Death Piled Hard: A Tale of the Confederate Secret Services

by W. Patrick Lang

  The New Yorkers burned the station.

  The District of Columbia troops were brigaded with them. They watched in awe as the veterans piled tar soaked ties on the wreck of the depot. Colonel Simon Mix, commanding the brigade, yelled at them. "Get off your dead asses and help!"

  Three New York companies had dismounted their men, and were using the horses to pull up track for a hundred yards on either side of the fire. The troopers heaved the rails onto the roaring blaze. The rain danced and spat like a cat in the white hot embers of the building. A dull redness spread and grew at the center of the rails.

  A squad of New Yorkers picked up a rail from the heap and carried it to a nearby telegraph pole. They lined up the white hot middle section with the pole and wrapped the whole thing around the wooden upright, crossing the ends. "There!" a lieutenant said to the watching D.C. soldiers. "That's how you make'em!"

  "Make what?" A hulking captain enquired.

  "Yellow Leg7 neckties! We adorn the landscape with'em!"

  7 Union cavalrymen wore a yellow stripe down the seam of their pants. The captain waved his men forward. Each squad gingerly lifted a glowing rail from the pile.

  They left the telegrapher standing next to the ruins of his station. He shivered alone a long time in the wet misery of the false dawn.

  At 5 o'clock Confederate cavalry arrived.

  The telegrapher pointed southwest along the track. He gave the officer in command a note from Kautz. The dripping, bearded figure held up the note to the growing light to read. "On the advice of one of my officers, I have refrained from igniting the coal pits in the vicinity of this place. He maintains that if lit, they will burn forever. August Kautz, Brig. Gen. USV, Commanding." The Rebel officer looked up from the note. "What's the next bridge?"

  "Mattoax, Solid iron."

  The soldier smiled. "There's a regiment of infantry sitting right behind it since last night. We shall see how friend Kautz deals with that!"

  The long column of horse rode down the rails. Spears' brigade led the way. Kautz let them rest for two hours in a muddy field beside the tracks. The men huddled together in the drizzle in clumps of dripping rubber. The horses stood apart, nuzzling each other, instinctively seeking a leader.

  To Powhatan station they rode, a jingling, sodden, grumbling crowd of men and horses. They left the station there a mass of glowing embers, but they found several wagons full of bacon, hardtack, and fodder behind the tiny building. The troops carried off what they could, and burned the rest.

  They came next to Mattoax Bridge. The advanced guard of the 5th Pennsylvania clattered out onto wooden planking laid alongside the rails of the metal span. Heavy rain had made the wood slippery.

  A corporal's big mount slid on the boards. The animal fell heavily on its side, screaming in pain as splinters in the rough boards pierced its flank. The fall saved its life.

  A well aimed volley of rifle fire swept the bridge. The sphero-conoidal .577 caliber Enfield bullets moaned and buzzed in flight the length of the trestle.

  A trooper, placed by fate just behind the fallen horse, went over the side into the water when his wounded horse reared in pain to throw itself over the iron rail at the side of the bridge.

  The Pennsylvanians scrambled to get off the bridge and out of the line of fire.

  An artillery piece fired from concealment on the far bank. The projectile, a solid shot, ricocheted off a structural girder at the Yankee end of the bridge. The 12 pound ball whipped over the Pennsylvanians' heads, decapitating an old locust tree behind them.

  Kautz arrived on the scene, his horse laboring through the foot deep mud.

  Colonel Samuel Spear and Major Farinelli sat their horses astride the red clay road on which they had approached the bridge. Farinelli's back was to the river.

  Bullets occasionally cut a leaf from the trees that lined the road.

  Farinelli did not appear to notice. Streaks of red mud clung to the legs and flanks of the Italian officer's bay.

  It did not escape Kautz that Farinelli's horse blocked Spears' path to the bridge. Kautz looked around and saw that the underbrush was full of dismounted soldiers.

  They stood in skirmish order, their lines perpendicular to the road, carbines in their hands. Most of them faced the river. A few looked up at him, with an odd, wistful hope in their rain wet faces.

  Spear saluted the division commander. He turned from Farinelli to look full into Kautz' black bearded face. Anger showed in the tight lines that surrounded his pale eyes. "General Kautz, I propose to attack the bridge on foot. I would have already if...”

  A cannon ball passed over them from the Southern side of the stream. Its passage was felt rather than heard. The heavy iron mass bored a tunnel of lower pressure into which the surrounding air pushed with enough force to make a breeze that could be felt by the three mounted figures.

  Kautz glanced up, and deflected the fall of a small tree branch with his free hand.

  "What's your plan?"

  The noise along the river interrupted the discussion.

  Kautz waited for it to die away.

  "’E’ and ‘G’ Companies will rush the bridge while everyone else gives covering fire," Spear said during a lull. "I will lead the assault!"

  While Kautz watched, Colonel Spear's nose began to run heavily. Watery mucous streamed down his lip.

  Kautz remembered that Spear had been nursing a cold when the column left Bermuda Hundred. He looked closely at the handsome young man. The nose was red and raw.

  Sick, he's sick as hell.

  Spear wiped his blond mustache with one buckskin covered fist. It left a darker patch on the tan leather.

  Kautz looked again at ‘E’ and ‘G’ companies and back at Spear. "Yes, you would, you certainly would... Marco, what do you say?"

  Farinelli looked embarrassed.

  Kautz knew that Farinelli disapproved of disagreeing with any officer in front of those he commanded.

  The Italian turned his horse to point down the road to the bridge. "Just there, Generale, there is a small path, a trail to the south. It has a sign, to Goode's Bridge." He gestured at the enemy. "There are many here. We can take them in reverse. It will be better for us."

  The division commander glanced at Spear, then away. "5th Pennsylvania will hold these rebels here. 11th Pennsylvania will lead the advance on Goode's Bridge. Colonel Spear, you will command the advance. Proceed."

  The young man saluted and turned away.

  Kautz and Farinelli looked at each other.

  "Generale, I would prefer not to...”

  "I can't relieve him."

  "I know, Generale, his uncle...”

  Kautz watched his friend follow Spear's into the looming forest to the

  south.

  ----------------------------------------------------

  "What was all that?" Bill White asked. Captain William Fowle stood atop the high end of a fallen log, hat off, straining to hear. "Beats me!” he said at last. “It sounded like an attack on the 30th up at the iron bridge. Either they beat it off, or the Yanks broke through, and will be along shortly."

  Bill White and Lieutenant Jake Devereux stood to either side of the log holding his pants legs.

  "Who's between us and them," Jake asked?

  The log teetered and swayed, threatening to drop "H" Company's commander into the bushes. "Oh, the colonel put "A" back there half a mile to announce visitors."

  "What's this look like, Bill?" Jake asked for them both. "It was dark when we came in here."

  Fowle climbed down to sit on the log's half rotted stump. Picking up a stick, he drew in the damp earth. In his sketch, the Richmond and Danville crawled down from the northeast. Mattoax Bridge, where the line jumped the Appomattox River, was indicated by two little cross hatches. Six inches to the southwest, another smaller set of signs showed that the railroad crossed another stream.

  "This is our bridge," Fowle said. "They may think...” "To come around behind," Bill White finished.
"Yes."

  - 4:35 A.M, 14 May (Chula Station)

  The engine crept along in the dark, a towering, inky presence, its running lights unlit. Small animals watched it pass. They had long become accustomed to the nearness of the railroad.

  This train was unusual. It moved so slowly that a watching rabbit was tempted to cross the track just as it went by. Only the oily, hot smell of the metal prevented the attempt.

  The locomotive dragged a long chain of rickety wooden boxcars. Down the tracks it rolled, down to the southwest. From high in the cab, the three men inside could see a long way up the track. The rain had stopped in the night. A half moon shone down, making shadows among the silent trees lining the right of way. An orange glow that had been Chula Station came into view around a long, gentle curve. As they watched the light grew nearer, and then without warning the engine ran off the tracks, its front wheels riding up and over a pile of gravel and extra rails. The cowcatcher struck the right rail a ringing blow in passing. A series of bumps and jolts shook the cab's floor as the road wheels ran across all obstacles into the gravel ballast. Inertia carried the great weight of the train along the curving shoulder of the road bed until a front axle struck a stone culvert. The locomotive pivoted around the point of impact with a grinding sound, sliding forward on its side, pulling the string of overturned cars behind it.

  The cavalrymen bivouacked in the woods to either side lay in their bedrolls listening in awe to the terrible noise, and wondering what it might be. Their mounts reared and kicked, frustrated at restraining hobbles, seeking to flee from the sound.

  From the hissing hulk of the dead locomotive, three dimly seen figures appeared. Two bolted back along the track, climbing spryly over broken pieces of train to disappear into the darkness. Their feet were heard in the gravel for a moment or two. The third person stumbled forward along the track toward the burning building.

  --------------------------------------------------------

  "Dey leff me, dam 'em! Dey leff me!" The fireman shook his head in sadness. "I been de bes secesh niggah in Virginny, an' dey leff me.."

  "Well, here's your chance to pay them back," Kautz interrupted from behind him.

  The fireman turned to see who had said this. In the light of dawn he could see the single star. "Mawnin', Genrul, please to meet yuh! Dey shouldna' leff me".

  Samuel Spear's irritation at Kautz’ intrusion into his conversation with the Negro showed in his face. "Come now, Mister Washington! We must know their strength at the bridge! You were about to tell me?"

  The fireman stared at Spear, straining to understand the strange words and intonation. He turned back to Kautz. "Whut he want, Genrul? I cain't rightly unde'stand de funny talk."

  August Kautz lit his pipe. "What's your Christian name?"

  "Plato."

  "Like a pet dog!" Spear exclaimed in anger. Kautz pointed the bit of his pipe at the other officer in a gesture which left no doubt as to its meaning. "Plato," he said. "How many Rebs at the bridge?"

  "Mattoax?" The black man's features took on a peculiar impassivity. Kautz considered him. "Are you a slave?"

  "Yassuh!"

  "Who owns you?"

  "Mistuh Charles Talcott, de debbil what leff me here".

  "No one owns you now, Mister Washington," interjected Spear. "You

  have been liberated by us. You are free!"

  "I'se free?" He inspected the circle of white faces.

  "Yes. How many enemy troops at Mattoax Bridge?" Spear demanded. "Hund'ed fifty, two hund'ed.. Sumthin' in that region. Cain't say fuh

  shuah. It wuz dark as hail."

  "Did you see any cannons?" Farinelli asked from the man's elbow. "Naw suh. Jus' sojers".

  "Where will you go now?" Kautz questioned.

  "To see my woman! I'se free."

  "Where is she?" Farinelli asked.

  "Shockoe Bottom. She dere."

  "You can go now," the general told him.

  They watched him slip away into the forest.

  "Colonel Spear, take two regiments and move up to the next little stream

  to the north where my map shows a wooden bridge. Burn it. We'll finish up here and wait for you." Spear's face showed deep confusion. He wiped his nose on his sleeve. "But, sir, what about the enemy force at Mattoax farther north?"

  Kautz still faced the woodline into which Plato Washington had gone. "Shockoe Bottom is in Richmond, Colonel," he whispered. "That man is going home now. Be very careful."

  Behind Flat Creek, Colonel Arthur Herbert's men waited. The aforementioned Talcott, as well as a man named Morrow who had been driving the engine, stumbled into their lines just before dawn. They were out of breath, and Talcott babbed incoherently of "Poor Plato, crushed to death in the wreck...”

  Herbert heard him out, then ordered the regiment "to stand to under arms, ready to move at a moments notice.”

  Talcott, Morrow, Herbert, Major Robert Simpson, and Bill Fowle were seated together on a group of stumps a short distance north of the railroad bridge when firing started on the picket line beyond the creek. The railroad seemed to have cut the trees belonging to these stumps for some purpose of its own. What that might have been did not immediately come to anyone's mind.

  The early morning air was aromatically bracing. The sky had that luminous quality that sometimes comes after a rain. The trees still dripped a bit from the ends of branches, but the soldiers were accustomed to being wet and so long as it was not cold they were content.

  The group of officers and visitors were in "H" company's bivouac area. Herbert had the habit of spending a good deal of his spare time with "H" company. They were the "Old Dominion Rifles" of militia days and he had been their first commander.

  Snake Davis, the company's head cook, stood a respectful three yards away watching his reaction to the food. The rain, and the general shortage of provisions made this morning a challenge, but Davis managed hominy, stewed venison, and biscuits. Steaming tin mugs of whatever it was that they now called “coffee” sat on the ground. They had begun to eat when the first scattered shots were heard.

  A number of soldiers stood by the cook fires, their tin plates and cups held before them. The motley brown and tan clothes hung loosely on skinny young bodies. Short jackets, round, broad brimmed hats, and crude, but sturdy brogan shoes were their common dress.

  Herbert inspected them as they waited in patient good humor for their food. There was so little fat on them that a visiting civilian doctor had recently told Herbert that he was concerned for their health.

  My, God, Herbert thought. I know their mothers, nearly every one. Their fathers are my friends. If I lose many more, how can I ever go home?

  The pop! pop! pop! of distant rifles froze them in place, heads up, listening to the sound.

  The colonel sat, fork in hand, judging the moment. The shooting died away. He looked at Simpson. "That would be the men in the lead backing away until the main body comes up?"

  Simpson nodded. He was eating fast, mopping up the stew with a biscuit.

  The two civilians were ashen faced, immobilized on their stumps, resembling nothing so much as oversized garden dwarves. All thought of breakfast had deserted them.

  A few more shots came to them on the cool morning breeze from the south.

  The resumption of firing seemed to cause the riflemen around the fire to make up their minds about what would happen. Some hurriedly ladled food onto their plates. Others tossed their half eaten rations into the bushes and searched for their belongings.

  "That was our picket line," Captain Fowle commented, lowering his mug. Simpson finished eating, stood, and after handing his plate to Davis, climbed into the branches of a nearby walnut.

  The volume of fire suddenly increased, spreading in both directions from an area directly across the stream from the railroad bridge.

  "Their line of battle," Simpson offered from his elevated position.

  A bullet hummed over them, cutting leaves as it went.

 
Snake Davis called up into the tree. "Majuh Simpson! You come down now, you heah! You don't need to be standin' up on that place like that". He was outraged, and spluttering.

  Simpson shaded his eyes with a hand. "I can see them! They have a couple of companies dismounted on line. The rest are somewhere back in the trees." He glanced down at Herbert. "They're going to charge mounted. I can see the horses."

  The colonel grimaced thinking, well, here we go again. He looked up at his second in command. "Robert, you do what Snake says, and come down now. Bring the reserve companies up behind our line as we discussed. I want a line of company columns, centered on the tracks. I'll be at the bridge."

  An artillery piece spoke from somewhere to the south. Its message of death sighed across the sky.

  Snake cocked an ear to the sound, shook his head and began to gather up the debris of the hastily abandoned meal.

  ------------------------------------------------------------The hard task of tearing up and bending track started in earnest after Colonel Spear's departure. The oversized District of Columbia regiment put its men to the work of destruction while Pennsylvania troops stood guard in the surrounding forest. In the warming sun, most of the men worked shirtless, sweating around the bonfires and piles of glowing rails. The horses stood in long, silent lines guarded by those lucky enough to have been overlooked by first sergeants.

  Kautz watched the work from nearby. At dawn he had sent a scouting party further to the south to know if it would be possible to continue in that direction. Now, he waited for their return.

  Farinelli's activities attracted his attention as a diversion from the scene of demolition. The Italian had assembled a group of officers, including Major Baker, for a talk. He drew pictures on the ground and spoke to them in a soft voice of things they had seen, of things they would almost certainly see. He told them what they should think of in cases that might arise in the course of this expedition. He taught them.

  Kautz had brought Farinelli into the division for this very purpose. A German by birth, a West Point graduate by education, the general had a poor opinion of his officers. It was not that they were not willing, or fervent for the cause. They were certainly that. Kautz wished that some of them would temper their zeal with common sense, or perhaps some measure of humanity in their dealings with Southern civilians. No, the difficulty lay in their collective ignorance of the military art. They lost men when it was unnecessary. They made mistakes that must not continue. There was nothing basically wrong with them. They had been given too much authority, and too many men too fast. Kautz had inquired at the Cavalry Bureau in Washington seeking a European officer of experience and reputation; he was given Farinelli's name. He had lured him away from the 2nd New York Cavalry with the promise of a majority.