Bright Starry Banner

by Alden R. Carter

  Thruston has scouted ahead as far as the harvested cornfields between the woods and the belt of cedars bordering the Nashville Pike. There are stragglers by the hundred crossing the open but he has seen no Reb cavalry nor any Federal either. If he can get the wagons across the fields, he will have done all he can. If there is no safety in proximity to army headquarters, then there is no safety anywhere.

  A dozen shots crackle at the rear of the train. Thruston kicks his mare into a canter, rides back. The corporal in charge of the dozen troopers assigned to guard the rear whips the ramrod out of his musket, slides it in place under the barrel. “There was four of ’em horseback, Cap’n. We seen ’em a few minutes ago but weren’t sure if they was Yank or Reb. This time we was sure.”

  Scouts, Thruston thinks and curses silently. “Get any of them?”

  “Couldn’t tell, sir. One of ’em hit Jimmy Blackwell with a lucky shot. Blew his kneecap off.”

  Thruston looks at a private down beside a tree, rocking in agony, two of his friends with him. “Get him atop one of the wagons. Look sharp for the Rebs. If I get any men to spare, I’ll send them back to you.”

  He is nearly to the front of the train when he sees a mounted figure in a black rain cape coming down the road. Thruston’s hand reaches involuntarily for the Navy Colt at his side. He stops it, hesitates. No, a courier. Must be. “Don’t shoot,” the man shouts to the guards ahead of the train. “I’m from Colonel Zahm. Who’s in charge?”

  “Show me a uniform,” Sergeant Barnes yells.

  The man looks down, confused for a moment, and then pulls back his cape to reveal a blue uniform. “Lord, son,” Barnes growls. “Riding around with one of those things on is a sure way to get yourself shot. Captain Thruston’s back there.”

  The orderly rides up to Thruston. “Captain, Colonel Zahm wants you to push ahead as fast as you can. He’s got his brigade up ahead and will give you cover crossing to the pike. But there’s a lot of Reb cavalry around and you’ve got to move fast.”

  “We’re moving as fast as we can. Tell Colonel Zahm we appreciate all the cover he can give us.”

  Despite Garesché’s protests about the danger, Rosecrans has returned to the elevation of the railroad embankment. Watching George Thomas riding up the slope at his usual slow trot, Rosecrans feels a swell of confidence. Thomas is an archetype, he thinks. They have all had someone like him, all the great soldiers: Agamemnon his Ajax, Alexander his Ptolemy, Augustus his Agrippa. Given leisure, he could pair them all down through history: the generals and the grim, inflexible lieutenants who rode with them through victories and defeats, always fixed and fell of purpose. Rosecrans lifts a hand. “Good morning, George.”

  Thomas salutes. “General Rosecrans.”

  “Is Rousseau in position on Sheridan’s right?”

  “Just going in. I sent Colonel Parkhurst and my provost guard up the pike to form a straggler line.”

  “Good. Given a little time, we can make things all right.”

  “Of course. But General McCook—”

  Rosecrans is suddenly impatient. “Forget McCook, George. I will deal with him later. For the moment I’ve ordered him to re-form Johnson’s and Davis’s divisions north of the pike.”

  “Yes, but it seems that General McCook has not taken up those duties. He came into Sheridan’s rear and ordered the 36th Illinois to fall back all the way to the Nashville Pike. Never told Sheridan a thing. Sheridan’s adjutant came looking for them and told me about it.”

  Rosecrans’s face goes taut with anger. “Well, if you see General McCook, tell him to take up the new duties I gave him or retire altogether from the battlefield.”

  Thomas nods and then points at the chaos on the Nashville Pike. “That brigade isn’t going to get through.”

  “Whose is it?”

  “One of Van Cleve’s. Hascall’s, I believe.”

  “Hascall is supposed to be on the right beyond Rousseau and Harker. I will send word for them to fix bayonets and force their way through. To fire if necessary.”

  “I think it would be preferable to post Hascall south of the pike in support of General Palmer’s line. Bragg is executing a right wheel by echelon. It won’t be long before the strength of his attack lands on Negley and Palmer.”

  Rosecrans frowns. “Bragg should reinforce his left, try to push across the pikes to the river. He’d have us surrounded.”

  “Yes, but he won’t. Once in motion, Bragg does not change direction. He will press the attack on our center next.”

  Rosecrans chews his lip. For an hour he has been stripping the center to send aid to the right flank. Has he blundered? He turns abruptly to Garesché. “Julius, send a message to Hascall. Tell him to stand in reserve south of the pike. General Thomas, I am going to look to the flanks. Hold the center. Keep Sheridan fighting.”

  Thomas almost smiles. “Sheridan will fight. There is no need for anyone to keep him at it. I will support him as well as I can.”

  The impatience has come on Rosecrans again. “Good. I’m going to check on the security of the ford.” He spins Boney to the east, forcing the staff to part.

  Passing Thomas, Garesché manages to smile. “Good luck, General. God protect you.”

  Thomas nods. He does not much believe in luck or in Garesché’s God. In his experience, constancy is an agency infinitely more reliable.

  Colonel John G. Parkhurst commands the 9th Michigan infantry, assigned as provost guard for Thomas’s corps. He has managed to maneuver the regiment through the woods and fields north of the Nashville Pike to the bridge crossing Overall Creek. It is a good position for a straggler line and he expects little difficulty in funneling refugees into the fields short of the bridge, where McCook is to reorganize his wing. Parkhurst settles down under a tree to browse through a slender volume of Descartes.

  The book is an old friend from the four months Parkhurst spent as a prisoner of war after Nathan Bedford Forrest’s capture of Murfreesboro and General Thomas Turpin Crittenden’s garrison. During his captivity, Parkhurst attempted to develop a philosophical patience regarding the tragical frailties, as he calls them, of mankind. He excepts from his charity only the Crittenden clan, for whom he nurses an eternal loathing.

  At midmorning, Parkhurst is confronted with a truly excessive test of his philosophy when a supply train comes thundering up the road toward the straggler line. Even at a distance, Parkhurst can see the panic on faces human and mule. Good Lord, he thinks, I’d need a cannon to stop them. “Fix bayonets,” he yells. “Companies A and B, prepare to fire a volley over their heads.”

  The soldiers of the 9th Michigan are a veteran bunch, unimpressed by the usual disorder surrounding battles won and lost. But the prospect of being run down by a train of mule-drawn wagons in full flight brings a pallor even to their weathered faces. “Jesus Christ, Colonel,” one of the men says. “Let ’em pass. We’ll build a barricade, stop the next bunch.” There are murmurs of assent.

  Parkhurst does not answer, though it is probably good advice. I never understood before how terrifying a chariot charge must have been, he thinks. Well, we shall see if these steeds and charioteers have the stuff of epic in them. He steps to the side of the bridge, nods to the captain commanding Company A. “Present!” the captain yells. “Fire!” The volley rips over the head of the train, apparently without effect.

  Company B steps forward, combing through the ranks of Company A. “Just over their heads, Captain,” Parkhurst shouts. The volley rips out, and it must be low indeed because there is an instant screaming of “whoa” from the lead wagons, accompanied by a screeching of wooden brakes against iron rims. But not everyone has gotten the point or at least been convinced of it. A wagon in the pack swings out of line, makes a sprint for the front, its driver slashing at his mules. Seeing him coming, the driver of the lead wagon, whether motivated by fear of capture or an overwhelming competitive desire, releases his brake and applies the whip again.

  The wagons meet at the narrow ent
rance to the bridge, colliding with such force that four of the mules and one of the drivers suffer fatal broken necks and some of the infantrymen of Company B, falling back across the bridge in near rout, are thrown from their feet. Two more wagons pile into the mess, killing more mules and another driver. Staring at the wreckage, Parkhurst abandons philosophy. Tragical frailties? More like farcical tragedies. Or perhaps frail farcities. Who the hell knows?

  He looks at his men, who are staring in disbelief at the scene, and then at the mob on the road, who are likewise rendered silent for the moment. “All right,” he says to his lieutenant colonel. “Let’s get it cleaned up. Take half the boys and start gathering up that pack of miscreants.”

  Rosecrans, Garesché, and the staff pull up at McFadden’s Ford in a clatter of hooves. Colonel Sam Price, whose brigade guards the ford, comes hurrying up. Rosecrans leans forward, hands on the pommel of Boney’s saddle, fixes Price with a stare. “Will you hold this ford?”

  “I will try, sir.”

  “Will you hold this ford, Colonel?”

  Price looks confused. “I will die right here, General!”

  “Will you hold this ford, Colonel?”

  Price snaps to attention. “Yes, sir!”

  “That will do,” Rosecrans growls, wheels Boney, sets spurs to the gray’s flanks.

  Brigadier General John Wharton’s brigade of gray cavalry tears across the Yankee rear, trying to get ahead of Thruston’s ammunition train. Coming out of the cedars bordering Overall Creek, the brigade swings hard to the east over fallow cornfields. Wharton can feel his flank coming open, cringes at the thought of Yankee batteries on the pike a mile to the north. As if cued, a gun fires from the trees along the pike, its discharge a white plume against the dark background. The shell roars overhead, explodes amid some Yankee stragglers near the cedars, killing two and scattering the rest.

  Wharton’s lead squadron breasts a small hill, its captain turning to gesture to Wharton, shouting something over the din of hoofbeats. He sees it! Wharton thinks. We’re going to catch the bastards, after all. He comes up and over the hill, feels a sudden relief as it screens out the battery on the pike. Below he sees a farm and, beyond it, the wagon train stretched across the foot of the field, a regiment of blue cavalry on its near flank, two more regiments drawn up near the farm’s outbuildings.

  Altogether the Yankee force must number nine hundred men, and Wharton—even with numerous detachments on other errands—still has half again as many. For a moment he is tempted to pitch into the Yankees, but experience tells him better. His boys are not French lancers or British dragoons, but country boys equipped with immense enthusiasm but little training in the complex maneuvers called for in a charge. They fight best on foot with their carbines and infantry rifles, rarely resorting to pistols or blades.

  Wharton deploys the brigade in line of battle along the base of the hill with White’s Tennessee Battery in the center. He rides to White’s side. “For God’s sake, don’t hit the wagons. Just drive off the guard.”

  A moment later the first gun fires, sending a round howling over the creaking wagons.

  From the shadow of the Widow Burris farm, Colonel Lewis Zahm watches Wharton deploy. Like Wharton, Zahm knows that this war’s cavalry fights best afoot. He is about to shake out a skirmish line when Colonel Minor Milliken, commanding the 1st Ohio cavalry, goes romantically mad. Milliken has adopted Morte d’Arthur, Mocedades del Cid, and the Chanson de Roland as his texts, believes absolutely that battle on horseback should be fought with the blade and a strong arm. He would be Lancelot, the Cid, most of all Roland. He has even christened his saber after Roland’s great sword, Durandal. He draws it now, sweeps it forward.

  Zahm is startled by the shout behind him, turns to see the entire 1st Ohio charging into the field behind Milliken. “Stop!” Zahm yells, for it is a simple word inviting no interpretation and also the first to come to his tongue. No one in the 1st Ohio so much as turns a head.

  Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Murray, commanding the 3rd Ohio, shouts to Zahm: “Colonel, shouldn’t we hit the Reb flank?”

  Zahm stares at Murray. “Are you mad?” he splutters. “Milliken’s about to be butchered! Get your men down and under cover of the farm buildings. We’ll try to hold here until Thruston can get the wagons to the trees.”

  “But, Colonel, those wagons are full of ammunition. If the Rebs start shelling them—”

  “I know what’s in them, goddamn it! Jesus Christ, man! Have you a better idea? Now follow orders or I’ll have you court-martialed along with Milliken!”

  Murray delivers a stiff salute and an icy “Yes, sir.”

  Zahm watches as Milliken’s men hurtle down on the Rebel left. I cannot believe this, he thinks. What a bungle.

  * * *

  Milliken would have preferred sunshine on snow, the high mountain air of the Pyrenees, the cliff faces echoing with the shrill and thump of Saracen horn and drum. But Durandal shines, shimmers in his hand, and behind him there is the thunder of the regiment, three hundred horse, three hundred Union cavalrymen—paladins all—and for a moment Minor Milliken is truly there, riding wings of glory into the pass at Roncesvalles.

  Surprise is an incredible thing. In Texas, Wharton has seen the results of a Comanche raid, knows what a mere handful of fanatical and intrepid men can do against many times their number. But the Yankees face odds far too long, have to cross a distance far too wide. Colonel Tom Harrison dismounts his 8th Texas regiment. The Texans kneel, take cool aim, and slaughter half a hundred Yankees like they were so many buffalo. But the Yankee colonel out front seems impervious to the fire, comes on brandishing a polished saber. The Texans fire faster, drop twenty, thirty, fifty more, and still the Yankee troopers come on behind their colonel. Wharton whistles softly through his teeth. Get out of the way, Tom. These Yankees are truly loco.

  Harrison pulls his men in so they can fight back to back if they have to, but the 2nd and 4th Tennessee make that unnecessary. The Tennessee boys mount and sweep around the Texans to take the Yankee charge head on.

  In his imagination, Milliken has heard the collision of charging horsemen many times: the clatter of armor, the clanging of sword and ax on shield and helm, the rearing scream of battle chargers, the awful hollow chunk of blades bursting skulls. But it doesn’t sound this way on the last day of 1862, though there is noise enough. Cavalry horses are not armored battle chargers; and they do not crash into each other, but shy away from collision. The fight becomes a melee of bumping, twisting, terrified horses, their riders trying to aim pistols and sabers while being spun in dizzying circles. Some of the troopers carry three or four revolvers and the wide variety of calibers and constructions produces a rattling cacophony like a snare drum hit from every possible angle. Not until Durandal happens to strike the barrel of a Rebel cavalryman’s pistol does Milliken hear the long anticipated clang of metal on metal. The Tennessee cavalryman rips a second pistol from his belt, shoots Milliken through the biceps of his sword arm. The shock tears the saber from Milliken’s hand. His horse turns two rapid circles before Milliken spots Durandal lying in a furrow. He swings down, catches it up with his left hand, his nearly dead right grasping his mount’s reins. He examines his arm, sees the blood pumping from the wound. The words come unbidden, perhaps from the Chanson, perhaps from some ballad very like it: I am a little wounded but I am not slain. I will lay me down for to bleed a while, then rise to fight again. He smiles, would say the words aloud, but at that moment Private Darwin Friemoth, 4th Tennessee Cavalry, leans down from his horse and puts three rounds from a .44-caliber double-action Kerr revolver into Milliken’s chest.

  So long as they can see their colonel, the troopers of the 1st Ohio fight. But once they lose sight of him, they lose enthusiasm. A few dozen break free to gallop back across the field to the Burris farm. A hundred are swallowed up by the Tennessee regiments and forced to surrender.

  The gunners of White’s Tennessee Battery have ignored the fight to their lef
t. The first few rounds from the company’s Napoleons scatter the troopers of the raw 4th Ohio, dispatched by Zahm to escort Thruston’s wagons. The teamsters bolt for the woods, ignoring the shouts, threats, and warning shots of the infantry guards. Thruston tries to form the infantry, but they cannot hold under cannon fire. They fire a single, pointless volley at extreme range, then join the flight for the woods. At the Burris farm, Zahm can do nothing. When White’s battery shifts its fire onto the outbuildings, he orders the 3rd Ohio to mount and fall back toward the Nashville Pike.

  Wharton sends three of his small regiments to take charge of the train. Hardly a man lost and he has taken a great prize. It strikes him that he has an exploit to match those of Morgan, Forrest, and Wheeler, that perhaps he may at last claim admission to their ranks.

  Riding northwest on the Nashville Pike, Colonel John Kennett’s luck is running well. He encounters Colonel Parkhurst, the former disciple of Descartes, coming east from the straggler line with two re-formed regiments of infantry and a squadron of cavalry. “What cavalry have you got there, Parkhurst?” Kennett shouts.

  “A squadron of the 3rd Kentucky. They were lost more than beaten. As a matter of fact, they’re mad as snakes in a bag.”

  “Well, if I can borrow them, I’ll take them where they can bite something.”

  Shortly after, Kennett meets Captain Elmer Otis and his six companies of the 4th U.S. Cavalry returning from their scout. Otis halts his column, rides forward. “Colonel, I’m very glad to see you. Johnson and Davis are broken, Sheridan’s hanging on by his fingertips.”

  “Any sign of General Stanley or Minty’s brigade?”

  “None, Colonel.”