Shattered Nation

by Jeffrey Brooks

  McPherson nodded. “A sound plan. If you ask me, I think the rebels are weaker on the south and west than they are on the north.”

  Grant grunted his agreement. He liked McPherson very much, but the man did have a habit of stating the obvious.

  “If we can concentrate our attacks on just the west and south side of the city, we will be throwing five entire corps at just two or three divisions,” Grant said. “Even with stout entrenchments, we will surely overwhelm them. I expect the attack to be launched promptly at noon. Any questions?”

  The men shook their heads. There was a brief silence, then Grant asked a question that was always on everyone’s mind. “How many men have we lost so far?”

  Howard answered quickly. “In three days of fighting, I have lost about eight thousand men.”

  “And the Army of the Tennessee?” Grant asked.

  “A bit more,” McPherson answered. “Ten thousand, give or take.”

  These answers were given so casually, Grant thought, as though they did not represent the totality of existence for thousands of human beings and signified infinite grief for so many Northern families.

  “Nearly twenty thousand men,” he said simply. It was a steep bill for the butcher, but not quite on par with the carnage of Chickamauga or Gettysburg. Grant reminded himself, however, that the battle was far from over.

  A courier arrived and handed Grant a quick message. It was from one of the cavalry divisions that was screening the right flank of his forces, engaging in constant patrolling to the south.

  “Well, this is interesting,” Grant said. “Confederate infantry has been reported in the vicinity of Palmetto.”

  “Could be Johnston coming up,” McPherson said, a slight trace of foreboding in his voice.

  “The cavalry cut the Atlantic and West Point Railroad in many places,” Grant replied. “Surely the rebels could not have affected repairs so quickly.”

  Howard chimed in. “Though they possess but a fraction of our resources, they are capable of great efforts of improvisation.”

  Grant dropped the note on the table. “It doesn’t matter. Even with a fully functioning railroad, it would take Johnston several days at least to bring his two corps up to Palmetto. We will be in Atlanta by then.”

  “Perhaps,” McPherson said. “But it wouldn’t do to be incautious.”

  “No, it wouldn’t. I shall dispatch a stronger cavalry force to verify the information. If any of Johnston’s troops have arrived, we can always detach a sufficient number of divisions to hold them in check. I want you to concentrate on the attack scheduled for noon. If we succeed, we can be in Atlanta as early as tomorrow.”

  *****

  September 27, Noon

  Buglers blared their instruments and drummers pounded their drums as the men of Brown’s division stood to attention. After herculean efforts by the staff officers and railroad workers, a complete Confederate division was now deployed in Palmetto.

  Johnston, standing stiffly with his hands behind his back, walked along the line with a critical air about his face, staring at the men intently. To his left walked the division’s commander, the inaptly-named John Brown, while the faithful Mackall walked beside him on his right. The men being reviewed were clearly tired, as many of them had clambered out of the railroad boxcars only an hour or so earlier. Their officers had done a good job getting them organized and cleaned up.

  “Your division looks excellent, General Brown.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  The looks on the faces of the men were eager and anticipatory. Almost all the men in Brown’s division were from Alabama and Mississippi, although there was a scattering of South Carolina regiments among them as well. Rumors were doubtless swirling through the ranks that Atlanta had come under a massive attack and Johnston hoped that the urge to go to the rescue of their comrades would inspire the men.

  The scream of a train whistle reminded Johnston that more troops were arriving all the time. The men of Stevenson’s division and Clayton’s division were disembarking from the boxcars and, according to the telegraph, Stewart’s corps was busy entraining in West Point for their trip north.

  Johnston had elected to leave one division of Stewart’s corps behind in Lafayette to make sure the route into Alabama was secure from any major enemy force. Having been fooled once by Grant’s maneuvering, Johnston had no wish to be fooled again. This decision would reduce the strength of the force he would be able to assemble at Palmetto, but it gave him the comfort of knowing his rear was somewhat secure. It also freed up rolling stock and made the transfer of the other divisions an easier task.

  “We should hurry, sir,” Mackall said in a quiet voice. “There is much work to be done.”

  “I know, William. Believe me, I know.”

  Mackall’s words reminded Johnston of just how tired he was. It had been three days since he had received the shocking telegrams from Atlanta and Richmond which had torn the wool from his eyes and revealed Grant’s deception. His mind had been in a fever of activity and calculation since then.

  There were already about eleven thousand Confederate troops in Palmetto. He hoped that twenty thousand would be on hand by the end of the day and perhaps thirty thousand by the afternoon of the next day. When he had the force completely assembled, he could move north to confront Grant. At the very least, this would force the Union general to stop his attacks on Atlanta, presuming that it had not fallen by then.

  Union cavalry had been spotted hovering a respectful distance away to the north, telling Johnston that Grant was now aware of their presence in Palmetto. He wondered what Grant’s reaction would be. Conceivably he might break off the attack on Atlanta, leave a few divisions to cover the city, and march on Palmetto with an overwhelming force. However, Johnston assumed that Grant would take the opposite tack and try to capture Atlanta before the army assembling at Palmetto was strong enough to intervene.

  Late the previous night, Johnston had called for volunteers to attempt the dangerous task of taking dispatches to General Cleburne in Atlanta. Three men had volunteered and set off just after two in the morning, taking different routes. Unsurprisingly, nothing had been heard from them since. Johnston frankly had not given the men much of a chance of success, thinking it much more likely that they would be either killed or taken prisoner rather than reach the Confederate lines. The Union forces had the city completely encircled and were heavily patrolling the surrounding countryside.

  Still, it had been a risk worth taking. It was important for Cleburne to be notified that a relief force was being assembled. This news would not only raise the morale of the men but would certainly squelch any thought of capitulation from the minds of the officers. Johnston was confident that Cleburne, his fighting Irishman, would never allow any thought of surrender to enter his mind, but the same was not necessarily true for the other officers.

  He wondered how Cleburne was doing. Indeed, the question deeply worried him. Cleburne was an outstanding division commander and would probably have made an effective corps commander as well. Yet he had never been in the position of an independent commander, where ultimate responsibility rested on his shoulders. He had always had Hardee nearby to provide a guiding hand to his operations.

  There was a greater concern. The public revelation of Cleburne’s proposal had stirred up no end of trouble. How would General Walker, with his militant views on slavery and white supremacy and his hatred of Cleburne, respond to taking orders from Cleburne?

  Johnston shook his head. He was consumed with worry regarding things about which he could do nothing. He had to focus on getting the army assembled in Palmetto and going to Atlanta’s relief. Whatever was happening within the defenses of the city were sadly beyond his control.

  *****

  Cheeky Joe was pouring kerosene onto Annie, who was tied to a stake on top of a pile of dry wood and kindling like those used to burn witches back in the old days. He was laughing maniacally, while Annie herself was screaming for hel
p. Robert and Teresa Turnbow were there, too, berating McFadden for not protecting Annie. McFadden would have helped, but found that he could not move his feet, which had somehow become solidified into the stone floor on which he stood. In fact, he realized with a shock that he himself had turned into stone, except for his head. As he continued laughing, Cheeky Joe struck a match.

  McFadden awoke with a start, his heart pounding. He instinctively glanced around, searching for danger, but all he saw were other Confederate soldiers in the artillery redoubt. The sun was bearing down, glinting off the polished metal of the guns.

  Realizing it had been another nightmare, he took a deep breath and tried to calm down. He had had nightmares on most nights after he had come back from New Mexico, but they had faded and eventually gone away altogether after he had met Annie. He wondered if, now that she was gone, they would return with renewed energy.

  He looked around quickly to see if anything had changed while he had been asleep. Granbury had given him command of one hundred soldiers drawn from the various regiments of the old brigade and ordered him to provide infantry support to Battery Bate, a redoubt on the southern sector of the Atlanta defenses which had just been renamed after the fallen division commander.

  It was called a battery, but in truth it was more like a small fort. Battery Bate held eight 12-pounder iron Napoleon cannon and four double-banded 7-inch Brooke rifled cannon. The latter guns had been sent up to Atlanta from Mobile during Sherman’s initial advance on the city. The Napoleons were meant to protect the redoubt from an infantry attack, while the Brooke guns were intended to dominate the ground for a considerable distance all over the southern sector of the Atlanta defenses.

  “A nice nap, Lieutenant?”

  McFadden looked over at the man asking the question. It was Major James Horwood, commander of the battery, whom he had just met that morning.

  “Good enough, I suppose.” Nightmare or not, he had badly needed the sleep.

  “Glad you’re awake,” Horwood said. “I wanted to suggest that I give some of your men rudimentary instruction on how to load and fire the cannon. That way, they can help man the guns if any of my gun crews become disabled.”

  “A good idea,” he said with a nod. He ordered his men, one company at a time, to stack arms and take Horwood’s instruction.

  While the artillery officer was giving his lesson, McFadden walked up to the port for one of the Napoleons and looked out over the field. Perhaps a mile away, large formations of Union infantry waited patiently, their battle flags fluttering in the light breeze.

  “They’ve been getting in position all day, sir,” Private Pearson said. He was sitting on the redoubt’s enormous parapet, cradling his Enfield on his lap, watching the Yankees in the distance. “We saw another division arrive while you were sleeping.”

  “They’ll attack soon,” McFadden said firmly.

  “Think so?”

  “They haven’t come all this way just to give up and go home because a few of their attacks were repulsed, have they?”

  “We’ve killed lots of them over the past couple of days,” Pearson said, with no more emotion than one would have used to describe duck hunting.

  “There are always more.”

  “Yeah, but now we’re behind the walls of this fort. Nice, I think. Better than anything we ever built in the field. Walls are good and thick enough to stop Yankee shells.”

  “I know.”

  “Looks like a big bucket, don’t you think?”

  McFadden was distracted. “What’s that?”

  “This fort. It looks like a big bucket. That’s what the men are calling it. Not Battery Bate, but just the Bucket.”

  “Oh,” McFadden said. He hadn’t thought about it, but in truth the long convex curve of the fort’s rampart combined with its height did give one the impression of a giant bucket.

  “Pearson?” McFadden said.

  “Yes, Lieutenant?”

  “I have not yet thanked you for saving my life yesterday.”

  Pearson chuckled. “No, I suppose you haven’t.”

  “Well, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. But I would rather you apologize for punching me that day on the riverbank. My head hurt for the rest of the day.”

  “That I shall not do.” He chuckled, but the memory pained him, for it had been that day when he had first met Annie.

  There was a sudden boom of a cannon from the Union lines. Without a word, McFadden, Pearson and all the other Confederates on the parapet rapidly scrambled back inside. Seconds after the sound, a shell impacted on the ground a few dozen yards in front of Battery Bate and exploded, showering them all with dirt.

  Over the next few minutes, it seemed that the enemy shells were landing at a rate of one every two or three seconds. Clearly, the enemy was concentrating their fire on Battery Bate in an effort to knock out its guns. McFadden and his Texans took cover as Horwood and his artillery crews bounded into action. He was impressed by the coolness the gunners displayed as they danced about their cannon, as they had spent most of the war sitting idly in the coastal fortifications around Mobile.

  Within three minutes of the first shell, the four giant Brooke rifled guns thundered their response. McFadden had neglected to cover his ears, imagining that the sound would be more or less the same as that of a regular cannon. He could not have been more mistaken, for the booming sound pounded his eardrums. He clapped his hands over his ears as tightly as he could and hugged the ground.

  The artillery duel between the Brooke guns and the Yankee cannon went on for some time. The eight Napoleons remained silent, their ports covered with thick bundles of dirt and straw to absorb the impact of enemy shells. The men were well-protected from the bombardment by the stout ramparts of the redoubt and McFadden felt little fear.

  “Lieutenant!”

  McFadden wasn’t sure if he had heard his name shouted or not. The ringing in his ears caused by the four Brookes was extremely distracting. He glanced over in the direction from which he thought the call had come and saw Major Horwood gesturing excitedly at him.

  He pulled himself from the ground and jogged over. Horwood pointed over the ground.

  “The Yankees are advancing!” he shouted.

  It was true. Several hundred yards away a thin line of skirmishers was advancing at a jog. Behind them, moving in tight column formations, were at least two Union divisions.

  “How long until we can fire the Napoleons?” McFadden asked.

  Horwood shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to waste them on the skirmishers. Better to fire into the packed formations. We’ll kill more Yankees that way. And I don’t want them to know how much firepower we have until it’s too late for them to do anything about it. If we fire off our guns too early, they’ll just wait and pound us with their artillery longer before they launch an infantry attack.”

  McFadden nodded. “Makes sense.” Horwood seemed to have a decent grasp of tactics.

  “Just make sure you and your boys keep those skirmishers at bay long enough for the main formation to come within range. Then we’ll send these Yankees straight to hell.”

  McFadden nodded sharply. Looking again at the approaching Yankee skirmishers, he thought that they were advancing far too quickly. At the rate they were coming, they would come into musket range several minutes before the main assault column. Being relatively few in number, they were liable to be cut to pieces by the Texans long before their comrades could mount a charge. He shook his head. Perhaps the commander of the attacking force was inexperienced or there had been some sort of miscommunication. He wasn’t going to waste time wondering, though.

  He walked calmly back to where most of the infantry were huddled against the back of the parapet. “On your feet, men! Yankee skirmishers approaching!”

  The Texans stood up and coolly loaded their Enfields. They mounted the fire-step and slotted their rifles through the space between the parapet and head-log. McFadden drew his sword and pistol, more for t
he sake of appearances than anything else. He stepped up between Pearson and Montgomery, the only other survivors from the Lone Star Rifles, and watched as the Yankee skirmishers came closer.

  He noticed something strange. The weapons the skirmishers were carrying appeared to be shorter and lighter than the Enfield or Springfield rifles with which Union forces were normally armed. Conceivably the skirmishers were dismounted cavalry armed with carbines. He dismissed the thought as irrelevant and continued waiting for the enemy to come within range.

  A shell impacted directly on the mount of one of the Brooke rifled guns, killing or wounding most of the gun crew and knocking the enormous weapon onto its side. The screaming of wounded men was added to the cacophony of sounds amid Battery Bate. McFadden frowned, more displeased by the loss of a valuable cannon than by the casualties they had just sustained.

  “Open fire, boys!” McFadden shouted. “Fire at will!” The enemy were now within range. Against skirmishers, massed volley fire was ineffective. The rifles along the fire-step began cracking as each individual soldier picked his target with deliberation. He hoped that they would deal with skirmishers quickly, so that they could focus on the task of repelling the oncoming assault column.

  Bullets began splattering into the head-log and parapet as the Union skirmishers fired back. This was only to be expected, but very quickly McFadden realized that something was wrong. The rate of fire coming from the skirmishers was so rapid as to defy belief. His men noticed it as well, having to duck down below the parapet to avoid the well aimed shots coming at them with such intensity.

  McFadden felt a tug of anxiety as he realized the Union skirmishers were armed with repeating rifles. He had heard stories about these weapons but had yet to encounter a federal unit equipped with them. If the rumors were correct, each Yankee soldier had the ability to fire ten shots in the same space of time it would take for one of his men to fire twice.