B00HSFFI1Q EBOK

by Unknown

  “I only have two rounds in my pistol sir.”

  “That will be enough. Aim for the officer and the sergeant. That should annoy them and let’s give a rebel yell. That always seems to make them mad.”

  “Yes sir.”

  They were a hundred yards away. “Charge!” We both gave the rebel yell.

  I saw the look of shock on the faces of the leading group. “Now!” As we jerked on the reins to both stop and turn our mounts we fired. I was more fortunate than Trooper Ritchie and I had a full gun which I emptied.”

  As we wheeled I felt something tug at my arm and it felt as though I had been stung by a bee. “Come on Copper; let’s show these Yankees a clean pair of heels.” I pressed myself low over my saddle as the lead buzzed around my head.

  Ritchie risked a look under his arm. “They are coming sir!”

  I could hear the thundering of their hooves. It was with some relief that I saw the horses of the rest of the troop ahead. I could also see and hear firing from ahead. Had we run into the rear of the battle for Chancellorsville? Suddenly my men veered left and I followed them. I saw the flags ahead of the 23rd Georgia. As I passed their front ranks their major shouted, “Fire!” and the pursuing cavalry were stopped in their tracks. My men all whooped and cheered. I looked at their horses. They could run no more.

  I turned and took off my hat, sweeping it before me. “My compliments sir. Your intervention was timely.”

  The major bowed back. “It is our pleasure sir. My men love to kick Yankee ass. Your horses look a little weary might I suggest you rest them awhile.”

  It was now dusk and I could see the flashes to the north where Jackson’s attack was proceeding. “I will sir, but first I will make sure the Yank cavalry have withdrawn.”

  I left the brave Georgians and led my men back the way we had come. I was sorry to hear that they were all captured later that night. I worried that we might have caused their incarceration.

  As we rode down the railroad track we passed the bodies of the dead cavalry. Feeling like a vulture I had the men take as much ammunition and equipment as they could from the dead men. By the time we reached the stream we had all filled our pouches and we began the weary journey back to camp. Had we met any Union soldiers I doubt that we could have resisted them. We had been on duty since the previous night. We reached a camp devoid of soldiers save the wounded and Sergeant James and his charges.

  As the exhausted horses were led away I stood with the Sergeant Major and watched as the remnants of my troop crawled into their tents.

  “Well Cecil we did what the general asked but what a cost eh?”

  “You’re right sir and that’s without the losses the major might have suffered.”

  As we waited for the rest of the regiment I hoped that it had all been worth it. Suddenly Cecil looked at my bloody sleeve. “Sir, you have been wounded.”

  I looked at my left arm as though it was a stranger’s. I had been wounded? I tried to think back; the bee sting. “It doesn’t hurt.”

  “Never mind let’s go and see the lieutenant.”

  Lieutenant Dinsdale had seen to the other wounded and was cleaning up his operating table. He saw me and shook his head, “I might have known that you would be the last one in sir. Sergeant Major, get his jacket off.” He washed his hands as Cecil took the jacket off as carefully as possible. I had not been lying; I felt no pain. It was sort of numb.

  He cut the sleeve from my shirt, “Hey that is a good shirt.”

  “And now it is good for a bandage or cleaning your gun.” He frowned and jabbed a sharp needle into my lower arm. “Did you feel that?”

  “No.” I looked at the needle, almost expecting it to be blunt. “It is probably the shock.”

  I could see that he wasn’t convinced. He repeated the action with my left hand. “Anything?”

  “No.”

  ”Let me just tend to the wound and then we’ll try some more tests. “He swabbed the wound down and then quickly stitched it. “The ball looks to have struck your elbow and then spent itself.” He cleaned his hands. “Wiggle your fingers.” I did so. “Good. Now raise your hand above your head.” I did that too. “Well the good news is that you can use your hand and your arm.”

  “And the bad news?”

  “You will have no feeling in your left hand and arm below the elbow. The ball damaged the nerve endings. I’m sorry.”

  I shrugged, “So I can’t feel anything. That won’t be a problem.”

  He looked serious. “I am afraid there is a problem. You could put your hand in a fire and not feel it but your hand would still burn. Boiling water… the list is endless. You will have to be careful.”

  “I told you sir. You have to look after yourself. You are lucky, not immortal.”

  As I went to my tent I reflected that he was right.

  Chapter 6

  The regiment arrived with the rest of Stuart’s Cavalry Corps. They were weary and their numbers depleted but they had been successful. We met in the mess tent and Irish cooked us up some ham and eggs he had somehow acquired. We didn’t ask where he had got them from but they tasted mighty good.

  “We spent all day putting ourselves between the Yankees and the line of Jackson’s march. Their cavalry kept trying to shift us but they can’t fight worth a damn.”Dago had a low opinion of Union cavalry.

  Danny was less bullish, “Things slackened off in the early afternoon. They began to shift men to the south.”

  I smiled and Harry said, “Don’t tell me, Jack, that was you.”

  “After Jackson had gone he said to harass them. I guess we did.”

  Danny pointed at my arm, “That where you got hit?”

  “Yeah. Didn’t seem much at the time but David reckons I have lost all feeling in my left hand.” I shrugged. “I’m alive anyway.” I drank some more of the coffee. “Did we win?”

  “We are still here and the Yankees aren’t so I guess we did.”

  Just then a rider galloped in to the camp shouting, “Stonewall Jackson’s been wounded!”

  All of us ran from the tent. The courier was in the middle of the field. “How bad?”

  “It is touch and go if he will live but he will lose an arm at the very least.”

  The fact that he still lived was some consolation. We all knew that he was the best general we had apart from General Lee. Many held the view that he was better. It was a moot point. He could still lead even with one arm. I looked at my bandage. I could have lost my arm too.

  The news then spread around the camp that the Northern Army had retired back across the rivers they had crossed and all of the fords were back in our hands. We truly had won. This was a major victory and all down to General Jackson. That night, men drank toasts to him. When we discovered that it was our own side that had shot him there was disbelief and then anger. Lee had wisely sent the erring unit to the western theatre. This was seen as far sighted, later, when General Jackson contracted pneumonia.

  We only heard the news sporadically for General Stuart sent us to Brandy Station. The Union army had left the whole of the country south of the Rappahannock and we were to establish the cavalry camp there. The good news was that Colonel Boswell was returning and he had forty volunteers from Richmond and Virginia with him. We left in high spirits. We had done all that was asked of us and more. We were still undefeated both as an army and as a regiment.

  It felt strange to be travelling openly through the same country we had recently attacked and raided. We found discarded Union equipment littering the roads as we headed north. Most of it was unusable but some we took. The damaged guns and harness would be repaired or used as spares. We were very resourceful. It took just four hours to reach the small town. It was three miles from the river and three miles from Culpepper.

  As we rode in we saw Confederate flags hurriedly raised. I was cynical enough to realise that the Union ones would have been raised just as swiftly. Riding down Main Street Danny sent Harry off to find a suitable camp s
ite and me and Dago to see if there was any Union equipment which had been left behind. We left Danny organising Jed and the rest of the regiment.

  Dago pointed to the south east. “You know that Kelly’s Ford is just over there.” He shook his head. “All this fighting and we have barely moved.”

  I pointed north. “And Leesburg isn’t that far away either.”

  Just then we heard the Sergeant Major shout, “Sir! Warehouses.”

  We were close to the Orange and Alexandria Railroad and there were four warehouses close to the line. Their doors were wide open as though they had been emptied in a hurry. “Dago you take that one. Sergeant Major you take the one on the end and Sergeant James the one on the right.”

  I led my ten troopers to the warehouse with the gaping door. Inside there were scattered boxes and packing crates. Some still had their contents undisturbed. They were breeches and trousers. The fact that they were blue didn’t matter. Some of the troopers had worn theirs through and these would come in handy. For once we were in the favourable position. We also found some shirts and a real find, socks!

  We emptied the warehouse properly and joined the others. There were no weapons but they too had found some food as well as other items of uniform. We headed back to the major in even higher spirits. The camp was established on the north eastern side of the town. We knew that our job would be to protect the army which would be at Culpeper while scouting and harassing the Union forces towards Washington. We straddled the river called, Flat Run, and were close to the railroad. If we ever managed to get some trains then we might just be able to get supplied.

  We chose socks, breeches and shirts. We looked like a rag tag army but at least some of our clothes looked new. I knew that the dark blue would soon fade in the bright Virginia summer. Our jackets and hats were still grey. We were still Rebs.

  The rest of the cavalry arrived the next day and I have never seen so many before or since. Someone told me that Stuart had gathered over nine thousand cavalrymen. The smell from the horses soon made it obvious who we were and where our camp was. Colonel Boswell and the new men rode in from Front Royal the next day. The major had issued all the new uniforms we had found and we formed two lines as the smartly dressed recruits rode along the Main Street and into the camp. I could see the colonel was quite touched by the gesture. Being the first ones in the town meant that we had managed to acquire the limited supplies that were available. We had a fine meal to welcome our leader. He did look a little thinner but then his wound had been life threatening.

  As we smoked the cigars he had brought he gave us the grim news from Charleston. “The Yankees have begun to shell it I’m afraid.” He looked directly at me. “It looks like we might both lose our homes.”

  I shrugged, “It isn’t as though I ever lived there.”

  “Yes but you had invested in that for your future and that of your sister. I was the one who advised you.”

  “You weren’t to know; besides they might leave them alone. They are both run by our negro overseers aren’t they? Aaron and Jarvis are both good men.”

  “I wouldn’t hold your breath. Most of my slaves ran off and there is precious little trade coming in and out of Charleston these days.”

  This was not the Captain Boswell who had led us behind enemy lines. It was not even the resourceful Colonel Boswell who had been Fitzhugh-Lee Stuart’s right hand man. This was a shell of the leader we had known and followed. He sounded depressed. “Are we losing then sir?”

  “I don’t know Jed. Chancellorsville was a great victory but with Jackson so ill I just don’t know. Most troops and recruits don’t even have a uniform.” He waved his cigar in the direction of the camp. “I used the last of my money to buy the horses and the equipment for the recruits. I figured the Yankees were going to take it anyway. At least this way we can hurt them a little.”

  The joyful mood at the start of the meal had evaporated and we were all thoroughly depressed when we returned to our tents. We did not have the luxury of staying depressed for General Stuart himself came to our mess tent the next morning. He beamed when he saw the colonel. “I am delighted to see you recovered and with your new recruits. Things are going to get better from now on.” He lowered his voice although there were only the officers present. “I believe that we will soon be in a position to take the fight to northern soil. Let the civilians there suffer what our people have had to endure for the past two years. However, before we can do that we need the army building up and we are mighty short of resources.” He waved an expansive hand around the camp. “We are all here because we will be close to the northern warehouses. We want you to take as much as you can from the Yankees.”

  The colonel had been out of the war for a while and he looked puzzled. “What sort of materials are we talking about? Guns? Ammunition? Powder?”

  Stuart said bluntly, “Anything! If it is in a northern store or a warehouse then we want it. We are short of food, clothes, shoes, feed for our animals. The Yankee blockade means that there is little coming in and nothing going out. If we are going to win this war we have to do it before our people starve to death.”

  This was not the death or glory Stuart we knew so well. He had become more pragmatic and practical.

  “We will do that sir.”

  “You have until the end of May to gather as much as you can.”

  “And then?”

  General Stuart tapped his nose meaningfully, “And then we shall see.”

  After he had gone the colonel said, “That means we invade the north in June or July. Danny, how many men do we have?”

  “With the troopers you brought our strength is up to two hundred and twenty but eighteen of them are like Jack here, wounded.”

  I took off the bandage. “Seventeen!”

  The colonel laughed and slapped me on the back. “Good fellow. Still as spunky as ever. Four columns then. I will lead one, the major and the two captains will lead the others. Dago you go with me and Jed with Danny. David we will leave you in charge of the camp. Try to get as many wounded fit as possible.”

  “Sir.”

  This time, as we set off, we were not trying to avoid the Union forces; we were seeking them. I was given the task of raiding the railroad at Manassas. It was a busy crossroads and the tracks led north, south, east and west. The problem was it was thirty miles away. We would have to allow plenty of time to get there and back. Nor could we use our normal tactic of using the night. We suspected that the trains would be running largely during the day.

  We risked the road and left before dawn. We could make better time on the road. Troopers Grant and White were on point. They were both good men. I had the new recruits, all ten of them in the middle of the column. Sergeant James rode with them along with Corporal Cartwright. No matter how well prepared they thought they were it would not be enough when the action started. I needed a steady head leading them.

  Cecil rode next to me. “We’ll need wagons you know sir.”

  “Not necessarily. They will slow us down. We would do better with mules and horses.”

  He nodded, “And we could eat the mules when we had finished with them.” We had never been fussy eaters but the war had made us appreciate every mouthful and morsel of food. The only inhabited place we passed through was Bristow Station which was a small stop on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. We halted a mile from the station. I decided to leave Sergeant James and the new men there.

  “Tie up the station employees and hide until a train comes. If none come then we have not lost anything and when we return we know we will have reinforcements here.” I lowered my voice, “Watch out for these new boys, Carlton. We need to bring them on slowly.”

  “I understand sir.” He looked beyond me. “And I spy some horses in that field. We’ll see if these new boys are any good as horsemen eh sir?”

  The sergeant and his men galloped off to the station. They would make sure that no one sent a telegraph message but they would not cut the lines. The last
thing we needed was to have a cavalry patrol riding to investigate the silence of the wires.

  We rode on, knowing that Manassas was quite close. There had been two battles here already and I knew that there would be a military presence of some kind here. We halted in a small wood half a mile from the station. We left the men improvising a tangle of bushes to hide us while Cecil and I moved closer for a better look.

  We crept along a drainage ditch which afforded us a good position to spy out the land. There were soldiers there but only a handful. It looked to be less than a dozen. There was a train in the station and what looked like a warehouse nearby. The train had steam but the engineers were not in the cab. It did not look as though it would be moving any time soon. The soldiers did not look to be particularly alert and the rest of the area appeared to be deserted.

  When we reached the men I gathered them around me. “Four of you will stay here with the horses. Half of you will follow the Sergeant Major. Your job is to make sure that the train does not leave. Try to keep the engineers alive; we may need to move the train. When we have captured the guards then we bring over the horses.”

  They needed no more instruction than that. These were all my most experienced men. I could trust them to use their heads. I did not take my carbine nor did I take my sabre. Both of them would only get in the way. I preferred just to have the pistols. I had a spare one in my belt, one in my hand and one in my holster. We ran from cover and headed towards the station. I was counting on surprise and we had it. The guards’ rifles were neatly stacked and we reached them before they had chance to grab them.

  “Corporal Jones, secure the prisoners. Troopers Dawes and Ritchie, come with me.”

  We ran into the telegraph office. The dispatcher was looking up at the door in surprise. I sighed with relief; no message had been sent. “Take him outside and tie him up.” I looked at the papers and books on the desk. Most appeared innocent but I saw one with the Union flag emblazoned on the outside. It was a code book. I grabbed it and stuck it in my jacket.