by Oliver Optic
CHAPTER XXI
DECK FINDS HIMSELF IN A TIGHT PLACE
The enemy were utterly demoralized, crazed with terror, devoid ofreason and common-sense. The Mississippi, Alabama, and most of theTennessee regiments of the Southern army were disciplined and steadytroops in which such a panic would have been impossible; but there wereothers even worse than those described by General Schoepf, and thelatter were always in the advance during a retreat. It was such asthese that formed the rabble seeking to obtain shelter behind thebreastworks.
In the mob reason was dethroned, and even common-sense had taken wings;for the fleeing mass were in more danger from each other than from thefire of the artillery, and whole sections of them were borne down bythose pressing forward from the rear, and were crushed by the feet ofmen and horses.
Deck attempted to resist the flow of the tide towards the works; but hemight as well have tried to counteract the great bore of the Amazon.His sabre was in his hand; but he had not the heart to use it upon theterrified mass, who had thrown away their muskets and knapsacks on thefield, because they impeded their flight. A battery of artillery inretreating had mired one of its guns in one of the soft places in thefield, and had abandoned it, as stated by General Crittenden.
With his great strength, assisted by a few others, Sergeant Knox hadstriven to open a way for the escape of the platoon to their formerposition; but they struggled in vain against the crazy and senselessmob. A company or platoon of Confederate cavalry had forced its wayinto the crowd nearly to the ground occupied by Deck's force, thoughthey had used their sabres to accomplish it. Life had pushed his horseforward in the direction he wished to go; but the mob seized theanimal's bridle to save themselves, and, by stress of numbers, hadcrowded him back.
One of the openings in the breastworks was near the spot; and therabble in front of the cavalrymen pushed forward, and entered theintrenchments, thus making way for those behind them. But that was notthe direction Deck and his command wished to go, and they resisted themob as long as they could.
"I think we shall have to use our cheese-knives," suggested Life, asthey were crowded forward in the passage to the fort.
"No, Life! That would be a terrible slaughter of unarmed men, and Iwill not do it," replied Deck. "I would rather be taken prisoner thanmurder these helpless and terrified people."
"Threaten them with the pistols if they don't get out of the way," thesergeant proposed. "They are jamming us into the fort."
"You might as well threaten them with the pistols if they don't flyaway up into the air, for they can't move," returned the lieutenant."This is not a battle; only a struggle for life on the part of theretreating enemy."
Life said no more. The space between the platoon and the hill fromwhich the infantry had retreated, and which Deck had attempted toflank, was full of men retreating from the grape of the artillery whichhad now opened upon them, full of struggling forms intent upon reachingthe shelter of the breastworks. There was no passage there.
"Leftenant, the rest of the squadron is formed near the hill, and theyare draggin' in squads of prisoners," said Life Knox.
"Are they using their sabres?" asked Deck.
"No; they have sheathed them, and all they do is to shove 'em in likecity policemen."
"Neither the staff-officer nor my father would shoot or cut downunarmed and unresisting men; but perhaps they expect to capture thewhole army at a later hour. I can't do what they will not do," addedthe lieutenant. "But"--
He did not say what he intended, for the cavalry company, which hadforced its way into the midst of the crowd, began to drive their horsesforward, the rabble behind them pressing on in that direction. Thepressure was too great for the Riverlawns to withstand, and they werepushed forward in spite of their best efforts to hold their ground.
"We might as well go with the tide, Life," said Deck hopelessly, as hegave way to the pressure.
"No man can help hisself here," replied the sergeant.
"We may as well make way for this rabble," added the lieutenant. "Theywill shove each other away from the entrance, and when the coast isclear we will take our chance of getting out of the fort."
Life Knox yielded the point; for, if they were not to cut their waythrough the crowd, this was absolutely the only thing they could do.They were pressed forward into the intrenchment. Deck observed as hegave way to the pressure behind him that the soldiers from the field,or near it,--for not a few had not been in the battle,--hastened fromthe entrance to the works, towards the middle of it; in fact, they wereordered to do so by the guard in charge of the camp, which extended forover a mile across the tongue of land formed by the Cumberland and thecreek that flowed into it near Robertsport.
Lieutenant Lyon did not follow the example of the fugitives, and therewas still nothing but a rabble near the entrance; and the guard, withits officers, were a considerable distance from him, and could give hiscommand no orders. Instead of doing as others did, he led his force tothe verge of the great river, down to which the high banks, amountingalmost to cliffs, descended at an angle of about forty-five degrees.
The lieutenant could do nothing, but he kept up a tremendous thinkingall the time. By this time he was conscious that he had been forcedinto a tight place. He reined in his steed when he had advanced perhapsthe third of a mile across the camp, defended by the breastworks, andgave the order for his men to halt; but it was not spoken with hiscustomary vim, for he was somewhat depressed by the situation.
He was in a Confederate camp, and all his powers of mind were directedtowards the means of getting out of it; for it would have broken hisheart to hand over his fifty men as prisoners to a Southern officer. Helooked at the entrance; but that was as crowded as at any time before,and it was impossible for him to march out that way. Then he lookeddown the steep and lofty banks of the Cumberland. His horses and thoseof his troopers could swim like fishes; for it had been a part of thedrill at Riverlawn to exercise the animals in the water, and they hadoften crossed Bar Creek with their riders on their backs, and they hadeven swam them over the Green River, though never in the rapids.
Deck considered a plan for descending the banks to the stream, swimmingthe horses a mile or two down the river, and then of escaping acrossthe country to the position of the rest of the squadron. He was aboutto ask Sergeant Knox for his opinion, when the company of Confederatecavalry which had been next to his force outside the works rode over tothe side of the camp he had chosen, and halted a few rods from hisposition.
But this body did not seem to be in a belligerent mood, and did notappear to take much notice of the platoon. Possibly they were ashamedof their conduct on the field; for they had been the first of theenemy's cavalry to arrive at the works, and they must have been amongthe first to run away. The men did not look like a fair specimen of thecavalry of the other side which the troopers had seen.
"We must get out of this place somehow," said Deck to the orderlysergeant, who had brought up a little behind him.
"I don't believe there is many more outside who want to get into thisplace," replied Life; "and I reckon the major will be looking this wayfor us, for he couldn't help seeing that we had been crowded in here."
"I don't see that he can do anything for us, unless he fights the wholeforce of the enemy outside; and I know they are not all cowards, likesome of these fellers what worked harder to get into this fort thanthey would to git inter the kingdom o' heaven," answered Life.
"I don't look for any help from the rest of the squadron. If we don'tget out on our own hook I think we shall have to stay here," repliedDeck. "What do you think of escaping by the river? We can easily swimthe horses down the stream a mile or two; for there is not much currentnear the shore, though it is strong in the middle of the river."
The sergeant rode over to the high bank, and looked it over in anapparently careless manner, so as not to attract attention, as far upas the great bend just above Mill Springs. He shook his headsignificantly as he resumed his former position.
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"The swimmin' is all right after you git the hosses inter the water;but you've got to crack the nut afore you kin eat it, Leftenant."
"Is there any difficulty in cracking the nut?" asked Deck.
"I reckon that's whar all the diffikilty comes in. It has rained likeNiagery for two days, and it has been doin' not quite so bad all thisafternoon. Them banks is as soft as an Injun bannock half baked; andthere ain't no foothold for hosses. I wouldn't resk it for two per centa month," returned Life very decidedly.
Probably the sergeant was correct in his view, though Deck thoughtstill that it was practicable. General Crittenden swam his cavalry overthe river in the night, but some of his men and horses were drowned inthe attempt. He found the descent of the steep banks a great obstacleto his retreat. But the crowd at the entrance to the intrenchment haddiminished considerably, and the lieutenant began to think he could cuthis way to it with less peril than he could swim his force in theriver, especially as it was beginning to be dark.
Another circumstance came in the way of the execution of the plan.Perhaps the company of cavalry near him had noted the examination ofthe banks of the river by the lieutenant and the sergeant, and may havehad a suspicion of what was passing through their minds. At least, itsoon appeared that the captain of the company had other views in regardto the disposal of the Riverlawns. He had moved his command nearer tothe platoon, and stretched it across the camp some little distance.
A little later, a mounted Confederate officer rode to this end of theline. He looked over the Southern company first, and asked to whatregiment it belonged. Deck could not hear the reply in full, but onlythat it was a Tennessee regiment. Then he rode a little farther, andseemed to be somewhat astonished when he saw a force wearing the blue.
"What is that force in the corner, Captain?" he asked of the officer towhom he had spoken before, while he continued to observe the body inblue.
"It is a Yankee platoon of fifty men that we captured a mile or morefrom the breastwork," replied the Confederate captain; and it could beseen that his men smiled when he gave this reply.
"To what regiment do these troopers belong?"
"I don't know certainly, but I reckon it was a Kentucky regiment."
"How happened you to capture half a company, and not the whole of it?"
"Well, you see, Major, the Kentucky regiment had better horses than ourTennessee regiment, and they worried us a heap. We were retreating, forwe had been flanked by a force four times as big as ours, and thisregiment pursued us. Our regiment turned on them, and whipped themsoundly. My company was fighting this platoon, and we surrounded them,and made them prisoners."
"Was that Kentucky regiment of cavalry full?" asked the major, with afrown on his brow.
"It was, Major, for I counted the ten companies," returned the captainwithout wincing. "This platoon fought like wildcats; but my men stoodup to the work like heroes, as they are; and when we had surroundedthem, they could not help themselves, and we drove them before us tothe camp."
"I have no doubt that you will be promoted to the rank ofbrigadier-general for your meritorious service; but my informationdiffers somewhat from yours, for I have learned that the only Kentuckycavalry on the field was four companies of the First, four others beingon detached duty on the Millersville Road."
"But you see, Major, my informant may have given me incorrect reports,"stammered the captain.
"Who was your informant, Captain? You counted the companies of theKentucky regiment yourself."
"I may have been"--
"Probably you have been; but you have said enough. I have heard fromyour company before to-day," added the major, as he rode over toLieutenant Lyon. "Did you surrender to Captain Staggers yonder?"
"I did not!" replied Deck with abundant emphasis.
"Did you hear what passed between him and me?"
"Every word of it."
"Was anything the captain said true?"
"Not a word of it! And you will excuse me, Major, but I intend to cutmy way out of this camp!" shouted the lieutenant, loud enough to beheard by all his troopers, and they straightened themselves up for thework.
"Platoon--charge!"
At full gallop the force started for the entrance, now not obstructed.