River of Blood (Shiloh Series Book 4)

by Phillip Bryant

  It had been all he could do to keep James Holly and John Glenn from breaking Phillip Leach’s legs over the last several days. Leach had been of the mind to just strike out on his own, but the enemy never got near enough save for the little fight at dusk on the 29th, and then the Yankees didn’t stay in the neighborhood. The picket posts were manned by other regiments of the brigade, leaving the 3rd to occupy a portion of the line of battle and wait for some development. Leach had almost slipped away once but was watched too closely by Glenn to get far. If they didn’t make some attempt soon, John feared there would be no one left to see them all safely through.

  “We see where we goin’ an’ then see how close we is to the enemy. They was plenty of opportunity to just slip away that last two days from the line. We should have taken chance then,” Glenn said. “They not going to let us out of they sight for long.”

  “If it comes to an attack, there will be opportunity to slip away. We just need to be smart about it. They’ve been a little lax lately in watching the company, an’ I think they expect to be attacked by the enemy soon,” John replied.

  “Do we try before light? What if we don’t stop? What if we keep marching?” Leach asked. “If we keep marching we lose our chance. We should all just take our chances and slip away.”

  “Breckenridge’s division hasn’t moved, an’ neither has them guns they placed on that hill in front of our old line,” Glenn replied. “No, we ain’t retreating, and I think we getting closer to the enemy, not further. We get our chance soon, maybe tonight.”

  “They won’t throw us out as skirmishers, never do. We have to move toward the enemy once we settle in wherever we goin’,” David Grover added.

  John Meeks shook his head. He’d kept his little group together for over a year now, and it was he who had started this attempt to finally escape. Yet he was somehow loath to take the actual step to get away. Perhaps the thrill of the plan was more enticing than the execution of it. There was no punishment for planning. But with Leach deciding it was do or die regardless of everyone else, and Glenn deciding it might be better to do away with one man if he put all in danger, the group would have to act.

  “We see what is what, then when we halt,” John said. “We passed plenty of places to hide when we marched up along that road. If the enemy is close, we’ll not have far to get. If we attack, we’ll just have to find some way of getting away, but it’ll be much harder to do if we is fighting. May have to slip away and hope the enemy can take us prisoner.”

  That was the crux of the problem: getting the enemy close enough to help you also meant getting close enough for him to shoot you for your troubles.

  “We try tonight if we stop in the face of the enemy,” Glenn said. “We slip away unnoticed in the dark. We all go before the regiment has a chance to settle in and throw guards out. They can’t keep an eye on all of us at once.”

  Meeks thought about it. “Let’s say we do try—do we make off and try to hide, or do we head out into the enemy? We like to get shot by their pickets if we wander into them in the dark. We better off slipping away and hiding in the cedars that grow thick along the road we marched by the other day. Safer that way.”

  “They not find us or even look for us until light, but then we gotta be moving toward the enemy,” Glenn said with a nod.

  “How we going to do this? On the march or when we halt?” David Grover asked. “They gonna notice if we don’t fall in or if we all try to fall out on the way.”

  “No, we gotta do it once we halt an’ they put us into battle line. Once we sorting ourselves out an’ no one is looking to fill holes in the line, we make for the nearest cedars an’ hold up for the darkness,” Glenn replied.

  “Rumor has it we to attack in the morning, so this is our last shot at doing this afore we thrown back into line of battle. Last chance to get out of this in one piece,” James Holly said.

  “So, this not a retreat?” Phillip Leach asked. All you ever knew about something happening was when you were ordered to prepare three days’ worth of cooked rations and were issued ammunition.

  “They been plenty o’ rumors,” Grover said. He was kneeling down and occasionally flicking a twig about as the group watched the procession cross the bridge. No one had shed his traps save for bedrolls and knapsacks, making sitting or kneeling an act of arranging haversack, canteen, cartridge box, bayonet, and cap box out of the way. The rifles were stacked within easy reach, at least not adding to one’s burden. Add to all of that the overcoat, and you had a tightly wrapped bug that couldn’t move very well unless prompted by a fusillade of enemy fire.

  “If Cleburne’s division the only one moving, we not retreating,” replied John. “We either go now or we take our chances if we attack. I’d rather we go now than risk another engagement.”

  * * *

  As Sergeant Wade meandered by the group of Peace Society traitors, picking his way through a throng of men in all attitudes of rest, they all fell silent. Wade always tried to look like he was just wandering, but most knew he was trying to catch any conspiratorial word he could from the muted conversations.

  Wade came up to Lieutenant Campbell and lowered his voice. “I think some of our niddering traitors might make a try fer it tonight.”

  The two stood near the roadside as most of the officers and sergeants chose to do, both to remain aloof from the enlisted men and to be prepared to catch the next order to come from Major Cameron. Most of the men were huddled together in small groups. Others took to the more apropos infantryman’s saying of “Why stand when you can sit, why sit when you can lay down, why just lay down when you can sleep?”

  “Sergeant, you always saying that. You hear something specific?” Campbell asked. It was not a stretch to think that more of their company of malcontents would try something, but any night was an opportunity for someone to quietly walk away, and so far no one had availed himself.

  “No, just a feelin’.”

  “You mean Meeks an’ his bunch?” Campbell asked, looking over the sergeant’s shoulder to where the group of men sat idling the time away.

  “Yes, sir. Meeks’s bunch. I been keepin’ my eye on them nidderers these last several days. Always whisperin’. I think they been plannin’ something. Seems they might try somethin’ soon.”

  “We’ll keep them in a tight little group once we halt. Captain Robertson says we to move on the enemy at first light. Now would be the time to try to slip away,” Campbell replied.

  He almost hoped they would try something. Any number of punishments, official or unofficial, could be plied upon his chief nemesis. Though it hardly seemed fair to Campbell’s status to have an enlisted man as a nemesis.

  “We split them up, reorder the squads, make it impossible for them to be in contact once we halt and form line of battle. That make it harder for any one o’ them to do anything alone,” Campbell added as afterthought.

  “Won’t that alter the line? Put short man in the rear rank? They already mess together; shifting the positions might jar ever’one else in line who’s used to standing next to one man in particular,” Wade protested, a look of concern on his face. Thomas Wade, unlike James Campbell, had taken well to military life and took his duties with his stripes seriously. Despite his hatred for the majority of those in the company, Wade was not keen on using his authority to alter how his soldiers got on with their duties. Jostling the men’s comrades in battle right before a fight was not something he wanted to do.

  Campbell dismissed his objections with a wave of his hand. “We should have done this long ago, Sergeant. We don’t want any desertions here, not on the eve of an engagement. I’ll speak to the captain and tell him we suspect a group of trying to desert and get permission to split them up.”

  Wade searched for polite words of protest. The squads he commanded would be affected—everyone would if these five men were shuffled about. The man on your right would be different, as might the man behind you, and though the men of the company all knew one anothe
r, there was something unsettling about finding a relative stranger at one’s elbow in a time of crisis. It happened anyway when the firing began and men fell out for wounds, but to make the switch deliberately on the very eve of such action, it seemed to him, made for a bad omen all around.

  “I don’t like it, sir,” Wade said. “Throw the whole company off, an’ I think Major Cameron barely trusts it now. What happens if they break an’ run because someone broke up the squads?”

  “You sayin’ that keeping this group together not more dangerous? What if they found missin’ in the dark an’ the whole company gets the idea that they can do it too? I’ll not have a mass desertion spoil my record more than these miscreants already has!” Campbell replied. “We’ll take this to the captain.”

  “Why not just detail Meeks or some other of them to other duty?” Wade suggested quickly as Campbell turned. “Put Meeks or Grover on provost or send ’em back to the town under guard for some infraction. Get one or two of ’em out of the way, an’ the others won’t dare try nuthin’. Saves the rest of the soldiers from rattlin’.”

  Campbell stopped a moment and turned around slowly. Wade knew his old friend was like a wagon: when it gets momentum it is hard to stop, and even harder to turn about. But it could be done without enough effort.

  “All right, let’s put Meeks with the major as messenger an’ Leach with the captain as batman. Get both of them out of the way of their little group an’ not jostle the squads as much. That make you happy?”

  Anger tinged Campbell’s reply.

  Wade tried to put a good face on it. “Sir, that sounds better to me than a wholesale disruption of the line,” he replied evenly.

  “I’ll suggest to Captain Robertson that he have a batman and I know just the man. I’ll tell him why and suggest he send Meeks to the major,” Campbell said. He turned once more, then added from over his shoulder, “That is, if it meets your approval, Sergeant?”

  Wade bit his tongue. He hated it when Campbell got this way. But as long as his job wasn’t going to be made any harder by something jarring the squads, he would put up with it. Campbell had never really been much of a friend—theirs was more of an association of convenience, as he figured Campbell saw it. Still, it was best to stay on his good side. Campbell still had the power of rank over him, even if he was the black sheep of the company’s officers.

  The halt at the river crossing dragged on and on, the stream of traffic ahead of them seemingly endless. Sergeant Wade walked back and forth in a state of agitation. Campbell was taking a long time in coming back, and if they were going to do something with Meeks and the others before the order to fall in was given, it had to be soon. His suggestion had been a fair compromise, but if the lieutenant had got some other idea into his head and was trying to sell that to the captain, Wade might still get a raw deal out of this. They could just keep an eye on the group of men and let it go at that. No need to pull anyone out of the line, no need to disrupt the ranks, just keep a weather eye on Meeks or Holly or Grover and see that they didn’t suddenly vanish. If the regiment was going to step off into a fight at first light, the company would have to be in fighting trim—pulling key men out of the line just seemed too risky.

  Wade’s thoughts were interrupted by Lieutenant Campbell’s approach.

  “It’s settled. Let’s go break the news to them that any plans they had are now useless,” Campbell said with a glint in his eye.

  Together they strode up on the little group. “You men,” Campbell said with his best authoritative and annoying air. “Leach and Meeks, turn your muskets in to the quartermaster, you being detailed to other duties. Come on, get up.”

  There were looks of consternation on the faces of the men, and even in the darkness it was clear this was something that none of them wanted to hear.

  Campbell folded his arms about his chest in a satisfied manner. “You plans to desert is up; you can give up the corn. We knowed what you plannin’ on doin’ first chance you got.”

  “Sir,” John Meeks said, “what plans? What are you talking about, sir?”

  John Glenn looked hard at Phillip Leach and then turned quickly away. Wade caught the look and filed it away.

  “Don’t play games with me, Private. Now, come, both of you with me. You going to the major, and you,” pointing to Leach, “is going to Captain Robertson as his batman.”

  John Meeks quickly glanced at his friends. All were white as sheets and struck dumb. Slowly standing up, Meeks scratched the back of his neck. “Our rifles is in the stacks,” he said slowly, maybe hoping that some excuse might release him from the detail. Phillip Leach nervously fiddled with his traps as he stood and looked around as if missing something. Both men were acting like children who were about to be force-marched into something they dreaded and were playing ignorant or deaf to avoid going willingly.

  If Wade had been unsure of what he suspected, this little performance and the looks on the other men’s faces told it all. They had been planning something, and this was going to throw it all into chaos. He smiled to himself, never one not to gloat when it was appropriate, and turned to Campbell with a nod.

  “Sir,” Meeks interjected, “my injury after Perryville ain’t quite healed yet. I’m not going to be much good as a messenger.”

  “You been marching fine, an’ you not reported for sick call in weeks,” Campbell replied. “Quit you stalling an’ get along. You going to the major to move messages between the companies. Your tender leg won’t be much hindrance.”

  John Meeks gathered his remaining traps and took one last look back at his pards before moving off with the lieutenant, Phillip Leach in tow. Sergeant Wade took one last look at the still speechless group of men and smiled. They would not be bothering him for a while, he thought as he too went back to waiting for the order to fall in and stepped away.

  * * *

  There were long moments of silence as the remaining men sat motionless before anyone stirred. It was a blow.

  “We got to go tonight,” John Glenn whispered. “The hell with Leach and with Meeks. We go tonight still.”

  “What if Leach tells them we was going to do something? Won’t they throw us all in chains?” Holly asked.

  “Maybe he already has,” Glenn stated coldly.

  “Phillip? No, he wouldn’t,” David Grover said.

  “How you know? He been wantin’ to get away all by hisself, an’ now suddenly we all accused of planning to seek our rights? He behind this,” Glenn retorted.

  “John, you know that’s nonsense. Neither John Meeks nor Phillip Leach would betray a trust,” Grover said as quietly as he could while keeping his eyes on the back of Sergeant Wade, standing by the roadside.

  “I say someone tol’, an’ that someone was Leach to get back at me fer makin’ him wait,” Glenn replied.

  “You not makin’ any sense; you know that not right,” Holly replied. “Meeks an’ Leach been with us from the beginnin’ and under the same strain as you. Why would either of them do this to punish all of us? Wade been watchin’ us like a hawk. He just guessed, is all.”

  Glenn started to reply, then shut his mouth. He’d been angrily picking up the same rock and tossing it down over and over again since the sergeant and lieutenant left with their two comrades. Someone had told, that was all he could think of. Someone must have told.

  A sudden movement of officers and sergeants along the roadside interrupted their conversation.

  “Up, you nidderers. Fall in on the stacks,” Sergeant Wade called out. “Fall in.”

  The remaining three stood up slowly and one by one brushed past a grinning Sergeant Wade to find their places in the line.

  “What we gonna do?” whispered Holly as he and Glenn took their places in the company lineup.

  “Go without them.” Glenn repeated from the corner of his mouth. “And I’ll deal with Leach.”

  Chapter 12

  Wagon Burnin’

  Will Hunter nodded sleepily as his horse’s cante
r gently swayed him right then left, right then left, right then left. The 1st Alabama had been in the saddle since two in the morning. Wheeler’s brigade of cavalry moved freely throughout the night behind the Union army’s lines of communication, and at sunup they neared the Nolansville pike. It was cold, frigid cold, and despite runny noses and frozen digits, the cavalry pushed on for mile after remorseless mile.

  The enemy had horse. Lots of horse. They had beeves, and they had miles and miles of wagons, mules, and supplies that could feed another army of Confederates. Not only on the Nashville pike, but the Nolansville pike, the Franklin pike, and the Jefferson pike. Little outposts stood at each village, and escorts marshaling quartermaster wagon trains flowed toward Rosecrans’s army before Murfreesboro.

  Will shifted in the saddle, sitting up straighter to stretch his back, as he and his troopers looked upon the scene before them. Generals Wheeler and Wharton were using their cavalry brigades to flummox the enemy, and as part of this, the 1st Alabama was moving cross-country and around the enemy army with ease. It surprised Will that the enemy did not guard against their forays more closely. There, spread out before them, was an immense supply park just two miles from Jefferson, twenty miles from where the Union army waited in front of Murfreesboro. It was only lightly protected.

  Hundreds of wagons parked in an open space near the Nashville pike: a sea of white canvas and horses too numerous to count, with mules in a corral hastily constructed to hem the animals in.

  The 1st Alabama stood off a mile or more upon a ridgeline waiting for the orders to move forward. The 51st Alabama Partisan Rangers had been split off and now moved northward toward Nashville to form a blocking force along the road, picketing and warning of any approaching force from that direction. The 8th Confederate Cavalry had been sent to guard the bridge over Stewart’s Creek to watch anything coming from Triune. It was now up to the 1st Alabama and the 1st Tennessee to wade into the booty and grab what they could, burning the rest.