The Shiloh Series: Books 1-3

by Phillip Bryant

  “You gwinter take charge o’ this one, Ben?” Auntie asked as Ben sat down.

  “Lawd, yes, I takes charge o’ Seth here,” Ben replied affably.

  “You see dat dis one gets to workin’ an’ doin’ stuff for his keep. No nigger gwinter jus’ sit on his fanny while I’se does all the work,” Auntie said, fixing Seth with a stern look.

  “You ignore ole Auntie,” Ben said with a slight nudge into Seth’s ribs. “She jus’ makin’ sure you not gettin’ lost. Ole Seth here carry lots o’ dem dead Rebs last night, an’ he be a good nigger to have aroun’.”

  “Wall, what can you do?” Auntie asked. “Chap’in Alex will want to know’d what he can do.”

  “I’se can read from de Good Book, I’se can sing hymns, an’ I’se can work,” Seth said proudly.

  “You can read?” Emma exclaimed. “You know’d how to teach to read?”

  “I’se growed up wif de Good Book. I can read it, but don’t read much else.”

  “You mean someone memorized you? You can’t really read, you jus’ know’d what is on de page fer de verse?” Auntie said.

  “We ain’t got many what can read; dat be a good thing to tell Chap’in Alex when he get here,” Ben said.

  “Jus’ not cause fer readin’ much else. I’se memorized de Good Book an’ knowed much of it,” Seth replied. Working on the paddle steamer, there was not much cause for knowing how to read, or even for reading the Good Book, and his fellows certainly didn’t keep him in much esteem for knowing how to read it. But these people did. If there was one thing he had gained from his former enslavement, it was that the Kearns plantation made it a point to keep their slaves in a state of moral knowledge. Knowing the Good Book and what it said was supposed to have kept them from stealing, from slothful work, and from fornication. It didn’t always have the desired result, but all of the slaves could read the Bible. Little else was given them to read. Knowing the Scriptures had held little use for Seth otherwise, even when free, save for when attending the African Methodist Episcopal church in Cincinnati. Seth was but one of the few who could read from the Scriptures and was of great help to the pastor there. He might be of great help again.

  ****

  Miles away, along the Chewallah road headed west, Van Dorn’s columns were deploying to protect the only bridge leading to safety for the vast supply trains that had to get across.

  “General, you will post your brigade as rear guard along the Chewallah until the army is well over the Crum’s Mill bridge,” General Lovell’s communication read. General Bowen read it with anger, still smarting from his inability to accomplish anything of importance the day before in the failed attempt to take Corinth. Now, as the baggage and trains of the army were making slow progress, the enemy wasn’t going to be idle.

  “Just because the brigade saw little action yesterday doesn’t mean we’re in any condition to halt an enemy push up this road,” Bowen stormed. He added, “Get Captain Jackson; I want him to draw any enemy cavalry that appears on the road to our position here. Maybe if we bloody the enemy’s nose, he’ll not push so boldly toward the bridge.”

  A short distance away Stephen and the rest of the 6th Mississippi were arranging themselves off of the road and lying down in the brush. There was little chatter from the line, the men too exhausted to feel much like talking. The last of the wagons had passed by minutes before, and the sounds of sharp skirmishing were nearing. All knew that cavalry would be the first to make their appearance, followed by infantry columns. The cavalry would find them, and then the infantry and artillery would smash them.

  If the enemy came in strength, the regiment and battery would be little use in stopping them. Arrayed off of the road in ambuscade, each man hoped that the enemy would not come in strength or that their own position would not be in peril.

  They didn’t have long to wait. Thundering down the road came Jackson’s horsemen, several troops’ worth flying as if routed and followed by horsemen in blue.

  The Mississippi sharpshooters rose up first and delivered a volley. They had arranged themselves in a scattered formation all along the roadside where they could open up first and then beat a hasty retreat, drawing the enemy closer to the other Mississippi regiments, the 15th and the 6th, arrayed on either side of the road in an inverse point. The battery had taken up position behind both regiments to deliver a volley of canister once the enemy drew close enough.

  The sharpshooters started emptying saddles, and the Union horsemen became disorganized. As they ran clear, another troop tried to round up the fleeing sharpshooters before running into the muzzles of the Watson battery, whose canister fire ranged over the heads of the 6th and 15th regiments lying prone. There was little else to do but rise up and deliver the coup de grace into the faces of the frightened horsemen.

  “Rise up!” came the shout, and Stephen stood, followed by the order to fire. More saddles were emptied and the cavalry withdrew, leaving behind a score of wounded men and horses. There was little to cheer about as the roadway cleared once more of the upright and all waited for the infantry to draw up, those who were expected to be marching behind Jackson’s cavalry screen.

  “That were lively,” commented Pops once the last cavalryman had scampered away, followed closely by Jackson’s revitalized horsemen.

  The wagons were still trundling along behind them, waiting their turn to cross the Crum’s Mill bridge over the Tuscumbia River. Being a rear guard to a movement was either full of excitement or full of boredom. At least if one was in the middle of the column, there was marching to take one’s mind off of problems.

  The soldiers of the 6th Mississippi relaxed and were put at ease, now arrayed in full battle lines contesting the road. The only thing to come next would be a fight to push them aside and gain the bridge for the enemy, or to rout step their way back to it and cross before destroying it.

  There had been coarse talk the evening before about the events of the last several days.

  “I heard he were drunk,” stated a man behind Stephen, the topic being General Van Dorn.

  “Drunk or no, he done used us up. Our own Colonel Bowen were heard to curse the man yesterday. He be the reason we standin’ here now an’ not in Corinth,” another man added.

  “This army be cursed. Beauregard, Van Dorn, Price—all of ‘em be idiots. When Johnston died at Shiloh, we lost,” Pops said bitterly. “The march back to Corinth in April and then the march out of Corinth in May, an’ now this? Makes a man want to just walk on home an’ ferget all about this war.”

  There were several silent nods. The army had known nothing but near victories and sad retreats since the year began. It had started before Shiloh, with the fall of Forts Donelson and Henry and the loss of Kentucky. And for all of this, they had not found another Johnston to regard as a man who would reverse the tide.

  Sharp sounds of fighting wafted in the breeze; by the echoes in the distance several miles away, something was going on to the west. It was nice and quiet here now, and the men waited for the inevitable call to attention.

  “A fight goin’ on thataway,” Earl said and jerked his head to the rear. “They can fight it out. Think I likes it here.”

  ****

  Eight miles away, covering a bridge across the Hatchie River, Maury’s division of Price’s army wearily shook itself out into battle formation, cursing Van Dorn all the while.

  Their hearts sank when they marched into the clearing leading up to the bridge. Arrayed on the opposite bank, sitting pretty upon several hilltops, were guns and Union men, waiting for the approach of their enemy and beckoning them to contest the crossing of the river. The wagon and supply trains had crossed or were crossing still at Crum’s Mill, but the army itself had taken the Chewallah road to cross at Davis Bridge. The Unionists had beaten them to the crossing. A Confederate cavalry troop had been holding it until the Yankees appeared and were now trying to make it hot for any Yankee who showed himself above the hilltops, but the enemy was clearly in charge now of
the critical west side of the bridge.

  “Van Dorn’s directed us to push across to the east side of the bridge and wrest control of the Metamora Heights from the enemy. The army is countermarching back to Crum’s Mill Bridge to cross there. We have to hold the enemy from crossing and crushing us between Rosecrans and Hurlbut’s forces; Hurlbut is what we got in front of us. They push down the Chewallah, we’ll get squeezed between them an’ destroyed.” General Moore was speaking rapidly. Already the sounds of skirmishing were ringing out from the east side of the bridge.

  Gathered around him were the tired and anxious faces of what was left of his brigade commanders. Michael stood and looked at the heights around the bridge crossing, feeling the weariness and anger. Woods and fields bordered the road, but several tall hills commanded it, and atop were the guns of the enemy, silent at the moment but ready to rain down death when the Confederates crossed to the opposite bank of the river. To accomplish the tall order they would march across the narrow defile of the bridge and then have to assault the heights beyond it. The fight was out of them; each regiment of the brigade could only muster several full companies’ worth, and though they had the guns of Bledsoe’s battery, the brigade was in little shape to push anyone off of any hill. Phifer’s brigade was marching behind them, and they were in little better shape to do much of anything. But this was not time to argue or protest the orders. The grumbling about Van Dorn was justified; this order only heaped more proof on the verdict.

  “Grierson, anchor the left flank and position to protect Bledsoe’s battery,” Moore was saying, shaking Michael out of his wonderment at the task of just crossing the bridge, swept as it would be by the enemy guns the moment they started to cross.

  Michael nodded, but the crossing would not be with many. The 2nd Texas was either dead on the field, wounded on the field, or hobbling over the other bridges with the huge train of ambulatory wounded. More had been left lying where they had collapsed on the Chewallah road in the retreat. He had sergeants commanding companies and companies that resembled squads of twelve to twenty men. The whole brigade should be somewhere other than charging across the Davis bridge in the face of the enemy.

  Leaving them to their own devices, General Moore returned the way he’d come and rode back down the Chewallah road to see to the turning about of the rest of the trains and hurry his scattered brigade; much distance had separated the van from the middle of his column of march. Phifer’s brigade was not going to augment their numbers in any significant manner, and though the enemy’s strength was a mystery, by the numbers of guns arrayed on the hills opposite, his numbers could be considered superior to their own.

  Since the 2nd Texas was in the van, it fell to Michael to form the lead and charge across the bridge first. As Michael fumed over the prospect and the order, he turned to behold the 2nd Texas. The men did not look like they relished the idea of making such a headlong thrust into the maw of the waiting guns, but it was just another day in the war, with yet another skirmish or engagement to add to their long list of engagements. Michael saw in their eyes a pleading to be discharged of this duty, furtive glances across the river forming the unspoken wish to be left alone. What was it his mother might have said? “For he that hath been given much, much will be expected. He that hath been given little, even what he has will be taken away.” Much was being expected. Too much.

  To his surviving company commanders, Michael quickly passed on the intent and then ordered the regiment forward at the double quick. No cheering, no shouts or battle cry animated their feet. Soon the sounds of boots clattering across the wooden Davis Bridge echoed about its beams as the enemy guns spewed canister and grapeshot toward them. A quick counting of noses told Michael once they gained the far end that no one had gone down. Behind them the 42nd Alabama crossed next, followed by the St. Louis battery and then the Arkansas and 25th Mississippi boys bringing up the rear.

  Wirt Adams’s cavalry had been on station earlier in the morning to guard the bridge with a battery of artillery, but even with the addition of Moore’s brigade, they looked pitifully small.

  Michael formed the 2nd Texas on the right side of the bridge and had the men lie down. The artillery batteries found convenient places to deploy, but the return fire from the enemy guns on the heights was already taking a toll. Looking up, the hills surrounding the bridge were not steep—mere mounds hardly deserving of the word height—but they were going to be the death of the 2nd Texas if they were to be taken. As soon as the brigade had deployed, the enemy infantry began popping up all over, banners flying and guns blazing, making any attempt to storm the high ground impractical even if they hadn’t suffered grievous losses the day before. Seeing the same predicament, the other regiments of the brigade likewise took cover to wait for the enemy infantry to close up.

  Soon General Moore returned as the true state of affairs become known. General Maury’s orders to the contrary, there would be no assaulting the hill. They would be lucky to buy even an hour’s time for the retreat to gain and cross the other bridges.

  “Adams says the enemy has at least a division trying to gain the bridge,” Michael shouted as Moore gathered his brigade commanders around him once more.

  “Sir, ain’t no one gonna take those hills,” Colonel Adams added, “not with the fire coming down from them. We might be able to stay, but already the Davis battery is running low on munitions and will have to pull back soon.” The cavalry had been taking the brunt of the beating up until then, maneuvering on foot and delaying the approach of the infantry, but once the enemy gathered themselves, there would be little else to do but fall back.

  “Keep the enemy busy; keep him from gaining the bridge as long as possible. The trains are being hurried along, and the enemy’s already made one attempt up the Tuscumbia road to get to the Crum’s Mill bridge. Phifer’s coming up now,” General Moore said as the fighting became general in front of them.

  Michael ran back to his little group, hardly to be called a regiment any longer. The enemy infantry was not yet in range, and the shot and shell whistling overhead were unnerving. Bledsoe’s battery was working on the guns on the heights, but the shells were landing so near that supporting the battery meant taking punishment just for being there. The gunners were working the pieces as efficiently as possible under the fire, but rounds were landing amidst the caisson teams and horses were falling. His practiced artillerist’s eye knew that the battery would have to pull back soon or lose all the guns to a determined rush. The life and death of his regiment now lay in his hands. Michael knelt behind this battle line, clutching his sword and scabbard. A symbol of command, today to be wielded for the fate of everyone and the brigade. One mistake, one wrong act of judgment might lead to further disaster.

  The Dawson battery was the first to leave, having shot its last, and was replaced by the McNally battery as Phifer’s battalions double-quick marched across the wooden bridge in time to have the enemy infantry march boldly toward the narrow causeway.

  “Rise up!” Michael shouted. The pitifully short line that Moore’s brigade formed was almost that of two full regiments of infantry, overlapped by the approach of a brigade-sized enemy force that would easily flank their right and that of the artillery.

  Letting loose a volley, the Texans commenced to trading blows with the approaching enemy infantry, the artillery shifting to firing what little canister there was left in the caissons and stopping the enemy advance, forcing them to retreat a few hundred yards.

  Hawkins’s 1st Texas legion was deployed on the left of the bridge in support of Dawson’s battery but was soon left out in the open when that battery limbered up and flew back across the Hatchie. Bledsoe’s battery too was now limbering up, and much to Michael’s chagrin, it fired its last rounds. A small copse of trees now intervened between the 2nd Texas and the open right flank. Bledsoe’s guns had covered it and somewhat beyond, but the gaping hole asked to be plugged.

  Michael shifted the 2nd Texas to cover the spot, moving by
the right oblique a few rods. Breathing a little easier now that he could see what was on their flank, he decided the movement was justified. Confronting them was a peaceful-looking cornfield on their far right, paralleling the Chewallah road and the hills in their front, cut by patches of thicket and wood that were giving the enemy room to marshal and form before moving forward once more. The peacefulness of the corn didn’t dissuade him that things were not as they appeared.

  Michael again ordered the 2nd Texas to lie down; having them stand and make targets for the gunners on the heights seemed folly. The retreat of Bledsoe and Dawson brought some relief from the incoming fire, but the enemy infantry made another push forward. With only one battery of artillery on the field, the stand was going to be brief.

  It was some minutes waiting for the enemy infantry to close up when Michael was startled to see a furious General Moore dashing up to where he stood behind his supine regiment.

  “You’ve opened a hole in the line!” Moore shouted, thrusting a gloved hand to his left to reveal an empty space of wood.

  “Bledsoe pulled out . . . was covering this flank, and this wood was blinding our view,” Michael replied, the blood rushing to his cheeks. The hole couldn’t be that wide, he thought to himself; The regiment can’t cover that wide a front!

  “So has all the artillery!” Moore said angrily. “Close up on the 25th again!” Moore rode off and back out of sight into the thicket. Stunned at the rebuke, Michael was about to give the order to left oblique to the rear when several banners danced through the corn in slow rhythm and came to an abrupt halt. The enemy had found the open right flank of their little force.

  A raking volley tore through the cornstalks and down their line, its unwelcome sound and breeze clipping leaves off of the trees in the thicket to their left and sending men to the ground in writhing pain.