Ok folks...you asked for it...here is the prologue...I'll post the next few chapters ASAP!:D
Prologue
July 13, 1865
Appalachian Mountains
Northeastern Tennessee,
“General Lee surrendered almost a month and a half ago, boys… its time to go home.”
That’s Captain Morton, commander of “The Rifles”, a little band of rebels from all over the south. We got boys from Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, practically all the southern states, I’m from Georgia mi’self . Them damn Yankees… invading Our land, Our home…and now the captains’ telling us to just go home. That don’t make sense, sure General Lee, God Bless him, surrendered, but as I make it, he had to. Hemmed in, no supplies… he had to. But that sure as hell don’t mean we got to. There’s about 80 of us here, all dead shots, we could keep fight’in, put them Yankees where they belong…hell.
“Hey Jeff, you going home?” Pete Brooks, Texas boy, and one of the best friends a man could have.
“Yeah, I’m going home, don’t think we should, but captains orders is orders. You wanna come?”
“Sure, its on my way back to Texas, so what the hell.” We left two days later, said goodbye to the boys and headed out. Maybe it is good to be going home
August 26, 1865
Mullins, Georgia
“Holy God.” Pete and I where sitting in our saddles looking down on what was left of my hometown. I kicked my horse and we galloped down the gentle slope that us kids used to sled on in the winter…if it ever snowed. Now as we rode into town…what’s left of it. Those b@stards…burned it. We rode though town, not seeing anybody. We kept riding out towards my house two miles out ‘o town. 10 minutes later we rode onto the trail up to the house.
Halfway there alongside the trail, there where some graves…I pulled my horse up, and just sat there dreading to get down and look. Finally Pete jumped down and went over.
“Who is it, Pete?” I whispered.
“Jeff, you better come read ‘em for yourself, it ain’t right for me to read them.” I groaned, but still dismounted and slowly walked over. There were four stones…I kneeled and read the names.
John Burnes Ellie Burnes Lennie Burnes
1816-1864 1820-1864 1846-1864
HE WAS A KIND MOTHER A GOOD LITTLE
AND LOVIN FATHER BROTHER
Nellie Burnes
1852-1864
LITTLE SISTER
I was crying, my father, mother, little brother and little sister…dead. We kneeled there for a long time it seemed, then Pete said. “Jeff, didn’t you say that you had 2 brothers and 2 sisters?”
“Yes, it went George, me, Jennie, Lennie and Nellie.” Finally I stood up. “Lets go find out what happened to the farm.” Mounted up and rode on. We crested the little hill and there was what was left of the farm. The house had been burned, as had the barn. They had tried to light the chicken house and the pig barn but I guess that the fire hadn’t caught.
“Y’all move another step without stating yer names and what yer want and y’all are dead.” I knew that voice, it was George, and though I couldn’t see him I knew he meant what he said.
“George, its your brother Jeff.”
“Jeff?” he said.
“Yep.”
“Well thank the good Lord you made it home safe.” Up out of underbrush several yards away, my older brother stood up, He looked a hell of a lot older than he did back in ‘61 when he left to join the Confederate Army in Richmond, Virginia.
I had left in early 1862 so I missed him when he came home on leave in Feb. ’62. He stood there wearing his confederate gray shirt, butternut brown pants and carrying a Sharpes Breechloading Carbine, that he had to of taken off a dead yank. I jumped off of Jackson, that’s my horse, named after Stonewall, and I got the biggest bear hug I’d had in a long time, probably since he left. Pete dismounted and I introduced him.
“Well let’s head for the house.” George said.
“What house? It looks burnt to me.”
“I turned the chicken house into a house, Jennie and Susanna are making it as comfortable as two gals can, getting meat is my job and they have planted a garden.”
“Uh, George who’s Susanna?”
“My wife… must not have gotten my letter, we got hitched in December, I wrote to you, but with the yank’s laying siege to Petersburg it must not have gotten through the lines. Then again even if it had gotten through and Sherman driving through down here and you being somewhere in the Tennessee mountains, well it just didn’t get to ya.”
As we crossed the yard, walkin towards the CH, the door flew open and Jennie, my little sister, came running towards me. I caught her and just picked her up in a hug, she was cryin something about how glad she was I had made it home and that now the family… what’s left of it was back together. We walked inside and she and Susanna got us some chicory and bread, and we started to catch up on the last year and a half.
Jennie started her story, it happened last year, Sherman’s march to the sea, they drove through south of here on their way to Atlanta. Some yankees, I don’t now… they where either deserter’s or a raiding party rode into town. They collected all the people in the town hall, and then took what they wanted from the houses, stores…woman. Then some of the men in the hall started acting rather uppity to them yanks. It made the commander of the raiders got pretty mad, anyway, after they where done, the commander said to them all in the hall, “I hope you all like being warm”, and as they started to ride out of town, the last yanks to leave, locked the doors and windows, and started the town hall on fire.
Pa saw the smoke and was about to ride over to town, when a bunch of the raiders rode up the trail. I was out with Maria (Jennies’ best friend, a purty little Mexican girl) picking Blackberries, which is why I’m here and not out there buried with the rest.” She was crying again, remembering the events of that afternoon. “Pa was about to go meet them, when one of ‘em stopped and shot him. Lennie and Jose (Maria’s younger brother, and Lennie’s best friend) had been out hunting, and they where just gett’in back when that yank killed pa, and Lennie just brung his gun up and shot one of ‘em. They returned fire and Lennie was hit four times, Jose grabbed him as he fell backwards, and pulled him back into the woods. By then Ma and Nellie had come outside and the yanks raped them both… then shot them.” She stopped and just sat there… remembering. “They left after burning the house and barn. As they where riding out of the lane, there was a gunshot and another yankee died, it was Jose, he ambushed them. He got two before they shot him, he wasn’t dead…they just let him lie there. Maria and I got back about an hour later. We were horrified, we were both crying, and then we heard a cry from the trail. Jose had crawled up to the farmyard. We ran over to him, and he was bleeding, bad. I held his head in my lap as Maria tried to stop the blood. He told us what had happened. The bleeding would not stop, so, Maria went and got Mr. Serape. (Maria and Jose’s father) He brought a wagon with him, and we got Jose in it and headed to town. He died on the way there, Doc had been on a call when the yanks raided and he said it was loss o’ blood what killed him. Doc, came out to the house with us, and helped us bury them. He prayed and did almost everything the parson would have done. Mr. Serape wanted to bury Jose in the family plot, so Doc drove us over and we buried him. Mr. Serape made all the headstones in the next two weeks. And that’s all there is to it. I wish that either you, Jeff, or George had been here but you weren’t, and I am going to cry over spilled milk.” And she did just that.
I was mad and I think Pete and George where too. “You boys’ wanna go on a three man warpath?” I asked.
George said. “Yeah I would. But,” as I reached for my rifle. “We ain’t, and you know we ain’t. What I think we’re going to do, is sell the farm and go up to Tennessee or Virginia. Buy some land there and start over.” He looked around the table at all of us. I sat there thinking, until George said. “Well, what ya thinking, little brother?”
I looked at him and said, “Alright, we’ll go to Tennessee.”
“Good, we’ll leave as soon as we sell the farm.”
We left in late Sept. for Tennessee. It took us three weeks to get to Johnny Schmidt’s house. Where we were going to stay until George and I could find a farm. The Yankee President, Lincoln, was killed, and I think many southerners weren’t very sorry, I wasn’t. We found some land and bought it, using the money from the land in Georgia. We never took any reconstruction money from the northerners. We ain’t beggars and we don’t need no help from a government what killed our family!
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Topic: Southern Tide - Prologue (Read 5100 times)