated affectionately, as their own black servants usually were. A South of past nobility and abundance, honeysuckle-scented in imagery so intense it was almost memory.

Vick’s own boyhood resembled that fancied South of hardly more than half a century earlier closely enough for the vast changes in the American scene that began with the Depression and progressed through World War II to jar on him, offend him. Instead of the quiet fields and woods of the remembered farm there was the crude congestion of the cities; instead of horseback across the fields and the relaxed comfort of majestic trains winding through the countryside there were the impersonal superhighways and the inconvenience of crowded airplanes.

If there were only some way he could restore that dreamed-of South whose expiring edges he once had known… somewhere in one of his college history courses he’d come across that information about Grant riding alone up Telegraph Road before the Battle of Fort Donelson.

He hadn’t been quite fair to Dr. Edgington, he had to admit to himself. When, taking advantage of his friendship with the scientist, he volunteered for Edgington’s first time travel experiment he left the impression he planned to go back only a few years and use the M-1 for hunting in his childhood environment. Instead, once in the machine, he set the dial for early February in 1862.

Now back in the Old South of which he had dreamed, Vick slept well that night in the soft warmth of his eiderdown mattress and his quilted comforter.

They loafed around Five Oaks the next day, Rich and some of the other slaves making preparations for their journey. When Jem told Prudence what he proposed to do she took the side of Rich and Aunt Jessie.

“Jem, you don’t know that man,” she protested. “He may be leading you into a trap.”

“A simple lieutenant?” Jem laughed. “The Yankees wouldn’t take the trouble. And if he does know where that Yankee general’s goin’ to be it’s too good a chance to pass up.”

During the morning Jem gave rein to his curiosity about Vick’s weapon. He had seen literally dozens of different kinds of guns among the Southern troops—many of them brought their own from their homes and there were a lot of imports—but Vick’s appeared more sophisticated than any he had seen.

“How’d you come by that musket?” asked Jem. “You did say it’s foreign, didn’t you?”

“I suppose Garand was French, though I don’t know,” answered Vick. “It’s the weapon I used when I fought in a different war. It’s .30-caliber.”

Vick handed the gun over and Jem fondled it carefully. What had fascinated him from the first was its smooth, sleek shape, so much more graceful than the rifle muskets the soldiers carried, even more so than his Sharps carbine. Now he admired the quality of the steel in the barrel and mechanism. Where the hammer of his Sharps stuck up was a round gadget Vick called a windage knob.

“Thirty-caliber? The line soldier’s rifle muskets are .58-caliber,” he said. “My Sharps is .52-caliber. You say this has a range of twelve hundred yards?” Four hundred was considered good for the Enfield rifle muskets that were the soldiers’ best weapons. “How hard is it to reload?”

“Does it automatically,” replied Vick. “Eight cartridges in the magazine. All you have to do is keep pulling the trigger. The operating rod gives trouble sometimes and target shooters have had some problem with the barrel riding up in rapid-fire shooting. It suited me, though.”

Automatic reloading. That was hard for Jem to believe, though he knew there’d been a lot of work done toward developing rapid-fire guns and a man named Gatling claimed some success at it. To fire repeatedly without having to reload! If the Confederate command had a source of these for their troops—and maybe Vick’s assignment was in part a test of such a weapon—they’d send the Yankees scooting back North in short order! The problem with the rapid-fire experiments had been inaccuracy, due to recoil and inability to aim as fast as the gun fired. The 1861 rifle musket could hit a knothole at a hundred yards in the hands of a good shot.

Jem itched to fire this piece Vick called a “Garand M-l” but Vick wouldn’t allow that. He said he had no shells with him except the eight in the magazine. Since Vick wasn’t apt to get the chance for more than two or three shots at this Grant, no matter how fast the gun would fire, Jem thought this was being overly cautious. But it was Vick’s musket and Jem didn’t know what plans Vick might have after completing his objective.

The two men strolled leisurely past the barn and along the edge of a thicket, Jem limping slightly on his wounded leg. In the thicket slaves were cutting and raking underbrush, loading into a mule-drawn wagon.

“Of course if we can bag a Yankee general it’s better’n pickin’ off a few riflemen,” said Jem. “But there have to be other Yankee generals in a force that size, to take over if Grant falls.”

“I told you Grant’s the key to Northern victory,” said Vick. “Smith’s the only other general in this force who can fight and he’ll be on the left, west of the fort. When Pillow surprises the Federals with an attack from the fort across Indian Creek through Dover, he’ll roll up the flank of McClernand’s right wing. Only Grant’s return from downriver will rally and reorganize the Union troops and turn defeat into victory for them.”

Jem shook his head.

“You’re predictin’ and prognosticatin’ like Aunt Jessie does sometimes when the ‘sperrit comes on her’ as she calls it, drawin’ lines in the dust with a stick,” he said. “But I reckon you got your orders and I’ll guide you up there. If there’s goin’ to be fightin’ at Fort Donelson I ought to rejoin my outfit there a few days early, anyhow.”

“I’m hoping we can get into the fort through enemy lines after we’ve taken care of Grant,” said Vick. “You don’t have a spare uniform I could wear, do you?”

“Guess one of mine’d fit you well enough, maybe a little tight. I can get Aunt Jessie to let it out if I have to. But why? It won’t help you get a bead on Grant and it’ll just make you a target for Yankee soldiers if they spot you. Them clothes you got on don’t mark you for either side.”

“I won’t put it on until after we’ve gotten Grant and start out for the fort. You want to get into the fort to rejoin your outfit but I want to get in for a different reason. I told you Grant’s one of the keys to this Union victory. Buckner’s the other.”

“General Buckner? At Fort Donelson? You’re not aimin’ to shoot him, are you? I can’t let you do that!”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary. After smashing McClernand’s position and opening the road to Nashville Pillow’ll pull back into the fort instead of exploiting the breakthrough. Floyd’s in command but Pillow’s going to persuade him to sit there until Grant counterattacks and then Floyd will decide on surrender.”

“Man, you talk like you can read the thinkin’ of all them generals! But that don’t make sense,” protested Jem. “You wreck an enemy’s position and you don’t back off and surrender. You keep goin’ and drive him back on the Tennessee River.”

“Exactly the way Forrest will see it—except he’s not in command.”

“Well, dawg bite it, Mr. Vick, he couldn’t be in command!” protested Vick. “He ain’t nothin’ but a colonel!”

“Too bad he’s not a general yet,” said Vick. “He will be, and one of the famous ones. At Donelson he’ll end up taking his cavalry out of there and riding right through the Union lines to freedom when Floyd and Pillow skip out by boat and leave Buckner to surrender to Grant. I want to pose as a messenger from General Johnston at Bowling Green and fake a message to Floyd putting Buckner in command. Buckner’s the junior of the three generals but he’s a good enough officer to attack, get around behind the Federal lines and crush them, especially if I can make sure Grant’s out of it.”

Jem stared at him. Why such a deception? If the High Command wanted Buckner in command, why not just issue the orders openly? Or was this in-service politics, Johnston refusing to ditch Floyd and Pillow, and President Davis’s staff in Montgomery choosing this way of getting around him? The different states retained such autonomy in the Confederacy that such was possible.

“You expect to get away with that?” demanded Jem. “I don’t know any of these generals but…”

“I’m counting on you to be with me,” said Vick. “You’re a member of Forrest’s outfit, they know you and if I go into the fort with you they won’t doubt my claim to be a messenger from Johnston.”

“I don’t know if I’ll go along with you on somethin’ like that,” said Jem. “But I’m willin’ to take a chance on shootin’ Grant if he does show up on that road north.”

Jem wrestled in his own mind with the problem of Harry Vick the rest of that day. The man’s claim to foreknowledge of Grant’s movements and subsequent importance to the Yankee cause was simply preposterous. What concerned Jem was how the Confederate high command could have learned enough of Yankee strategy for Vick—if he was legitimate and not just a crazy man—to predict its troop disposition around Fort Donelson. He felt he was being foolish, embarking on a snipe hunt, but it was true the Yankees were likely to move on Fort Donelson right away after capturing Fort Henry. If the chances of Vick’s information being right were anywhere close to even filling an inside straight it was worth the trouble of accompanying him up the road.

That afternoon Jem took Vick with him down the road to Lucas Westford’s farm to pick up a pattern for Pru from Mrs. Westford, since he’d be leaving Five Oaks in the morning. Also he wanted to see how well Vick handled himself on a horse, and was pleased that Vick did so quite passably. Some of these civilian agents were city folk who didn’t ride horseback too well.

There were no true plantations in this area as in West Tennessee, where cotton was a prominent crop, but the Westford place was considerably larger than Five Oaks and had a large complement of slaves to keep it up. Lucas Westford was in his sixties and hadn’t been called into service yet—all four of their sons were in the Confederate Army. Greying and heavily bearded, he was sitting in front of a big fire in the living room, smoking his pipe, when the black houseman let Jem and Vick in.

“Hello there, Uncle Luke,” Jem greeted Westford, backing up to the fire. Lucas Westford was not a relative but in the community everybody of the same social level was either “uncle” or “aunt” or “cousin.” “How’s it comin’ along with you?”

“Dern war’s messed up the cattle market,” Luke responded, shifting in his platform rocker. “Main thing, though, is my rheumatiz, botherin’ me in this damp weather. An’ that blame overseer of mine, always complainin’. Nothin’ but po’ white trash. But what else can you get, with a war on?”

“He’s new, isn’t he?” asked Jem. “Didn’t I hear tell you brought him up from Miss’ssippi?”

“No’th o’ Vicksburg,” confirmed Luke. “Feller named Quince. He’s rougher on the darkies than Springer was—but the dam’ Army took Springer.”

Jem moved to the window and saw what Uncle Luke meant. A half-naked dark-skinned form was bound to a stake just beyond the side yard fence and Quince was wielding a whip with vigor.

“That’s a woman he’s whippin’,” said Jem in some distaste. Slaves were rarely punished at Five Oaks.

Vick moved up beside Jem and continued to stare out the window when Jem went back to the fire.

“High yaller gal I bought last month,” said Luke. “Quince says she’s sassy. He won’t hurt her bad for that—though they say he whupped a coupla smart-lipped darkies to death down in Miss’ssippi.” Uncle Luke brooded a moment. “Dammit, Jem, I wish I wasn’t so decrepit so I could keep closer check on things goin’ on around here!”

“It’s the weather, Uncle Luke. You’ll feel better when it warms up.”

Vick stood at the window watching Quince swing the whip rhythmically against the mulatto girl’s already red-striped back and a shiver of revulsion quivered through him. This was the other side of honeysuckle-scented beauty… this was like Uncle Tom’s Cabin. He could not hear the cries of the slave under the lash through the window and this far away, but he could imagine them.

Jem was talking with “Uncle Luke” in terms of familiar respect, no hint in his voice of protest or disapproval of what was happening out there. And if that overseer chose, he could whip the girl to death without more than a reprimand. If Luke Westford was one of those benevolent masters on whom Vick hung his vision of the genteel Old South, why did he allow his overseer to perpetrate such cruelty? Why didn’t he control the man, chastise him, kick him off the goddamn farm?

If confronted with such a question Westford probably would say, “It’s hard to find a good overseer these days. It’s the dam’ war.” Vick was reminded of those friendly, polite Germans just east of the Rhine. No, they weren’t Nazis, they weren’t the ones who tortured and slaughtered Jews in the Konzentrationslage, that was the SS troopers. What could they do about such things?

Vick put the inadvertent comparison out of his mind and turned back to the cheerful fire in the comfortable, high-ceilinged living room, where Jem was asking, “You reckon I could talk to Aunt Sally, Uncle Luke? She’s got a dress pattern Pru wants to borrow.”

“Sho’,” said Luke and bellowed, “Prissy! Get yo’ black hide in here and go fin’ Miz Westfo’d for Mistuh Ha’hdaway!”

“What kind of baloney do you folks feed these blacks?” Vick asked Jem when the two men and Rich were on their way out of Five Oaks the following morning. “Last night when Tammie was turning down my bed she asked me if I’d ever seen a Yankee. I told her I hadn’t seen any of these Yankees and she seemed disappointed. She said she’d heard they had horns and tails like devils and obviously was hoping I could confirm or contradict it for her.”

Of course Vick had lied to Tammie. If he was a Confederate agent he must have seen plenty of Yankees, but it was plain he wasn’t from around here. That myth was common among the slaves.

“Sho’, it’s not just the darkies believe those tales about Yankees bein’ devils,” he told Vick. “Any white child under fourteen or fifteen around here’ll tell you the same thing, and maybe some of the grownups too. I’d’ve believed it myself if the war’d started when I was a scaper.”

Jem was right about the condition of the roads: he knew this country and this season. As they came closer to the river, lower-lying stretches of ground were sheets of water with trees and bushes sticking up through it, and the horses slogged along the road in mud up to their fetlocks. Since Vick wanted to bypass the fort and take up a position northwest of it, they went away from the Nashville and Charlotte Road and turned northward on the Wynn’s Ferry Road.

The spare Confederate uniform Jem had loaned him was tied in a bundle behind Vick’s saddle. The slaves had washed Vick’s clothing and Vick was wearing it, with his cap set at a jaunty angle. The two men rode abreast when they could, Rich following on a gaunt bay with most of their gear.

“About that gun, Mr. Vick,” said Jem. “You can trust me. I hope this isn’t just one gun they’re tryin’ out with you but that Montgomery has a source of supply. If it’s the prime gun you say it is, the army with the best muskets could be the winners in this war, you know.”

“Lieutenant, the Confederacy can’t get a supply of these M-ls because they haven’t been invented yet.” Whatever that meant: how could Vick have one if they hadn’t been invented yet? “I’ve been trying to tell you why I think eliminating Grant—and, hopefully, getting Buckner in command at Fort Donelson—is likely to win this war. Try to believe this: Grant’s the general Lincoln’s going to depend on to win the war and out of all the Union generals he’s the one who can do it.”

“I’ve had truck with him,” said Jem. “General Polk beat his ears down at Belmont a few months back. That’s where I got wounded—I’d been sent as a courier to Logwood’s Cavalry when the battle broke. But I never saw Grant. Will you know him if you see him?”

“I will,” said Vick grimly.

They didn’t have a long ride to reach the vicinity of Fort Donelson but their progress was slow because of the water and muddy roads. At the Robbins house they took the crossroad to the right and about a third of a mile farther on turned left on the Fort Henry Road. About midday they came to the corner of a farm and Jem decided to turn off to the right.

Passing south of the farm they came to a drive, in sight of a white picket fence and a two-story log house with a tall chimney at one end. Through gaps in the trees Fort Donelson was visible a little over a mile away, close enough for them to see some of its Confederate defenders moving around on the earthworks thrown up to the south and west of the fort.

“That’s Mrs. Crisp’s place,” Jem told Vick, indicating they should turn in. “We’ll get some dinner here and save our vittles for campin’ out.”

“Mrs. Crisp? Ah! That’ll be Grant’s headquarters at Donelson,” said Vick, staring at the house with interest.

Jem chuckled.

“Man, you sho’ think you know all the pa’ticulars, don’t you?” he remarked. “I reckon General Grant must be pretty smart after all. If he wants good eatin’ he couldn’t pick on a better headquarters than Mrs. Crisp’s place!”

The three of them rode into the yard and, dismounting, tied their horses to a peach tree. They walked across to the house, boots squishing in the water-soaked grass, and Jem hammered on the door. After a moment it opened and the familiar face of Mrs. Crisp looked out at them.

“Jem Hardaway!” she exclaimed. “I’m tickled to see you up and about again, young man. How’s the hip?”

“Better, ma’am. Almost well now. I’ll be back on duty in a day or two. You reckon we could bother you for a bite to eat before we ride on?”

“Why, surely! Come on in, you and your friend. Your darkie can go around to the back of the house and they’ll feed him out of the kitchen.”

It was a pleasant and restful interlude after the long, difficult ride, warming their cold, damp trousers in front of Mrs. Crisp’s open fire. Vick identified himself as a traveling merchant from Nashville and Jem and Mrs. Crisp talked mostly about family and community matters during the meal.

“Now, Jem, if you’re not goin’ straight to the fort you be careful,” Mrs. Crisp admonished as they prepared to mount and leave. “Some Yankee scouts were seen in these parts this momin’, I hear tell, and the word goin’ around is that the Yankees have taken Fort Henry an’ are on their way here.”

Jem and Vick exchanged glances. Vick was on the money so far.

“They’ll be landing reinforcements down the river, about six miles away,” Vick said when they rode out of the yard and turned back west. If Vick was right, Grant would stand tomorrow before the fire where they had warmed themselves. “What’s the best road up there? The road Grant would take to the steamboat landing?”

“Road we were on,” said Jem. “And that one’ll be miserable enough, after all this rain. You want a spot where you can be sure somebody on that road’ll be stickin’ to it? Where Telegraph Road curls around the end of Hickman’s Creek. He’d for certain be on the road there.”

They headed up Telegraph Road and Jem lapsed into thought. It remained to be seen whether Grant actually did ride up that road into ambush in four days but so far Vick had shown remarkable knowledge of the overall situation and apparently had been right on the likely timing of the Yankee troops’ arrival in the area from Fort Henry.

They negotiated the waterlogged road until it curved eastward and Jem announced they had passed Hickman’s Creek.

“You seem to know what the Yankees plan to do and you say they’ll be movin’ into this area this afternoon,” Jem said. “How’ll they be positionin’ their troops? If you know.”

“All of them south of the creek, with Smith on the left and McClernand on the right cutting off the road to Nashville,” said Vick positively. “Wallace will come up to till in the center later. They’re coming in two prongs, along this road through the timber and on a more southerly road—I think the one that runs into this one west of Mrs. Crisp’s farm.”

“Then they’ll likely have outriders through the woods on both sides of both roads,” said Jem. “Be safer if we go into the woods east of here, direction of the river, so we won’t get caught between them.”

“Sounds right. We ought to go deep enough into the woods to be sure we’ll be safe, for camping out. Grant won’t ride up this way almost alone until February 15th, in the morning. So we can take it easy and find a spot the afternoon before that’s close enough to the road for a good shot.”

Going east from the road for their bivouac, with every step they took deeper into the forest they came that much closer to the swollen Cumberland. There was a swampy backwater north of the fort where Hickman’s Creek flowed into the river and this flooded terrain stretched the length of the creek to Telegraph Road. Riding eastward they splashed through some pretty deep water in search of high ground on which they could camp for the next two nights.

“I’ve hunted this country,” said Jem. “There’s a little ol’ hill farther on where we used to camp out when the creek was up. It’s far enough from the road to be safe from Yankee outriders. We’ll go there.”

Rich knew the way too, and it was he as much as Jem who led them there. The two white men sat down on a log sheltered from the cold wind to have a smoke while Rich began unpacking and organizing for a bivouac.

“This must be a fine place to camp out and hunt when the river’s not up,” suggested Vick, looking around at the leafless oaks, sweetgums, and hackberry that crowded in around them. “I’ve seen several deer and a bear off to one side before we reached Mrs. Crisp’s house. And there are squirrels all over the place.”

“Foxes too, and wolves,” said Jem. Probably Vick was a city boy and unfamiliar with backwoods such as this. “Wolves have got a few of the stock now and then but they don’t like to come in close to a house. In the woods, though, one thing you have to watch out for is pigs that’ve got loose and run wild. If you’re afoot and you come on a sow, you better get up a tree, fast.”

Rich, unpacking saddlebags, chuckled.

“Yas suh, Mistuh Jem,” he said. “You ’member that old lady with little ’uns we ran on in the back thicket when we was little scapers? Lawdy, she like to got both of us!”

“I sure do remember that, Rich—and I remember you pushin’ me up to the tree fork before you started climbin’.”

“I’ve done some hunting in woods like these,” said Vick. “It’s this kind of thing the damn Northerners are going to ruin for us with their industry.”

Jem never had been north of the Mason-Dixon line, so he wasn’t sure how Northern industry entered into the picture. Rather than attempt to pursue the subject, he turned to Rich.

“Rich,” he said, “you set up the big tent for the two of us and the little one for you and build a fire between them for cookin’ and warmin’.”

Rich went to work. Vick sat down on a log near the fire with Jem, and with a stick sketched out in the damp dirt what he said were the current conditions—familiar terrain for Jem except for limning in the lineup of Federal troops.

“This is where Smith will have his division, southeast of us across the creek,” said Vick, pointing with his stick. “Over here in front of Dover will be McClernand. Lew Wallace will bring up some regiments to attach to Smith’s command and fill in the center between them. The X marked by the arrow is where I plan to shoot Grant. One nice thing about this high water is, there won’t be any troops northwest of the fort. That’s our way in after I’ve taken care of Grant.”

“Maybe you don’t know what a flooded backwater’s like,” said Jem dubiously. “It may be possible but we’ll have to leave the horses and pole across to the fort on a raft. They won’t fire on two men in Confederate uniform and a slave. Anyhow, if you’re right about where the Yankee divisions are positionin’ themselves it’s the only way we could get in past them.”

He glanced around the woods.

“I doubt there’ll be scouts from either side sloshin’ through this backwater but we better keep a light watch,” he said. “You take it till midnight, Rich, then I’ll spell you.”

“I’ll do my share keeping watch,” offered Vick “It’s my project, after all.”

“You won’t get a fight out of me on that. This leg’s botherin’ me some after all that ridin’ today and I ’spect sleep’ll be the best thing for it.”

“When you get ready to turn into yo’ blankets, Mistuh Jem, you pull yo’ britches down so I can rub yo’ hip with sa’ve,” said Rich. “Miss Prudence, she had me bring some of that sa’ve along and I can heat it over the coals to make it feel better.”

It was a pleasant night and all of them slept well, with no alarms. After breakfast, Rich took his musket out to see if he could bag a few squirrels nearby—there was some gunfire from the direction of the fort and a few additional shots out here in the water-soaked woods would hardly be noticed under the circumstances. While Rich was gone, Vick pulled a paper from inside his coveralls and held the document out to Jem.

“See if this passes inspection,” Vick requested. “I had Tammie bring me pen and paper and wrote it out when we were at your place.”

Jem looked it over. In somewhat stilted language it purported to be a message from Gen. Albert Sydney Johnston at Bowling Green, temporarily transferring command of all troops at Fort Donelson from Brig.-Gen. John G. Floyd to Brig.-Gen. Simon B. Buckner, and instructing Buckner to carry out an assault on the surrounding Federal troops “with all dispatch.”

“I’m not too well up on written orders,” said Jem. “I get mine mostly from my captain hollerin’ at me, usually not bein’ too polite about it. A courier sometimes in battle but still word of mouth. From the little I’ve seen, this looks right enough. Of course it’s not in General Johnston’s handwritin’ but I guess generals have aides write out their letters for them a lot of the time. Floyd outranks General Buckner and he might not like it but I’d say he’ll obey the order—if he accepts it as bein’ from General Johnston.”

“I’m counting on you being with me when I go in to convince them I’m a legitimate courier,” said Vick. “They know you. And with Floyd’s indecisiveness I’m betting he’ll be happy to turn over command to Buckner in a tough spot. After all, that’s what he’ll do when he decides to take his Virginia troops out by boat along with Pillow, leaving Buckner to surrender.”

“You’re askin’ me to interfere in a command decision well beyond my rank,” equivocated Jem. “If I help you, I’ll count on you to protect me from a co’t martial if they catch onto the swindle. We’ve got another day ahead of us to think it over. But don’t you think it’s goin’ pretty far to order General Buckner to attack? General Johnston can’t know what the Yankee strength is in front of the fort—he’ll barely have heard they’re attackin’.”

“Generals give orders like that all the time without knowing the situation. Johnston ordered these generals to Donelson in a hurry after Fort Henry fell on the 6th. Buckner just got here yesterday and Floyd himself doesn’t get to Donelson till tomorrow. Floyd’s under indictment in the Union and afraid of capture but Buckner feels Donelson ought to be held to the last and Forrest’s opinion is that the victory-flushed Confederates can drive the Yankees back to the Tennessee River. The way I see it, if the Confederates exploit Pillow’s breakthrough the whole army can escape down the road to Nashville to join forces with Johnston. They might even justify Forrest’s optimism, swing around behind the Federal lines and defeat the Yankees soundly. If they do that Fort Henry can be recaptured, the Confederate bastion across Kentucky will be restored, and with the loss of Grant’s force the way will be open to drive the Union armies back across the Ohio River.”

Jem blinked. The man might not know what he was talking about but he had some grand ideas on strategy.

Rich was successful in his hunt. He brought back some small game to supplement their rations. They lolled around in the woods all day without much happening except small arms fire in the distance. But shortly after nine o’clock the next morning the sound of heavy artillery rumbled to their ears from the direction of the fort. After some time it was augmented by the rattle of musketry.

“You’re off schedule,” Jem accused with a smile. “I thought you said the fightin’s not until the day alter tomorrow.”

“That’s when the crucial fighting comes. This today is a duel between the Federal ironclad Carondelet under Commander Walke and the fort. The small arms fire is a brigade sent forward by McClernand to try to clear Confederate snipers from a redoubt. Both attacks are due to fail.”

There was a lull in the artillery firing around noon, then it resumed and lasted most of the afternoon. They could see nothing of the battle, as they were surrounded by thick trees, but a veil of smoke from the bombardment drifted up into the sky southeast of them.

Vick listened to the sounds of battle, so similar to those he remembered and yet so different in tone, and his thoughts were snared by the history he had read ardently as a boy and a young man. Much more than during World War II he felt the sense of being present at a civilization’s struggle for survival… the culture of the agrarian South. It was the foreknowledge of what, historically, was to come that imposed on him this feeling.

The comparison arose before him of the long survival effort of ancient Rome. When history spoke of Rome it did not focus so much on the bread and circuses, the decadence of emperors, the gladiators and the crucifixions, as on the noble public buildings, the spreading latifundia, the aqueducts and paved roads, the proud, toga-clad lords of their world. Rome was a centuries-long light of civilization shining in the darkness of worldwide barbarism. A remarkable proportion of Western values and institutions were derived from that ancient Rome.

And the civilization of Rome, too, had been slave-based. Ignoring the natural reaction against Rome of the conquered lands that supplied the slaves, Vick was on solid ground in rejecting any suggestion that the institution of slavery was in any way responsible for the ultimate fall of Rome. Decadent politics, not slavery, destroyed ancient Rome.

Vick’s mind ranged ahead to the course of history when he succeeded, as he was bound to, in assassinating Grant and preserving the quiet charm of the prewar South. Without Grant the Northern armies would falter and fail, a peace agreement would leave the Confederacy independent. That was, after all, Vick’s aim in being here now. Two nations—and did not the midcontinent have room for both, a noisy, smoky, industrial North and the quiet and courtly South with its polite drawing rooms and singing slaves coming in from the fields at night?

A question that had come up sometime in history classes was that the brains of the widespread Roman world were no less sophisticated than modern brains, its philosophy was as profound and its artisans as clever. Why, then, had Rome and its tributaries failed to develop a more advanced technology? Not the suppressive hand of superstition, the belief in heathen gods: the Renaissance had arisen despite the equally oppressive hand of the mediaeval Church.

Here Vick had to admit slavery probably was largely responsible. The authors and orators and philosophers of that day were creative enough but they naturally confined their brilliance to the realms of art and literature, as befitted aristocrats. They would not demean themselves to such sordid concerns as labor-saving machines—the aqueducts, the buildings and the roads were practical and relatively simple exceptions, some of them owed to Greek slaves. Why should the Roman aristocrats bother with such things when slave labor was plentiful and relatively cheap? What patrician was interested in investing thought in ways to make a slave’s life less arduous?

It was a lot the same here in the Old South. Industrialism was already on the move in England and in the North. It would continue to progress there, into the 20th century. Within the next decade Prussia would unify Germany and it would plunge into not only the European power competition but the race for technological leadership. But what plantation owner cared to invest in a mechanical harvester when he had Negro slaves who could not only perform that field task but adapt to many other jobs as well?

That was fine. That was what Vick had in mind. Let the North have its factories, let the South stay civilized, if a Southerner needed some technological item it could be imported. The only caveat was, how would these separate American nations fare when developing technology shrank the world and it was plunged into multinational war?

In World War I it wouldn’t make much difference, whether the Confederacy allied itself with its Northern neighbor or seif-righteously refused to get involved. The support of the Allies by the northern United States would be enough to do in exhausted Germany.

But World War II? The two world wars, starting with the traditional confrontation of men and strategy, would turn increasingly on technological competition. What might be the ultimate effect on 20th century political geography of the South’s absence from American participation in the technological footrace?

Vick turned his thoughts aside from such considerations to the pleasant prospect of returning to his own time in a changed world in which the agrarian South was an independent nation. The time machine was concealed in a haystack some distance south of Five Oaks, and when he had disposed of Grant and made sure Buckner would defend Fort Donelson he would return to it and vanish from this time. He would pretend to Edgington that he had gone back only a few years—maybe he ought to shoot a deer to take back with him as a trophy.

As darkness fell the moderate weather they had enjoyed since meeting at Five Oaks changed abruptly. A wintry north wind arose among the denuded branches of the trees and cold rain began falling. The three of them huddled in the big tent but the wind blew the rain in through the flaps and they were soaked by the time the rain shifted into sleet and snow. Uncle Jobe’s prophetic joints were vindicated.

They slept miserably in damp blankets in the grip of a full-fledged blizzard. Their only consolation was that a watch was patently unnecessary, since no one in his right mind would scout through this flooded terrain, either on horseback or afoot, in such weather.

“Since you’re after General Grant and you say he won’t be ridin’ up this way till tomorrow mornin’, it’s stretchin’ it some to camp out in this muddy wilderness for two days,” grumbled Jem as they ate breakfast. “We could just as well have got here late this afternoon and set up your ambush in plenty of time.”

“Maybe you could, without me,” corrected Vick. “I guess your experience with Forrest’s cavalry makes you confident of slipping through enemy lines. But I never had to do that—we moved in trucks and jeeps. You saying I was wrong in wanting to come up here a couple of days early, before the Federal troops got here?”

“No, I reckon not,” admitted Jem, wondering briefly what Vick meant by “trucks” and “jeeps.” “But if I’d known the whole picture I’d’ve said wait. They probably have supplies and reinforcements moving on those roads between here and Fort Henry but it’s not a solid line of troops, just detachments now and then. We couldn’ta come along the roads the way we did but that wouldn’ta been much loss. We could’ve gone through the woods on the other side of Telegraph Road and I could’ve sneaked us across the roads clean. But it’s too late now so we’ll play it on out.”

“This isn’t too bad, now that it’s daylight and the snow’s let up. At least we can keep a fire going now and get warm and partly dry. Can’t we?”

They lay around uncomfortably all day. Some time after noon the shelling from the direction of the fort was resumed and Vick said the Carondelet had been joined by the ironclads St. Louis, Louisville and Pittsburgh under the command of Commodore Foote, who would be wounded before the gunboats retired down the river in disorder. There was no accompanying small arms fire in the background this day.

The major thrust of last night’s storm was over but the day ended cold and gloomy. Toward evening they were crouching around the fire when a figure appeared silently from the woods. Jem and Rich were on their feet at once, guns ready, but Jem let out his breath in relief at sight of the butternut uniform.

“Sergeant!” exclaimed Jem. “What brings you here?”

“By yo’ leave, suh… you, suh,” replied the newcomer. “Or yo’ slave. Slaves do talk among theyse’ves, you know, an’ Miz Crisp’s slaves knowed you-all was cornin’ up here. I reckoned with all this high water you’d most likely come to this here rise where we useta camp out when we was huntin’ together and I reckoned I ought to make sho’ you was all right, you bein’ wounded and all.”

Jem turned a severe eye on Rich. Rich ducked his head and looked away. He knew he shouldn’t have been gossiping about their mission.

Jem turned to Vick.

“Mr. Vick, this is Sergeant Dever-eaux,” he said. “Sergeant French Devereaux of Forrest’s cavalry, my unit. Sergeant, how’d you get away from the outfit with Yankees all over the place? Aren’t you supposed to be on duty?”

“I’m still on furlough, suh, till nex’ week. They may’ve sent word from the fort callin’ me back but I ain’t been at the house for the last coupla days. I reckon takin’ care of my lieutenant’s jest as impo’tant duty as bein’ at the fort.”

Jem looked at Vick and chuckled.

“I couldn’t ask fo’ a better bodyguard, Mr. Vick,” said Jem. “Dever-eaux don’t miss with that carbine of his. He’d be as apt to pick off that Yankee general as you with yo’ fancy musket.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Vick. “Do you know what Grant looks like, Sergeant?”

“No suh, never laid eyes on no Gen’l Grant.”

“I know what he looks like, from his pictures,” said Vick triumphantly.

The three men settled down around the fire for a chat while Rich prepared supper. A little later as Jem relieved himself against a tree Devereaux sidled up to him.

“Suh,” Devereaux said, “what do you think about what that Mistuh Vick was sayin’?”

“About knowin’ what’s goin’ to happen? Sergeant, I don’t know what to think. He’s been right about things so far but, shucks, he coulda heard about Fort Henry failin’ and be guessin’ on the rest of it. I figger him for a Confederate agent sent out here—maybe after Grant, maybe jest to poke aroun’ on his own. That way he coulda been told about the way them generals at Donelson are likely to act, but how he could say ahead of time that Yankee admiral’s goin’ to get wounded and that General Grant’s goin’ to ride up Telegraph Road alone… well, you know I don’t believe in the darkies’ juju and that kind of thing. We’ll just have to wait and see if this Grant does show up.”

As they ate supper, enriched by meat from squirrels Rich had shot, Vick said, “Grant’s supposed to leave Mrs. Crisp’s house right after dawn. I think we need to get up maybe an hour before dawn and find a good spot to get a bead on him when he swings around the end of Hickman’s Creek.”

Jem and Devereaux looked at each other and Jem winked.

“I’ll take the last watch of the night myse’f,” decided Jem. “I’m used to havin’ to get goin’ early and I can trust myself to not doze off better than the most heedful sentry.”

“Suh, it ain’t necessa’y for you to be up so ea’ly,” said Devereaux. “I can take the last watch and get us up in time.”

“No, Sergeant, you take the first watch. We’re more likely to have visitors early.”

True to his word, Jem had them all up, sleepily, while it was still pitch dark and very cold. They gnawed down a light, cold meal and mounted to ride westward, splashing through the flooded terrain.

One advantage of choosing a place at the end of the creek for the ambush was that the waterway created a natural alley through the trees, a clear line of fire for some distance. The creek ran pretty straight along here but even so the woods were so thick they had to settle for a spot about three hundred yards from the target area. So much for the Garand’s boasted twelve hundred yard range—but three hundred was enough of a challenge to suit Jem.

“I hope you can recognize your man quick,” said Jem. “There’s not much space along that road clear to the eye from here, and on horseback he’ll pass through it fast, even at a walk—which it’ll be on that muddy road. I’d say there’ll be time for one good shot, maybe as many as three if that musket can fire as fast as you claim it can.”

“I think I can identify Grant from his silhouette,” said Vick. “And the gun’ll fire faster than you believe. Look, the road makes a bow around to the creek so I’ll slip across and go down to the edge of the road on foot. That way I can see him coming well down the road and run back here in time to get set for firing. I’d say either you or Sergeant Devereaux go down and signal when he appears, except neither of you knows Grant by sight.”

He dismounted, left his weapon with Jem and waded across the creek, half-swimming part of the way. He vanished quickly into the woods and the others settled themselves to await his return.

“Lieutenant, suh, you’re my superior officuh,” said Devereaux. “Maybe President Davis sent Mistuh Vick to shoot this gen’l but this strikes me as bein’ a fur piece for pickin’ off somebody on that there bridge, with all these trees aroun’.”

“I’ve been thinkin’ the same. He says that repeatin’ musket of his is accurate at that range but I haven’t seen it fired yet. Maybe he can and maybe he can’t.”

“Then, suh,” said Devereaux, “by the lieutenant’s leave I’m thinkin’ to slip in about a hund’ed yahds closer where I can get a bead on him with my carbine. Ain’t no sense in missin’ a chance at a Yankee gen’l—if he does show up—jest to see if that gun of his’n works the way he says it does.”

“You go ahead, Sergeant. He can’t complain at bein’ backed up if he really wants to get Grant.”

Vick came thrashing back in a great hurry and splashed back across the stream.

“He’s on his way, with one orderly,” said Vick.

Devereaux slipped into the bushes with a lift of his hand. Vick looked at Jem questioningly and Jem explained somewhat apologetically, “The sergeant’s gettin’ in position closer in to the bridge to back you up, suh.”

“Think you need some insurance against my shooting, do you? It’s all right with me if you’re worried about it—but I don’t often miss when I can settle in a blind like this.”

Vick settled behind a log with the M-l, aiming down the alleyway created by the creek. Union soldiers were slogging southward along Telegraph Road in ragged formations, gaps of varying length intervening between the marching groups.

“It’s the 20th Ohio,” said Vick without turning his head. “I think they’re to be assigned to Wallace’s force.”

After long minutes two mounted men could be seen spottily through the trees, nearing the bridge as they rode north against the tide of reinforcements.

“There he comes!” whispered Vick excitedly. “The one in front, with the cigar!”

Harry Vick was not a scientist and he rarely gave thought to the paradoxes inherent in time travel. When he did, they puzzled and disturbed him. The unexpected twist of the current paradox nagged at his mind.

It was paradox enough that he, a man born in the 20th century, was here now and with a squeeze of the trigger was about to change the course of history. He would kill Grant, the South would win the Civil War and remain an independent nation—but he remembered that the North had won and he had fought in a war under the flag of a unified nation. If he succeeded here, what became of the things that had happened to him and many, many others?

When he got back to his own time what changes would he find had occurred in his own life? Could he even be sure of meeting Edgington and coming back here in the time machine? And if he didn’t, how could this happen that was about to happen, assuring that the South won the Civil War? Or was this fated, in that altered time stream would it be someone else who came back?

He had no doubt about succeeding. He was a good shot with the M-l at this range and he had eight rounds in the magazine. The twist was that Devereaux, whom Hardaway said was a marksman, was now in a position to make Grant’s assassination absolutely sure, even if Vick should unaccountably miss.

What struck Vick as ironic was that Devereaux himself wouldn’t be here, in a position to shoot Grant, except for Vick’s time travel venture. Devereaux had followed Hardaway up here, to protect his friend and lieutenant, and Hardaway had come only to accompany Vick on his mission. If Vick had stayed put in the 20th century, neither of them would have come here. Part of the paradox.

Waiting tensely for his quarry to emerge onto the bridge, Vick pictured again that chivalrous Southern society he sought to preserve, largely agrarian, with extensive estates and graceful mansions, slow-paced and pleasant. Into that picture intruded another: looking out the window at Luke Westford’s farm and watching the overseer, Quince, swing his whip brutally against the back of a goldenskinned woman. That was the other side of that gracious, cultured Old South he treasured… and what did it remind him of?

He could not evade it. Slavery could be benevolent but when it was not, one exclusive attribute characterized it. The slave had no recourse from the grossest injustice, from torture, rape or death, whether that slave was a Roman captive, a black servant on an American Southern plantation… or a Jew in Nazi Germany.

That too was a part of the life he remembered—and where would it vanish when history was altered? Of course, as in the time line he was about to discard, he would be born and reared in the 20th century South, which might well remain neutral in World War II, like Ireland. Then what would happen to the long treks over rough terrain, the brief, sharp skirmishes, the extended battles with tanks and planes roaring all around him, the corpses in olive drab and German grey sprawled on the ground… and that wild ride through the poplars to Dachau and its pitiful inmates?

Would an independent South remain neutral in World War II? And what major difference would it make if a Confederacy still technologically incompetent did join the neighboring North on the side of the Allies?

In the history he remembered the Nazi war machine had almost won before the United States was drawn into the conflict. Even with the support of a fresh and united nation, technologically sophisticated, it had taken the Allies another three and a half years to defeat Adolf Hitler. With the confederacy either neutral or technologically incompetent, the added weight of the curtailed United States could not possibly beef up the Allies to the point of invading Festung Europa.

He hadn’t ever thought it all the way through before. Now the picture of the future he had sought became clear: not a gracious agrarian South sharing the land with an industrialized North in a peaceful world, but two second-rate powers isolated behind their oceans while the world was ruled by two tyrannical megapowers, National Socialist Germany and militaristic Japan.

The present caught Vick’s waiting eye. Grant rode onto the bridge, into the clear. He was a small man, slumped slightly forward in the saddle, a wide-brimmed hat on his head and his cape whipping in the wind. Behind him rode a slender figure in Union blue, the orderly.

Vick stared at him down the barrel of the M-l. Ulysses S. Grant, in the flesh! The legend he had known only from books. His finger tightened on the trigger.

Devereaux half rose behind a bush, his carbine lowering to get Grant in his sights.

A symbolic image seemed to rise before Vick’s eyes: the impeccably uniformed SS lieutenant at Dachau, ignoring the tortured, emaciated people behind him to greet his American conquerors with formal military protocol. Blind denial of responsibility for the human consequences of his adherence to the abstraction of a “perfect state.”

The stench of Dachau’s ovens suddenly in his nostrils, Vick swung the M-l to his right and fired all eight cartridges in its magazine in a chattering burst. The barrel of Devereaux’s carbine jerked up sharply as it discharged into the air and Devereaux crumpled forward into the bush.

Apparently unaware he had been targeted—there was a lot of shooting in the area—Grant and his orderly proceeded across the bridge and vanished behind the trees.

“Dammit all to hell, suh, you shot the sahgent!” Jem yelled, so appalled that his natural drawl was exaggerated.

Vick stood up behind his log and took a step backward. The expression on his face was dazed.

“Ah thought you tol’ me you could shoot that there musket!” Jem snapped, feeling his face turn red.

“Sorry,” Vick mumbled. “I guess I made a mistake about things. The South’s loss of the Civil War won’t destroy it as a civilized society. It’ll save it.”

Abruptly he tossed away the M-l. It splashed heavily into the turbid waters of Hickman’s Creek and sank.

“I’ve got to get back to my machine!” Vick said distraughtly, and ran off into the woods.

Jem took a step in the direction Vick had taken, his carbine in his hands.

“You goin’ after him, Mistuh Jem?” Rich asked.

“No,” said Jem reluctantly. “I doubt we could find him and we need to get over there and see how badly hurt Devereaux is.”

Together they made their way toward Telegraph Road. Jem didn’t have much hope, and rightfully so. Devereaux was dead, hit several times. As Vick had said, he didn’t often miss.

“Rich, I guess there ain’t nothin’ to do now but find a way of gettin’ to Donelson,” Jem said. “I reckon there’ll be fightin’ there soon enough.”

“Mistuh Jem,” said Rich as they headed back for their horses, “you don’ think that’s really no gen’l they was shootin’ at, do you? Hit don’ make no sense, suh, a gen’l ridin’ th’ough hos-tile country with jes’ one man to side him.”

“I couldn’t see from here whether he was a general or not, Rich,” Jem said. “Seems like Vick had his facts right on everything else, though. But Lordy! It’s plain to me now that Vick fellow was a No’thun agent, takin’ us all in. Maybe straight out of Washington. The Yankees musta been plannin’ this drive and Vick’s an advance man sent here to watch out for Grant’s safety—though how he or they could know Grant’d decide to ride up Telegraph Road today’s somethin’ I still can’t figure out. But the son-of-a-bitch killed Devereaux, one of the finest men I ever served with.”

They moved eastward together through the trees.

“Too bad we couldn’ta turkey-shot us that Yankee general,” Jem said, “but anybody with gumption can see no one general makes that much difference in a war. Way I look at it, Vick was talkin’ through his hat and Fort Donelson’ll hold and send them Yankees scootin’ back into Kentucky. Tarnation, Rich, the South’s fightin’ for a cause—and as far as generals go, and fightin’ spirit all ’round, why the Confederacy’s bound to win this war!”