The mosquitoes that entered through the un-screened un-glazed window had awakened Brad. He had been stationed at Port Hudson since the start of the war, so he had enough seniority to get in one of the few building to be bivouacked...most slept in tents or on the open ground trying to survive the sultry Louisiana nights. The tropical heat was almost as bad as the anticipation of waiting the arrival of the Union troops down the Mississippi.
"Shhhhh! Listen!"
All he heard was his own heart beating like a drummer leading the troops into to battle in a distant land. It was the first night of a full moon, so the landscape was almost as vivid as it was during the day. The sickening sweet smell of magnolias in full bloom filled his tiny room as he knelt on his sweat-soaked cot, peering out the window. It was so bright that a mockingbird called from the top of the blooming tree near the window proclaiming his territory just as the Confederate soldiers claimed this small but important river port for their own.
"There it is again...clank!"
Was it the sharp ping of an unmuffled oarlock, or was it a soldier getting his canteen to quench his fiery hot throat set ablaze with a mixture of cheap whiskey and torpid heat.
Swat! "Fucking mosquitoes!"
Then it happened. The western sky first lit with a blue-white glow, then a dull red, followed by the booming report of a cannon fired from a Union ship only yards away. The yells...then scream...the first round of grapeshot fell amidst the sleeping troops on the ground. The battle of Port Hudson had begun.