by Jana Petken
He shivered and pulled his grey coat around his neck. He had seen the enemy up close not two weeks ago, straddling the Chickahominy’s northern and southern banks. Under General Jeb Stuart’s orders, he and his men had circumnavigated the entire Union army’s position, getting away free and clear without being pursued back to Richmond. It had been a daring four-day ride, but they had managed to get a good look at the enemy’s weaknesses and had reported this vital information on their return.
Jacob smiled with a sweet memory. The Yankees hadn’t seen them riding like night devils, not even when he and his men had burned a couple of Union supply ships while they were right under tens of thousands of Union noses. The Yankees had a massive army poised to take what wasn’t theirs to own, but they were not unbeatable. No, sir, he thought, they could be licked.
He sat up, trying to settle his nerves and relax his tense muscles. If only he could have one damn night without filling his mind with fearsome thoughts of guns, cannons, blood, and death, he thought. He looked at young George lying not five feet away, staring wide-eyed at the night sky. In the moonlight, his face was as white as chalk, and no doubt his mind was filled with imagined horrors. Jacob instinctively knew what the boy was thinking about. There was not a man here who wasn’t thinking the same thing.
“George, get some sleep,” Jacob told him. “It’ll be dawn soon enough.”
“Heck, Captain, I ain’t seeing me having more than a couple of minutes shut-eye at best. I got the shits. I reckon if a bullet don’t get me tomorrow, the cramps will.”
“Well, keep it in your pants, George, ’cause there ain’t no Yankee going to be waiting for you to wipe your grey behind,” Jacob said.
“I’m lying here thinking about my ma and pa. Gosh darn it, I’d hate to get myself killed, for their sakes. They already lost Elizabeth, and Nathan’s gone to the wind. It would cut them up real bad if anything happened to me. You ever think about dying?”
“Nope, I don’t reckon I do,” Jacob lied. “I think about going home and planting cotton. Dying will mess up all my plans. It ain’t in the cards for me, George, and it ain’t in yours neither.”
“All the same, I got a letter in my pocket for my ma and pa. I wrote it earlier, just in case I don’t make it tomorrow. I’d hate it if they didn’t find where I was buried. Will you keep it for me?”
Jacob sighed, awash with sadness. He had a letter in his pocket too. He had written it to Mercy earlier on a scrap of paper. There was never enough paper to go around, especially earlier today, after the orders had come down the line. He’d watched his men frantically writing to family and friends as though their very lives depended on the hurried words. He had done the same, writing to Mercy, telling her how much he loved her and hoping it wouldn’t be the last time he told her.
The men were taking advantage of an army postal service that delivered mail just about every day to Richmond and its suburbs. Getting letters to Portsmouth wasn’t so easy or quick, but this was one of the reasons he’d wanted Mercy nearby, in the capital. She’d get this letter by midday, and it would set her mind at ease. She was curious and stubborn. From Senator Bartlett, she would already have weeded out all the information she needed regarding his whereabouts. Knowing her, she’d ride out to watch the battle and get a couple of potshots off at the Union army at the same time.
He shifted his thoughts, remembering that George was still waiting for an answer. “George, give your letter to the post wagon. It’ll be here in about an hour.”
“I got one too,” Tybrook said in the darkness. “I can’t sleep neither. I keep thinking about what we have to face in the morning. I heard tell the Yankees have got twice as many men as us.”
“Tybrook, don’t worry about what they have. You just keep thinking about how strong we are. We’ll lick them ’cause they’re on our ground. We’ll do our jobs, and we’ll do them well. No Yankee officer or soldier is going to march into Richmond, and that’s a fact. I reckon we have the stronger army with better men, and when the Yankees see us in a few hours, they’ll be the ones shitting themselves. We’ll be the ones yelling at their backs when they run away.”
Jacob wished he believed completely in what he was saying, but doubt and dread resided in the back of his mind. He wished the battle to begin. He wanted to believe that the fear he felt now would be replaced with passion and courage in the face of the enemy.
“I reckon we should get ourselves some coffee and see to the horses; there ain’t no point lying here any longer with damn ants in our pants. It’s almost time, boys. Wake the men …”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
The sun’s boiling rays beat down on the Confederate force advancing towards Mechanicsville. Their task was to clear the town of Union pickets in order for General Lee’s forces to press ahead to Beaver Dam Creek, at present being held by the Yankees. General Stonewall Jackson, as the men now called him, was in command, and it had been his decision to use the Ninth Cavalry as the force’s vanguard.
Jacob led his long column of horsemen at a painstakingly slow pace behind Jackson’s foot soldiers, who were dragging their lethargic feet as though they had all the time in the world to reach the battlefield and join the fight. They had been marching for a good few hours, and as the midday sun began slanting to the west, Jacob wondered if they would reach their destination in time to reinforce the main Confederate lines or if some quirk of fate would see them sleeping another night on the road, wondering what this battle had looked like at close quarters.
By mid-afternoon, the sound of heavy volleys of small arms and artillery roaring into the air confirmed Jacob’s suspicions that a general advance by the Confederates had been ordered, without Jackson’s men. The horses had grown used to the noise of battle, but for the last mile or so, they had become jumpy and impatient with the languid walking pace of the soldiers.
General Jackson’s intention was to deal with the Union pickets, but he was still of a mind to join the major battle going on around Beaver Dam Creek when he had secured Mechanicsville. Thus he ordered a cavalry scouting party to find out where he could punch a hole in the Union lines and whether it was worthwhile joining the fight at this late hour. Jacob was relieved to be chosen for this reconnaissance duty.
Jacob ordered rifle and sabre checks, took thirty cavalrymen from the column, and rode at a gallop’s pace towards the sound of conflict. He debated whether to take to the open fields that bordered the road or to stream into the dense woods far beyond the column’s left flank. The woods would mean a longer and less comfortable ride, he thought, but they were on a mission to observe the enemy, not engage with it. The trees would also give them good cover and diminish the sound of hooves.
A smoky veil hovering within a thick cluster of trees smelled of recently fired gunpowder. It settled above the undergrowth and licked its way around thick trunks and low-hanging tree limbs. The late afternoon sun slanted diagonally through branches, coating pine needles with a golden hue and turning the smoky air and dust particles into bright floating crystal specs.
The cavalrymen picked their way carefully through the dense undergrowth, mindful of sharp splintered twigs which could rip a man’s face and arms to shreds. They listened with heightened senses for movement within the wood. It was difficult to tell if they were alone or not, for the batteries and guns beyond the treeline shook the ground beneath them, causing leaves to flutter gently downwards.
Jacob’s nervousness increased as thoughts of Williamsburg surfaced. He tried to squash the flashing images, but when he and his men remounted and climbed a steep embankment, they came flooding back to him. The cannon fire that they’d heard in the wood had abated, but the sound of cracking muskets had swelled. Jacob suspected that when they reached the top of the grassy bank, they would see one hell of a fight still going on right in front of them. He halted the men once again and tentatively looked over the ridge of the hilly bank before moving on.
Below, he saw a Confederate regiment. They held a field, th
ick with smoke and smouldering fires. Dead and wounded men from both armies lay side by side or partially on top of each other. Medical teams were assessing the living, and doctors were wasting no time in doing what was necessary to keep the injured bodies alive until they could get them to the field hospital.
A long line of Confederate infantrymen took a rear defensive position, with rifles at the ready. Confederate battle flags in the hands of the flag bearers hung limp in the still air. Above the noise of fire, Jacob heard the high-pitched rebel yell and then saw the forward rebel line chasing Union soldiers off the field. The Yankees were outnumbered, but as Jacob watched, he could feel the Confederate determination to kill every blue coat in sight. He thought, That’s exactly what I would do if I were down there. He lifted his hand, gestured his men forward, and sped down the bank into the field below.
“Cap’n, you got to go git them Yankees!” a lieutenant on the field shouted when Jacob’s cavalry approached. “We ran them off, but we don’t know if there’s more of them farther up the road, and I don’t reckon I should commit all my men to the chase till I find out.”
Jacob nodded. There were a couple of hundred men here. They were blind beyond this field. The lieutenant was right. He, Jacob, should look beyond the treeline up ahead before streaming in to God only knew what. “Lieutenant, take your men and injured to the embankment behind you. Keep cover until I get back with my men. I’ll let you know what you’re going into.”
The lieutenant nodded. “Much obliged, sir. We ain’t got no commanding officer. He was killed about an hour ago – blown to bits by cannon fire. I ain’t rightly sure where I’m supposed to be going now. We got cut off from the rest of the regiments. We were waiting for General Jackson to reinforce us, but then our major told us to advance – I figured that that weren’t such a good idea without General Stonewall’s men.”
Jacob gave the man a quick nod, looked once more at the casualties, and then silently cursed General Jackson’s lackadaisical stroll, which should have seen him here hours ago. “Be back soon,” he shouted as he rode off.
He kicked Thor’s flanks and waved his men onwards towards a second belt of woodland. The thirty horses kicked up dust and became hazy outlines as they disappeared into the fog they had produced. They thundered through the Confederate forward lines, swerving past the running men with masterful precision. Jacob screamed at the soldiers on the ground to stop firing and heard their cheering cries: “Go git them!” They swept through a line of trees and came out into another open cornfield beyond them.
The sight of blue coats running for their lives spurred Jacob’s men on to an even greater speed. They had just seen hundreds of dead Confederate comrades in the field behind them, and none of them were of a mind to let any of the Yankees escape. Jacob took the first shot at the retreating backs, signalling to his men to open fire.
The Union soldiers fell one by one as the gap between horses and enemy narrowed, but the Yankees were getting harder to find. Jacob, low-bodied in the saddle, glanced quickly to his left and right, up ahead, and finally behind him. In this field, the opaque corn stalks were taller than the field they had first been in. The Union soldiers were disappearing in front of the cavalry’s eyes.
The flat land stretched far into the distance, the setting sun making it look like a gold and orange blanket stretching towards the western horizon. Jacob’s heart was pounding as they raced deeper into a field that could hide a thousand crouching soldiers. They were putting distance between themselves and any other Confederate troops. They were the hunters, Jacob thought, but they might become the hunted should they ride onwards.
He slowed Thor, raised his gloved hand in the air, and brought the rest of the men and horses to a halt. He did not want to be out in the open like this. For all he knew, the retreating Yankees could be encircling them right at this minute, and he and his men wouldn’t know a damn thing about it. “Men, we’re going back. There’s nothing here to see, and I ain’t taking the chance of getting entangled in a Yankee trap. It’ll be sundown soon, and General Jackson will probably want to bivouac us for the night. There’s no battle for his command today.”
Jacob pivoted Thor around and headed back in the direction of the Confederate regiment. There wouldn’t be another attack until morning, he thought. The sun was sinking rapidly. Visibility was decreasing, and judging from all the casualties he’d seen, both sides would be looking for a respite before they got to killing even more men in the morning.
Young George rode up from the rear to join Jacob at the front of the line. His face was flushed with energy and fervour. He grinned at Jacob and said, “Well, Capt’n, seems we’ve had ourselves a good day out today. I ain’t never felt nothin’ like this. I sure hope they’ve got some food for us when we git back to camp. I’m mighty hungry.”
“I’m sure we’ll have a feast, George. I heard tell Jackson’s men were some of the best looters around. They marched all the way from the Shenandoah Valley, and I’m betting they didn’t do it on an empty belly. Wouldn’t surprise me if they had a whole damn side of cow waiting for us when we get there.”
The cracking sound of a rifle shot echoed in the air for a fraction of a second. Jacob’s head snapped to his left and then back to George. He watched in horror as George’s bloodied face jerked backwards and then forwards again. His eyes were open, but he had a gaping hole on the bridge of his nose, which had detached from its socket and now hung loose and shredded.
Jacob’s face was red with George’s blood. It stuck to his eyelids and covered his lips and beard. His mind was filled with chaotic thoughts as a volley of gunfire struck his men from the front, left, and right sides of the field. “Get to the trees and don’t look back!” he screamed.
They galloped surrounded by a deafening noise that masked the thunder of hooves. Jacob concentrated on his front, but out of the corner of his eyes, he saw his men falling one by one. Horses were struck too and fell like bricks, with riders grimly clinging on to their backs.
Jacob whipped Thor’s neck with the reins. There was nowhere to dismount and take cover. There was nothing but the long open field of corn with stalks as high as a man’s shoulders. He rode on, his mind screaming with prayers. Some of them had to make it, he thought. They only had to get to the trees. Beyond that coppice, the Confederate infantry waited. “C’mon, men!” he screamed.
He felt his shoulder shudder and jerk forwards with the force of a bullet. His arm lost strength, his fingers lost feeling, and his rifle fell out of his hand. He turned to see some of his men also being struck, blood bursting through their grey coats and breeches. He fought the burning pain and tried to lift his arm onto the saddle, but the useless limb swung at his side as though it didn’t even belong to him.
He was still alive, and the trees were only a hundred and fifty yards away. He could still make it. He could get there and live to tell the tale. Another bullet hit him in the back. His eyes stared at the trees behind a veil of thin mist. He felt himself falling to the ground, and when he hit it, it was with a force that took his raspy breath away completely. He lifted his head and caught his last sight of Thor riding on without him. He looked up at the sky and felt no pain, other than that coming from his broken heart …
Chapter Fifty-Eight
The lethargic mood at Chimborazo hospital had transformed overnight into a frantic rush of activity involving every man and woman able and fit enough to ready the hospital for the wounded that were just about to arrive in droves. A great battle had begun in Richmond’s outer suburbs, involving tens of thousands of men, some of whom would be inflicted with terrible injuries caused by heavy weapons, the likes of which had never been seen before. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the war had finally started in earnest and that two colossal armies were at this very moment tearing each other limb from limb like rabid dogs, unwilling to stop until blood ran through Virginia’s rivers, brooks, and streams.
Mercy had deposited Mrs Bartlett at home the previous afte
rnoon and, whilst there, had changed her clothes, packed a bag, and not wasted one second of her time listening to Mrs Bartlett’s protests about Mercy’s decision to ride Coal back to the hospital. Taking a carriage was a bad idea, Mercy had insisted, for it would make the journey twice as long would be far too tedious.
The first ambulances arrived just as the blood-red sun was setting. Mercy watched in horror as men were laid on the ground and left screaming in agony, and in those minutes, she regretted her decision to come back here. She had never seen or could have imagined the scale of carnage and utter despair that met her eyes. She was not equipped to deal with all these dying men. The only dead men she had ever seen were the men she had killed, and she’d hated them!
This was so different from anything she had witnessed in her lifetime. The smell of blood and sulphur, rotting flesh, and wounds that had been cauterised with burning iron assaulted her nostrils and left her gasping for breath. This was a living hell, she thought, and it had only just begun.
As one ambulance after another unloaded their wounded, Mercy turned her attention to the ambulance drivers. Their eyes held disbelief in faces that were the colour of cold white ash. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for them, risking their lives in battlefields filled with smoke from cannon and musket fire. They were just as brave as the soldiers they had pulled from the arms of death, she thought, but they were probably wishing, like her and everyone else here, that this bloody war had never come about in the first place.