March Toward the Thunder Read Online Free PDF Page B

I trust me own eyes?” Sergeant Fynn said, a disbelieving smile on his face. “Has someone gone and replaced me troop of city swells and country clodhoppers with what appears to be real soldiers?”

CHAPTER FIVE
    MARCHING

Tuesday, May 3, 1864
    Private Mickey Devlin was reciting poetry again.
    â€œNow round the flag the Irish like a human rampart go,” Songbird declaimed in perfect rhythm to their marching feet, “they found Cead Mille failthe here—they’ll give it to the foe.”
    He looked at Louis, who nodded back at him. Even though he had no idea what under the sun that mouthful of words meant, they were stuck in Louis’s own head now like a fly’s feet in molasses.
    â€œDevlin,” Corporal Hayes said, stroking his thin red mustache with his thumb as he came up beside the Songbird, “those are fine enough lines. But you’ve been repeating them for the last five miles. Would you either favor us with something new or button your lip?”
    â€œForgive me, sir,” Devlin replied. “It was just honor I was doing to the valor of our comrades, the living and the dear departed whose memories’ll remain green in our souls as that same emerald flag under which they fought, the very flag that leads us now, proudly waving beside the starry banner.”
    â€œAye, Devlin,” Corporal Hayes sighed, “every man in the company knows you’ve kissed the Blarney Stone. Now find another verse or be quiet.”
    Louis, close behind Devlin in the line of march, shook his head. He’d met Irishmen before in the occasional jobs of labor that he had done. It was always the Irish, the blacks, and the Indians who were there in greater numbers to do such hard work. Though he’d stayed long enough to make friends with them, he never fully experienced just how much they loved to talk till now.
    Of all the talkers and singers in the brigade, Devlin seemed the king. Louis had heard more speeches, poems, songs, exaggerations, and tales, more “blarney,” from the stocky little Irishman in the last two weeks than from all the people put together in his entire previous fifteen years of life.
    â€œWe’re the New York Sixty-ninth,” Devlin warbled, making up a song of his own now from the way he paused between lines. “We fear no fight or foe.” Then he grew quiet, perhaps to seek the next rhyme in his mind or because their line of march was now taking them up a steep hill.
    The Fighting Irish 69th . Who would have thought an Indian boy like me could have become one of them? Yet here I am in a fine blue uniform and carrying a rifle and marching through northern Virginia.
    The thought sent a shiver down his spine. He’d read in the newspapers about the Irish Brigade, the five regiments of which the 1,000 men of the New York 69th were a crucial part. At Antietam and Frederickburg, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, men of the 69th had stood as firm as oak trees when others ran. They’d never retreated or lost a battle flag to the enemy.
    If I’d been older I might have been with then. Back then there was real fighting going on and not just this marching back and forth to nowhere.
    It was a week now since they’d left Camp Meagher. He was feeling what most of the other men in his company were—the nervous impatience of a young soldier not yet tested by battle. Then another, more sober voice spoke within him.
    But if I had been old enough then, I might not be here now.
    A year or two ago, as an Indian, he likely would not have been accepted into the Irish Brigade’s ranks. At the start of the war, nine out of every ten men in the five gallant regiments had been born in Ireland. But, because of their bravery, no brigade had suffered greater losses. After Gettysburg, fewer than one man in four remained of those who had marched behind the green flag emblazoned with an Irish harp. To bring the brigade back up to strength, hundreds