by Jeff Shaara
Seeley’s father had been among those, a man who knew nothing of the army. But the older man had still offered a lecture of caution that his son not shame the family, that the best measure of a man was his backbone for a stout brawl. Seeley’s young wife, Katie, was less certain of that, and when the day came when Seeley marched off to join the grand parades, she had released his hand reluctantly, a short tearful kiss that tempered his lust for the Great Fight. There had been words, a final farewell from her that had settled into his heart with a nagging sadness. He would not accept that, not completely, that his wife did not want him to go at all, that this duty did not mean as much to her as it did to most everyone else. And so his letters home had begun immediately, and no matter how much joy he tried to communicate to them all, his promotion in particular, he could not hide from a frustrating uneasiness that she did not truly understand how important this was. Her message spread subtly through her letters, soft sadness, and he knew that all those things that mattered to the rest of family did not truly matter to her. No matter how heroic he might become, what kinds of trophies of war he might bring them all, his absence had already taken something from her, left a wound he didn’t really understand. They had, after all, been married for only four months.
In December 1861, Lieutenant Seeley had seen his first glimpse of the enemy whose very existence seemed to inspire so much hatred in the men around him, a hatred he tried to embrace, because it was the right thing to do. The fight had been at Sacramento, Kentucky, a brief affair that did little to turn the tide of the war. But there was more to the results than the handful of casualties shared by both sides. With three hundred horsemen, Forrest had surprised and attacked a force of nearly five hundred Federal cavalry. By using a double flanking tactic, combined with an all-out frontal assault, the Confederates had won the day, the shaken Federals able to stand their ground for only a short while. Seeley’s only direct confrontation with a bluecoat was a brief glimpse of the man’s back, a horseman springing from a cluster of brush who did not fight, but instead spurred his horse away in a rapid retreat. Seeley had not been close enough to the man to fire his weapon, but in the primary assault Forrest and many of the others had traded a good deal of fire with the enemy, much of it manic and badly aimed. The aftermath was glorious. It was after all, a victory.
Seeley had been annoyed, knew that by dumb chance he had missed his first opportunity to cut down the hated Yankees. But that frustration had been tempered quickly by the sight of the first blood he had seen, a mortal wound that had brought down a Federal captain named Bacon. Seeley had not lingered close to the desperately wounded man, had watched some of the others, Forrest included, who had done all they could to make the man’s final hours comfortable. He had been surprised at that, had expected the wounded Yankee to spit out viciousness toward his enemies, and them to do the same. When Bacon died, Seeley had thought of leading a cheer, but there was none of that from Forrest.
Whether or not the engagement at Sacramento produced much practical advantage for either side, higher up the chain of command, Forrest and his horsemen caught the attention of officers on both sides, and for the first time west of the Appalachian Mountains, Federal commanders began to take Confederate cavalry and their audacious commander seriously.
“Would you have me shoot them, sir? These are our own people. My people. Begging your pardon, sir, but to shoot them down for a barn full of goods … we could never come back here. We’d be no better than the Yankees.”
“Do not explain the obvious, Lieutenant. You did all you could hope to do. I will not order anyone in my command to shed the blood of Southern citizens for no good reason. These are my people as well. Despite their panic, I do not believe the Yankees will do them such great harm. Not civilians.”
“The civilians don’t seem to agree with you, Colonel. I never saw such a thing. They were … well, they were crazed, sir. I admit that I feared for my men. If any one of those people had shown arms … had fired upon us. It would have been a disaster, sir.”
Forrest stood, moved out from behind the desk of the makeshift headquarters. He was tall, wide shoulders, a taut-faced, handsome man. There would be no mistaking who was in command here. He moved to a window of the elegant room, stared into darkness.
“Put it out of your thoughts, Lieutenant. I have confronted a mob already, another of the storage depots, and I saw the same response. Thankfully, we used the horses as moving barricades, and drove the people back. But I heard the same as you. Somehow this absurd rumor has spread that we will burn this place, citizens be damned. You cannot cure that kind of madness from a people who embrace it with such fear. I know little of this General Grant. He is a West Point man, for certain. I saw no great brilliance in his capture of either Henry or Donelson. He had superior arms and used them with effectiveness. But … we spilled a great deal of their blood, and that will inspire some of them to revenge. You may depend on that. But no matter what other despicable faults our enemy may possess, no matter how they cling to a cause that no decent man can justify, I do not believe their professional officers are trained to be barbarians. No matter what anyone in Nashville believes, the Yankees are just men, not monsters.”
“They come by their barbarism naturally, sir. I’ve heard the talk. They are using foreigners, savages. The Lincolnites have offered a bounty for the scalps of our soldiers.”
Forrest looked at Seeley, a glare that silenced him.
“I will not entertain that kind of rumor in this headquarters. You wear the uniform of a professional soldier, Lieutenant. You will behave like one. Your men will behave like the gentlemen they claim to be. The Yankees have driven us to this war, and I have pledged to kill any one of those bluecoats who dares assault my country, who dares to raise his saber against my own people. That is as simple as it needs to be, Mr. Seeley. We have a duty to perform, and it is not made easier by encouraging childish nightmares among the people. You heard it yourself. The citizens of this fine city believe that it is we who are going to burn the place to ashes, correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“There you have it, Lieutenant. Panic is a disease. I admit, it can be a useful disease when rallying someone to your cause. But we do not require that here. What we need from these people is assistance. Yes, this city will be occupied by Yankees. There is no alternative to that, not right now. It is a catastrophe for this country, but from the army’s point of view, it is simply a setback that we will one day correct. We are doing everything in our power to create an army with the power to dictate the terms of this war, but it is not an easy process, certainly not as easy as these citizens expect. We have done everything short of begging them to assist this army in a myriad of ways. When the war was elsewhere, they were very pleased to go about their own business and ignore every request we made of them. We insisted they blockade the river with obstructions that would hold away the Yankee gunboats, and the merchants cried out that we would hurt their pocketbooks. General Johnston beseeched them to dig earthworks, and they laughed at him. Their message was clear: Keep the war away, so that we may live in comfort, without inconvenience. Well, we have failed to do that, Lieutenant. So now they rise up like wild dogs and curse us for our failures. Until a man stands up against the enemy and faces the bayonet, he has no right to curse anything this army does. Richmond may judge our generals, and our generals may judge the troops in their command. But no civilian has the right to curse this army. These people refused to accept their responsibility to assist our cause, and now their city cannot be defended. That is a strategic decision made by General Johnston that has no alternative. But I refuse to feel pity for these people.” He stopped, called out beyond the walls of the room. “Sergeant, have we heard anything of Mr. Stevenson?”
Seeley stood back from the door, saw the sergeant appear, an older man, hesitant.
“Uh, no, sir.”
“So, every one of the railroad people and the commissary officers have vanished, is that correct?”
“Wonderful. The president of the railroad company hears a thump of thunder from forty miles away, and scampers out of here like a mule with his tail afire. All of them … running from monsters that burst out of their own minds! What manner of men do we put in charge of such valuable posts?”
Forrest didn’t wait for a response, moved to one side of the desk, pulled his hat from a small coatrack.
“Remain here, Sergeant. I need you here in the unlikely event someone brings any good news. Ride with me, Lieutenant. Our orders are to vacate this city as soon as the enemy appears, and General Johnston awaits me in Murfreesboro. I am to report to him there once our job is complete. I am doubtful we can salvage all the supplies and stores stockpiled here, but we will do all we can. Wagons, railcars, horseback, I don’t care. What we cannot carry, we will burn. The people of this city have made their own beds, Lieutenant. We are not here to provide comfort for a few lions of Nashville society. This army must be fed and clothed and our men will have our blankets.” He put the hat on, adjusted it, moved to the doorway, the sergeant standing aside. He turned again to Seeley, took a long breath, and the young man saw sadness, unexpected.
“Lieutenant, do you understand what we must do to win this war?”
Seeley felt weight behind the question, wasn’t sure what Forrest was expecting from him.
“I think so, sir. We must kill Yankees.”
“That is partially accurate. We must kill more of them than they can kill of us. But we must do much more. We must show more courage than the Yankees. We must show more spirit and more fire and more of everything that makes a soldier. There are far more of them, and they bring much more to the fight than we can put in their way, more artillery, more gunboats, more horses, more recruits. If we are to win this war, our leaders must be … well, smart. Or better than that, they must be ingenious. We cannot repeat the mistakes that occurred at Fort Donelson. We allowed the Yankees to get the better of our measure, Lieutenant. We must make better decisions, faster decisions, we must strike hard and often and in the most unexpected way. We must find the enemy’s weaknesses and exploit them without hesitation.” He paused and Seeley waited for more. Forrest said slowly, “As for you and me … we must have the will to face that man in the blue coat and we must drive our knife into his heart, and when the blood spills, we must not turn away.”
Seeley felt Forrest’s glare, nodded slowly.
“I understand, sir.”
Forrest tilted his head slightly, still stared at him.
“No, son, you don’t. Not yet.”
On February 23, Forrest’s scouts reported the arrival of the first column of Federal troops, just across the Cumberland River at the small town of Edgefield. Though great quantities of supplies still lay scattered throughout the depots and warehouses of Nashville, Forrest’s men, and the others charged with shipping those supplies south, had no choice. What could not be hauled aboard wagons and the limited number of railcars had to be put to the torch. Then, with no fanfare, Forrest and his cavalry rode away from the city. Two days later, on February 25, the mayor of Nashville, who understood the perfect inevitability of his situation, surrendered the capital of Tennessee to the Federal forces, without a shot being fired.