Down the Sky: Volume Three of the “Strike The Tent” Trilogy

by W. Patrick Lang

  The blue infantry came on steadily. The range to Balthazar’s men was still too great for rifled muskets to be effective.

  The federal cannon spoke as one in a great thunderclap. White smoke billowed from the eighteen guns. The “sheaf” of shells burst ten feet above the two Napoleons.

  There would be no more fire from these crews. They lay dead or wounded at their posts. A few tried to crawl away from the certainty of more fire on the two pieces.

  Behind the farm buildings in the rear the horses of the gun teams, caissons, battery wagon and supply train reared and screamed in fear of the noise.

  Captain Raphael Harris lay dead, torn nearly in half by a shell that burst low and just at his side. It killed him instantly.

  Across the way, several of the men who would have graduated with him from West Point led the assault against Balthazar’s men. They had chosen their path and he had chosen his.

  The infantry of US Nineteenth Army Corps closed to two hundred yards.

  John Balthazar stood next to the trench line, his silver “dog whistle” in his dry mouth. “By volleys! Companies! Fire!” With that, he stepped down into the trench as rifle fire ripped out from his men, men who had been a collection of deserters and misfits but whom he had made into something that reflected him as a soldier and a man.

  They would now pay the “price of admission” for acceptance of his unspoken creed.

  A handful of gunners returned to their posts to fire a few more rounds and then they, too, were gone.

  The three front line companies shot the attacking Union infantry to pieces. Momentum slowed in the assault as men looked to see how few of their friends were still in ranks to either side.

  The Union commander then committed his third line to seize the center of Balthazar’s position. The bright sun gave no shelter as the Union infantry pressed forward for the kill.

  Balthazar saw that the time had come to commit his reserve. The silver whistle sounded in the autumn afternoon.

  Adam Gallagher rotated his arm from the shoulder, pointing to Balthazar’s back as the point on which his reserve company’s counterattack should be focused. Beyond Balthazar the sea of Yankee blue was everywhere.

  Gallagher’s men swarmed up and forward. They reached the forward trench as the enemy assault tore through the line.

  Gallagher took the thrust of a triangular bayonet squarely through the center of the chest as he tried to get between Balthazar and the charging riflemen. There was a great searing pain as the blade ripped into tissue and bone and then a bubbling fall into the dark.

  The charge of the reserve company momentarily halted the federal capture of the battalion’s center, but the relative strengths dictated a certain end.

  Nevertheless, there was a perceptible pause as the adversaries looked into one another’s faces. It lasted only a moment but in that moment Balthazar, the professional soldier, might have surrendered to save his men if he had been given a few seconds more.

  Then, the moment fled and in the distance a sound like thunder echoed across the Shenandoah Valley. The music of thousands of hooves was accompanied by wild cheering. Custer’s cavalry division burst from the woods to the northwest in a line of battle hundreds of yards wide. Four thousand sabers poured into the open ground behind the call of bugles playing, “Charge.” The red and white swallow tail flags of the cavalry generals led this charge. Sheridan, Custer, and the rest led this final and decisive attack from the front and in the saddle. The mass of horse thundered toward the battalion.

  The massed charge swept through Balthazar’s men. The blue troopers jumped the shallow trenches to saber or pistol Rebel infantry as they passed. Once past the destroyed artillery section, the horsemen swept on to the south in the direction of the town of Strasburg and the roads there. If these roads were captured, Early’s force could be trapped and destroyed.

  In the wake of the cavalry attack, the infantry of Nineteenth US Corps pressed forward against the stunned survivors.

  In a moment it was over and the Second Confederate Infantry Battalion was no more. Balthazar walked forward with his sword held hilt forward in an indication of willingness to surrender.

  A Union Army colonel in the front line took the sword and yelled, “Cease fire! Cease fire for Christ’s sake! Don’t you see they want to quit?”

  His men had their blood “up.” A number of Balthazar’s men were bayoneted, clubbed or shot before the colonel’s words took effect.

  “God damn it! Stop!” he screamed.

  Balthazar looked around. Sergeant Major Roarke lay at his feet. He would not return to New Orleans.

  Gallagher lay close by, coughing and spitting blood.

  Balthazar ignored the bayonets and muzzles and went to him.

  Doctor Smith was there first. He put the tin foil from a cigarette packet against the sucking wound in the chest and wrapped the chest with a shirt from Gallagher’s knapsack. A piece of rope served to tie the dressing tightly together around Gallagher’s torso. The whistling sound from the rib cage ended.

  “Doctor, I have several wounded men,” the Union colonel said. He was the one who accepted Balthazar’s sword.

  “Yes, just a moment,” Smith replied. “Don’t you have a surgeon?”

  “You killed him this morning…”

  Smith looked up from Gallagher’s side.

  “Well, not you, of course,” the Union officer said.

  “Our trains were over behind those buildings,” Smith said, pointing with a bloody hand. “There are wagons and my medical kit is in an ambulance…” He waited.

  “I am sorry about your surgeon,” Balthazar said.

  “I know,” the Yankee colonel said. “I know… Your men are finished?”

  Balthazar looked around. There were about one hundred left standing. There were many wounded and bodies from both armies were everywhere. “Yes, they are. I have given this officer my word,” he shouted. “You must not harm his men or disobey… You can try to escape but they can shoot you if you do…”

  The enemy colonel managed a smile. “I am in command here,” he said foolishly, waving a hand at the exhausted blue figures now mixed with Balthazar’s men. The two groups sat in the places where they had been when Balthazar surrendered. “Pick a detail from your men to go for the wagons… Captain Williams,” he said to one of his people. Take a few of ours and their detail and bring the wagons. Do it quickly!”

  Balthazar looked for one of his officers and saw Randall’s body a few feet away. Blinking he looked past him. Lieutenant Fagan, the British Army veteran was fifty yards away talking to a Union man.

  Fagan and a detail went in search of the wagons. Captain Williams and an escort went with them.

  The Union colonel looked at the sword. He turned it over in his hands. “Beautiful,” he said. “Arab?”

  “Yes, Moroccan, made in Fez for me,” Balthazar said. He pulled the shagreen covered scabbard from his sword belt and handed it over. “You should have this as well…”

  “I’m Stephen Thomas,” the colonel said while peering at the diwani cursive script that ran down the center of the blade. “I am from Vermont.”

  “It says ‘no victor but God, no victor but God…” Balthazar looked around and threw back his head to laugh aloud.

  The soldiers stared in surprise.

  “Ah, here is the companion weapon, also made for me…” With that, he extracted the foot long khanjar from the small of his back. The yellow-white bone grips were dry to the touch.

  “You should keep that,” Thomas said.

  “No, the maker’s son will make me another… It should stay in America.”

  “You are European?”

  “Yes, if we had won I would have stayed… but I see the way of it.”

  The wagons returned.

  Jake Devereux and a mixed group of soldiers carried wounded to Doctor Smith’s ambulance for his help.

  Another group arranged the dead in two ranks, one brown and the other blue. />
  Joe White lay in the middle of the brown line of bodies.

  Balthazar had not seen him fall. In the midst of the suddenness of events, he had not missed him. Now he knelt by Joe’s side.

  Joe looked untouched except for the wound in his side.

  Balthazar wept. Hot tears rolled down the burly soldier’s cheeks.

  Jake came to kneel with him. After a moment, Jake put his arms around him.

  “Who was this man?” Thomas asked.

  “He was our friend, and my kin,” Jake answered in a whisper.

  A general officer rode into this scene with his personal staff. Thomas looked up, “Ah, the corps commander,” he said and walked away to report.

  Claude and Concannon charged with the Michigan Brigade of Custer’s Division. They found these troops near the front of the Allegheny range. The low mountains loomed close on the other side of yet another dirt farm road.

  The four regiments of “Wolverine” cavalry were in a line of regiments by company columns. The thirty six company columns were in one long line with each company in a column of fours, twenty-five troopers deep. The swallow tailed red and white cavalry regimental standards and national flags moved in a light wind. They seemed to be restless, to be waiting like the men and horses.

  Devereux halted beside the colonel commanding the brigade.

  “Did you hear the guns?” The colonel cried.

  “I’m Devereux, from Stanton’s office. Sheridan wants you to sweep the Rebel left flank and strike the Valley Pike at Strasburg. Go!”

  Colonel Amos Kidd saluted. He pointed to the right flank regiment “Guide right on the First Regiment! Brigade will turn the rebel left flank! Objective Strasburg! Brigade will advance! Forward at a walk! Forward!’

  The three thousand horses and riders began to move forward in a long, snaky line.

  Devereux rode with them. He followed close behind the brigade commander.

  His mount had enjoyed its hour of rest and a drink. It walked along behind the brigade, looking right and left at the familiar scene. It was a cavalry troop horse, bought from the same farm in Kentucky that produced “Reinzi,” Sheridan’s favorite. It looked back over a shoulder at Claude. He patted it on the neck. It shook its head, apparently satisfied with the rider.

  Firing could be heard to the left. It sounded like infantry rifles. A moment later, artillery was heard. Claude could not know, but this sound marked the duel to the death of Balthazar’s two guns. The artillery engagement ended. The infantry firing resumed and grew louder.

  The Michigan troopers walked their horses through a tree line. Beyond was a vast field of grass with Belle Grove on the far left and a small village to the front. The mountain wall to their right ran straight south, fading in the distance to a dim blur. White clouds flew over racing towards the Blue Ridge, twenty miles to the east. The “reclining dog” profile of Massanutten Mountain was clear behind Belle Grove.

  A thin Rebel line of skirmishers filled the open ground in front of the beautiful house. No other Confederate troops could be seen. The church steeples of the town of Strasburg were visible in the distance. The sun was low on the horizon. Time was short if a decisive move that cut Early off from retreat was to be made.

  Colonel Kidd rose in his stirrups. “Line of troopers, boot to boot!” The regiments formed a single long line of horses and men even as they moved forward at a walk.

  “Brigade will advance at the trot!” The command was repeated up and down the line of advancing horsemen. The horses changed their gait. At that pace, they could move forward for miles without great exertion.

  The Confederate skirmishers started to run for trees, trees that were far behind away for a running man.

  “Brigade will charge sabers!” Kidd shouted. “Draw sabers!”

  The long, slightly curved blades came rasping out into the fading day.

  “Bugler!” roared Kidd. “Sound the charge!”

  The wild music spread to left and right, and the brigade drove forward in a storm of energy. The “Wolverine” troopers extended their right arms and rotated them at the shoulder to “lock” the extended sabers into a nearly rigid extension of their torsos.

  The Southern skirmishers ran as hard and as fast as they could but the murderous “scythe” of the Michigan cavalry quickly ran them down and swept past leaving dead and wounded behind.

  Devereux and Concannon were not armed with the long blades of the cavalry. Their revolvers were not much protection from the rifles of Confederate infantry. Claude fired at several brown figures kneeling or lying in the grass that looked as though they might take more interest in him than he wanted, but, in truth, the shock of the charge through them destroyed any thought that the skirmishers might have had of firing their weapons.

  The cavalry raced on for half a mile until Colonel Kidd halted the charge at the edge of the village of Strasburg.

  Devereux recognized the spot. “Straight ahead!” He yelled at Kidd. “The main street is five blocks farther in. There’s a bridge there where we can block the road south!”

  Kidd waved the men forward.

  Troopers clattered down the cobblestone streets, moving fast and disappearing around corners as they went.

  Devereux followed and arrived at the bridge just after the leading companies. There were Confederate soldiers everywhere. Many had crossed the bridge and were running away to the south on the Valley Pike. An ambulance had broken through the decking of the bridge. A wheel was lodged in a hole. Mules were trying to pull the wagon forward. A dozen Rebel soldiers were pushing and hauling as well.

  Up the road toward the north a mass of retreating Confederates were trapped by the appearance of the Michigan cavalry from the side streets. Hands went up and weapons fell to the ground.

  Devereux walked his heaving horse to one Rebel who clutched the staff of a red and blue color. “What unit’s flag is that?” he asked.

  “Cobb’s Georgia Legion,” was the answer.

  “Hand it over,” Claude demanded.

  “No,” was the answer.

  Devereux pointed his Navy Colt at the man’s face.

  “Don’t be daft,” Concannon said behind him. “He will shoot ye, of that I have no doubt…”

  The soldier looked at the pistol and then handed over the flag.

  Devereux took it and then said, “thank you.” He walked the Morgan back to the ambulance while Concannon watched the prisoners behind him. They were now surrounded by Michigan cavalry but how could one know what they might do as the disaster soaked into their minds.

  Custer arrived at the bridge. He leaned into the wagon to speak to someone. “Stephen, my God, where is your hurt?”

  A blood covered Confederate general lay in the wagon. He rocked back and forth murmuring between clenched jaws.

  “General Ramseur was my classmate at West Point,” Custer said when he saw Devereux’s face across the wagon.

  Devereux did not know Ramseur and was happy that he did not. “I suggest you take him to Belle Grove. General Sheridan will establish his headquarters there and there will be doctors.”

  Custer nodded. “Yes, we will pull the wagon out of the bridge and do that. Thank you, Devereux. Thank you.”

  Claude rode back through Strasburg. He saw the color sergeant from Cobb’s Georgia Legion. The man looked away in shame. Devereux stopped. “Corporal Concannon, find that man a horse. I want to talk to him in Washington about his unit and the situation in Georgia.”

  Concannon went off to look for a horse.

  “What is your name?” Claude asked.

  “James Ogilvy, sir, from Savannah.”

  Concannon returned with a horse, a half-starved rebel horse.

  “Mount, and do not argue…”

  Ogilvy climbed aboard the skinny horse.

  “Keep up, and don’t even think about escaping. Concannon will shoot you dead.”

  “Sor, yes Sor,” Concannon replied.

  The three rode through the town. The sun w
as setting. There was a deathly stillness.

  North of Strasburg they found Sheridan on the Pike. Devereux reported the day’s events.

  “Who is this?” Sheridan asked of Ogilvy who sat the thin horse behind Devereux.

  Confederate prisoners streamed by on the Pike. There was a continuous flow.

  “He has given me his parole and I wish to question him in Washington?”

  “Very well, amuse yourself. What is this flag?”

  “It is his regimental color. I want to talk to him about the political situation in Georgia.” With that Claude held out the flag in acknowledgement of Sheridan’s authority…

  Sheridan shook his head. “I want nothing of their flags or anything that they have. You keep it. Give it to the president. He might like that.” He looked at Devereux to see if he understood the criticism in that remark.

  “I would keep this horse,” Devereux said. “He is a good fellow.”

  “He is yours with my compliments. He served me well.” Sheridan looked regretful but polite. “I will write to Lincoln of what you did today.”

  Devereux saluted and rode away with his followers. “Where should we go to find a train to Washington,” he asked Concannon. The light was nearly gone.

  “Front Royal, Sor,” was the response.

  Before they reached the road to Front Royal they overtook a miserable little column trudging toward the north.

  Balthazar marched at the head of the procession of the survivors of his battalion. There were perhaps one hundred men and two wagons.

  Devereux halted beside him.

  Balthazar saluted. “Bonsoir, mon frère, et mon Général. As you can see, things have not gone well for us today.”

  “Had enough?’

  “Yes, I would be happy to return to my Berbers, with our family of course.”

  Devereux saw Jake in the column behind Balthazar. “I will take my brother with me.”

  Balthazar bowed, “of course. I would ask you to take Lieutenant Gallagher as well, a professor at the military institute. He will not live if you do not, and I must ask Dr. Smith to remain with us for a bit.”

  Smith looked up from his work of dressing a leg wound.