Into the Woods to Connect the Dots

The great Civil War battle at Chickamauga Creek in Georgia in September, 1863, is the only time the central regiments in my two novels, the Fifth Texas and Sixth Texas Infantry regiments, fought in the same battle. Since the woods and fields at Chickamauga are the only “common ground” ever shared by the two outfits, I’m writing this post about my visit to the Chickamauga Battlefield National Park last March.

As National Park Battlefields go, it’s one of my favorites. Chickamauga Creek flows just a few miles south of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and is about eighty miles north of Atlanta. The battlefield park is still a rural setting, just the opposite of the “lost” battlegrounds in modern Atlanta to the south and modern Chattanooga to the north.

The new twenty-minute video in the park visitor center is nicely written and the actors portraying soldiers in the film actually look like the original photographic images of Civil War soldiers. In other words, they are not portly middle-aged guys.

I visited Chickamauga on a weekday in the spring, so the roads were not overcrowded and the trails were pretty much empty. The ground is more wooded than most of the Civil War battlefield parks, Shiloh in Tennessee perhaps being the exception.

Being alone and not having to accommodate anyone else’s interests, I was eager to walk part of the paths taken by both the Fifth and Sixth Texas regiments. I armed myself with a good map from the visitor center, parked the car and headed into the woods right away.

I first wanted to see where the Sixth Texas stood their ground, and where their Brigade General Deshler was killed by a cannonball. That action is described in Whittled Away, as Chickamauga was the first big battle for the Sixth Texas after their exchange as prisoners of war.

I left the parking lot to soon be surrounded by trees and bushes, alone in a forest. After only walking fifty yards or so, I realized that creating a battle scene in a novel, at a location only pictured in one’s imagination, and later walking the actual piece of ground, can be a bi-polar experience.

When I reached the patch of woods designated as the area where Deshler’s Brigade fought, I sat on a log and just looked around. I wished I had a copy of Whittled Away in hand so I could re-read the Chickamauga chapter to cross-check my vision with the actual ground –even if it was 150 years later. I had no idea if what I wrote reflected what I was seeing. Even if Whittled Away is a done deal, on sale now for over a year, it mattered to me that I might not have portrayed the setting accurately.

I stood at the cannon ball pyramid that marks the site of General Deshler’s death and tried to imagine the chaos of battle in that peaceful hidden piece of woods.  I tried to picture the young general, down on all fours, trying to peer under the thick layer of black powder smoke to see what was happening in front of his soldiers.

I tried to visualize, painfully, the instant when Deshler was struck in the chest by a solid iron cannonball, ripping through his torso, killing him instantly. That makes me shiver even sitting here in my study, safely typing on a keyboard.

After a reflective time where the Sixth Texas held the line, I went to find where the Fifth Texas maneuvered and attacked.

The path the Fifth Texas took was through more open terrain and covered a much longer distance. That Texas Brigade was on loan from General Lee’s army as part of Longstreet’s Corps. They were in the spearhead that broke through the Union line and enabled General Bragg’s Confederate army to eventually win the battle.

I wound up on Horseshoe Ridge and Snodgrass Hill, where many Union regiments were rallied by General Thomas, “the Rock of Chickamauga,” holding onto the high ground while the rest of the army retired from the battlefield and retreated back towards Chattanooga.

When I had previously thought of Snodgrass Hill, I had mentally pictured a gently sloping ridge. It isn’t gentle. It’s steep and the high ground curves around, making a prime defensive position. Standing on top makes it easy to see why the Rebs never quite cracked that nut.

Not in McBee’s Bloody Boots, because it is set in 1862, the year before Chickamauga, but in the still unwritten second volume of the McBee saga that will be set in 1863, I intend to find a way to cross the paths of Whittled Away’s main characters, Bain Gill and Jesse McDonald of the Sixth Texas, and Captain John McBee of the Fifth Texas, and his man-servant, Levi. I haven’t a clue yet just how I’ll do that, but it’s going to happen. That sort of thing is one of the joys of writing historical fiction novels instead of straight history books.

More importantly, since it’s still in manuscript phase, the first big battle in McBee’s Bloody Boots is the 1862 battle at Gaines’ Mill, outside Richmond, Virginia. This week I’m travelling to Richmond to take part in a Civil War reenactment there. On Friday, before the reenactment, I’m going to walk the path of the Texas Brigade at Gaines’ Mill. With a map in one hand and my manuscript the other hand, I’m going to make sure the topography dots connect between the ground under my feet and the words in my novel. It matters.

What I’m reading this week: Lt. Col. King Bryant of Hood’s Texas Brigade by Michael Dan Jones, and The Last Battle of the Civil War: Patmetto Ranch by Jeffrey Hunt.