“They all agree?” John asked.
“Most,” Holly replied.
John Meeks shook his head and looked hard at each man present. Just as they were determined to do something rash, he was determined to stop it, even if it meant making an enemy of Glenn.
“John, don’t make us consider you a problem,” Glenn said. He looked around, gauging the mood of the rest of the group.
John could see from Grover that he was not really up for what was on the table. The others? They seemed under Glenn’s spell now. It had always been Meeks who held the greatest sway over what they did or didn’t do, and it was a shock to see Glenn trying to take that role. Perhaps he was getting soft or overly cautious, John reflected; but no—the plan was a bad one. If they were really bent on going regardless of the consequences, they needed to do it under better circumstances. Yes, they had waited long already. They would just have to wait longer.
“So you overpower Wade, then what? You walk away? Run? Where you gonna go? Run to the rear, you get gobbled up by provost or our own cavalry. Toward the Yankees, you get shot just the same as if you chargin’ them.”
“Don’t matter!” Glenn said angrily. “I’m tired of waiting to die, an’ in this confusion no one will notice.”
“They gonna notice a whole company refusin’ to move or runnin’ off, John!” Meeks replied loudly, too loudly. The others of the group jumped slightly, and conversations going on around them hushed.
“Quiet!” Holly said between gritted teeth, a glower creasing his brows.
“Look, I been sent back to the ranks. Campbell is gone, an’ they gettin’ ready to move forward again. They ain’t nuthin’ to do about it, but we won’t be out here alone fer long when the rest of the division catches up. You won’t succeed but fer getting slapped in irons an’ all of us shot before the end of the day.”
John grabbed Holly’s arm, determined to make the man see sense. “General Cleburne’s not going to let anyone go, an’ don’t you think you can sneak away. They been roundin’ up stragglers an’ forcing them back to they regiments all morning. Believe me, I looked fer opportunity. We in fer this fight like it or not.”
Holly looked at John Meeks hard before jerking his arm free. The others of the group were showing signs of doubt now—awareness that this might not be a question of run or die, but of run and die or charge and die, with the only difference being who was firing the death shot.
“I don’t like going forward again neither, but we just can’t up an’ throw down our weapons before we move forward or they will arrest us all and shoot us for mutiny,” David Grover acknowledged. It didn’t take much to see the folly and desperation in the plan.
“You refuse to go forward, Cameron will arrest you, an’ they will find you all guilty of cowardice and shoot you,” John Meeks said. “What difference is there in that—a certain death in front of a firing squad or going forward into an uncertain one?”
Nods of agreement came now as the odds registered with each man. John Glenn looked at each man in turn and fumed. “You all would rather die going forward than trying to get away as best as one can?”
“They weighing the odds of getting in front of a firing squad, John,” Meeks replied. “Nobody here wants to die, an’ nobody wants to die for a country they didn’t volunteer to fight for, but a chance death trumps a certain one.”
“No different than chargin’ across this field again. That is almost a certain death fer some of us,” James Holly put in. “Some of us going to get hit. Not all of us, but some. We don’t want it to be us.”
“Refusin’ to go forward at least offers some chance that all of us might make it away, or at least most,” Glenn said. He was beginning to look worried himself now.
“Look, John,” Meeks addressed his friend with as even a tone as he could muster, “this ain’t the way. We get close to the enemy line, no one can stop anyone here from surrendering. But we got to go forward to get close. Refusing to go forward is more a death sentence than marching into enemy fire. You all got chance on your side if you march. You all got no chance if you get caught.”
Stony silence followed, an oddity in the presence of fifty men. The company had fallen deathly still as those near enough to hear the debate listened intently and those on the periphery listened for each syllable to be pronounced. There was a gravity to the silence that was uncomfortable to draw out.
“You skulkers, get your traps ready,” Sergeant Wade called out as he walked up to his company. “The other brigades is comin’ on line, an’ we be moving forward again.”
Wade stopped and looked at John Meeks suspiciously and then at Glenn and Holly. His eyes flitted back and forth, and it appeared that he was trying to decide who to upbraid or punish for planning more mischief.
No one moved a muscle.
“You heard me, fall in!” Wade shouted.
John Meeks watched Glenn and Holly, waiting for either of them to initiate what they had set their minds to. Tackling the sergeant to the ground and subduing him would be quick and easy, and Meeks could easily see himself carrying it out. Wade was slow, in both thought and movement, and it would be an easy thing to get the man out of the way. No matter what the odds and no matter his late change of heart, part of John Meeks wanted to mutiny, just to repay a modicum of the trouble Wade had inflicted on him and his pards.
Glenn turned his head slightly and sized Wade up. Five feet separated the sergeant from the group, and Wade was armed, carrying his rifle at shoulder arms with bayonet still affixed.
John Meeks could see what was running through Glenn’s mind as another pregnant pause followed Wade’s words. Glenn or anyone else would get skewered on Wade’s bayonet before they got within arm’s reach. John could imagine Glenn was working out his own chances.
A quick glance from Holly was all it took for the unspoken message to be communicated, and Glenn leaped forward. To John Meeks’s surprise, several arms grabbed hold of Holly just as John himself leaped in front of Glenn, bowling him backward and scrambling to get on top of him.
A dumbstruck Wade stood there watching a sudden tussle break out in front of him for no reason that he could make out.
“Damnit, get off me!” Glenn shouted as other men pounced on top of him and Holly was rocked back onto his butt. He’d only made it up a few inches before being stopped.
“Fall in, I tell you!” Wade ordered after another moment of bewildered silence. If anyone had been in a laughing mood, they might have taken as comical the surprise washing over the sergeant’s face as he realized that he had been saved by none other than John Meeks. Wade brought his rifle to port arms, and his stance was that of a man prepared to be charged, albeit belatedly.
A torrent of swearing filled the company area as John Glenn was manhandled into formation in front of their rifle stack.
Sergeant Wade cautiously resumed his position of shoulder arms and relaxed, though his face still showed a look of profound confusion as the group of men released James Holly and he angrily stood up, stiffly rearranging his coat and traps.
John Meeks stood between Wade and Glenn and watched the sergeant to see if he was going to attempt anything himself. Wade had risen to second sergeant because he was good at being organized and doing his duty, not because he was quick-witted or especially intelligent. That deficiency showed itself now. He was a man better to be led than to lead, despite being the only one left to command the company.
“What—what just happened?” Sergeant Wade finally managed to blurt out.
“Soldier’s quarrel,” was John Meeks’s reply. “Just a soldier’s quarrel, Sergeant.”
“Get to your stack, quickly,” Wade ordered. The men of the company were slow to do as ordered.
John had only been gone for a little while, and yet as he gladly shouldered a musket, it felt like it had been an age. The two-man mutiny went uncommented on as the company drew rifles from the stacks and assumed the position of shoulder arms.
General Wood advanced
to the front of the brigade once more and led it forward through the trees and into the open, where Polk’s brigade was marching from the right to take a position in the trees four hundred yards in advance, marking where Cleburne intended to advance in force upon the Yankees. This time the advance would be with Darden’s battery of Johnson’s brigade and the Helena artillery of Polk’s brigade.
The enemy artillery opened fire on the brigades as they laboriously filed into position. It could have been hail falling in little patches of ground, spewing dirt and rock into the air. But the fire racing the field flew laterally and chewed at the ground. Canister and grapeshot furrowed the ground as the fire reached out for the gray-clad formations. Solid shot plowed even deeper furrows, then bounced and sprayed dirt in great splashes of brown. It seemed that tens of guns were firing at the brigades, and every shot came to earth. The field became a dirty brown and black chop, as if it were no longer solid but a churning sea riven with waves.
This was the part, strangely enough, that John Meeks had been craving. The exhilarating advance. The 3rd Confederate had done enough of this already this day without him, but the enemy kept turning and defending with adroit tenacity. Perhaps it would lead to a moment where they might all surrender without bringing cause to punish their homefolk for their cowardice or desertion. Meeks’s exhilaration held, tinged with fear and excitement as he beheld the spectacle in front of him.
“God, this day will never end,” commented David Grover.
The soldiers of the 3rd had rested only twice, once to draw ammunition and then again after their unsupported attack against the latest stand of cedars that sheltered enemy rifles and artillery. It was as if they were the only ones in the army attacking and beating the enemy back, with no relief in sight—only and always the command of “Forward!”
“Cheatham and Withers’s divisions ain’t keeping pace,” replied John. “We’s the only ones advancing any distance at all.”
“Can do without all o’ it,” Grover said with a heavy sigh, born of exhaustion and tension. “One more position to break or be broken upon, and then they be another behind it. If we don’t break it, we rally and go forward again for another try. Don’t see how the regiment can handle another assault.”
The 3rd had a few minutes to rest in battle line as Johnson’s brigade came on line and the whole force stepped off into the field to the resounding fire of Darden’s battery. The gunners were placed between Polk’s brigade and Wood’s, a hole between the brigades giving them a field of fire.
The 3rd stepped off without a cheer. Bravado had been sucked out of them hours ago: now John’s pards advanced with gritted teeth. If the enemy did not give way . . .
Despite the concentrated fire of Darden’s and the Helena artillery, the Yankee ranks held fast. Lieutenant Colonel Oliver Shepherd’s regulars of the 15th, 16th, 18th, and 19th infantry, supported by Battery H of the 5th US, clung to the wood. The dark blue banners standing alongside the national colors denoted that these regiments were of a different caliber than the volunteer regiments Wood’s brigade had been attacking hitherto. Disciplined, hardened by Indian campaigning in the west, and unlikely to break—the regulars presented a fierceness in their regimentation.
John’s heart leapt, not for the carnage or the Yankee cannon fire ripping into the 3rd Confederate, but for the carnage the Yankees were taking and still dishing out.
Meeks knew from the messages he’d been carrying that Cleburne intended to roll over this hot spot with three brigades and two batteries of artillery for support, not leaving any chance for failure. The guns began playing on the trees and the regular battery before the brigades stepped off, and once they were within musket range, the fire intensified as the 5th US withdrew in haste.
All that John could see was a wood bursting with flame and rolling powder plumes, and through the smoke, men falling out. Wood’s brigade in the center left the 3rd Confederate with nowhere to go but forward as Johnson’s brigade surged slightly ahead.
Though Meeks had been bored by running messages back and forth, the fear that gripped his throat now as the cannon fire fell upon the wood was an old and unwelcome friend.
In answer to the concentrated Confederate fire loosed upon them, the regulars kept up a rapid return fire despite their casualties. First one, then two, then three of the dark blue banners bearing the eagle and liberty’s shield vanished from sight in an irregular cadence. Even the strict professionalism of the regulars— “Those are regulars, by God” was a motto born of the War of 1812 and carried proudly ever since—was not enough to withstand the pressure and the death meted out by Cleburne’s brigades. The regulars broke.
A cheer rose from the parched throats of the Confederate brigades—a spontaneous emotion despite the soldiers’ weariness followed by an impromptu charge into the trees. John found himself drawn forward in the charge as the 3rd Confederate plunged into the cedars, covering the remaining three hundred yards quicker than he might have thought possible, elation and the urge to make sure the enemy kept going animating their feet forward.
Within the tree line, a ghastly sight awaited the victors. The low-lying rocks were covered in blood, and the dead and maimed lay sprawled alongside the blood-spattered and abandoned colors of the 13th US, now a prize for Sergeant Lovin of B Company.
With the precipitous flight of the enemy went any chance to surrender and escape—yet John was just glad that the opportunity to get shot had become just another bygone passing of fate.
The regulars had died in rows. Their discipline and remorseless loading and firing, though outflanked, had kept them planted upon the tree line as if God himself had dug them into the ground. Their wounded filled the ground just paces from the firing line. Their destructive fire had felled scores from General Wood’s regiments as the Confederates advanced across the field. The way leading up to the trees was littered with wounded men too stricken to crawl away. And yet after all of this, the advance was signaled.
John Meeks was unnerved by the destruction in the woods. Trees at the periphery were stripped of bark for several feet in length. Federals torn apart by canister fire bore ghastly wounds—enough arms, legs, and heads ripped asunder to satisfy the worst bloodlust. As the 3rd moved into the woods, the enemy was not cheered for his sacrifice but pursued with deadly intent. Wood moved his brigade through the trees, followed by Johnson and Polk until each came out the other side to find that only six hundred yards distant lay the prize. The Nashville turnpike was within reach.
The pike was teeming with Federals, alive for several miles from right to left with soldiers in blue. Broken wagons lay abandoned in the open fields with axles or wheels shattered in the hurried retreat. Solitary horses stood next to fallen riders or wandered alone, heedless of the carnage raining down upon the humans marching in formations. Gathered on the west side of the pike was the accumulated artillery of an army: reserve batteries and those who had managed to make it out of the encirclements, with hundreds of horses straining under the lash of frantic drivers in haste to get out of the way. Formations in blue rallied under the protection of the massed cannon, and officers by the score rode to and fro along the roadway trying to bring order out of chaos.
As the 3rd Confederate came into the open, they were greeted by their first glimpse of truly open countryside. No longer hemmed in by the patchwork of fields and cedars, they faced open space between the cedar brake they had just exited and the Nashville pike, with more beyond it to the Nashville railroad berm. But despite having been beaten all morning long, Rosecrans still had an army, and it looked to John like he had managed to gather them all in this one small space. The 3rd had killed Yankees all day long. They had more to kill. Many more.
Shepherd’s regulars were streaming across the field in disorder, and the pike was choked with traffic, spurred into a panic now that the Confederates were within range of shelling anything on the road.
Wood was egging his mount forward, indicating his intent to keep marching, when their
front finally cleared of retreating Federals and a barrage of solid shot fell all around the three brigades. The price of victory to this point was unleashed upon Polk’s brigade first, his position being furthest to the right and closest to the concentration of Yankee batteries. Fire and smoke issued from the Federal ranks, from large rifled cannon posted safely upon the railroad berm one hundred yards behind the pike to the smaller caliber guns now firing from positions along it.
The brigades of Wood, Polk, and Johnson were accompanied by only two batteries of artillery, and those batteries were both down several guns. Lieutenant Calvert’s battery alone had moved up with Polk’s brigade. Darden’s and the Warren light artillery were nowhere to be seen.
Into this outgunned melee the three brigades advanced. General Cleburne, riding at the head of Johnson’s brigade to the left of Wood, was calling out to those who could hear him to be steady, but already the soldiers were voluntarily slowing.
Calvert’s battery tried to follow into the field so they could get close enough to provide fire support. But before Calvert could thread the battery through a gap between Polk’s halted brigade and Wood’s advancing one, one of his battery teams was brought to a stop by the felling of several horses. Without orders, Polk halted his brigade’s advance. The enemy cannon fire all seemed to be focused on him, and with his battery unable to come up, he ordered his men to lie down. Wood kept his men moving forward, and soon they too were catching oblique and frontal fire.
General Cleburne, still with Johnson’s brigade on the left, did what no other Confederate general could claim to have done so far that day. He crossed the Nashville pike. Johnson’s brigade had an easier time of their advance as they faced just a few scattered Yankees, remnants of Shepherd’s regulars. But Cleburne’s elation was short-lived. Seeing the predicament that Polk was in and Wood was entering, he swallowed hard.
“Send to Johnson to fall back!” Cleburne shouted to a corporal. “Send to Wood to halt and to Polk to fall back and come on line with Wood! Wood to fall back on Johnson. We need reinforcement!”
River of Blood (Shiloh Series Book 4) Page 24