When Captain Ashburn announced he had applied for and been granted transfer from Atlanta to the army at Dalton, the ladies kissed his stiffened arm with their eyes and covered their emotions of pride by declaring he couldn’t go, for then who would beau them about?
Young Carey looked confused and pleased at hearing such statements from settled matrons and spinsters like Mrs. Meade and Melanie and Aunt Pitty and Fanny, and tried to hope that Scarlett really meant it.
“Why, he’ll be back in no time,” said the doctor, throwing an arm over Carey’s shoulder. “There’ll be just one brief skirmish and the Yankees will skedaddle back into Tennessee.
And when they get there, General Forrest will take care of them.
You ladies need have no alarm about the proximity of the Yankees, for General Johnston and his army stands there in the mountains like an iron rampart.
Yes, an iron rampart,” he repeated, relishing his phrase.
“Sherman will never pass.
He’ll never dislodge Old Joe.”
The ladies smiled approvingly, for his lightest utterance was regarded as incontrovertible truth.
After all, men understood these matters much better than women, and if he said General Johnston was an iron rampart, he must be one.
Only Rhett spoke.
He had been silent since supper and had sat in the twilight listening to the war talk with a down-twisted mouth, holding the sleeping child against his shoulder.
“I believe that rumor has it that Sherman has over one hundred thousand men, now that his reinforcements have come up?”
The doctor answered him shortly.
He had been under considerable strain ever since he first arrived and found that one of his fellow diners was this man whom he disliked so heartily. Only the respect due Miss Pittypat and his presence under her roof as a guest had restrained him from showing his feelings more obviously.
“Well, sir?” the doctor barked in reply.
“I believe Captain Ashburn said just a while ago that General Johnston had only about forty thousand, counting the deserters who were encouraged to come back to the colors by the last victory.”
“Sir,” said Mrs. Meade indignantly.
“There are no deserters in the Confederate army.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Rhett with mock humility.
“I meant those thousands on furlough who forgot to rejoin their regiments and those who have been over their wounds for six months but who remain at home, going about their usual business or doing the spring plowing.”
His eyes gleamed and Mrs. Meade bit her lip in a huff.
Scarlett wanted to giggle at her discomfiture, for Rhett had caught her fairly.
There were hundreds of men skulking in the swamps and the mountains, defying the provost guard to drag them back to the army.
They were the ones who declared it was a “rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight” and they had had enough of it.
But outnumbering these by far were men who, though carried on company rolls as deserters, had no intention of deserting permanently.
They were the ones who had waited three years in vain for furloughs and while they waited received ill-spelled letters from home:
“We air hungry”
“There won’t be no crop this year—there ain’t nobody to plow.”
“We air hungry.”
“The commissary took the shoats, and we ain’t had no money from you in months.
We air livin’ on dried peas.”
Always the rising chorus swelled:
“We are hungry, your wife, your babies, your parents.
When will it be over?
When will you come home?
We are hungry, hungry.” When furloughs from the rapidly thinning army were denied, these soldiers went home without them, to plow their land and plant their crops, repair their houses and build up their fences.
When regimental officers, understanding the situation, saw a hard fight ahead, they wrote these men, telling them to rejoin their companies and no questions would be asked.
Usually the men returned when they saw that hunger at home would be held at bay for a few months longer.
“Plow furloughs” were not looked upon in the same light as desertion in the face of the enemy, but they weakened the army just the same.
Dr. Meade hastily bridged over the uncomfortable pause, his voice cold:
“Captain Butler, the numerical difference between our troops and those of the Yankees has never mattered.
One Confederate is worth a dozen Yankees.”
The ladies nodded.
Everyone knew that.
“That was true at the first of the war,” said Rhett.
“Perhaps it’s still true, provided the Confederate soldier has bullets for his gun and shoes on his feet and food in his stomach.
Eh, Captain Ashburn?”
His voice was still soft and filled with specious humility.
Carey Ashburn looked unhappy, for it was obvious that he, too, disliked Rhett intensely. He gladly would have sided with the doctor but he could not lie.