by R. E. Thomas
Over the next twenty minutes, they kept going, passing one regiment after another of Walker’s Brigade, until the 41st Tennessee found themselves on the left end of the line. The bugles sounded the order to halt in front of a little white clapboard Presbyterian Church called Bethbirei.
Nathan looked past Willie to Pete, who looked very worn and was already fidgeting with his blanket roll. Willie said over his shoulder, “Pete, don’t get comfortable. We ain’t been told to fall out yet.”
A few minutes later the regiment was advanced a few hundred yards past Bethbirei Church, up and over the gentle ridge to a place overlooking a thousand yards of broad fields, fields that ended only at the winding course of East Rock Creek. There the regiment deployed into a line, and Captain Bell appeared before his company.
“Men! We have been assigned the honor, along with another company of the regiment, of advancing as skirmishers. We shall be the first to meet the filthy invaders, here in Marshall County, where I know some of you men are from. We shall be first, and we shall stop them dead!”
Nathan had to stop himself from spitting on the ground in front of him at Bell’s puffed-up little speech, but was relieved all the same that a more senior captain would be in charge. He stepped out to join Willie and Pete, and the three of them went forward as a knot in a loosely ordered skirmish line.
“At least the rich boy knows that some of us ain’t from here,” muttered Nathan to himself, as an afterthought.
Most of the company’s veterans were from Marshall County, but he, Willie, and a few of the others were from Lincoln County. The thought prompted Nathan to recall that Captain Fletcher was from somewhere in the county, and since he had gone home missing half a leg, must be around somewhere.
The Tennesseans advanced about 500 yards before coming to country road with a stone wall on the other side. There they were told to stop. Not even bothering to doff his blanket roll, Nathan dropped to the ground under some shade, and put his back against the wall for a much-desired rest. And there he sat, taking small sips from his canteen and waiting. Down the line, he heard a nervous Raglan Lloyd try to start up some conversation, only to be testily hushed by Halpern.
For almost an hour, all was quiet along the little stone wall. While Willie kept watch and Pete doodled in a patch of dirt with a stick, Nathan grew drowsy in the sultry air and struggled to stay awake. Then the bucolic interlude was broken when Willie whispered sharply “Billies coming.”
Nathan crept up to peek over the wall. East Rock Creek was another 500 yards distant, a quarter-mile from them and half a mile from the main line. On the other side of the creek was a throng of Yankee cavalry. At such a distance, the enemy was just a swarm of blue dots, and most of that swarm that was coming across the creek. Other blue dots stayed behind with the horses.
The field was wide open, the only cover coming from tall grass and weeds. As the blue dots grew larger, sprouting arms and legs as they did so, Nathan adjusted his sights. He pushed the bar up to 400 yards at first, and when the enemy came closer with no word to fire, he slid it down to 300 yards and started counting.
About 60 of us behind this wall, he thought, chuckling. And there’s maybe only four dozen of them.
Willie picked up the word that came down the line, hissing, “Ready and aim!”
Nathan leveled his musket and lined up a blue trooper. He guessed the range at 250 yards, so he aimed for the groin. His choice wasn’t spite, but merely to compensate for the difference between the range and the rifle’s sights. He never heard Willie pass on the order to fire, but pulled the trigger as soon as he heard the first musket crack.
Not bothering to see if he hit his target or not, Nathan ducked behind the wall and started reloading. Almost all the Tennesseans did so, and were soon rewarded for their caution when the field before them erupted in flame and smoke. He didn’t know which was louder: the sharp reports of the repeater fire or the thwacks from scores of bullets striking the stone wall.
“Sweet Jesus,” cried Nathan. “God damned them Yankee repeaters!”
Willie didn’t even look up from tamping down his next musket ball. “Blasphemy, Private Grimes. No blasphemy in Old Jack’s army.”
Nathan pushed the bar on his sights down to 200 yards, shouting back, “Let Old Jack come down here and tell me hisself!”
Looking over the ragged crenellations of the dry stone wall, Nathan saw that the skirmishers had predictably dropped into the grass and weeds. You could guess where exactly they were from the depressions caused by their bodies, but that was still only a good guess. Worse, he understood that because they had repeaters, they didn’t need to get up or roll over onto their bellies and fumble to reload. They could lay down, sweet and pretty, and shoot back all the live long day.
He brought his musket up, aimed it at a divot in the grass, and fired. That one shot brought a hail of bullets down around his part of the wall or whizzing overhead, forcing Nathan’s head down. It was the start of the pattern that stuck, hard and fast. The bluecoat troopers sought their safety in lying prone and heaping fire on the graybacks, while the graybacks sheltered behind their wall and shot back only as rapidly as safety would allow them.
Twenty minutes into the firefight, Nathan caught sight of another mass of blue dots, mounted blue dots. He shouted, “Willie! Yankee cavalry riding out beyond our left!”
“I see them! I see them! Pete, run down and tell Captain Bell.”
Willie hunched down and skirted past Nathan, patting him on the shoulder as he did so, moving to a place where he could keep a wary eye on the advancing cavalry. Nathan kept his attention focused on returning fire on their front, snapping off another shot before dropping down to reload again. He was capping his musket when he heard the bugles sound, and looked out to see their own cavalry charging down on the blue riders.
Still under fire, Nathan, Willie, and the others kept down and cheered as they watched the two masses of horsemen collide, not at a mad gallop like in the storybooks, but at a mild trot. The two fights went on separately for a time, before the Pennsylvanian sabers started pushing back the Tennessee horsemen and cutting into their ranks. Finally, the mounted Johnnies turned tail and galloped off, leaving a good many of their fellows and mounts behind.
The bulk of the Union horse tore off in pursuit, but one company peeled off to behind near a fieldstone house and barn about 200 yards down the dirt track and the stone wall. These troopers dismounted and took up positions in and around the barn and the house.
After sliding off his horse, Spear bent down and sprinted forward, calling out, “To the fence! To the fence!” Upon reaching the fence separating the house and garden from the barnyard, he knelt and pointed his carbine to bear down the length of the stone wall.
As his troopers fell into place on either side of him, Spear pulled back the hammer on his Spencer and shouted, “Fish in a barrel, boys!” and pulled the trigger.
Willie saw what was coming and screamed, “Get down! Get down!” as he threw himself down into the dirt. Spear’s bullet zipped into the empty space where he had been kneeling, smacking into the stone before Nathan’s face and blinding him with crushed specks and dust.
“Aigh!” shrieked Nathan, falling over backwards. “Sonuffabitch!”
A split second later, repeater fire from the farmhouse and barn tore down along the stone wall, enfilading the butternut skirmishers. Any man who hadn’t already gone to ground voluntarily was bloodily knocked down by a bullet. Nathan cleared his eyes and looked up to see Sergeant Marks, his face contorted into a painful grimace, clutching a bloody splotch on his trousers. He had been shot through the lower leg.
Some 50 yards away, Bell crawled forward and grasped his commander, Captain Fonville, by the arm. Bell gulped down his terror, and thinking of his experience from the day before, he shouted, “Captain, are we not intended to withdraw?”
Fonville pulled Bell closer, and whispered hoarsely, “We cannot withdraw in this crossfire. If we get up and leave the
wall, it will tear us to pieces.”
Despite himself, Bell yelped, “You mean we’re trapped!”
“Quiet!” hissed Fonville. “You musn’t panic the men! Tillman or Walker will come to our aid.”
Bell nodded numbly, but his head was clouded with thoughts of capture and Yankee imprisonment. Nathan was thinking much the same only a short distance away, only he had the memory of his capture at Fort Donelson to ground his bleak imaginings with reality. What was more, Nathan knew it was only a matter of minutes before the Yankees in front of them came over the wall and that would be a vicious business indeed. He looked over to Willie, grasped the revolver tucked in his belt, and braced himself for what he knew would be the short, fatal task of killing anyone who went near his brother.
Then the thunder came, the deep boom of artillery. In rapid succession, four solids ripped through the barnyard and the wooden walls of the barn. Spear jerked his head right and saw the battery of Napoleons, newly placed on the left of the Confederate main line. The polished brass of their heavy tubes gleamed through the haze of smoked belched out by their salvo.
Atop the low ridge, General Cheatham dismounted and strode over to the battery commander. “Captain, aim for the roof of that barn! If you put your cannonballs through the sides, the blasted things go through one side and out the other without hurting even a damned horsefly. Hit the roof, smash the rafters, and the whole barn goes over.”
The battery leader shouted, “You heard the General! Elevate the guns for the new target and fire when ready!”
The first gun bellowed, then another, and then the last two at almost the same moment. Three balls crashed through the upper structure of the barn, and with the third one the roof collapsed, prompting a scramble to pull men out from beneath the wreckage.
Grinning, Cheatham smacked the gunner on the shoulder. “Outstanding, Captain, outstanding! Now put some guns on the barnyard and some guns on that house. Drive those fellows out of that farm.”
Gritting his teeth, Spear worked his lever, cocked his hammer, and fired the last shot in his magazine. As he stopped to reload, he looked around and observed that not only were they under artillery fire in the barnyard, but the Rebel cavalry had come back.
Spear knew what was coming. He had just fed the last round down the butt of his Spencer when the bugle sounded “To Horse.” It was time to go.
“Dammit, dammit, God dammit!” cursed Spear, as he turned and sprinted back to where the horses were being kept. We should have at least captured some prisoners, he thought angrily. Halfway to the horses, he paused and waved his troopers to pass him by, spared a glance to make certain the rest of the troop was doing the same, and then went for his mount.
With the enfilading fire slackening, Nathan sprang to his feet, leveled his musket and fired over the wall at the oncoming bluecoats. He then drew his revolver and shot at the crowd of skirmishers as he stepped up to the wall. Fonville jumped up and yelled, “To the wall! Boys, to the wall!” Bell got to his feet and repeated the order, waving his sword. In an instant, both companies were back on the wall, and with even the officers adding their pistols to the fire, they halted the advance of the Yankee skirmishers.
Thereupon the withdrawal began. The blue cavalry, mounted and dismounted, retreated, going slowly for safety and skirmishing all the way back to East Rock Creek.
Bell called out to Halpern. “First Sergeant! Did we lose anyone?”
Halpern suppressed a groan, wishing Bell had been more discrete. He jogged a few steps over, drew himself up for a salute, and said, “Sergeant Marks took one in the leg, Captain. Looks like just a flesh wound, though. No bones broken. Other than that, we were very lucky. Only a few scrapes and gashes. Very lucky. But I’m afraid someone will have to help Sergeant Marks to the rear, sir.”
Bell cast a quick look around, and settled on Lloyd, who in his estimation was a worthless blight on the company. “Fine. Send Private Lloyd back with him, and Fonville’s wounded soldiers, too. Maybe he can bring back some ammunition.”
Watching Lloyd help Marks hobble back up to the main line, Nathan shouted, “You take care now, Ed, you hear!” He was pleased, not just because Marks wouldn’t lose his leg, but also because he hoped that once Raglan Lloyd was on his own and out of sight, the bastard would desert and go back to under whatever rock he had been hiding under these last few years.
Up on the grassy ridge, Cheatham took out his flask and passed it to the artillery captain. “Fine work, captain, absolutely bully! Care for a snort?”
“Yes, sir, thank you very much.” After a swig, the captain said, “General, I’ve had little but pop skull pass my lips since, oh, that Christmas before Stones River. So this fine stuff is much appreciated.”
Thumbing down tobacco into his pipe bowl, Cheatham drawled, “Well then, Captain, borrow the flask and enjoy.”
“No, sir, I couldn’t.”
“Captain, I have most of a demi-john of that there whiskey left, so I can spare you a few ounces. Go on, but bring me that flask back. It’s a memento.”
The captain agreed and left, and the burly Tennessean struck a match and drew air through his pipe. His thoughts turned to the enemy cavalry that rode wide around his left flank during that fight, and were now somewhere in his rear. He wanted to send Tyree Bell’s cavalry in pursuit, but if he did that he’d strip his flanks, already in the air and vulnerable, of what little protection they had. No, he could not do that.
Cheatham felt uneasy. It wasn’t numbers that bothered him, at least not directly. Most of the army’s new recruits had been Tennesseans, and many of them went to him, turning his division into the army’s largest. Even without Strahl’s Brigade, he had 6,000 men with him. But he had only the single battery of four cannons, the rest being with the corps wagon train, and both his flanks were open.
If Blackjack Logan gets here with just three men to my two, Cheatham thought, that son of a bitch will flank me, easy as pie.
Chapter 16
10:30 A.M.
Lucius Polk’s Division
Old Dirt Road (Big Rock Creek Road)
Eight miles north of Lewisburg
Coming down the rough, rutted dirt road, Jackson found himself grateful that the ground was still a little soft from the recent rains. It made the ride softer, as well as less dusty.
The tail of Lucius Polk’s Division was plainly visible down the road, silver moon banners rustling in the slight breeze, and as Jackson grew closer he spied a group of dozens of men, mounted and on foot, under Cleburne’s banner, waving gently in a pleasant breeze. He spurred his horse from a trot up to a canter, as fast as he could handle on a road such as this one.
Jackson slowed down several yards before reaching what he now saw were Cleburne, Lucius Polk, and their people. Adding his own people to the mix brought the total of staffers and escorts to well over one hundred men and a matching number of horses, filling the center of the roadside field.
As Govan’s Arkansans continued their march, waving their hats but otherwise remaining silent as they went, Cleburne called out to Jackson from where he was standing. “General Cheatham just repulsed a probe by Federal cavalry, sir! I’ve given orders for General Polk to deploy on his right, lengthening his line.”
Jackson eyes glowed, and he almost barked out the words “Good! Good!” Knowing where Cheatham was, blocking the enemy’s path, gave him a vision of the coming battle, and he saw Providence in it. Earlier that morning, he had directed Stewart to march to Lewisburg by way of the Nashville Road, and that route would bring him down onto the enemy flank. Cleburne, supported by Bishop Polk, would hold the enemy front, while Stewart crossed the Duck River to come down hard on their left.
He was about to say more when musketry began to clatter to the east, beyond the tree-fringed banks of Big Rock Creek. As all eyes turned that way, some of the staff officers became visibly anxious, and the members of the different escort companies for the three generals began sidling over to place themselves between t
heir charges and the creek.
Lucius Polk muttered, “Something is happening with Govan’s flankers.” Then he barked “Lieutenant, see if General Govan isn’t doing something about that. If he isn’t, tell him to send more troops.”
A minute later, a solid wall of blue-clad cavalry clambered down into the creek and up over the low, sloping banks to emerge on the side, less than 100 yards from the road. Musketry continued to clatter and smack, as the escorts began firing at the Union horsemen, and those horsemen returned fire as they paused to form up.
Cleburne reacted instantly, dashing out into the space between the escorts and the enemy cavalry, jabbing at the Northerners with a map case. “Charge those devils! Charge, charge, charge at once!”
Called out of their surprise and amazement, the escorts awoke to the realization that the army’s commander and two of its senior generals were seconds away from capture. Almost as one entity, they spurred their horses forward and plunged headlong at a mass of Northerners who outnumbered them more than five to one, shrieking like demons as they went.
Cleburne then turned on his heels and shouted at Jackson. “Run, sir, run! You and any who are mounted! Run!”
Caught reaching for his pistol, Jackson stopped and said, “I will remain here and…”
Cleburne stepped forward and smacked the flank of Jackson’s horse, putting his whole shoulder behind the blow. The animal bolted, taking Jackson along with it, protesting and angrily struggling to assert control as he went.
Jackson yelled, “Stop! Stop!” in bursts as he hurtled across the field, faster than he had dared to go on any horse sense losing Little Sorrel at Chancellorsville more than a year before. Steady pressure on the reins finally cause the animal to slow, but before she stopped she tumbled into a muddy depression in the field.