General Bowen was beside himself. He had choice words reserved for Thornton of the 6th Mississippi for his lack of control, but he had even choicer words for those above him for bringing this whole thing on. All he could do at this moment was to ride ahead of the brigade and get behind Villepigue and try to stop the stampede before it caught on. His staff was in among the fugitives trying to locate sergeants and captains to collar their men into small, controllable groups so when they came in view of the new holding position, they wouldn’t spread the panic.
Stephen ran beside Pops with Earl somewhere behind. Nearby was Lieutenant Beeman of their company, as well as Corporal Crout. When your officer runs, you run. They were safely out of range of the enemy musketry, but having started the race, the only thing to do was to keep running. He’d never experienced a rout before, and something about it was thrilling. For a few brief moments they were on their own, each man to himself and his own protection. Though a few of the company officers were trying to grab men and slow them down, the majority were just going to keep running. The stampede had been going now at full tilt for five minutes, and slowly the pace of the mob was starting to taper off and more and more were starting to walk or jog to keep up; there was safety in being in the tightly packed men in the center of the road. Strung out now for most of a mile, the 6th Mississippi leaders were coming up on Villepigue’s position, taking advantage of a bend in the road; the left stretching out in neatly divided lanes of fields and fences; Villepigue’s regiments strung out as far as they dared.
The other regiments of Bowen’s brigade were marching past Villepigue’s formation and on down the road to find the next place to halt and wait. As if by some cue, the mob slowed to a stop, stopped by the effect of coming into view of their compatriots or just exhaustion, no one knew. It was just the right time and place to catch breath. Taking advantage of this, the company commanders started forming back into company line as men came up and halted, jostling for their places in the line. The companies were now even smaller, men still straggling down the road as best as their legs and will could carry them.
Ashamed but alive and still holding their weapons, the men of the 6th quietly fell into line as each commander took charge and led his men off the road and down it toward Crum’s Mill.
Stephen fell in next to Pops; Earl was nowhere to be seen. No one spoke. No one laughed or offered some quip as they passed the 33rd Mississippi of Villepigue’s brigade lined up on the right of the road. Still huffing and puffing, the men of the company marched by on unsteady legs. Behind them the enemy had slowed his pursuit, the flight having more legs than they could keep up with. Those who had given up the chase too soon were being scooped up by the enemy advance.
Safely behind the protection of the next roadblock, the 6th saw the return of organization and order as General Bowen led the remainder of the color guard to a spot off to the side of the road on the left where the regiment could collect itself and move as a unit once more. His face was red, and he sat his horse some distance away and looked at the Mississippians as if he wanted to have them all shot. They were now a pitiful few in number.
“That ever happen afore?” Stephen asked once the company was put at ease as they waited the other companies to come on line.
“No, never,” Pops replied. His own face was wet with sweat and his whiskers gleamed with little droplets of moisture.
“You think . . . you think we get punished?” Stephen asked.
“Bowen could furl our colors, or Colonel Thornton order it, shame us, but that about it. We probably done fightin’ today.”
The worst thing that could happen to a regiment was to lose their colors, a sign that they did not value their banner enough to prevent the enemy from capturing it. The second was to have the colors furled and kept that way until the regiment should redeem itself—marching about with the whole army noting that this regiment had done something to shame itself and the army. Yet, it felt good to have done something as an individual, even if it was something that would lead to a shaming of the regiment. They had all acted as independent men for a brief time.
A scattering of shots came to their ears. Not from the roadblock, but further to the right where the cavalry had been sent. They were by no means safe yet.
“Get your regiment to the rear,” General Bowen said curtly to Colonel Thornton. The conduct of the men reflected on the competency of their colonel, and despite the performance of Thornton to date, this would not go unnoticed in either report or record.
Thornton gave a crisp salute and then spun on his heels to face his regiment. The sounds of carbine fire echoed past, not sounding as distant as before, with the cadence of popping corn on the fire. Pop, pop, crack, and boom from an artillery piece. Thornton gave the order to renew the march, his face still burning red from the dressing down from General Bowen.
The retreat and Bowen’s tirade at Thornton didn’t matter at all to Stephen and his comrades; they were out of harm’s way and getting out of the way of the oncoming horde of blue bellies. General Bowen was not out of the thick of it yet. His command was falling apart, and as he rode alongside the 6th Mississippi, he was brooding himself, rewriting his letter of censure.
****
The 7th Tennessee had barely caught up to the enemy before all hell broke loose upon them. The 7th had tried to account for the multiplicity of lanes and farm roads that bled onto the Bone Yard road leading to the Crum’s Mill bridge so as to dissuade the enemy from having an open avenue to gain their rear, but it meant spreading the troops out in an arc covering the remaining four miles to the bridge. Fifty or sixty men to a troop were picketed as far as they could be stretched, but the enemy came booming with the force of a whole regiment. The Yankees quickly swung mounted troops across an open field of cotton. Breaking down the split-rail fencing, they formed into single lines that were going to be impossible to guard against as both flanks of Lieutenant Dunkle’s troop were hanging in the air.
“Mount up!” Dunkle shouted after a few shots were traded and the enemy began an advance. Troopers scrambled into saddles, and I Troop of the 7th Tennessee raced away down the dirt track. They were in among farmhouses, treed lanes barely wide enough for two riders abreast, rough cart tracks, and open and level fields of cotton and beans broken by the occasional creek bed or fence line. Miles of countryside like this, and none of it defensible. All they could do was fall back and pick another spot to block the approach to the main State Line road as long as possible.
Will Hunter now really wished he’d kept his curiosity in check. The dash and swing from the saddle into another position, hurriedly formed and using anything at all as an obstacle, was thrilling for a spell, but the flying lead was coming too close for comfort. Dunkle’s troopers were acting coolly and with no sense at all of panic; each time they stopped to offer some token resistance to the enemy, the men took to a knee and waited for the first riders to come into view before popping off at them. Their own ammunition was almost out again, after they’d found one of their remaining supply wagons with carbine rounds. They’d had time to each grab a handful before riding off. The men were being selective in who they shot at.
Will was in among them, acting more like a private than an officer. There was no chatter, just a grim wait. A row of farmhouses offered another place to deploy, and Dunkle ordered the men out of the saddles and spread out amidst the buildings and across the track. A long fence stretched down the lane the enemy was pushing across, and a fallow field stretching along the fence was growing with weeds. Facing the fence and field was a one-story house, more of a hovel really, and to the right of the house a barn, now bristling with carbines. Will settled himself along the dirt lane to wait. If the farmer and his family were in residence, they were hidden away. A few chickens clucked and pecked in the front of the house. The troop’s horses were gathered fifty yards down and away from the houses, readied for another dash and mount.
Will always found a spot that seemed to suit him, and in the process
of each stop had gotten a good look at each of Lieutenant Dunkle’s men. They were rough-looking troopers. A few boyish faces remained, boys still young enough that they were still trying to grow facial hair. The enemy had yet to really push them, knowing that the real prize lay behind the pesky 7th Tennessee. The enemy halted again, and dismounted skirmishers came forward, equal to the size of I Troop, and spread out in a long line that crossed the lane. They crossed into the adjoining fields and crept low in a crouch as if waiting for the first rounds to come.
The farm buildings were going to be their last stand; nothing lay between them and the Bone Yard road but more open field. They were patiently waiting to open up when the horse battery swung into view. Three guns, small caliber and light, and meant for cavalry raids, would simply destroy the buildings and the troop.
Will looked for Dunkle to see what he was going to do. They knew their mission: delay the enemy. But for how long was not clear, nor had they heard anything from the other troops in the 7th. The enemy could already have cut the road. Will would stay, do what he had set out to do. The artillery would be a nuisance, but as long as they kept their distance and stayed spread out, the guns would only make a lot of noise. But would Dunkle act to spare the farm and the buildings, or would he use them to keep the enemy at bay?
Will jogged over to the lieutenant.
“What?” Dunkle asked, annoyed.
“It ain’t my place, but what you gonna do?” Will asked.
“That battery’s gonna make it hot for us; they can just blow up these buildings an’ we got nuthin’ to hide behind.”
“Think that’s they plan,” Will said and watched as the battery finished its preparations for firing.
“We forced ‘em to go it slow this far; I ain’t gonna sacrifice the troop for a few moments more.”
“They get that battery on the road, they gonna cut off anyone still comin’ down it,” Will said.
“We had the rest of the regiment I’d put up a fight, but they’s gonna chew us up,” Dunkle replied.
The first salvo went high, landing behind the farmhouse but near to their horse picket.
“Damn, too close,” Will muttered.
The battery was out of carbine range, content to stay that way as the enemy skirmishers picked their way forward.
The troopers opened fire on the enemy skirmish line, sending them to the dirt. The next round flew through the barn, sitting on a patch of ground to the right of the house and fifty feet away. The solid shot blew through the top hayloft and spread wood, splinters, and hay in a cloud out the other side. The firing became brisk between the foes, and another round bounded over the farmhouse, missing the roof by inches, and sailed high into the air, coming to earth just beyond the horse picket.
“Move the picket,” Dunkle ordered, and it took a moment for Will to realize that he was ordering him.
Will ran the fifty yards to the men of the troop who were holding the reins of four horses each. “Move the picket back, further back!” Will yelled, waving. An open field lay before the farmhouse, and the horse picket was moved a further fifty yards. The troopers in the barn and in front of the house, kneeling along a fence line that stretched two hundred yards in front of a field of grass, would have a long haul to run, with the enemy nipping at their heels. Hay bales had been thrown from the hayloft in front of the barn and a crude barricade erected across the lane, and troopers were braving the fire to drag more bales to extend the line. It was then Will saw the horseman coming at a full gallop from the left.
Chapter 21
We Are Sacrificed
It happened swiftly. The little band of forty troopers, spread out as far as they dared to present a danger to any Yankee willing to be shot at, taking whatever cover they could find, found themselves sitting ducks for the impetuous charge.
Will watched as troopers were shot down while attempting to run as the enemy skirmishers enveloped those who were still in the barn and around it. It was over in a matter of seconds.
“Mount up!” Will cried to the ten troopers left of Troop I, standing dumbstruck and holding on to the troop’s mounts. “Forget the mounts, get in the saddle an’ ride!”
“Ride for the road!” Will shouted and waited for the others to mount and spur forward down the track. The mounted enemy were already nosing their way toward them as they noticed the little group who’d escaped their net.
Will kept a vigilant eye behind him as they sped down the track. The enemy troop was now at a gallop behind them. There would be no stopping to fire, and if the road wasn’t clear of the enemy, it was just as well that they attempt to bowl past whomever they encountered on the road. It was going to be every man for himself now.
The track opened into another farm whose rail fencing hemmed in each side, a narrow opening just enough for wagons that funneled the fugitives along. Another five hundred yards and the track spilled out onto the Bone Yard road, which was crowded with men!
A regiment or regiments of Confederates were marching in column past the opening lined with poplars, and it would be into this mob that he would go barreling with the enemy close behind. The leaders were already at the road and throwing the regiment into confusion.
Will drew his navy pistol and fired it into the air twice, hoping the report would shake some sense and warning into those trooping along on the road.
Stephen was the first to notice the horsemen barreling at them, a crowd of Rebel gray whipping their mounts furiously and intent on running over whoever might be in the way. He stopped instinctively, and the man behind him ran into his back with a curse. Then they all saw it. The first rider slowed just enough to turn his mount and kicked his horse savagely back into a gallop and then rushed back down the road. He was followed by another rider who didn’t slow enough to turn and nearly turned his mount into the backs of the file of men in front of Stephen. From there it was one after another pushing through the march column and down the road, unheeding any shouts at them. Then the shots sounded out, followed by one last rider.
“Lieutenant!” Stephen shouted as Will broke through the track opening and halted near the regiment.
“You boys brace yerselves, Yankees comin’!” Will yelled and wheeled his horse about. Those marching in front had moved on down the road, save for a few ranks who halted to see what was going on. Split in half, the 6th Mississippi was strung out along the roadway and going to offer poor resistance to the cavalry.
Moments of indecision followed. Will moved his horse out of the way and had an open road to charge down and make it to the bridge without further ado or impediment. Hearing the shots ring out, the company first sergeant halted the other half of the company and jogged up in time to see the Yankee cavalrymen come charging down the lane in a densely packed mob.
“You better receive ‘em or run,” Will said to the man as he opened his mouth to say something.
“Company, right face, form company!”
Will stood his horse behind the line of infantry trying to close up and wasting precious moments.
The companies marching behind Stephen’s also fronted and rushed to the fence line that ran along the roadway. The split-rail fencing offered some protection, and though not a solid wall, it would stop a round between the rails easily enough.
“Sergeant, stop messing around and prepare to fire!” Will ordered.
The man was wild-eyed, and though following his training, was about to allow the enemy horsemen to burst through the opening in the road without firing a shot at them. Before he could finish lining up his company, the other companies behind them fired a volley that ripped through the rail fencing along the lane, getting the attention of the horsemen. Splinters flew from the fence railing that shielded the Yankee cavalry from the worst of the fire. A few horses tumbled to the ground and caused a little confusion for those in front, but there was a long line of other horsemen behind them. Another volley ripped down the oblique from the next company in line.
“Form square!” the sergeant
called out.
Confused, Stephen and the men around him looked about at their sergeant and then at the horsemen mere moments away from charging into them at full tilt, the distance frighteningly few paces by horse gallop from them.
“Damnit!” Will shouted. “Just fire!”
Trained to obey an order, the company bent backwards on itself as the flanks refused their lines in double ranks to form a hollow square, the appropriate response to a cavalry charge in open country but not when the charge is being funneled down a lane and about to break upon you.
Stephen and Pops, in the front rank, knelt to one knee and waited the next order which didn’t come. Realizing he’d panicked and wasted more valuable moments, the first sergeant was still trying to form his company when the first of the enemy broke out of the lane and tried to slow their mounts down enough to make way for those behind. The other two companies at the fence to the left tried to fire another ragged volley, but the rounds tore into the fence instead of into Yankee flesh, and each company now had to contend with an enemy in its rear.
The next horseman behind the leaders didn’t bother to slow down but bowled over those in the front of Stephen’s company and sent men sprawling. The hapless first sergeant, in the center of the company square, was knocked backward, and those on the flanks of the square scattered to make way. Pistol shots rang out as the horsemen shot down any target that was still moving about, and the rest of the troop of cavalry, with sabers flashing in the waning sunlight, made after anyone in reach.
The commotion had attracted the attention of Colonel Thornton and General Bowen. They arrived in time to see a flurry of blue and horses where none should have been. With the 6th split in two and more Federal cavalrymen spilling onto the road, the three companies caught at the junction of the lane and the road dissolved into another run for cover and safety.
The Shiloh Series: Books 1-3 Page 106