by Unknown
“You don’t have to stand straight to kill Yankees.” He turned and grinned at his friends. The look on my face must have had an effect for some of them faced the front and stood to attention.
“You’ve killed many Yankees?”
For the first time a look of doubt came over his face. “I been in battles before.”
“Ah so you haven’t fought a man, smelled his breath and killed him? You haven’t faced down four times your number at ten paces and blasted away with your pistols until there were none left to kill?” I didn’t let him answer and I glowered at the rest. “Well these men you are fighting alongside, Boswell’s Wildcats, have. They are the finest and deadliest killers I know.” I could see that some had not heard who we were and they suddenly snapped to attention.
My grinning man was still grinning although a little less obviously. “When I have to I will kill.”
I snapped my head around and roared into his face, “When I ask you a question then you can speak until then shut up!” Without looking down I reached around and pulled my nine inch Bowie knife out and held it very close to the man’s throat. “Now this knife here has killed many a man and slit many a throat. It is so sharp that you can shave with it. It looks to me as though you have come on parade without shaving. I am a kind First Sergeant; would you like me to shave you now here in front of your new comrades?”
I saw his Adam’s apple move and the smile left his face. “No!”
“No what?”
“No sergeant!”
“Well when we dismiss you shave but first let’s see if you can do the same as every other man here. Parade! Attention!”
He snapped to attention and faced the front. I turned to the officers who were standing stony faced behind me. “Parade ready for inspection sir!” I winked at Harry who let the ghost of a smile play about his lips.
Captain Boswell rode forward and looked down the line, “Thank you First Sergeant Hogan.” He pointed at me. “Some of you may have heard of the First Sergeant, he is called Lucky Jack.” I saw some eyes widen at the recognition of the name. “He has been behind the enemy lines so many times that Abraham Lincoln has his picture on his desk in case he comes a-calling.” The Wildcats laughed and a couple of the new men joined in. “You will soon be as accomplished a scout as the sergeant here and the others who serve with me behind the enemy lines but at the moment, I am sorry to say, you are a rabble. Some of you do not look like soldiers, you look like bandits! The corporals and sergeants will work with you today to improve the way you look so that when the colonel arrives tomorrow you can, at least look like soldiers. My adjutant, Lieutenant Murphy, will allocate you to your corporals and sergeants. I will be watching this afternoon as we put you through your paces. I am not used to failure either with men or with combat!” He wheeled away, “First Sergeant!”
I walked up to him and he leaned down. “Well done Jack but I should watch out. That thug looks like he is the type to harbour a grudge.”
I smiled back at him. “I hope he does sir. When I knock him down it will bring his cronies back into line. At least we know who the bad apples are now, and we can work on them.” I stood before the parade again. “Parade, dismiss!”
The malcontent was called Billy Pickles and once I discovered his name I determined to find out more about him. Danny, of course, allocated him to me in my section. I had Cecil, Davy and Jimmy as my corporals, and I knew that I was lucky. Dago and Jed had some of the newer men. Danny compensated by giving me a hard core of ten of the worst recruits.
I gathered my corporals around me. They looked worried. “We do things by the book. If they refuse to obey an order then send for me. Do not lose your temper but make sure you let nothing slip. Tonight you will need to be on your guard, literally. I have a feeling that a couple of these might try to run. We will all be tired tomorrow.”
I sought David and Dago out. “I think that some of these might decide to leave us.” I pointed to the horse lines. “Every man brought his own horse and I can’t see them leaving without it. I will watch the horses from midnight until three and Dago you watch from three until six. Carlton, you know these horses better than anyone. You sleep nearby and I am sure you will wake if they are disturbed.”
“Right you are boss.”
“Yes sarge!”
Carlton was more than happy to sleep near his precious horses and I knew that Dago wanted to have the opportunity to smack one of the bigger men and lay down a marker.
I told the captain what we were doing. “You want one of us to be there with you?”
“If I can’t handle this on my own then you need a new First Sergeant; besides you will need to be bright eyed tomorrow for the colonel. He won’t be bothered if his sergeants look tired.”
Jed woke me at five to twelve. He had had the camp duty with his men until then anyway. “Quiet as the grave Jack, and that is worrying. Some of the men should be making more noise than they are. You be careful now. C Troop is providing the guards and the password is ‘pistol’.”
I went to the horse lines and smiled as I saw Carlton happily snoring away with his leg tethered to his horse’s neck. They made a lovely couple. I stationed myself at the other end of the line and waited behind the tree to which they were roped. Copper was at the end nearest to me and I gave her an old apple I had found and stroked her mane. An hour passed and I was wondering if I had denied myself sleep to no purpose. Then I detected a movement from one of the tents at the end of the line. I saw three men emerge and begin to sneak towards the horses. They suddenly saw Carlton and headed towards me. I took out my pistol. I did not cock it. I knew the effect a cocking pistol had on a man’s bowels. I would save that sound for when it would have the greatest effect. They crept quietly towards me and I had to admire their stealth. They would make good Rangers! I saw that they were going to take the last three horses. One was Copper and the other two belonged to Dago and Jed. They could not have made a worse choice. Even if I had not been there the horses would have made such a fuss that the whole camp would have heard them. I waited until they had their hands filled with their saddles and then stepped from behind the tree and crept behind them. The horses ignored me and I did not make a sound. I stood behind the man in the middle, put my Colt to the back of his head and cocked it. The click sounded like thunder in the silence.
“Now you three are deserting and you are stealing horses. One of the horses is mine and she is far moiré valuable than any of you useless apologies for men. According to any kind of law I can you the three of you as horse thieves. And as this is an Army Colt with a ball the size of your head the burial plot will be really small for all of you.” I allowed the threat to hang in the air. “Now turn around slowly. I prefer to shoot a man looking into the whites, or in your case, yellows of his eyes.”
They turned around. The man in the middle found the barrel of the Colt less than two inches from his nose. “Please sarge…”
“Doesn’t this barrel look big? It looks like you could crawl right inside and have a sleep doesn’t it?” I stopped the bantering tone and became more threatening. “Now explain!”
“We are scared we’ll get killed in battle. This is a small regiment and when we heard that we were to be scouts we knew how dangerous that could be.”
“Scared of dying huh?” I swung the gun so that each of them saw the barrel pointing at them. “Now I am guessing that you three are not the sharpest knives in the drawer seeing as how you could die right now. But, even if you got away, then you would have Boswell’s Wildcats after you. Now, not meaning to boast, but we have stolen colonels from the middle of armed camps. We have broken prisoners out of prisons in the middle of Pennsylvania so do you think we couldn’t find you and, how shall I put it, deal with you in our own way?”
That particular thought hadn’t occurred to them and they looked at each other in horror. The idea of a Ranger stalking them worried them more than the slightly better chances of death in battle.
“Now in your favour I think th
at the three of you will make good scouts. You snuck out of your tent real quiet. That leads me to believe that you are not lost causes. Now you head on back to your tent and tomorrow morning, report to me. I’d like to see you in the daylight.”
There was a relieved chorus of, “Yes, sarge.” They scurried back to their tents.
When I woke Dago I told him what had happened. He shook his head. “These boys sure are dumb!”
When we had our first parade the next morning I noticed a difference immediately. The new pieces of uniform and equipment had made a difference to the appearance of the men. More than that they had brushed their horses and made an effort to clean leather. As I scanned the lines I suddenly stopped. There was Billy Pickles sporting a black eye and with a freshly broken nose. I walked up to him. “What happened to you Billy?”
He glanced behind me at Dago and said, “I got up for a leak and tripped on the guy ropes.”
I turned away to hide my smile and saw the bruised knuckles on both of Dago’s hands. “That can happen when you get up in the middle of the night.”
Captain Boswell rode down the line nodding his approval. “Boys you have made a real effort. The colonel will be inspecting you at noon so I want you to spend the rest of the morning making yourselves as smart as possible. I have five silver Yankee dollars for the best turned out trooper in each section.” He allowed a pause. “The Wildcats are exempt. This is just for you new men!”
When they were dismissed they all set to with a spark which had hitherto been missing. I saw Dago. “What happened?”
“He tried to sneak out. I was hiding behind the horses at horse lines. When he tried to mount I was there. He didn’t see me and I thumped him so hard it knocked him out. I dragged him back to his bed and didn’t even disturb his tent mates.”
“He’ll think it was me who put you up to it you know?”
Dago shrugged, “He will feel a fool is what he’ll be thinking. The big tough man can’t even steal a horse and desert. His pals will have less respect for him now.”
As he turned away three sheepish troopers approached. One of them, a tall gangly youth approached me. “First Sergeant, you said you wanted to see us.”
I nodded. “Well I am pleased you have come. It shows you are real men. You aren’t afraid to take your punishment. I like that. What are your names?”
The gangly youth said, “Norman Thomas, sarge.”
A slightly chubby round face young man said, “Leroy Palmer.”
The older man said, “James Palmer. Leroy’s big brother.”
“Now listen boys, you have a future here. Believe me you have a good chance you will survive this war. We always kill more of the enemy and we rarely lose men.” I pointed to the Dago and Jed. “Those sergeants and the officers know what they are doing. We won’t make stupid decisions and we won’t risk men’s lives. The Yankees were afraid of the Wildcats not because we were so bad but because we were so good at what we did, fighting.” I saw the expressions on their faces changing. “Now the next time you feel like running, you come and talk about it to me. Right?”
Their smiles and their chorused, “Yes First Sergeant,” made me feel much better about our prospects.
Colonel Zebediah Cartwright looked every inch the southern gentleman he turned out to be. He was painfully thin with a small silver goatee and a few wisps of silver hair peeping from beneath his plumed hat. The sword which hung from his waist looked as expensive as my new house. He was not tall but he had a commanding presence. He rode in on a magnificent grey and was followed by a Sergeant Major who looked almost as old as he was. Cecil had been charged with warning us of his arrival and the regiment was in three well dressed lines as he rode in. He rode the length of each line. When he finished he returned to the front. For a man who was in his sixties he had a powerful voice which carried to every trooper. His voice, too, oozed Southern gentleman. I could imagine him on Captain Boswell’s plantation sipping mint juleps and talking about the cotton harvest..
“Gentlemen I am Colonel Zebediah Cartwright and I am your new commander. This is a new regiment for me, a new regiment for all of you and a new and unique regiment for the Confederacy. We are scouts.” He gave a wry smile to the Sergeant Major next to him. “I thought my days of scouting ended in the Mexican War but I know that many of you troopers, sergeants and officers have experience in this area and I will take your advice. We are entering a glorious phase of the war. Now that General Lee has defeated the Union at Fredericksburg the north is ripe for an attack and we will be in the fore of that attack. When we scout for the army I want you to remember that we are trying to take the fight to the Union backyard so that our people do not have to bear the brunt of the deprivation. You are fighting for your families. Remember that. I will be speaking with your officers and sergeant so you may have the next two hours off. But after that we begin work!”
The colonel looked around for somewhere to speak with us. There was nowhere. He shook his head. “I fear, Sergeant Major Vaughan that we shall need a command tent. It is most unsatisfactory to have to speak with my officers in a field. Pray could you arrange to get one for the regiment but first I would like you to speak with the non-commissioned officers. We are of one mind gentleman Whatever Sergeant Major Vaughan says is what I would say to you.”
Sergeant Major Vaughan was quietly spoken and it took all of us by surprise. He looked to be a huge blustering fort of fellow. “We will see to it colonel. Now gentlemen if you would like to follow me we will find somewhere where we can speak without little ears listening in.” He led us away from both the tents and the colonel. He smiled and he looked like a kindly uncle or grandfather. “As you can see neither the colonel nor me are young men.” We smiled at the humour. “When the colonel was called upon to serve again he asked for me. I served with him all those years ago. He took me away from the fishing and the telling of tall tales.” He seemed to see us all for the first time. “This is a different experience for me. You are new both as an idea and as a regiment. You have come from different regiments and units. I know that some of the men may need firm handling.” He chuckled. “I noticed a bruised face or two and I heard a story about a couple of sergeants watching all night for trouble.” He nodded. “I like that. Those sergeants are my kind of soldiers. I am relying on you, non-commissioned officers, to handle the men you brought with you. As for the new boys, well let me know who the troublemakers are and I will deal with them.” He rubbed his hands together as though relishing the prospect of building a new regiment. “As you know we are short handed at the moment. We are awaiting major from England who is taking his own sweet time about getting here. We have no Quartermaster, no farrier, no armourer and no-one to take charge of the horses.”
I put my hand up. “Actually Sergeant Major I asked one of my corporals to be an armourer and another to look after the horses. They can do the job until you find someone.”
“And you would be Lucky Jack Hogan I take it?” I was taken aback and it must have shown on my face. He laughed. “I had someone describe you and when I heard those Irish tones then I knew it must be you. Well those two can have the job. If they are any good they will be made up to sergeant. Anyone else got a farrier or quartermaster lurking beneath a bushel?” As he looked around the room I saw that Cecil was fit to burst. He was happy.
Billy Foster drawled, “Two of my sergeants are fair hands at those jobs but I will need to promote a couple of corporals to take their place.”
“Good man. Then do it.” He paused and looked at all of our faces. “What you need to know about the colonel is that he is the best cavalry leader you will ever meet but his days of leading charges are, like mine, long gone. But I don’t think that this regiment will be in the business of cavalry charges. We will be scouting and that means we will be looking to A Troop for advice and ideas.” Everyone looked at our cluster of non-coms. “I have been following the exploits of Boswell and Mosby in the papers and while I don’t believe all the stories, when Jeb S
tuart tells me a couple of interesting tales then I do. A Troop may be young but the rest of you make no mistake, they aren’t green. Anyway that is the speech out of the way. We will have a briefing every morning before breakfast and last thing at night. I may not be riding as much as some of you but I will make sure all the standing orders and rotas are written up and available to you. And now I had better go and get those tents. First Sergeant Foster, where is that quartermaster of yours?”
I walked back to the camp with Dago and Jed. “I think that he is going to work out just fine.”
Cecil raced up behind us. “Does that mean I am the armourer for the regiment? And if I work hard I’ll be a sergeant just like Sergeant Spinelli?”
Dago looked disdainfully at Cecil, “Even if you do make sergeant, you will never be like Sergeant Spinelli.” He patted Cecil on the head, “But you can dream!”
Chapter 8
It was a few days later and our English major had still not arrived. General Stuart was keen to move his corps to the east towards the area we had recently vacated. He wanted to try out his new regiment of scouts. We could not await one man. It suited those of us who had worked with Captain Boswell before because he appeared to be the senior officer. We felt he deserved that. We all liked the colonel but we were still Boswell’s Wildcats at heart.
Captain Boswell summoned his officers and non-commissioned officers. “It seems the general wants his new regiment of scouts to begin operations sooner rather than later. We only have three troops but the colonel thinks that is enough to start with. The new officer, the English major will be given the task of training and bringing along the next troop. The general has given us a couple of clerks to help him.” He smiled, “I, for one, do not mind. Colonel Cartwright is a real gentleman. He reminds me of my grandfather. He speaks well and he is courteous. I don’t think we could have had a better commanding officer if we had chosen one ourselves. He is such a gentleman that he even has a manservant with him. He has given us a corporal bugler. I’m afraid we will all have to learn the bugle calls. That will be new for many of us.” I shrugged, I had heard enough in the campaigns so far and it would not take long to learn them. “Because twenty of us have experience of being Rangers we are the lead troop. You sergeants and corporals will have to train your new men on the job.” He gave us his old look. “I am quite excited by this. I always wanted to serve the Confederacy and now I will be doing so. We won’t be skulking around the back streets any more. We are part of Jeb Stuart’s Corps.”