Talons of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

  Jamie and his Marauders took the horses of the dead and rode off, the Gatling gun on a small wagon.

  Aaron Layfield and his Revengers were, for the most part, through with this war, as far as being able to mount any type of effective fighting force. But Aaron Layfield would see Jamie again. After his broken shoulder and collarbone had been seen to, Aaron had sworn with his hand on the Bible that someday he would kill Jamie Ian MacCallister. God had told him that was his sole mission in life.

  Through his pain, not fully dulled with laudanum, he turned to his new sergeant major—one Carl Miller, who had deserted from the Union army, grown a beard, and joined the Revengers—and said, “I will never rest until I can spit on the grave of Jamie MacCallister.”

  “I’ll be right beside you, Colonel,” Carl said. “I ain’t got no love for the MacCallisters, neither.”

  “You’re a good man, Sergeant Miller,” Layfield said. “I’ll pray for you.”

  What was left of Layfield’s ambush force began trickling into camp, and Layfield was sickened at the damage done to his brigade, which had been effectively reduced to about a battalion. And many of them were badly wounded and would not live long.

  “God damn Jamie MacCallister!” Layfield said. “Damn his black soul to the eternally burning pits of hell.”

  “They got the Gatling gun, too,” a Revenger told him, one arm in a bloody sling.

  “Shit!” Reverend Layfield said.

  27

  With Layfield out of the picture for some time to come—and he was out of it, with a badly broken shoulder and collarbone—Jamie assessed his situation and felt he should link up with some unit and try to explain what had happened. Jamie contacted General Hood and told him all that had transpired since last they had seen one another.

  Hood was stunned. He wired back: THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD. WERE TOLD YOU WERE DEAD. CONGRATULATIONS ON RISING FROM THE GRAVE. START TEARING UP RAILROAD TRACKS NORTH OF ATLANTA ASAP. HOOD.

  “We’re back,” Jamie told his men. “Let’s go to work on the railroad.”

  Now Jamie had something else to worry about: did Kate think him dead? He didn’t believe so, for if Kate had been notified of his death, she would be moving heaven and earth to come east to see his grave site, and she would also check with Falcon, Morgan, Matt, Pat, Robert and Wells, and Sam, Jr., and Igemar. Jamie would have to get word to her, somehow. The pony express had not lasted long, but there was always a way.

  “Buck Masters’ home is in Missouri,” Huske reminded Jamie. “His wound ain’t healin’ right, and he needs to go home anyways. His pa was killed in a skirmish with Kansas Jayhawkers, and he’s needed to run the farm. He could take the note to Missouri and get someone there to carry it on.”

  “I’ll do that. Thanks, Louie.”

  By the time Jamie got his men ready to go, it was the third week in October, and North Georgia was crawling with Union troops. Jamie and his men were lucky to be able to advance fifteen miles a day. It was one battle after another with much larger forces. Georgia was filling up with Union troops; Jamie’s own command was taking a beating, and they had yet to tear up even one foot of railroad track.

  On October 27, he learned that Jorge Nunez had been killed while fighting with Young’s Texas Brigade, and Swede and Hannah’s boy, Igemar, had been badly wounded while fighting with the Seventeenth Iowa, under the command of Colonel Weaver.

  Jamie also learned that months before, both Wells and Robert had been shifted over to the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry and were somewhere in South Carolina. He would not learn until war’s end that both had been killed during the assault on Fort Wagner.

  Jamie’s men, now less than four hundred strong, were halted in their tracks by several full brigades of Union troops. Jamie had his wiretapper send a coded message to Hood: CAN GO NO FARTHER. HAVE LOST ONE FIFTH OF MY MEN. ORDERS?

  It was the middle of November, 1864. Hood wired back: GO WHERE YOU THINK YOU CAN DO THE MOST DAMAGE. GOD SPEED.

  The War Between the States would struggle on for another six bloody months.

  Jamie cut northeast, planning to ride up through North Carolina. Just across the border, he first came upon a cemetery with dozens of fresh graves, and about half a mile farther, the ruins of a small town. Every building had been burned to the ground. He could see dozens of ropes still dangling from tree limbs.

  “Somethin’ tells me Layfield’s been through here,” Lieutenant Casten drawled.

  “I thought he was all shot up bad?” Huske said.

  “That was a month ago,” Jamie said. “Wasn’t it?”

  All the men had lost track of time.

  “I guess it was at that, Colonel,” Huske replied. “What month is this?”

  “October, ain’t it?” a Marauder said.

  “I think it’s November,” Captain Sparks said. “If it isn’t, it damn sure feels like it.”

  It was the first day of December, 1864.

  “I wonder who’s winnin’ the war,” Bugler Gibson asked, his words soft and steamy in the cold air.

  “You can bet your bugle we ain’t,” Corporal Bates told him.

  Several elderly people came hesitantly out of the timber behind what had once been a town; one man, three women. The old man was on makeshift crutches that looked extremely uncomfortable to Jamie.

  “Pickets out,” Jamie ordered, then dismounted and walked over to the old people.

  “You’d be Colonel MacCallister of the Confederate Marauders,” the old man said.

  “Yes. What happened here, sir?”

  “We don’t hold it agin you, sir,” one of the elderly women told him.

  “I beg your pardon, ma’am?”

  “This.” She waved her hand at the ruins of destruction. “It ain’t your fault.”

  “I ... don’t understand, ma’am. What happened here? Who did this?”

  “Colonel Layfield and his Revengers,” another elderly woman spoke up. “Two weeks ago. They shot or hanged every man they could find. They . . . had their way with the young women, and then looted and burned the town. All the businesses and all the homes. Then Colonel Layfield lined up all that was left and preached us a sermon. Said all this was done because of you, Colonel MacCallister. Course we all had heard by then ’bout you and your brave lads defeatin’ him in battle some weeks before. Doesn’t take a real smart person to see that Layfield is a coward. I guess the only thing he didn’t do here is brand the poor women on the forehead like he’s done before.”

  “No,” the old man said, bitterness in the words. “This time Layfield ordered his men to shoot the women after his men had their way with them.”

  “Did they?” Jamie asked, anger growing within him.

  “Yes, sir. Ten young ladies. But the ladies stood proud and did not beg. They were forced to stand naked after Layfield’s men had raped them repeatedly. Then they were shot down. We buried them yonder in the cemetery.”

  “Dear God in Heaven,” Lieutenant Broussard whispered, his words breaking the silence that had followed the old man’s damning statement.

  “Do you know much about what is happening in Georgia, Colonel,” the old man asked.

  “I know practically nothing, sir. We’ve been cut off for weeks. What is happening?”

  “Sherman and his men are burning plantations and towns. Destroying mills and cotton gins and everything that stands in their way. They’re looting and pillaging. War is one thing, but they’re destroying the lives and livelihood of civilians. That damn Sherman is a devil.”

  There were many acts of brutishness and barbarism against the civilian population of Georgia by the Union forces, but there were also many acts of individual kindness. Still, civilian lives and livelihood were needlessly destroyed. And no one could legitimately or reasonably excuse the wanton looting of homes before they were set afire. It was war at its worst. The Union troops took ladies’ dresses and undergarments and made mockery with them. They killed family pets for no reason and laughed as the children c
ried. On more than one occasion, weapons taken from private homes were given to newly freed slaves. Many historians have been careful not to record much of what took place after the Union troops left, although some newly freed slaves risked their lives to stand between howling mobs of ex-slaves and their prior masters, preventing, in some cases, wholesale rape and murder. The looting and burning and pillaging grew so bad that flyers were circulated urging Southern civilians to kill any Yankee they could. Of course, that only made matters worse.

  Sherman’s march through Georgia helped to break the back of the Confederacy, but it also caused a deep-seated hatred of the North that would last for generations . . . and to one degree or the other, among many families, still exists to this day.

  To Sherman’s credit, he repeatedly stated that he wanted his men to only take what they had to seize to survive, not to loot. But his orders were routinely ignored. He could not keep an eye on eighty thousand men, not including deserters from both sides who followed the Union forces, committing even worse acts upon the civilians.

  One old woman handed Jamie a handkerchief that had been tied in a knot. Jamie looked at the handkerchief; he could feel something in the knot.

  “That’s all we have left,” the old woman told him. “Those are our wedding rings. You sell them and buy supplies and bullets and kill those damn Yankees, Colonel. You kill them for us, you hear?”

  Some of Jamie’s men had to turn their heads so the old people would not see the sudden tears. Jamie himself knew that he could not refuse the worn rings; to do so would be a great insult to the ladies.

  He nodded his head and pocketed the rings. “I will see that they are used to fight for the South, ladies. You have my word on that.”

  Jamie and his men mounted up and rode out. Several miles outside of the scorched remains of the town, and its fresh graves, Jamie halted the column and gathered his officers around him.

  “I want you to select the toughest and bravest men in your commands, gentlemen. I want one hundred and fifty men who will ride with me on what could very well be the last ride of their lives. If we’re captured, we will be shot or hanged as spies. Impress that upon the men who volunteer. Any man who has been wounded, any man with a family who is depending upon him to return, stand to one side.”

  While that was being done, Jamie ordered his wiretapper to locate and hook on to the nearest telegraph line and find out what was going on, and find out in detail.

  It was late afternoon before the wiretapper returned. “I think the South is finished, Colonel. Sherman has almost reached the sea, and things are going badly for us everywhere else. Hood just lost about seven thousand men at the battle of Franklin. Lee is holding on, but won’t be able to for long. More and more Southerners are urging Davis for an honorable surrender.”

  Two weeks later, the Army of Tennessee would be finished. Hood would ask to be relieved of command, and Davis honored his request. Hood was through, and his army would never fight again.

  “What do you have on your mind, Colonel?” Sergeant Major Huske asked.

  “You’re relieved of your duties, Louie,” Jamie told the suddenly very startled sergeant major. “I want you to strip that uniform, get into civilian clothing, and go home. Get your wife and family and head west, for my valley.” He handed him a small leather sack. “There is money enough for mules, wagon, and supplies.”

  “But, sir! I . . .”

  “No arguments, Louie. Do as you’re ordered. And take Little Ben with you.”

  “I’ll be goddamned if I will!” Little Ben Pardee said, quickly adding, “Sir!”

  Jamie smiled tolerantly at the much younger, much smaller man. “Ben, you’re a top-notch soldier. I couldn’t ask for any better. But this mission . . .”

  “I’m goin’ with the unit, sir,” Ben said. “Sir, I got nobody. I ain’t seen my sister in years. I’m not really sure she’s still alive. Gibson over yonder, he’s the same way. The Marauders are my family.”

  Jamie nodded his head. “All right, Ben. You can stay.”

  Many of the men had tears in their eyes as the unit began breaking up. They had been together for three years, and were as close as brothers.

  Jamie gave each of the men enough money to get home and to buy some seed to plant and food for their families. He saluted each one as they rode out, then turned to face the one hundred and fifty men who had crossed the line and volunteered to stay.

  “When we get up into Northern Virginia, we are going to do some midnight raiding, boys. We are going to steal some Yankee uniforms and become part of the Federal army.”

  The men started looking at one another and smiling.

  “We are going to be soldiers just freed from a Confederate prison—men from all over the North and East—who have been given leave to spend some time with our families.”

  “We goin’ to Pennsylvania, Colonel?” Sergeant McGuire asked.

  “That’s right, Mac.”

  “Layfield, Pennsylvania, Colonel?” Doctor Prentiss asked.

  “That’s right, Tom.”

  The men’s grins changed to laughter.

  “There will be no looting of buildings or homes, absolutely no raping or manhandling of women, and no harming of citizens unless they shoot at us. But we are going to burn that goddamn town to the ground until nothing is standing except the flagpole. And just before we leave we are going to hoist up the Stars and Bars, and beneath that, the battle flag of the Marauders. We’re going to give the North a little taste of what the South has had to endure for years.”

  “Do we have anyone’s permission to do this, Colonel?” Captain Dupree asked, quickly adding, “Not that I give a damn one way or the other.”

  “Who cares whether we do or not?” Captain Sparks blurted out.

  “No,” Jamie leveled with his men. “We do not have permission to do this. And to tell you the truth, if we are successful I really don’t know whether it will help or hurt the South.”

  “Colonel,” a man spoke from the ranks. “We get letters from home. We know how the war is goin’. And it ain’t goin’ no good at all for the South. If our boys can hang on ’til the flowers bloom, it’ll be a damn miracle. So, hell, let’s us give the Yankees a taste of war.”

  “I agree,” Lieutenant Broussard said. Lieutenants Casten, Dawson, Smith, and Russell had left with the men Jamie had dismissed.

  Jamie nodded and gathered up the reins. He swung into the saddle. “All right, boys. Let’s go give the people who supported Colonel Layfield a taste of their own medicine.”

  28

  As the Marauders traveled north through Virginia, they kept to the back trails, avoiding towns and remaining out of sight. Winter had begun early, and Mother Nature was just beginning her cold onslaught. For Lee’s troops, that winter would literally be a killer. They were desperately short of everything except fighting spirit. They had little food, their clothing was in tatters, their blankets were rags, and many had no shoes. But still the South kept fighting as best they could on all fronts.

  Jamie and his men rode on as a unit until they were forced to split up into small groups for safety’s sake. Jamie grew a full beard that was mostly gray, and cut his hair short. Each man had now taken an assumed name: Jamie was Colonel Callahan.

  Jamie bought a dozen wagons and pairs of fine mules. For a week they worked fitting false bottoms into the beds of the wagons. In the hidden compartments they put the Yankee uniforms they were picking up a piece at a time, and also their weapons. Then Jamie turned the wagons into ambulances, in which his “sick” men could ride in comfort during the long ride back home. They also hid the Gatling gun and the cases of ammunition in the wagons. Jamie had a hunch that when the deed was done in Layfield, they’d have some real fights on their hands getting back across the lines.

  After being stopped a dozen times by Union patrols—all within a twenty-mile stretch—Jamie finally told a rather fat and pompous major that he and his men were all suffering from TB and then coughed in the
man’s face. The major wired ahead with orders to let Colonel Callahan and his sick men pass, and they were not bothered again.

  “You should have told him we all had leprosy,” Dupree said. “That would have really given us a wide path.”

  “I didn’t think of that,” Jamie replied.

  When they crossed into Pennsylvania, Jamie went over the plan one more time. After the raid, they were to ride like hell for the Allegheny Mountains and then try to make their way east to join up with Lee’s command. If any were unable to do that, they were to throw their uniforms away and head for home; the war would be over for them.

  Layfield was just over seventy-five miles deep into Pennsylvania and had never been touched by the war. All that was about to change.

  Gettysburg lay far to the south and east of Layfield, the bloody ground and hundreds of graves silent under a fresh blanket of snow as Jamie and his men approached the town on a Saturday morning. The wagons had been abandoned the night before, the Gatling gun now drawn on a specially built caisson, made out of one of the wagons.

  The Marauders had all shaved the night before and, on the morning of the raid, had dressed in their battle uniforms. About a mile from town, just before the crest of a ridge, Jamie said, “Uncase the colors.”

  The Stars and Bars and the battle flag of the Marauders now stood stiff in the cold breeze.

  “Your mouthpiece warm, Gibson?” Jamie smiled at the young bugler.

  “Yes, sir!”

  Jamie twisted in the saddle and looked at Little Ben Pardee. “You ready, Ben?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Forward at a walk,” Jamie ordered, and the line of men and horses moved out, topping the ridge. “Forward at a trot!” Jamie ordered.

  A man who lived on the edge of the town stepped out onto his front porch and dropped his cup of coffee at the sight before him on the road. The Confederate Stars and Bars and the Marauders’ battle flag fluttered in the cold breeze. “Holy Jumpin’ Jesus Christ!” he hollered.