Mother Earth, Bloody Ground: A Novel Of The Civil War And What Might Have Been (Stonewall Goes West Trilogy)

by R. E. Thomas

  “What will you do?” asked Stanton.

  I’ve been giving some thought to that, Lincoln reflected. Although I’m rather fond of Mr. Joe Hooker, I have looked long and hard to find a man like my General Grant. Now I have got him, Sherman is his man in the West, and he and Sherman both want General McPherson to stay where he is.

  “Let them talk,” Lincoln shrugged. “If Wade, Chandler and the rest wish to investigate by means of a Congressional Committee, let them do that too. They can call their witnesses from the army, who I’m sure will say that James B. McPherson was indeed beaten by Stonewall Jackson, who was at the head of a larger army. They will also say this same Jackson danced circles around John Fremont, and whipped Joe Hooker, and in each instance Jackson did it with a smaller army. I know from personal experience that some in Congress suffer from deficient education, but I believe most can do that arithmetic.”

  Stanton was about to say more, but a clerk from the other side of the room shouted, “Mr. Secretary, I have received word from Nashville.”

  Lincoln sprang from his chair and in an instant stood behind the clerk, who was rapidly decoding and transcribing the message from the wire. Stanton waddled up behind them.

  When the telegram was complete, Stanton snatched it up with a “Give me that!” Lincoln paid no mind to his War Secretary’s rude bullying and presumption, choosing instead to wait affably for him to relate the contents.

  Lincoln watched as Stanton’s beady eyes darted back and forth across the page. When Stanton’s mouth twisted up in anger, Lincoln knew. Forrest had beaten Sturgis.

  “Sturgis is whipped!” Stanton spat, thwacking the message with the back of his hand, as if the paper were the very person of Brigadier General Samuel Sturgis. “Whipped at a place called Ringgold Mill. He writes that Forrest attacked him there, as he was trying to cut Forrest off from the bridges at Clarksville.”

  Lincoln slumped back into his chair. After a pause, he asked, “How stands Sturgis’s command?”

  “What? Oh. There is nothing here as to his losses, but he reports falling back on Hopkinsville, Kentucky. From what he says of his arrangements, it looks as though his expedition is intact. More or less. That Forrest must be the devil, the way he has our troops cowering! Our troops and our generals!”

  “Forrest is no devil, but he is a hard man,” Lincoln said softly. “He was a slaver, so I’m told, and those in such a profession must be hard men to achieve success in it. Very hard. He knows how to drive men, both his men as well as ours. I think we must endeavor to find a hard man of our own to match him, and spend less breath and ink on hellfire origins.”

  Chapter 2

  June 8, 1864

  Early Morning

  Charlotte Road

  South Bank of the Cumberland Rive near Clarksville, Tennessee

  “Would the General care for some breakfast?”

  Nathan Bedford Forrest looked over his shoulder to see a darkie cook standing behind him with a tin plate heaped with fried eggs and bacon, and a cup of steaming hot coffee. As soon as the aroma reached his nostrils, his stomach growled, and he suddenly remembered he hadn’t had any food since breakfast of the day before, since before yesterday’s battle.

  He nodded, took the cup and plate, and sat down on a fallen tree trunk with a view of the Clarksville bridge, where the last of his supply train was crossing, a mix of the wagons that he had taken with him on his expedition to Kentucky and the wagons he had captured while he was there. Forrest dug into his breakfast, content that while some of those wagons were almost emptied of their contents of food and fodder, the others were crammed with valuable Yankee-made stores, medicines, ammunition, and other sundry items. He had just speared the last chunk of bacon with his fork when a small party of horsemen galloped in, coming up from the south. Five men, led by a captain.

  Recognizing the officer, Forrest set his plate aside and called out, “Captain James Power Smith. What brings you out thisaway?”

  Smith presented himself, saluting smartly. “General Forrest. It has been some time, sir. I come bearing orders from General Jackson.”

  Stonewall Jackson’s chief aide-de-camp dismounted and proffered an envelope, which Forrest took. While tucking the message into his coat, Forrest asked, “What’s all this about?”

  “The only thing I know is that when headquarters received a copy of the Louisville Daily Journal, smuggled out of Nashville, that said you had left Munfordville and were heading south, I was given that envelope and ordered to ride out here to Clarksville. I was then to wait here until you arrived.”

  Forrest drained the last of his coffee. “And how are things on the Harpeth, Captain? I ain’t heard nothing about a battle, so I reckon Sherman ain’t come out of Nashville looking for a fight just yet.”

  “Quiet, General, all’s quiet. Except for one thing. General William Hicks Jackson is under arrest.”

  Frowning, Forrest asked, “Red Jackson? What’d he do?”

  “Well, sir, our cavalry patrols skirmish regularly with Yankee troopers right around Brentwood. I reckon you know he has a plantation there, Belle Meade. A couple of weeks ago he decided to go up there, have dinner with his wife, and bring back a few fresh horses from his stables. Of course, he did all of this without orders and only got back out again by the skin of his teeth. General Jackson was angry, mighty angry.”

  Forrest looked down and shook his head. He had never been able to make any sense of all that damned silly, dashing cavalier business, like war was some kind of game, a fox chase. That was the way old John Hunt Morgan went about his work, Forrest thought, and look where that got him. His command destroyed and an Ohio prison cell. Still, fox chasers like Red Jackson, with their dash and daring, they had their uses. A man just needed to keep a tight leash on them, that was all.

  “Has the commanding general sent Red back to the rear?” If Red Jackson had been sent back to Alabama, Forrest guessed, it meant he was keeping time with W.W. Loring, and so both of them would be waiting for a court-martial.

  Smith replied quietly, “No, he has not. If I may say so, I believe General Jackson is waiting on you, sir. I’ve seen this sort of thing many times before, back in Virginia. Sometime he arrests a man and leaves him there, as a punishment. Once the army gets moving again, he sets aside the whole business.”

  Rising to his feet, Forrest straightened his coat. “I need to go back into town. That’s where my staff is. If you and your men will accompany me, Captain?”

  Smith saluted. “Of course, sir.” He turned around, his dissatisfaction firmly suppressed with military formality. He didn’t care to be around Forrest, not after that ugly, mutinous display the cavalry general made in Jackson’s own tent on the eve of the Battle of Lawrenceburg, more a month before. “Wizard of the Saddle” he might be, but Smith knew Forrest was also a base savage, without an ounce of real Christian civility in him. What he wanted most was for Forrest to read the orders, give him a reply, and then allow him to get away from here and back to army headquarters.

  After mounting his horse, Smith’s private disdain for Forrest boiled up when he noticed some of the men in the General’s escort. Darkies. Two dozen riders were gathered around Forrest. Most were obviously hard-bitten fighting men, armed with a mix of six-shooters, sawn-down shotguns, and captured Federal repeaters. It looked less like a proper general’s escort than like a gang of bandits. And among them were a pair of blacks, just as heavily armed as the rest, and wearing butternut field jackets.

  “Is there something wrong, Captain Smith?”

  Smith hadn’t realized he had been staring. “Nosir. Nothing wrong.”

  “You may have heard, I reckon, that when the war started I was a slave dealer. I made a… a arrangement with some of them darkies. If they fought with me and stuck with me, win or lose, they would all be free. Well, they said yes, and they kept faith, I ain’t never had any complaints.”

  “If you say so, sir.”

  And if them bloated sacks in Richmond knew ha
lf as much as they say about the black man, Forrest thought, they wouldn’t hesitate to make that same bargain and arm every good darkie as could be found. Make some good darkies free and get them to fight to keep the rest down, that was smart business. If we lose, all the darkies go free anyhow. But most of the country is like Captain Smith here, ain’t ready to hear that. Now most of them good darkie boys had gone running and joined the Yankees.

  Forrest led Smith and their combined parties back over the bridge, now cleared of all wagons, to the north bank of the Cumberland into Clarksville. In the town a column of almost a thousand captured blue soldiers had formed up, readying to be marched under guard across the river and, a long way away, onto prison.

  “I took these here prisoners yesterday, at Ringgold Mill,” Forrest said to Smith. “Can’t just parole them, not now that we and the Yankees don’t do that business no more. Couldn’t keep them Yankees I captured up in Mundfordville. Too far behind enemy lines. Had to let them bluebellies go. But these fellows…”

  Smith nodded, watching as the sullen, beaten-looking men in blue began marching by. Poor devils.

  The riders went on, out of town and passing through throngs of Confederate troopers, busily tending to their horses and preparing for the day’s ride. As soon as they saw Forrest on the road, they gathered around on both sides and cheered him wildly. Forrest paid no mind and soon was across the Red River and in an earthen fort, perched on a 200-foot bluff overlooking Clarksville and the confluence of the Red and the Cumberland.

  As they passed through the entrance, Forrest told Smith, “We built this place. The Yankees call it Fort Bruce, but so long as we’re here, it’s Fort Defiance again. I detailed a regiment to garrison this fort while I was away, keep the damn Yankees from destroying that bridge while my back was turned.”

  Forrest dismounted and strode into one of the log buildings inside the fort, leaving Smith to wait outside. Motioning for his staff to go about their business, he pulled a stool up against a wall, sat down, withdrew and opened the envelope, and began reading. Slowly, carefully, painfully reading.

  He thought he understood the message, but the last time he received a written order from Stonewall Jackson, he had misread it so badly he went and threatened mutiny at the man who was making him the Army of Tennessee’s cavalry chieftain. So, Forrest handed the message to his chief of staff, seated at the table next to him.

  “Major Anderson, what do you make of this?”

  Anderson read the message. The meaning was easy and clear, but he wasn’t surprised, knowing Forrest was half-literate at best. Sometimes Forrest gave incoming correspondence to him or one of the other staff for a second reading, but the General was sensitive enough about it to make the matter into a discussion rather than have the thing read aloud. Forrest’s own written business, on the other hand, almost always went to either him or one of the other staffers for polishing.

  “General Jackson desires that once you have your command safely on the south bank of the Cumberland, and en route for Franklin, that you should hand the reins over to General Buford and ride ahead to report to him and receive further orders.”

  Forrest nodded. He thought he understood it, but he wanted to make certain. That was why he made Smith wait all this time. No mention of Red Jackson, though, he thought. What to make of that?

  “Draw up orders to Abe Buford for me to sign. You take them over to him yourself. He already knows who is doing what, but make sure he understands what roads to take and such.”

  After ordering Smith to wait on and travel with him, General Forrest lingered in Clarksville until late afternoon, when the last of his cavalry was over the river and on its way down the Charlotte Road. Overtaking the wagon train at the head of the column, they arrived in Dickson County’s seat well after dark. With an escort and staff party numbering over a hundred, and not wanting to scatter them into beds all over town, Forrest put his troopers up on the benches and floors of the Dickson County Courthouse for the night. The next morning, they rode on to Franklin, arriving at Jackson’s headquarters at Harrison House as the skies began to turn to the golden orange of an early summer sunset.

  Forrest presented himself and was shown into the parlor, where General Jackson was in the midst of meeting with his senior staff, of whom Forrest recognized only Colonel Sandie Pendleton, the army’s boyish 23-year-old master bureaucrat.

  Returning Forrest’s salute with his right hand, his only hand, Jackson said, “Gentleman, General Forrest has ridden a long way. Let us adjourn. Go get yourself some supper. We shall resume tomorrow morning, first thing.”

  As Sandie made his goodbyes to Forrest, Jackson studied his cavalry leader. He was a strongly built man, with a thick, vital shock of graying hair. When he last saw him, that strong build and Forrest’s air of predatory menace reminded Jackson greatly of a prowling mountain lion. Now, that lion was dusty and sweat-stained, his eyes sunken and weary, his face more weather-beaten than before. The muscular frame and posture that once seemed so relaxed and full of power was now stiff, disjointed, and his hair looked grayer.

  I’ve been that tired, Jackson thought. The strain and worry, the endless work of seeing to everything yourself. A man who wins victories and comes home like this, that is a man who has well and truly done his duty. Good, good.

  After offering Forrest coffee and motioning for him to sit down, Jackson said, “General Forrest, we’ve had no word on your actions since you crossed the Cumberland, except what has come out in the Northern papers. That is proper, as you were ordered to exercise the strictest secrecy and take pains to befuddle the enemy, but now…”

  “Yessir. I rode to Bowling Green with Buford’s Division, aiming to wreck the railroad bridge there, but found the forts protecting the town and bridge situated on a ring of strong high ground, and the commander weren’t inclined to give up. Your orders weren’t to get into no siege, so I kept on north to the next target, the Green River bridge at Munfordville. I got there quick, surrounded the place before they knew what I was about, and bullied them into surrender.”

  Forrest grinned widely, the memory making him forget how worn he was. “The commander there was one Brigadier General Hugh Ewing, sir. Big plump fellow. Brother-in-law to none other than General Sherman. After disarming the bluebellies, I paroled them with instructions to go to Louisville, all except Ewing. I sent him and his staff down to Nashville, thinking Sherman might appreciate the company.”

  Jackson chuckled, deep and mirthful. “Please, do go on.”

  “Well, I captured enough wagons and teams to double the size of my train. After letting the boys eat their fill and piling the wagons high, we burned the rest of them supplies and the bridge and started south again. I set a slower pace, keeping the boys rested, pulling up plenty of track, and taking care of some recruiting. Brought back more than seven hundred Tennessee men, plus a hundred and fifty Kentucks.”

  “Good, good,” Jackson said. “How many have horses of their own?”

  “Half,” Forrest replied.

  Jackson took a drink from his coffee, and after setting his cup down, placed his scarred hand so the thumb stuck straight up. “Then you know the other half go to the infantry. That is the law. Only men who provide their own mounts stay in the cavalry service.”

  “Yes, General, but I don’t reckon that will be any trouble. These boys are as eager to serve under you as they are under me.”

  Forrest continued. “About that time, two infantry divisions were coming down from Louisville under A.J. Smith. On account that I wrecked that bridge at Munfordville, they had to get out and walk, so I could stay ahead of them easy. But Sturgis was coming in from the west, with infantry and cavalry. They were coming on fast, looking to cut me off from my one good crossing at Clarksville. Not wanting to abandon those wagons, I went out to meet him.

  “I made a dash to get in quick, before they were ready or rightly knew exactly where I was. We attacked Grierson’s cavalry at Ringgold Mill, drove them back, and up came S
turgis’s infantry. They were tired from marching at the double, what with all the heat, so I whipped them too. Took over nine hundred prisoners.”

  “Defeat in detail,” Jackson said firmly.

  “What’s that sir?”

  “You beat a divided enemy. First one part, then the other.”

  “Yessir. Now, if I may ask you, General, how goes with Red Jackson?”

  Jackson sighed. “Brigadier William H. Jackson took advantage of a cavalry skirmish to push an entire brigade through the enemy’s patrols and right up to Brentwood, exceeding his orders by a mile. While there, he dallied for a luncheon with his wife and family. The rumors that he collected some of his horses are false, as there are no horses left at Belle Meade. He denies none of it. General Jackson is very frank about what his intentions were: to show up the Yankees and visit his homeplace, all with the single stone.”

  “And what do you intend to do with Red?”

  “Do you need him?”

  “I reckon I do.”

  “Then he stays under house arrest until this army resumes active operations. If you go see him, you are free to reprimand him. In fact, I encourage you to do so, but say nothing about charges, court-martials, or any of that. Let him sweat over it.”

  Forrest smiled. “I ain’t exactly pleased about that damned knightly foolishness neither. I figure I’ll wait a day or two, make sure he knows I’m back, and then go have a few unfriendly words with old Red.”

  That was exactly was Jackson wanted to hear. Coming west, he already knew Forrest’s reputation as a raider and a fighter, and now that he knew him first-hand, he also liked the man’s hard-nosed, all-business approach to running his cavalry. As much as Jackson loved his friend Jeb Stuart, he thought the Virginia cavalier enjoyed daring too much for its own sake and unquestionably suffered the sin of vanity when it came to seeing his name in the papers. Whatever his other faults, that was not Nathan Bedford Forrest.

  “Good, good.” Jackson stood up. “General Forrest, you have industriously carried out your orders, and my report will indicate as much. See Colonel Pendleton about where to place Buford’s Division, and get some rest.”