Read Online Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt - Free Book Online Page B

thought of boys frozen under the snow at Donelson, he remembered that he had not loved Tom as he had Bill and Shadrach, and suddenly the warm, firelit room, the smell of food, the shelves of books, all wakened a feeling of guilt in his mind. He wondered if Tom had a coat and blanket; he thought of the bitter cold outside and shuddered involuntarily.
    Shadrach looked up at him. “Still cold, Jeth?”
    “Nothin’ to speak of.”
    “You were thinking of the letter?”
    “I guess so.”
    Shadrach shook his head. “It’s all a brutal business. There are going to be a lot of letters—worse than this one.”
    “If this victory wasn’t so much, Shad, why was people in Newton yellin’ so and sayin’, ‘God bless Grant’?”
    “It was an important victory, Jeth; don’t misunderstand me. Look, I’m going to show you something....” Shadrach got to his feet and brought pencil and a piece of rough paper from the bookshelves. He drew the paisley-covered table up closer to the fire and motioned Jethro to join him beside it. “Come here. We’ll have a little lesson together.”
    He was sketching rapidly, first the outline of a block of states, then lines to represent rivers and railroads and small squares for towns. His eyes began to shine with interest in his project as he worked.
    “Now, this is the Confederate line, Jeth, beginning over here in eastern Kentucky.” Shadrach studied his sketch and added a row of x’s to represent the Confederates. “Here it comes across the Blue Grass country; then it crosses the Mississippi about here; on it stretches across Missouri and on over here into Indian Territory—a line several hundred miles long. Now, all of this is under the command of a Confederate general named Albert Sidney Johnston—you’ve heard of him, maybe?”
    “I think I’ve heered Pa speak the name.” Jethro was seeing in his mind’s eye gray-clad men standing side by side, forming a single line across miles of fields, hills, and rivers; grim, forbidding men except for one familiar face. He wondered if Bill could feel comfortable in that long gray line of strangers. Then he pulled himself back to Shadrach’s running explanation, which accompanied his sketching.
    “Here are two rivers, the Tennessee and the Cumberland. See how they run side by side and only a few miles apart as they come up toward the Ohio, and notice that they are crossed by the Confederate line. Now, over here on the Ohio our gunboats have been lying, some at the mouth of the Cumberland, some at the mouth of the Tennessee—a threat to this Confederate line, you see.”
    Jethro shook his head. “What if they did threaten it? Gunboats couldn’t lick that long line of Rebs stretchin’ across the map, could they?”
    “No, but look what they could do—what, in fact, they’ve already done. Notice how the Cumberland dips down into Tennessee and flows past these towns—Clarksville here and Nashville here. It’s from these towns that the Confederates have been getting their supplies; this line can’t move far or fight our armies if it doesn’t have food, guns, ammunition. These things have been coming up the river and this—” Shadrach made a small square on the line representing the Cumberland and labelled it “Donelson”—“this is the fort that the Confederates thought would be enough to keep our gunboats from controlling their supply line.”
    “And was it the same on the other river?”
    “In a way. See, this line represents a railroad; it comes up here from Memphis and crosses the Tennessee just below Fort Henry. Supplies have been coming up here by rail, probably every day—no doubt soldiers too, as reinforcements for Johnston. Now, do you see why Grant and Admiral Foote struck at these forts?”
    “Yes, I see it now.” Jethro felt a great satisfaction, which came from his new understanding. He studied the map thoughtfully. “That was a wonderful thing Tom helped to do, wasn’t it, Shad?”
    “Yes, it was,