Against All Odds

by Drew McGunn

  Where had the day gone? Sam had sent dozens of Charlie’s updates about the river-borne battle throughout the day, and to Charlie, it seemed as though only a couple of hours had passed, but a quick glance behind him, showed the sun sinking.

  “One moment, Sam,” he said as he watched Fort Jackson burn. Most of the combined fleet had passed through Hell to get beyond the fort’s guns. Two Yankee ships still burned where they had been beached on the opposite shoreline. Another, the Nueces had been run aground earlier in the day and was abandoned, when a lucky shot had destroyed the ship’s helm and disabled the Nueces’ ability to steer. But the other ships had made it past the fort.

  The flagpole over which the rebels flew their blue banner, was afire. The flames licked at the flag and burned through the rope that had secured the ensign over the fort. Charlie felt grim satisfaction as he watched the enemy flag flutter to the ground, as flames consumed it.

  ***

  The chair legs scraped the wooden floor as Lt. Colonel Jesse Running Creek stood and stretched. The office he shared with West Liberty’s telegraph operator was small, but he liked being close whenever news arrived. A shrill blast from the railroad depot announced the arrival of another train pulling into the station.

  Through the window, he saw stevedores rushing toward a boxcar and slide the door open. The foreman shouted orders, as the freed slaves began hauling boxes from the car. Some of the freight was destined for wagons that traveled the ten-mile route between the railhead and the factories at Trinity Park. Jesse had a strong feeling that if the army’s engineers hadn’t been kept busy rebuilding the single line of track on the other side of the Trinity River that another line would have been pushed north, connecting the manufacturing facilities at Trinity Park with the Republic’s rail network.

  Jesse stepped outside the stifling telegraph room. Watching the ex-slaves working on the platform sent his mind back to his father’s warehouse. Even before the Cherokee diaspora, his father had been a man of substance among the Cherokee. Despite their copper skin, the Cherokee of Georgia and South Carolina had been Southerners in all but name. The wealthy among them owned plantations and slaves.

  More than a year had gone by since he’d seen or heard from his father and he wondered how Simon Running Creek fared. The Cherokee of Texas had fractured as bad as the rest of the Republic. Men like Stand Waite had declared for the Rebels in Beaumont, while others like Sam Houston, had backed President Travis. His father’s trade with the South as well as the slaves he owned led him to support Waite.

  Jesse wondered if any of the ex-slaves working in the hot summer sun had been liberated from those among the Cherokee who had joined the rebellion. He was uncertain how he felt about President Travis taking a page from the Yankee president, William Seward, and releasing an emancipation order, freeing the slaves of anyone who was still actively supporting the rebellion. On the one hand, it resulted in many immigrants from the American South, who had been tepid in their support of the uprising, disavowing it. He had no idea how President Travis would untangle the mess the rebels had created.

  “Colonel, there’s a message coming through you need to read,” the voice of the telegraph operator broke Jesse’s musing, and he stepped back into the office.

  Leaning over the operator’s shoulder, Jesse read as he transcribed the code. “Large body of enemy troops spotted near Boonville in Brazos County.”

  Swearing, Jesse grabbed the note and turned to look at the map pinned to the wall over his desk. This message was the second of its type received, although the first was now a week old. He scanned the map, searching for Brazos County. It seemed like every time the Republic’s cartographers released a new map, Congress was forming another county, making the map’s boundaries unreliable. “There’s Boonville,” he muttered as he grabbed a pencil stub and marked it on the map.

  He found the mark from the previous week, in Angelina County. Tracing between the two, the enemy force wasn’t moving very fast, but given the dense forests and unpredictable river crossings, it was no surprise.

  Scanning the map, Jesse mused aloud, “Where are you bastards going?”

  He grabbed a newspaper from his desk and used its edge to line up the two points on the map, and he drew a line between them. He moved the paper along an imaginary line from Boonville, and then he extended the penciled line and swore again.

  “Oh, shit. Send a telegram to Austin. An enemy force of unknown size is headed in their direction.”

  After the transmitter clattered to a stop once the operator sent the message, Jesse said, “Send another up and down the line. I want the army’s Ranger battalion to assemble in Houston by any means necessary.”

  He grabbed his black, battered hat and headed out the door at a run, racing over to the station master. “Turn this thing around, I want the train headed back to Houston within the hour.”

  Chapter 27

  “Get your asses onto the barge, boys!” Jimmy Hickok pulled on his horse’s rein as they navigated the muddy riverbank’s steep slope. They followed in the deep footprints of the engineers who slid the long flat-bottomed boat into the Mississippi River’s fast-flowing brown water. The sound of several dozen horses’ shoes clopping on the boat’s wooden planks nearly drowned out the sound of heavy guns firing downriver.

  “Grab a paddle and get to it,” another voice shouted as the boat slipped away from the bank, filled with horses and their troopers. A wooden oar was thrust into Jimmy’s hands, and he found himself propelled toward the barge’s side, where he joined several others, who were paddling with all their strength. The strong current swept the boat toward the middle of the river, traveling downstream at several miles an hour.

  With each stroke, the barge pulled closer to the eastern shoreline, which was half a mile from the western bank. Jimmy’s arms started to burn as he dug his oar into the murky water and as he chanced a look down the river, in the distance he saw several tall stone pylons rising out of the water. Atop the pylons, he could see blackened wood where the enemy had torched the half-completed railroad trestles. The bridge would have been the first permanent structure to cross the mighty river.

  The Texian engineers, whose boats the 1st New York Cavalry used, had planned the crossing well. No matter how hard the men paddled, the current was going to carry them downstream. Their target was nearly a mile downriver from where they started.

  Jimmy looked down as a splinter grazed his hand. A bullet sent slivers of wood everywhere as it struck the boat. Ignoring the red streak on the back of his hand, the youth saw soldiers kneeling on the shoreline firing at them.

  “It’s simple, they said,” he muttered. “You’ll take your horses down to the boats, they said.”

  “You’ll cross upriver of the main assault, they said.” He flinched as bits of wood showered him as a bullet gouged the planking near his feet. “You’ll be unopposed, they said.”

  A loud crash echoed across the river. Smoke billowed from atop the eastern bank, and a boat next to his own tipped over as solid iron shot pulverized the stern. The screams from the soldiers were bad enough, but they paled in comparison to the terrified horses dumped into the river.

  “Hickok,” A voice yelled in his ear, “Paddle or I’ll throw you in and let you swim. A duckbill like yours shouldn’t have any problems with a little water.”

  Jimmy wanted to turn around and drive his fist into the mushy face of his sergeant, but that thought was cut short by a wet splat. He turned and watched his squad’s sergeant claw at his throat before toppling over the side of the boat.

  The barge lurched as it dug into the river’s eastern bank. Jimmy threw the oar into the water and turned to fetch his horse. Several of the beasts were down, struck by bullets. His own bay gelding was still standing, and Jimmy grabbed the reins and followed several other soldiers off the boat. With the reins in one hand, he yanked his revolver from its holster and fired at a gray-clad soldier who was reloading his rifle. Several bullets struck their target, and
a rammer went flying into the river as the soldier crumpled to the ground.

  Confusion ruled as Jimmy joined several other troopers as they battled their way up the riverbank. He became aware of a group of soldiers wearing butternut brown next to his own band. One of those men, when he scrambled to the top of the riverbank waved forward, “Come on, Fourth Texas, we’ve got them on the run!”

  As he climbed into the saddle, a bullet struck the trooper, and he tumbled off the back of his mount and slid down the steep riverbank. Jimmy scrambled behind his horse and scanned the nearby field. A few rebels were showing their backsides as they disappeared over a low stone fence in the distance. Closer in to the river, Jimmy saw several gray jacketed soldiers running toward a field gun, pulling a pair of horses. A half-dozen men were grabbing equipment and hooking up the gun carriage to the caisson. Jimmy dug his heels into his mount and screamed at the top of his lungs and charged.

  His mount closed the distance and Jimmy raised his revolver and fired as he raced by one of the gunners. When he pulled up on the reins and turned around, he saw the gunner on the ground. Closing fast with the enemy gun crew were a couple of his fellow troopers from the 1st New York and the three remaining Texians who had crested the embankment with Jimmy.

  The youth pointed his pistol at another gunner and pulled the trigger. The hammer fell on an empty chamber. He swore and threw himself from the saddle, landing on a gunner who was fumbling with a fastened holster. Knocking the rebel off his feet, Jimmy realized he still held the gun in his hand, and he raised it over his head and brought it down with all the force he could muster on the fellow’s head.

  The gunner’s hand fell away from his weapon, and he collapsed next to the now immobile field gun. Filled with rage, Jimmy leapt on him, swinging the gun against the other man’s head.

  “Damnit to hell, Hickok,” Jimmy recognized the voice as hands pulled him away from the obviously dead artillerist. “You done killed the bastard.”

  Jimmy stared at the dead man. Blood and gore covered his head. A glance at his pistol showed the barrel was slimy with gray matter. He dropped it, and the gun landed with a dull thud in the dirt. One of the men from his squad pulled him away from the body, which was one of several gunners who had been killed in their attempt to escape. “Damned if I’m ever going to call you Duckbill again. After that, you’re a pistol, a real wild Bill.”

  Jimmy swallowed hard, the feeling of nausea nearly overwhelming before he forced a smile onto his pale face, “Call me Wild Bill Hickok, Corporal. If I hear anyone else call me duckbill again, I’ll kill him where he stands.”

  An officer rode up to the abandoned field cannon and waved at the men, “Get going, men. We’re only a mile away from the railroad. We cut that, and New Orleans is cut off from the rest of the South!”

  ***

  Strange, Charlie thought as the balloon floated over the city of New Orleans, you don’t really feel the wind. The peculiar sensation he got whenever he went up in the balloon never went away, no matter how many times he went up in the flimsy contraption. For the most part, he’d gotten used to it. But his worst fear was free flying. The notion of leaving behind the tethering rope and ground crew filled him with a sense of dread that he couldn’t explain.

  He’d have rather been with the 9th Infantry the previous day when they stormed across the Mississippi River in their fragile wooden barges than floating over the largest city in the American South without a single tether. Without the copper wire connecting the bulky telegraph machine to the ground, his operator, Sam, leaned against one of the ropes connecting the basket to the hydrogen-filled balloon and looked at the city below.

  “Major, did you know almost a hundred and twenty thousand folks live down there?”

  The idea of that many people in one place was hard to grasp. The thought that nearly one person was living in New Orleans for every five Texians was hard to wrap his mind around. Galveston had just edged San Antonio out as the largest city in Texas in the last census, and neither had managed to break ten thousand souls.

  “You don’t say,” Charlie said. What he meant was, tell me something useful.

  As though reading his mind, his eighteen-year-old telegraph operator said, “Let me see the binoculars. It looks like there’s a parade down there.”

  Instead of handing the glasses over, Charlie scanned the area where Sam was pointing. Sure enough, a long line of blue-jacketed soldiers was marching down the center of a wide boulevard more than a thousand feet below. “Yankee Marines from the look of them. Parading through the center of town like they own the place.”

  Sam finally captured the glasses and peered at the parading Marines. “How can you tell? Who thought it was a good idea to give surplus US Marine uniforms to our own Marines?”

  Charlie turned away, hiding a smile. He’d wondered the same question when growing up in his pa’s house. His father’s response had been short, “I like the way they look.”

  From where he stood, they looked like ants to the unaided eye. And it seemed like they were marching through hell. Charlie’s map of New Orleans showed the US Marines were parading through the Eleventh Ward. That section of town had been bombarded, and buildings set afire the previous day. Charlie was impressed that all that remained of the fires were a few smoldering buildings. The rebels in Beaumont hadn’t cared one way or another about the town when they abandoned it. But most New Orleans’ residents, amid a coordinated attack from the Federal and Texas armies, stayed and fought the fires before they spread from the Eleventh Ward.

  With the glasses firmly pressed against his eyes, Sam said, “I can see one of our warships alongside one of the wharves. A couple of Yankee frigates, too.”

  Charlie flinched at the memory of the Yankee frigate blowing up a few days earlier when the US and Texas navies had joined together to destroy Fort Jackson and push past it to New Orleans. “Did you see the casualty reports? Three ships sunk and more than six hundred casualties, most of them died when that frigate blew up.”

  With the resilience of youth, Sam quipped, “And we still beat the hell out of the Secesh, Major.”

  The young operator pointed north, toward Lake Pontchartrain, where the balloon slowly drifted. Charlie’s eyes locked onto a scene just outside of town. Fields of white, like a canvas carpet, stretched out for the better part of a mile. There were thousands of tents hugging the estuary’s shoreline. There the Allied army of the Trans-Mississippi was encamped, ordered there following General Davis’s surrender of the city following a fierce fight throughout the previous day.

  Within Charlie, something stirred as he gazed at the massive camp, housing twenty thousand surrendered soldiers, including the remnants of the rebel Texian battalions that had sided with traitors like Robert Potter nearly two years before. With the defeat and capture of Davis’ command, the only army capable of threatening the Republic was removed.

  “This is nearly the end, Sam. If the newspapers Admiral Perry brought with him are true, General Longstreet’s army is not long for this world. Why, the publisher of the New York Tribune, Mr. Greeley, has been sending reports to his newspaper almost daily.”

  The younger man leaned in and in a sly voice said, “I bet you can hardly wait to see your wife. How long has it been?”

  Turning away from the encampment, Charlie’s thoughts drifted to his wife, whom he hadn’t seen since taking command of the balloon corps. It has been too long. While he carried a daguerreotype of his wife and infant son next to his heart, it was too little. For years he’d wondered why his father had complained when work took him away from home, but as the balloon passed over the sea of tents, he understood what his father had missed when duty had called.

  ***

  2 July 1853

  Horace Greeley sat on the open windowsill, enjoying the cool of the morning. All the windows in the courtroom of the DeKalb county courthouse were open, letting in the light breeze. Despite a temperature below seventy degrees at that moment, he knew the day would
still be a scorcher by the afternoon. When he mentioned this to the commander of the Virginia Brigade, General Jackson chuckled. “Sir, if you think a southern July afternoon is hot, accept my invitation to visit Lexington in August. While I can assure you, hell’s gates are hotter, you’d be forgiven for questioning the veracity of the statement.”

  Greeley found himself smiling at Jackson’s quip. Throughout his time with the Federal army, he’d found the devout Virginian to be awkward company. But the newspaper publisher couldn’t deny Jackson’s success as one of Lee’s brigade commanders. The speed with which he’d moved his men around the enemy’s flank at the Battle of Lumber River would be the stuff military academies would study for generations. Now, though, Jackson seemed downright lighthearted. Not so much that Greeley had any interest in accepting his offer once summer’s oppressive heat had settled over the land.

  “Send me a telegram, General Jackson, I’d enjoy reading about it more than experiencing it.” Greeley joked.

  An officer stepped into the room, interrupting Jackson’s retort. “Longstreet’s here. He’s come alone!”

  Jackson recovered, “I dare say, Old Pete would rather not experience today any more than you’d enjoy August in Virginia.”

  Any thought of response died on Greeley’s lips as General James Longstreet entered the room. His gray coat came down to his knees. Golden braiding ringed his sleeves. The Southern Alliance had adopted the European practice of ornate piping on their officers’ jackets to denote their rank. The Southern General looked dignified as he accepted General Lee’s hand.

  Greeley wished for the newfangled picture boxes that were all the rage in cities. What he would have done to capture the image. Instead, only artists’ drawings would provide a visual detail of the meeting.

  Longstreet opened, “Thank you for your forbearance, General Lee. Absent your offer of a ceasefire yesterday, I fear today would have been the bloodiest day of this terribly cruel war.”