The Shiloh Series: Books 1-3

by Phillip Bryant

  “These men were not expecting any,” Philip replied. “The column only had light protection, something we’d not expect to need in this area now.”

  “These men had made camp,” added Lieutenant Chapel. “Awful brazen of a raiding party this close to Corinth. Campfires over there tell me they was halted for a time at least.”

  “Could be them same people that tried to get into our camp,” Captain Wofford said, wondering.

  “To what end?” Philip asked. “We didn’t have any supplies worth killing like this for.”

  “They did,” Lieutenant Chapel said.

  Sergeant Preston approached the captain and saluted. “Sir, them niggers has their hands bound and throats cut, every one. Found another guard trussed like these two and stabbed.”

  Philip glanced over at Paul and his other two pards. Bushy and Pine were pale and visibly shaken. This was something no one expected to run across.

  “Blood; that’s what they was after, Captain. They wanted blood, any of our blood,” Philip said and knelt down by the man nearest the group. He had been an older man; his scraggy beard was turning gray in places. He was thin, as was any man who had made his way through this war on his feet. Red blotches stained his undershirt, and his mouth was puckered into a grimace, eyes tightly shut.

  “Bushwhackers, but most of them are in Missouri . . . Anderson and his lot of brigands don’t ride this far and have no need to. They don’t answer to any command. This is something new,” Captain Wofford said. “Sergeant, bury the dead an’ mark the graves as soldiers an’ contrabands. We’ll report this to the Provost in Corinth. We can’t take the bodies with us.”

  Philip pondered the field. There was anger and retribution here. Not even the enemy desecrated the Union dead. If these were the men they’d encountered last night, there were spies and worse roaming about passing themselves off as officers. All one had to claim was the name of a division or corps nearby, or a made-up regiment, and soldiers took each other at their word. What was there to lie about? This was a war where the enemy paraded about in the open and in organized formations. But the likes of Bloody Bill Anderson or Quantrell were fighting a different war off in Missouri and Kansas, the consequence of a decade of antislavery and proslavery blood feuds in a border state. Until now Philip had thought this was still civilized warfare. Observing this field said otherwise.

  They did not have anything to dig proper graves with. Several ax and shovel heads were found in the smoldering wreckage of the destroyed wagons, but a hole was not going to be dug with just a head. The nearest farm supplied the tools and the labor, pressed into service to the discomfiture of the inhabitants of the house. Their protests were met with icy stares, as these very men could have been the ones to do the deed under cover of night.

  Rattled, the company continued its march and reached the outer works of Corinth after a further hour’s march. The entrenchments were abandoned and falling into disrepair, facing the wrong way for further use. Deeply dug and protected, the enemy had waited behind them all that month of May for Halleck to attack them. Abatises still poked out of now grass-covered mounds of earth, and deep moats protected empty parapets and battery positions standing in mute neglect. Clouds of dust hung heavy above the city, and as they crossed through the former works and down the Pittsburg road, the activity about them was feverish. The gun batteries were being strengthened and built up, firing positions molded in the entrenchments that zigzagged from battery to battery forming right angles and areas of cross fire. Yet, despite the activity, there was no sense that it was enough. All the work said they might just hold out—might.

  Men with picks and shovels were being marched out through the town and to its outskirts. The headquarters were never hard to find in any city or area of army activity: just look for the cavalry troop picketed nearby and the gaggle of shoulder straps lounging on the porch. Captain Wofford halted the company and bade Lieutenant Chapel to follow. Philip was left to stand idly by while Sergeant Preston took charge of the company and put the men at rest. Hundreds of men were working on the batteries and crawling over the parapets and digging the ditch in front of each quadrangle-shaped emplacement just a little deeper, piling the sod up onto the earthworks. Supply wagons were in constant motion, and the shouts of the mule skinners added to the noise of the picks and shovels hewing into the dirt.

  To the fresh fish, it was all wonderment: the size of the army, the guns, the flags, the excited activity. The Union blue was all about them, and more officers than one cared to count. A short distance away, a locomotive stood steaming on the tracks of the Ohio and Memphis railroad crossing. But from the activity, it looked as if the expectation was for an attack at any moment, and the train, with a full head of steam, might be leaving any second. Unfortunately for the 21st, there was no rail line headed where they needed to be.

  It was a frustrated Wofford who came out of the house and motioned to Philip and Sergeant Preston to conference.

  “We can’t leave,” Wofford said with disgust. “General Grant has ordered the locomotive back to Florence, and there won’t be anything else coming this way. They expect Price and Van Dorn to attack tomorrow if they aren’t already on this side of the Hatchie River.”

  “What are we supposed to do?” Philip asked.

  “We’re to report to General Davies, who’s taking position on the outskirts of Corinth along the old Confederate works. But I have to say, they don’t know where the enemy is! Some have him still at Ripley, and others that he’s crossed the Hatchie and is about to knock on Corinth’s door. If the trains were running, we couldn’t get to Nashville; General Bragg is threatening the city, and Van Dorn has cut the Memphis and Charleston railroad so we can’t get to Nashville anyway. General Price has cut the Ohio, or is going to, so that locomotive is going back. We are stuck here. There was talk of an invasion of Maryland as well. The enemy is moving on all fronts.”

  Philip heard the news with a sinking feeling. Shiloh, the accidental victory, was going to be overshadowed by other events now rushing forward. The enemy was being beaten—at least, that was the way it had appeared no more than a month ago. But Iuka was hardly a grand achievement of arms, and it had not licked the Confederate Sterling Price. From the looks of the preparations, the forces in Corinth were preparing for a major contest—indeed, so was the whole country.

  Chapter 5

  Give the Devil His Due

  Stephen and Seth sat apart from the four men who remained behind of the group that had set out after dark to cause some mischief along the Yankee supply route from Pittsburg Landing. Will had gone along, telling Stephen to keep an eye on his stuff. He said it with a wink. Will hadn’t left anything behind but Seth. But Stephen had had his fill of these deserters. He was also having his fill of Hunter and his errand.

  Those left behind wore a mash of civilian and military dress, men who’d vanished from the Confederate army when it was still in Corinth and had just escaped into the swamps. They didn’t carry themselves like soldiers, and they had an air of villainy that Stephen did not like.

  “Why don’t you let yer nigger over here? My whippin’ arm ain’t had no practice fer a spell,” called one man, whose face and tunic were in a competition to be the dirtiest thing on him. He had a grin that flashed rotten teeth, a man who had lived most of his life on poor food and poor water.

  “You mind your own self,” Stephen replied crisply.

  “That lieutenant won’t be back till light; let us have some fun with his nigger. I need my clothes washed, an’ I’d be a high man with a manservant and ever’thing. You say his nigger done escaped? He could use a good tanning.”

  “He ain’t yours to do nuthing. Just go about your business,” Stephen snapped. He leaned toward Seth and whispered, “We slip out after they are asleep.”

  “Massah?” Seth asked, startled.

  “We get away from these brigands,” Stephen replied, again discreetly.

  Seth looked at Stephen, unsure if he was serious a
nd why was he saying this to him. Others in the camp had little regard for him at all, especially after they learned he was escaped. Hunter had let that slip or wanted the others to know. They all leered at him, and some of the roughest-looking of them were hoping to tan him if they had the chance. He would gladly get away. But after what had happened at the boat and the chase, it was folly to trust either man.

  “You hear?” Stephen asked again.

  “Yes, I’se hear,” Seth replied softly. “You done Seth wrong once, you do it agin.”

  “I didn’t like it, didn’t like it an’ told the lieutenant so. It was wrong,” Stephen replied.

  “But you did it,” Seth replied. Trust Stephen or let him go alone and be left at the mercy of these others—it was a tough sell.

  “Don’t blame you for not trusting me, but I’m going to get away from these people, an’ you can come along or not.” Stephen looked over at Seth. He had grown up around Negroes, saw them most every day in Carthage, Mississippi, but had not had one’s acquaintance in close quarters before. Now that Stephen did, he saw: the Negro was just a man.

  “When they’s asleep,” Stephen said one more time and then was silent. Hunter had been good for getting out of Ohio and for getting them this far, but falling in with these ruffians was more than he wanted to tolerate.

  Seth regarded Stephen closely, looking for any hint of mischief. It was possible Stephen intended to make him think he was free to escape only to trick him again. There was little to keep Seth from trusting Stephen—maybe he had been forced into it by the lieutenant—but little to recommend the risky choice of trusting a white man either. Still, a look over at the other men left in the camp was enough to decide the lesser of two evils.

  Seth nodded. It was already dark, and the men who remained were lounging around a fire and poking the coals with sticks and talking in low tones. Stephen and Seth sat some distance away, near their horses and out of the light.

  “Why you takes Seth along?” Seth asked.

  “Because I’m sorry for the part I played in getting you here. You can light out when we safely away. I’m going south to Carthage. You can go wherever you like. I’m not liking what the lieutenant is doing. I’ve nothing against you being free.”

  “You means you lets Seth go free?”

  Stephen turned to face the man. It was dark, and the blackness of the night contrasted with the dark complexion of the former slave. “If you can be free, you can take that on yourself again and you can be on your way. I’ll not stand in your way.”

  Seth nodded. He had little to lose in trying, and it was that or find himself soon back in Alabama and chains. He’d done it once before. He could make his way back to Ohio again and perhaps further north into Canada.

  “Good, now don’t sleep too soundly,” Stephen warned. “Soon as they asleep, we get up quietly and walk the horses out of here.”

  Stephen closed his eyes, but sleep mercifully did not come. This time it was his turn to lay pretending to sleep and wonder how much time had elapsed. Much had happened since Hunter had shaken him awake to slip out of that cavalry camp and to freedom. A lifetime ago. The sounds around the campfire twenty feet away fell off; the fire sputtered into silence, and then all that could be heard were the cicadas and snores. It was time to try.

  “Seth, get up slowly and make for our horses,” Stephen whispered as he lay still, not moving yet himself.

  “Yes,” Seth replied.

  A horse does nothing quietly, and though their horses were picketed away from the others, they were still making too much noise as Stephen and Seth led them, snuffling and whipping their manes as if anticipating the midnight errand.

  Seth held his breath, as if his breathing was that much louder than the heavy clopping of hooves on hard ground and his own footfalls. The men sleeping around the dead embers of their fire were still snoring loudly. Giving them a wide berth, with Stephen leading the way, Seth had made it to the road when he stopped suddenly and froze. None of the sleepers were stirring.

  “Listen!” Stephen whispered.

  The sound of riders and wagons from down the road grew louder with each passing moment. The raiders had returned.

  “Back, back!” Stephen said and turned his mount around.

  ****

  It was first light as Will Hunter collected his kit; a few hours of sleep was his only reward for the nocturnal errand. The marauders were about to relocate camp. The prize of the night before needed to be delivered to any Confederate willing to pay for the booty, and word was that Corinth would soon be back in friendly hands. At the time it had made sense to fall in with these locals as they knew the country and how to avoid the Federals, but their level of depredations were just going to lead to trouble.

  The leader of the group was a grizzled old veteran of the Mexican War with a taste for violence and blood; he was operating out of the swamps that made pursuit impossible in this country and preying on supply columns from Pittsburg Landing. It was more than just collecting booty for this man: it was killing any blueback he could get his hands on. Will had managed to dissuade him from pushing it with that group of infantry he’d wanted to set upon, but there was no holding him back when they found another supply wagon and escort lounging in the field. Will took his part in the game, for who were these but the enemy? But that was before he realized the full extent of the thirst for revenge animating Perkins and his sons.

  Will would have been content to see them all tied up and rendered powerless to resist, but that wasn’t enough. Perkins and his sons commenced to slitting throats and collecting souvenirs. If it wasn’t revenge the old man had on his mind, it was money. The Confederacy could pay for the haul if they wanted it or get their own.

  Getting Seth back to Alabama was going to be tricky. But if the reports were true, the country from Corinth on to Huntsville was soon to be clear of the Federals, and it would be but an easy ride to home.

  “Them Federals is holing up in Corinth; I reckon we run into someone from Price or Van Dorn’s army west of the Hatchie River or around Tuscumbia,” Patrick said. One of the elder Perkins’s lieutenants, with the last name of Michie, Patrick had been unable to go back to his family holdings after being suspected of the murder of several solitary Federal soldiers after Shiloh. He’d found a man after his own heart in Perkins.

  “You say the road is clear now?” the elder Perkins asked.

  “Yeah, but we going to have some trouble getting them wagons around Corinth,” Patrick replied. “The northern approaches ain’t as guarded, but they got patrols and pickets all over Bone Yard and Pittsburg Landing roads. We should burn what we can’t carry or just not risk it; they’s out lookin’ for us anyhow.”

  The elder Perkins pondered a moment, turning to one of the other of his boys. “You think you know how we can get to the Kossuth road without gettin’ too close to the town?”

  “Yes, Pap. Me an’ Johnny here been goin’ through the Boyd farm; he got some roads that connect with the Kossuth on the west side of town.”

  “What’s the big rush?” Will asked.

  “Money. Our side is close an’ will want these supplies. We won’t get a better chance than now,” the elder Perkins replied.

  “Seems an awful risk with a column this large—skirting enemy vedettes just on the gamble our army is going to be close enough to contact.”

  “I ain’t going to gamble that our army ain’t going to get pushed back for good this time an’ lose us the chance. We lettin’ you ride with us, just be glad o’ that.”

  Will shrugged and stayed his tongue. He didn’t know this area, but he’d not risk his skin or capture again. We’ll light out first chance, he thought to himself as the group of riders readied the wagons and teams. Two Federal commissary wagons and one full of munitions were readied, with some of the group dressed as Federal army drivers. With Seth tucked behind the reins of one of the teams, Will sat beside him after donning his cavalry kit. Stephen mounted his own horse and rode next to thei
r wagon. The others were hidden in the back of each wagon behind the canvas covering, presenting the picture of a supply column.

  To keep Seth from escaping, Will bound his ankles with a rope and kept an eye on him through each stop or spell for nature’s calling. The others, mean-looking men who’d seen too much and done worse in this backwoods of the war, were in deadly earnest in their errand. Will thought it foolish for some worthless Confederate scrip or promissory note that would mean little if the Federals weren’t forced out of Corinth. But the old man had his own purposes. Will wasn’t going to quibble.

  “Why you doin’ this?” Seth asked after some hours of slow going. They had left the Pittsburg road at the Boyd farm’s entrance and were snaking their way down barely visible farm tracks that led between fields and connected other farms into a network of interconnected arteries that dead-ended into numerous T intersections of other pathways.

  “What?” Will started and then blinked.

  “Goin’ all this trouble?” Seth said.

  “You got away. I didn’t get paid. I didn’t get you. That’s why.”

  “You’se got me.” Seth tried to smile.

  “That I did.” Will nodded and turned back to watching the slow progress of the teams.

  “Massah can let me go den.”

  Will grinned. “I han’t got paid fer bringing you in yet.”

  “You figger Massah Kearns gointer pay you?”

  “We had a contract; no term on the contract. Bringing you in’ll give my family some money to live on.”

  “You condemn Seth?”

  “What Mar’s Kearns do to you after I bring you in not my matter; you knew the risk when you ran off.”

  “You da hound, ain’t you?”

  “Hound? That what you niggers called me?” Will cocked his head a little and turned, blushing a little. He had a reputation with the slaves he’d never heard about.

  “Dat’s what some call dis white man what hunt fer runaways. Da hound.”

  “Can’t say as I agree with that name, but I’m probably he.”