The Shiloh Series: Books 1-3

by Phillip Bryant

  Will, still mounted, drew a bead on a Federal private who was just coming out of the lane. He fired his pistol, sending the man to the dirt and attracting the attention of several others who had just reined to a halt. There were arms and legs covering the ground where the front rank of the aborted box formation had once been, the men either killed or rendered incapable of rising. Will fired at another man and missed before he was accosted by a trooper with a saber slash. Blocking the blow, he fired at the man with his left hand, aiming across his own body in an awkward angle, thinking only to get himself extracted from the melee. The round struck the man in the shoulder, and he dropped his saber.

  Stephen’s company was scattering, some tussling with unhorsed troopers and others trying to drag cavalrymen out of their saddles. Stephen had rolled to the ground as the first of the horsemen broke into their formation and was trying to gain his feet when a trooper hacked at him with a brutal slash. The saber cut into his shoulder and missed his neck by a few inches, and he fell to his knees, the sudden pain buckling his legs and saving him from another slash.

  Will was now in the center of the melee as more horsemen emptied from the lane and darted to the right or the left to hack at the infantrymen running for it in both directions. Seeing Stephen go down, Will fired his last round at the trooper hacking at Stephen and knocked him from the saddle. Pushing his horse into the throng of soldiers and troopers grappling for control, Will nosed into the center of the action and reached down to pull Stephen up. There was little time to be gentle. He grabbed hold of Stephen’s cartridge strap and hauled him to a standing position.

  The blade had cut a gash into Stephen’s tunic, and though a glancing blow, had also landed on the thick leather strap of his cartridge box, almost cutting it in two. He was bleeding heavily, his once-gray tunic now spreading with a dark red blotch that crept down his useless left arm. Stephen, once up, almost buckled again as Will tried to keep him steady enough to give one more effort to get him on the back of the horse.

  “Get up, you’ll have to help!” Will shouted into Stephen’s face, a face that was fast draining of color.

  Dazed and numb with the pain from his shoulder, Stephen looked blankly at Will. There was nothing recognizable about the man or what he was saying. Braced against the flank of the horse and dangling from his cartridge box, Stephen watched the commotion around him and thought this must be what death was like—perhaps he even now was dead and didn’t realize it yet. Perhaps death had come long ago, and this was just the preamble to confirming it. There were men shouting and shooting, his pards pulling Yankee troopers from their horses and wrestling in the road with them, men on horses slashing at whatever lay in reach, Earl lying in a heap at his feet, blood burbling out of his mouth and down his cheeks. Pops was warding off a blow from a saber with his rifle before trying to thrust his bayonet into the man’s side. Lieutenant Beeman, coming too late to save the company from the hapless sergeant, was knocked down with a blow to his head. Horses were going down, bloodied by rounds taken in the ride down the lane and pinning helpless troopers beneath. Their first sergeant was brained by a vicious slice to the head and crumpled ingloriously to the road.

  “Stephen! Swing up!” Will shouted. If the man didn’t respond he would have to be left. The way down the road was open, but not for long if more cavalry appeared.

  Stephen turned and realized what it was that was happening. He tried to turn, his feet trampling Earl beneath. He tried to lift his left arm, and new spasms of pain racked his left side. He nearly buckled once again, only Will’s grip on the cartridge sling keeping him upright.

  “Give me yore right hand; damnit boy, get up!” Will yelled.

  Will grabbed Stephen’s weakly offered right arm and swung as hard as he could, Stephen offering little of his own power, managing to get him off of his feet enough and half of him leveraged onto the back of the horse to get moving. Pops gave Stephen a shove that righted his weight onto the horse and slapped the back of the animal.

  “Get him away!” Pops yelled.

  Will gave a quick nod and spurred out of the group of infantry and horsemen. He broke into the roadway, clutching hard to Stephen to keep him on and setting the horse to moving as fast as he dared.

  The forward elements of the 6th Mississippi were being formed across the road, corralling fugitives and forming to take on the cavalry. Will passed them by with little concern for what was happening. The bridge was close; there were still plenty of detached infantry in little groups running for the salvation offered across the river.

  “Lieutenant,” Stephen moaned and tried to swing his good arm around Will’s waist to steady himself.

  “We get to the other side of the river an’ we can halt an’ get you to the surgeons,” Will replied over his shoulder.

  “Take me home,” Stephen said, his face pressed against Will’s back. “Want to go . . . home.”

  “We get you looked at first,” Will said. The bridge was still crowded with infantry. Those fleeing the action up the road had slowed to a walking pace and were staggering along; those with wounds from the fighting the day before were trying their last ounces of strength to reach the other side and were more ghosts than men. Will threaded the needle of a path around the walking wounded. Hundreds more had collapsed on the other side of the road and were just lying to rest or had already expired, their corpses lying where they may. The field hospitals would still be miles away, and the ambulances would be full of those already wounded.

  “We get you to rest some then push on, find where the army is headed and get you . . .”

  “Take me home, sir.”

  Will could feel the blood soaking into his back and knew that Stephen wouldn’t even make a two-day journey without some assistance. There were men being bandaged up in a field a little ways from the bridge, and Will headed for them. These were the walking wounded whose bandages were blood soaked or needing fresh attention; safely out of the way of the enemy, the men were gathering like animals to a water source. Combing the grounds were a few surgeons and hospital stewards lending what aid they could, but real help was an impossibility in the current location. Yet the men gathered, looking for something even if it was just a fresh bandage.

  Will got Stephen down and draped his good arm over his shoulder, lowering him to a spot on the ground where he could get Stephen’s traps off and look at his shoulder. There would be no stitching up of wounds or dispensing of laudanum or other painkillers, not even whiskey for the delirious wounded. The ground was littered with discarded and maggot-infested bandages, and the stewards were doing what they could to clean wounds and get new bandages on them. Will helped himself to some clean cloth and water from his canteen to wash the wound. It was deep and had cut to the collarbone and down Stephen’s chest. Other than getting the bleeding to stop, there was little else anyone could do. Stephen sat with his eyes closed and head down, breathing in short, raspy draughts.

  A stream of infantry in march column tramped over the bridge, the soldiers of Villepigue’s brigade looking weary and glad to be finally on this side of the river. They still had miles to march, miles to cover before anyone would feel secure in having gotten away from the closing trap. Will packed Stephen’s wound with bandages but had to conclude that if he rode with him on the horse, he would not make it very far. The wound was ugly and long, still bleeding, and was going to need a thorough cleaning, something he could not give it. Worse, Stephen was looking pale. The loss of blood was going to be his worst enemy.

  Carthage, Mississippi, was further south than Will wanted to be right now. He was doubtful that Stephen would survive through the remainder of the day.

  “You ain’t gonna make it that far, Murdoch.” Will broke the silence, in answer to Stephen’s pleading look.

  The army was retreating back to Ripley, Mississippi, south along the Pocahontas Ripley road.

  “I shouldn’t even move you,” Will continued. “That wound gonna be the death of you if I take you. You might be
better off with the Yankees than headed down this road any further.”

  “I can make it,” Stephen said weakly.

  “Not clinging to the back of my horse, you ain’t. You be dead before we get to Ripley.”

  Stephen’s head lolled to his chest. He was too weak to keep it up. It slid to his chest every so often, and he’d jerk it back up.

  “You get me home, sir? Please?” Stephen said through heavy breaths that sounded like gurgles.

  Will sighed. It was an impossibility to carry Stephen that far when he should be lying in a bed for the next several weeks and not moved at all.

  Stephen lifted his head in another jerk and looked Will in the eye. His eyes drooped, and his lips were tinged red, blood coming up with each breath now. “Don’t want to die a prisoner again.”

  “You ain’t gonna live long headed down this road, neither. I get you to Ripley, and they probably a hospital set up fer our wounded there. You make it that far, you can get home soon after. I ain’t gonna drag you dead to Carthage.”

  Stephen didn’t want to move at all, but getting further away from the enemy seemed the the logical best thing, closer to home if not home. Nodding weakly, Stephen tried to get up from his seated position but could not bear the searing pain from his left shoulder.

  Will shook his head; there was little hope that Stephen would make it even to the back of the horse. “You’d better ride in one of these ambulances if I can find space.”

  “You come?” Stephen replied stiffly.

  “I come,” Will replied and tried to fake a smile.

  The ambulances that were parked in the field were full of wounded already, and anything that could carry a supine man was stacked full. There were several dead being unloaded from a wagon that had just crossed the bridge, laid shoulder to shoulder at the field’s edge.

  “Need to load up a pard of mine,” Will said to the two men unloading the deceased from their wagon.

  “He dead already,” one of them said as he looked over at Stephen.

  “I didn’t make myself clear. You will load him up,” Will snapped.

  The exhausted steward looked at Will blankly. “This for gettin’ the slightly wounded to Ripley. We not carryin’ the dead.”

  The man wasn’t backing down. Will thought about drawing his pistol and threatening the two men, but something in their faces told him that he would have to shoot them before they complied; they were beyond giving a damn.

  Will walked back over to Stephen and helped him to his feet. “C’mon Murdoch, we get you to Ripley.”

  Getting Stephen onto the back of the horse was a chore and one that nearly brought Stephen to his last breath, as the hoisting and twisting caused him to black out and nearly fall off the other side. Once on and secured, the boy slept or passed in and out of consciousness. Behind them, as Will guided the horse into the stream of foot and wheeled traffic along the Pocahontas road, the bridge was set afire. The air filled with the odor of char. Anyone still on the other side was going to stay there for a while, the crossing of the Tuscumbia River being picketed by tired remnants of Van Dorn’s army.

  The tide of humanity wasn’t going to rest as evening fell upon the road. The way forward was clearly marked by the presence of soldiers too tired to keep up, and the fields along the way were lit by small fires as men dropped to the ground to catch a little warmth or make coffee. Straggling was in evidence everywhere. Was anyone still with their command?

  ****

  Michael released his charges to make camp and reluctantly made his way to find where Colonel Moore was making his HQ. The returns he’d collected were not encouraging, the loss and reduction of the regiment an apt reflection of the enormity of the defeat of the attempt to take Corinth. Over half of the regiment, the two hundred and thirty souls who had taken the march from Ripley four days ago, were absent this evening. Many of them might make their way back in the days to come; or in the months to come, home from wounds or illness or repatriated after capture and parole. The once-mighty 2nd Texas Volunteers were a skeleton of their former glory.

  Images of that damned fortification, the Yankees being run over until they in turn were doing the overpowering, flitted through his mind as he located his benefactor sitting forlornly under a tree.

  “Colonel?” Michael whispered, afraid that the man was asleep.

  “Grierson, you can give your returns to Captain Sturgis,” Moore said, weariness bringing his normal energetic cadence to a crawl.

  “Yes sir,” Michael said and started to turn.

  “How are your men?”

  “Troubled, sir. They did their duty and paid for that battery with their dearest blood, but they wonder . . . did the whole army? Some unkind words for both Generals Price and Van Dorn have been uttered.”

  Michael knelt down as Moore stayed sitting with his back to the tree.

  “That’s what I’ve heard from the other brigade commanders, more so against Van Dorn’s army than ours. You will take up line of march, get your men up by three-thirty o’clock behind Phifer’s brigade, taking the lead of the brigade. Van Dorn’s columns are behind us. Post camp guards, but no other detail is necessary.”

  “Sounds fine, sir.” Michael stood and saluted. Moore was unusually depressed, not something that one wanted to see in a superior officer.

  Cook fires dotted the fields and spread out as far as Michael could see. He found Wyrich sitting by a fire tended by several enlisted men who were absently poking at the coals with sticks, waiting for coffee to boil in soot-covered cups. It was just another end of a day in the war, another defeat at the hands of the enemy or the bungling of their own generals. It didn’t matter who was to blame; the soldiers had done what they were expected to do.

  “Have your men up by three o’clock to cook breakfast and be ready to march by four,” Michael said to Wyrich.

  “Ripley?”

  “Seems that way.”

  “You think you’ll stay in command?”

  “For now.” Michael had not consciously aspired to high command when he volunteered; it just kept happening. The feeling of petty jealousy with Rogers in command wouldn’t be missed, but aspiring to a thing and getting it always felt different. “Too soon to talk about promotion or whatnot.”

  “The regiment could do worse,” Wyrich said.

  “Probably do better, and Ashbel still has his commission,” Michael replied with mock deference. It was his turn to command by rank and his burden to bear regardless.

  “The men liked Rogers, trusted him. They also liked Moore an’ trusted him. I think they like an’ respect you. It isn’t their choice, but it goes for a way if they trust you. These next days is going to be a struggle. Men already talkin’ about up an’ marching back to Texas,” Wyrich said.

  “Can’t do that, they know that.” Michael looked to the three privates seated around the fire listening.

  “No, sir, they can’t, but they’s feelin’ the urge to light out all the same, put some distance between them and these sorry excuses for generals,” one of the privates said.

  “Did the general really look that worn?” Wyrich asked Michael.

  “Didn’t even stand up or salute. He just watched his brigade get butchered an’ almost captured today. Can’t say I blame him.”

  Wyrich nodded and stared into the fire. “It were a close thing. No one turned the white feather, but it were a close thing today.”

  He was acting colonel for the time being. Would the men of the 2nd Texas respect him in the same vein as Rogers or Moore? Michael would have to find out in the days to come.

  ****

  Dawn found Will Hunter still on the road. The journey had been long and he’d slept some in the saddle and at times even found himself and Stephen alone as his mount kept up a fitful path. He woke whenever the beast decided it was time to stop and wander the roadside absently. Stephen pressed against his back heavily, his arms dangling at times. The army was headed in the right direction for Stephen but in the opposite
for himself. There was little he could do for the boy but try to leave him in the best of care. As daylight broke, the spires of Ripley’s churches broke the horizon, and he found himself in the company of a troop of cavalry making their way along the same route. They ignored him for the most part, and he let them pass.

  The outskirts of the town were littered with camp equipage and the telltale signs that an army had once been this way. As Will entered the town proper, ambulances and wagons had already discharged their loads along a broad wooden boardwalk in front of a school, and that is where Will headed. By the light of torches and bonfires wounded were already being laid out and awaiting amputation, the ghastly wounds from two days before already looking infected and gangrenous.

  Will helped Stephen from the back of the saddle, but the boy only presented a limp, dead weight. Men were lying side by side where they had been laid, along the wood planking lining the storefronts and along the grass between buildings and in the dust of the roadside, some having been there for several days by the look of their persons and the filth they lay in.

  Will found a spot to set Stephen down, resting his head in the grass as gently as he could. It was not a lonely spot, crowded by the suffering and the dead. Infantryman trudged by singly or in pairs, paying little heed to the wounded or dead at their feet as they kicked up dust, some even unceremoniously kicking the extended feet of those who’d already passed on. Those wounded still clinging to life suffered the accidental jostling by the living as best they could.

  Stephen lay as if laid out for his final review, dirty and bloodied hands set across his chest and mouth slightly agape. Will had seen plenty of men die, but Stephen’s quiet, almost contented features sent Will back to the day as a child when he’d seen his first corpse—Abigail Hunter after she’d drowned. It was the same peaked and quiet expression. Perhaps it was the same innocence or goodness in his sister and in Murdoch that created the angelic expression of peace. Will sighed, a weary exhalation as he stared at the pale features.