XXXVI

However Mr. Lincoln felt about it, the Confederate States of America was a going concern, de facto if not de jure. Less than a month after Alabama declared Independence from the Union, all of the seceded states sent delegates to Montgomery. They included Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida and Louisiana in a list that reads like an SEC roster. As of yet the other states had not seceded from the Union. And so in Montgomery they formed a Congress and elected a President. The constitution mimicked that of the United States of America except where it pertained to the protection of slavery. However these founding fathers of the Confederacy felt about their Second American Revolution, theirs was an empire of bondage, a republic of suffering.

And so Jefferson Davis received a cable from the rebel Congress appointing him President of these Confederate States of America. He hadn't even known he was on the ballot. Varina, his beloved wife, was struck by how ashen he turned. It was as though the most enormous responsibility had been assailed upon him. He had been Mississippi's Senator and a former Secretary of War to Washington. He was a hero of the Mexican War, and though he was not a Fire-Eater, he was a uniting conservative of the Democratic Party. When he arrived by the cars to Montgomery, he was greeted on the Capitol steps by crowds of white people. There may have been a few slaves, but it wasn't their republic. He ascended the steps of the Capitol where he was embraced by the King of Fire-Eaters, plump little Alabama Senator William Lowndes Yancey. Never one to miss a good politicking, Senator Yancey grasped Jefferson Davis's arm and raised it high and called out to the crowd:

The man and the hour have met!

The crowds erupted! They played Dixie and paraded down Bibb Street singing the Bonnie Blue. Jefferson Davis was too grim a man to indulge himself in these jollities. The fate of this new Nation rest heavy upon his shoulders. So he took up a single office in the Exchange Hotel where the frosted glass door was crudely scrawled with the word - President. From this he would begin to craft the bureaucratic organs of this peculiar nation until, towards the end, he was a worse tyrant that Mr. Lincoln. Even the Fire Eaters would abandon him in time. But that was in the future, and after a great many trials.

As it were, Mr. Lincoln didn't even acknowledge or give credence to this rebel republic. In fact, he played dumb while the whole country had torn itself asunder. He was playing a very delicate game to keep what remained of the Union intact. As of yet, important border states had not yet seceded, like Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri and Kentucky. It was not war yet. It was a crisis of intransigence. Trade continued as usual. Travel between these two nations went unabated. To the concert of nations, who warily watched this bifurcation of a major commercial rival with interest, Jefferson Davis had this to say to elicit their sympathies.

All we ask is to be left alone!

Mr. Lincoln, who was endowed with the genius of patience, continued to wait out for the opportunity to goad the rebels into firing first, so as not to antagonize the Europeans. It soon came when a loyal Kentuckian by the name of Robert Patterson spiked the guns of Fort Moultrie and rowed his men for Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. There he refused all demands to give up his post as an officer of the United States. He was one of the precious few Union officers in the South who hadn't turned over their post to the rebel government. Most officers of the tiny pre-war army were Southerners.

And so that little creole general, P.G.T. Beauregard, gave the order for the batteries to fire on Fort Sumter. It was April 12, 1861. In the pre-dawn hours, a single 10-inch mortar creased a yellow arc through the sky where it burst like a firework over the fort. A few seconds later, the report echoed across Charleston Harbor. The crowds who had collected on the waterfront burst with joy and awe. The first shot of the war had been fired. It would not abate again for four more Aprils.

Back in the Nickajack, they kept the Union flag flying from the courthouses for some weeks after secession. The mountainous region had deep Whig roots with its large yeomanry and a growing burgher class. They were even horrified by the events of Fort Sumter. But what horrified them most of all was Mr. Lincoln calling up 75,000 volunteers to put down the rebellion, for which Old Dixie had fired the first shot. No man of true republican instincts would possibly order soldiers to arms against his own citizens! These were the actions of a Tyrant! The Whigs had long been skeptical of executive power, and now here it was in its worst form. War against his own People!

It was then that Burnside Lee had rallied together the Athenian Hoplites, which became A Company, 19th Alabama Infantry Regiment. Branse Havelock and William Marmaduke were part of this company. But the Athenian Hoplites were not the first to go battle. The most ardent Greek secessionists had formed the Limestone Grays under Theodore Hobbes even before Fort Sumter. They formed the F Company of the 4th Alabama Infantry Regiment. They got sent to Virginia. Included in that group was Branse Havelock's father, who was Branse Senior.

Whatever their personal motives were for joining, they rallied around the Cause, which was short for they had all been sold a bill of goods by the Fire Eaters. They had all bought into the Big Lie which drove the whole machine of slavery... that a black man wasn't good enough to be free or equal. So much so, that they all marched into all-but-certain death for that Big Lie.

But they would do it so with an uncommon valor.

XVII

For his courageous actions as a messenger at the Battle of Shiloh, Branse Havelock was recommended by Fighting Joe Wheeler to the signals staff of General P.G.T. Beauregard, whom they called Little Napoleon. Pierre Gustave Toutont-Beauregard was a Louisiana Creole with grandiose tactical visions - a breathtaking prima donna. From this vantage Branse gained marvelous insight into the gods and generals that moved the destinies of nations. After General Beauregard withdrew the Confederate Army from Shiloh the Yankees had amassed a mighty host of over 120,000 men and followed him to lay siege to Corinth. Facing such a grandiose army, General Beauregard ordered an evacuation. He placed Branse in charge of a fantastic ruse to mask the withdrawal lest they invite an attack at a critical moment.

As the trains arrived to evacuate the countless wounded from the Battle of Shiloh, Branse had the 19th Alabama cheer around the railroad station to make it sound like they were welcoming reinforcements. Beyond the earthworks it gave the Yankees pause, who were now under the studious command of Henry Halleck, and who was nicknamed "Old Brains." Branse had so-called "Quaker Guns" made of logs installed around the perimeter to replace the real guns they evacuated by rail. Every night Branse had more campfires built to create the appearance of swelling numbers. Old Brains scratched his elbows and continued to hesitate, perhaps even expecting to be attacked by overwhelming numbers of rebels. Then one night they were all gone.

The Yankees mounted the earthworks kicking over Quaker guns and rummaging through empty tins looking for food. They had been bamboozled! The rebels slipped away! Indeed they had towards Tupelo, and for much of the summer of '62 the two great armies stood facing each other across the Mississippi hill country. At length, P.G.T. Beauregard was relieved after a scuffle with Mr. Davis in the press and was replaced by the General Braxton Bragg, who looked like a terrier. Branse was retained on Bragg's staff, but he found the general aloof and pugnacious. Still, the general planned a bold invasion of Kentucky for the autumn that raised the army's spirits after an inactive summer. The army was now called the Army of Tennessee and would remain so-named throughout the rest of the war. 

Branse helped organize the railway schedule to entrain 50,000 rebel soldiers from Tupelo to Mobile to Columbus to Chattanooga in a tortuous journey for the soldiers. The Army of Tennessee took this enormous geographical detour on account of the Memphis & Charleston Railroad being occupied by federals from Memphis to Huntsville, Ala. When they stepped off north into Kentucky they had high hopes of being welcomed as liberators, swelling their ranks with volunteers. Instead they were met with indifference, even derision.  They tarried for awhile until the grains were harvested and clashed in a sharp fight called the Battle of Perryville, in which the 19th Alabama didn't even participate. It was about that time that Branse Havelock received a letter from Virginia.  

It was marked with a return address to Richmond, but had no name for the sender. At his camp table in his field tent, he sliced open the envelope beneath the glow of a paraffin lantern. A ring had fallen out. He read the letter that was enclosed.

Dear Branse,

It is with great heartfelt condolence that I must convey to you the news that your father was killed in action at Sharpsburg on September 17th. He bravely withstood several Yankee charges made across the Antietam Creek bridge. His body was recovered and with General Lee's intervention was forwarded through to our lines. He is being advanced to Athens for burial.  Your father and I shared deep bonds of affection and politics. I have never had the pleasure of meeting my dear friend's son, but we must soon. Perhaps duty soon will bring us within reach, for I have much to tell you of your father's remarkable legacy. 

I Am Your Most Obedient Servant, Henry Lewis Benning, Brig. Gen., C.S.A.

His father was dead. They were at odds when they parted. Branse had voted against secession, one of the few Greeks to have done so.  His father, however, was a vehement secessionist - a real Fire Eater.  He had never been warm.  Indeed, he was harsh and domineering. He was too absorbed in the management of his plantation, Barbados, where he farmed a thousand acres with over a hundred slaves. He was gone often on business. As the country slid towards the secession crisis, he cursed the Yankee race and told Branse this war was for the salvation of the white race.  It will be like Haiti, where the n*****s killed ten thousand whites... women, children. They dashed babies against rocks and crucified white women after raping them. 

Whatever the truth may or may not be, these rants offended Branse's political sensibilities.  He believed slavery would eventually be extinguished of its own accord, but it must be within the Union and involve compensation to the owners for their pains.  Branse's father was appalled by his son's Whig-ish sentiments.  He called his own son a n****r lover, which wholly offended Branse. When they last saw one another, it was on the platform of the Huntsville Depot. They did not embrace. His father simply looked at him and said to 'look to your kind,' whatever that meant. Then he was off to Virginia to fight.

In spite of all this, Branse began to weep. His father was a very renowned and respectable aristocrat among the Greeks. They were all embarrassed when the elder Havelock enrolled to fight, though they fully expected it from the fanatical Fire Eater. They commented that they would remain behind to aide the war effort with their tills, never mind the slaves that actually worked them.  Cotton was still going to pay the bills for the war.  Now Branse inherited a towering legacy, for Barbados was an expansive estate, and there was the mansion on the Hill. Dr. Prentiss and the Greeks would be looking to him to fill in his father's shoes when it came to the elaborate system of patronage that kept the Democrats in power.  

As he dabbed his tears with his hankerchief he noticed the ring again.  It looked like a class ring, perhaps from the University of Georgia where his father had attended. He picked it up and rolled it with his thumb.  Inlaid into the bezel was a red jasper stone inscribed with white gold initials. They read - AK.  

XVI

Burnside Lee, being a Democrat of the Whig tradition, voted against secession. His family were Burghers of Athens who made their fortune on hardware and believed in internal improvements and high tariffs. Still, he owned twelve slaves and 150 acres at his plantation Cerro Gordo, which he had specially constructed in the Spanish style of a hacienda and named after the battle in which he never ceased to recount. He was a proud veteran of the Mexican War where he fought under a bright constellation of heroes like Robert E. Lee, P.G.T. Beauregard and U.S. Grant. He had brought home a senorita, Romina Delgado, who was dusky and exotic and domineering. He called her his esposita.

After Fort Sumter, when Lincoln called up his 75,000 to suppress the rebellion, he threw in his towel with the secessionists like most other Southern Whigs. He personally financed a company of volunteers in Limestone County and called them the "Athenian Hoplites." He even designed a uniform (grey with bronze epaulets) and armed them with the excellent 1841 Mississippi rifle. Several scions of the Greeks joined up, including Bill Marmaduke and Branse Havelock. They were sworn into the Confederate Army in Huntsville, Ala. as Company A of the 19th Alabama Infantry Regiment. "With the Old Guard." Their commanding officer was a dashing young Georgian named Joseph Wheeler. He placed the colors into the hands of Burnside Lee who would lead Company A in battle - a blue field with a white border and the image of an ancient Greek hoplite sown into the center.

They rode the cars to Mobile where they spent the next nine months drilling in the invariably stifling air of the Gulf. Their sergeant major was a profane martinet who whipped them into the most parade-sharp company in the regiment. In the winter of '62, Fort Donelson on the Tennessee-Kentucky border fell to Grant's army. Nashville was abandoned and the Confederate Army was falling back into the Deep South. If the Hoplites were eager for action, they were soon obliged. They were shipped north to join the mighty army of General Albert Sydney Johnston then concentrating at Corinth, Mississippi. It was time to strike back.

Their target was the army of Ulysses S. Grant, who had disembarked at a place called Pittsburgh Landing on the Tennessee River, near the Shiloh Church. He intended to collect more reinforcements before advancing with superior numbers on Corinth. General Johnston decided to strike first, and his army sallied forth to smash into Grant's exposed position. The great Battle of Shiloh opened with a surprise attack on the Yankees as they were cooking their breakfast. A crescendo of fire and thunder alerted Grant to the danger and the Yankees dug their heels in and made the rebels pay for every yard of ground.

A rider rushed forward and gave a crisp salute to Burnside Lee and passed him a slip. Sir, you are hereby ordered by Colonel Wheeler to advance your company up the Savannah Road and drive the enemy from his position. It sounded simple enough. Only the courage was lacking, so Burnside Lee withdrew a flask and emptied it down his gullet. Then he withdrew his sword, nodded to the drummer boy and they all stepped off to the cadence of The White Cockade. The entire 19th Alabama surged forward towards a peach orchard on the left side of the Savannah Road.

Nobody could see the enemy. Peach blossoms were raining down like confetti from an incessant rain of shots. They sounded like bees. As they reached the firing line men started dropping. The wounds were grievous. Burnside could see the flash of muskets from behind the curtain of smoke that blanketed everything. He halted the company. Make ready! They checked their primers. Take aim! They levelled their muskets with a clacking sound. Fire! The line erupted with a flash and long stabs of smoke. Load! It took a long thirty seconds to load a musket. They repeated this business for fifteen minutes during which men continued to fall with troubling regularity. Nobody could tell if they were hitting anybody.

Whatever the effect of their shooting, the firing receded. The Yankees were falling back. They then advanced up the right side of a road and found a grove where they rested for an hour. Rations were brought up, but there was no water. A nearby pond was greased with too much offal and blood to drink. Firing was heard everywhere around them as they ate. The boys were shocked to find their ranks missing so many friends they knew. Rumors started going around that General Johnston was dead. They could believe it. The fighting had been a maelstrom of bullets flying everywhere. No one was safe from that. PGT Beauregard was in command now.

They made the final push to drive Grant into the Tennessee River towards dusk. Company A was mustered into line and sent forward again. This time the Yankees weren't driven back. They had massed ranks of cannon and threw thick black shot you could see into the Hoplites' ranks. The men were simply blown back, or torn to pieces. Exhausted, they broke into camp for the night. Old Bernie walked around encouraging his boys then retired to his tent to weep. No one slept because Yankee gunboats on the Tennessee kept throwing shells into their camp.

The next morning it wasn't even contest. Grant had been reinforced by the army of Don Carlos Buell and had counterattacked with overwhelming numbers. It was the Hoplites' turn to feel the pressure, and they gave in. They had lost too much blood. General Beauregard called for a retreat. The Battle of Shiloh was over. They slogged back south to Corinth where the hospitals were swamped with casualties.

It was time to take to stock of their losses. In its first action, Company A lost over half of its ranks. They mustered 122 before battle. When they returned to Corinth only 55 remained fit for duty. Burnside Lee was crestfallen. He had lost so many of his boys. For the Athenian Hoplites, Shiloh was only the beginning of a war that would arc across three more Aprils.

Map of the Franklin Campaign: Sept. - Dec. 1864

 

XIII

The sheriff was ushered into the study by a servant in white gloves where Burnside Lee was stooped over a large table by the light of a hundred candles. My eyes are going to s**t, he said without looking up. The table was crowded with hundreds of pewter toy soldiers and elaborately sculpted with plaster terrain. What battle is this, Bill asked? Rossbach. Frederick the Great's most magnificent victory! Bill had never heard of it, and worried Old Bernie would open into one of those ramblings-on about things that interested no one.

 
Instead, Burnside straightened up and took a puff of his cigar and studied Bill. You want something from me, he said. Forget it. You used to be one of us, Bill. A Republican? Your father would roll in his grave. You used to be a Democrat!

 
My father was a Whig. So were you before the war. You're not one of them, and they're not one of us. We served. We gave it all to the Cause, but whose Cause was it? It was theirs. It was Dr. Prentiss and the rest of those selfish philistines. The darkies are free, but the Greeks are all still grasping at reigns. Don't you see what's going on down there? He pointed in the direction of Strangetown. That's the new world down there.

 
Burnside looked off. Sighed. The world sure has changed, that's for sure. Now my coloreds are out there voting Republican. And here you are! Royal Bill! King of Strangetown!

 
He began to contemplate. We should have freed them long ago, he said distantly. It would have spared a good many of my boys.

 
Looking down at his toy soldiers he heard distant cannon fire from beyond time. It was the preliminary bombardment before Hood ordered them forward into the woods. It was a triumphant moment. He was colonel of the 19th Alabama leading his boys into the primeval dens of Chickamauga. They moved through the forest hallooing the old rebel yell as though flushing quail. Stabs of musketry and carnage. When it was over, they had broken through. The blue bellies were in flight.

 
When he had sobered up, his horse was dead, his leg was gone and his boys were shot to pieces. His war was over. The boys all still loved him though. Every veteran tipped their hat to Old Bernie. And he reveled in telling old war stories and boring tales of historical arcanum. Bill was right. The Greeks were not one of us.

Bill approached Bernie and looked very serious at him. I need you to keep me informed of what Prentiss and the Greeks are up to. I want you to be my spy on the inside. Can you do this?
Bernie looked mournful. A rivulet of tears ran down his cheek. He was weeping for them all. All of those beautiful boys lost. Bill was right about the Greeks and their "Cause." Bernie looked up as Bill stirred inside the leather pouch he had brought with him. He drew from it a shot-torn flag. It was blue rimmed with a white border. At its center was a seal sewn with the image of an ancient Greek hoplite. Inscribed upon it were the names of Shiloh, Stones River, Chickamauga and Franklin. A Company, 19th Alabama Infantry Regiment. "With the Old Guard"

 
Bill pressed it into Bernie's hands, who was inconsolable. It was the colonel's first command. I kept it after the surrender, Bill said quietly. It's for you. The only cause now, old friend, is to get along with what's left. You'll do this for me, sir? For them? Burnside nodded yes.

With the Old Guard, Bill said.

Burnside Lee nodded again. With the Old Guard.

XII

William Stovall Marmaduke, Capt. CSA, bid farewell to friends, including Frank Gurley with whom he had grown close. He had ridden guerilla with him for over two years in the mountains of Jackson County, Ala. It was a difficult moment for Bill Marmaduke. He had fallen in love in these mountains, and had lost that love along the way in what seemed like another lifetime. He had to move on. Now great armies were on the move and mighty plans were afoot. The Confederate army of John Bell Hood set its sights on Nashville to cut off Sherman's army, which was then slashing and burning its way across Georgia towards the sea. So Bill joined back up with the old Army of Tennessee which was then marching its way west along the river near Gunter's Landing.

 
He was convinced to join by the appeals of a fellow Greek from Athens, Branse Havelock, who was then a Major on Hood's staff and with whom Bill had joined the Cause with. It was a warm reunion. Branse needed an old hand to take B Company of their old regiment, the 19th Alabama, so Bill obliged. His new company was a sorry sight but not because he doubted their courage. They seemed too young to shave, or make love, or to die. They looked like they were just pressed into the ranks straight from grammar school by the local home guard. So he drilled them for what he called "The Elephant," the din and terror of battle under which they must survive, and furthermore prevail. Bill discarded the manuals. Thrust your bayonet underhanded into the gut and tip your enemy over to the side, like bailing wet hay. Overhanded bayonet thrusts tended to strike and lodge in the ribs. There is no shame in laying down under fire, particularly from artillery. Shots float high when firing downhill, so aim at the enemy’s waist.

 
While the army was encamped at Tuscumbia, Bill was sent on a secret errand to occupied Limestone County by Branse to gather more recruits, and where General Hood believed enthusiasm for the Cause was still strong. He was wrong. Bill met clandestinely with Dr. Prentiss and the other Greeks. He found them nothing better than Yankee collaborators. Instead of growing corn to feed the starving countryside, they grew cotton and sold it North. He was disgusted. They didn't bother asking about the substitutes they had hired for themselves to avoid conscription. They would have learned they were all dead.

 
Bill felt stung by the indifference of his fellow Greeks. He had served. He had hired no substitute. His plantation was in disrepair and abandoned by its slaves. He was most probably in financial ruin, though he had no idea. He hadn't been home since he joined in the Cause, and didn't go back just then learning Yankees were quartered there. When he returned to B Company, he cursed the Greeks as selfish traitors. They had all voted for secession, but did nothing for the war effort except pay off a $300 substitute to catch a bullet in the chest for them. He had seen it all happen too. They were buried all over Tennessee and Georgia.

 
When the cold November rains came, Hood's army crossed the river at Muscle Shoals and invaded Tennessee. The boys of B Company, 19th Alabama began their long slog north looking for a fight. The Yankees, fearing defeat in piecemeal, abandoned their outposts in the Nickajack and concentrated north towards the Duck River, just south of Franklin. But now that the Yankees had abandoned Athens, Bill Marmaduke wondered whether Hood should not turn east and sack the Greeks on the Hill instead.

V

The Darlings of Strangetown all loved “Royal Bill” Marmaduke, Sheriff of Limestone County. The man was a living legend, and a deep thorn in the side of the Greeks. He was a Republican. Among their councils on the Hill they sneered him as a scallawag, traitor to his class, traitor to his race. But he was a war hero. He swore his oath to the Confederacy in Huntsville, Alabama and mustered into the 19th Alabama Infantry Regiment. He fought under Fighting Joe Wheeler at Shiloh with the 19th Alabama, and rode as a guerilla fighter with his friend Frank Gurley, who became Sheriff of Madison County. When John Bell Hood invaded Tennessee in the winter of ’64, he came down out of Hurricane Valley to fight with the 19th Alabama one last time. When he mustered back in, there wasn’t anybody left he knew. And when he fought at Franklin, he lost all the new friends he’d made too. He was a changed man after all that. But that’s a whole another story.

 
He ran on the Republican ticket, which was roundly viewed with cynicism by his fellow Greeks and suspicion by Strangetown. Maw Possum brought in the colored vote and helped elect Limestone County’s first Republican. Royal Bill ran down the Klan’s operations out of Dogwood Flats while getting his take out of Strangetown’s tables. The Klan was bad enough. There were a lot of people coming home from the war with everything gone, and then being told it’s the negro’s fault, it’s the Yankees’ fault. They’re told that they might have lost everything, but at least they are still white and they should be grateful. And people actually believed that stuff and joined the Klan because they just ate it up. The Klan’s problem was that most of them were stupid, but they provided a pool of useful idiots for the real enemy of Strangetown.

Adelphon Kuklos was a secret society of absolute white terrorists. They were a committed few willing to do violence on their fellow man for a white world. No one knew who its members were. Rumors and gossip abound about the AK. They controlled the Klan from the shadows, and possibly the Greeks themselves. All anyone really knew is that Royal Bill Marmaduke shot one of them dead saving the life of Drake Shoney down in Belle Mina. The Adelphon Kuklos had strung Shoney up by the noose when Royal Bill pulled out his Navy Colt and shot down a figure in a scarlet robe as the others fled. No one recognized the man who Royal Bill shot, and the investigation into this curious episode is a story for another time.
After that, Royal Bill grew beloved in Strangetown. He had taken on the terrorists himself. His popularity snowballed from there. He ran parades and rodeos and raced wagons around the track. The crowds in Strangetown cheered Royal Bill who rode along like a king on his wagon. He became a powerful political force that was resented by the Greeks, admired by The Major, and profitable to Maw Possum.