River of Blood (Shiloh Series Book 4)

by Phillip Bryant

  Thomas Wade, on the other hand, was trying to get some of the company up and organized enough to fall back upon the main body of the regiment, which was now falling back across the Nashville pike. The men of the company seemed taken by a madness that let them see and hear but not comprehend what it was that he was trying to say. Orders were no use; most just looked at him stupidly and turned away. Finally, he found Campbell hatless and looking for the world like he’d just lost everything he held dear.

  “Sir.” Wade shook his commander’s arm. “Sir, we need to fall back. Sir, order a retreat.”

  “Retreat?” Campbell repeated numbly, rousing himself from the side of the barn just enough to look Wade square in the eyes. “Retreat through that?” Campbell motioned helplessly to the portion of the farmhouse that was by the moment being peppered with shot and shell.

  “We are going to be captured if we don’t move!” Wade yelled. His words might have fallen upon stone. Those who were cowering by the walls of the building had already decided that being captured was the least of their worries—life was more important than duty, honor, country, or regiment. Those officers still standing were trying to drag their soldiers away from the walls to form up a semblance of a company line and march away, but every time two or three were hauled into position, one would drift back to the shelter of the building, and then another two would follow suit just as two or three more were thrown into line. Threats and the flats of swords were not enough to compel the men into the open.

  “Sir, you want to be captured?” Wade asked once more. Wild-eyed, Campbell was looking this way and that as if he could not comprehend what was happening around him. Others of the soldiers refusing to move looked calm and resigned to having an end to it.

  Wade left Campbell and went from man to man of the company to prepare as many as would follow him to get up and run.

  “Get ready to follow me!” Wade shouted as he scrambled from familiar face to familiar face. The men of the 34th Mississippi and 3rd Confederate were inextricably tangled in a mass of men, no one adhering to a company group.

  “Go to hell, Sergeant!” replied John Glenn, brushing Wade’s hand away.

  Wade didn’t wait to argue or cajole, he just went to the next man in turn.

  The two other companies of the 3rd Confederate, whose men were under tighter control, broke from the group and raced across the yard amid the hail of fire, which intensified as they became clear targets for a line of Union infantry closing to one hundred yards. Another brigade or more of Federals had crossed the Nashville pike and were already cutting across the line of retreat for those still in and around the farmhouse.

  Several staff officers belonging to General Wood’s entourage attempted to run the gauntlet to cajole the sheltering soldiers to quit their safety and brave the fire to retreat. Their effort to find the enemy had succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of all involved. All they had to do now was escape their own success.

  For John Meeks, the situation might have been tailor-made. He and his pards could just sit tight and let the Federals roll over them and make them prisoners, and they would be free from the tyranny of Campbell, Wade, and all the others back home who had coerced each man to choose between freedom from prison or “volunteering” for the state forces with a bayonet in their backs. But the very tailor-made nature of the circumstance before him forced him to a decision. It was truly time to choose sides and what would become of him and his family in the end. The war had seemed over or near so this morning, but perhaps something had stayed in the back of his mind, in the minds of all these men now refusing to budge, that their war was not in fact nearing an end but a continuance. The enemy was certainly not defeated, despite the gains of yesterday. Amidst the terrific noise of battle rolling all around the house, those men cowering behind the flimsy walls of the barn refusing to budge were of all the same accord. They had had enough.

  “We’re getting out of here!” shouted Thomas Wade to John Meeks and David Grover as the second sergeant made his way down the scattering of his company.

  John looked over at Grover. He knew that what he did, Grover would do.

  “You can stay, David. You can stay and be done with all this. I find I can’t.” John placed a kind hand on his friend’s shoulder.

  David Grover thought but a moment, looking down and away from John, and for a few moments John’s heart began to sink. He would dearly love to have his friend at his side even if it meant encountering more hardship and privation. He was giving Grover leave to pursue his own path, yes, but he really wanted his friend with him.

  “No,” said Grover simply with a slight movement of his head in the negative.

  John Meeks looked over toward Glenn and Holly. Both men looked resigned and a little frightened. It was one thing to plan to desert and surrender and something else to actually have the enemy bearing down upon you with an open opportunity. John tipped his hat in a farewell motion and nodded. The message was received and understood.

  Glenn nodded and gave Meeks a quick wave of his hand. A friendship born of necessity and bonded by mutual experience dispensed with in a matter of a day, and finished entirely with a quick wave of a hand.

  “Company K, on me!” shouted Wade as he stood and then took off across the yard. Fifteen to twenty of the company followed suit in a ragged formation, more of a mob than an organized retreat as the first of the Federals closed in on the farmyard. The fire had ceased as all that remained behind of active resistance were either falling back across the fields or choosing to remain. The first Federals marched by the barn and bent around the houses to continue moving against those Confederates who were now safely out of musket range.

  After Wade led the remaining of the company willing to still fight away, John Glenn noted James Campbell still hanging back. He nudged James Holly. In those few moments, the sounds of battle became a quiet void, replaced only by the sounds of tramping feet drawing nearer and nearer. The others who had elected to remain behind relaxed a little, resigned to the outcome of their choice. All but Campbell. He was looking tense and indecisive.

  “How the mighty have fallen, Lieutenant. Still just a blackberry picker!” Glenn called out.

  With a quick turn, Campbell looked at Glenn with wide eyes and then with a stutter sprang forward a pace or two, stopped, and looked behind him once more before scampering away on as fleet a foot as he could manage.

  Glenn and Holly were only allowed a moment or two for their amusement before Federal soldiers arrived to gather them up. The few from the 3rd Confederate and the companies of the 34th Mississippi who’d refused to budge were sorted out, and each man was separated from his weapons and all of his equipment save for his canteen and coat. The new prisoners did not appear discouraged or angry but relieved and resigned.

  For James Holly and John Glenn, it was with a sense of satisfaction that they entered into their new state. They had finally gotten away.

  * * *

  Back in the woods, back where the 3rd Confederate had stepped off, back where the morning had auspiciously begun in peace and quiet, Wood’s brigade collected its commands together. This time it was for Wood’s regiments to heap scorn and contempt upon Liddell’s regiments for having left them in the lurch, retreating before Wood could come to their support. The contest had been a foregone conclusion before either brigade moved forward: the enemy was still there and in force enough to brush both brigades aside handily.

  Sergeant Wade was again in command; Lieutenant Campbell’s arrival after his company told Major Cameron all he needed to know about the man’s conduct. Not even Wade was going to dispute the charge, and it was with disgust that he regarded his former friend when Campbell came rushing up behind expecting to retake command.

  “No, sir,” Wade said to Campbell when the man walked up to the company line, hatless and still breathing heavily, expecting to resume duties. “You have been relieved, sir.”

  Campbell at first looked hurt, then angry, and then furious until Major Ca
meron himself rode up, and without the courtesy of keeping it officer to officer, pointed a gloved hand at Second Sergeant Thomas Wade and declared before the enlisted men that he was in command until further notice. Then, looking at Campbell, Cameron ordered the two nearest privates to disarm the lieutenant and march him to the rear. No one had reported to the major what had happened, but it seemed plain as day to all.

  John Meeks stood by in the now-smaller company formation and looked on, suppressing a joyful shout. He felt the victory more for his friends who had finally gotten away more than for himself or for the final insult handed to his nemesis. Looking over at David Grover, John felt a growing kinship with the man. Both were in for the full measure now. If the army could finish the Union army off, the sacrifices of these last two days might be worth it.

  “What say you?” Meeks asked Grover after the company was dismissed, the men seeking the most comfortable spots on the ground and lying down. No more was going to be expected of them today.

  “I say that it is time we pray for peace,” Grover replied.

  “Peace—somethin’ not thought of in so long. Got to where bein’ in this uniform is the start an’ the beginnin’ of each day, like we been born in it an’ the memory of a simpler time all but faded away.”

  “D’you regret stayin’?” Grover asked, nodding out into the distance where the farmhouse could still be made out across the Nashville pike. The enemy had pushed them back and then fallen back themselves, not pressing their advantage.

  “No, strangely enough,” John replied. “Bein’ a prisoner is no easy thing, though them boys what stayed were certain they was in for a better time o’ it. The enemy ain’t brutes, but no one certain they won’t be shot fer traitors neither.”

  “Leach will certainly be sad he weren’t there. He were the one I’d have thought would be first to seek the rights even if the rest of us weren’t. He might be the first to get home anyhow.”

  “Only one o’ two certain ways of gettin’ home—torn or sick. Not even the dead get to go home,” John said.

  “Maybe they make Wade an officer,” Grover said after a few minutes of silence. Thomas Wade was doing the rounds of the company. They were too far from a water source to send off details to refill canteens, and no one had water. No one had food either—the move to the crossroads to get ammunition had refilled their cartridge boxes but not their stomachs. Further, it was starting to mist, a disagreeable wetting of the skin and clothing that was not going to let up. Men were shivering where they huddled together for warmth.

  “Start fires, we allowed to start fires,” Sergeant Wade said as he went from group to group. “Get fires going.”

  “He not bad when he not under Campbell’s influence, which may be broken fer good now,” John answered as he and Grover watched Wade move away.

  “You figurin’ on bein’ the model soldier now?” Grover asked, a turn of his eyebrow and sideways glance at John showing the seriousness of the question. David Grover was a man who seldom chided or stated anything that was not of importance.

  “No, not the model soldier,” John replied crisply. He knew what was going through his friend’s mind—a little confusion in giving up the goal that had motivated the group ever since they were forced into the gray. “Through tryin’ to find a way out, and if by my efforts we can win the war, we can both get home in one piece an’ live in peace. Think it can still happen, so why be on the wrong side if it do?”

  “Didn’t look too much like it today—winnin’, that be.” Grover added.

  John nodded, but his mind had been made up even before the attack on the 31st. The debacle at the farm had raised a new series of doubts as to the defeat of Rosecrans’s army even so.

  “General Bragg has somethin’ planned. We sat today lookin’ at each other across that road, an’ he sent a pawn forward that got picked off. He send the queen next time.”

  John stared off into the gathering dusk as the mist that had been falling lightly turned into a light rain. “We’ll finish this tomorrow.”

  The naked trees offered some protection from the wet, the fires gave welcoming warmth, but a long, miserable night was in store for all.

  Chapter 21

  Doctor Sawbones Works

  Paul woke with a start and for some minutes lay still, his mind trying to collect where he was and how he had come to be there. All was quiet save for the soft moaning and movement of men all around him. The sound of the guns was stilled—something had come to a resolution for good or ill, and he was no longer in the firing line.

  The ground was hard, the sky was a crisp and cloudy gray, the fire burning nearby was warm. There was a dull ache in his head, a pressure behind his eyes that made it hurt to blink. He tried to look to his side, but the pain was excruciating and the act of looking without turning the head an impossibility. Rolling his head was no different, especially on his left side where a raw spot felt tender and damp. Fresh blood and dried flakes stood out upon his fingertips after he gently felt his way through matted hair and skin.

  He also found that he was wet, soaked to the skin. Everything was wet, and his face felt moist. How long had he lain there in the rain? How long had it been raining; how long ago had the battle ended?

  He gingerly sat up and braced himself on unsteady arms. Around him were many men, all with ghastly wounds and all equally miserable in the rain.

  The next thing he noticed was that he was shivering, a shivering that went through him in waves. Just as one tremor finished going from his legs to his arms to his head, another one started. The blanket that had been thrown over him by some sympathetic soul was useless, only adding to his discomfort and cold. It was with weak, barely moveable fingers that he peeled the blanket off his legs. The sun was out just a little through a crack in the cloud cover, and there were fires going nearby, but not near enough to help with the shivers.

  The men nearest him were of the lightly wounded type. Superficial scratches, creases to the pates or along scalps, gashes along arms or legs. Others, who had already been visited by the sawbones and relieved of limbs, were bandaged up, waiting to be taken back to Nashville. Judging by the lack of attention being given him, Paul concluded that he was of the none-too-seriously wounded kind, lucky to have been afforded any attention at all.

  Slowly, carefully, Paul dragged himself to a kneeling position and then tried to finish the move to standing only to find his legs wouldn’t cooperate. He collapsed when his right leg buckled just as he was gaining his balance. Trying again, he managed to get both legs holding his weight, and with an uneasy truce between his head and legs, he gingerly took a few steps to clear out of the field of wounded at his feet.

  The nearest fire was being tended by several contraband slaves and a man with a hospital steward’s stripes. The blacks were tending a large tin coffee boiler and a cauldron of steamy liquid that, when Paul crept closer, smelled of boiled beef and desiccated vegetables. The “baled hay,” as the soldiers often called the vegetables, looked oddly tan and nothing like vegetable matter.

  The contrabands wore an assortment of cast-off civilian clothing, all but one who could have himself been a soldier judging by the overcoat, kersey blue trousers, and hat he was wearing. The others looked like they might have been taken from any one of the farms that dotted the landscape. They seemed to Paul to be a little timid around the hospital steward, who appeared to be more at home with his surroundings.

  “Fellow, you might want to take it easy there,” the steward said as he looked up from his work. He was seated on a stump of a log turned up flat, working at something on a board he balanced across his knees and legs. A ball of wax lay upon a cloth on the ground with several vials of powders next to it. On the board, he was rolling the wax into little balls and setting them aside into a bottle. He looked haggard and worn. Dark circles under his eyes told Paul the man had not slept in many hours.

  “I . . . I’m okay, I think. Just . . . just need some warmth.” Paul managed to get the words out
between the chattering of his teeth. His jaw would not stop quivering. But as he took each careful step toward the fire, his cheeks and face began to heat up comfortably.

  “Lucius, get this man a bandage an’ clean the wound like I showed you?” Hospital Steward Detweiler asked the black man.

  “Yes sah,” Lucius replied. He dropped the ladle into the cauldron and moved off.

  Paul stood as close as he could bear to the fire, huddling his arms around his chest to hold in the shivers. His feet were practically in the coals before he noticed the smell of burning leather creeping up to his nostrils.

  “Better watch yer toes there,” Detweiler commented.

  “We command the pike still?” Paul asked.

  “Still,” came the monosyllabic reply.

  “Retreat?” Paul asked.

  “Some. Rebels near took the pike twice each day. We still hold it and the way to Nashville. Hear Wheeler’s cavalry is still behind us.” Detweiler looked up from his work of making pills just long enough to start his answer before turning his gaze back to rubbing a pill back and forth upon the board.

  “Here ya go, Corp’al,” Lucius said as he approached Paul with a tin bucket and a cloth. “Hold still, now.”

  Paul winced and tried to jerk away, his unsteady legs not any more useful as they warmed. He was caught by a quick lunge from Lucius before he completely fell over.