Brautigan - Richard Brautigans A Confederate general from Big Sur, Dreaming of Babylon, and The Hawkline monster : three books in the manner of their original editions

A Confederate General from Big Sur copyright 1964 by Richard Brautigan
Dreaming of Babylon copyright 1977 by Richard Brautigan
The Hawkline Monster copyright 1974 by Richard Brautigan

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

www.hmhco.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Brautigan, Richard.
{Novels. Selections}
Richard Brautigans A Confederate general from Big Sur, Dreaming of Babylon, and The Hawkline monster: three books in the manner of their original editions,
p. cm.

ISBN 0-395-54703-2 (paper)
I. Title. II. Title: Confederate general from Big Sur. III. Title: Dreaming of Babylon. IV. Title: Hawkline monster.
PS3503 R2736A6 1991 90-20524
813'.54dc20 CIP

Excerpts from Generals in Gray by Ezra J. Warner (in A Confederate General from Big Sur) copyright 1959 by Ezra J. Warner. Used by permission of Louisiana State University Press.
Excerpts from Bill Bailey, Wont You Please Come Home? (in The Hawkline Monster) copyright Edward B. Marks Music Corporation
Used by permission.

e ISBN 978-0-547-52556-3
v1.0414

to my daughter
Ianthe

Attritions Old Sweet Song

T HE RECORDS EXHIBIT that 425 individuals received appointment by the President to one of the four grades of general, of whom 299 were in grade at the end of the war. The attrition is accounted for as follows:

I Mean, What Do You Do Besides Being a Confederate General?

A Confederate General from Big Sur

W HEN I FIRST HEARD about Big Sur I didnt know that it was a member of the Confederate States of America. I had always thought that Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Texas were the Confederacy, and let it go at that. I had no idea that Big Sur was also a member.

Big Sur the twelfth member of the Confederate States of America? Frankly, its hard to believe that those lonely stark mountains and clifflike beaches of California were rebels, that the redwood trees and the ticks and the cormorants waved a rebel flag along that narrow hundred miles of land that lies between Monterey and San Luis Obispo.

The Santa Lucia Mountains, that thousand-year-old flophouse for mountain lions and lilacs, a hotbed of Secession? The Pacific Ocean along there, that million-year-old skid row for abalone and kelp, sending representatives back to the Confederate Congress in Richmond, Virginia?

Ive heard that the population of Big Sur in those Civil War days was mostly just some Digger Indians. Ive heard that the Digger Indians down there didnt wear any clothes. They didnt have any fire or shelter or culture. They didnt grow anything. They didnt hunt and they didnt fish. They didnt bury their dead or give birth to their children. They lived on roots and limpets and sat pleasantly out in the rain.

I can imagine the expression on General Robert E. Lees face when this gang showed up, bearing strange gifts from the Pacific Ocean.

It was during the second day of the Battle of the Wilderness. A. P. Hills brave but exhausted Confederate troops had been hit at daybreak by Union General Hancocks II Corps of 30,000 men. A. P. Hills troops were shattered by the attack and fell back in defeat and confusion along the Orange Plank Road.

Twenty-eight-year-old Colonel William Poague, the Souths fine artillery man, waited with sixteen guns in one of the few clearings in the Wilderness, Widow Tapps farm. Colonel Poague had his guns loaded with antipersonnel ammunition and opened fire as soon as A. P. Hills men had barely fled the Orange Plank Road.

The Union assault funneled itself right into a vision of sculptured artillery fire, and the Union troops suddenly found pieces of flying marble breaking their centers and breaking their edges. At the instant of contact, history transformed their bodies into statues. They didnt like it, and the assault began to back up along the Orange Plank Road. What a nice name for a road.

Colonel Poague and his men held their ground alone without any infantry support, and no way out, caring not for the name of the road. They were there forever and General Lee was right behind them in the drifting marble dust of their guns. He was waiting for General Longstreets arrival with reinforcements. Longstreets men were hours late.

Then the first of them arrived. Hoods old Texas Brigade led by John Gregg came on through the shattered forces of A. P. Hill, and these Texans were surprised because A. P. Hills men were shock troops of the Confederate Army, and here they were in full rout.

What troops are you, my boys? Lee said.

The Texans! the men yelled and quickly formed into battle lines. There were less than a thousand of them and they started forward toward that abyss of Federal troops.

Lee was in motion with them, riding his beautiful gray horse, Traveller, a part of the wave. But they stopped him and shouted, Lee to the rear! Lee to the rear!

They turned him around and sent him back to spend the last years of his life quietly as the president of Washington College, later to be called Washington and Lee.

Then they went forward possessed only by animal fury, without any regard now for their human shadows. It was a little late for things like that.

The Texans suffered 50 per cent casualties in less than ten minutes, but they contained the Union. It was like putting your finger in the ocean and having it stop, but only briefly because Appomattox Courthouse waited less than a year away, resting now in its gentle anonymity.

When Lee got to the rear of the lines, there were the 8th Big Sur Volunteer Heavy Root Eaters reporting for duty. The air around them was filled with the smell of roots and limpets. The 8th Big Sur Volunteer Heavy Root Eaters reported like autumn to the Army of Northern Virginia.

They all gathered around Lees horse and stared in amazement, for it was the first time that they had ever seen a horse. One of the Digger Indians offered Traveller a limpet to eat.

When I first heard about Big Sur I didnt know that it was part of the defunct Confederate States of America, a country that went out of style like an idea or a lampshade or some kind of food that people dont cook any more, once the favorite dish in thousands of homes.