At Battle's End

April 9th, 1865 - Fort Blakely, Alabama

It was at times like this that he heard Teaspoon's voice asking, "Are you sure son? War can be hell on a man and you never know if you'll make it out alive or not…"

As the shots rang out across the battlefield, Kid shook his head to get the voice out of it, needing to concentrate on what was going on around him rather then the past.

He ran forward, intent on making it to the bunker that some of his fellow soldiers were hunkered down behind. Crouched low, he felt a bullet whiz past his head. Making a lunge for safety he gave one of the men a slight grin.

"Damn Yanks!" he said moving into a better position next to the man he recognized as Yates.

"Got that right Kid," he heard someone say but was too busy to look at who had spoken.

Lifting his rifle up to rest on top of the dirt they were behind, Kid saw it was useless to try and find a target with all the smoke in the air. You couldn't see but a few feet in front of you, which made Kid feel uneasy.

With cover like that, the blue coats could be right in front of them, about to attack and they'd never know it. Little did Kid know, that as he and the others searched the smoke in front of them, 16,000 Union troops were making ready to rush them.

There was a sudden lull in the battle. The four men behind the bunker rested uneasily for a moment, glad for the breather. They'd been up since dawn and the fighting had gotten intense.

"I don't like it," Kid whispered in the eerie silence. "Something ain't right," he told the others, moving so he could take another look out over the field in front of them.

"They probably done gave up and run like the yella bellies they are," a man to Kid's left yelled tauntingly with a laugh. It was the last thing the man said as a bullet found it's mark from off in the smoke to the left of the bunker.

The others dropped to the ground, scrambling for any kind of cover they could find but there was nothing between them and the forest that surrounded Fort Blakely.

"Make a run for the river!" Kid yelled as the fighting began in ernst and yelling could be heard from both sides.

The Appalachee River ran to the west of where they were and would be their only means of escape if they could reach it's banks.

The three remaining men began to run.

"Oh, god!" one of the men cried as he noticed shadowy blue figures creeping through the smoke all around them.

"We're surrounded," Kid told the others with some trepidation. He and his men were being converged on by the enemy and there was no way of escape from what he was sure was certain death.

Five men in blue Union uniforms slowly made their way over to them, guns on them all the while. "If you make a move we'll shoot you where you stand!" the nearest hissed.

The look in the man's eyes told Kid there was no doubt the man would make good on his word too.

"Toss your weapons away from you," a blond man said as he nodded to one of the others to gather them up when Kid and his men did as told.

Once the guns were gathered, Kid and the others were told to get moving. Instead of being killed as Kid thought they would be, they were marched into the Yankee's camp. Once there their hands were tied in front of them and they were ordered to sit in line with other prisoners under guard.

Yates leaned towards Kid and asked, "What do you think they are gonna do with us?" He got a knock in the head with the butt of a rifle from one of the guards who yelled, "No talking is allowed!" The man looked up and down the line of prisoners, glaring. "That means for the rest of you too!"

Kid wished he could make sure his friend was all right, but didn't dare move, afraid that the next man to anger their captors might not be as lucky as Yates and just get hit in the head.

As Kid sat on the hard barren earth, he wondered if they would somehow be rescued by the rest of his fellow soldiers who surly must be fighting back the Union troops by now.

It wasn't long before he and the others were told that the Union Army had taken Fort Blakely and that the previous day Spanish Fort fell to Union Forces also. Kid sat in disbelief. How could the fort have been taken?

They had been 4,000 strong and though they had been under siege for six days, he knew the Confederates had vowed that they would not let Blakely fall into the enemy's hands…

"You'll be transported to Ship Island where you will remain prisoners of the Union Army," a nameless Union Captain told Kid and the other prisoners. "You'll be given something to eat and then you'll be leaving."

Kid had heard of Ship Island. It was off of the Mississippi coast, quite a ways out, to far for anyone to escape and swim back to shore from. He had also heard that many of the prisoners held there were traded in exchange for Union prisoners of war so he had hope that he and his men would get lucky and soon be traded back to the South. He'd also heard that prisoners there had far better living conditions then many of the other war camps and that the prisoners had a great deal of freedom on the island.

With a lighter heart, Kid ate the food eagerly that he was given by a young private, who couldn't have been more then 14 or 15 years old.

"Thank you," Kid murmured when the boy handed him a dipper of cool water. The boy seemed surprised by the thanks and nodded.

After the meal, Kid and the others were told to stand up and rope was tied to their already tied hands, joining the prisoners together.

As darkness began to fall, he and the others made their way towards the river where they were put on boats for the rest of their trip to Ship Island. There were over 75 men with him on the voyage.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The balmy April air of the Gulf felt good, Kid thought as he sat on a rock, watching a pelican dive into the water after a fish. He'd been on the island a week already and he was surprised at the treatment he and the others were receiving so far. He'd heard stories of the atrocities committed at many war camps and had dreaded being captured more then anything but now that he was here on Ship Island and in the hands of the Union soldiers, he thanked whoever was looking out for his well-being for allowing him to be there if he had to be captured and sent anywhere.

He wondered if he would be allowed to send a letter to Teaspoon or Rachel. He'd have to ask later. It had been a while since he'd written either of them and knew they'd be worried about him. He knew it would come as a shock to them that he'd been captured.

It was still a bit of a shock to himself actually. He'd never thought much beyond fighting for his beloved Virginia but once he'd gotten into a few skirmishes and several major battles, his ideals had changed. No longer was he fighting for a piece of soil, but for his own very existence.

He thought about all that had happened in the last few months. When the remaining men from his regiment joined with Brigadier General St. John R. Liddell in Alabama after most of the regiment was wiped out in a skirmish, Kid was happy to hear they'd be remaining down near Mobile. The weather there was warmer then further North at that time of year and the coming of Spring gave him a renewed feeling of hope, that soon the war would end and he could go home…wherever home was these days.

Never in his life had he imagine he'd be in a siege like they'd been at Blakely or overrun by so many blue coats so far down South. But he had been and now he was their prisoner.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A month had passed with Kid and the other prisoners on the island doing various assigned tasks. One of the tasks was helping build a fortification further down the line from the prisoner of war camp. It was hard, backbreaking work and Kid was glad for it because it helped pass the time of day.

The combination of hard work and the humidity were starting to wear thin on some of the men working on the fortification and tempers flared at the least provocation. It was during one such flare up that Kid was working and tried to defuse the situation.

A man named Carter who hailed from South Carolina took umbrage at what he considered shoddy work by another man named Jackson who was from Georgia. The two started to argue about Jackson's laying of stones and soon words gave way to shoving and then fists started flying.

Kid tried to insinuate himself between the two before it had come to blows to no avail. The two men refused to let him calm them. When Kid refused to move out of their way, Carter shoved him, causing Kid to fall backwards over a pile of stone that Jackson had been using for the wall he was building.

Arms flailing, Kid had tried to break his fall but was unable to do so. His head hit hard against a boulder and he lost consciousness. Neither of the men noticed Kid lying there, not moving until several of the guards moved in to break up the fight.

It was then that anyone noticed the unconscious man. Two of the guards carried him to the infirmary where they laid him on a bed. The doctor examined the wounded prisoner, tsking as he looked over the gash on the side of his head where it had met the boulder. "Does anyone know what happened to him?" he asked but both guards shrugged. They hadn't seen Kid fall and had no idea if it were an accident or not.

"We'll have to wait and see if he regains consciousness," the man told the guards. "That's a nasty wound he has and I've seen men die of less…"

Kid continued to lie still, not moving for the next several hours. The doctor continued to monitor him carefully, never straying far from his patient's bedside.

The candle flickered in the darkness as the doctor went to check on Kid once more before he went to take a late supper. At first nothing seemed to have changed. The young man on the bed looked the same as when he'd last checked but when he moved closer, he noticed his skin had turned ashen.

The doctor laid a finger against Kid's neck and didn't feel a pulse, not even a weak but steady one as he had earlier.

Shaking his head, he slowly pulled the sheet over the man's face. This was the first death he'd attended to on the island and he sincerely hoped it would be the last. Blowing out the candle, he went to tell the prison's warden that the man had passed away.

A/N * The Battle of Fort Blakely occurred between April 2-9, 1865 at Fort Blakely, Alabama, not far from Spanish Fort. The siege lasted six days and ended when on April 9th, when 16,000 Union troops stormed the 4,000 Confederate soldiers entrenched in the fort. Only 466 Union soldiers were wounded while 3,100 of the Confederate forces were wounded, it's not known how many died on either side. Those that were taken prisoners were transported to Ship Island, twelve miles off of the Mississippi coast (Union authorities used the prison until August 3, 1868 as an incarceratory for former Confederates.) The Battle of Fort Blakely occurred six hours after Lee surrendered at Appomattox.

Today, the fort is no longer there but you can still see the trenches where the soldiers fought and the outlines of where several buildings had been. Civil War Reenactments occur each spring to commemorate the Battle of Fort Blakely with men and women coming from all over to participate and is very interesting to watch. It is a State Park and the battle site is a protected area. It is so serene and beautiful with the hanging moss it is hard to imagine that it was once the site of what is considered the last major battle before the end of the war.