Shiloh by Shelby Foote Read Free Book Online Page A

me
wearing a thing like that — it would be like admitting in public you were
afraid. The men make jokes about getting him out with tin snips but Charley
likes it & wears it all the time clanking.
    Dawn had come while I was writing my letter. It was cool and
clear, the Lord's day and a fine one. Somewhere out front, over toward the
right, the pickets already were stirring. There was a rattle of firing from
that direction—two groups of soldiers, grayback horsemen and a bunch of our
boys, earning a living—but that meant nothing more than that there were some
nervous pickets on the line for the first time, itching to bum a little powder
and throw a little lead the way they always did, shooting at shadows for the
sake of something to write home about. It died away and the birds began to
sing.
    The guard tent, facing northwest so that the sun came up in
the rear, was out in an open field a few hundred yards short of a swale which
crossed the center of the clearing. In the swale there was a small stream with
a thin screen of willows and water oaks along its banks. The willows were green
already but the oaks had just begun to bud. I could see through the fringe of
trees the field continuing for a few more hundred yards to where it ended
abruptly against a line of heavy woods at its far margin. Sherman's
headquarters tent had been pitched directly in rear of the guard tent, out of
sight across the road. Shiloh Chapel was to the right rear, visible through the
trees which were tinted blood-red now, the color
moving down as the sun rose higher.
    Near at hand but out of sight, between the guard tent and
division headquarters, the cooks were up. I could hear two of them talking
above the rattle of pots and pans. I could even recognize their voices. One was
Lou Treadway; he was from Georgetown. Back home he always had his pockets full
of tracts and was ever ready to talk salvation to anyone who would listen—or to
anyone who wouldn’t, for that matter. He knew his Bible, cover to cover, and at
the drop of a hat he'd expound on a text, usually an obscure one that gave him
plenty of room to move around in. He was a little wrong in the head, but a good
cook.
    "Take that chapel yonder," he was saying.
"It's called Shiloh. You know what that means, brother?"
    "Can’t say I do," the other cook said. By the
sound of his voice, he was plenty weary of Lou's eternal preaching. But this
was Sunday and Lou was all wound up. There was no way of stopping him.
    "Second Samuel, brother"—I could the same as see him
nod his head that positive way he had. "Says it's what the children of
Israel, God's chosen, was working toward. Yes: a place for them to lay down
their worries. Bible scholars interpret that it means the Place of Peace."
And he went on expounding.
    Now mind
you Martha, no more reproaching me for not writing long letters that give all
the news about myself. Here are three pages of big sheets close written — you
cannot say again your husband never writes you long letters. Guard duty would
not be so bad if every man could spend it this way writing to the one he misses
most.
    Its a beautiful Sunday morn, the sun just coming up. I bet you
are sleep in bed. Remember what I said that last night about next time? All the
birds are singing.
    Birds were tearing their throats out, hopping around in the
budding limbs, and there was a great scampering of animals out front in the
thickets. It was fine to be up at that time of the morning, even if it had
meant staying up on guard all the night before. I didn’t feel a bit sleepy, but
I knew it would come down on me that afternoon. For the first time, this
Southern country took on real beauty, or else I was a little drunk from lack of
sleep. I forgot about Colonel Appier and the way he was forever ranting because
I misspelled a few words in the regimental orders. The countryside looked so
good that it reminded me of spring back home in Ohio, when everything is
opening and the air is soft with the