By T.K. Hugh, WMD Author
My vision
was swimming something terrible by this time, but I thought I could
just make out a small stand of grulla cactus in the distance. I
figured that if I could make it that far, I might actually have a
chance to make it out of the desert alive. There was supposed to be
water in those plants. Not actually water, but if you cut into the
bottom of a young grulla, there was this greenish yellow pulp that
would release its moisture if you held it in your mouth and sucked
real hard. The idea of any kind of fluid running down my throat
seemed like a dream.
So I kept
it up and staggered on across the rocks, kicking up little clouds of
dust every time I took a step. I couldn’t seem to make my boots
completely leave the ground. I felt like I had bags of flour tied
around my ankles. I would fall, slowly pull myself to my feet, and
walk on a few hundred more feet only to fall again. I could no longer
stay in the shadow of the rocks if I hoped to make it to the cactus,
so the sun had its way with me, baking not only my body but my mind.
I drifted
off again….
**
I could
feel the excitement growing in my stomach when I topped the tree
lined ridge just above home. I had been gone for four long years in
the War. It was a nasty business and I was glad to be coming into
country that hadn’t been ruined by the War. There really wasn’t
much around home but the mines, and with most of the miners off
fighting, the hills of Alabama didn’t have any strategic use for
the Confederacy or the Union.
I had
traveled all the way to Milledgeville, Georgia on horseback to enlist
in the Confederate Army within a few weeks of the news of succession
making it to Birmingham. An influx of wealthy British investors in
the coal and coke mines had renamed it after the English industrial
city just before the start of the war.
My father
had not been pleased with my decision to enlist for the Confederate
Army. Of course, that wasn’t anything unusual. We had never been
close for as long as I could recall. It might have had something to
do with my mother dying, but I think it had more to do with the fact
that I was more like him that he wanted me to be.
Over the
years I had moved from a rough and tumble child to a young man with a
liking for the wild side of life. By the time I was seventeen, I
could drink the harsh homebrew whiskey made by the Irish and German
laborers that worked in the mines and then work beside them the next
day as I had inherited my father’s size and strength.
It was
not an uncommon thing I did, enlisting and all. There were quite a
few miners who had drawn their pay in the weeks after the War started
and traipsed off to fight for one side or the other. I had never had
any truck with slave owners as I grew up. Some mine superintendents
would make deals with plantation owners as far away as Fenix City for
slaves to work the mines when there were no crops left in the fields.
The slaves would get fed, and their owners would get a small weekly
wage. However, my father would not allow this sort of arrangement in
the mines where he was in charge. I guess it came from his boyhood in
Cardiff, which was an exit point for slave trade after Witherspoons
Crusade shut down most English ports to the activity.
Thing
was, I grew up free in those coal heavy hills and came to love the
life I led as a youth. There was a great deal of regional pride and I
just didn’t like the idea of the politicians in Washington telling
anyone what they could or couldn’t do in their own state. It wasn’t
until much later that I realized that there was a huge hole in my
reasoning.
By that
time, unfortunately, I was committed to the fight.
It was
while I was a member of the Georgia “Crackers” transport regiment
that people started calling me Ben. All of my life up until then I
was Mabyn. Or just Cadwallader. It had been a couple of months since
I had mustered in and everyone was excited about the possibility of
our first encounter with the enemy. They said they were excited, but
it was mostly fear. Anyone who says they are excited about the
possibility of being shot is either a liar or just plain crazy.
Although there were more than a few Irish and Welsh in the War on
both sides, people still had a habit of turning any unfamiliar name
into a more easily remembered one. So Mabyn became Ben, but mostly
they called me Cadwallader.
I was
just shy of 17 years old, so they handed me just about every dirty or
difficult task that came along. That was until the first Sergeant
found out that I could handle a hammer and anvil as good as their
regular blacksmith. One of my jobs while growing up was as a ferrier
for the mules and horses used in the mines. Since the hard pulling
they did was rough on shoes, I stayed busy.
Eventually
I became a second camp smithy. I stayed in that position for almost a
year until the Battle of Dahlonega where they learned that I had
skills with more important tools.
We were in
the middle of being overrun. We had hunkered down as best we could
behind the large granite boulders and fallen pine trees at the bottom
of Gold City Mountain. The union had some wonder kid officer from up
in Ohio sitting pretty on his horse about 300 yards away on a rocky
knob giving orders. They must have been some pretty good orders too,
because everywhere we turned there was someone wearing blue shooting
at us.
So, not
being real partial to being run through with one of those long
bayonets, I grabbed me up a rifle, took a bead on him and shot him
out of the saddle. That seemed to take the wind out of the charge and
we were able to high tail it out of there without losing too many
more men. From that time until Lee’s surrender I was a sharpshooter
with every regiment I served with. Seemed I had the knack for
shooting straight and killing without thinking about it too much. It
was a war, and they were trying to kill me. I didn’t see much need
in losing sleep over it.
**
I clearly
remember the day as I was working my way down an all too familiar
hillside where we had pulled up. I noticed that the old cabin and
stockyard area was run down something awful. This just wasn’t like
my father. If nothing else, Aneurin Cadwallader was a meticulous and
precise man, especially when it came to his own land.
“Hello
the house”, I called out. To ride up to a house uninvited in the
post war south was to risk a belly full of buckshot.
“Hello
yourself,” came a quiet drawl from a small side window. “Stay
where you are and tell me what you’re doin’ on my land. By the
way”, continued the voice, “I’ve got a Spencer .56 caliber
pointed at your chest.”
I eased
my hand away from my rifle boot and pushed my hat back real easy. I
wanted to make sure that whoever was talking knew I was friendly. One
of those old Spencers could put a hole in you a kid could fly a kite
through.
“Well
that’s kind of funny”, I said, “considering I was born and
raised here. I roamed in these mountains for the first years of my
life until I went off to join the war. Just how, would you be telling
me, did this come to be your place?”
“Well
now,” said the voice, “that would make you Mr. Cadwalladers son.”
I saw the door crack open a little wider and a grizzled old Negro
man stepped out on the porch. I also noticed that the big Spencer was
still firmly trained on the middle of my chest. Suddenly, he inhaled
sharply, and lowered the gun. “Light and sit if you want.” he
said as he sank himself into one of several old cane rockers that
lined the porch.
I got off
my horse and tied him to a small dogwood tree where he began to
nibble at the grass. I slowly pulled myself up the steps and sat so
that I could see the old man and keep an eye on that Spencer.
“So,
where’s my father?” I asked.
“Dead,”
the old man told me. “Almost 2 years now. A group of raiders came
through. Probably from Missouri. Thought that all these mines was
gold mines. When they realized that we was mining coal, they herded
all of the white men folk into the number two shaft and caved it in
with dynamite.”
He turned
and spat a stream of chewing tobacco onto the ground. “I been here
every since. Didn’t seem to be no harm.”
“Stay,”
I told him. Suddenly, I had no desire to remain either here or in the
South for that matter. I quickly left the rocker and headed back to
my horse. I had spent a lot of campfire time listening to men talk up
the western lands during the War and it seemed to be as good a place
as any to start my life over. So I began to ride.
Cadwallader Menu
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