Crossing Rivers

It was also more likely that if he went south, any people he met would be sympathetic to the Confederacy. Jacob didn't expect these people to give him food or anything else because he knew they didn't have enough for themselves. Marching through the countryside between battles had revealed that. Women and children who had stayed behind looked thin and gaunt as they watched the column of soldiers pass by. They offered neither encouragement nor scorn, just straight faces that stared at them. They were exhausted by war and tired of all it had taken from them.

As he walked through the forests, Jacob saw little to indicate there'd been a war that lasted four years. Occasionally he'd find an area where the trees had been cut and the trunks used to build cabins during the winter when it was too cold to fight. He'd helped build some of those small camps, and though the cabins were tiny, they offered a welcome respite from sleeping in a tent in the cold.

Most were now just rotting log walls with no roofs, and when he rummaged through the cabins, he found nothing of value. Usually, just outside the camp he found at least one low mound of earth. Each mound marked the final resting place of a soldier. Jacob never knew which army had built the camp, because both sides had done so.

Walking through the fields was an entirely different matter. Though most of the countryside had escaped the ravages of a battle, they hadn't escaped the scroungers charged with finding food for both armies. Where there would have been cattle and horses grazing in the pastures before the war, now there were empty fields of weeds. Where there should have been farmers working the soil of the fields prior to planting, there were only more weeds.

After three weeks of walking and seeing no one, Jacob thought he was probably either in the southern part of east Tennessee or maybe northern Georgia. That morning, he started climbing a ridge to get a better view of the terrain. He was walking through a thick stand of trees when he came to a clearing and saw a small cabin. Smoke was drifting slowly from the stone chimney.

His first instinct was to turn back into the forest, go back down the ridge, and bypass the cabin. He was preparing to do that when a voice called out to him.

"You there, stranger. Stop where you are. What're you doin' on my ridge?"

Jacob sought for the location of the voice and thanks to the skills he'd honed during battle, found it in seconds. The older man was standing behind a large oak tree beside the cabin, and had a shotgun pointed at him. Jacob quickly raised his hands.

"I'm Jacob Rhodes, and I'm just a soldier on my way home, that's all. I don't want anything from you."

"Soldier, huh? Which side?"

Jacob considered his answer carefully. If he was in East Tennessee, the man could be a Union sympathizer. Most of East Tennessee was and some men from East Tennessee had fought for the Union. If he was in Georgia, the man was probably a Confederate sympathizer. He decided to find out if the man would tell him.

"Where is this place?"

"Don't matter none where it is. What matters is which side you're on."

Jacob figured he had no choice but to answer, but before doing so, he moved slightly until his side was facing the man. If the man decided to shoot him, his side would be a smaller target than his chest and belly. The man was close, only about fifteen feet away. The shotgun pattern might be narrow enough at that range to miss him and give him a chance to draw the Remingtons.

"Well, Sir, I was a Confederate."

"You're wearing gray, but them don't look like Confederate revolvers. Ain't never seen no Confederate soldier with revolvers like that. Seen plenty o' Union soldiers with 'em though. And what do you mean by you was a Confederate'? You a deserter?"

"I took them off a dead Union officer. I had to give up my Kerr's after the surrender."

"What surrender?"

"Lee surrendered to Grant the first part of April. General Johnston surrendered to Sherman about three weeks ago. The war's over. The Confederates lost."

"Well, I'll be damned. Wondered why I hadn't seen any troops down in the valleys lately. They never come up here. Too hard on the men and the horses. I watched 'em though, from up here on my ridge, watched 'em for the past two years.

"The first ones was Confederates 'bout two years ago. They marched over Chicamauga Creek and made camp. Then come the Union. They crossed the Tennessee River on pontoon bridges and camped south of Chattanooga. Watched 'em fight for three days from up here. Never seen so many dead men in all my life. They was so many, you couldn't have took a step without steppin' on one. Then the Union turned tail and headed back to Chattanooga. The Confederates didn't go after 'em though. Never could figure why. They had 'em whipped an' they let 'em go."

"We let them go because we didn't know they were retreating. General Bragg thought they'd attack the next morning, but instead they went back to Chattanooga. I was there."

"You was there?"

"Yes, Sir, I was. General Johnston sent some of us to help General Bragg."

"Then you'd know what the Confederates done once the Union left."

"Yes, Sir, I would. We buried the dead and then went over the battlefield picking up anything we could use. The Union left a lot of ammunition and other supplies behind. We got those too."

The man raised his shotgun and stepped from behind the oak tree.

"I reckon you was Confederate then. You're in Georgia, boy, 'bout three miles from Chicamauga Creek. You hungry?"

}{

The old man used a wooden ladle to fill a wooden bowl of soup from a kettle sitting near the fire.

"Got me a possum a couple days ago, an' he's been acookin' since. He's tender as can be an' tastes purty good fer a possum. I put in some wild taters an' carrots an' onions so's he'd taste better."

He sat the bowl down on the rough table where Jacob sat.

"Here. Fill yer belly an' iffen you want more, just say so. I got enough fer me fer another couple days. Seen me a flock of turkeys t'other day an' I'll get me one today or tomorrow. Where you from, boy?"

Jacob said, "Arkansas".

The old man stroked his beard.

"That's a fur piece from Georgia, ain't it?"

"Yes, about six hundred miles, I think."

"Think you'll make it all the way back, or will you stop some'eres else?"

"Oh, I'm going back to my father's farm and get married. I'll start farming for myself then."

The old man smiled.

"Well, farmin's a good way to live, I guess, but 'twernt fer me. I quit followin' a horse's rear end through the fields an' come up here with my Lizzie, let's see, almost twenty year ago now.

"My Lizzie were quite a woman. Her mama was one o' them fancy girls down in Dalton, 'an left her in a orphan's home after she was born. She never knew who her daddy was. Found her in my barn one morning tryin' to steal some eggs. I brought her in the house and fed her 'cause she were thin as a wheat stalk. She'd run off from that orphanage 'cause they was gonna make her stay and take care of the other kids. Didn't have the heart to take her to the sheriff, so I let her stay.

"Well, I liked her and she liked me. She wern't but nineteen an' I was almost forty, but she didn't care 'bout that. I'd 'bout had my fill of farmin' for somebody else an' givin' him all the profits, so we come up here an' built us this cabin and started livin' like the Injuns did. They knowed what they was doin', them Injuns. They's enough food up here you don't have to worry about eatin' and it's right peaceful too.

"Lizzie liked it up here. Course, she never seen much o' the good part o' life, so's she thought this was paradise. Lizzie raised a garden then so's we had real taters an' carrots an' onions an' black eye peas than. Kinda miss them peas, but it don't matter none."

"You had a wife up here?"

"Did, 'til she up an' got herself bit by a big rattler. She died two days later 'an I buried her out under that big oak I was standin' behind. It were a shame fer her to have to die that way and leave me and Eli behind. Eli was my boy. He'd be a bit older than you, I 'spect. Went off to that war, he did. Heard about it when he walked down to Ringgold to trade some fox hides fer some gun powder an' caps. Said the Union was gonna attack Georgia and he had to go he'p keep 'em out. Left the next day.

"He come back home in the fall two years ago. He was missin' his right arm. Said he got shot by a Union ball and the surgeon cut that arm right off below the shoulder. Couldn't do much to he'p out cause of that, but he tried."

"Where's Eli now?"

The old man nodded his head toward the door.

"He's out there beside his mother. He weren't the same boy when he come back. He'd sit sometimes out there under that oak, just sit there fer a hour or more, talkin' to his mother he said. One day, he sat out there like he did, an' then come an' told me life weren't worth livin' no more. I done my best to tell him life is what you make of it an' thought I'd got through to him, but he weren't really listenin'. Found him the next mornin' hangin' from a rope from that same oak.

"Like to killed me, losin' both him and his mother. I got to thinkin', though. My mama allus said the Almighty allus has a reason for doin' what He does. Don't know what His reason was fer taking Lizzie and Eli. Maybe He thought since they'd had a lot of bad things in life it was time fer them to have the good. I don't know. I jest stayed up here on my ridge after that 'cept when I need me some gunpowder or shot or caps. I figure when He's ready fer me to join 'em, He'll give me a shout."

The old man grinned at Jacob.

"He don't have to hurry none on my account, though. I'm purty happy up here with the critters. You want some more possum stew?"

Jacob spent the night in the old man's cabin, and after a breakfast of more possum stew, told the man he'd be on his way. The old man smiled.

"You could stay iffen you want. It ain't a bad life up here and I'd like havin' somebody around to plant me beside Lizzie and Eli when I go. They's enough critters you could do you some trappin' and sell the hides down in Ringgold an' buy what you need. Might find you a wife down there too. Wouldn't mind having another woman around."

Jacob smiled, but shook his head.

"Well, I reckon I need to get back to Arkansas. My father will be needing help. I do thank you for the meal and the bed."

The old man smiled.

"Figured you'd say that, but thought I'd try. 'Afore you go though, I'll give you something you'll need. Jest wait a minute while I go get it."

The old man went back inside the cabin and came back out carrying a package wrapped in brown paper.

"Lizzie made these trousers and shirt fer Eli 'afore she died. Made 'em outa flour sacks she got when we went to Dalton one time. She dyed 'em with walnut hulls so they'd be brown an' fit in with the woods. He don't need 'em now that he's with her. He was about your size, so they oughta fit. That gray uniform you got on is near fallin' apart, an' iffen you go up through Tennessee, some folks might not like you wearin' it. They won't think nothin' 'bout a man dressed in a cotton shirt and trousers."

Jacob thanked the old man and then started down the ridge. He turned north enough to miss the battlefield. It held memories he wanted to forget. The old man had been right about the number of dead after that battle. Jacob had been one of the men who buried them.

Jacob walked west for a week after he'd bypassed Chattanooga. He'd stayed away from the town because when he'd climbed one of the bluffs above the city, he'd seen Union troops around the rail station.

Even though he now wore the brown cotton shirt and pants the old man had given him, he was still cautious. It was easy to believe those Union troops were acting the same way as the tales he'd heard about Nashville. In Nashville, the people were under martial law, and that meant the Union Army was deciding what was right and what was wrong. The Union had lost a lot of men, and the tellers of those tales said any man not wearing the blue uniform of the Union was suspect.

As Jacob walked away from Chattanooga, he decided to stay in Tennessee instead of going back south into Alabama. He would be quickly leaving the eastern part of Tennessee that had been sympathetic to the Union, but in the north part of Alabama, the Union sympathy was just as strong if not stronger. Few battles had been fought in Alabama, so those Union sympathizers hadn't been threatened, and in fact, had flourished when the Union occupied the area before capturing Nashville. He turned slightly northwest and struck out across the countryside.

A day later, Jacob came to the Tennessee River. He'd crossed it when marching to Chattanooga on a pontoon bridge built by the engineers of the Confederate Army. That bridge no longer existed. The Union had rebuilt the rail trestle at Chattanooga after the Confederacy had damaged the original, but it had been guarded by Union troops against further sabotage, so crossing the river that way hadn't been an option.

The Tennessee was pretty wide at the point where Jacob had stopped, but it was late enough in the year the spring rains had already passed by so the current wasn't very fast. As Jacob walked down the bank to the nearest inside bend, he was thinking about two Cherokee soldiers from Oklahoma territory telling how they crossed rivers that were too deep to wade across.

They would cut a smaller tree with a trunk as wide as a man's hand, and then cut the trunk into lengths about four feet long. After using strips of bark or vines to lash these into a small raft, they would put anything that couldn't get wet on top of the raft and then push the raft across the river by swimming. Crossing in this manner meant they'd drift downstream quite a distance, but the raft supported them as well as their belongings.

Jacob didn't have an axe, but he had the bowie knife on his belt. He found a willow tree about the right size growing along the shore and cut it down, then stripped off the branches and cut the trunk into lengths. The three sections that yielded didn't look wide enough to Jacob, so he cut another and did the same with it, then lashed the six logs together with willow bark and some virginia creeper vines he found growing nearby.

Just before dark, Jacob wrapped his rifle, pistol belt and revolvers, ammunition pouches, bowie knife and sheath, and his boots and clothes in his bedroll. He tied the bedroll on top of the raft and eased it into the river. His belongings were only a couple inches above the water, but they'd stay dry. Jacob pushed off into the current and started slowly swimming his raft towards the opposite shore. Once he reached the other side, he'd let the river take him to another inside bend where the water would be shallow enough he could wade out.

It took most of the night for him to cross the Tennessee. The sky was a dim gray when he saw the inside bend and began swimming his raft in that direction. A few minutes later, his feet touched the bottom, and Jacob pushed his raft up onto the shore. He checked the things on the raft, found them to be dry, and quickly put on his clothes and boots. A quarter of an hour later, he pushed the raft out into the current and then turned and walked into the trees.

Jacob stayed in the trees about a hundred feet from the roads as much as possible and only used roads or crossed open country when there was no other option. By paralleling the roads, he kept his sense of direction somewhat, but since all roads led to a town, he'd detour around each before he got there and then find the road again.

The devastation of the country in southern Tennessee was the same he'd seen in the Carolinas. Farms were grown up in weeds, and many times he saw only the stone chimney of the farmhouse still standing. The house had been burned to the ground.

Jacob had no desire to take anything from those houses that were still standing because usually he saw women and children around them. They'd be outside, scratching at the soil with hoes in order to plant a garden. They worked with hoes because there were no horses or mules left. They'd all been confiscated by both armies as they scavenged for food and anything else they could use.

The same had happened to all the cattle and hogs. He saw a hen here and there, but couldn't bring himself to take what was likely the only source of food for the people left there. Instead, he foraged through the forest just as he had during the war.

It was one morning when he'd just bypassed Lawerenceburg, Tennessee, he saw a group of about twenty men on horseback riding along the road he was paralleling. Jacob ducked behind a tree and let them pass, then watched them until he couldn't see them any more.

They were dressed in a mix of clothing. A few wore Confederate uniform trousers, but most wore lindsy-woolsey or cotton. Their shirts were of the same material and most had a hat of some type. What caught his eye wasn't their clothing. It was that they were all armed with rifles or shotguns as well as with revolvers. The Union army was still armed, but during the surrender, all Confederates were made to surrender theirs. An exception was made for personal firearms belonging to officers, but Jacob doubted there would be this many ex-officers riding together.

It was also strange that they were all riding horses instead of walking. The only people who still had horses to ride were Union soldiers and former Confederate officers who had furnished their own mounts. All horses in the Confederate Cavalry had been deemed to be spoils of war and confiscated at the surrender. He'd not seen a horse of any type on a farm and knew that was because if the Confederacy hadn't taken them, the Union had. If these men had been able to keep their horses and arms, there was only one explanation -- they were Confederate guerillas who hadn't stopped fighting.

Once they passed, he continued on his way. He'd gone on for about an hour when he heard the sound of galloping horses. After ducking into some thick brush, he separated the twigs and leaves so he could see the road.

The same men came galloping down the road, but there were fewer than before. Behind the group were three horses without riders. As the riders dashed past, two of the riderless mounts turned and ran into the trees on the opposite side of the road.

Jacob stayed behind the brush until the group had passed. He'd started to get up when he heard more galloping horses coming toward him. He crouched back down, cleared his opening through the branches again, and waited. In a couple of minutes, a group of Union Cavalry raced past in pursuit of the first group. That confirmed Jacob's suspicion that the first group were guerilla fighters. They'd made their attack and then run and left their three fallen comrades behind.

Jacob waited another half hour, but neither group returned. Cautiously, he walked to the edge of the road and looked both ways but saw nothing. He then raced across the road to the safety of the trees on the other side. His aim was to find one of the loose horses. As with his scavenging during the war, the men who'd ridden those horses past him the first time didn't need them anymore, and a horse would allow him to travel faster. He quickly found the trail of crushed brush they'd left behind and began following it.

He found one of the two, a bay mare, trying to free herself from a tree. Somehow, she'd caught the looped and tied rains on the stub of a branch and that had stopped her. When Jacob got close, she eyed him with eyes wild with fright, layed back her ears and tried to pull herself free again.

Jacob had been around horses all his life, and knew the mare was afraid and might hurt herself if he couldn't calm her down and get her free. He began talking in a low, soothing voice as he slowly approached her.