Chapter 10: 1864, Kennesaw Mountain

Edmond and Elizabeth (Ketcham) McAnally’s family was all in for the Confederacy. Their sons and nephews had been there to defend Georgia from the Yankee invasion. No one could question the loyalty of the Ketcham-McAnally clan to the Southern cause!

2 That certainty, however, was more than a little ironic in light of the fact that two other Ketcham descendants were just as loyal to the Union cause. One of them was the Yankee general (Sherman) now facing the Alabama offspring of the clan. The other was a middle-aged poet who had already established a reputation of some distinction in the literary field. At that moment, he was busy nursing Yankee soldiers back to health in Washington D.C. while his cousins in Georgia were trying to kill them. His name was Walt Whitman.

3 In May, the Twenty-Ninth Regiment of the Alabama Infantry had suffered heavy casualties at Resaca and New Hope Church. William Tecumseh Sherman, now commanding general of the Union forces pushing deeper and deeper into Georgia, was both determined and ruthless. General Johnston was in charge on the Confederate side, but his brilliant maneuvers had only succeeded in slowing down the Yankee advance.

4 Oblivious to the efforts of his distant cousin in the North, Elijah McAnally (along with his brothers and close cousins) was stretched out in one of the muddy trenches that now ringed Kennesaw Mountain waiting for the Yankees to make their move.

5 Elijah had had a bugagger as they approached the mountain a few days ago. The twin peaks looked ominous and foreboding to him, and he could not seem to shake the feeling which that first impression had engendered in him. “Will this be the place where I will meet my end (or maybe one of my kinfolk)?” he wondered.

6 His brothers, William and Thomas, had teased him about it all. “You’ve gotten scary in your old age!” Thomas had exclaimed (Elijah was only twenty-five years old). “Boy, just look at what we’ve already come through,” William added. “Do you think God’s done brought us through all that to kill us here? He asked. “I guess not,” Elijah responded with a half-hearted smile.

7 The rain had finally stopped, and the sun was shining that morning. “Maybe it won’t be such a bad day after all,” Elijah thought. “The Yankees are stupid sons of bitches, but they’ve got to have more sense than to try and attack us on this here mountain,” Cousin Ben offered. Even so, the boys were all beginning to feel a little uncomfortable with the heat, humidity and waiting.

8 “Can you believe it’s already eight o’clock?” Dutton said as he slipped his watch back into his pocket. At that instant, all hell broke loose. The Yankee artillery opened up on them, and shells began crashing into the wooded slopes all around them.

9 “Heads down, boys!” someone shouted. “No shit!” Thomas agreed.

10 About one hour after they had commenced firing, the cannons fell silent. Then, to the surprise of everyone in the trenches, a line of men in blue uniforms started swarming toward the mountain. “Those crazy bastards!” Ben exclaimed.

11 As soon as they had a clear shot, Elijah and his kin and comrades opened fire. The blue line melted like butter, but they kept coming. “Take that you son of a bitch!” Ben shouted as he fired off another round. “Elijah’s been hit!” William suddenly screamed.

12 He was laying there facedown and silent in the trench beside them, blood seeping into the mud on both sides of his head. There was no time to check on him. The Yankees were still coming, and they had to be stopped. Through tears and curses, the boys continued to reload their rifles and fire into the blue lines before them.

13 The battle seemed like it would go on forever, but it finally began to die down and eventually stopped. Even so, the defenders were sweating profusely, and their faces were covered in mud and gun powder.

14 Thomas was shaking like a leaf as he pulled Elijah’s lifeless body over. “He’s gone, oh God, he’s gone!” he sobbed. Elijah just lay there. His wide, clear-blue eyes staring blankly into the sky above them.

15 They had held the Yankees off of the mountain and had inflicted heavy casualties on Sherman’s forces. It was a complete victory, but what had they gained? They all knew that the Yankee general would regroup and slip around their lines again. He’d been doing just that for several weeks now.

16 “There’s no stopping that red-headed devil down there!” Dutton exclaimed. That other offspring of the Ketcham clan seemed to be a force of nature, and his Southern kin knew in their hearts that they would never stop him.