Ride Proud, Rebel! Page 14

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  _Hell in Tennessee_

  "At least we have that river between us now," Drew said. Behind them wasColumbia, where Forrest had bought them precious hours of traveling timewith his truce to discuss a prisoner exchange. Along the banks of thenow turbulent Duck River not a bridge or boat remained to aid theirpursuers. Buford's Scouts had had a hand in that precaution.

  "Yeah, an' Forrest's waitin' for the Yankees to try an' smoke him out.It's 'bout like puttin' your hand in a rattler's den to git him by thetail, I'd say. But I'd feel a mite safer was theah an ocean between us.Funny, a man is all randy with his tail up when he's doin' the chasin',but you git mighty dry-mouthed an' spooky when the cards is slidin' theother way 'crost the table. Seems like we has been chased back an' forthover these heah rivers so much, they ought to know us by now. An' be alittle more obligin' an' do some partin', like in that old Biblestory--let us through on dry land. Man, how I could do with some _dry_land!" Kirby spoke with unusual fervor.

  Croff laughed. "No use hopin' for that. Anyways, we have businessahead."

  Just as they had rounded up wagons to transport the infantry betweenskirmishes, so now they were on the hunt for oxen to move the guns. Thebogs--miscalled "roads" on their maps--demanded more animal power thanthe worn-out horses and mules of the army could supply. Oxen had to beimpressed from the surrounding farms for use in moving the wagons andfieldpieces relay fashion, with those teams sometimes struggling bellydeep. Having pulled one section to a point ahead, they were driven backto bring up the rear of the train.

  "Not enough ice on the ground; it's rainin' it now!" Kirby's shoulderswere hunched, his head forward between them as if, tortoisewise, hewanted to withdraw into a nonexistent protecting shell.

  "Just be glad," Drew answered, "you ain't walkin'. I saw an ox fall backthere a ways. Before it was hardly dead the men were at it, rippin' offthe hide to cover their feet--bleedin' feet!"

  "Oh, I'm not complainin'," the Texan said. "M'boots still cover me,anyway. Me, I'm thankful for what I got--can even sing 'bout it."

  His soft, clear baritone caroled out:

  "And now I'm headin' southward, my heart is full of woe, I'm goin' back to Georgia to find my Uncle Joe, You may talk about your Beauregard an' sing of General Lee, But the gallant Hood of Texas played Hell in Tennessee."

  Some sardonic Texan, anonymous in the defeated forces, had first chantedthose words to the swinging march of his western command--"The YellowRose of Texas"--and they had been passed from company to company, squadto squad, by men who had always been a little distrustful of Hood, menwho had looked back to the leadership of General Johnston as a good timewhen they actually seemed to be getting somewhere with thisendless-seeming war.

  There was a soft echo from somewhere--"...played Hell inTennessee-ee-ee."

  "Sure did," Webb commented. "But this country comin' up now ain't gonnafavor the blue bellies none."

  He was right. Both sides of the turnpike over which the broken armydragged its way south were heavily wooded, and the road threaded througha bewildering maze of narrow valleys, gorges, and ravines--just the typeof territory made for defensive ambushes to rock reckless Yankees out oftheir saddles. The turnpike was to be left for the use of the rear guardof fighting men, while the wagon trains and straggling mass of thedisorganized Army of the Tennessee split up to follow the dirt roadstoward Bainbridge and the Tennessee River.

  "Know somethin'?" Webb demanded suddenly, hours later, as they were ontheir way back with their hard-found quota of oxen and protesting ownersand drivers. "This heah's Christmas Eve--tomorrow's Christmas! Ain't hada chance to count up the days till now."

  "Sounds like we is gonna have us a present--from the Yankees. Hear that,amigos?" Kirby rose in his stirrups, facing into the wind.

  They could hear it right enough, the sharp spatter of rifle and musketfire, the deeper sound of field guns. It was a clamor they had listenedto only too often lately, but now it was forceful enough to suggest thatthis was more than just a skirmish.

  Having seen their oxen into the hands of the teamsters, they settleddown to the best pace they could get from their mounts. But before theyreached the scene of action they caught the worst of the news from thewounded men drifting back.

  "... saw him carried off myself," a thin man, with a bandaged arm thrustinto the front of his jacket, told them. "Th' Yankees got 'crossRichland Creek and flanked us. General Buford got it then."

  Drew leaned from his saddle to demand the most important answer. "Howbad?" Abram Buford might not have had the dash of Morgan, the electricpersonality of Forrest, but no one could serve in his headquarterscompany without being well aware of the steadfast determination, theregard for his men, the bulldog courage which made him Forrest'sdependable, rock-hard supporter in the most dangerous action.

  "They said pretty bad. General Chalmers, he took command."

  "Christmas present," Kirby repeated bleakly. "Looks like Christmas ain'tgonna be so merry this year."

  They had lost Buford and they were forced back again, disputingsavagely--hand to hand, revolver against saber, carbine againstcarbine--to Pulaski. Seven miles, and the enemy made to pay dearly forevery foot of that distance.

  It was Christmas morning, and Drew chewed on a crust of corn pone, oldand rock-hard. He wondered dully if his capacity to hold more than a fewcrumbs had completely vanished. And he allowed himself for one or twolong moments to remember Christmas at Oak Hill--where he had managed tospend a more festive day than at Red Springs in the chilly neighborhoodof his grandfather. Christmas at Oak Hill ... Sheldon, Boyd, CousinMerry, Cousin Jeff, too, before he died back in '59.

  Drew opened his eyes and saw a fire, not the flames of brandy flickeringabove a plum pudding, or the quiet, welcoming fire on a hearth, butrather a violent burst of yellow-and-red destruction punctured by burstsof exploding ammunition. These were the stores Forrest had ordereddestroyed because the men could transport them no further.

  The word was out that they were going to make a firm stand nearAnthony's Hill, again to the south. And they had been hard at work thereto fashion a stopper which would either suck the venturesome enemy intoa bad mauling, as Forrest hoped, or else just hold him to buy more time.

  There the turnpike descended sharply with a defile between two ridges,ridges which now housed Morton's battery, ready to blast road and hollowbelow. Felled timber, rails, stones, anything which could shelter a manfrom lead and steel long enough for him to shoot his share back, hadbeen woven together, and a mounted reserve waited behind to preventflanking. A good stout trap--the kind Forrest had used to advantagebefore and which had enough teeth in it to crush the unwary.

  "Dilly, Dilly, come and be killed," Drew repeated to himself that tagfrom some childhood rhyme or story as he waited at the mouth of thegorge to play his own part in the action to come. A small force ofmounted men, scouts, and volunteers from various commands were bait. Itwas their job to make a short stiff resistance, then fly in headlongretreat, enticing the Union riders into the waiting ambush.

  "Who's this heah Dilly?" Kirby wanted to know. "Some Yankee?"

  Drew laughed. "Might be." He sagged a little in the saddle. Sleep duringthe past ten days had come in small snatches. Twice he had caught napslying in stalled wagons waiting for fresh teams to arrive, and bothtimes he had been awakened out of dreams he did not care to remember, toride with gummy eyelids and a sense of being so tired that there was afog between him and most of the world. It was two days now since Bufordhad been wounded. The news was that the big Kentucky general wouldrecover. And it was a whole twenty-four hours since he watched theChristmas fires Forrest had lit in Pulaski, the fires which had devouredwhat they no longer had the animal power to save.

  Here in the mouth of the gorge the silence was almost oppressive. Heheard a smothered cough from one of the waiting men, a horse blow in akind of wheeze. Then came the call of a bugle from down the road.

  Theirs, not ours, Drew thought. Hannibal shook his hea
d vigorously, asif bitten by a sadly out-of-season fly. The captain commanding theircompany of bait signaled an advance. And they followed the familiarpattern of weaving in and out of cover to enlarge the appearance oftheir force.

  Firing rent the quiet of a few minutes earlier. Drew snapped a shot atthe Yankee guidon bearer, certain he saw the man flinch. Then, with therest, he sent Hannibal on the best run the mule could hold, back intothe waiting mouth of the hollow. They pounded on, eager to present sucha picture of wholesale rout that the Union men would believe a softstrike, perhaps an important bag of prisoners, lay ahead, needing onlyto be scooped in.

  Perhaps it was the reputation for wiliness Forrest had earned which putthe Yankee commander on his guard. There was no headlong chase down theambush valley as they had hoped and planned to intercept. Instead,dismounted men came at a careful, suspicious pace, cored around a singlefieldpiece, a small answer to their trap.

  But when that blue stream funneled into the hollow, the jaws snappedaway. Canister from Morton's guns laid a scythe along the Union advance,cutting men to ground level. The Yell shrilled along the slopes, and menjumped trees and rail barricades, pouring down in an assault wave not tobe turned aside. The Yankee gun, its eight-horse team, men who stood nowwith their hands high, horses for riders who were no longer to needthem. Three hundred of those horses from the lines behind the dismountedskirmishers--far more valuable than any inanimate treasure to men whohad lost mounts--one hundred and fifty prisoners.

  Kirby rode back from the eddy in the road, his mouth a wide grinsplitting his skin-and-bone face. He had a length of heavy blue clothacross the saddle before him and was smoothing it lovingly with onechilblained hand.

  "Got me one of them theah overcoats," he announced. "Sure fine, like tothank General Wilson for it personal. If I could git me in ropin'distance of him to do that."

  The small success of the venture was not a complete victory. Hisdismounted cavalry overrun or thrust back, Wilson brought up infantry,and they settled down to a dogged attack on the entrenched Confederateson the ridges.

  Union forces bored in steadily, slamming the weight of regiments againstthe flanks of the defenders. And slowly but inexorably, that turningmovement pushed the Confederates in and back. Drew, riding courier,brought up to the ridge where Forrest sat on the big gray King Phillip,statue-still, immovable.

  "General, suh, the enemy is in our rear--"

  Forrest turned his head abruptly, the statue coming to life. And therewas impatience in the answer which was certainly meant for all thedoubters at large and not to one sergeant of scouts relaying a message.

  "Well, ain't we in theirs?"

  General Armstrong, his men out of ammunition, made his own plea to fallback. But the orders were to hold. Hood was at Sugar Creek with thearmy; he must have time to cross. It was late afternoon when Forrest atlast ordered the withdrawal, and they made it in an orderly fashion.

  Through the night the rear guard toiled on and a little after midnightthey reached the Sugar in their turn. Drew splashed cold water on hisface, not only to keep awake, but to rinse off the mud and grime of daysof riding and fighting. He could not remember when he had had hisclothes off, had bathed or worn a clean shirt. Now he smeared his jacketsleeve across his face in place of a towel and tramped wearily back tothe fire where his own small squad had settled in for what rest theycould get.

  Croff was sniffing the air, hound fashion.

  "Ain't gonna do you no good," Webb told him sourly. "Theah ain't nothin'in the pot, nor no pot neither--'less Kirby 'membered to stow it lasttime. Lordy, m' back an' m' middle are clean growed together, seemslike."

  "Feast your eyes, man! Jus' feast your eyes!" Kirby unrolled his prizedcoat. In its folds was a greasy package which did indeed give up atreasure--a good four-inch-thick slab of bacon squeezed in with a blockof odd, brownish-yellow stuff.

  They crowded around, dazzled by the sight of bacon, real bacon. ThenDrew pointed at the accompanying block.

  "What's that? New kind of hardtack?"

  "Nope. That theah's vegetables." Kirby spoke with authority.

  "Vegetables?"

  "Yeah. These heah Yankee commissaries bin workin' out new tricks all th'time. They takes a lot of stuff like turnips, carrots, beets, all suchtruck, an' press it into cakes like this. 'Course you have to becareful. I heard tell as how one blue belly, he chawed the stuff dry an'then drank water; it bloated him up like a cow in green cane. Poorfella, he jus' natchelly suffered from bein' so greedy. But you drop itin water an' give it a boil...."

  "Looks like hay," Drew commented without enthusiasm. He picked it up andsniffed dubiously.

  "Man," Webb said, "if the Yankees can eat hay, then we can too. An' I'mhungry 'nough to chaw grass, were you to show me a tidy patch an' say goto it! How come you know all 'bout this hay-stuff, Anse?"

  "We found some of it on the _Mazeppa_. The lieutenant told us how itworked--"

  "The _Mazeppa_!" Webb breathed reverently, and there was a moment ofsilence as they all recalled the richness of that capture. "We shorecould do with another boat like that one. Too bad this heah crick ain'tbig 'nough to float a nice bunch of supplies in, right now."

  Kirby produced the pail dedicated to the preparation of coffee. Butsince coffee was so far in the past they could not even remember itssmell or taste, no one protested his putting the vegetable block to thetest by setting it boiling in the sacred container.

  "Don't look like much." Webb fanned away smoke to peer into the pail.Kirby had also produced a skillet, made from half of a Yankee canteen,into which he was slicing the bacon.

  "It's fillin'," he retorted sharply. "An' you didn't pay for it, didyou? A man who slangs th' cook--an' the grub--now maybe he ain't gonnafind his plate waitin' when it's time to eat--"

  Webb drew back hurriedly. "I ain't sayin' nothin', nothin' at all!"

  Drew grinned. "That's being wise, Will. Times when a man can talkhimself right out of a good piece of luck. It's hot and fillin', and yougot bacon to give it some taste...."

  With hot food under their belts, a fire, and no sign of orders to move,they were content. Kirby and Croff followed the old Plains trick ofraking aside the fire, leaving a patch of warmed earth on which all fourcould curl up together, two men sharing blankets. As the Texan squirmedinto place beside him Drew felt the added warmth of the plundered coatKirby pulled over them. This had not been too bad a day after all, orrather yesterday had not; it was now not too far before dawn. They hadmade their play at Anthony's Hill and had come out of it with horses,some food, and a few incidental comforts like this coat. Now aftereating, they had a chance to sleep. It seemed that Forrest was going topull it off neatly again. Drowsily Drew watched the rekindled fire. Theywould make it, after all.

  He awoke to find a thick white cotton of fog enfolding the bivouac. Thepreparations they had made again of rail and tree breastworks to greetthe Union advance were no easier to see than the men crouched in theirshadows. It would be a blind battle if Wilson's pursuit caught up beforethis cleared; one would only be able to tell the enemy by his position.

  But there was no hanging back on the part of the Yankees that morning.Slowly, maybe blindly, but with determination, they were picking theirway ahead, reaching the creek bank. If they could cut through Forrest'spresent lines, thrust straight ahead, they could smash the demoralizedstraggle of Hood's main command, and the Army of the Tennessee wouldcease to exist.

  The blue coats were shadows in the fog, the first advance wading thecreek now, their rifles held high. And as that line closed up andsolidified into a wall of men, a burst of flame met them face-on. It wasbrutal, almost one-sided. The Yankees were on their feet, pacing into acountry they could not clearly distinguish. While their opponents had"picked trees" and were firing from shelter with accuracy to tear hugegaps in that line.

  Men stopped, fired, then broke, running back to the creek for the safetywhich might lie beyond that wash of icy water. And as they went, ranksof the defenders rose and raced afte
r them, hooting and calling as if onsome holiday hunt. Now the cavalry moved in in their turn, cuttingsavagely at the Union flanks, herding the dismounted Yankees backthrough the lines of their horse holders as the Morgan men had beendriven at Cynthiana. Wild with fright, horses lunged, reared, tore freefrom men, and raced in and out, many to be caught by the gray coats. Itwas a rout and they pushed the Union troops back, snapping upprisoners, horses, equipment--whipping out like a thrown net to sweepback laden with spoil.

  These attackers were the rear guard of a badly beaten army, but they didnot act that way. They rode, fought, and out-maneuvered their enemies asif they were the fresh advance of a superior invading force. And theswift, hard blows they aimed bought not only time for those theydefended, but also the respect, the irritated concern of the men theyturned time and time again to fight against.

  Having pushed Wilson's troopers well back, the Confederates withdrewonce more to the creek, waiting for what might be a second assault. Theyate, if they were lucky enough to have rations, and rested their horses.Corn was long gone, so mounts were fed on withered leaves pulled fromfield shocks, from any possible forage a man could find.

  Drew led the gaunt rack of bones that was Hannibal to the creek, lettingthe mule lip the water. But it was plain the animal was failing. Drewshifted his saddle from that bony back to one of the horses they hadgathered in during the morning. But the Yankee gelding was littleimprovement. In the mud, constantly cut by ice, too wet most of thetime, a horse's hoofs rotted on its feet. And the dead animals, many ofthem put out of their misery by their riders, marked with patches ofblack, brown, gray, the path of the army. A man had to harden himself tothat suffering, just as he had to harden himself to all the othermiseries of war.

  War was boredom, and it was also quick, exciting action such as they hadhad that morning. It was fighting gunboats along the river; it was theheat and horror of that slope at Harrisburg, the cold and horror ofFranklin. It was riding with men such as Anson Kirby, being a part of afluid weapon forged and used well by a commander such as BedfordForrest. It was a way of life....

  The scout's hand paused in his currying of Hannibal as that idea struckhim for the first time. Now he thought he could understand why RedSprings and all it stood for was so removed and meaningless, was lost inthe dim past. To Drew Rennie now, the squad, his round of duties, thearmy--these were home, not a brick house set in the midst of greenfields and smooth paddocks. The house was empty of what he had foundelsewhere--acceptance of Drew Rennie as a person in his own right,friendship, an occupation which answered the restlessness which hadridden him into rebellion. He stood staring at nothing as he thoughtabout all that.

  Kirby startled him out of his self-absorption. "Butt your saddle, amigo!We're hittin' the trail again."

  As he swung up on the Yankee horse and took Hannibal's lead halter, Drewasked a question:

  "Ever seem to you, Anse, like the army's home? Like it's always been,and you've always been a part of it?"

  Kirby shot him a quick glance. "Guess we all kinda feel that sometimes.Gits so you can hardly remember how it was 'fore you joined up. Me, Isometimes wonder if I jus' dreamed Texas outta m' head. Only I keepremindin' myself that someday I can go back an' see if it's jus' the wayI dreamed it. Kinda nice to think 'bout that."

  They cut away from the main line of march, ranging out and ahead.Stragglers from the army must be moved forward, directed. And they cameupon one of those, a tall man, limping on feet covered with strips offilthy rag. But he still had his musket, and on its bayonet was stuck agoodly portion of ham. He had been sitting on a tree trunk, but at theapproach of the scouts he moved to meet them.

  "Howdy, fellas," he spoke in a hoarse voice, and wiped a running nose onhis sleeve. "What command you in?"

  "Forrest's Cavalry ... Scouts--"

  "Forrest's!" He took another eager step forward. "Now theah's a command!Ain't bin for you boys, th' blue bellies woulda gulped us right up!Nairy a one of us'd got out of Tennessee."

  "You ain't rightly out yet, amigo," Kirby pointed out. "Kinda lost,ain't you?"

  The man shrugged and grinned wryly. "Feet ain't too good. But I'm makin'it, fast as I can."

  "Can you fork a mule?" Drew asked. "This one is for ridin'. We'll takeyou to one of the wagons--"

  "Now that's right kind of you boys, right kind." The man hobbled up toHannibal as if he feared they might withdraw their offer. "Say, youhungry? Git us wheah we can light a spell, an' I'll divide my rationswith you." He waved the musket with its impaled ham.

  "Maybe we'll do jus' that," Kirby promised.

  Drew dismounted to give the straggler a leg up on Hannibal before theyheaded on toward the Tennessee and the promise of a breathing space.