The Western Adventures of Cade McCall
His Story, As told to Owen Wister.
Owen Wister
Jonathan McCall’s farm consisted of two hundred acres of good Tennessee bottomland, laid out along the east bank of the Cumberland River. The farm was four miles southwest of Clarksville, which was Tennessee's first incorporated city. Jonathan lived on the farm with his wife, Margaret, and his two sons, Cade and Adam.
That bucolic existence came to an end, however, with the outbreak of the Civil War . . .
2
Clarksville, TN – April, 1862:
CADE MCCALL WAS NINETEEN, but he had done a man’s work since he was twelve. As a result, his six foot, one inch frame displayed wide shoulders, and muscular arms. His hair was more rusty than red, and his eyes were a deep blue.
Cade’s brother, Adam, was three inches shorter, but because he did the same work, he was no less muscular. Cade, Adam, their father and mother, were having a discussion over the supper table.
“I see no reason why you should have to go,” Margaret said. Margaret was Cade’s mother. “It isn’t our war, we don’t have any slaves. You boys have worked your whole lives alongside Julius and Effie, and we pay them and furnish them a house.”
“Mama, they just fought a big battle at Shiloh,” Cade said. “Half of that battle was fought in Tennessee. It is our war.”
“Yes,” Adam added. “And there were hundreds, probably thousands of Tennessee men killed in that battle. And I don’t expect very many of them owned slaves either.”
“I am aware of that,” Margaret said as tears slid down her cheeks. “Don’t you see? I just don’t want either one of you to wind up being one of those boys lying dead on the battlefield.”
Jonathan, the boys’ father, reached over to lay his hand gently on Margaret’s shoulder.
“Margaret, don’t you realize that those boys lying there dead are the sons of other mothers and fathers, who loved them no less than we love our boys?”
“What are you saying, Jonathan? Are you saying that you agree with Cade and Adam, that you want them to join the army?”
“No, I don’t want them to join the army. I would prefer that they stay home, help manage the farm, and sometime soon maybe buy some of Mr. Byrd’s land so they can each have farms next to us. I want Cade to marry Melinda, and give us grandchildren, but, we don’t always have the things we want. Sometimes God puts other things in our way, and we’ll just have to deal with it the best we can. This isn’t the first war that sons have gone off to fight, and it won’t be the last.”
“You’re saying let them go.”
“I’m saying we can’t stop them, nor should we try.”
“Thanks, Pop,” Cade said.
“Hey, how about me?” Adam asked. “You’ve already got Cade married to Melinda, who am I going to marry?”
Cade laughed, and reached over to muss the hair of his younger brother. “Who, in their right mind, would marry you?” he teased.
“Ha, you don’t know. I might get a girl of my own, some day,” Adam replied, joining in the laughter.
“What about Melinda?” Margaret asked. “Have you told her?”
Cade was quiet for a moment.
“You haven’t told her, have you?”
“I’m going to tell her tonight,” Cade replied, his voice so low as to barely be heard.
The moon, reflecting on the surface of the Cumberland River, sent forth little slivers of silver, to compete with the golden flashes of hundreds of fireflies. Cade and Melinda were sitting on a blanket that had been spread out on the bank of the river.
“Papa said he would help us buy some of Mr. Byrd’s land,” Melinda said.
Cade picked up a rock and tossed it into the river. The concentric circles working out from the rock disturbed the silver of the moon. He didn’t answer Melinda’s comment.
“I know, I know, you’re too proud to accept anything from papa, but remember, it’ll be my farm too. I mean, if we are husband and wife, won’t it?”
“Melinda, maybe we should wait,” Cade finally said.
“Wait? What do you mean, wait? Wait for what?”
“There’s a war on.”
“I know there’s a war on, but what does that have to do with us?”
“It has everything to do with us, Melinda.” He pointed to the river. “Right now the Yankees control this river. Why, they could put a gunboat right out there and start shelling Clarksville, and there wouldn’t be anything we could do about it.
“It’s up to us. I can’t just sit by and let the Yankees take over everything I’ve ever known . . . everything I’ve ever loved.”
“I thought you loved me.”
“I do. When I said, everything I’ve ever loved, I’m talking about you.”
“So, what you are saying is, you don’t want to marry me.”
“Yes, I do want to marry you, more than anything in the world. But Melinda, I can’t do it now. I can’t go off to war and leave a wife behind me. Why, there’d only be half of me, and half of you. If you love me, you will wait for me. We’ll get married when the war is over and I’ve come back home.” Cade smiled, then put his finger under her chin. “Why, I’ll even let your papa help us out in buying the farm.”
Melinda took Cade’s hand in hers, then raised it to her lips and kissed it. “Oh, Cade, I don’t see anything good coming from this. I . . . I have the most awful feeling that you won’t be coming back.”
“I’ll be back,” Cade promised her. “Why, I don’t expect this war will last more than six more months, a year at the most.”
Franklin, TN - 29 November, 1864
Over the last two and one half years, Sergeant Cade McCall had fought at Antietam with the 1st Tennessee. Then, with the 33rd Tennessee he had fought at Perryville, Stone’s River, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Ringgold Gap, and Kennesaw Mountain. Now, just outside Franklin, he lay stretched out near a big black kettle sitting over the fire that had been built from collected fence stakes. There was a flash of light on the horizon, followed somewhat later by a low, rumbling sound. The uninitiated might think it was thunder, but after over three years of war, Cade could tell the difference between cannon fire and thunder.
With each firing, a flash of light would light up the night horizon, followed by the sound of the gun. Cade counted fifteen seconds between the flash and the bang, which meant that the guns were three miles away.
“Glad they aren’t shootin’ toward us,” Adam said.
“I don’t care if they are or not, I don’t plan on leavin’ this spot ‘till the soup is done,” Gordon Waters, said.
This evening Cade, his brother Adam, and the others of General Alexander Stewart’s Third Corps, had enjoyed the good luck to have been bivouacked in what proved to be a most propitious location.
“Taters!” one of the soldiers shouted shortly after they had arrived. “Look here, fellers! We got taters!”
“Yeah, they’re all over the place!” Another shouted, and for the next several minutes the soldiers forgot all about war and concentrated on uncovering the mounds of unharvested potatoes. When they were issued their rations, which consisted of fresh pork, the twenty soldiers in Cade’s mess immediately decided to put their individual rations together to make a soup. All the others of the Third Corps came to the same agreement, and now, the smell of a hundred or more cooking pots blanketed the area with a rich aroma that enticed the tastebuds.
“Hey, Cade, now that you’ve just been made a sergeant and all, that doesn’t mean you’re goin’ to start givin’ me orders, does it?” Adam asked. “I mean like, do this, or do that.”
“Come on, Adam, you know how it is,” Cade said. “Just because we are brothers, that doesn’t mean I can play favorites. I have to treat you just like I treat everyone else. Besides,” he added with a chuckle. “I’ve outranked you for your whole life.”
“You’ve been one year older than me for my whole life, you haven’t outranked me,” Adam
insisted.
“Sounds to me like he outranks you,” Waters said with a chuckle. “But he doesn’t outrank me.”
“What do you mean, I don’t outrank you? I’m a sergeant, you’re a corporal.”
“Uh huh. I’m also Melinda’s brother, and if you don’t treat me right, I’ll just tell her not to marry you.”
“Ha!” Cade said. “When has Melinda ever listened to you?”
“I don’t know why she would listen to either one of you,” Adam said.
“You do remember the time the two of you dunked her hair into that ink bottle, don’t you?”
“That was a long time ago,” Cade said.
“Yeah, well, I haven’t forgot, ‘n it’s for sure, she hasn’t forgotten it either.”
“How’s that soup comin’?” Pogue Elliot, one of the other soldiers asked.
Clint Copley had volunteered to do the cooking, and he stuck his bayonet down into the soup to test one of the potatoes.
“Damn, Copley, you ain’t never stuck a Yankee with that bayonet, have you?” Pogue asked.
“Yeah, I have, but you don’t need to be worryin’ none about it. I wiped it clean on my pants,” Copley replied, easily.
“Oh, well then I’m sure that makes it all right,” Cade said, and the others laughed.
“It’s ready,” Copley said.
A few minutes later, all the men of A Company were sitting around, enjoying what most agreed was the best meal any of them had eaten in several weeks, even if they didn’t have any salt. Cade, Adam, Gordon, Pogue, and Copley found a flat rock and they were using it as a table.
“You know what? I’ve always known that you and Melinda would get married someday,” Gordon said.
“What makes you say that?”
“Because when she was just a little girl, she told me that when she grew up she was going to marry you.”
Pogue laughed. “Yeah, little girls is like that. They put it in mind who they’re goin’ to marry long a’ fore a boy will ever start thinkin’ ‘bout such a thing. I got three sisters, so I know.”
“Are you goin’ to buy some land from Byrd, ‘n farm after you ‘n sis get married?” Gordon asked.
“I expect I will,” Cade said. “I don’t know how to do anything but farm.”
“Well, I’ll tell you this, you’re pretty damn good at killin’ Yankees,” Copley said. “That’s how you made sergeant.”
“Yeah, well, once the war is over, I don’t think someone could take up killing Yankees as an avocation,” Cade replied.
“I reckon not,” Copley said with a little chuckle.
“You ever think about it?” Gordon asked.
“Think about what? Killing Yankees?”
“Well, yeah, I guess so. But, what I really meant is, do you ever think about getting killed?”
“Sometimes I do, yeah,” Cade answered. “I mean, how can you not think about it? But, as much as possible, I try not to.”
“I wonder what it’s like,” Adam asked. “Do you think it hurts?”
“Well, hell yeah, it has to hurt,” Pogue said. “You’ve seen as many men kilt as I have. I mean, how’s it not goin’ to hurt to have a big, gaping hole in your body?”
“It seems to me like most have died quick and quiet,” Copley said.
“How do you know they were quiet? With all the guns goin’ off, ‘n all the yellin’ ‘n such, they could be screamin’ to high heaven ‘n we wouldn’t even hear them.” Pogue finished his long comment with another spoon of soup.
“I wonder if you know when you’re dead,” Adam asked.
“What do you mean?” Gordon replied.
“I mean, say you get killed, would you be able to look down at your body and say, ‘Damn, I’m dead?’”
“You’d have to still be hanging aroun’ the battlefield to do that,” Gordon said.
“Of course you would. How else would you be able to see yourself?”
“Well, there you go then,” Pogue said. “Once I’m dead, I damn sure ain’t plannin’ on a’ hangin’ around where I was killed.”
“Where would you go?” Gordon asked.
“I know where I’d go,” Copley said. “I’d most likely go back home ‘n see ma ‘n pa ‘n my sisters.” He laughed. “Then, what I’d do is haint my sisters, just to get even with ‘em for all the pesterin’ they done to me for my whole life.”
“I’d go to Paris,” Gordon said. “I’ve always thought I’d like to see Paris.”
“Not me. No way you’ll ever get me on a ship,” Adam said. “What if I was to be out in the middle of the ocean, and the ship happened to sink ‘n ever’ one drowned?”
Cade laughed. “You couldn’t drown, dummy, you’d already be dead.”
“Yeah, but I’d wind up being out in the middle of the ocean just stranded there.”
“If you are a spirit, you can go anywhere,” Cade said. “You wouldn’t need a ship; all you would have to do is think about it, and there you would be.”
“Yeah,” Gordon said. “That’s right, isn’t it? All you’d have to do is think about it. That will really be somethin’, won’t it?”
“Damn, Gordon, you sound almost like you’re lookin’ forward to gettin’ kilt,” Copley said.
“No, don’t get me wrong now, I’m not lookin’ forward to it,” Gordon replied. He was silent for a long moment. “But I’ve got a feeling I’m going to get killed pretty soon now.”
“Ahh, don’t be silly,” Cade said, dismissively. “The five of us have been through almost three years of war, and nothing has happened to us yet. We didn’t come this far to get ourselves killed now. Besides, I want all of you standing right there alongside Adam, watching, when Melinda and I get married.”
“Cade’s right,” Jeter Willis said. “Quit thinkin’ like that ‘n enjoy this soup that Copley made. How long has it been, anyway, since any of us have had anything this good to eat?”
“Yeah,” Adam said with a slow grin. “Yeah, Jeter’s got that right. How come we’re talkin’ like this, instead of eatin’?”
The talk of dying passed, and they all began telling funny stories on each other, and on friends, so that the dinner became an enjoyable interlude in the midst of battle, not only because of the good food, but also because of the camaraderie of men who had been through so much together.
3
EARLIER THAT SAME DAY, they had run the Federals out of Columbia, and they had been told by their company and regimental commanders that it was General Hood’s intention to retake Nashville. But to reach Nashville, they would have to go through Franklin, and General John Scholfied’s XXIII Corps of the Army of the Ohio had heavily fortified Franklin, with reinforced breastworks.
“You think there’ll be fighting tomorrow?” Gordon asked.
“I expect there will be,” Adam said.
“You can count on it,” Cade added. “General Hood isn’t goin’ to be satisfied until he’s standing on the capitol steps in Nashville. He is one fighting son of a bitch, I’ll tell you.”
“Yeah, he’s done lost an arm ‘n a leg, ‘n he could most likely just give it up ‘n go home, but he won’t do it,” Copley said.
“He’s still got his arm, he just can’t use it,” Pogue said. “Anyhow, why would he go home? It ain’t like he’s goin’ to be up front with us when the fightin’ starts.”
“He won’t, huh?” Cade asked.
“No, Generals most usually send us in to do the fightin’ while they stay behind,” Pogue insisted.
“If that’s the case, then tell me, Pogue, how it is that General Hood lost his leg, and the use of his arm?”
Pogue was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know. Yeah, I guess some generals are up front with the men,” he admitted.
“I don’t know how you can say that, anyway. You know as well as I do that General Stewart and General Cleburne are always up front.”
“Yeah, well, I sure wouldn’t be if I was a general,” Adam said. “I’d be standin’ in the ba
ck, pointing and waving, and yelling, ‘ya’ll get ‘em boys!’ And then I’d just watch the battle through field glasses.”
“You’d watch through field glasses?” Cade asked, with a smile.
“Yeah. Have you ever seen a general that didn’t have field glasses?” Adam replied.
“Well, there you go, Cade,” Gordon said. “Find yourself a real nice pair of field glasses, and you can forget about being a sergeant. Why, more ‘n likely General Lee would make you a general.
“Tell me, Colonel,” Gordon said speaking in a voice that he assumed mimicked General Lee’s voice. “Who is that fine looking young sergeant down there with those field glasses?
“Why, general, that would be Sergeant Cade McCall,” Gordon said switching voices.
“You go get that young man and bring him to me. Since he has those field glasses, he isn’t a sergeant anymore. Now he’s a general.”
The others laughed at Gordon’s impression of a conversation between General Lee and an unnamed colonel.
“That sounds good, but most generals have to come from West Point,” Cade said.
“You mean if I had gone to West Point, I would be a general?” Adam asked.
“That ain’t hardly likely, Adam. Don’t forget, the rest of us have seen you soldier,” Gordon teased. “I don’t think you would be made a general if you had a pair of field glasses and you had graduated from West Point.”
“Speaking of West Point, did you know that General Hood and General Scholfield were roommates when they were at West Point?” Cade asked.
“How do you know that?” Copley asked.
“I overheard Colonel Hill and Captain Hanner talking about it. Colonel Hill went to West Point, so I figure he should know.”
“I reckon, bein’ as you’re a sergeant now, you’ll be overhearin’ a lot of high-falutin’ talk like that,” Adam said.
The Western Adventures of Cade McCall Box Set Page 2