Bright Starry Banner

by Alden R. Carter

  At 9:30 A.M., long after Sheridan’s men have been able to make out their feet in the thinning fog, McCook finally orders the advance. Fuming at the delay, Sheridan pushes his men down the Wilkinson Turnpike toward a juncture with Negley’s right.

  Philip Henry Sheridan has risen from second lieutenant to brigadier general in a year and a half, a spectacular rise even in this war. He is a short, barrel-chested man with long simian arms and a bullet head topped with coarse black hair. His pugnacity is legendary, his star bright if he can avoid getting killed. His advance along the Wilkinson Pike soon turns into a nasty business. A mile east of Overall Creek, the division’s skirmish line breaks into the wide fields of a prosperous farm family named Gresham. The fields are better maintained than any they have seen in several days, and the farmers among the men begin arguing acreage and yield for various crops. The town and city boys are less impressed, griping as the soaked red clay clings to their brogans in ever-thickening layers.

  The skirmish line bogs down halfway across the fields, even the farmers cursing now, as man after man has to stop to scrape the clay off his boots with bayonet or barlow knife while the regiments in column back on the turnpike jeer at their discomfort. At this moment, the Rebels in the woods on the southeast side of the field open fire. Men pitch forward, a few hit, most simply reacting naturally to the surprise as minié balls whiz about them. Fortunately for the blue infantry, the Rebels number only an understrength regiment backed by a single six-pounder smoothbore. Rather than firing case shot to explode over the heads of the Yankees, the Rebel gunners select common shell, which buries itself in the mud, throwing up geysers of red clay on detonation but doing little execution. As the skirmishers rally, three regiments from the turnpike come slipping and skidding into the field. They form into line of battle and push ahead.

  The battle line routs the Rebels from the trees, sending them fleeing across the pasture south of the Gresham house. But beyond the farmhouse, the line comes under almost continuous fire. Sheridan deploys fresh regiments as fast as they come down the pike. The battle line flanks a rise southeast of the Gresham house, driving another Rebel regiment and two guns from its slope. By now his division is nearly entirely deployed. An aide brings word that the division’s left is in touch with Negley’s right, but the hold is weak and Sheridan must send to McCook for support before he can advance farther.

  Sheridan waits with his adjutant. “We took a few prisoners, General. They say they’re from the Fourth Arkansas of McNair’s Brigade, McCown’s Division.”

  Sheridan, who is far more cerebral than his reputation usually allows, considers this information. McCown is an undistinguished West Pointer of Rosecrans’s generation. Promoted to major general early in the war, he has held a half dozen positions, each of successively less responsibility. Sheridan frowns, wondering why McCown of all Bragg’s division officers should be assigned to hold a critical flank. Very odd.

  At the Smyrna bridge over Stewart’s Creek, taken three days before by Mix’s troopers and Hazen’s infantry, Wheeler’s cavalry runs into a Yankee lieutenant who imagines himself Leonidas at Thermopylae or Horatio at the Tiberian Bridge. A few rounds of horse artillery and the threats of several of his own men change his mind. The Yankees surrender and are quickly paroled. Only the glory-bereft lieutenant objects to the terms. The Confederate sergeant in charge of recording the roll shakes his head, looks at a weathered Yankee corporal. “What do you think, friend? Want to take this dumb bastard along back to Nashville, or should I just shoot him for you?”

  The corporal shrugs. “He’s got a ma, Sarge. She’s been good to some of the boys when they was home on furlough. I’d kinda hate to have to tell her he was dead, though you’re right: he don’t have shit for brains.”

  “All right. Get him outta here. First, what’s his name? And yours.”

  Two miles east of the Nashville pike, Wheeler again splits his force, taking three regiments galloping up the roadbed of the Nashville–Chattanooga while Colonel Allen takes the rest of the brigade along the road.

  At noon, Wheeler’s horsemen explode into Lavergne from two sides. The Yankee infantry protecting a train of three hundred wagons immediately surrenders. Wheeler’s men tear through the wagons like feral dogs ripping through a flock of sheep. A Forrest or a Morgan might have controlled them, but Wheeler cannot. In search of plunder, they litter the street with caved-in boxes and barrels, ruptured valises and trunks. They rob their prisoners down to the underwear, leaving the Yankee boys barefoot and shivering. Then the real work of destruction begins. The wagons are pushed together and set alight while the mules are butchered in their braying, screaming multitude. It takes a strong arm to saber a mule, and after a few minutes, the men begin relying on their pistols.

  One of Wheeler’s artillery lieutenants is sent to deal with a herd of nearly five hundred mules corralled on the north edge of town. Confronted by the jittery, wheeling mass, the lieutenant has an inspiration. “Wilke,” he shouts to a sergeant. “Unlimber number two and load double canister.”

  “Ain’t a good idea, Lootenant.”

  “Just do it. Else we’ll be here all day shooting mules with one hand and fighting off Yankee cavalry with the other.”

  The sergeant shrugs, gives the appropriate orders. Mounting to get the best possible view, the lieutenant gives the command to fire. The gun flashes, the plume of leaden balls slaughtering two dozen mules at a swipe and throwing the rest into panic. They charge every side of the corral simultaneously. The fence shatters. The gun crew abandons its field piece and flees. The lieutenant is swept away by the mules, laying to either side with his saber until it is torn from his hand. He is last seen hugging his horse’s neck for dear life as together they ride the crest of the stampede out of town.

  The crew returns to its overturned gun. The sergeant looks after the disappearing cloud of mules, spits tobacco juice. “Told him it weren’t a good idea.”

  On a rise beyond the range of the Rebel guns on Wayne’s Hill, Rosecrans’s cavalry escort has constructed an awning of gutta-percha blankets for the staff. The officers stand about a smoky fire, waiting for orders. Rosecrans paces while the sound of Sheridan’s skirmishing swells and fades. It is one of those times when the commanding general can do little. Sheridan’s contact with Negley’s right is as yet tenuous, and McCook must deploy his other two divisions before he can drive forward to straighten and seal the line. Until that is done, Rosecrans can only pace and worry.

  Garesché stands to one side, greatcoat hunched around his shoulders against the raw wind, reading his daily chapter of The Imitation of Christ. Major Goddard approaches. “Would you like coffee, Colonel? There’s a fresh pot.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Pardon me, Colonel?”

  “The orderly. The one who was hit by the cannonball. What was his name?”

  “I’m not sure I ever heard. He was new.”

  “Yes. I’d meant to ask his name. He seemed rather lost.”

  “He was very young, sir. And new to the army. I think he was a nephew to one of the surgeons.”

  “Yes… . Well, see to finding his uncle. He should be told.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And, Major, did you happen to see where the boy’s head landed?”

  “Uh, no, sir. I was concerned with other things at that moment.”

  “Of course. Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter… . Yes, a cup of coffee would be comforting. Thank you.”

  At 2:00 P.M., McCook resumes his advance with seven brigades in line and two in reserve. With the artillery shelling the woods ahead, the Yankee infantry pushes into the fields surrounding the Harding house.

  Lieutenant General Bill Hardee has found temporary headquarters in a small frame house not far from the Wilkinson Pike bridge over Stones River. The house is spare, the family without a young widow or a shapely daughter to fondle. Not like the farmhouse closer to town the night before, where Hardee had managed to corner the hired girl i
n the back hall long enough to feel her young breasts through the cotton dress. She had pushed his hands away, but he had felt the nipples rise. Aha. This one might try to act the innocent but she had known a man’s hands before. He would find out how much more she knew later on. He had murmured in her ear, let drop a gold dollar between her breasts. (They always so much preferred gold to silver. From the lowest to the highest, scullery wench to plantation matron, they could all be bought with gold.) But when he again had time for diversion, he could not find her, found only the hard-faced old farmer sitting in the kitchen, eyes bleak and resentful.

  Hardee smiles to himself now. Perhaps it was the old man who had been showing the girl the ways of sin. His wife was a sucked-out, dried-up hag; why shouldn’t the old boy have a little fun swivving the hired girl?

  An aide taps on the door, shows in Lieutenant Colonel George Brent, Bragg’s chief of staff. Hardee likes the broad-beamed young man who seems to accept all Bragg’s petulance with remarkable good humor. He rises, extends a hand. “Good afternoon, Colonel. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “Orders from General Bragg.” The colonel looks vaguely discomforted. “He wants you to shift Cleburne’s division to the left to support General McCown’s line.”

  Hardee is startled. “Why? I’ve just come from General McCown’s line. Our flank is secure, and the Yankees appear to have halted for the day.”

  “General Bragg says he will explain this evening. You’re to deploy Cleburne and then come to headquarters.”

  Bragg is doing it again, Hardee thinks. He’s laid out a bad plan and now he’s going to make it worse. Next he’ll start reorganizing the command structure so that no one will know who commands what. Still, maybe he has information on the Yankee plans. God, I wish Rosy would attack our left with McCook. Pat Cleburne, my splendid Irish wolfhound, would eat him alive.

  At this moment Bill Hardee knows that he won’t go along with Bishop Polk’s ridiculous plan to undermine Bragg. No, he will fight this battle as hard as he can. He’ll lame Rosecrans and demolish that young buffoon McCook. If Bragg loses the battle, it won’t be because of Hardee. Let Polk have the command when Bragg is relieved. Hardee will manage to keep the Bishop from doing anything stupid. Then, when finally they are winning, he will take command of the Army of Tennessee. Let Polk go to Richmond then. That is where the Bishop wants to be, of course: sitting at the right hand of his old friend Davis where he can conveniently drop poison in his excellency’s ear.

  They took too long in Lavergne. Wheeler knows it, they all know it, and ride hard, pushed by the fear of time slipping irretrievably away. The Yankee cavalry, slow and stupid as it is, will ride them down if given enough time. Or in the next hamlet or around the next cedar-constricted bend, they may come up against Yankee infantry, cool veterans this time, who will hold against a charge, gun it down with a battery of Napoleons and rank on rank of Springfields. Time. How have they wasted so much goddamn time?

  Wheeler’s raiders hit tiny Rock Springs on the road to Nolensville, tear it apart, burn everything. It is sloppy work, no care spent saving anything. They mount, push on, the fear nipping at their heels. In this mood, the men are more inclined to pay heed to their officers. Later, if things go badly, they will become a mob. But for now, they will listen.

  The gray horsemen explode into Nolensville out of the rainy light of midafternoon. A long train of wagons stands in the village square, its head pointed east toward Stewart’s Creek, the Nashville Pike, and the rear of McCook’s corps. The escort puts up no fight, and Wheeler’s officers go from wagon to wagon, tearing back the tarpaulins to inspect the loads beneath. Some twenty wagons are laden with ammunition. They cull these and half a dozen new ambulances and send them rolling west. “Burn the rest,” Wheeler yells, and the men go crazy in their anxiety to destroy and be gone. One detail begins shooting and hacking at the mules while another dashes buckets of coal oil on the wagons. Inevitably, someone touches a torch to a wagon before its mule team is dispatched. The terrified mules bolt, the wagon gouting smoke and fire, the flames sweeping back to ignite another wagon in passing, then another and another until in moments the street is pandemonium. The mules trample men, overset barrels of coal oil, scream as the incendiary splashes on their coats. One of the Alabamans apparently forgets that his bucket is filled with coal oil, not water, and casts it on a burning wagon. The explosion drenches him with flaming oil and he staggers about the crossroads, screeching until the flames beat him to earth.

  Wheeler rides into the chaos, screaming, “Shoot the mules! Shoot the mules, you damned fools!” He empties a revolver into the leaders of one team and they go down, the second hitch crashing over them, the wagon upsetting. A dozen other officers and noncoms are firing now, bringing down hitch after hitch. One team, the mules aflame so that they seem creatures out of some Persian myth of fire, plunges down the road to the southwest toward Franklin after the departed ammunition wagons. Wheeler and two of his staff officers chase them, firing their pistols. Bullets puncture the flames, crash through the brain of the right-hand leader, dropping him in his traces. The remaining three mules pivot right, dragging their dead comrade, and in a final desperate lunge to escape the flames slew the wagon beneath the portico of the Presbyterian church. Wheeler and his officers rein up, momentarily stupefied, watch as the flames shoot up, engulfing the overhang and setting alight the steep roof of the church. “Christ,” Wheeler mutters in disgust, spins his horse, kicks it back toward the town square. They must move.

  By the time the modest rose window over the west front of the church explodes, showering the brown grass of the lawn with stained glass, Wheeler has his column pointed southwest toward escape.

  Braxton Bragg has guessed wrong. Rosecrans has no plan to attack the Rebel left with McCook’s corps, intends rather to smash Bragg’s right and center with Crittenden’s and Thomas’s corps.

  Beneath the awning of gutta-percha blankets Rosecrans sits in close conversation with Crittenden. Van Cleve’s three brigades will cross Stones River at McFadden’s Ford as early as practicable to strike Bragg’s right flank. Fording upstream of Van Cleve, Wood’s three brigades will come in on his right, taking Wayne’s Hill as Bragg’s right gives way and retreats into Murfreesboro. Once in possession of the hill, Wood will open a bombardment of the Confederate center as Palmer’s division and Thomas’s two divisions attack along the axis of the Nashville and Wilkinson Pikes. Meanwhile, McCook will put pressure on Bragg’s left to prevent any shift of troops to reinforce the center and right.

  Garesché thinks Crittenden looks a bit dazed by the effort of following Rosecrans’s plan, but his chief of staff is taking detailed notes. “So, do you have any questions, Tom?” Rosecrans asks.

  Crittenden glances quickly at his chief of staff. “I don’t believe so, General. We will have written orders, won’t we?”

  “Of course. Garesché will send them to you shortly. I have called a meeting for six o’clock with Generals Thomas and McCook. Come back then and we’ll go over everything again. Bring Wood, Palmer, and Van Cleve with you. And, Tom, I will be with you in the morning to see that you get off well.”

  “We will be honored by your presence, General.”

  Rosecrans smiles, rises, claps Crittenden on the shoulder. “Let’s just worry about honoring Braxton Bragg with our presence come the morning.”

  When Crittenden and his staff have departed, Rosecrans stretches. “Well, I suppose it’s about time we got back.”

  “General?”

  “Back to our cozy log cabin, Julius. We can’t spend the night out here in the open.”

  “I’ve already arranged to have tents erected. They should arrive any—”

  “Oh, I prefer a solid roof over my head. Come, get the staff started. The Johnnies aren’t likely to give us any trouble now that it’s nearly dusk.”

  “But, General—”

  “Colonel, I would prefer not to argue small matters right now! Call for my horse.”

&n
bsp; “Yes, sir.”

  They ride down the slope toward the cabin, the rest of the staff nervously trailing. Rosecrans, who seems to have genuinely discounted the Rebel cannon on Wayne’s Hill, rides lost in thought. This is not braggadocio, Garesché thinks. He simply does not worry about cannonballs, though aides may be killed around him by the score. “McCook must hold the right,” Rosecrans says. “Bragg may not wait for our attack but make one of his own.”

  “But didn’t you say he would follow Jomini, taking a blow and then counterattacking?”

  “I thought so. I think so now. But he may become anxious. If I recall his reputation aright, patience is not Bragg’s greatest virtue.”

  “Nor yours, General.”

  Rosecrans smiles. “No, hardly a virtue of mine either… . It sounds as if McCook has finished his day’s fighting. Find out if he has a firm hold on Negley’s right and if he’s got a brigade across the Franklin Pike. Remind him to come see me this evening.”

  Hazen and Bierce ride a few paces behind the two generals toward the meeting at army headquarters. Bierce hears Palmer snort when Wood says that Crittenden is “indisposed.”

  “How quickly did he become indisposed this time?” Palmer asks.

  “I gather he left General Rosecrans about three.”

  “Well, at least you and Van Cleve had a chance to talk to him while he was comparatively sober.” He gestures Hazen forward. “Join us, Bill. You’ll have your star soon and you might as well get in the habit of scheming with generals.”

  Hazen warns Bierce back with a look and urges his horse forward. Bierce drops back among the trailing staff officers. Let the generals have their secrets. Few secrets will last till morning, none long past. The cold rain weighs down the smoke of the campfires so that an acrid fog hangs about the army’s bivouacs. They pass medical orderlies and a detail from Scribner’s brigade of Rousseau’s division erecting a field hospital. The infantrymen complain about the duty after the long day’s march and make black jokes about visiting the tents on the morrow to donate a leg or an arm to the surgeon. The medical orderlies, bored with all the tired jokes about their trade, go about setting up operating tables and laying out row on row of bandages. A detail of bandsmen arrives. They place their instruments in the comparative dryness of a field tent and begin unloading litters from a line of nearby ambulances. The infantrymen give up trying to make jokes.