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ya’ worry too much about it. It’s like them fellers what say they git premonitions of their own death and sure enough get killed. Maybe if you don’t think about it, you won’t get the premonition, and then maybe you won’t fulfill it.”
    “Well, I still don’t reckon that’s the case, though I have wondered what it is that makes a man feel he’s gonna die at a particular time. Nothin’ in the Good Book speaks on it.”
    “I reckon many a fellow’s feelin’ that premonition now,” William said.
    Stephen looked up at the overcast night sky. “Well, I know what we’re about to start feelin’.” The rain that had relented to allow the army to march on hardening roads was about to revisit misery on the gathering Confederates yet again.
    “Another sleepless night with no fire to warm yourself by,” William said sullenly. “Fer all this misery the Almighty is a-visitin’ on us, He’d better bestow victory on us to reward us fer all the trouble.”
    “Be nice to be back home again, huh?” Stephen replied and lay back down on his back. “Back home, dry, well fed, and comfortable.”
    “Aw, you know that comfort is only fer officers and folks who is rich and important!” William jibed and threw his hat over Stephen’s face.
    “Hey, git that smelly thing off me!” Stephen threw the hat back at William.
    Several hundred yards behind them, the army continued to gather as the brigades of Bragg’s Corps sorted themselves out and filed off the road and into their jump-off formations. The muffled tramp of feet droned on and on. Several hundred yards in front of the 15th Arkansas’s skirmish line, a row of paper cartridge remains lay fluttering in the wind. Earlier in the morning of the 4th, a Federal cavalry patrol moved on Michie’s Crossroads and encountered the advance of Bragg’s Corps. After a brief engagement, the cavalry was driven fleeing from the field into the woods, losing several men as prisoners. Worry about discovery spread, for the presence of so much infantry would surely belie the intentions of General Johnston—yet, inexplicably, the Federals didn’t react.

CHAPTER 3
    Camp of 25th Missouri Volunteers
    Pittsburg Landing, AM April 4, 1862
    “C ompany, attention to roll call!” First Sergeant Hammel called out. Just minutes after waking up and crawling out of their Sibley tents, a row of men stood comatose in front of him. Reveille sounded, followed by a postlude chorus of hacking and coughing as thousands of men woke up and began the daily routine. The famous army cough was the true sound of the start of the army day.
    The 25th Missouri shook itself to life as the companies formed in their respective streets for the morning sick and roll call. The soaking rain from the early morning hung heavily on the acres of tent canvas. Another day of drill and duty awaited Grant’s army on the banks of the Tennessee River.
    The spring chill still clung to the thick, musty air. Humidity from the rains caused the men’s breath to billow out in cloudy exhalations. The sun slowly poked its beams over the eastern horizon, turning the clouds pinkish. Smoke from company cook fires wafted lazily into the air, and the smell of brewing coffee greeted the men’s nostrils. Robert Mitchell stood in his place in the formation as Hammel called down his list. It was a place he had stood countless mornings.
    “Dismissed!” shouted Hammel, and the company formation dissolved as the men broke ranks. Robert rubbed the dried matter from the corners of his eyes and coughed before stuffing his hands into his pockets and walking back to his tent to retrieve his washcloth and soap. Ducking under the flap and stepping over bed rolls littering the floor of the circular tent, he tended to his own bed materials. The Sibley was a tent large enough to sleep fifteen to twenty men arrayed like the spokes of a wheel around the central pole and stove. Robert’s bed consisted of his rubberized gum blanket for a ground sheet,