Shattered Nation

by Jeffrey Brooks

  Hood looked into Bragg’s eyes. “General Johnston is a supporter of Cleburne’s proposal. A strong one, as a matter of fact.”

  Bragg furrowed his brow. “Johnston’s a secret abolitionist?”

  Hood nodded. “I believe he is. You are aware that he himself does not own slaves and I have been told that his wife secretly holds abolitionist sentiments.”

  “What evidence do you have?”

  “About his wife, nothing. Only rumor and hearsay. But about Johnston’s support of Cleburne’s proposal, I have signed affidavits from officers who were present at the meeting in January where Cleburne pitched his proposal. They confirm that Johnston spoke strongly in support of freeing the slaves and enlisting them into our army.”

  “Which generals?”

  “Joseph Wheeler, William Walker and Patton Anderson. Furthermore, these men say that General Hardee was also an enthusiastic backer of Cleburne’s scheme.”

  “That’s no surprise. Hardee and Cleburne are like brothers.”

  Hood dismissed the remark. “General Bragg, I feel it my duty as a responsible officer to bring to the attention of the President and the Secretary of War the fact that General Johnston and General Hardee support this abolitionist scheme. Such men are not fit to command troops of the Confederate army. Protecting our peculiar institution, after all, is the reason the Confederacy was established in the first place.”

  Hood was not a subtle man and Bragg could see immediately what he was doing. But it didn’t matter, so long as Hood’s actions served Bragg’s own purposes. He reached across the table and took the envelope.

  “I will examine these papers. If I see fit, I shall show them to the President and the Secretary of War.”

  “Thank you, General Bragg.”

  *****

  August 9, Morning

  Colonel Edgar Robertson, commanding the Union garrison protecting the town of Bridgeport, in extreme northeastern Alabama, was feeling impatient. He was anxious to drive off the small rebel raiding party that was trying to tear up railroad track west of town, so that he could get back to Bridgeport in time for an appointment he had made with a particularly skillful prostitute named Faye. He had visited her twice before and enjoyed himself thoroughly on both occasions. She certainly helped relieve the boredom of garrison life and, as the saying went, no man in the Northern army was married south of Nashville.

  Had Robertson known that he had entered the last hour of his time on Earth, he might have spent the final minutes of his life engaged in thoughts of a less impious nature.

  He walked near the middle of the column of a thousand infantrymen, which he had led out from Bridgeport about two hours before. If the reports he had received were accurate, the Confederate guerrilla band, numbering perhaps a hundred men, was only about three miles west of the edge of the town’s fortifications. The thousand men he had brought with him represented nearly half of the garrison, and Robertson figured that they would be more than adequate to deal with the situation.

  Bridgeport was one of the key transportation links in the long lines of communication and supply that extended from the farms and factories of the North all the way down to Sherman’s army outside Atlanta. Running south from the great Union base at Nashville, two large railroads converged on Bridgeport, crossed the wide chasm of the Tennessee River on one of the longest bridges in the area, then ran a few dozen miles on a single track to the Union base at Chattanooga. The bridge at Bridgeport, therefore, was one of the few critical chokepoints in Sherman’s supply line, where a break could have extremely serious repercussions.

  Bridgeport was especially important to Sherman’s campaign because the lead elements of the Sixth Corps, dispatched from Virginia to reinforce the Union armies in the West, would soon be passing through. Thousands of Northern soldiers were now crowding the rail depots in Nashville and Tullahoma, waiting to continue south and being delayed by the damage that had been done by Forrest’s raiders. Colonel Robertson was not concerned, feeling confident that Forrest had long since scurried back to his Mississippi lair.

  Robertson heard some firing up toward the front of the column, and jogged ahead to see what was happening. Most likely, the men at the head of the column had encountered the rebel raiding party. Then again, some of the boys might simply be taking potshots at a deer or other kind of animal. Since they were mere hundred-day men of the Indiana militia, there hadn’t been much time to instill a sense of discipline in them.

  Upon arriving at the head of the column, Robertson squinted in confusion. Through the glare of the August sun, he could see that the rebels had erected a makeshift barrier perpendicularly across the railroad tracks by piling up some logs and railroad ties. That didn’t make any sense. Any train would smash through such a flimsy obstacle as if it weren’t even there. Why would a small band of guerrillas try to set up defenses if they expected to be attacked by a large force of infantry? The defenses were far too puny to protect them, and the only logical thing they could do would be to flee.

  From behind their improvised barricade, the Southerners began firing into the lead ranks of his column. Clearly, the fools intended to stay and fight. This annoyed Robertson, as it would perhaps take over an hour to drive them off now, and he was anxious to get back to Bridgeport and into the sensual embraces of Faye. He shouted orders for his men to halt and prepared to deploy them in a line of battle. Perhaps the rebels would see reason and run away.

  So fixated was Robertson on the barricade in front of him that he didn’t notice the scattered movements within the trees on the north side of the railroad, to the right of his column. A more diligent officer would have sent flankers into the woods to make sure they were empty of potential enemies, but Robertson had forgotten to do so.

  The first hint that Robertson or any of his men had that they were facing more than a small band of rebel guerrillas came when the woods along the north side of the railroad, for a distance of nearly a quarter of a mile, erupted in a ferocious volley of musket fire.

  Scores of Union men were killed instantly. Cries of surprise and horror blended with the screams of agony from wounded men, and the disjointed Union column buckled in confusion, like a whale being attacked by a host of sharks. Most of the officers had gone down with the initial volley, as Forrest always instructed his men to pick them off first. A rather bored and lackadaisical band of militiamen a moment before, the Union column was instantly transformed into a mass of terrified humanity.

  Some men began to fire back, but they could not see their opponents very well, as they were largely concealed in the trees and brush. Heavy fire continued to pour into the Union ranks. Perhaps one minute after the first shot was fired, the sound of bugles could be heard and with a deafening Rebel Yell the Confederate force charged forward.

  Robertson struggled to control his own terror. He suddenly realized he was shouting incomprehensible orders that made no sense and shut his mouth. Consciously or not, he made a quick decision. His men would have to fend for themselves as best they could, for if he had any hope of remaining alive, he would have to focus only on his own escape.

  As he turned and ran toward the woods on the south side of the railroad tracks, away from the oncoming wave of Confederate soldiers, he was stunned to find himself confronted by a tall figure on a dark horse, who held a pistol in his left hand and a saber in his right, while holding the reins of his horse in his teeth. Robertson was paralyzed with fear, and froze.

  Nathan Bedford Forrest unceremoniously skewered Robertson, his sword penetrating right through the Yankee’s ribcage and into his left lung. He twisted the sword, eliciting a pathetic sound that was more like a gurgle than a cry of pain. It was the twenty-seventh time Forrest had personally killed a man since the start of the war, so while he still watched with interest as the man’s eyes glazed over and the life seeped out of his body, the phenomenon no longer held the same fascination for him that it had the first time he had seen it, three years before.

  Tossing the body
aside, Forrest kicked King Philip into a walk and strode onto the railroad track. Surveying the scene, he could see that the battle had ended almost before it had begun. While a few brave men had tried to resist, most of the Yankees had immediately bolted into the woods to the south the moment his men had charged out of their concealed position. Hundreds of others had meekly thrown down their rifles and put their hands up. Forrest thought the behavior of the Northern men pathetic, but it certainly made his task much easier.

  Major Strange rode up to him, his face flush with the excitement that always came with a successful ambush.

  “How’s it going?” Forrest asked.

  “Two hundred prisoners, or thereabouts. About a hundred Yankees dead. The rest of them, maybe five hundred or so, ran off into the forest.”

  “They won’t cause any trouble. We’ll send a couple of companies to keep them running and maybe grab a few more prisoners. In the meantime, leave enough men here to process the prisoners and get the rest of the boys back in the saddle. Let’s head to Bridgeport.”

  Strange saluted and dashed off. Forrest walked King Philip eastward along the railroad, gazing silently at the human wreckage his surprise attack had inflicted. It had been a textbook operation, with the decoy force drawing roughly half of the Union garrison at Bridgeport, so that it could efficiently be chopped to ribbons. Now reduced to perhaps a thousand frightened Yankee soldiers, the defenders of Bridgeport would find themselves surrounded by nearly four times that many Confederates. And while the Yankee defenders were inexperienced militiamen, Forrest’s troopers were perhaps the most experienced veterans in the world.

  Had the Union commander not been deceived and kept his men within the fortifications, Forrest’s task would have been much more difficult. Even if inexperienced, two thousand militiamen could probably resist a direct assault by thirty-five hundred veterans if they were protected by the substantial earthworks and redoubts that ringed Bridgeport and protected its critical bridge over the Tennessee River. By cleverly reducing the garrison by half, and instilling the survivors with terror, Forrest had effectively leveled the playing field.

  Forrest barked out orders to his staff officers. His three brigades were to remount and converge on Bridgeport from three directions, cutting the telegraph wires as they did so. He had left the telegraph wires undisturbed up until now, for fear of unduly alarming the Bridgeport garrison. Once the town was surrounded, he would demand its surrender.

  The next few hours passed quickly and relatively easily. His three brigade commanders had been with him long enough that they carried out their orders as easily as his own arms and legs obeyed his very thoughts. The ambush had been carried out just after ten in the morning, and by four in the afternoon, all of Forrest’s brigades were in position and the telegraph lines had been cut. The Union garrison of Bridgeport was on its own.

  Forrest sent forward an officer with a white flag and, after about fifteen minutes of haggling, the cowed Union commander agreed to surrender on the basis that his men would be paroled rather than become prisoners-of-war. Forrest scarcely cared. It was the bridge that he cared about, not the garrison.

  While Major Strange and the Union commander sat down at the table and worked out the terms of the parole of the garrison, Forrest set his men to work burning the bridge. Being far longer than the one over the Duck River which he had wrecked at Columbia, it required quite a bit more time for the work to be completed. But the end result was the same. As the sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, the torch was thrown onto the cotton bales and dry timbers, and within a few minutes, the bridge was aflame from one side of the Tennessee River to the other.

  *****

  August 11, Morning

  Vallandigham was tired. The schedule of his speaking tour was punishing both physically and mentally. Most of the sleep he had gotten over the past month had been fitfully experienced while sitting in the seat of a shaky train. He had made so many speeches that he could feel his voice beginning to weaken and he was worried that he might be forced to take a few days off in the near future.

  He was about to make what would be his fourth speech in New York City since his return from Canadian exile. He was anxious to get it over with, so that he could head back to Ohio and focus his energies on defeating the Republicans in his own state. However, following the previous week’s meeting of prominent Democrats and a quick side trip to make a well-received speech in Philadelphia, Vallandigham had decided to return to New York for one final speech at the urging of Governor Seymour. The Governor, Vallandigham realized, was as worried about his own reelection prospects as he was about defeating Lincoln, but that didn’t matter so long as the Democrats continued to present a united front.

  Vallandigham looked out at the crowd, packed into an area of Central Park in front of a large stage that had been set up by some Tammany Hall people. It was a considerably larger crowd than he had spoken to previously in New York City and he thought it might even be a bigger throng of people than the one he had just addressed in Philadelphia.

  He had given his stump speech so many times that he no longer even had to think about the words. They simply flowed out of his mouth like water from an overturned bucket. He thought for a moment and realized he had just reached the portion of his speech where he discussed the high inflation that was sweeping the economy thanks to the flawed monetary policies of the Lincoln administration and the massive debt it was accumulating in order to pay for the war.

  “If we continue down this path, what will become of you? If the necessities of life which cost you five dollars today cost you six dollars a month from now, and ten dollars six months from now, how will you survive?”

  The uncomfortable stirring he sensed in the audience was expected, for he had seen it many times. Most of the people who came to hear him speak were common laborers, many of whom were fresh off the boats from Ireland, Germany, or southern Italy. They were more concerned with putting food on the plates of their children than with abstract notions of preserving the Union or abolishing slavery. Freed slaves, after all, were potential competitors for jobs. Vallandigham had been in politics long enough to have learned that nothing motivated people more than fear and self-interest. He was playing up both of them.

  As his speech continued, he noticed something which he had not noticed before. Off to the left side of the crowd was a group of perhaps two dozen men wearing the blue uniforms of Union soldiers. Vallandigham tensed. He knew he was in no danger of being arrested by the New York City police, who were controlled by Tammany Hall and sympathetic to Vallandigham in any event. Soldiers, on the other hand, would follow the orders of their commander, and their commander would follow the orders of President Lincoln.

  Vallandigham kept speaking automatically, moving on to the portion of his speech in which he spoke about the enormous casualties which had been suffered by Grant in Virginia and Sherman in Georgia. In his mind, he wondered if his time was finally up. Lincoln had had him arrested once already and the stakes were obviously much higher now than they had been then. Vallandigham told himself that he was likely to be spending the night in jail rather than on the train back to Ohio.

  Even as his mind raced, he continued talking. “Since May, one hundred thousand brave Union men have died thanks to the incompetence of General Grant and General Sherman.” He pronounced the word general with heavy sarcasm to lay emphasis on their ineptitude and stupidity. “If laid end to end, the line of corpses would stretch more than one hundred miles!”

  The stirring of the crowd increased. Many of their friends and family members were serving in the army and any of the men might be drafted into service at any moment. Vallandigham went on, reminding his listeners that Lincoln had just issued a call for four hundred thousand new recruits and had made it clear that the men would be brought forth by a draft if an insufficient number of volunteers was forthcoming.

  “And who is it that will be sent to die in the trenches around Petersburg or along the banks of the Chatt
ahoochee? Will it be the rich Boston merchant who prattles on about abolition while purchasing a substitute so that he will not be drafted himself? No! It will be you and your kin who will be sent into the slaughterhouse! It will be you and your kin who will be sent to die!”

  The crowd began chanting. “We won’t go! We won’t go!”

  At a wave from a man who was apparently their commander, the small group of Union soldiers began to move toward the stage. Vallandigham saw them coming, and realized in an instant what was happening. They would attempt to arrest him on a charge of interfering with the draft.

  He kept speaking, making a comment about how many Union soldiers were languishing in Southern prisons such as Andersonville. But he kept glancing to his left, where the first of the Union soldiers were climbing up onto the stage. Some of the Tammany Hall men attempted to stop them and Vallandigham could hear shouted arguments. The ruckus also quickly drew the attention of the crowd.

  “No!” the audience roared. “No!”

  The Tammany Hall men were shoved aside, and Vallandigham was dismayed but not surprised to see the soldiers holding them at bay with bayonets. The officer, a captain by the look of him, marched straight up to him.

  “Mr. Vallandigham, you must come with me immediately.”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “You must come with me at once.”

  “I do not wish to go with you,” Vallandigham said sternly.

  “You have no choice.”

  “What you are doing is illegal. The Constitution protects all citizens from arbitrary arrest.”

  “If you do not come willingly I shall be compelled to use force.”

  Vallandigham looked out into the crowd, seeing thousands of anxious and furious faces. He was paralyzed with indecision. He knew he had but to shout for help and his supporters would storm the stage to prevent his arrest. But that would lead to violence, almost certainly costing the lives of many of the people in the crowd. The soldiers might number only two dozen, but they were all armed with loaded muskets. In fear of their own lives, they would likely fire into the crowd. Unscrupulous he might have been, but Clement Vallandigham had no wish to see anyone get killed.