by William Gear
“No matter what he thinks, he’s off fighting to save the ‘peculiar institution,’” she shot back. “How’s that for a Union man? Now he’s a major in some Mississippi regiment.”
Billy pulled off his hat and used his forearm to wipe the sweat from his brow. “Paw ain’t so tied to a principle as to let it get in his way when it comes to a chance for travel, fun, and adventure.” He shook his head, making a face. “You remember the look on Maw’s face? She knew Paw was just waiting for an excuse, any chance to go ‘chase the rainbow’ as Maw’d say.”
“Paw ain’t done so bad chasing rainbows, Billy.”
She stepped off to the next corn row and hacked a cut in the ditch bank. “But you know what people say about Paw when they’re out of his hearing.”
Billy scowled up at an eagle soaring above the forest in casual circles. “That if he couldn’t steal it, it warn’t worth working for? Yeah, I heard that. I was gonna thrash the last yahoo who said so, but John Gritts held me back.”
“At least someone could. Wish he was still about.”
Billy’s face puckered. “Me, too. Figured he was smarter than joining up with McCulloch and going off expecting to whip the Federals. Ain’t the same, going hunting without him.”
Come back, John Gritts. And take my brother with you.
Billy’s incessant preoccupation with her virtue was nigh onto smothering her. She wanted the damn war over. For life to get back to normal.
Otherwise she sure wasn’t getting to Little Rock.
“So help me, God,” she whispered under her breath, “I’d endure anything to get away from the White River and off to someplace with exciting prospects.”
6
September 1, 1861
The mules shook their heads, rattling the harness and trace chains, flopping their ears as Billy’s wagon climbed Telegraph Wire Road’s tree-lined grade up from the tanyard. At the top, the mules snorted relief and changed from their determined pulling stride to an easier pace as the grade leveled out.
A quarter mile farther down the rutted trace, he pulled up at Elkhorn Tavern and set the brake. Elkhorn Tavern stood on the west side of the road. Erected on a timber frame, the whitewashed structure rose two stories above the ground with dressed-stone chimneys on the east and west sides. The small yard before the long porch was separated from the trampled and manure-spotted plaza by a post-and-rail fence. A cluster of rude sheds and square-notch log dwellings surrounded the place along with chickens and a couple of hog pens. Atop the tavern’s gabled roof perched a bull elk skull with a sun-whitened rack of wide antlers.
A refuge for hardy souls traveling Telegraph Wire Road, Elkhorn Tavern rented rooms, dispensed locally distilled and brewed drink, and offered a hot and filling if not epicurean meal to those so inclined. For the scattered communities and sporadic farms around Pea Ridge, the nearby hollows, and the upper White River Valley, it provided a place to gather, conduct business, and most of all, socialize.
As Billy hopped down, it was to see a dozen or so soldiers in mismatched uniforms—or what he’d come to take for such. Mostly homespun or locally mill produced, the textiles had been dyed in hickory oils: what was called butternut. Some of the men wore battered hats, others were bareheaded, and all were fully bearded or sported goatees and mustaches.
They crowded the porch, tankards or tin cups in their hands. Belts supported the occasional large knife or pistol, and most wore blousy white or gray shirts in need of laundering. Footwear ranged from boots, to worn shoes, and not a few moccasins.
As a newcomer, Billy was the immediate center of their attention. Their hawkish gazes left him feeling oddly vulnerable and awkward.
“What have we here?” one asked. He might have been in his late twenties, with long brown hair pulled back in a way that accented his thin face and hatchet of a nose.
Someone raised his voice in reply: “What we have, gentlemen, is Billy Hancock, hunter extraordinaire, crack rifle shot, brawler, and woodsman outstanding.”
One of the ragged soldiers pushed forward and trotted down the front steps in holey shoes. He stopped short and grinned as he tucked his thumbs into a brown leather belt from which hung a long-bladed Bowie knife.
“Danny Goodman?” Billy asked, a sudden feeling of relief adding a measure of reassurance to his words. He stepped forward, taking the older boy’s hand in a firm shake.
Danny stepped back, looking Billy up and down. “Damn, boy. I swear you got another inch taller. And them shoulders is an inch wider.”
“You cussing, now? Or did your paw lose his willow switch?”
Danny’s grin thinned. “I reckon I don’t see the world quite like I did afore I marched up North. But I tell you, it’s good to see you, boy. How’s your family? What’s the news?”
Billy gestured at the wagon where the mules were happily lounging in their harnesses. “Just took a load of deer hides down to the tanyard in the holler. Old man Russell’s going to give half to cover Paw’s debts at the tavern. Ain’t much in the way of money these days. Mostly it’s just what they call scrip printed up by Governor Rector down to Little Rock.”
That brought laughter from the men on the porch. “At least you got hides to trade,” the lean one called. “We barely got spit.”
“Heard the army was back. Heard some was making camp in Cross Hollow.”
“We’re mustered out,” Danny told him, walking over to run a hand down the off mule’s sweaty flank as he absently inspected the harness. “Soldiering ain’t what they say it is, Billy. Hell, up to yesterday, we was gonna hang ol’ Du Val. He’s the paymaster. Or supposed to be. Till yesterday we hadn’t seen a dollar. And they was gonna transfer us from the State Army to the Confederacy. Ship us off out of the state. For three years, if you can believe?”
“Like hell they was!” a skinny youth wearing britches with the knees out cried.
“So … what’s next?” Billy asked.
Danny shrugged. “Anything but the army, that’s sure.”
“Huzzaw, huzzaw!” called one of the men on the porch as he lifted his tin cup in a toast.
Billy shot his friend a sidelong look. “You all ain’t sounding like the steely-eyed victors of that Oak Hill battle. Heard you made Wilson’s Creek run red with Federal blood.”
“Billy, I ain’t never been so tired, so hot, so thirsty, so footsore, so cold, or so scared as I been in the last three months.” Danny’s fingers on the mule’s side might have been like feathers, so lightly did they stroke. “What happened up on Wilson’s Creek? That battle? You remember Jackson Darrow?”
“Married Shirley Winston.”
“He was no farther from me than you is now. We’s headed up that bloody hill right into the Federal guns. Solid shot from Federal artillery hit him square in the head.” Danny’s fingers rose from the mule to press into Billy’s forehead just above his nose. “A jagged chunk of bone blasted out of Jackson’s skull and cut my scalp. Spattered his blood and brains on my right side. Saw the air filled with a red haze as his body dropped to the ground. There wasn’t nothing in his head, Billy. Just the empty bottom of his skull from his ears on down.”
Billy had felt a crawling sensation at Danny’s touch, as if his own skull had been in Federal gun sights.
Danny averted his face, as if away from the memory, his features twitching as if they itched. “Ain’t nothing like the sound of war. The roar of the guns … rifles and pistols firing. Men screaming and shouting, and blubbering, and praying. Exploding shells. A thousand bullets whistle and shriek in the air. And the smoke … the hell-stink of smoke … and blood … and busted-open guts.”
The men on the porch had gone silent, listening, a couple of them nodding.
“What about John Gritts?” Billy asked.
Danny seemed to shake his stun away. “Hit in the leg. Heard they took him to Springfield with the rest of the wounded. ‘Old Ben’”—as General McCulloch’s troops called him—“started us home right smart, not wanting to leave us i
n Missouri.”
The blond loudly insisted, “That Missouri bunch under General Price? They’s a thieving bunch of weasels. Saw a bunch of them run from the fighting.”
“And don’t fergit them that was robbing our dead and wounded,” the thin-faced man on the porch declared hotly. “Taking the guns and watches and personals off wounded Arkansans. Right there in front of us.”
“And they stole a bunch of our guns, too,” another added. “Me, I ain’t never fighting for no Missouri bastard’s freedom again.”
Grunts of assent and the clicking of cups and tankards emphasized their sentiment.
“How bad was John Gritts hit?” Billy endured a sinking sensation.
“Hard, Billy. Minié ball took out a big chunk of the bone just up from the knee.”
“Think he’s alive?”
“Don’t know.” Danny averted his eyes, going back to running his fingers down the mule’s short-haired red hide.
“Anyone else you know of?”
Danny barely nodded. “You remember Hank Adamson?”
“Told him I’d whip his ass if’n he ever come sniffing around Sarah again.”
“Well, he ain’t gonna be sniffing around nobody no more. Case shot tore him clean in half. His innards was strung across the grass for twelve feet from his chest to what was left of his hips and legs.”
Danny’s words stuck down inside Billy like cobwebs on his soul. They haunted him as he climbed back on the wagon and took the familiar Huntsville Road back to the valley.
As he lay in his bed that night, listening to the crickets and the whippoorwill, he pressed lightly on his abdomen, wondering what that would be like to be blown apart and have his guts strewn along like bloody rope.
One thing’s sure. They ain’t never gonna make me into no soldier.
But then he really didn’t need to worry. The war was over. Ben McCulloch had whipped the Federals at Wilson’s Creek.
7
September 10, 1861
“If you would know and understand Cicero,” Paw had recently said, “you must make the acquaintance of Thomas Hindman. As an orator, visionary, and patriot, Hindman is Cicero incarnate.”
The words had stuck in Butler’s head. He had been at loose ends, wondering about which regiment to join. Upon hearing that Congressman Hindman had arrived in Little Rock, Butler decided it was his sign from the gods that here was an opportunity to be seized.
“I don’t always see eye to eye with the man, slave-owner as he is, but I did Hindman a great service one night,” Paw had claimed. “The man owes me his life.”
Butler had applied all of his calligraphic talents as he labored over the sheet of foolscap and carefully penned his letter of introduction to Arkansas’s recently resigned congressman. He had written the letter while hunched over the cherrywood table in Mrs. Sorrenson’s drawing room. For the moment, he was her only boarder, having been accepted based upon the widow’s acquaintance with Paw.
Upon his arrival in Little Rock, Butler had introduced himself to Mrs. Sorrenson. When he mentioned that he was James Hancock’s son the woman’s amber-eyed gaze had altered, a secret and knowing smile filling her full lips. Butler hadn’t inquired further, but almost blushed when her oddly speculative appraisal dropped below his belt.
Now he waited in the Anthony House Hotel’s lobby. The hotel, located as it was on the southwest corner of Markham and Scott Streets, was Little Rock’s premier hostelry. Anyone of importance visiting the state capital stayed in the sprawling structure. More of the state’s governance and commerce, it was said, took place in the hotel’s lobby and bar than in the capitol itself.
As Butler glanced around at the fine furnishings, he wondered if he should just leave. The surroundings were a touch too opulent for his impecunious status as a budding scholar. And more to the point, according to the wall clock on the velvet-papered walls, the congressman was twenty-six minutes overdue.
Six long minutes ago, Butler had convinced himself to give Hindman but another five to appear. He paced back and forth before a leather-upholstered settee, glanced uncomfortably at the desk clerk, and took a deep breath. Things happened to important people. Last-minute interruptions. Important business.
He turned to leave, just reaching for the door as a voice called, “Mr. Hancock? Butler Hancock?”
Butler turned as a short man barely over five feet tall, spare of frame, and dapper in a fine broadcloth suit hurried into the lobby. He walked with a noticeable limp, and the built-up sole on one shoe indicated that an accident of some sort had left one leg shorter than the other. In his early thirties, Hindman had a neatly trimmed beard, a high forehead hinting at premature baldness, and wide-set blue-gray eyes. His shoes were polished to a fine shine, and his trousers pressed. Butler’s familiar letter was in his hand.
“Congressman?”
Hindman offered his hand, a harried smile on his lips. “Colonel Thomas Hindman, at your service, Mr. Hancock. Forgive me, sir. My deepest apologies. It’s the correspondence. I’m only in Little Rock for a couple of apparently frustrating days. I’ve been tasked by General Hardee to raise volunteers for the defense of Arkansas. And now, to my absolute irritation, Governor Rector—a man owing his election partly to my good graces—refuses me arms and rations as well as additional clothing for my troops.”
“Why would he do that?”
“These regiments we’ve raised are to be Confederate units, not part of the State Army. It matters not to the good governor that one fights for all, and all for one. The reality that if we lose Virginia or Tennessee we lose our Confederacy seems totally beyond the poor man’s comprehension.” He smiled, a deadly twinkle in his eye. “Our good Governor Rector, keen-eyed myopic that he is, can only see as far as the wave-lapped western shores of the Mississippi River.”
“I wish you the best of luck, sir. No doubt Vercingetorix was looking no farther than the Alps when he accepted command of the Gauls at Bibracte.”
The smile was back, fiery this time, and Butler began to understand Hindman’s political charisma. “Aptly put, Mr. Hancock. Let us pray that those in Richmond see farther. Now, how may I be of service? While your father and I have often been at odds politically, he did me a wonderful service one night. Despite our differences we have always maintained the most convivial of relationships. We share a certain compatibility as gentlemen. Is he well?”
“He is, and offers you his finest compliments. Last I heard he’s somewhere in Mississippi serving as a major in a newly formed Mississippi regiment.”
A slight frown lined Hindman’s brow. “I find that odd for a Union man. Let alone an abolitionist. Surely I didn’t misread James Hancock’s sentiments. And why Mississippi when Arkansas regiments are desperate for solid men?”
Butler gave him a thin smile. “If you know my father, you are aware that a great many stories follow him around like mongrel dogs. And while colorful, they might bias the opinions of both his commanders and subordinates.”
Hindman glanced at the wall clock, seemed to fidget, and asked, “And you, Mr. Hancock?”
“I wished to pay my father’s respects, and on his advice ask if I could be of service.”
“Can you make magic, snap your fingers, and cause a pile of correspondence to disappear?”
“Unfortunately, I cannot, but if you would be agreeable, I do have a most legible hand, and would be delighted to assist you with your correspondence if doing so would lighten your burden.”
Hindman glanced thoughtfully down at Butler’s letter of introduction. Hesitated, then reluctantly said, “I couldn’t impose, sir.”
“It would be no imposition. I’ve nothing else to occupy myself while in Little Rock. I had thought to offer my services to one of the regiments…” He made a face. “I have to admit, however, that the recruiting agents I’ve encountered so far haven’t exactly been…”
“Enticing?”
“Precisely. I was looking for a more salubrious company of men.”
Hi
ndman remained thoughtful, his capable gray-blue eyes taking Butler’s measure. “Tell me, Mr. Hancock. Surely you didn’t master such secretarial talents or nurture the taste for refinement in Benton County.”
“I’ve just returned from university studies in Pennsylvania. I thought it prudent to change my situation given the Confederate revolution.”
Hindman arched his back, almost adopting a photographic stance. “Given your experiences there, what do you see unfolding in the coming months? A quick and decisive war followed by a realization of our independence? Given the disasters suffered by the Black Republicans at Manassas and Wilson’s Creek, that seems to be the passionate hope of most Southerners.”
Butler shook his head, taking Hindman’s measure in kind. This little man, with his sandy-colored hair and almost round and too youthful face, was being called the Lion of the South.
“Congressman, we may very well bloody the North’s nose in the beginning. But people forget that the Yankees will have their own say in what happens next. Each time we humiliate them, bleed them, they’ll just come back harder and with stiffening resolve.”
A flintlike glint hardened in Hindman’s eyes. “Perhaps, Mr. Hancock, we think alike. I may not have liked the Yankees I associated with in Congress. Many I not only detested but despised. I did learn, however, to never underestimate them.” He paused. “Do you think they could whip us, Mr. Hancock?”
“Colonel, let us not forget the lessons of history. Northerners they may be, but they are still Americans. With all the resilience that implies. The only way we can lose this war is if we provide them with a reason to destroy us at all costs.”
Hindman seemed to process Butler’s words, then he said, “Here is how I see it: we must be audacious. Strike hard, recoil, and strike them again. We must defeat them quickly, sir, but only in defensive actions. By doing so, both England and France will understand that we are to be taken seriously, and that their advantage is best served by a rapid and resounding recognition of our rights as a nation.”
Butler countered, “Recognition of our Confederacy balances with the economic benefits that we provide Europe on one side, and their philosophical objections to slavery on the other.”
