The Smoke at Dawn: A Novel of the Civil War Read Online Free

way out of those hills quick as the horse will take him. The whole army … they’ve got their mindsset on one thing: getting out of this place completely. If we push them hard enough, quick enough, we’ll shove them right out of Chattanooga, back north, maybe all the way to Nashville.
    He looked down, called out.
    “Captain, I need to send a message to General Polk. I want to make sure General Bragg sees it as well. These are strict orders, you understand?”
    He saw Captain Seeley, the young man motioning for a courier, a piece of paper emerging from the man’s coat.
    “What’s the message, sir?”
    Forrest stared out again across the open valley, could feel the desperation in the enemy soldiers even now, miles away, could sense the panic he knew he had to exploit. He scanned the ridgelines to the south and west, hoping to see more columns of Bragg’s men, the victorious army driving their pursuit with lustful energy, completing the great victory. But there was only the fog, thick timber hiding the roads, no signs of movement from Bragg’s army at all. Surely, he thought. Surely he knows. They must come. It is so … simple.
    He thought of the words, knew that Polk might hesitate, and so Bragg must be told as well. They despise each other, he thought. Two cackling hens. Well, today it’s time to be soldiers. Your enemy is right out there, beaten and disorganized and they know what it feels like to be routed from the field. In fear there is opportunity. Our opportunity.
    “Tell him … our position, our strength. We do not have the numbers up here to do much more. The army must come up. We must push them … hit them. Tell the general … we must press forward as rapidly as possible.”
    He thought of climbing down, saw Seeley writing furiously, but Forrest felt frozen, the pain in his back, the exhaustion holding him in place. We must keep them scared, he thought. Drive them wherever we can, let them know we’re right behind them. Demons, chasing them to hell. We have you, he thought. We have you in our hands. And now we will crush you.

    For most of the day, Forrest had waited atop Missionary Ridge with pulsing frustration, continued to send couriers back to the places where the generals were supposed to be. By late afternoon, he had grown sick of his impotence, unable to do anything more than watch from his perfect vantage point as the flood of Yankees drifted across the wide plain into Chattanooga. With no instructions, no words of encouragement from the commanders, he made the decision to leave his horsemen up on the ridgeline, while he and a small number of troopers rode back southward to face the generals himself.
BRAGG’S HEADQUARTERS—
NEAR CHICKAMAUGA CREEK—SEPTEMBER 21, 1863
    The room was hot, a roaring wood fire from a wide stone hearth, the thick air intoxicating, sleep inducing, Bragg’s aides supporting themselves in small camp chairs or leaning against the crude walls. The wetness in Forrest’s uniform had turned to sweat, both from the heat in the headquarters and Forrest’s manic pacing. He thumped his boot heels into the wooden floor, turned, made the short march back the other way, waited for Bragg to complete some detail, jotting notes on a piece of paper, reading, then rereading, what seemed to Forrest to be a deliberate effort to hold the horseman back.
    A new burst of pain drove through Forrest, and the words came now, his weariness and the agony of the wound breaking down his discipline.
    “Sir! Please! I was told you received my dispatches.”
    Bragg looked up, blinked, as though fighting back sleep. “Yes. Calm yourself, General.”
    Forrest could wait no more. “General Bragg, the enemy is filling the defenses at Chattanooga. I have seen it myself. I have sent messages back here, imploring this army to take advantage of the opportunity the enemy is providing us. That opportunity will not last, if we allow him to find the full protection of the barricades in the city.