Free The Fateful Lightning by Jeff Shaara

husband or son is off fighting with General Lee. And if there is no son, she’s making this war on her own.”
    “What do you mean? I don’t understand, sir.”
    “I’ll not coddle you, Major. This army must sustain itself, and that requires doing what is necessary. I will not accept that just because we are shoving a big damned army through their backyards, we are to believe that, my goodness, they have always supported the Union, that all they want is a gentle peace. Suddenly we have made the war ‘inconvenient’ for them. Well, Major, if they wish this war to be gone, then they may choose to stop it.” He reined up the horse, felt the full anger now, stared into darkness, his eyes caught by a distant campfire. “I do not expect this to be a peaceable campaign, Major. I expect blood and death and sadness. These men are in the best of spirits right now. That is the most important part of this campaign. These men believe we are winning this war. I will not stand in the way of that. That spirit will prevail over any number of rebel cavalry, or any number of hot-tempered Southern ladies. It
has
to be so. It
has
to be!”
    He felt his hard grip on the reins, loosened one hand, snatched a fresh cigar from his pocket, stabbed it between his teeth. Hitchcock seemed subdued, kept silent, and Sherman was surprised by his own fury, had tried to keep that away, to focus on the duty, the campaign, the well-being of his men. He had seen that tonight, that so far all was well, the march, the advance, the progress. And the foragers were doing their job with perfect success.
    “Major, I will not excuse criminal behavior. But I will not punish those men who find the need to punish our enemies. Anyone complains to you about a fire, about their homestead being molested by our men, you can believe there is more to that than one arsonist in our ranks. The men know exactly what I know, and I will tell anyone who wishes to hear it.
We
do not burn anything, Major.
Jefferson Davis
has started these fires. Only
Jefferson Davis
can put them out.”

CHAPTER FIVE

SEELEY

    D espite Seeley’s suggestion that Augusta was the most likely target, Wheeler’s cavalry had focused more on the southerly movement of Sherman’s right wing, a route that would indicate an attempt to capture Macon. In the state capital at Milledgeville, barely thirty miles east of Macon, Governor Joseph Brown had echoed what many of his constituents were feeling, that Sherman was certain to make efforts to capture any place the Georgians themselves considered vital to the war. Those who had once dismissed the danger from Sherman’s “ragged band of Yankees” now changed their descriptions completely, word spreading that this savage mob was certain to occupy every town and village while laying waste to every structure in its path. The rumors, fueled by deep-rooted hatred of the Yankees, began to expand into something far more dramatic, tales of outrageous acts each more devastating than the last, heated stories of violence against the civilian women, as though Sherman’s entire army were no more civilized than Mongol hordes, raping and burning their way with all the savagery of Genghis Khan.
    In Milledgeville, Governor Brown was wrapped in a panic of his own, the state’s legislators convinced that Sherman intended to engulfthe capital with the same kinds of destruction said to be ripping through the farm country. Since the unexpected collapse of Atlanta, Brown had sent desperate pleas to Richmond, urgent requests for additional troops and armaments, but so far the responses had been mostly rhetoric, the Confederate government only too aware that any significant reinforcements would have to come south from Virginia, where Lee’s forces were already stretched much too thin against the army of Ulysses Grant. It was clear to Wheeler’s cavalry that Sherman was carefully disguising his intended routes of march. If Richmond could offer little in the way of