Chapter Three - The Hell

"Bill! Bill!, wake up son. It's time to get up, and there's chores to do before school. Delilah has your breakfast ready and she'll scold you for letting it get cold." For a moment Bill could smell the heavenly aroma of bacon frying and hear the eggs being cracked into the earthenware bowl. Then First Lt. William T. Compton slowly opened his eyes before realizing that it was not his mother calling to him, but his best friend and fellow soldier, Tolliver Humphries. He and his childhood friend Tolliver had traveled to Monroe, Louisana and joined the 28th Infantry together and had been side by side in combat since they were first thrown into this hell on earth called war. Bill had known from the beginning that war would be a grueling, hard undertaking, but never could he have imagined how horrible it would in reality be. The smell of death, the horrible cries of the wounded and frightened, the unbearable heat in summer, the bone-chilling numbness of winter. As this horrible war had gone on and on there always seemed to be a fresh horror waiting for a new day to dawn. A new horror that had become all too real. Hunger. The kind of hunger that defines your every waking minute, slips into your dreams like some horrid creature to tear into your guts with such savagery as to leave a man almost praying for the blessed relief of death. It was winter now, so there wasn't even the promise of finding even a few forgotten ears of corn from the nearby farms. Most of the men working those farms had either been killed or were far away in some hellish nightmare, such as Bill was and most of these fields lay abandoned and forgotten.

This was the third year of a war that the Confederacy had assured themselves would last but a few brief months. Bill longed desperately to see his home, his family. Letters were becoming scarcer as many of the lines of communication had been cut off. He hadn't heard from his family in over a year. He wondered every night before he drifted off into a fitful and nightmarish sleep if any of his letters had ever reached home. There had been times when the regiment had traveled through towns that some of the men had gone into those places that offered pleasures of the flesh or had chance encounters with women who gladly gave themselves. But Bill had no wish to debase himself in such a manner. He thought about his beautiful Caroline and how much he longed for the sight of her, the feel of her, to bury his face in her hair and to lie once again with her in their bed. He thought about his children, how they would look now and what they must be like. Bill recalled the photograph taken just days before he left. He wondered if Caroline showed the photograph to his children, especially his son. Thomas had been so young that he had no memory of his father, how his father looked and the sound of his father's voice. Bill hoped his beloved Sarah had not forgotten her father. She had owned his heart from the moment she was born and he was suddenly filled with such longing that tears sprang to his eyes before he could control himself. He quickly cleared his thoughts before turning to Tolliver and inquiring as to what exactly were they suppose to be doing, other than freezing to death and dying of starvation. Tolliver replied that it seemed fairly obvious that no one at that exact moment seemed too sure about what anybody was suppose to be doing, so they may as well continue starving and freezing.
When he and Tolliver had joined up with the 28th in Monroe, they had been sent to Avery Island in the southern part of Louisana for combat training. After remaining there for a few months they had traveled back and forth between Louisana, Arkansas and Mississippi. Their division had participated in combat at Vicksburg, then back into Natchitoches when the Federals began marching up the Red River where Bill was made First Lt. after distinguishing himself admirably in combat. After fighting in the battle of Yellow Bayou in April of 1864 they made the return journey to Mansfield to winter close to Monroe in 1864, which is where they were now huddled in a tent hastily thrown together with a thin blanket and a few sticks. It did very little to keep out the bone chilling cold.

After surviving the winter of 1864, by spring the 28th would march into Yellow Bayou, then back into Mansfield, which would be about 20 miles north of Bon Temps. By now their uniforms had become nothing more than rags, their boots - those of them who still had boots - were held together with string and bailing wire found along the fences of the deserted farms they passed along the road. The men were hardly more than skeletons wearing rags, so tired and downtrodden that they appeared to the naked eye to be only ghostly forms slowly marching down a dusty road. It was here in Mansfield that Bill would see his lifelong friend and companion, Tolliver Humphries, die. They had fought beside each other, arm in arm, protected each other and listened to each other during the lonely part of the night when slumber refused to come and only talk of home and family could quell the terrible lonely ache they both felt. They had planned to journey home together, to celebrate the return of two wounded and defeated warriors. Defeated, but not dead. They would lean on each other and rebuild their lives, their land, and together would watch their children grow up and enjoy livelong friendships as they had. But fate had a different story to tell.

It was a hot, sunny day in May of 1865. The Louisana 28th had been fighting for several days against a bigger, stronger and better armed foe. A young soldier, barely old enough to think about shaving, had been felled by a bullet. He lay out in the open field, crying , begging and pleading for someone to help him. He was hardly more than a child. There would be no way to reach him and give aid since anyone running across that open field would find a quick and sure death. Bill and his fellow commarades had been listening to him most of the day and finally Bill couldn't stand it any longer.He made ready to fire his weapon and put this young boy out of his torment then suddenly his friend Tolliver pulled Bill's weapon down and refused to allow such a thing. He would go to him. Bill knew this was nothing but suicide, but before Bill could stop him Tolliver was up and running across that field. Bill watched in horror as those bullets came flying from left and right, more firepower than he could bear to watch. But watch he did. He watched as his best friend died on that hot summer day about 20 miles north of Bon Temps. Watched him die to save the life of a young man named Jedidiah Bellafluer, who would one day married his beloved daughter Sarah.

After Tolliver's death, Bill's mind became numbed to everything around him. Bill knew the end was near and he merely existed in a fog that allowed him to only go through the motions that were required of him as a soldier. The only thing that kept him sane, kept him living was the thought that soon this horrible war would be over and he could return to his home. See his family. Hold his beloved Caroline and raise his children. Finally, in August of 1865 the war was over, the Louisana 28th Infantry was disbanded and with great joy and anticipation First Lt. William T. Compton started out on his journey to return to his beloved home and into the arms of his family. It would be a new beginning.