He eventually dozed off. Gentle fingers shook him awake. Still groggy with sleep, Ty grabbed for his Remington. “Save those bullets for the Yankees,” Lieutenant Shannon said. “We’ll need every one of them before the morning passes.”
“What time is it?” Ty asked.
“Five-thirty,” Shawn Shannon answered, “and we have our orders for today.”
Ty heard the movement of troopers and horses before he saw them. Ground-hugging fog filled the river bottom and he couldn’t make out the Bainbridge barn a mere thirty yards away. Dawn was a slight brightening of the sky to the east.
Shawn Shannon helped Ty to his feet and handed him a mug of black coffee, hot from the stove, a strip of bacon, and a cold biscuit. “That’s breakfast. You can eat on the way to the horse lot. We need to be in the saddle in five minutes.”
The coffee burned Ty’s tongue and he let it cool while he chewed on the dry biscuit. He had no fondness for what the troopers called “iron rations.” But he was lucky to have anything hot. No external cooking fires had been permitted since their arrival yesterday. The scalding coffee had come from the Bainbridge kitchen.
He finished wolfing down what passed for breakfast as they entered the Bainbridge horse lot, a fenced enclosure large enough to accommodate a dozen loose horses. Reb nickered upon sighting Ty and was his usual docile self, until the bit was in his mouth. The big gray’s head lifted and he came alert, anxious to be saddled. It was as if the miles he’d trod to date were meaningless. Ty doubted he would ever mount a finer animal.
Owen Mattson’s chestnut gelding, with the white stockings and blazed face, wasn’t amongst the other horses in the lot. “Father out and about already?”
“He’s with Colonel Duke’s Fifth and Sixth Kentucky Regiments. They’re preparing to assault the Yankee redoubt below Portland. Let’s ride.”
Once they were under way, Shawn Shannon located the raider divisions for Ty. Colonel Duke’s Fifth and Sixth Regiments held the south line, and Colonel Johnson’s Seventh and Tenth straddled the Chester Road to the west. The remaining regiments—Duke’s Second and Tenth, and Johnson’s Eighth, Eleventh, and Fourteenth—occupied the open area opposite Portland that extended to the Bainbridge farmstead. The baggage train was ensconced at the foot of the Chester Road, behind Colonel Johnson’s line.
Clusters of weary-eyed, slump-shouldered troopers, their drooping heads matching those of their horses, fumbled with paper cartridges and ramrods in the fog, trying to be certain their rifled muskets were properly loaded. Ty saw no evidence the troopers had eaten that morning except for possibly hardtack and water. Morgan’s Raiders seemed to have little fight left in them. Ty had been taught that famished, exhausted soldiers were prone to flee a battle when confronted by well-armed superior numbers.
After covering a mile and a quarter of fields covered with wheat stubble, the fog parted briefly and a twenty-five-foot-tall mound, with the conical shape of a bullet, swelled to their right.
Lieutenant Shannon halted his black horse, Buster. At Ty’s quizzical expression, Shannon said, “It’s one of the Indian burial mounds that dot the middle of the valley. This fog will lift, and when it does, you’ll be on top of it and be Duke’s and Morgan’s eyes.”
“How far away are the Fifth and Sixth Kentucky?” Ty inquired.
“About a hundred and fifty yards. Keep in mind that it’s confirmation of what’s reported that counts. A general’s couriers provide him much information, some worthwhile, some useless. What counts with Duke and Morgan is not that the enemy has cannons, but how many cannons does he have and where are they positioned on the battlefield. Report to Colonel Duke first, and then General Morgan, unless Duke says otherwise.”
“Where will you be?”
“Wherever Colonel Duke wants me to be. Keep a sharp lookout in all directions. Consider everything you see unusual, until you determine otherwise. Do not, I repeat, do not stand upright for any length of time. Don’t make yourself an easy target for Federal sharpshooters.”
Shawn Shannon rode forward and Ty dismounted. He thought about Reb being on a loose rein and decided the big gray, with his fearless temperament, would hold on his own.
The grass on the mound was slick with morning dew. Climbing carefully, Ty gained the crest without mishap. The rounded top of the conical mound was bigger than he anticipated and provided him just enough space to sit or crouch. If anything untoward happened, three quick steps would put him down behind the crest and out of harm’s way. That was except for an unseen bullet.
The quiet was unnerving. He was alone in a sea of swirling gray mist. Visibility, though, was improving minute by minute as the rising sun backlit the fog. He stared to the south, searching for any sign of the Fifth and Sixth Kentucky. The lack of any firing by cannon or musket meant the raiders had not yet attacked the Yankee redoubt.
Oblivious to Ty’s presence, a rearward-bound, wildly spurring courier went racing by the mound. What was there to report in such haste? Had the Yankees abandoned the redoubt without any resistance? Ty resisted the urge to scratch his chin. He was on station to observe, not speculate.
Not ten minutes later, the fog lifted with the speed of a slatted window blind responding to its pull rope. Ty leaped to his feet. The dismounted Fifth and Sixth Regiments were in line of battle and before them, at a mere distance of thirty yards, caught completely off guard, was a small force of mounted blue bellies that had a single cannon in tow.
Raiders swept muskets to their shoulders and loosed a full volley into the surprised enemy. Between the sporadic shots of the Yankees’ return fire, Ty heard raider sergeants shouting, “Handle cartridge!” In unison, every Rebel took a cartridge from his box with thumb and first two fingers and carried it to his mouth. With “Tear cartridge!” each man bit off the paper end to the powder and carried it to the chamber of the weapon. At “Charge cartridge!” they emptied the powder into the chamber, pressing the ball in with the forefinger. At “Ram cartridge!” they tugged their ramrod from its tube under the barrel of their weapons, seated ball and charge, with a quick downward thrust, and then returned the ramrod to its tube. With the final reloading order of “Prime!” each raider cocked his musket and applied a percussion cap to hollow metal “nipple” at the rear of the barrel. It never ceased to amaze Ty that the whole process required less than ten seconds.
The sergeants yelled, “Commence firing!” The second full volley was too much for the outnumbered blue bellies. They broke line and, in the welter of confusion that followed, their artillery horses spooked, upsetting both cannon and caisson and blocking their only escape route—a narrow section of road bordered by fences and deep ditches. The Yankees abandoned their mounts and rushed, afoot, for the bluffs fronting the Ohio.
An exuberant Ty watched the raiders charge after their fleeing foe, capture the Federal cannon, and take forty prisoners. The troopers in gray had won the first skirmish of the day quite handily.
CHAPTER 17
The bright bloom of hope faded for the Raiders with two events that occurred almost simultaneously. Cannon fire commenced behind Ty at the mouth of Chester Road. Puffs of powder smoke rose above the trees that screened him from a view of the action. Heavy small-arms fire accompanied the roar of the Federal cannons. From last evening’s meetings with General Morgan, he understood how critical it was for Colonel Johnson to stand firm against whatever fire the Yankees brought to bear on his position. If the blue bellies broached his lines, they would fall upon the baggage train and wreak havoc the length of the valley.
New cannon fire from a different point on the compass rang in Ty’s ears. He spun to the left toward the Ohio and there was the Yankee gunboat everyone had dreaded while praying the river wasn’t high enough to permit its passage upriver to Buffington Island. Those oh-so-familiar puffs of powder smoke laced the deck of the gunship as her Dahlgren guns launched shells with a thunderous boom.
Turning his shoulders, Ty checked the status of Colonel Duke’s Fifth and Six
th Kentucky. His jaw dropped open. Companies of dismounted, blue-uniformed cavalry were pouring from the cornfields at the south end of the valley. The Yankees in sight soon outnumbered Duke’s men. From his high vantage point, Ty could see many more rifle barrels protruding above the shielding cornstalks, barrrels Duke’s men couldn’t detect on flat ground.
Ty caught movement out of the corner of his eye on the far right. Despite Lieutenant Shannon’s warning regarding Federal sharpshooters, he rose on his tiptoes. Kepi-covered heads and blue-uniformed shoulders appeared to be floating on air above the tall corn. A thin black line, tipped with a tiny swatch of yellow, loomed above each Union horseman. The memory of how the raider column had appeared from the hilltops of Chester Road flashed through Ty’s mind. He was immediately certain of what he was watching. The billed caps and the upper portions of tasseled horsewhips were the gear of Union artillerymen. Three pairs of horses, with a rider for each pair, towed a single Union cannon. A quick head count told Ty four pieces of artillery would soon be shelling Colonel Duke’s outnumbered regiments.
He didn’t linger to confirm the horses and cannons he couldn’t yet see were actually there. He knew their number and location; all he needed to do was report to Colonel Duke.
Two newly positioned Union cannons on the Rebel’s far left entered the fray. Ty spurred Reb into a full gallop. The blue-belly line was advancing afoot at a measured pace when he reached Colonel Duke. Though Duke was short in stature and finely limbed, with a youthful face despite his chin-wide beard and cropped mustache, like his brother-in-law General Morgan, Basil Duke possessed a first-rate military mind. He gave Ty his complete attention upon hearing the words “Union cannons.”
“How many and where, Corporal?”
“Four pieces, sir, to our far right. They should be in action in a few minutes.”
The Rebel situation worsened as Colonel Duke assessed the potential impact of Ty’s revelation. The two long guns the Rebels possessed were perched on a knoll on the raider’s left flank, stationed there the previous evening to support Duke’s dawn assault. The knoll was beyond the raider’s foremost line at the moment. The two Rebel field pieces were blasting away as fast as they could load.
Tired of the harassing fire, fifty mounted Union troopers charged the knoll, sabers slashing left and right, and dislodged the undefended Rebel gunners. The few lucky survivors fled for their lives.
Duke motioned to his second in command. “Colonel Grigsby, mount an attack and retake that knoll.”
It was too late.
Dismounted Union troopers were flooding the knoll. Colonel Grigsby led the counterattack as ordered and ran straight into volley after volley of Yankee bullets. Gray bodies jerked, stumbled, and fell into the path of those still pushing forward. The attacking raider line slowly wilted, halted, and then panicked and retreated at a full run.
Ty marveled at how Colonel Duke suddenly was everywhere at once, shouting orders, turning retreating troopers to face the enemy, and placing the balance of the Fifth and Sixth Kentucky behind and beside them to present a united front again and quell the panic before it engulfed his entire command.
Ty stayed within arm’s length of Colonel Duke, awaiting further orders. Every chance he had, he scanned all directions, but he failed to locate his father and Shawn Shannon. Were they amongst the Rebel dead littering the dust and yellow stubble of the cornfields?
Ty palmed sweat from his brow and mouthed a silent prayer asking the Lord to protect the both of them. The ever-vigilant Basil Duke saw Ty’s lips moving and said with a tight smile, “Say one for me, too, Corporal.”
Colonel Grigsby, chest heaving from exertion, came bounding up and saluted. “Sorry, sir, their volleys were too intense to withstand.”
“I allow you did your best, Colonel. Now prepare to defend the road and the ford behind us. We can’t allow our means of escape to be closed off. In light of what has beset us, I must confer with General Morgan. I shall return as quickly as I can. Follow me, Corporal.”
Colonel Duke pointed at the horse holders waiting behind him. “My horse, please, Private.”
A skinny trooper, with a hooked nose and an Adam’s apple the size of a walnut, led a mud-colored gelding from the horse line. Colonel Duke swung into the saddle with the smooth grace of the veteran horseman and spurred the gelding into a trot. Ty mounted and urged Reb alongside the colonel’s gelding.
What Colonel Duke and Ty encountered after passing through the wagons lining the ford road, waiting for the opportunity to cross the Ohio, were unengaged Rebel regiments in complete disarray. Unrelenting Yankee cannon and rifle fire poured down on them from the western hills, scattering troopers and horse holders to the four winds, separating officers and sergeants from their regiments and companies. Ty witnessed troopers emptying their pockets of Federal greenbacks and other stolen items, actions that expressed their fear of what the enemy might do if they were captured and discovered them. The tail end of the baggage train was frantically reining off the ford road and madly seeking refuge of any kind in the narrow northern neck of the valley where no blue-belly weapons belched smoke and fire.
Cannon balls sounded like tearing canvas as they zeezed through the air. A bouncing ball struck a mounted trooper riding in circles, severing his head and right shoulder. The dead trooper’s fingers clutched the reins with a fierce, unyielding grip and his body hung upright in the saddle for agonizing seconds before pitching to the ground.
Taken aback by the horror of it, Ty leaned from the saddle and retched, parting company with his breakfast. He hawked and cleared his pipes, unaware that tears were dampening his cheeks. At least, he thought dismally, it’s a quick death with little suffering.
Colonel Duke ignored the unholy commotion surrounding him and angled toward the river road and the Bainbridge residence. Apparently, he believed the general could best be found there or close by. In the midst of a pitched battle, Ty found himself wondering if Dana Bainbridge had taken to the family root cellar yet?
He shook his head in an attempt to clear his mind and failed. Romantic foolishness knew no limits when lovely young females were involved.
General Morgan was standing on the Bainbridge porch with Lieutenant Hardesty, Old Box, and two of his personal staff. Three couriers stood with reins in hand on the gravel driveway. The Bainbridge family members were either inside the house or safely ensconced in the root cellar beneath it.
A bleak-appearing General Morgan lowered his field glasses as Duke dismounted and saluted. “No need for military protocol, Basil. Where do we stand?”
Basil Duke’s response was pointed and perceptive. “The Yankee cannons, gunboat, and superior numbers make it impossible for us to ford the Ohio at Buffington Bar. Our only course is to withdraw and try to ford upstream beyond the reach of their gunboat.”
John Hunt Morgan was not a dithering officer. He understood that the odds had turned against him in ninety short minutes. “Retreat is inevitable. I will attempt to organize an orderly withdrawal, though some frightened teamsters and troopers have already broken rank. Basil, your Fifth and Sixth Kentucky and Colonel Johnson’s Seventh and Tenth will delay the Yankee advance as long as possible, while the rest of our forces depart the field.”
Stepping to the front of the Bainbridge porch, General Morgan extended his hand. “Good luck and Godspeed, Basil.”
Colonel Duke grasped his brother-in-law’s hand, held it for a long second and, aware that neither of them might survive the day, said just loud enough for Ty to hear, “It’s been a long ride, General. The men have done us proud. If it ends here, so be it. We’ll not be forgotten.”
General Morgan, voice cracking a tad, said, ”I, too, pray the men receive the honor and glory due them. Off with you now.”
Ty prepared to follow Colonel Duke, but General Morgan noticed his lifting of Reb’s reins and said, “Corporal Mattson, you will remain here. I have special orders for you.”
Shifting his gaze to the waiting couriers, G
eneral Morgan barked, “Private Samuels, you will accompany Colonel Duke.”
The chosen courier leaped into the saddle and followed Basil Duke. General Morgan smiled and confronted Ty. “Corporal Mattson, you will seek out Colonel Johnson, obtain the status of his command, and report back to me posthaste. Your father is with Johnson. Just look for where the action is the hottest and that’s where you’ll find them.”
Discounting the danger of riding into perhaps the heaviest fighting, a delighted Ty saluted General Morgan and touched Reb’s flanks with his spurs. As usual, the big gray shot off at a gallop. Taking the shortest route, Ty disdained the open gate of the driveway to the south and put Reb over the iron fence enclosing the Bainbridge yard.
Within a quarter mile, even the inexperienced Ty determined General Morgan’s proposed orderly retreat was not doable on a large scale. The remnants of Colonel Johnson’s Seventh and Tenth Kentucky were spread in thin lines, well out to each flank, trying to keep them from being turned. Union shells, grapeshot, and shrapnel rained from the high ground firmly in Yankee control; more and more blue-clad, mounted troopers swarmed Chester Road.
The Union breakthrough was precipitated by the collapse of Colonel Johnson’s right flank, which provided the howling Yankees direct access to the baggage train at the rear of his troopers. Ty rode in a wide half-circle to skirt the growing mass of men, horses, and wagons milling behind Johnson’s rapidly weakening front.
The continuous roar of Union cannons was deafening. As Colonels Duke and Johnson succumbed to Yankee pressure and fell back toward the center of the valley to form new tighter lines, they were subjected to a three-way Yankee long-gun cross fire from the Ohio to the east, the southern cornfields and the ridge looming above Chester Road. Ty groaned in despair. Except for Rebel rearguard action to prolong the retreat further, until they ran out of ammunition, the battle was lost.
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