Against All Odds

by Drew McGunn

  Lee used his bloody handkerchief and wiped gray matter from his jacket. “Send a rider back to the nearest telegraph office. Order the pontoon boats forward.”

  He pointed at another staff officer, “Find General Buell, tell him to report to me. We have a battle to plan.”

  ***

  2 May 1853

  Horace Greeley grimaced as both knees popped as he sat down on the stump of a tree. Only two score and two years, but heaven help me, I feel as though I’ve reached my three score and ten.

  If he’d gotten more than ten hours’ sleep over the past four days, he’d have eaten his hat. It was no wonder he felt so old. The Federal Army was deep inside South Carolina, and precious little time remained for him to pen an article before the day’s courier headed north. He had no doubt news of General Winfield Scott’s death had made the front pages of every newspaper in the North that was within a day’s ride of a telegraph station. But since then things had happened at such a pace, he mused as he pulled his notebook from his saddlebag, which rested against the stump.

  Licking the graphite, he started to write.

  The Battle of Lumber River began as light skirmishing between the troopers of the 2nd Dragoons and the General Longstreet’s secessionist Allied Army on the afternoon of the 29th. General Lee, taking command of the Federal Army, after Scott’s heroic sacrifice, held the balance of the enemy’s army in place, strategically using General Don Buell’s brigade, staging them in front of the enemy. All the while, General Lee took the volunteer divisions from New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia on a wide flanking maneuver.

  Having audaciously divided his army, Lee commanded the flanking maneuver with nearly 15,000 soldiers. He traveled up the river more than twenty miles before securing his crossing back in North Carolina. Once on the same side of the river as Longstreet, General Lee forged forth in the same revolutionary spirit of his father, Lighthorse Harry Lee, striking Longstreet’s flank yesterday. Were Lee alone in attacking the well-fortified enemy position, this writer cannot but speculate the attack may have failed. But while Lee led the flanking attack, the pontoon bridges arrived, and General Buell put them to good use and was, at the moment of Lee’s onslaught, ferrying men across the Lumber River to engage the enemy.

  Greeley lifted the pencil up and weighed his words. He had remained with General Buell and had watched Buell’s forces flounder in the river, unable to get a single pontoon boat to the other side. All the general had managed to do was to lose several hundred men. No, Greeley reconsidered, he had squandered the better part of a brigade’s worth of men but had held Longstreet’s army’s attention long enough for General Lee to smash the Allied army’s flank. Even so, Greeley thought Buell’s performance was underwhelming. Sometimes, though, the truth needed to be sacrificed for the greater good.

  General Don Buell’s brigade covered themselves with glory, holding more than 20,000 enemy soldiers against the river. However, General Buell was not the only one to cover himself and his nation in glory. General Robert E. Lee’s attack was almost a total surprise. The Virginia Division under the command of a young officer, Brigadier General Thomas Jackson, routed a larger brigade of South Carolina and Georgia infantry. Before the sun had set, General Longstreet had been forced to retreat.

  Even now, as the writer hastens to prepare this note for the courier to Raleigh, General Lee is in pursuit of the rebel Allied Army. With the blessings of benevolent Providence, we shall be at the gates of Columbia within a fortnight.

  Greeley folded the note and rose to his feet. Again, his knees popped, and he winced in pain. He hobbled over to the mail sack and dropped the article in the canvas bag.

  Chapter 24

  4 May 1853

  General Jefferson Davis crinkled his nose as he walked through the ruins of Beaumont. There was more to the odor than just soggy burned wood. Something sickeningly sweet hung in the air, masking the smell of burned wood. How many times had Beaumont’s railroad depot burned since the rebel Texans revolted against the Travis government in Austin? Twice? Three times? He wasn’t sure.

  Now a few soldiers sifted through the debris, looking for wood that could be used to fuel the army’s cooking fires. Davis had no intention to rebuild the depot. There was no bridge across the Neches anymore and no prospects that it would happen any time soon. The railroad from West Liberty to Beaumont that General Johnston had painstakingly rebuilt was no more, at least the last few miles of it. Colonel Sherman had destroyed them as he slowly retreated. Davis adjusted the thought, if the rumors were true, it was General Sherman now. Sherman had torn up the tracks and burned the railroad ties and then twisted them, rendering them completely unusable. Davis smirked as he thought the nickname his soldiers had given the twisted metal; they called the twisted iron beams “Sherman’s neckties.”

  He turned away from the ruins and let his thoughts turn to Sidney Johnston. The Texan had graduated two years before Davis. In a student body of fewer than two hundred men at West Point, there had been a camaraderie among the cadets that the officers carried forward into their military careers. He’d admired Johnston as a student, and later as an officer. Davis had been far from the only graduate of the military academy who secretly envied Johnston’s meteoric rise in the Army of the Republic of Texas, at least before the present unpleasantness.

  Johnston had proved an able commander, pressing his attacks, and mounting simple but effective defenses. He was gone. William Sherman was an unknown. Only twenty-nine years old, and yet President Travis had apparently promoted him over the brigade and division commanders. Davis shook his head. What did Travis know that he didn’t?

  His walk had brought him back to his command tent outside of town. As he sat and looked at the correspondence and reports awaiting his attention, he regretted the time he’d spent looking at the damage in Beaumont. The first report was in his hands when a shout arose from a tent housing the headquarters’ telegraph office. As an operator sprinted from the tent, Davis left the report unread and came to his feet.

  The lad, barely eighteen if Davis was any judge, hastily saluted, “Sir, the fort north of Lake Sabine reports enemy ships approaching.”

  Davis followed the young soldier back to the tent from which he’d raced only moments before. Tall poles ringed the canvas shelter, and copper wiring ran from below the tent flaps to the top of the posts. A line of posts led back to the river, carrying the strand of wire. One of the ropes which had been used as a guideline for a barge now had copper wiring wrapped around it. On the other side of the river, a line ran east, back toward Louisiana. Another ran south, skirting the Neches River, ending at a large river battery, where Davis has placed several dozen heavy guns, behind solid earthen embankments.

  The Southern Allied government had yet to get serious about producing any artillery, let alone heavy coastal guns. But thanks to several coastal forts along the Gulf Coast, Davis had been able to assemble a formidable battery and place them north of Sabine Lake, where the Neches emptied into the salty body of water feeding into the Gulf of Mexico.

  Within the tent, several telegraph machines had been set up, each connecting to one of the wires running into the tent. For the briefest of moments, Davis marveled at how technology was changing warfare.

  As the operator leaned over the telegraph key, Davis said, “How many ships are coming up the lake?”

  The clattering of the transmitter key, with its rapid clicks, sent the message along an electric current to a receiver seventeen miles away. Despite the worry he felt at the thought the Texas Navy might try forcing their way past the gun emplacements, Davis was amazed the message took so little time to send.

  Less than a minute elapsed before a response arrived. The operator’s pencil sped across the page as he transcribed the dashes and dots into letters and words. “Sir, there are seven ships. They’re approaching slow.”

  Davis patted the operator’s shoulder, “The enemy’s navy must not be allowed to pass.”

  The general turned
as the operator tapped out the order. If the ships were coming in slowly, they were no doubt using sounding lines. The lake was shallow; it made sense the ships’ captains would take time to avoid the lake’s treacherous submerged sandbars.

  Davis turned and looked toward the Neches. The ruins of Beaumont stood between him and the river, but he had planned the recent battle with meticulous care, and it was easy to envision every curve of the river. Although they had been burned to the waterline, piers had once lined the west bank, and ships brave enough to risk the shallows of Sabine Lake had once offloaded goods from New Orleans or farther afield and taken aboard cotton and other produce. That meant if the heavy coastal guns failed to stop the Texas Navy, those ships would only need a couple of hours to cut off his army from the east.

  Returning to his headquarters pavilion, Davis examined a map of the area. “Maybe three hours. The Neches twists and turns a lot between here and the lake,” he muttered.

  As he puzzled over the map, Davis heard someone arrive. He looked up and saw Major General Swift. “What’s this I hear about the enemy’s navy showing up on our doorstep?”

  After explaining about the ships, Davis gestured at the map, “If the enemy forces the river, we run the risk of being cut off. More than sixteen thousand men would be stranded if that happened.”

  Swift glanced at the map before turning when a faint sound of cannon fire echoed from the south. “Damn them,” he swore. “If we still had General Buchner’s corps, we could have already pushed the enemy back to West Liberty or even Houston. Instead, Sherman’s sitting square on the way to the west, and we likely don’t have enough men to push him back.”

  No matter how true the words, Davis didn’t like them. He bit back a sigh, unwilling to let Swift see the dig had hit home. Instead, he said, “Tell General Deas to break camp. I want his men back on the barges within the hour. Then pass the word to the rest of the army, we’re breaking camp and heading back the way we came.”

  With orders issued, the army came alive. As a tent city disappeared, replaced by a cloud of dust, infantry, cavalry, and artillery waited in line as the thunder of heavy artillery echoed in the distance.

  Long before his army had finished transiting the Neches, the booming sound of battle from the South stopped. Davis and his staff stood next to the charred remains of a warehouse near where Beaumont’s wharves had once stood. The telegraph operator who had first delivered news of the enemy ships shouted down from where he was perched near the top of a telegraph pole, “Sir, the enemy’s got two ironclads past the fort. Most of our guns are out of commission.”

  The operator leaned toward the tapped wire for a moment. “The line’s dead, sir.”

  The next two hours were the longest in Jeff Davis’ life, as he watched each barge glide across the water, as its handlers hauled on the overhead ropes. Every few minutes, he’d glance downriver, expecting to see the telltale signs of enemy ships, black smudges of smoke rising over the river.

  The northern flank of the army had not yet arrived when an orderly tugged at Davis’ arm, “Sir, the enemy ships ain’t more than a mile away. You’ve got to get across now, sir.”

  Rather than risk the humiliation of being hustled onto the last barge, Davis cast a backward glance before stepping onto the floating wooden platform. Even though he’d dislodged General Johnston from Beaumont, he’d failed to do more than push the enemy back a few miles. Now that the Texas Navy had threatened to cut him off, there was no choice but to retreat.

  Withdrawal should have been humiliation enough. But worse than that, several thousand men who held the northern end of the Allied position had not yet arrived and were now cut off from retreat.

  ***

  Jason Lamont braced himself against a tree, steadying the binoculars as he stared through the magnifying lenses. Despite the thicket, he saw several soldiers in their butternut-brown jackets sitting on a log in front of a cooking fire. He cursed the similar color of the Texans’ uniforms to the Southern Alliance’s gray. No surprise, he thought, we’ve been using gray for our militia units since the beginning of the century.

  Still, an untrained eye could mistake the two countries’ uniforms. However, Lamont’s were not untrained. Over the past couple of days, the right flank, well to the north of the main army, had pushed the Texans back several miles. As he studied the enemy soldiers, they looked tired and worn. Dare he think it? Maybe even beaten?

  He turned and looked at his old 3rd South Carolina Infantry. They’d come a long way since he first began training them in the fields in front of his plantation. Now, they were veterans. They’d come west a thousand strong. After several major fights, in which the 3rd had been in the thick of it, now only four hundred men were still in the ranks. Hundreds of his men crowded hospitals from the Red River all the way back to New Orleans. Those who recovered enough to rejoin the army might swell the regiment again to six hundred, maybe.

  He nodded to the regiment’s colonel, “Let’s see if we can push them back. Get them on the run here, and maybe General Davis can roll up the whole damned line.”

  The 3rd swept through the trees in open order. Long gone was any pretense at forming a rifle line as his soldiers advanced. Like the Texans, rifle teams and squads worked together to cover each other as they raced to close the distance with the enemy riflemen.

  Gunfire crackled and the fight was on. Lamont swung onto his mount and rode north until he found the 7th South Carolina Infantry. Still numbering more than five hundred men, they seemed eager to join in the attack. Lamont leaned over to talk to the regiment’s commander when a bareheaded horseman pulled up next to him. The horse looked winded, as sweat glistened on its chestnut flanks, which heaved in and out. The empty shoulder straps revealed the officer was a second lieutenant. He saluted, “General Davis’ compliments, General Lamont, but General Dea’s Division has been ordered back to the river. The damned Texas Navy has forced the mouth of the Neches.”

  The officer wheeled on his horse and urged his mount into a gallop as he raced farther north to where the 3rd Cavalry Brigade anchored his own flank.

  The colonel commanding the 7th looked at him, an air of resignation on his face. “If they’d just give us enough time, we’ll put the enemy to rout, sir.”

  Privately, Lamont agreed. And inside, he raged at the news. Every step forward only seemed to end with the army taking two back. It wasn’t fair. Instead, he gave the officer a curt nod, “We certainly would, but orders, Colonel, are orders. If the Texas Navy pushes past our guns, they can cut our supply lines, and that would complicate things.”

  The officer laughed at Lamont’s understatement, as he continued, “Hold here. You’ll support the 3rd as they disengage.”

  He found his nephew close at hand and sent his sister’s son forward with orders for the attacking regiment to fall back. Minutes stretched by as the gunfire continued. After what Lamont considered too long, his nephew rode back, “General, the 3rd’s trying to pull back, but the enemy ain’t staying put. They’re advancing.”

  “Shit,” Lamont swore. If his brigade couldn’t make a clean break from the enemy, their retreat would be slowed. He waved the colonel from the 7th back over, “Deploy your men to support the 3rd. Let them through. Put up a fight if the Texans keep coming. Hold them back for a few minutes, then fall back. I’ll get the 5th in place. They’ll relieve you once you fall back.”

  The morning dragged by as Lamont rode back and forth along his brigade’s line of retreat toward the river. Every attempt to disengage the enemy riflemen failed, as they clung to his rearguard like a dog working on a bone.

  After nearly two hours of this, Lamont dismounted and grabbed his cane as he set off toward his rear guard. The 3rd currently held the line. He found them firing from behind trees, using fallen logs as shelter and using a dry creek-bed as a makeshift trench. His bad knee gave way as he attempted to navigate his way into the creek-bed, and he slid on his backside most of the way.

  An officer scurried
over, “General, sir. They’re just sitting there firing on us. As soon as we start to move back, they’re back on us like fleas on a dog.”

  Frustrated by how long it was taking for his command to retreat to the river, Lamont swore and pulled his sword, “That dog don’t hunt no more, Captain. Pass the word, we advance on my command.”

  Lamont raised his voice, “Fix bayonets, boys! We’ll teach those bastards to respect Southern steel.”

  Steel grated on steel as his old regiment slotted their bayonets onto their rifles. Holding his sword high, Lamont shouted, “Up, men, up!”

  With help from the men surrounding him, Lamont crested the shallow creek and scampered across the forest floor, dodging between trees. The men of the 3rd South Carolina screamed like banshees, racing across through the trees toward their foes.

  Bullets clipped branches overhead, and leaves rained down on Lamont as he drove after his men. The constant rattling of gunfire rose to a fever pitch as his men collided with the Texans who had hounded them for so long. He cursed Will Travis for shooting him in the knee all those years before. Otherwise, he would be leading his men from the front, where a proper brigade commander should be.

  When he arrived where his men had stopped, the gunfire had fallen off. Some of his men were helping their wounded while others stood guard over a few prisoners.

  He pointed back toward the rest of the brigade, “Get the wounded moving.” Looking at the enemy prisoners. All five of them were injured.

  Part of him wanted to pull out his pistol and give them what they deserved, but he’d listened to Colonel Forrest, who had described the savagery into which his cavalry had sunk as they fought the abolitionist, John Brown’s 1st New York. He left his pistol in its holster and said, “What unit y’all with?”

  One with sergeant stripes eyed him with suspicion before he replied with a strong accent, “Ninth Texas Infantry.” His eyes flitted to Lamont’s shoulder boards, and he added a belated, “Sir.”