And There I’ll Be a Soldier

by Johnny D. Boggs

  “Ready!” Sergeant Rutherford yelled.

  “Hold your fire!” came a panicked cry from the trees, and Ryan saw the white flag. A hatless bluecoat stepped forward. The handkerchief was tied to the barrel of another Yank’s rifle. “Hold your fire!” the Union sergeant repeated. He led about a dozen men through the trees.

  Rutherford repeated the Yank’s request. Ryan took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled.

  “All right!” Lowering his rifle barrel, Matt Bryson raced over toward the surrendering Yanks. “I’m five hundred dollars richer, have killed two dozen Yankees …”—the number had risen, and Matt Bryson hadn’t fired a shot since stopping at the Federal camp—“and now I’m about to capture a passel of birdies.”

  The Yankees halted.

  “Ready!” the hatless sergeant yelled.

  Ryan rose. His heart pounded. To his left, he heard Sergeant Rutherford say: “What the …?”

  “Aim!” The Yanks raised their weapons. Even the one with the white flag tied to its barrel.

  Matt Bryson slid to a stop, lowered his gun, and turned around to find Sergeant Rutherford. His face puzzled, Matt opened his mouth as if to ask a question. Two other Second Texas boys who were running to take the prisoners also halted. One began to aim his shotgun.

  “Fire!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  April 6, 1862

  Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee

  “Fill your canteens, boys! Some of you will be in hell before night, and you’ll need water!”

  Caleb almost stopped. He didn’t know who had shouted those words, but it reminded him that his canteen remained inside the tent.

  “Forget it!” Boone Masterson said, reading Caleb’s mind. He tossed Caleb one of the roasting chickens, while shoving two into his pockets. “In case you get hungry.”

  The juicy chicken hit Caleb’s coat, fell into the leaves. He started to pick it up, but Sergeant Masterson kept screaming, so Caleb, his rifle feeling as if it weighed a ton, followed Boone Masterson and the rest of Company C.

  “We just finished eating,” complained a private from the Sixty-First Illinois.

  “Don’t gripe to me,” Seb Woolard shot back. “We ain’t even et yet!”

  They formed a haphazard line behind stumps, felled rotting logs, and thick brush just north of the cleared field of a farmer named Spain. Where the Eighteenth had paraded, drilled, and lined up for Colonel Miller’s inspections, where they had listened to General Grant speak flapdoodle about winning the war, and General Sherman tell them how the Rebels dared to “trample our glorious flag,” and General Prentiss say it would be his honor to lead “you stalwart Missourians against those louts of the South.”

  Finding a thick oak stump, Seb Woolard squatted behind it, using the jagged top to steady his Harpers Ferry musket. He had pilfered the musket back in Platte County, replacing that $11 monstrosity he had bought off that peddler in Laclede.

  Everyone else remained standing.

  Behind them, cannon roared, sounding as if the artillery had moved down the Eastern Corinth Road near where Caleb had slept just last night. Where he had been about to eat a filling Sunday breakfast. Captain Clark came jogging over, hurriedly scribbling something in a small booklet. Finished, he stuck the booklet in his vest pocket, and put the pencil over his left ear.

  “Colonel Miller!” It was Prentiss galloping back. The general jerked savagely on the reins, and his horse almost stumbled in the thick mud. “Your deployment is unacceptable to me, sir.” He pointed. “Take your regiment there. The enemy shall be attacking from that direction.”

  “Yes, sir!” The colonel snapped a salute, although Caleb knew from Madison Miller’s face that he did not care much for the general’s decision.

  Without returning the salute, General Prentiss galloped off, and the Eighteenth was moving again.

  “By thunder,” Seb Woolard said, “this ain’t no way to fight a war. We had good cover with all those stumps and things.”

  “That’s the way a bandit would fight,” Folker said.

  “Or bushwhackers,” someone agreed.

  Said Folker: “We’re soldiers.”

  “Yeah.” Woolard shouldered his musket. “And a bunch of us is about to become dead soldiers.”

  Captain Clark directed the company, and Caleb and others fell into line as the regiment formed an L facing south and west. Over toward Spain’s field, a bunch of Cincinnati artillery boys were unlimbering their cannon. The Sixteenth Wisconsin began forming on the other side of the road.

  Caleb saw a bunch of Federals from Michigan scurrying around like ants. The commander stopped tucking in his shirt and said: “Colonel Miller! I am Colonel John M. Oliver, sir, of Monroe County. We have been directed to form to your left.”

  “Well, hop to it, Colonel. Rebs will be upon us at any minute.”

  “But, Colonel. We have not been issued ammunition.”

  Miller’s mouth dropped. Cannon boomed.

  “Just form your line, Colonel Oliver. Stand at order arms.” He shrugged. “I guess.”

  What else could those Wolverines do?

  Caleb heard the Michigan soldiers running behind him, and could picture their faces, ashen, eyes wide—much like his own.

  “Company A ready!”

  “Company B ready!”

  Captain Clark: “Company E ready!”

  Other company commanders’ calls ran up and down the line.

  The Ohio artillery blasted again.

  The Eighteenth Missouri stood, waiting. A minute. Two. Three. Although it felt like hours.

  “There,” someone whispered. No, not someone. Dully Caleb realized he had spoken. Out of the trees and brush on both sides of the road, Confederate guns glistened in the sunlight. Behind the woods, visible above the tree line, a sea of gray and light brown covered the hilly slopes.

  “Heavenly Father,” Boone Masterson said, “there can’t be that many … not in the whole South.”

  “Stand ready!” Captain Clark said, but his voice cracked. “Remember you are the Eighteenth Missouri!”

  Skirmishers had stepped onto the road, into the fields. Gray smoke lifted from their barrels, and a moment later Caleb heard the sounds of musket fire. Something buzzed over his head. Someone groaned.

  “I told you we never should have left those stumps!” Seb Woolard’s high-pitched wail.

  “Shut up, Woolard!” Sergeant Masterson raised his hand.

  A musket boomed.

  “Hold your fire, Boone! All of you, on my command!”

  Something struck Caleb’s chest. His knees buckled. His right hand released his rifle, clasped his ribs at the third brass button of his tunic. Sinking to his knees, he jammed the butt of the rifle on the ground to keep from pitching forward. No pain. He turned his hand over, pushed himself up, looked at the dark lead ball lying on his lifeline.

  “It’s spent,” Folker said, laughing. “Boy, you’re one lucky bas—”

  Thud!

  Folker let out a gasp as if sucking in all the air around him. Blood pulsed from his chest like water from an artesian well. His musket dropped into the mud, and he fell backward.

  “Fire!” Weapons thundered, but Caleb hadn’t heard Masterson’s orders. He had just pushed himself back to his feet, just escaped from death. He fell back, let the line behind him step ahead. Blinking, he looked down, his eyes meeting Folker’s, only Folker’s did not blink, did not see.

  “Fire!”

  The pungent smell of gunpowder stung his nostrils, his eyes. He moved back into position, started to prime his rifle, only to realize that he still hadn’t pulled a trigger.

  “Ready-aim-fire!” Sergeant Masterson’s orders ran together as one word.

  Caleb felt the rifle slam against his shoulder. The mass of gray-clad men in front of him disappeared in a haze of s
teaming gray smoke. He fell back.

  The Rebs answered with their own volley. Men pitched forward, fell backward. One turned, dropping his rifle, and ran.

  Caleb had stepped back. He poured powder down the barrel, seated a ball with his ramrod, heard the second line’s cannonade, filled the flash pan, was stepping back into place. He fired. Again. Slowly he realized the Missourians had moved to the southern side of Spain’s field. He didn’t know how much time had passed since he had fired his first shot, didn’t know where Folker’s body was. His tongue tasted like gunpowder. His eyes teared from smoke.

  Reaching for another ball, he stopped and stared. In horror, he sought out Harold Masterson. “Hey, Sergeant!” Masterson’s head was bleeding around his left temple. “I’m out of ammunition!”

  “Look around you, Caleb! The dead can’t shoot!”

  He knelt, found a cartridge box on a soldier’s body. Dropping his rifle, the long rifle his father had given him when he went off to join Jacob Clark’s militia, he had to pry the musket from the dead soldier’s grip. This was better. He could fire this musket faster than his flintlock. Caleb made a mistake. He looked at the dead man’s face.

  “Boone?” he called out, but Boone Masterson could not answer. Briefly Caleb’s eyes found one of the roasted chickens sticking out of a pocket, and a wild thought raced through his mind. Poor Boone … never got to eat his breakfast.

  Bile rose in his throat, but he jerked the weapon free from Boone’s viselike grip, picked up the cartridge belt, and then heard the screams from hell.

  Shrieking Rebels in gray and butternut charged from the brush on the right, bayonets flashing in the sunlight, bayonets slashing.

  Sergeant Masterson swore. “They’ve flanked us!”

  A ball tore off Caleb’s hat. Kneeling, he fired, thought he saw a Secesh pitch forward. More cries from behind him, and Caleb whirled, half expecting to see a horde of demons in gray come killing, but it wasn’t the Rebs. It was those Wolverines, charging out to meet the enemy, armed with empty muskets but bayonets.

  Caleb was up, too, reversing the grip on Boone Masterson’s musket, grabbing the barrel still hot from a murderous rate of fire, swinging. The stock crushed a bearded graycoat’s skull, and the momentum carried Caleb into the mud. He pushed himself up, spitting out gobs of muck, saw a revolver sticking in the waistband of the man he had just killed.

  I’ve killed a man.

  He blocked out that thought. His right hand gripped the revolver’s butt, jerked. Backing up, pushing himself to his feet, he thumbed back the hammer, aimed, pulled the trigger. The pistol bucked in his hand. He stepped back. Fired again. The revolver roared.

  “Fall back! Fall back! We will reassemble at camp!”

  Someone raced past Caleb, almost knocking him down. Caleb pulled the trigger, felt no kick, heard no shot, realized the percussion cap had misfired.

  “Come on, Caleb!” Sergeant Masterson stopped, turned Caleb around, shoved him.

  Caleb ran. He thought he could run all the way to the Tennessee River, swim across it, then keep running. In fact, some soldiers kept running, with no intention of stopping, but Caleb recognized the knocked-over rotisseries, a few chickens burning in the flames, the skillet, the Dutch oven. Smoke sizzled from the ashes of one fire pit. A bullet had pierced the coffee pot, and the fire was out. He was back at his camp.

  “Take cover!” Captain Clark shouted. “Fire at will!”

  “Now you’re talking.” That had to be Seb Woolard.

  Caleb dropped near a hickory stump. A wave of gray and brown swept across the field. The Ohio battery blasted. Bodies, blood, and mud flew skyward. He still held the pistol, cocked it, fired. This time, it worked, but he knew the Rebs were out of range for a handgun. That, however, did not stop him from shooting again.

  Cannon roared once more. He kept pulling the trigger, realizing that the pistol was empty, and had been for a long time. He flung the gun in the direction of the Rebs, turned, ran seven or eight yards, and pulled the Springfield off a dead Illinoisan’s body. Grabbed the cartridge box, too, hurried back to the stump.

  The Springfield was still loaded, even capped. Caleb pulled back the hammer, aimed, fired. As he reloaded, he realized that the gray line had stopped. Another cannon ball blasted in the mud. For a moment he heard nothing, just concentrated on securing the ramrod, capping the nipple. Finally words reached his ears.

  “They’ve stopped. We’ve stopped those vermin!”

  Shouts. Cheers.

  “Where’s Sergeant Downey?”

  “Come back. Don’t run. Boys, you’re the Sixty-First Illinois!”

  “Caleb, have you seen Boone?”

  Turning, Caleb saw Sergeant Masterson, his head still bleeding. “Boone?” he repeated. “Have you seen my cousin?”

  Caleb’s head shook feebly. “No,” he lied.

  He thought he might wretch. Sergeant Masterson wandered down the row of tents, his voice echoing hauntingly: “Boone! Boone! Boone Masterson, where are you?”

  Caleb filled his lungs with hot, putrid air, and looked across the open field now littered with the dead and dying, Rebels and Federals alike.

  “No! Them Rebs aren’t retreating. Here they come!”

  “This is our home, boys!” Captain Clark strode among the tents, mess chests, oaks, and hickories. “We shall not let the enemy force us from our camp, our home. Be ready, boys. We’ll drive them out of Dixie.”

  Cannon roared again, but this time from Spain’s field, and grapeshot tore through the trees, the tents. Men screamed in agony. Caleb hugged closer to the stump, looked at the campfires. A coffee pot had been blown into shreds.

  Men staggered past, some from the Eighteenth, others from Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio. Few bothered to stop. They kept walking, ignoring shouts and rebukes from officers and sergeants, just made a beeline for the landing at the river.

  “This is crazy!” Seb Woolard dropped his musket, turned, took off toward the river.

  Caleb looked down the line, across the road, turned, studied the broken line of men in blue in front of the line of tents. There was no way, not a chance, that the Union could hold this position. Caleb wasn’t a master of war, yet even he knew that.

  So did General Prentiss. He rode over, on another horse this time, reining in. “Get your men out of here, Colonel.”

  “Sir?”

  “Get them out of here. Now!” The horse wheeled. “There is a sunken road.” He pointed north. “Re-form there.”

  Sergeant Masterson was back, kneeling beside Caleb. “Have you seen Boone?”

  Caleb’s head shook. “He’ll turn up, Sergeant.”

  Colonel Miller, Captain Clark, Lieutenant Ault, other officers, and sergeants were directing their men to fall back.

  “To the Nebraska?” someone questioned hopefully.

  Rising, Caleb tugged Sergeant Masterson’s coat sleeve. The barber stared blankly, as if he had a bad case of chicken heart disease. “We’re moving back, Sergeant,” Caleb said quietly. “I imagine Boone’s down that way, too.”

  Slowly he led Sergeant Masterson away from the tents, the dead, the dying, the charging Rebels. Hurriedly they moved northeast, away from the Eastern Corinth Road.

  A Missouri battle flag lay in the mud.

  He did not stop to pick it up.

  Chapter Seventeen

  April 6, 1862

  Near Shiloh Meeting House, Tennessee

  Matt Bryson’s dirty white chest exploded in a spray of garnet. The Mississippi rifle slipped out of his hands, and his eyes rolled back in his head as he slammed forward into the ground. The two other Confederates standing near him staggered, and dropped. To Ryan’s right, someone screamed.

  Hurriedly those Yankee assassins began reloading.

  “No!” Ryan shouted, firing his musket as he ran, missing, not caring. Behind
him, Sergeant Rutherford cut loose with a savage oath. Ryan knew Matt was dead, and he knew that squad of Union vermin would soon join him for such cowardly treachery. He planned on killing the hatless sergeant himself.

  Sergeant Rutherford, however, robbed him of that revenge. Reaching the sergeant first, Rutherford rammed a bayonet into the Yank’s chest so hard, the blade poked through the back of the man’s blue tunic. So hard that Rutherford lost his grip on his musket, and that Union piece of filth was driven back ten feet, falling on his back, the musket sticking upright like a grave marker. Rutherford grabbed his weapon, pulled the trigger, the blast igniting the dead sergeant’s clothes. He did not bother to put out the flames.

  Curses and cries rose over the reverberation of Confederate gunfire. A shotgun blast dropped a Yank. A musket ball tore into another as he turned to flee. One sobbing boy dropped to his knees, clasped his hands, begged for mercy. A bullet in his head dispatched him quickly, which might have been merciful enough.

  All of that Ryan saw through peripheral vision. His focus remained on a white-faced old man in front of him, old, bony fingers futilely trying to finger a copper percussion cap onto the nipple of an Enfield rifle. The white handkerchief hung loosely from the barrel. Ryan drove his bayonet into the old man’s gut.

  His mother’s voice raced through his mind: Always respect your elders, Son.

  He pulled out the bayonet, dripping crimson. The old man sank to his knees, dropping Enfield and capper, blood spilling from both corners of his mouth. Ryan kneed the man’s chest, watched him fall onto his back, his lips parting in a blood-frothed prayer. A glimpse of the perfidious flag of truce tied to the Enfield fueled his rage. He smashed the man’s face with the stock of his musket. Again. And again. And again. He could have kept crushing the man’s face for the rest of his life.

  “Come on!” Little Sam pointed, began jogging away, following a line of white-uniformed soldiers.

  The Yankees lay dead.

  Ryan sucked in air, spit, turned, hurried to Matt Bryson.