The South Will Rise

A Story by Thomas Martin

When America is invaded by Russians, the ghosts of civil war soldiers rise to fight off the attackers alongside modern day Americans

As the cold September day broke, forms moved through the forest. A fog was born from the warming sun and the frost on the ground. The thirty-four survivors of a National Guard artillery battery waited. Their field guns abandoned, they checked their rifles and counted their bullets. With their backs to a creek, and the sound of Soviets approaching, the men made final peace with their God and determined to take as many of the invaders with them as they could. Some prayed for forgiveness, some for their families. Private MacDonald prayed for deliverance.

As the sound of the Soviets came closer, MacDonald saw a shape move away from the creek and toward the Russians. Then another, and another. The fog hid the detail, but they were men. MacDonald passed word up the line that they were being reinforced. Sergeant Gonzales looked and saw the advancing troops and motioned his men forward to follow the advance. They approached one of the cleared fields, and Gonzales motioned his men into cover as the advancing reinforcements marched out onto the field. Something bothered Gonzales about the soldiers, but he wasn't sure what.

"Sarge, check out those rifles!" whispered Lieutenant Holmes.

Gonzales saw a long wooden stock in a hand through a break in the fog. The gray uniforms stirred something in his memory, but Holmes whispered, "Don't ask questions. We've got reinforcements and we can whip these Russians!"

Gonzales pulled his binoculars from their pouch and peered through the fog toward where the reinforcements were assembling.

Ahead, the sound of shots echoed through the forest and across the field. The unmistakable sound of the Russian's rifles mixed with the crash of a different kind of gun. The smell of rotten eggs wafted toward the hidden Guardsmen. The fog thinned slightly, affording a better view of the unfolding battle.

Gonzales didn't believe what he saw through the binoculars, so he handed them to Lieutenant Holmes. Holmes knew what he saw, but it made no sense. The crack Soviet unit that had been pursuing them across southeast Tennessee had finally met its match. Facing the Russians was a line of horsemen dressed in gray with gold trim. A small field gun faced the Soviets, the gunner holding a slow match just over the fuse. Ten ragged ranks of infantry were behind the cavalry, although some of them held the reins of horses.

Gonzales and Holmes had never seen troops as steady as those that stood facing the Soviets in the mist. The Soviets were firing at full automatic and the gray soldiers stood their ground. A man or two fell from the formation, but the bulk stood, absorbing the best efforts of the Soviets to destroy them.

Suddenly one of the horsemen motioned to the gunner and the match darted down to touch the fuse of the cannon. Smoke belched from the muzzle, and Gonzales swore that he saw a chain go whizzing into the Soviet line. The infantry stepped in front of the cavalry and fired ten crisp volleys, then stepped back.

The Soviets dropped to the ground, then the cavalry charged. A grenade exploded under a horse and knocked it down. The cavalryman leapt to his feet and charged with saber and pistol at the Soviet line. Holmes ducked as a machine gun opened up on the dismounted horseman. Gonzales shook his head as the bullets pierced the soldier and flew out his back, tearing shreds of fabric from his coat. The horror of the carnage shifted to a horror of another type as the cavalryman strode through the hail of lead and calmly shot the gunner and his assistant with his pistol, then slashed at the gun with his saber and walked farther into the line.

Gonzales recognized the Confederate Battle Flag, but the other banners were unfamiliar. Private MacDonald knew the flags. Evan MacDonald's childhood had been spent in the mountains of North Carolina, and the tales of haints and creatures were more than just stories, he believed in them. He saw the 7th Tennessee as it had died and been buried at Chickamauga fighting against the enemy of its land.

The Soviets were fighting their worst nightmares. Ghost armies were the stuff of Ukrainian legends, and the Russians were facing an enemy that surpassed their most horrible superstitions. The first Russian to come closeenough to bayonet one of the gray clad soldiers found that even cutting off an arm was not enough to stop them. The infantry sword that severed his head from his neck proved that. Spike bayonets, sabers, single shot pistols, revolvers, muskets, rifles, horses, boot knives, rocks, butt stocks, feet, hands, elbows, knees, teeth. All were the order of the day for the Rebels. A steady trickle of gray corpses joined the fray as more rebel soldiers trooped through the trees.

For the second time, Chickamauga became a battlefield. The battle became even more terrifying when the corpses began to pick up the weapons the Soviets had dropped and began to bayonet the Russians with them. Soon, the Confederates formed up and marched off, leaving not a single living Russian.

* * *

Plink. Plink. Plink. The large lead balls fell into the stainless steel bowl. Plink. Doctor Stefan Kasinov cursed the faceless Americans who had shot poor Private Iskal so many times. Plink. Plink. Still, the use of the material aided the Russians who had control of all war material in the country. He was bothered by the fact that all of the wounds seemed to have been made in extreme cold, as they showed no burns in the flesh. Plink. Kanisov thought it strange that all of the wounds were from lead balls. Some even lacked the distinctive scoring of rifling. Plink. He thought it even stranger when he had finished that all that was in the bowl was a dense mist and a few odd scraps of flesh.

* * *

General Bushenko began his assault confident that his army would be able to crush the remaining American forces. When he arrived at the battlefield, the four thousand living American troops had been reinforced. He called in air strikes. The aircraft strafed the gray masses without noticeable effect. The bombs only seemed to clear small areas, which quickly filled with other corpses. The Soviet armor ran over countless rebels, until the Confederates found the simple solution of picking the tanks up and throwing them over cliffs.

The Soviet infantry faced three times their number in soldiers from another age. Thirty thousand corpses were arrayed against them that October day at Shiloh.

* * *

Through the fog, a loudspeaker blared, "The patriotic Soviet people have destroyed the warmongering capitalistic government of the United States. We salute the people of that nation and wish them luck in forming a new and more peaceful presence in the world. This Division is the last of the Soviet Liberating Army to depart for their homeland after their victory over the evil capitalist forces."

A fleet of Soviet supply ships and their armed escorts sat at anchor in the harbor. Motorized launches shuttled troops and equipment to the waiting ships. Beyond the harbor a steamship formed in the mist of that dark November Morning. A second ship joined her, and when the mist thinned, a flotilla of seven steam cruisers flying the Confederate Naval Jack faced numerous Soviet ships. The guns of deserted shore batteries began to speak against the Soviet fleet in Charleston. The last Soviet Guards Division ran to the water, and watched in horror as ship after ship of the 'victorious' Soviet fleet sank to the bottom of the harbor. The raider Sumter rammed into the side of a Command ship and continued through, ignoring her ripped timber and sundered bottom. The command ship slowly sank, seamen dropping into the water to be cut down by ghostly seamen in gray waiting in whale boats with pistols and cutlasses.

"Yeeee-hahhhh!" A yell came from the rear ranks of the Soviet Guards. The Richmond Horse Artillery tore gaping holes in the Soviet ranks with their cannon and the Palmetto Guard charged with fixed bayonets. Myriad other Confederate units joined their ghostly brethren in the battle. The Soviets faced only 7400 rebels, but the rebels were more than enough to drive them into the sea. On a hill overlooking the harbor a distinguished officer on a white horse watched the battle and smiled.

General Robert E. Lee watched the ghostly Army of Northern Virginia decimate the enemy of his land. Unlike the battles he had fought while alive, the question of right was obvious. The finest troops he had commanded during his life had met and destroyed the foreign invader that had disturbed the rest of those who had fought before them. He smiled again, then turned old Traveler away from the waterfront, and led his officers north. Within hours the threat to the South would be at an end, and then Old Dixie would once again be able to rest her weary bones.