With their mounts a hundred yards to the rear and the infantry brigade furnishing skirmishers out in front, Will waited. Peters’s troop was to his right in a thick cedar wood, his troopers finding cover where they could construct it. The infantry under Brigadier General Wood was in charge of the whole element, Allen having placed Peters, Will, and Troop B under command of Wood’s infantry, who took position next to them supporting Darden’s battery and Wheeler’s own Wiggins battery. If something needed to be done, they would take orders from Wood, not waiting for something to be relayed from Allen.
After a boring two hours’ wait, the men shivering in the gloom and the fog obscuring all but fifty feet of the landscape, the first signs of approach were heard. Somewhere out along the stretch of the pike came the rumble of feet. Out in front of them had to be skirmishers and flankers.
“Keep sharp eyes,” Will went along his line warning his troopers. Their own infantry skirmish line wasn’t even visible to them. “Wait for the skirmishers to fall back; hold your fire until the front is clear.”
An infantry lieutenant from the 16th Alabama was working his way down the rear of the cavalry line. He approached Will.
“Wood wishes your troopers to replace us in line as we fall back, mounted. You’ll keep up fire on the enemy while we and the batteries move to the rear, and you’ll delay the enemy until we reach the next position three miles to the rear. You’ll remain in the saddle until that position and then hold on the flanks. Wait for the 49th Mississippi to begin falling back to mount and replace us.” The man saluted and continued on to Troop B’s commander.
Their mounts were a quick jog away, and Peters’s troop would have to move laterally down the line to take up position near the road. Will would have to follow quickly behind, and then Troop B. He wouldn’t see the infantry pulling back, only Peters’s troop moving to the left.
“Pull the horse picket to fifty yards,” Will said to his first sergeant.
The first fire from the still-invisible skirmishers in their front sounded, and return fire whistled overhead. His troopers knelt down by their carefully constructed barricade, a few men swearing at their misfortune to have spent so much time on something they were soon to abandon. The fog was still thick, though their field of vision had increased by at least twenty feet more as the morning drew on, increasing visibility a few feet every minute, revealing the crouching figures of their own skirmishers. The pike, which should have been visible from where they lay, was still covered in mist. There was no indication of how many of the enemy were moving down the road toward them.
More enemy fire sailed overhead and struck their barricade. It spread down toward the road as the enemy skirmishers became visible as targets. Still, Will waited to give the order. The enemy fire started to get hot, and then their own skirmishers rapidly fell back, the wide skirmish line collapsing upon itself as the far-flung companies drew inward and fell back upon their own regimental line, followed closely by lines of the enemy.
“Hold your fire, wait till you see something to shoot at,” Will called out. The troopers leaned into their fence rails and assumed an attitude of aim, waiting for the misty apparitions to materialize in their front.
They didn’t have long to wait.
Peters’s troop fired first, a crisp volley that had menace and warning to it.
“Fire,” Will ordered, and his troopers bounced on the barricade with a volley, carbines cracking fire and gun breeches popping open, ready to receive another paper cartridge. The enemy skirmish line halted and fell back, startled by the sudden appearance of the Confederate main line and the rapid fire of the cavalry carbines.
No sooner had B Troop also delivered a volley than Peters’s troop could be seen running for their mounts.
“Back to the picket line!” Will called out. It was G Troop’s turn to abandon their carefully constructed barricade and pray the enemy did not follow quickly. The defense would collapse and play fox and hound, keeping the enemy spread out and formed for battle while staying mobile and elusive themselves. The cavalry would need to delay long enough for the slower infantry to reposition. A mount and a quick dash to the next cover and repeat.
G Troop was mounted in a moment and put into motion to the rear, crossing a muddy field bereft of cover. A scattering of shots sailed past; the enemy skirmish line had pushed forward once more and overtaken their former position. Ahead, Allen collected the troops into a single line, bringing the two wings together once more as Peters’s troop fell into line. Will swung his troop next to Peters, and the men dismounted.
“We’ll fall back by troop, moving the center first, and fall back six hundred yards and reform. The wings will move last. You and I Troop will move last,” Allen ordered as he rode down the rear of the troop formations. Federal cavalry had yet to show itself, but Will knew they must be somewhere on the flanks. I Troop was kept in the saddle and to the rear in reserve for just such an eventuality.
Will ordered his line forward but kept it compact. The fog had not lifted, but the entire length of the field was visible, highlighting the enemy formations now crowding over their barricades and the enemy skirmishers picking their way forward. The field was flat; the cedars marking their old line were dense, but there was little place to use for advantage in artillery. Behind Will, though, the ground rose several hundred feet before plunging again into La Vergne and being crossed by Stewart’s Creek. The creek itself was not much of a barrier, but holding the bridges at La Vergne and Triune would deny the enemy an easy crossing. The creek itself was wide but not deep, its bottom boggy and muddy, offering little in the way of crossing for wheeled transport. They would be delaying the enemy up to La Vergne. After that, the countryside was a mess of cedar brakes, forested patches, and winding roads that offered difficult passage for a large army wishing to make good time. There was no shortage of cover and concealment and places to delay the enemy advance.
Behind the line of enemy skirmishers pushing toward them, Union cavalry was moving in double line across Will’s front, guidons fluttering and making for his flank. Once formed, the Union cavalry would push past Will’s and Peters’s troops and try to get into the rear of the 1st Alabama.
Will watched the Union cavalry progress with interest. Even if the enemy didn’t actually make a move, their intent was clear, and Allen would have to make a countermove to prevent the threat.
I Troop wheeled about and moved slightly forward to cover G Troop’s right flank. They waited. The enemy cavalry, made up of three troops, finished crossing behind his skirmish line and wheeled into troop front slightly perpendicular to the skirmishers’ axis of advance, intending to cut diagonally across the Confederate front and charge into the 1st Alabama.
Will waited a moment, looking for Allen or someone to come and give the next order. With his men spread out in a compact single line, they were vulnerable to a stampede if the enemy swung down on them. Mounted, they would at least offer more resistance.
Allen was nowhere to be seen.
“You see them Yankees forming?” Will shouted to Peters as he jogged toward his friend.
Peters was ranging about his line as they spread out, one trooper for every five paces. His line was extended and far-flung. “No, they formin’ on the flank?”
“I Troop is mounted and wheeled, but my line ain’t,” Will replied.
“Where’s Allen?” Peters called.
“I’m going to mount my men and fall in on I Troop’s left. You better do the same,” Will shouted and turned back to his own men. There was a moment, a mere moment when all Will could hear was an admonition in his head. “You take any long chances?” Allen had asked with an accusing tone.
“Damnit!” Will hissed under his breath. Can’t second guess every choice I need to make, he yelled back in his thoughts as he quickly mounted.
“Mount up! G Troop mount up!”
The horse picket was one hundred yards to the rear, and the act of mounting and getting back into line would take some mi
nutes to execute. The men streamed past Will, dangling sabers and slipping in the muddy ground. The enemy was finalizing his own formation of two troops in front and the third in the rear, a double line in front and a single spread out for mop-up. With I Troop mounted and facing the threat along with Will’s troop, the enemy might still make short work of their position, exposing General Wood’s flank. Long chance or not, Will wasn’t going to take the blame for that disaster without checking the enemy’s advance.
Will quickly glanced to his left to see Peters’s troop also running for their mounts. He was still on foot, and the enemy was just now trotting forward, the first step before a full-bore charge was to be ordered. Sabers drawn and tucked regally into right shoulders, the Federal cavalry were about to do what cavalrymen everywhere fantasize about: surge forward into the enemy for a good old-fashioned Napoleonic saber charge.
Will quickly mounted as his own troop was still getting into formation and nudging their mounts into line. Will couldn’t wait for them to fully form.
“Troop, right half-wheel at the trot, march!”
With his own saber directing the path of march, he rushed his mount to the center of the troop, hoping to connect with the right of I Troop’s line to extend it, purposefully leaving a gap between his and Peters’s troops. It was that or allow the enemy to rush down on I Troop and scatter it.
Getting his own troop on line and in formation was a forlorn hope at this point: the enemy were already moving rapidly down on I Troop, with the enemy line extending beyond the right flank of I, just where Will was directing his own troopers.
A soldier likes to know there is someone on his flanks, some line and some formation to protect against an enemy driving laterally down his own. Troop I’s flank was hanging in the air. As Will’s troopers came even with Troop I’s line, Will spurred forward with a yell and swung his saber forward. The best way to disrupt a charge was to charge into it.
With Troop I slightly behind, Will’s command galloped forward, giving a cheer, and in moments the two lines met in a melee of clattering sabers and pistol shots. Will’s troop intermixed with the enemy’s first line of horsemen, and Troop I added a second shock to the charge by scattering the left flank of the enemy and engaging his second line of horsemen. From there it was confusion as everyone vied to at least swing a saber at a fellow horseman, every man looking to see if he was adept at the cavalier’s art of individual combat while horsed.
The attack was a swirling of horses and attempts to strike while keeping one’s own horse in motion to make a harder target. Saddles were emptied on both sides, and the clang of sabers intermixed with shouts and curses. Bugles sounded the recall, and the Federal attack stalled, hopelessly confused by the 1st Alabama’s disrupting charge.
Looking about for who had been recalled, Will noted that Peters’s troop was forming three hundred yards to the rear to receive any further charge of the enemy—the recall had been for Peters, then. The recall was sounded once more, and the two troops peeled off, leaving several men lying on the ground writhing from saber slashes and a few forms on both sides not moving at all. Horses stood idle, and a few Yankee mounts were grabbed by retreating Confederates as both sides returned to their starting places.
As Will reined to a halt and placed his troop back in line, Colonel Allen rode up red-faced and flushed.
“Keep your head, Hunter. You might have opened up our whole line to being flanked by moving to the right. You stopped the enemy attack, but you might have left us all in a world of hurt. Prepare to fall back. General Wheeler’s orders are for us to cover the flanks of the infantry as we fall back to La Vergne and take up position across Stewart’s Creek. No more acting on your own, understood?”
“Sir, understood,” Will replied evenly. The days when he’d expected effusive praise for some imagined foresight or independent action were gone, but he had acted according to his own senses, and his instinct had yet again proved right. Allen, at least, was smart enough to recognize that fact. Or so Will fancied it.
“We can’t afford to lose troopers. No more spoiling attacks unless I order it,” Allen added and turned to meet with Troop I’s commander.
A few men of both troops were nursing wounds in their arms and shoulders, gashes and cuts from wild saber slashes, but Will’s men had managed to grab a few prisoners in the process, and they and the wounded made their way back through the fields as the enemy resumed his probing forward.
“Clever rascal,” Peters chided as Will moved along the rear of his troop’s line and encountered his friend calmly stuffing his pipe. The 1st Alabama was forming around their new position in the middle of the field, two hundred yards from the Nashville pike, offering more of a blockade to another cavalry charge than a permanent defensive position.
“Thought it might halt them Yankees some,” Will replied.
“No tirade or arrest?” Peters asked with a wink.
“No, not this time, but a warning not to do it again—today,” Will replied.
“Cost us some.”
“Would have cost us more had they run down I Troop.”
“That it would.”
Off in the distance as the infantry brigades resumed march column and the enemy skirmishers pushed forward, the enemy cavalry moved to find a path into their rear again. The 1st Alabama would be moving soon to block and slow them down.
“We going to be doing this all day. One fallback after another,” Will stated. He shivered. He’d not noticed that the morning chill was beginning to seep back into his extremities. The excitement and the action had caused them to sweat, and that moisture was now evaporating and bringing on the chills.
“Allen prolly knows you saved I Troop from capture or worse. You din’t do nothing me or Mitchell wouldn’t have done in your place,” Peters said, lighting his pipe and taking a satisfying drag.
Behind them, the infantry were already well down the Nashville pike. Others were crossing through the fields and taking up position by a line of trees a thousand yards behind them. Soon it was just the 1st Alabama and the 13th Alabama Infantry sitting astride the pike, egging the enemy to reform and engage.
“Seemed the sensible thing to do,” Will conceded.
“Allen’s a good man, always has been—so the regiment is in better hands now. Just mind your impulses an’ you’ll make captain yet.”
“He ain’t relieved me yet,” Will said.
“Right,” Peters said and puffed.
More Federal cavalry were in evidence as the retreat continued, forming on the flanks and striking out in a wide arc to find a clear passage into the rear.
“Rest of the regiment is posted along Stewart’s Creek an’ the Jefferson pike,” Peters related while finishing his pipe. The dismounted skirmishers were falling back once more to remount, and the chase would recommence once again.
Turning his own mount to retrace his steps behind his troop’s line, Peters said, “Keep a tight hold on I Troop.”
I Troop was spread out on a wide line running diagonally, spreading to the rear so as to catch any attempt by the enemy cavalry to come charging down into their back side. Will’s troop gathered in a double line, waiting for the skirmishers to clear out before either moving back or moving forward should the order come. The enemy in their front was all cavalry now, the infantry left far behind. Federal troopers were slowly picking their way toward them through the open field, their own skirmishers falling back almost immediately.
Everyone knew what was behind this smallish force of the enemy’s horsemen: a huge army was feeling its way out of the morning fog to sweep everything before it that wasn’t securely anchored with artillery and good ground. The Federals felt invincible right about now, Will supposed. The Confederate horsemen were outnumbered, and the disparity was growing as they fell back, but it wasn’t the horsemen who were going to give them problems.
Colonel Allen gave the word, and the troops executed a left face in turn and in march column continued overland: first Peters
’s, then Will’s, and finally I Troop quitting the field.
“They headed for the bridge over Stewart’s Creek,” Allen relayed to his troop commanders one by one. “We delay them as long as possible, put up a show of force but fall back. No getting yourselves in a pickle!”
Another stop and another deployment of skirmishers: this time it was Will’s turn to dismount and run out into the open to await the arrival of the enemy’s skirmish line. Behind him, the other two troops were arranging themselves along the roadway to cover their approach and prevent the enemy horsemen from easily running the gauntlet and pushing through their center. The enemy was getting to be a little bold now, appearing in one long line, mounted, and cheekily pushing forward as if to ride over the Confederates. Peters’s troop straddled the Jefferson pike, and Troop I was arrayed in the rear and mounted. Will’s troop wasn’t big enough to cover the entire front in skirmish line, but if the enemy decided to charge them, it wouldn’t matter.
Will walked the length of his troop, slapping each trooper on the shoulder and relaying a message of encouragement. “Be ready to bolt for your mounts quickly,” he added. His picket line of horses stood close by, less than a hundred yards back, but it would be a mad dash if the enemy lurched forward in a grand charge.
Looking about, Will’s eye took in the countryside in their rear. Cedar trees stood in clumps and marked the edges of fields everywhere. The thick woods would impede their escape if they had to wind their way through them. The field they were in was narrow in length but wide enough to cover the roadway, and there were fences to be dealt with along the tree line. Any attempt to break for it and run would have to funnel down the Jefferson pike. It seemed the Federal commander had noted this as well and was preparing to bag as many men as he could collar by direct assault.
* * *
Captain Frank W. Mix of the 4th Michigan Cavalry was elated. He and his “Wolverines” watched as the gray horsemen sped out of carbine range, leaving him the field. A few crumpled forms dotted the dead cotton plants, and those few wounded were being helped along by dismounted troopers. Though his attempt to outflank the Confederate cavalry in his front had been spoiled, he and his troops were doing what they were armed to do: ride hell to leather toward the enemy.
River of Blood (Shiloh Series Book 4) Page 7