The Shiloh Series: Books 1-3

by Phillip Bryant

  General Bowen, hearing the cannon and looking behind him as the last of the wagons were moving down the road, breathed a sigh of relief. They would make one more stand, and then they could cross the bridge and destroy it. One last stand, one volley, and then one more mile to go. The enemy had already tried to get behind them, but the cavalry had stopped each attempt. The roads cut across like tentacles all over this countryside, but having been here before, he’d made sure that the cavalry had picketed each one he knew of to keep the enemy from cutting behind him.

  Stephen Murdoch leaned on his musket and breathed deeply. There was a sense of finality in that one last flurry of firing at the enemy and then a quick march down the road to safety. The casualties had been light, the enemy more interested in forcing the issue than attempting to destroy, but as they drew closer to the bridge the aim would change, from trying to brush the Confederates aside to taking and preserving the bridge so the pursuit could go on. With the brigades spread out to either side of the road, covering the flanks in the trees and across open fields, General Bowen had leapfrogged from one point in the road to another, and for several hours now they had alternately run or stood panting and waiting. The brief fight at the Davis bridge had become a blur of stand, fire, and run. Now they were at their last ebb and out of cover. The right and left of the road were devoid of trees and open into fields of cotton and corn. The cornstalks were already cut, leaving nothing to hide in, and with another mile to cover to the Crum’s Mill bridge, this stand was going to be their last.

  “Check yer tins, boys,” Pops said as the 6th Mississippi drew up in line of battle off the side of the road. Anchored on McNally’s battery, which stood defiantly in the middle, they would either feel secure or become targets of every battery the enemy put on the field to face them. “If you got extra, pass ‘em around.”

  Stephen thrust his hand past the heavy leather flap of his cartridge box and felt the first, then the second tin. A few paper objects met his fingers, four in all. He’d already taken the reserve rounds from the bottom container, a space meant to hold a packaged set of ten cartridges and twelve caps. The upper tins were meant to hold the loose cartridges. Stephen shook his head. “Got four left is all.”

  Earl looked blankly about. “Got one left.”

  There would be no time to go off and find more; the wagons holding the brigade ammunition were out of sight down the roadway. Already calls for more ammo were ringing out, and the company first sergeants meandered down the double lines checking boxes and handing out extras. This would be their last stand whether they meant it or not: two or three rounds at the most could be fired by the regiment, and then it would be the cold steel of the bayonet or nothing.

  Stephen thought wistfully of home once more. Thoughts of home always seemed to come to him at the most inopportune times. When he was driven by hunger out in the Ohio woods trying to make that last effort to get away, like now, it was of the dinner table that he had thought. Home and supper with his family, that was where his mind wandered as they stood and waited for the first of the enemy to come down the road and deploy to face them.

  “Bet you wish you’d jus’ kept goin’ to Carthage, right?” Pops asked Stephen.

  “Yeah, be eatin’ supper ‘bout now.” Stephen straightened up, his breath coming more evenly now.

  “Many o’ the boys been thinkin’ that; no one’s deserted to do it. Jus’ thought ‘bout it.”

  “Like to see ‘em, my family, that is. Hope we don’t get too close, or we be fightin’ in our backyard,” Stephen replied, hit with the thought that if the army continued to retreat, they might find themselves near enough to home to put families and loved ones in danger.

  “Not likely, nothin’ of import down that ways. Corinth were always the prize. But we been marchin’ all around home jus’ a day’s walk away fer months. Close enough to smell the food.”

  That old tug on his heart returned—duty and honor or just walk home and hope that no one found him. Home had motivated his feet in the escape from Camp Chase, and now he wanted to just slip away once they were across the bridge and go home for some brief moments of blissful ignorance about what was happening in the war. But many who had taken their feet up on the offer to slip away were already in the ground—caught, tried, and shot for their efforts. No one was getting leave to visit relations even if they were in the next county; officers and men were at their posts, and all longing for one brief visit home.

  The enemy, first his cavalry and then his infantry and artillery, drew down the road and into view. He had all the room to maneuver now, and but for the delay of having to re-form for battle might have just crashed through them had he cared nothing for the slaughter. The waiting was over.

  Colonel Jackson of the cavalry arm approached General Bowen and Villepigue as the two conferenced on what they were going to do to hold out for a few moments more and how they were going to get away themselves.

  “Sir, my men are out of rounds. We got one more volley in us, and then we got nothing,” Jackson blurted as he dropped his salute.

  “Bring your regiments up on the road; hold the center behind the artillery and infantry. We’ll keep you mobile, and you can threaten either flank of the enemy. I want him to deploy and see where we can move you. You’ll have to give them the cold steel of your sabers. You’ll hold the center when we pull the artillery and infantry back,” General Bowen ordered and then looked at Villepigue for consent.

  “I’m not going to sacrifice my men needlessly, General. My orders were to aid in delaying the enemy, not throw them needlessly away,” Jackson replied, a look of skepticism in his eyes.

  Bowen flushed, then balled his hands into fists before releasing them slowly. Jackson’s cavalry were under Van Dorn’s direction, not his. They had played their part up until now in drawing the enemy down the road. But it was now coming down to every command for itself. If the enemy made a move on their flanks or up the center, the cavalry were going to turn tail and head for the bridge.

  He spoke evenly. “Colonel, I need your horsemen to hold the enemy at bay while we turn about; I need you to stay in the center of the line long enough for my brigade to break off and move to the rear. I ask you to force the enemy to keep deployed while we make down the road for the bridge. My orders, Colonel, are to destroy the bridge once we’ve crossed it. You just make sure you come along.”Bowen was a general and Jackson was a colonel. But Jackson was following Van Dorn’s orders and under Van Dorn’s command. Van Dorn’s directives trumped Bowen’s wishes. All that was left was to appeal to Jackson’s sense of duty and common cause.

  He did not fault Jackson for the sentiment. Things were falling apart, and only a fool would rely on Van Dorn’s judgment right now.

  “We force ‘em to spread out on the wings, then draw them in before they are set, an’ the center the last to withdraw,” Villepigue said. “Jackson’s cavalry holds in the center; keep Toleando’s battery planted in the roadway. Withdraw by regiment and leapfrog from there to the bridge. We keep the enemy moving by line of battle and slow him down by successive fronts.”

  “We got your brigade on the left; you draw yours in first and then down the road and re-form. It’ll be a running fight for you.” Bowen looked at Jackson. “Their cavalry aren’t going to be idle.”

  “If they smell we’re in a panic, they’ll rush forward an’ bag the whole lot of us.” Jackson added, “We don’t have anything to keep them from doing that, an’ a saber charge into muskets isn’t what I’m going to order, General.”

  “Once they deploy, we need to move back,” Villepigue broke in with a look toward the gathering host, whose columns stretched in one long line down the road and were now spreading out in the open fields in line of battle, skirmishers picking their way forward toward their own thin lines.

  “You swing your brigade down the road and I’ll move my reserve to the left, but you double quick and prepare to receive the enemy further down the road or we’ll all be in chains before ni
ghtfall,” General Bowen said sternly. He was beginning to rue the day he’d ever come under the command of Lovell and Van Dorn. His Mississippians were executing orders that they knew were going to lead to some disaster but were doing it anyway.

  “Very well, General Bowen. We will leapfrog at the double quick. Carsten, pull the Appeal battery back down the road. Jackson, can you cover my front on the left?” Villepigue asked.

  “Yes, but I won’t stay long enough for them to make targets of my troopers,” Jackson replied and rode off to his command.

  “We almost out of this,” Bowen said to Villepigue as the latter started off to oversee the withdrawal of his regiments.

  The enemy had to know the game the Confederates were playing was about up.

  “We ain’t gonna stand here, is we?” Earl was asking as the soldiers stood awestruck as the enemy continued to fan out to either side of the road, a distance of perhaps a thousand yards separating the combatants. An artillery shot could easily reach them at that distance, and the enemy batteries were just rolling in. Their own guns stood silent, mute. Ammunition was far behind them and might even now be across the river. The rounds they carried in their limbers and caissons were all they had to forestall the enemy for a few moments more.

  “They pull us back; let the Yanks form up an’ then pull us back,” Pops replied. The longer they stood there, that plan became more and more a question of “If so, then when?” There were easily an equal number of rifles now upon the field facing them, walking menacingly toward them, and double that upon the roadway snaking toward them in the distance. The cloud of dust lazily wafting above the road said there were many more coming.

  “Looky, Villepigue is moving off,” Stephen said. Across the road, the first regiments were rushing into march column and hotfooting it away.

  “See,” Pops said, breathing a sigh of relief himself.

  Then one of the cannon barked, sending shock waves through the ground and vibrating their clothing. The shell landed too far behind the enemy battery they were aiming for. The gunners scrambled to load up as the enemy battery let loose a fusillade of fire from four guns, the rounds landing more accurately around the Toleando battery and near enough to the 6th Mississippi to shower the leftmost company with dirt and other debris.

  The enemy infantry were still out of musket reach, but the dueling between the batteries would be enough to cause death and destruction on its own.

  Will Hunter winced as the rounds fell around the battery in the roadway, close enough to almost see the iron rounds before they plunged into the earth. Throughout all of the excitement he’d forgotten about Seth and about getting on with his triumphant return to the 1st Alabama. Instead he was with a troop of men who were looking worried but making no moves to get the hell out of there before the enemy came down like a hammer.

  Colonel Jackson ordered the 7th Tennessee to deploy to the left of the road and draw sabers. Startled, Will looked about and almost laughed. Three hundred troopers against what, several thousand Yankees? Breaking off into column of fours, the troop glided past the infantry of Villepigue as they double-quick marched past and onto the road.

  “Seems they got the right idea,” Will quipped to Dunkle.

  “Don’t like this; I tole Colonel Jackson we was out of ammo,” Dunkle replied.

  The 7th cavalry moved off down the road ahead of the scrambling infantry. The enemy had the advantage of numbers, but the 7th Tennessee had the advantage of holding the road and the path to freedom, as long as the enemy didn’t already have someone moving behind them.

  “I’m all fer a saber charge, but not into infantry, not that many infantry,” Will replied. Sabers and pistols were all they had left to wield. The shock of a cavalry charge could still be used regardless of the odds, but the odds were not good, and the faces of the Tennesseans showed it.

  “There, see that?” Dunkle pointed off into the distance as the columns were ordered into lines of troops. A cloud of dust clearly showed above the trees beyond the open fields where they were drawn up.

  “They got cavalry headed round our flank,” Will said. “They gonna have someone behind us soon.” The path down the road looked more inviting now. He was not attached to the 7th Tennessee and could easily turn around and bid farewell to Dunkle and his troopers. All it would take, though, was one man headed to the rear to spark a panic that would never be stopped until the last man was across the bridge or the bridge was in enemy hands, two things that would easily happen if the whole command fell apart.

  “Don’t like paradin’ around like we’s going to do somethin’ an’ make targets of ourselves in the process,” Dunkle quipped as the troop fronted and drew sabers. The wide open field would make a nice picture of a cavalry charge, level and with few obstacles. A fence line separated two fields. The enemy batteries were busy sending long shots arching over their heads, but their infantry had halted, waiting to see if the cavalry was actually going to be foolhardy enough to come charging across.

  It was also clear that the Confederate infantry were moving to the rear as another battery limbered up and took to the road, slipping in between the infantry columns of Villepigue. On the other side of the road, the infantry was still probing forward, and the 6th Mississippi was reluctantly waiting. Eyes kept going back to the road in unconscious longing to be out of this spot, waiting for the order to retire. Toleando’s battery finally cut loose a few rounds into the advancing infantry to give them warning, and the ground fairly shook.

  Bowen’s infantry had one or two volleys’ worth in them, then it would be a slaughter if the enemy drew close. There was bluff in the standing and being ready, daring the threat that the enemy be in earnest if they were to come close enough to exchange fire. Even their skirmishers were silent, not wanting to waste precious rounds unless they had a sure target.

  “Get Jackson’s troopers down the road,” Bowen ordered. General Villepigue gave a parting nod as he and his staff followed the last regiment of his brigade down the State Line road. “He needs to block their cavalry from getting into our rear.”

  “Sir, once they see the cavalry leave, they’ll sweep down on us certain,” Lieutenant Carsten said as General Bowen studied the dust rising off to their left with concern. “Move the 6th Mississippi at the double quick, and the 15th Mississippi will hold until the battery is limbered and follow behind. Their cavalry’s all on our left flank; their infantry won’t be able to close if we move now.”

  Colonel Thornton ran down the rear of the 6th Mississippi line, shouting orders to his company commanders, the activity at least relieving the minds of Stephen and his fellows that they were about to be doing something, hopefully move. But instead of marching to the rear, the colors were trooped forward!

  Stepping off on trembling legs, Stephen marched into the maw of the beast instead of away from it. The 6th Mississippi advanced while the other regiments of the brigade peeled off and down the road, followed finally by Toleando’s battery, leaving the 6th alone. The cavalry had already begun quitting the far left flank and were filing down the road.

  Will noted the colors of the 6th move forward. He didn’t know where Stephen was in the line of battle, but he wondered if this wasn’t the last time he’d see those colors.

  The same thought rattled Stephen’s own mind. Making a sudden left oblique, the regiment marched toward the roadway and then halted. Any attempt to rush behind the retreat would have to bowl over the 6th Mississippi to do it. Already the enemy battalions were re-forming and moving back to the road from the adjoining fields. The left and rightmost companies of the 6th were advanced as skirmishers and waited impatiently for something to happen when the enemy line advanced once more. The longer they waited, the harder it would be to retreat without having to mix it up with the enemy. It was guesswork: how long to stand in the road and how long it would take to recall the skirmish line and re-form for a running retreat without a panic dissolving all control.

  The enemy decided it for them. From the
left and the right, his advanced regiments broke into the double quick to close up the six hundred yards that still separated the foes. They were well within musket distance now, hoping to capture the lone regiment. The 6th’s skirmishers opened fire, and bodies fell to earth, but the charge was so sudden that the skirmish line had opportunity to fire only once before having to turn tail and fall back in on the regiment. A volley would halt the enemy’s progress but kill their own men scrambling to return.

  “Shit!” Pops cried. Standing there at shoulder arms, watching the enemy approach but doing nothing, was the final straw. The charge, impetuous and with clear intent, was more than men could swallow. It began, the trickle and then the rout. Without firing a shot, the 6th Mississippi broke into a mob and down the road, officers and all, followed by the now-breathless skirmish company and then by the jubilant enemy, finally closed to within easy shooting distance, sending a parting volley into the backs of the hindmost.

  Stephen just turned and ran when the man next to him did. They ran in a crowd of soldiers, the fastest outpacing the slowest and the exhausted streaming down the road in a wild gallop of boots on the hard-packed road. Men were shouting, officers were trying to get in ahead of the front runners to slow down the stampede, others were grimly trying to hold on to loose and bouncing equipment and straps to ease their stride. The parting shots whistled overhead.

  The way was open now down the State Line road, and the lead battalions of the enemy were already quick marching to close up with the retreating 6th Mississippi. Stephen was in a crowd of fleeing men, clustered and funneled down the roadway and compacted in a mass. The soldier’s life is regimented around acting as a whole: the squad lines up in a particular order, the company changes front in a particular way, the regiment volley fires or masses its effect on order. A mass of men can only be moved about the field in formations slowly and under control. Remove that control and the mass formation becomes a mob, and the mob acts on instinct instead of control. Now that mob was every man for himself.