Raiding With Morgan

by Jim R. Woolard

  The brief thought of pilfering a new shirt was thankfully curtailed by buglers blowing “Boots and Saddles.” Shawn Shannon’s scruples were a tad looser. He hustled from the Jackson Mercantile with three spanking-new long-sleeved cotton shirts. He presented a fresh shirt to Ty and his father and said, “No quibbling. I’m not so much of a Baptist I can’t steal on occasion. I’m tired of stinking like a polecat at mess. My mother did teach me some semblance of dignity.”

  The punishing journey they were enduring turned many of General Morgan’s troopers surly. The bridge and mill destruction, fanatical looting of stores and robbery, and bullying of noncombatants intensified as the raiders passed through Wilkesville, Langsville, and Rutland. While they avoided the killing of civilians, it saddened Ty that the conduct of some of Morgan’s men now matched that of the detested irregulars.

  The attempt by the raiders to steal a horse at Rutland tested the admirable restraint of even General Morgan himself. Two raiders had their eye on a mare belonging to a frail, gray-haired female of considerable age. Instead of following their orders to turn over the animal, the old woman, to the astonishment of the two raiders, walked the mare from its stable straight into the parlor of her home, bolted the door behind her, raised a front window, trained a shotgun on the would-be thieves, bared toothless gums, and threatened, “You ain’t taking my grandson’s horse. Damned if you are. I’ll blow both of you apart first.”

  The swarthy raider drew his pistol and dismounted. “Tell you what, you old crone. You fetch that mare to us straightaway, or you can die with her when we fire the house.”

  Having just delivered a message to General Morgan, Ty was with the general when he chanced upon the scene. The holed-up grandmother spied Morgan, cackled, and yelled, “Maybe that fancy-dressed officer on that tall gelding will light the match for you, you Rebel bastard.”

  Unconcerned as to what officer the grandmother was referring to, the two raiders scuttled sideways, increasing the distance between them, forcing the grandmother to choose between them for her prime target.

  The second raider drew a bead on the open window with his rifle. “You foulmouthed old biddy,” he raged, spittle flying from his lower lip. “If you don’t throw down that cannon, me and Pollard here will burn your barn and kill your grandson, too. We don’t have time to fool with the likes of you.”

  The two raiders were overwrought from the strain of continuous hours in the saddle and unwilling to accept a comeuppance from anybody aligned with the enemy, including a ninety-pound grandmother. The independent streak of Morgan’s troopers frequently had them but a single step from insubordination. Ty wondered, how would these exhausted troopers, with weapons drawn and sighted, their tempers on the shortest possible leash, ready to snap, react if called to task by any officer?

  General Morgan halted Glencoe directly behind them. Sweat cut runnels through the dust rimming the general’s cheekbones and drizzled into his beard. Anger spawned a wide red welt at the edge of his uniform collar, and the coldness that Ty had witnessed at Corydon froze his countenance into hard planes. Having never seen the general hopping mad, Ty didn’t know what might happen next.

  Lieutenant Clinton J. Hardesty was on the opposite flank of Glencoe and Ty saw his look of grave concern. Always watching out for his superior’s welfare, Adjutant Hardesty shouted, “Make way for General Morgan! Make way for General Morgan!”

  The effect of Hardesty’s shouts on the two raiders was instantaneous. They lowered their weapons and spun on their heels. They snapped to attention and saluted when they realized General Morgan had halted and was staring at them with obvious disapproval for what could only be their bullying of the shotgun-wielding grandmother. They stood stiff as plank boards—neither raider wanting to magnify Morgan’s ire. They both remembered how their leader had court-martialed troopers in the past for what he deemed excessive behavior unworthy of his command and its mission. That their immediate officer, Sergeant Pudge Warthen, might have no problem with their conduct meant not a whit. They were at the absolute mercy of General Morgan’s ultimate authority.

  Perhaps it was their unhesitant response to Lieutenant Hardesty’s shouts and their quick salute that squelched some of General Morgan’s upset. Perhaps the fact that no real harm had been done and Buffington Island beckoned from afar influenced him even more. Most important, the redness disappeared from his neck; warmth swelled in the general’s grayish blue eyes; Ty’s respect for his commander’s self-control multiplied a dozenfold.

  Leaning forward in the saddle, while he studied the raiders’ expectant faces, General Morgan said, “Privates, the lack of a single horse won’t cripple our campaign. And I won’t have the written history of our raid record we made war on women, even when they arm themselves. You may return to your company.”

  With another perfect salute, the relieved privates bolted past Glencoe and lit out down the southbound road afoot, leading their horses, matching the scampering hurry of rabbits fleeing buckshot.

  Always the gentleman, General Morgan then amused Ty by attempting to make amends with the female enemy the best he could. “Ma’am, I wish to extend my apology for our wrongful-headed attempt to steal your horse. You, your property, and your grandson will not be harmed. On that, you have the personal assurance of General John Hunt Morgan.”

  The barrel of the gray-haired grandmother’s shotgun lowered until it rested on the windowsill in front of her. “That’s all well and good, Mr. General. Just don’t take it as a personal insult that I intend to stay right here and stand guard over Jennie until every last one of you secesh Rebels are gone from my sight.”

  Offering General Morgan a gummy, ornery grin, the granny continued, “But I do thank you for the opportunity to tell my grandchildren that the famous General John Hunt Morgan once apologized to me at gunpoint. Good day, sir.”

  And with a nod and touch of John Hunt Morgan’s hat brim, the saga of the general and the grandmother became campfire legend.

  Southeast of Rutland, the raiders encountered their first Union soldiers since crossing the Ohio. A smattering of blue-uniformed regulars, along with companies of home-dressed militia, waited behind a log barricade atop Bradbury Hill. Given the upward slant of the narrow roadway, the thick woods on the right, and the sharp creek bank on the left, flanking movements were out of the question. Dislodging the combined force by frontal assault meant numerous causalities and the waste of valuable hours. General Morgan opted to backtrack and take the old stagecoach road that circled the Ohio River city of Pomeroy to the north, led to Chester, and then to Portland, site of Buffington’s Ford.

  The road to Chester curved into a broad-mouthed ravine. For two miles, a peaceful calm existed, the only sounds those of hoofs striking hardpan, the snort of a horse, the clink of metal on metal, and the soft murmur of voices. Ty rode with his father ahead of him, alongside General Morgan.

  Ty came alert when his father broke off his conversation with General Morgan, stood in his stirrups, and stared at the rim of the ravine. Ty followed his gaze and saw sunlight flash on brass buttons.

  A prolonged volley of musket and rifle fire raked the column with a veritable hail of lead.

  Pish! Pish! Pish!

  Bullets were whipping past Ty. Their flitting noise was so dangerous and so familiar that he cringed with fright.

  Colonel Duke’s brigade was in the van. Ty watched troopers drop from the saddle and storm into the woods to rout the militia on foot. Four of the troopers’ horse holders, who were waiting in the road, sagged to their knees and toppled, freeing the reins they held. Panicked horses galloped through the column, causing havoc until they were caught or veered into the forest.

  “Dismount! Fire at will!” General Morgan ordered.

  Delighted to be a smaller target, Ty slid to the ground, drew his Remington, and searched the woods for sign of the enemy.

  The dismounted troopers poured withering rounds into the woods on both sides of the road and then the pace of bullets ni
pping from the trees slackened. Ty found it impossible to spy anything within the masking trees and underbrush other than a fleeting glimpse of a rifle barrel and a hat brim. Reb never flinched, and Ty fired at five muzzle flashes across the gray’s back, not sure he hit human flesh with any shot.

  Straining to ignore the screams of wounded horses and the thump of falling bodies, Ty reached into his leather shoulder bag, retrieved a fresh fully-loaded, capped cylinder, pulled the Remington’s ejection rod to remove the spent cylinder, and switched them, under fire, with the skill of a veteran trooper. All the while, he wholeheartedly thanked his grandfather for their hours on the practice range and his father for ordering him to cap his spare cylinders the previous evening in anticipation of serious fighting.

  Still seated on Glencoe, a frustrated General Morgan turned to the rear and bawled, “Sixth Kentucky, to the front. Pass it back!”

  The Sixth Kentucky swept by in single file. Owen Mattson and Shawn Shannon joined them. Ty swallowed the urge to trail after them and obeyed his orders to stay with General Morgan.

  “Boots and Saddles” echoed in the ravine. Ty swung aboard Reb. The First and Second Brigades bunched up behind the Sixth Kentucky and prepared to run the gauntlet, whatever miles that required.

  Off they went at a gallop. Ty reined Reb around and over dead horses and gray-clad bodies. Dead troopers remained where they had died in the road or woods. The wounded who couldn’t stay in the saddle were left behind to pray they survived long enough to catch a ride with the baggage train and not fall into Yankee hands.

  A hip-shot horse cut in front of Ty. Reb stumbled and the horse of the trooper following him bumped his rear. Somehow the big gray gelding righted himself without falling and answered Ty’s spurs.

  The ravine narrowed. Ty was sure he could lean from the saddle and touch the towering eighty-foot-high walls. Wherever a pocket or defile allowed the militia to gather in numbers, the column was treated to heavy fire. Each time, the column halted and the Sixth Kentucky aped Colonel Duke’s earlier tactics by barging into the woods afoot. Though suffering casualties, they successfully scattered militiamen who were unable to withstand the charge of veteran cavalrymen.

  At one of the halts, a bullet tugged at Ty’s sleeve. He felt pain and touched his arm. His hand came away smeared with blood. He determined with his fingers that the bullet had gouged his skin without doing any major damage. He sighed with relief. His first shedding of blood in combat had not been fatal.

  The ravine ended abruptly after five miles. The column galloped into an area of open ground. Ahead loomed lines of well-armed blue-belly regulars, supported in their rear by militia. Once in the clear with room to maneuver, Colonel Duke, confronted by a foe without cannon and bayonets, didn’t hesitate. He dispatched flanking companies to the left and right, waited until they were swinging into position, and charged the enemy’s center.

  The entire Rebel column swept forward. Ty hadn’t wasted shots on targets he couldn’t pinpoint, so his Remington was fully loaded. There was no Corydon barricade to jump and they were upon the blue-belly line in what seemed a heartbeat.

  At twenty yards, Morgan’s streaking cavalry absorbed a concentrated volley from the poised Yankees. Troopers pitched from the saddle. Bullet-struck horses went down, throwing their riders. A bullet nicked Ty’s neck. Another bullet grazed his knee. Reb’s heaving breath was a pipe organ gone wild. Then the Rebel juggernaut slammed into the ranks of Yankee foot soldiers hurrying to reload their weapons and the tide turned in a finger snap.

  A rifle barrel slanted in Ty’s direction. The sights of the rifle centered on his chest. Ty dropped alongside Reb’s neck, his pistol never losing track of the yawning muzzle’s owner. The blue belly’s bullet flew high. Ty pulled the Remington’s trigger and blood spurted from the blue belly’s throat. The brown-bearded Yankee dropped his rifle and frantically clutched his neck with both hands in a vain attempt to staunch the life-ebbing flow of blood. His eyes closed and he collapsed as Ty and Reb barreled by him.

  The Yankee lines crumbled. Some blue bellies dropped their weapons and raised their arms. Most chased after militia already on the run. A host of Rebel troopers ignored buglers blowing “Recall” and kept after them, yelling and shooting like crazy men.

  Ty slowed Reb to a walk. The fight was over. He had no desire to shoot fleeing Yankees or Ohio militiamen in the back.

  He wasn’t proud of the single Yankee he’d killed, face-to-face.

  CHAPTER 13

  Once the raiders had regrouped, they resumed their straggling march without further delay. Ty checked his wounds from the saddle. The gouge in his left arm had stopped bleeding. His neck and knee burned like crazy, but he found no trace of blood on either wound—discoveries that reinforced the true meaning of a near miss.

  Ty was delighted when Shawn Shannon and his father, both unscathed, rejoined General Morgan’s entourage. Concern washed over Owen Mattson’s face when he saw blood on his son’s sleeve. “Hurt bad, Ty?”

  “No, sir, just a minor wound.”

  Lieutenant Shannon pulled a metal canteen from his saddlebag. “Splash some of the White brothers’ corn likker on it. It might help. It can’t hurt anything.”

  The burning sensation on Ty’s neck and knee felt cool compared to the raging fire the corn liquor ignited in the torn flesh of his arm. His eyes watered and he bit his lip to keep from swearing aloud. Neither his father nor Shawn Shannon reacted to his discomfort verbally, but Ty swore their shoulders were quaking with silent laughter. Once the spike in pain subsided, Ty couldn’t avoid a chuckle of his own.

  There was no recalling or discussion of the charge against the blue-belly regulars by his father and Shawn Shannon. Ty had come to appreciate that what lay ahead was what occupied his father and Shawn Shannon, not what had transpired. They assessed the past only in terms of what lessons they had learned and gave little thought to glory won or lost. They evinced a mature philosophy, which intrigued and inspired Ty.

  Short of Chester, Ohio, a slow-running branch creek, four feet deep, bisected the road. The plank flooring of the stream’s wooden bridge was missing and the struts had been partially burned, rendering it useless. Horsemen could ford easily. The opposite was true for the baggage train.

  General Morgan waved the column’s horsemen across, pointed at Owen Mattson, Shawn Shannon, and Ty, then said, “At the roadside, please.”

  The four riders gathered together. General Morgan said, “Captain Mattson, we need a bridge built in a hurry. Organize the detail and oversee the construction as you did at John’s Creek. Corporal Mattson will assist you. Lieutenant Shannon, seek out the rear guard and order them to close up the wagons and buggies as much as possible and send forward any militia we haven’t paroled and the three farmers we captured for guides. They can tote with the sappers and miners. I don’t want to be held here any longer than necessary.”

  “Axmen, sappers, and miners, to the front!” Captain Owen Mattson bellowed. “Pass it back!”

  The detail worked at a rapid pace. Axmen chopped down nearby trees and skinned the branches from them. Deadfall limbs were collected. The creek bed was layered with tree trunks and then interspersed with rocks hand carried by the sappers and miners. Two dozen disgruntled Ohio militiamen and the three captive farmers added additional muscle. It was hot, mean labor under a brutal July sun.

  Captain Mattson and Captain Tyrell, of the sappers and miners, were right on top of the work, supervising from horseback. Captain Mattson motioned for Ty to cease helping the detail and present himself. “Corporal, scout upstream along both banks. The militia didn’t burn them, so those missing planks have to be hidden close by.”

  Ty checked the near bank first. Thickly grown brush overhung the bank, forcing him to proceed on foot. Twenty yards upstream, a bulky shelf of rock blocked his path. He thought of turning back, but his father’s orders were to check both banks. He eased into the creek, holding his Remington revolver and leather bag shoulder-high, wel
l above the muddy water.

  His boots filled with water, and he slipped around the jutting rock and encountered a sizable defile, where floodwaters had cut the dirt bank away. The heavy bridge planks were stacked on end just out of the water against the wall of the defile, a clever hiding place that could not be seen from downstream at any angle.

  Ty waded out into the creek until the old bridge and those working beyond it were in sight. He yelled and waved to catch somebody’s attention. A sapper spied him and yelled at Captain Tyrell and his father. No further communication was necessary. Sappers and miners hustled upstream and the planks were soon flowing downstream via a chain of strong arms. The sappers leveled the makeshift bridge with shoveled dirt and topped it with the planks, creating a solid passageway for the heaviest wagons and the column’s horse-drawn cannon.

  While the final planks were being laid, Ty took time to dump the water from his boots. His tattered socks were “socks” in name only. He didn’t attempt to remove them and wring them dry, for fear he’d have nothing left but a handful of useless rags.

  General Morgan rode alongside Reb. “Fine job locating the planks, Corporal. You’ve made yourself quite useful.”

  Ty appreciated the compliment, particularly in front of his father. He didn’t want the general or his father displeased with how he conducted himself in any way. His grandfather had stressed that trust between men didn’t come easy. Once established, it needed to be nurtured. Trust was the anchor for man’s endeavors to survive and forge a meaningful life with his fellow humans.

  General Morgan, Captain Mattson, and Ty had started across the replacement bridge when a trooper behind them growled, “Mount up, sappers. That includes you, Elam, you worthless turd. There’s no need for us here now.”

  The name “Elam” and the cadence of that gruff, rasping voice raised Ty’s hackles. He twisted about in the saddle. A trooper was holding the reins of a red roan for a sergeant with yellow epaulets on his shoulders, the insignia of the sappers. The mounting officer glanced in Ty’s direction and the sight of shaggy, pale blond hair and a bear trap jaw made Ty’s heart pound.