The Warriors Read Online Free PDF Page A

Lee and Jackson would one day have pounded the Lincoln crowd into submission to our point of view. Lee was like an anvil and Jackson a hammer, and whenever the Federals were caught between them, they were lost. Now Lee’s hammer is gone. He is reportedly grieved almost beyond consolation, though outwardly maintaining a show of courage. Men claim—rightly, I think—that when we lost. Jackson, we lost the irreplaceable.
    I even sense a new attitude among those on our side. I can’t quite put it into the proper words, but there is not much talk of winning now, only of a long hard fight with a truce the most we can hope for, and defeat being more likely. The feeling did not seem present a few months ago, and certainly not a year ago. I hope the mood will pass, but I wonder. Something has changed.
    In truth, I have changed too. I am ashamed to put unmanly thoughts on paper, but I cannot help them. I was never before afraid that we would lose, but I am afraid now. I am even more afraid of what will happen to us—you and Eleanor and myself—if the worst comes to pass. The last time I saw father, he quoted Scripture and stated that the Kent family need not forever be harmed by the war. But what of we three?
    I never felt strongly that the nigras should remain perpetually enslaved—the plain truth is, I never thought much about their condition at all; a mistake, I am beginning to believe.
    But my doubts about certain aspects of the war do not alter the fact that I have taken part in what the North calls the rebellion. Will I or any other soldier on this side be easily forgiven for that? I doubt it. Of more importance is this question. Even if I am forgiven, how will we make a life for ourselves when peace comes again?
    You know the many, many hours I have spent during the winter studying the books you have sent, trying to teach myself to put words down in a proper order, and with some intelligence, because a good officer—especially a staff officer—must have that skill. But I am a grown man, and I still lack a decent education. War is the only trade I know.
    You must forgive much of what I have written. I am caught up in the sad spirit of these days, and should not pass my gloom along to you. I love you with all my heart and pray for your safety and that of our dear child there in the capital which the enemy wants to destroy so very much.
    Will write again the moment I can. Let us hope God and the circumstances of the war enable me to do so in a more cheerful spirit.
    Give the baby hugs and kisses for me.
    Your husband, G. K.

Book One
In Destructions Path

Chapter I
Soldier Alone
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    S LOWLY, SO HE WOULDN’T make a sound, the kneeling Confederate corporal stretched his right hand between the slats of the corn crib on the small Georgia farm.
    The interior was black. He couldn’t see what he was after, but he was determined to find food. His belly hurt, though he didn’t know whether it hurt from hunger or from the onset of another attack of dysentery.
    Better get hold of something to tide you over, he thought. All he’d had to drink for the past two days had been creek water, his only nourishment a few berries. If he starved he’d never reach Jefferson County. And he had to reach it. That was why he’d risked sneaking the quarter of a mile from a clump of pine woods to the back of this crib on a small farm in Washington County. While he’d crossed the open ground, he’d kept the crib between himself and the rundown house, which appeared to be deserted. From the safety of the trees, he’d watched house and crib for a quarter hour before venturing out.
    He couldn’t find any corn in the crib. He pressed his right shoulder harder against the slats, stretching and wiggling his fingers, groping. He was a lean young man of eighteen. His face, which always tended to a gauntness inherited from his father, looked even more bony than usual. He had his mother’s fair hair, but accumulated dirt had given it a dingy brown cast.