“Look, we not going to do this now, okay?” Glenn said and looked at Leach in particular to add emphasis. “We not gonna have the time, an’ we too far from enemy lines to make it and surrender. No one is gonna try and ruin it for the rest. We do this when the enemy come up or we do this when we moving south. Doing it now is madness.”
Leach pursed his lips and looked about. Several horsemen were idling off to the side of the pike, allowing their mounts to nibble at the pitiful grass that was still edible in the winter climate. Open fields lined this side of the pike, cut by fences and thick cedar brakes. Just a dash was all it would take.
“You ain’t thinkin’ of your kin, is you? Your brother?” Holly asked.
“You don’t know if his regiment is even in Tennessee,” John stated, standing up straighter. Of course that was it. Holly had figured Leach out.
Leach looked miserable. “No, but what if he is? What if he’s in one of those regiments coming down this road?”
“So that’s it?” Glenn prodded. “You get some letter from your wife who got some letter through the lines that a brother has volunteered in Kentucky? A brother you not seen in years, an’ you suddenly think he’s in every regiment in blue we seen?”
“I’ll not fire another shot at a Yankee line,” Leach declared. “I didn’t at Perryville.”
“You don’t even know what regiment! You don’t know if he is even still in the army or ever was!” Glenn protested.
“Listen,” John stated firmly, “we not going to try now. But we try to do it before we close up with the enemy an’ things get out of hand. It will be easier to do this—” John held his hand up to Leach, who was about to protest, “—it will be easier to do this when we in contact with the enemy and there is confusion about the lines. None of us get far trying now. We get to Murfreesboro or we get somewhere through it, an’ then we slip away. We try to do this before we have to form up in line of battle.”
John finished and looked to each man for agreement. There was movement about the column as it became clear the rest was over.
“Agreed?” John looked at Leach.
Leach nodded and sighed. “I’ll not risk firin’ on my brother,” he added with finality.
Glenn nodded but didn’t strike John as being totally mollified. It worried him. He wasn’t sure what Glenn might do if Leach did try something on his own.
As the call to fall in rang out, the Arkansas men found their places in the line and stood behind their rifle stack, a line of bristling bayonet points formed into a triangle with additional leaners adding to the formidable-looking projections. The company didn’t stop anywhere for even a few moments’ rest without stacking muskets alongside the road. It was the mark of the infantry—their primary weapon left upon the scene and in line of company front should they hurriedly have to give battle. This morning, the dew and the mist formed droplets upon the bayonet tips and coated the leathers left hanging on the stacks. There was some variety in the pile: many state arsenals were stocked with outdated militia arms from the War of 1812, including the Brown Bess, an 1808 flintlock musket, and a few of the 1842 Springfield flintlocks converted to Maynard primers, with a roll of caps in a cylinder and a new hammer and rifled barrel. Many state arms had come from Europe as countries there found new buyers for their old arsenals of flintlocks or conversions, and the early battlefields of the war had been like an arms bazaar with any weapon made in the last eighty years to be found discarded or surrendered by defeated soldiers. The quartermaster of the 3rd Confederate still had to procure buck and ball for the .69 caliber weapons and the .72 smoothbores, as well as the .58 caliber minié ball for the rifled muskets.
With the command to take arms given, the stacks vanished in a moment’s time as the leaners were grasped and the tri-musket bases with interlocking bayonets were easily swung about and unentwined. Leach took his musket and let it sit easily at his right side, Glenn standing next to him in line. The two men had never been close friends—they were barely friends at all save for their mutual respect of John Meeks and David Grover. They shared their mess by mutual consent and friendships with the other men.
“You keep your mind about you, hear?” Glenn said quietly.
“And you mind your own self,” Leach retorted.
“Quiet in the ranks,” Sergeant Wade called from behind the company line.
Like an accordion ripple, the long line of wagons slowly got its start. Lieutenant Campbell had been left in charge of the company as Captain Steck was on provost duty with the brigade. The company line waited its turn to move off down the road. Campbell scanned the double line of men standing before him, looking for who was talking. All eyes attentively though vacantly stared straight ahead, the order to come to attention having already been given. No one fidgeted or looked guilty.
Campbell’s eyes fixed upon John Meeks in the second rank. Making Meeks’s life hell no longer held much fascination for him, but if he could get in a few licks for good measure, he’d take the opportunity. At this moment Meeks didn’t look guilty enough to warrant any special treatment.
As the next wagon in line lurched forward, Campbell gave the command to right face, and the two-rank company line dissolved into a four-rank company column, filled the roadway, and stepped off. The wagons kept a slow gait. The horse teams were sufficient for hauling the weight at a faster clip, but the infantry protection could only make so fast a time. Once in motion, with the command to route step given, it was anything goes in the marching column.
“You try anything, I’ll put you down myself,” Glenn muttered, his position beside Leach now separated by Grover.
“What?” Grover asked, annoyed.
“Talkin’ to Leach,” Glenn snapped.
“Pipe down,” Grover hissed. “He knows what to do.”
“Do he?” Glenn prodded. “He’s going to skedaddle, I know it.”
Creaking wagons, horses clopping in the soft earth, men’s boot falls and the clanging of bayonet tips against tin cups created a constant white noise that muffled individual conversations. The company sergeants and Lieutenant Campbell marched along the right-hand side of the road out of formation. Though one could talk, sing, or put one’s mind as far away as possible and allow the feet to move, it was not the best time for private conversation.
“You watch him too then. I warn you, he’s going to try and make for the hills.”
Leach marched along with a stony glare at anything and everything. He’d meant what he’d said. That was all they needed to know.
The march north up the Franklin pike was scenic in the spring and summertime, with lush green fields and thick green leafy cedars clustering the roadsides. Now it was overcast and cold, the fields barren and the trees leafless. Dead and muddy fields ranged on either side of the pike, and houses stood peaceful and still.
Seeing military traffic coming and going down the pike was not unusual, not at least since Bragg had made Murfreesboro the headquarters for his army a month ago, and the countryside did not appear to have recognized the sudden change in the army’s dispositions. Had a farmer been watching closely, he might have noticed that the traffic headed north up the pike toward Murfreesboro had become more frequent, the armed escorts of wagons and marching columns more intent upon coalescing in their neighborhood. The roadway led up from Manchester, further south, a place Bragg needed to keep open from enemy interference. That the army’s baggage needed a regiment’s worth of escort belied the need for operational security and proximity to the enemy’s legions. But farmers might have been given a pass for missing this as the 3rd Confederate slowly marched along.
The farms were sparsely located, the land each farmer held broken by the ever-present cedar trees that grew like weeds. Limestone rocks, almost as ever present as the cedars, lined barns and houses. They were laid down to make neat little front yards and garden walks, stacked up three feet high for fencing, and where they could be ignored, they were left in piles. Where the limestone rocks were too numerous to
dig up, they formed natural barricades amidst the cedar trees, the land given over to nature instead of plowed.
As they marched east on the Franklin road, clear and open fields quickly became eclipsed by dense cedar forest on their left. A house belonging to the Widow Smith stood in a clearing surrounded by the cedars, and another half a mile further north was the house of Captain Jones. The thick trees and omnipresent low-lying rocks caught the eyes of the soldiers as they took in the last of the rural countryside before crossing into the environs of the town proper. For John, the thick tree-covered areas meant an ability to quickly slip away and dart into cover. This might be the ideal place to find an end to their service.
John looked over at Leach, who was alertly taking in the landscape. Entering the proximity of Murfreesboro had woken everyone up from his marching stupor. Houses led up from the river valley they were now crossing and up onto the higher ridge where the town was situated, and everyone was looking about for what was to come next.
“We can get away here,” John said in a low voice.
Leach nodded, though he did not appear to be any happier about waiting for the mystical opportunity the others were looking for.
“Plenty of places to hide,” John continued.
“We see where we stop an’ then take stock,” Glenn added as he shifted his musket wearily from one shoulder to the other, the anticipation of being free of all impediments making his muscles ache more acutely.
Marching through the center of town revealed a vast military hub of wagons, officers, soldiers, cavalrymen, and horses of every stripe moving about. Few civilians were in evidence. The railroad passed the town by, and but for a few buildings to the west of the town, it kept its southeasterly track. The strategic road network that met in Murfreesboro converged upon this one point, the opening of the door to Middle Tennessee. To the south and east was a mountainous path cut by high, rocky ridges and mountain peaks with but few gaps, strategically defended by small bodies of troops. Eastern Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama lay beyond that. Murfreesboro was the last bastion of control of Confederate territory and a point of pride.
To John Meeks it did not matter if the big bugs were going to fight it out on this line or that. That the brigade trains were being gathered here was indication that the army was going to try to hold on to Murfreesboro. They were already familiar with the town—had marched through it numerous times in the past year or been shuttled past it along the railroad. The fields had seen the tents of the army spring up in their midst, and the farmers had come to accept that the army was going to eat them out of house and home, consuming their fence rails for firewood and any food that was not hidden for their appetites. Despite that, there was generosity enough from these sympathetic families. Many of the soldiers moving about were native Tennesseans, some from this area.
John looked about as the column ascended a short ridge and passed out of the river valley before crossing the railroad. The buildings and houses of the town stood as an outcropping of dozens of places to hide, to be ensconced without anyone knowing you were there. The path along the Nashville pike crossed Stone’s River a mile northwest of the town, but instead of recrossing, the regiment and wagons were being directed down a wagon path that skirted the river and past the Widow Murfree’s house before entering a large field that was already crowded with wagons and artillery in park.
A further mile ahead, upon a rise of ground, troops were forming line of battle. The smell of cook fires and thousands of men and animals greeted them. Below them, down a gentle slope, gurgled Stone’s River. Musty and dank straw mingled with the smell of the river and the biting cold that was beginning to descend with the sun. This was obviously their end point. The regiment would encamp here in line of battle as if waiting for something to happen.
Given the command to rest, the companies scattered and quickly kindled cook fires and produced cups for coffee. John and his pards gathered around one such fire to let their bones and muscles relax and the warmth of the fire warm their hands. Perpetually stiff and shriveled, their hands had become mere claws, white as ghosts in the mist and chill of the morning’s march. Now, feet and fingers began to melt.
“Don’t like it. Looks like we gonna stay,” Leach was saying.
“We not far from town here. I suspect we be moving shortly once the brigade arrives. Them breastworks yonder.”
John motioned with his chin. From their vantage point upon the ridge looking down into the river valley, they could see the troops of Polk’s corps stringing out and pulling rocks and trees into breastworks, working with an energy that added deadly earnestness to the enterprise. “The army looks to stay.”
“If they leave us here, we can slip away and go back into town, hide in a cellar or something or just follow the railroad line further southeast,” Glenn said as he rubbed his cold fingers vigorously.
“Hide for how long?” John asked. “We can’t hide for days without someone come lookin’ for us. We don’t know if the army is going to hunker down here or not. Them breastworks may just be for precaution. The enemy ain’t even here yet.”
Ahead of them, upon a series of hills a mile from their park artillery, batteries were being wheeled into positions and other emplacements created to protect them. The range of hills commanded everything.
“I say we take our chances,” Leach was quick to say.
“No, John’s right,” Glenn said. “If we going to be here several days, we need to go right before we move again, not now.” Glenn looked over at Leach to emphasize the point.
“We’d get picked up quickly if we tried tonight. Too much traffic between the town and the lines forming,” Grover added as they watched a steady stream of horse and wagon traffic headed down the Wilkinson pike. There seemed little point in trying to do anything yet, with the rear areas well patrolled by provost guards and other traffic.
“We see if we stay or not, then decide. We see if the enemy gets close enough,” John said and poked at the fire. “We agree to all agree before we do this.” He nodded toward Leach. “We try before there is an engagement. We do this before we have to fight again.”
* * *
Lieutenant William Hunter was also on the Franklin road, riding at the head of his troop. The skirmishes of the day before had been invigorating, and further, eye-opening. He’d lost some badly needed horses, and a gaggle of dismounted cavalry trailed behind him now. The enemy didn’t press hard enough to cut them off, and rejoining the regiment was not an ordeal. Allen—the only man now who could countermand Will’s impulsiveness—had not been happy.
Will had long ago learned that his own brilliance in the saddle would not be universally appreciated when it came to upper command. This time the trouble was not that he’d brought in prisoners or booty, nor that he had not kept the bridge from being taken, but that he had been out of contact for several hours. General Wheeler had been moving his regiments around the chessboard, and Will’s troop was cut off.
“This isn’t your personal troop, Hunter,” Allen had said when Will reported late in the evening of the 28th. “The general was moving us toward Jefferson, and you were nowhere to be seen. Allowing yourself to be cut off put the regiment in a bind. You follow orders to the letter next time.”
Will merely saluted and stood in stony silence. It was the same old story: he had taken advantage of a situation and used his troopers as they were meant to be used, but he had run afoul of something—this time the need to communicate. But he liked Allen for the most part, and he wasn’t going to lose his command by being cheeky or insubordinate.
“We will keep falling back on La Vergne. You will support Wiggins’s battery and post a picket line one mile in advance of us tonight,” Allen added. “The enemy is expected to push forward in the morning, so give him a volley or two and protect the guns while they fall back on the town. The rest of the troops will be on the far right flank of Wood’s brigade on the east bank of Stewart’s Creek and the town. You’re just to demonstrate and harass
the enemy.”
“Sir,” Will replied. “Can the men build fires?”
“Yes. We aren’t hiding our positions, though you may want to avoid doing so if it draws sharpshooter fire.”
“Good, sir. The troop is fairly flagged out, and the mounts need a good rest.”
The regiment gathered around the east bank of Stewart’s Creek again, the flow of the meandering creek cutting across the Nashville and Murfreesboro pikes several times. This was the last crucial bridge and waypoint before the enemy’s progress on to Murfreesboro.
“The 51st Alabama Partisan Rangers will also have vedettes in support of Wiggin’s battery off to your right on the left of the pike. You’re to post on the right of the pike and wait the enemy approach.”
Allen looked about as he spoke. The other troops were taking to horse and trotting off on their assignments or bedding down for the night near the one remaining bridge. Firelight danced shadows upon the cedars, and like bugs about a lantern, those troopers not out on duty were gathered around the fires chatting. A company of infantry moved into a column of fours and marched off to cross the bridge.
“Fall back protecting the battery, and go where they go. Lieutenant Bryant has charge of one section of Wiggins’s battery, so you stick to him. If he limbers up, you provide cover fire and fall back in front of him till he deploys again.” Allen rubbed his nose, the chill of late evening falling fast.
“Sir, is Brave—” He caught himself. “Is Lieutenant Bryant already deployed?” Will asked. Captain Wiggins’s guns had been with the brigade for some time, the regiments often deployed in their midst as Wiggins moved his sections about looking for just the right elevation or advantage on an enemy battery. Following an artilleryman about was not glorious duty, and it was even worse to provide protection for one. The guns would attract every enemy field piece within reach. Will could expect to lose more horses to shrapnel.
River of Blood (Shiloh Series Book 4) Page 12