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an
imbedded enemy.
    At Fredericksburg, the Confederate
forces occupied the high ground behind a short stonewall. The Union
attackers, under the command of General Ambrose Burnside, mounted a
futile frontal assault on these entrenched, seasoned, veterans of
General Stonewall Jackson. The Yankees were cut to shreds,
suffering 13,300 casualties. Luke knows the table is turned today.
The battle of Fredericksburg was like lambs being led to slaughter.
Now Luke and thousands of his fellow Southerners were to be the
lambs.
    His eyes return to the red, white and
blue colors of the Stars and Stripes waving on the far hillside.
They are as tattered and war-worn as his own Stars and Bars.
Glancing from left to right along the Union line, the multitude of
American flags seems innumerable. For a brief second, his
allegiance to the Confederacy is forgotten. He thinks of the dozens
of times he has heard the tale of his great-grandfather fighting
the British and how he had received a wound to his leg at the
Battle of Scarburg Mill. He remembered how the British had hanged
his other great-grandfather, Pappy Scarburg, during the
Revolutionary War for simply being a humanitarian. And his great
uncle Charles, who also fought for the American side, but was never
heard from again. He thought of his grandfather Thomas, fighting on
the American side in the War of 1812, and he remembered his own
father Robert Steven fighting with the United States army against
the Seminole Indians. His whole family, for generations, had
defended those same Stars and Stripes sacrificing everything, home,
life and limb, now he is being ordered to defeat the very symbol
his forefather’s fought and died so hard to defend — the American
flag!
     

Chapter Eight
     
    ALABAMA OR BUST
     
    After Robert’s grandfather Pappy John
had been hanged, his father Thomas re-opened the mill when he
returned from the War of 1812. During the war, for heroic action,
he had received a battlefield promotion and was discharged as a
Captain. He operated it until his death in 1848. From that date to
the present, Robert’s brother Isaac carried on the milling
tradition. Since the current war started, the Mill was still
operating; however, most of the local corn and flour was being
impressed into the Southern cause. What the Confederates didn’t
purchase, the home guard confiscated or just plain stole. Sometimes
small groups of Yankee soldiers would come through the area and
pillage what they could carry off.
    Fortunately, Robert made a trip to the
Mill a couple of weeks before he left for the army. He had returned
with a few large sacks of flour and some bags of cornmeal. That was
over a year ago, but Malinda had been frugal, and still had meal
and flour even after sharing with her close neighbors.
    Today, Malinda is using part of
Robert’s flour to bake fresh bread. Mattie Ann gets a whiff of a
tantalizing aroma drifting out the kitchen window across the yard
to her playhouse. She jumps up and runs to the back door. She has
already concocted a reason for coming back into the house – in
hopes of getting a slice of the fresh bread. “Mama, tell me some
more old tales about Granny Scarburg and when y’all lived in
Caroline,” she pleads opening the oven door to check the bread as
little Millie joins them.
    “ Shut that door child, and
be careful, don’t you let my bread fall!” Turning back to Mattie
Ann, “So you want to hear about the old days, huh? All right you
two pull up a chair, that bread won’t bake any faster with you
watching.”
    She began with her Grandfather Ingram
and their life in Virginia. She explained how they moved from a
comfortable, civilized life to an unsettled wilderness in South
Carolina. Mattie Ann sits with her elbows on the table, her head
resting in her hands. She was set to absorb every word. The story
of the red-tailed hawk was good; she believed there must be more
tales left to tell. Lizzie is more occupied with her doll than
hearing stories of