"Plantersville, I guess." But something inside Drew added soundlessly: On to the end now.
"We're not finished—" Boyd went on, when Drew interrupted:
"We're finished. We were finished months ago." It was true ... they had been finished at Franklin, their cause dead, their hopes dead, everything dead except men who had somehow kept on their feet, with weapons in their hands and a dogged determination to keep going. Why? Because most of them could no longer understand any other way of life?
There was that long line of battles General Forrest had named.... And marching backward through weeks, months, and years a long line of men, growing more and more shadowy in memory. Among them was Anse—Drew tried not to think about that.
Now, out of the dark there suddenly arose a voice, singing. Others picked up the tune, one of the army songs. Just as Kirby had sung to them on the big retreat, so this unknown voice was singing them on to whatever was awaiting at Plantersville. The end was waiting and they would have to face it, just as they had faced carbine, saber, field gun and everything else the Yankees had brought to bear against them.
Drew joined in and heard Boyd's tenor, high but on key, take up the refrain:
"On the Plains of Manassas the Yankees we met,
We gave them a whipping they'll never forget:
But I ain't got no money, nor nothin' to eat,
I'm afraid that tonight I must sleep in the street."
The Army of the Tennessee hadn't seen the Plains of Manassas, maybe, but they had seen other fields and running Yankees in their time.
Drew found himself slapping the ends of his reins in time to the tune.
"I'm a poor Rebel soldier, and Dixie's my home—"