by William Gear
Were there any bright side, it was that she no longer had any tobacco to knot into twists.
As Maw shook her head, she slowly counted the Confederate bills. “Girl, it’s a fair sum, but let’s hope this actually spends.”
“What if they had stripped the place bare?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t know. But thank God your brother wasn’t here.”
“Dear God, Mother. What’s he going to say?”
Maw’s jaw had hardened. “If we can keep that boy from getting himself killed, it’ll be a miracle. But you’ve got to help me, Sarah.” She shook the Confederate bills suggestively. “No matter what this is really worth, we tell him we sold everything to the government.”
“I understand.”
But the cold was due to more than just the blustery December day. A crawling sensation of disaster began to eat at her.
10
February 8, 1862
Candles and oil lamps illuminated the spacious drawing room with a warm yellow glow that defied the dark rain falling in the frigid Kentucky night outside. Lieutenant Butler Hancock stood beside Brigadier General Thomas C. Hindman. The table before them was spread with maps, the corners held in place by silver candlestick holders.
The house occupied by Major General Hardee’s staff was a grand two-story affair, generously offered by a Kentucky gentleman with strong Southern sympathies. The mansion, along with his plantation’s grounds, now served as General Hardee’s headquarters. Slaves provided most of the labor, hauling firewood and water to the bivouacked troops. But for the hideous winter storms, the regiments would have considered the plantation perfect winter quarters. Located on the Green River at Munfordville, Kentucky, the cantonment was eighteen miles north of Bowling Green, where General Albert Sidney Johnston had established his headquarters for the newly fashioned Army of Central Kentucky.
As Butler and Thomas Hindman pored over the maps, they awaited the arrival of General Johnston and some of his staff officers.
Hindman’s Second Arkansas had already been bloodied in battle with Federal forces at Rowlett’s Station on the Green River last December 17 after having reinforced Buckner. Now they waited, deployed, knowing the Federals under General Don Carlos Buell were building a great army just north of the trees and fields beyond their pickets.
“Libations,” General William Hardee called as he stepped into the room; a bottle of brandy dangled by the neck from his left hand. Hardee was a Georgian in his late forties, a graduate of West Point, a Mexican War veteran, and career soldier. Prior to the war he had returned to West Point where he both taught and wrote about tactics. Butler had immediately obtained and avidly devoured Hardee’s Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics: For the Exercise and Manoeuvres of Troops When Acting as Light Infantry or Riflemen.
The reading had been as ponderous as the work’s title. While Butler understood in theory how troops were supposed to move, maneuver, and attack, he was delighted to remain at headquarters and allow others to implement the field orders he wrote out and distributed.
Back in Arkansas, General Hardee had taken command of the volunteer regiments assembling at Pocahontas in northeastern Arkansas. Hardee had trained them, drilled them, and cleverly solved serious problems with supply, arms, and munitions. The Arkansas troops had taken to calling him “Old Reliable,” and the name stuck.
Atop the general’s broad forehead his blond hair had already begun to shade into silver, and his eyebrows had thickened into tufts. A reddish beard shaded with white and a full mustache obscured his jawline, but didn’t hide the smile that rode his lips as he stepped over to the glasses and poured.
“Our noble leader is late,” Hindman noted, glancing up at the mantel clock as he took a glass from Hardee. Hindman rarely so much as took a sip, having once been active in the temperance movement, but he was politically savvy enough to know the value of maintaining the convivial atmosphere.
“The weather out there is miserable,” Hardee replied. “And something always comes up. He may have gotten a late start from Bowling Green.”
Butler could agree. Something did always come up. Somehow—since his meeting with Colonel Hindman that day in Little Rock—life reminded him of riding a rocket skyward. Every day had turned into a virtual blizzard of activity. Not only had Butler managed to prove himself able at correspondence, but Hindman admired his organizational abilities, and delighted in Butler’s quotations of Caesar, Shakespeare, and Xenophon. As Hindman’s staff officer, Butler rarely got a full night’s sleep. He had come to understand that just doubling the size of a military command led to an exponential increase in the number of details, problems, and interruptions with which a commander had to deal.
The sound of voices, along with the hollow thump of boots on the mansion’s wooden porch, presaged the commanding general’s arrival, and moments later the door opened to admit General Johnston and several of his staff officers. They divested themselves of capes slick with rain, sodden hats, and overcoats to reveal darkly soaked uniforms where the water had crept in around collars and sleeves.
“It’s a frog strangler out there,” the general greeted them as he returned his officers’ salutes and stepped into the parlor. He grinned. “The next requisition I send to Richmond, I’m asking for horses with gills and fins.” He slapped rain-soaked white gloves against his pants. “Since they’re not providing us with arms, munitions, or equipment as it is, their refusal won’t come as a surprise.”
That brought a laugh from the assembled officers. The joke that was circulating among Johnston’s command staff was that Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy had given the good general everything he needed to succeed in the west, except for an army, arms and artillery, munitions, and supplies.
Albert Sidney Johnston dazzled Butler every time he was in the general’s presence. The man looked like a human lion with a mane of white hair rising from a widow’s peak, steely blue eyes, and—unlike so many of his subordinates—a clean-shaven jaw, though water beaded on his full white mustache.
General Hardee had poured another glass of brandy, handing it to the commanding general before seeing to his staff. As he did, he stated, “We were surprised by your courier, sir. This isn’t a night fit for man or beast, let alone riding up to see us. I sincerely hope your motivation isn’t a lack of good company in Bowling Green. If so, I’m afraid you’ll be terribly disappointed as we’re a poor substitute for gentlemen and scholars.”
Hardee hesitated, glancing at Butler. “Well, all but Lieutenant Hancock, here, who is so much better read in the classics and doesn’t mispronounce his Greek the way the rest of us do.”
Butler flushed at the recognition, having stepped back into a corner in an attempt to stay out of his superiors’ way.
General Johnston gave Butler a slight nod of recognition as he sipped his brandy, which added to Butler’s fluster. Then the general added, “I regret, gentlemen, that as much as I admire your fine companionship, conviviality isn’t on my mind.”
He stepped over to the table, limping slightly, the chill having seeped into the old dueling wound General Felix Huston’s pistol ball had inflicted when they had squabbled over control of the Texas army back in 1836.
“Surely the Federals aren’t moving in this soup,” Hindman scoffed. “Our pickets and scouts would have informed us. We’ve had a couple of Texans spying on Buell’s camps. We’ll have good warning if they try to march.”
“I could only wish,” Johnston said softly.
“Dear God, it’s Fort Donelson, isn’t it?” Hardee, more astute, read Johnston’s expression.
Johnston rubbed a hand over his head, as if the red line where his hat had impressed his forehead itched. “Last night I received word that on the Tennessee River, Fort Henry has fallen. This same damnable storm has raised the Cumberland to the point the Federal gunboats are bombarding the works at Fort Donelson. It is reported that General Grant’s troops have taken control of the land approaches. In short, gentlemen, it would take a
miracle to keep Fort Donelson from capitulating given the strength arrayed against it.”
He pointed to the map. “With Zollicoffer’s defeat outside of Knoxville last month, and the imminent loss of Fort Donelson, our first line of defense is in shambles. Strategically, gentlemen, our best choice is to abandon Kentucky and fall back to Nashville while we await the Federals’ next move.”
Hardee’s back seemed to stiffen. “Surely there is some alternative, sir.”
Johnston’s lips thinned in despair. “We could move on Fort Henry, pull Grant’s strength from Donelson, but if we did Buell would push aside any force we left behind to hold this line. He’d be sleeping in your bed and drinking your brandy before we were halfway to Fort Henry.”
Hindman smiled sadly. “If we move on Fort Henry, Buell will hit us from behind, probably after he burns Nashville and circles around to crush us between his forces and Grant’s.”
Johnston took a deep breath, held it, and exhaled. “To my dismay, our best hope lies in falling back. We need to see what General Halleck does. If he sends Grant west, he can flank the Mississippi River defenses at Columbia. If he swings east, he can easily hit the Army of Central Kentucky from the rear, smashing it against the anvil of Buell’s command.”
“Are you thinking of holding the line at Nashville, sir?” Hardee asked, thoughtfully stroking his beard as he looked down at the map. “We’ll need engineers, some way of creating fortifications. Situated as the city is in the loop of the Cumberland River, and with all the pikes approaching from the west, south, and east—”
“We have no way of stopping the Union gunboats,” Johnston told him. “Yes, we can dig in, turn the city into a fortress against infantry, but to take out those gunboats? We need heavy artillery. Columbiads and Dahlgren shore batteries. If Fort Henry teaches us anything, it’s that shooting at an ironclad with a field piece is like using your thumb to flick gravel at a snapping turtle’s shell.”
“Then what are you thinking, sir?” Hardee braced his arms on the table, brow lined, mouth pursed.
Johnston straightened. “I fought in Texas, gentlemen. Sometimes, to beat a superior force, you draw him in, retreat while his strength dissipates, and strike him hard on ground of your own choosing when he is at his weakest and most vulnerable.”
“And you don’t think Nashville is the place to draw that line?” Hindman asked.
“I don’t have enough men or guns, General. We’ll delay the Federals, fight a rear guard, bleed him on the way south, but it means abandoning Nashville. Finding a place of our choosing. Perhaps like Sam Houston did with Santa Anna at San Jacinto. A place where his army has the river at its back, and there is no place to go but to the devil.”
Hardee turned, speculative eyes on Hindman, as he said, “Well, General, do you think you can effectively withdraw your division? We need to do it smartly, leave nothing behind.”
“If there’s a way, sir, we can do it.” Hindman turned to Butler. “Lieutenant, I think I’m going to need your consummate skills in crafting the orders.”
Butler replied, “‘It appears that Hektor has breached the sharp-staked ditch. Let us only hope that he doesn’t drive us back among the ships.’”
“Lieutenant?” Hardee asked, confused.
“He refers to Homer’s Iliad,” Johnston replied thoughtfully. “Because if we’re like the Greeks being forced back among our ships, we can only hope the British or French will turn out to be our Achilles.”
“And if they are not?”
Hardee answered, “Then we are in for a long and deadly affair.”
11
February 10, 1862
Billy pounded up the lane riding Clyde, their big buckskin-colored horse. From the saddle he glanced back to make sure the pack on old Swat was riding well despite his hurried pace. One of the first skills Paw had taught him was to throw a proper diamond hitch on a packhorse.
As if the weather would never turn, this cold February day, too, was dreary with the threat of rain. He had been down to Fayetteville in Washington County where Confederate money was traded at a higher value than here in the hinterlands. After all, Hébert’s brigade was quartered there, and the soldiers insisted on their currency being honored.
The salt, sugar, powder, shot, caps, ax head, saw, and horseshoes were supplies not locally available in Benton County. Maw had thought that with the soldiers around, powder, shot, and caps might have been hard to come by. What Billy had found, however, was a thriving contraband trade, whereby military goods were flowing into the civilian market in exchange for luxuries in a soldier’s life, particularly alcohol and tobacco.
More than that, he had gone for news. And news, he’d discovered, was available by the bucketful. Especially given the excitement that had broken within an hour of a courier’s announcement that General Price had abandoned Springfield, ninety miles north of the Arkansas line, and was fleeing ahead of a massive Federal force bent on the invasion of Arkansas.
While pleas had been coming rapid-fire from General Price for a couple of weeks, no one had taken the threat of a Union winter campaign seriously, chalking it up to Sterling Price’s paranoia.
Now, as Billy clattered into the yard and jumped from the saddle, he ran to the door, flung it open, and called, “Maw? I got news! The Federals is coming!”
Then he turned back to the horses, walking both Clyde and Swat in circles to cool them down before he led them to the barn and unloaded the packhorse’s load.
Maw, swinging her shawl around her shoulders, led Sarah at a hurried walk as she crossed the yard, demanding, “What on earth are you shouting about? Federals? What Federals?”
Billy glanced over his shoulder as he began to rub Clyde down. “It’s all over Fayetteville, and I heard it on the road north, too. Some Yankee general by the name of Curtis has taken Springfield. Kicked old ‘Pap’ Price out of his winter quarters and is nipping at his hindmost. Price’s Missouri Rebel army is running like scared hares down the Wire Road.”
Sarah had stripped the pack saddle off Swat and was using straw to rub him down. “Are they coming here?”
Billy shrugged. “Depends on if McCulloch’s troops can stop them, I guess. I didn’t want no part of it, so I took the Cross Hollow trail from Mud Town and followed it over to Van Winkle’s Mill. For all I know, Price’s Missouri cowards may have reached the tavern by now.” He shot Maw a knowing look. “And, with any luck, the Federals will chase their scrawny Missouri arses all the way to Fort Smith and out of our county.”
Maw stood, head down, back arched, fingering her chin. “You’re sure of this, Billy?”
“Yes’am. As sure as anyone else, anyway. Yankees ain’t more than three or four days away at most according to the last reports. And I passed a heap of folks, soldiers and common folk, on the Wire Road before I turned off. All of them is fleeing ahead of the Yankees.”
Maw took a deep breath, making a decision. “Then we’d better be ready. No telling which army we should fear the most. Rebels or Federals. You two, pack as much meal as you can, take the hens, the horses, and get them up Hancock Creek and into the forest. Maybe up to that trapper’s cabin Paw used to use. Back in that cul-de-sac like it is, it’s as good a hideout as any in these hills. Then, Billy, you stay there until Sarah comes with the all clear.”
“Maw?” he protested, turning. “You want me to hide out?”
Maw stepped close, a wan smile on her lips. “Federals or Rebels, they’re not going to bother women. Not even Missouri men are that low. But the food and livestock? They’ll steal it all without a moment’s notice.”
She poked a finger into his breast. “And they’ll take you, too, those Yankees will. And maybe, if there’s a fight brewing, Ben McCulloch might forget you’re only coming on fifteen, stick a rifle in your arms, and march you out in the front lines to get shot.”
Billy ground his jaws as he looked around at the familiar house, the pens, barn, corn crib, and fields. An odd tingling filled his chest.
> “What is it, son?” Maw asked, eyes on his.
“Just don’t seem right. This is home. It’s just that a fella ought to feel safe at home.” He waved a hand at the world at large. “It’s out there that oughta be scary.”
A twinkle appeared in Maw’s eye. “And where, Billy Hancock, will you be safest? Sitting here waiting to be pressed into someone’s army? Or out there in the woods? Just do your hunting with a bow and arrow, or a snare. Don’t you go bringing no trouble down on yourself with a rifle shot.”
She stepped back, adding, “You can come round after dark. Sarah and me, we’ll leave the bucket on the porch when it’s safe. If you sneak in and don’t see that bucket? You skedaddle right back up the creek.”
Billy rocked his jaw, nodded, and led Clyde into his stall before pitching out hay. Sarah had just about finished with Swat, unbuckling his bridle and lead rope. “We got time though, don’t we? I mean, Billy don’t have to go tonight?”
“Morning will be good,” Maw agreed. “But just in case, we’ll leave a pack by the back door. Should any soldiers show up, Sarah, you and I will occupy them while Billy sneaks out the back and through the pines. But by dawn tomorrow, I want the stock and what grain we’ve got left off this property and hidden.”
Billy nodded. But it seemed that the world was turned on its head. It didn’t seem right that the women were at less risk than he was.
12
February 18, 1862
Doc kept hearing the complaints from his fellow Southerners that Island No. 10, sitting as it did in the middle of the Mississippi River, was the coldest place on earth. He had arrived but three days past, accompanied by four other young men—boys, if the truth be known—dedicated to enlisting in Neely’s Fourth Tennessee Infantry.
They had traveled north from Memphis after he had seen to the closing of Benjamin’s surgery, and the dispersion of its assets for Mrs. Morton. And yes, Isaac Kirtland had made good on his offer. Felicia had been paid handsomely in newly printed Confederate dollars, all of which had been deposited in Isaac’s bank.