Never Call Retreat - Civil War 03

by Newt Gingrich; William R Forstchen

  Never had he seen such carnage, and all joy of battle, all enthusiasm, was purged out of him. Barely a step could be taken without tripping over a body.

  It started two hundred yards back from the ford, clusters of men dropped by rebel artillery, then lines of them down by the crossing itself. He had finally waded the stream on horseback and just below the crossing the slow-moving water was tinted pink from the dozens of bodies that had drifted down from the crossing and then snagged on rocks or broken tree limbs, cut down by the incessant fire.

  At the first Confederate entrenchment the ground was churned up, muddy, from the deadly hand-to-hand fighting, bodies and wounded intermingled.

  Slowly he moved up the long, deadly four-hundred-yard slope to the farmhouse. Over half the men of his First Division carpeted the ground. In places it looked as if they were a line of battle down on the ground, just resting, having been cut down by terrifying volleys that had dropped up to a hundred at a time.

  He rode on, the air overhead a constant hum of mimes, spent canister, and shrieking shells fired high.

  He stopped by the farmhouse, stunned by what was before him. He had missed Shiloh, but had often heard stories of the absolute destruction around the Hornets Nest. This, he realized, must far transcend it.

  The ground for several dozen acres was nothing but churned up dirt and mud, the result of Hunt's morning barrage. Nearly thirty destroyed guns littered the slope, some collapsed down on one wheel, others overturned, others with entire crews and horses from the limber team dead.

  But it was the infantry fight here that had been truly horrific. On the one side it had been men of Early's command, tough veterans; on his side were three divisions, and they had fought it out toe to toe. He actually had to dismount to weave his way through the carnage. Dozens of stretcher-bearer teams, some of them Confederates with white strips of cloth tied around their sleeves or hatbands, were gingerly picking their way through the chaos, pulling men out, rolling them over, making a quick judgment, picking some up, leaving others behind.

  He had ordered up the corps ambulances, the few that had pressed ahead after the forced march of the infantry two days before. These were parked at the bottom of the slope, loading up, and then splashing across the ford to the hospital area.

  The roar of battle ahead was a continual thunder. He pushed forward through a constant stream of men staggering to the rear. Most were walking wounded, men hobbling along, two comrades, one with a shattered left leg, another with a broken right leg, with arms wrapped around each other, moving slowly. A man, stripped to the waist, dirty, lank hair hanging to his shoulders, a bullet hole in his stomach, came back, waving a leafy branch, eyes glazed, hysterically chanting the refrain from the "Battle Hymn." "Glory, glory, hallelujah ... glory, glory hallelujah ..."

  "Edward!"

  He saw Grant riding up, cigar clenched firmly in his mouth, gingerly maneuvering Cincinnatus through the piled-up bodies and then corning forward..

  Exhausted, Ord did not bother to salute.

  "How goes it?"

  "How goes it, sir?" Edward asked. His normally high-pitched voice was near to warbling. Unable to contain himself, he pointed across the slopes to McCausland Farm.

  "That's my corps there," he said.

  "What's ahead?"

  "Not sure. I know we shattered a division, Jubal Early. Tore them apart once we gained the farm. Reports say that a reserve division ahead, not yet identified, but supposedly Beauregard's, is blocking our advance. Also, the guns not destroyed by Hunt are still over there."

  Grant did not need to be told. He could hear their thunder, shot that missed the ranks ahead skimming overhead.

  "General, there's no further purpose to this advance," Ord announced. "My corps is fought out."

  "Tell your men to stop, to pull back to here, form a salient around the ford."

  "Thank you, sir."

  Ord saluted, bowed his head, and rode forward.

  Near McCausland Farm 5:30 PM.

  The gunfire beyond McCausland Farm was rippling down, slowing in volume and pace. Lee rode along the line, watching as Beauregard's men slowly pushed forward, the Yankees giving ground. What had once been a cornfield was now as flat as the one at Sharpsburg. Every stalk cut down, the ripening corn replaced by a grim harvest of blue and gray.

  In a significant way, this fight had indeed been like Sharpsburg and the cornfield. Charge and countercharge had swept the field repeatedly until all semblance of order, of meaning too, perhaps even why they were fighting for this ground, was forgotten. It had simply devolved into a murder match by both sides.

  Jubal Early was limping across the field toward him, and for once even this tough old fighter seemed shaken.

  "My boys," Jubal said, coming to Lee's side and looking up. "Sir, my boys. That's my entire division out there." He gestured across the cornfield toward the farm.

  Lee could not reply, leaned down, patted him on the shoulder, and turned back to ride to his headquarters.

  If this was the way Grant intended to fight it out, it was time to turn the tables.

  Sergeant Hazner slipped back down in his trench. In the last few minutes it just seemed that a terrible exhaustion had set in oh both sides. Almost all firing had ceased. Colonel Brown crept past, patting men on the shoulder, telling them to stand down, to clean their weapons, and watering parties would be formed. Hazner was not at all surprised when Brown called on him to form that detail.

  He looked around at his men. The regiment had not taken too many casualties this day, twenty dead and wounded, more dead than wounded actually, mostly head shots, and one section of men knocked down when a shell detonated directly above their trench.

  The blockhouse, just to their-right, had been a favorite target of sharpshooters all day, its front and flank absolutely shredded by hundreds of bullets.

  "Man could take that thing down and open a blacksmith shop with what he found in that wood," someone quipped, but no one laughed; they were all too damn tired and thirsty.

  Hazner pointed to a dozen men.

  "Get canteens," he said, voice so hoarse he could barely speak.

  The men spread out, bent double, moving down the entrenchment, picking up canteens as they moved. Hazner ventured to stand up, taking off his cap, peeking over the lip of the trench.

  What a damned nightmare, he thought What little vegetation there had been in front of his position, clear down to the river, was beaten to pulp. The tops of trees along the riverbank were shredded. The Yankee entrenchments on the far side were again becoming visible, the smoke from the long day's fusillade starting to lift on a building westerly breeze. At the edge of the railroad cut, held by the Yankees, he saw stretcher teams, bent low, climbing out the back of the position and sprinting up the slope to the rear. The understanding that both sides had always held fire for stretcher details continued to hold; no shots were deliberately aimed at them, but random shots could still take them out, and more than one man carrying a stretcher suddenly collapsed.

  The more aggressive on both sides began to resume fire now that the smoke was clearing enough to see the other side, and Hazner ducked down after one round zipped by a bit too closely.

  The water detail gathered around him, men with ten, fifteen canteens slung around their necks.

  "Let's go," Hazner said. He led the way down the trench. They passed through the next regiment to the left, the entrenchment curving back to the southwest, following the bend of the hill. Their dead were piled out on the far side of their stronghold, the bottom of the trench carpeted with tens of thousands of pieces of paper, torn cartridges. The men looked as if they had come from a minstrel show, faces blackened by smoke and powder, rivulets of sweat streaking their faces.

  "Fired a hundred fifty rounds, I did," he heard one of them boasting wearily. "Know for sure I got three of 'em. Boy, what a shooting gallery we had today."

  Even as he spoke the man rubbed his shoulder.

  He passed through anothe
r regiment and then another and then finally the trench just ended. Directly below was the railroad track leading to the bridge, but they were now a good four hundred yards back from the front.

  "Be careful there," said a sergeant posted at the end of the entrenchment. "They got a few real good shooters over there."

  Hazner nodded his thanks, took a deep breath, and climbed out of the trench and slid down the slope to the railroad track. Men were scurrying back and forth, bent on the same duty, carrying canteens for Scales's Division posted up on the slope looking down on the center of the line.

  Long-distance harassing fire was indeed coming from the railroad cut on the other side of the Monocacy, nothing accurate, but an unaimed ball at six hundred yards could kill just as quickly as an aimed one.

  "Come on, boys," Hazner said, and he slid down off the track and into an open field. A mill was directly before him, at least what was left of it, the building having caught fire during the day. Behind the mill was a small pond, all but concealed in the drifted banks of smoke. In spite of his exhaustion he ran down to it. Scores of men were lying along the bank around the pond, and he slipped down between two of them, the man to his left a Yankee, but he didn't care.

  Brushing the water back with his hand he stuck his head in, delighting in the tepid water, and drank deeply.

  "Ah, thank God," he whispered. Splashing water up over his neck, he was half-tempted to just take off his cartridge box and jump in.

  "Ah, Sergeant, maybe we better go someplace else," one of his men said softly, tugging him on the shoulder.

  "Why?"

  "Most of these boys is dead."

  Hazner half-sat up, looked at the Yankee lying next to him, head buried in the water, and shook him.

  The man's head turned slightly and Hazner recoiled with horror. He had no face, the jawbone and nose completely blown off. He had been drinking right next to him, only inches away.

  Before he quite realized what he was doing, Hazner got to his knees, bent double, and vomited.

  Gasping, he leaned over, ashamed of the fact that he had vomited on the dead soldier.

  "It's all right there, Sergeant," one of his men said. He looked up. It was young Lieutenant Hurt, the boy he had braced up before the assault on Fort Stephens. Hurt put his hand out and pulled Hazner up to his feet.

  "We thought you seen it," Hurt said, and he pointed to bodies around the small pond, not just on the banks but floating in the middle of it, one of the bodies having jammed in the millwheel. The water was actually tinted pink. Some of the men were still alive, but so weak that after having collapsed into the water they were now drowning.

  Hurt ordered the detail to drop canteens and pull the poor wretches out. The men set to work, some of the wounded so badly injured that as they were pulled out they screamed with pain, one of them a man scorched black from the waist up.

  Hazner, still in shock, said nothing.

  The men, having finished their task of pulling the drowning back, were not sure what to do next. Hurt looked at Hazner, as if expecting the experienced sergeant major to resume control.

  "Nothing we can do for these boys now," Hurt said. "I'll tell Colonel Brown when we get back and he can get Scales to send ambulances down."

  He said it loud, as if offering an excuse to the injured and the dying around them.

  "Come on, boys. Let's get above the pond."

  Hazner picked up a dozen of the canteens and said nothing, following along woodenly. They reached the ground above the pond, and all along the banks of the stream hundreds of men were at work at the same task, so that by the time Hurt found a spot for the men to start filling, there was barely a trickle of water.

  After twenty minutes the last of the canteens was filled, and Hurt motioned for them to start heading back. Hazner brought up the rear, the detachment crossing over the railroad tracks up the slope and tumbling into the trench. Moving down the line Hazner just walked along tall, while his comrades moved bent double until they reached their regiment

  Hazner leaned against the side of the trench, still standing, saying nothing as the men around him greedily took canteens, tilted their heads back, and drank deeply.

  "Sergeant?"

  He focused his gaze. It was Colonel Brown. "Yes, sir."

  "Maybe you should get down, Sergeant."

  "Sir." Hazner looked around, suddenly aware that he was still standing erect, his men gazing up at him. He slid down to the bottom of the trench.

  "Lieutenant Hurt told me what happened back there, Sergeant. How are you?"

  "Me, sir?" Hazner said, forcing a smile. "Just fine, sir. Just fine."

  Brown patted him on the shoulder and crept off, calling for the men to save a little water to pour down their barrels so they could swab their guns clean.

  Someone offered Hazner a canteen. He tried to drink the water, but to his utter shame, seconds later, he vomited it up.

  No one spoke.

  Can I ever drink a drop of water again without seeing him? he wondered.

  Hauling Ferry 6:30 P.M.

  Jim thought he knew what labor was, but the long years of life in the White House, the formal protocol, the softly spoken and ever-so-polite conversations, even between the servants, had never quite braced him for this.

  For hours he had stood out in the sun, until someone, surprisingly, a young white officer, had brought over a chair and pointed out that an awning had been set up for him, complete with desk.

  He had gladly taken this position, along with the offer of a half dozen colored men who were fairly well dressed, most of them clerks who said they could write with a good hand, and were now his staff.

  The makeshift bedsheet banner WASHINGTON COLORED VOLUNTEERS hung limp from one side of the awning, now fluttering slightly with the evening breeze that carried with it the scent of rain.

  Thus he had worked through the day, struggling to keep things organized. As ordered by the general, he had first assigned fifty men, largely chosen at random, to be captains, told them to pick ten sergeants each, and then for the sergeants to pick ten men as workers.

  Within an hour that had all but threatened to fall apart as some men started coming in complaining, declaring their captain was drunk, or they would be damned if they would take orders from a dockyard roustabout while they had actually taught school or owned a barbershop.

  At first he tried to reason with them, but within minutes was overwhelmed, until finally one of Winfield's staff officers settled the bombardment of complaints with a drawn pistol fired into the air. That had silenced the gathering crowd.

  "Either take orders or get the hell out," the officer had said, pointing back to the towpath.

  Several dozen, to Jim's shame, actually threw down their tools and walked off.

  "Best to be rid of them anyhow," the officer had said. "Every unit has its whiners and malingerers."

  Before leaving, the officer had hesitated, handed the revolver over to Jim, and told him to feel free to use it if need be, and no questions asked.

  He actually had threatened to use it twice. Once on a "sergeant" who was dragged in after beating the hell out of his captain, the second time, on of all things, a white corporal, drunk, who came up and started taunting Jim and the men in the cookhouse, saying he'd be damned if he'd ever fight alongside of "goddamn niggers."

  After so many years' experience in the White House, dealing with all kinds of guests, some of them downright hateful of the colored race, Jim at first tried to speak quietly and politely in reply, until the drunken corporal, with the. foulest of oaths, raised a foot, slapped it into Jim's lap, and ordered him to polish his shoe.

  The startled corporal was greeted with the revolver, cocked and aimed straight into his face.

  "You son of a bitch," Jim snapped, amazed at the words coming out of him, but no longer caring. "Now kindly remove your foot from my lap. President Lincoln would never have done anything like this, and I sure as hell will not take it from trash like you."

/>   Jim shouted for a white officer, and then started to shake, not sure of the reaction that was about to unfold over a black man waving a pistol at a white man, as the officer came running up.

  When Jim told the officer what happened, there were a nervous few seconds, the corporal swearing that "no nigger is gonna talk to me like that," even though the cocked revolver was still aimed at his face.

  The officer, grinning, then drew his own revolver and suggested that the corporal "comply with Mr. Bartlett's orders," placing an emphasis on the word "mister."

  The world was indeed changing this day, Jim realized.

  The corporal and the black "sergeant" were "bucked and gagged," the object of ridicule by all who passed. That support from the white officer seemed to have settled things down significantly, and there was little backtalk to Jim as he checked off work schedules, reassigned some men who obviously were not working out as leaders, and detailed off new crews to work as men continued to swarm in throughout the day.

  So many were now at work that Jim had assigned his six assistants to be "colonels," each responsible for fifteen work crews, and yet still more were coming in.

  Surprisingly, in the last several hours, the chaos had given way to a fair semblance of order. Crews worked four hours on, then were given an hour off to go down to the makeshift cookhouse, where salt pork, hardtack, and coffee were being served out. There were few plates or cups available, the men passing around a bucket with the hot coffee, taking the hot slabs of salt pork, slapping them onto pieces of hardtack, and wolfing them down, then lying down in the shade until called back to work.

  At mid-aftemoon he was offered a horse. A Yankee cavalry trooper came leading an old swaybacked nag.

  "She ain't much, sir," the trooper said, "but me and the boys figure that with you in command it was only proper you should have a horse. We took her from a nearby farm."

  Jim smiled with delight, especially over two facts. One that the young trooper had called him sir. The other was the fact that this was not some sad foolish prank to humiliate him; it was a dead-serious gesture of thanks and respect.

  He gladly took the horse, though he would never admit it had been years since he had been astride one.