Rifles for Watie

by Harold Keith

  Jeff went closer and saw Sparrow, the cook, sitting up in his bunk. He reeked of alcohol.

  “Bussey . . . you’re a fool,” Sparrow mumbled thickly. “Nex’ time he gits rough with you . . . ask him how the widow Spaulding died . . . back at Os’watomie . . . an’ where her eight hundert dollars went.”

  Jeff’s jaw dropped. “Who you talking about?”

  Sparrow winked at him owlishly. “Ask him . . . who bashed her skull in th’ night o’ th’ storm . . . I saw him slip up to her house . . . I wash fishin’ fer flatheads an’ went inter her barn to get outa th’ rain . . . He better not . . . git rough . . . with me.” Falling back on his bunk, Sparrow began to snore.

  There was something familiar about the cook’s mumbled threat. Jeff remembered his words in the army kitchen back at Leavenworth: “Clardy knows he wouldn’t dare talk like that to me. I could tell you something about Asa Clardy that he wouldn’t want you ner nobody else to know.”

  Thunderstruck, Jeff walked back to his post. Was Sparrow talking about Clardy? Had there been a murder or was the cook babbling from a drunken dream?

  Just thinking about it the rest of the night helped keep him awake. Relieved at four o’clock in the morning, he slept in his uniform a couple of hours before the army started marching again. Noah awakened him ten minutes before they lined up. Jeff was tired and logy. He just had time to wash his eyes in cold water and swallow some cold bacon and fried potatoes Noah had saved for him when he heard the cavalry bugles.

  That night they camped four miles north of Springfield. Jeff heard the staccato beat of a drum, coming from the Missourians’ mess. Suddenly he saw Jimmy, surrounded by German bandsmen.

  One was teaching him to beat the various calls. A parade drum hung from a strap around his shoulders. A pair of polished drumsticks was in his hands. When he saw Jeff, he beamed with pleasure.

  “General Lyon says I won’t have to go home,” Jimmy said joyfully. “I’m going to be a drummer. They’re gonna let me hone the surgical instruments, draw maps, and carry water to the barbers. When I reach sixteen I get to go back into the army.”

  The next morning they marched into the edge of Springfield. Laborers in Union blouses were digging earthworks around the town. As one of the workers raised his pick, he looked familiar. With a glad shout Jeff ran to his side.

  “David!”

  David Gardner stared up wearily, despair written all over his freckled boyish face. His clothing was sweaty and dirt-begrimed, his hands dirty, calloused, and raw with blisters.

  A rough-looking guard with a sandy hawk-wing mustache stepped threateningly in front of Jeff.

  “Move on,” he commanded. “These is deserters. Cap’n says nobody’s to talk to ’em.”

  Jeff said, “He’s from my home county over in Kansas. If I could just speak a word to him . . .”

  The guard looked ugly and showed his teeth. “I don’ care if he’s yore long-lost brother! Move on or I’ll run you in.”

  Reluctantly Jeff moved on. As he walked he sighed with relief. At least David hadn’t been shot. When they had got back to Leavenworth from Linn County, Jeff had gone with David to Millholland, explaining that David was returning voluntarily to his outfit. Millholland had promised to pass on that information to the regimental court-martial handling David’s case. Apparently the sergeant had done as he promised.

  When the army marched into the streets of Springfield just before noon, the town was in a near panic. It was August 9, 1861. Everybody knew a battle would soon be fought. The whole town seemed frightened. All afternoon Jeff watched the excitement and the confusion, while the soldiers lay resting on the grass beneath several gigantic oak trees in the shady town square. Merchandise and household goods were being loaded into wagons, ready for flight. People were cooping their chickens, harnessing their teams, calling to their children. Storekeepers and citizens presented food and tobacco lavishly to the soldiers. Everybody was afraid that if the rebels won, they would ravish the town.

  A merchant’s wife gave Jeff two pairs of socks and a small sack of apples. Surprised, Jeff stammered his thanks.

  “Good luck,” the woman said. Then she added, “My, but yore awfully leetle and younglike to be fighting in a war. You ought to be home with your mammy.”

  After giving Jeff a long soulful look, she began sniffing and dabbing at her eyes with the bottom of her blue calico apron.

  Jeff didn’t like her pessimism. “Corn,” he told himself disgustedly. “She acts like we’re all going to be killed by the rebels. We can take care of ourselves.”

  General Lyon rode up on a big gray horse and, without dismounting, began to talk to the Kansas Volunteers. He was a short, slender, bony man of about forty-five, with a rough, homely face. A coarse reddish-brown beard ran up past his ears into his thick sandy hair. He wore a blue uniform with heavy yellow epaulets concealing his frail shoulders. Jeff knew that he had fought with honor in the Mexican War and against the Indians.

  The general said, “Men, we’re going to have a battle. We’re going to march out and try to hit ’em before they know we’re comin’. Don’t shoot until you are given orders. Wait until they get close. Fire low—don’t aim higher than their knees. And don’t get scared. It’s no part of a soldier’s duty to get scared.”

  Scared? Who was scared? Jeff felt a gay excitement. His chance to strike a blow for his new state had come at last. He reached toward the left side of his belt, feeling for his bayonet. It was there. His pack was on his back, and his musket was in his hand. He was impatient to get started.

  The thin, sweet trill of a bugle pealed in the early twilight. A dozen drums began to beat. An officer shouted, “Fo’wud mawtch!”

  Thousands of feet began to stamp the hard, dusty ground in unison. The soldiers’ heads rose and fell as one as they marched four abreast at quick step. The long blue column moved southward.

  7

  Battle of Wilson’s Creek

  General Lyon had decided upon a bold plan of battle. His smaller Union army had no reinforcements. Their provisions were running low. A superior force was in front of them and General William J. Hardee with nine thousand more rebels was reported marching to cut off their communications. Retreat seemed wise. But Lyon didn’t propose to retreat and be closely pursued all the way back to St. Louis. Boldly he decided to attack and hurt the enemy so he could not follow them.

  His plan was to march secretly at night the twelve miles to where Price’s and McCulloch’s rebel army was encamped, and strike at daybreak in a surprise onslaught. Lyon with thirty-eight hundred men and two batteries would hit the rebels from the north. Colonel Franz Sigel with twelve hundred men and one battery was to fall upon the Confederates from the south.

  As the infantry swung along briskly, clouds covered the western sky, and Jeff thought he could smell rain in the air. Millholland raised his bearded chin, eyeing the heavens hopefully.

  “A rain ud be jist right for us,” he said. “Might cause ’em to draw in their pickets. If they do, we’ll give ’em a real surprise.”

  “Wonder what them rebels looks like?” quavered a frightened boy in the ranks.

  Jake Lonegan, the grizzled sergeant from Junction City, snorted. “They wear horns,” he croaked. “A common article o’ diet among ’em is young an’ tender babies.”

  As they moved nearer the enemy, there was silence in the ranks. The road grew rockier. Fearing that the enemy could hear them approaching, they stopped to bind the cannon’s wheels in blankets and the horses’ hoofs in sacks, then resumed the march. Jeff’s company, commanded by Clardy, was stationed near the rear. Behind them were the horse-drawn ambulances, their shelves filled with bottles and drugs, and the doctors and medical orderlies with their cases of sharp surgical instruments.

  The men were solemn, now that the hour of battle approached. Jeff could sense it in their white, wistful faces and hear it in their hushed whispering. They exchanged messages to be delivered to relatives and sweethearts back in K
ansas in the event they were killed.

  Jim Veatch, a Westport boy who liked to play cards, tossed his deck into the sumac bushes at the side of the road and grimly resumed his marching. In the dim light, the white faces of the cards settled slowly over one bush, decorating it gaily.

  Puzzled, Jeff nudged Noah Babbitt, marching next to him. “Noah, why did he do that?”

  “He probably doesn’t want to be killed in battle with playing cards on him,” Noah said, gravely. “It’s a superstition lots of soldiers have. They’ve been told in church that it’s wrong to play cards. They’re afraid if they get killed with playing cards on them, they won’t go to heaven.”

  Then Jeff saw Neeley North, a breezy recruit from Shawnee Mission, stoop and carefully pick up the cards Veatch had thrown away, pocketing them.

  “Neeley’s not so superstitious,” Noah explained. “He’ll probably sell Veatch’s cards back to him if they both live through the battle.”

  If they both lived through the battle! Jeff stepped around a limestone outcropping in the dusty road, scoffing inwardly. They had been told back at the fort that very few soldiers were killed in proportion to those who fought. What made everybody so gloomy? War was a lark, an adventure made for men.

  Swinging blithely along, he felt Noah’s steady gray eyes on him.

  “How do you feel, youngster?” Noah asked. “Haven’t you got scared yet?”

  Jeff shook his head. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this night.”

  The Kansas Volunteers were the worst-dressed troops Jeff had ever seen. The war had just begun, and much of the new equipment hadn’t yet arrived from the Northern factories. Jeff was wearing the civilian pants and shoes that had been furnished him at the fort, and army drawers, blouse, and socks. On his head was the same hat his mother had plaited from Linn County wheat straw.

  With a clatter of hoofs, the Sixth Kansas Cavalry galloped past on its way to the head of the column. A big, swarthy cavalryman clad in a black suit rode with them. He was bareheaded and his curly chestnut hair was fluttering in the breeze.

  “That’s Rufe Forney of Atchison,” Jeff overheard somebody say in the next squad. “He’s a corporal in the cavalry. He jest got spliced at Leavenworth before we left. Got himself a purty gal, too—the blacksmith’s daughter. He’s still wearin’ his wedding suit.”

  Suddenly a muffled gunshot, followed by a scream of agony, rang out ahead. The column was thrown temporarily into confusion and slowed to a halt. Captain Clardy came running past from the rear, his sword swinging and bouncing noisily at his side, his stern face dark with displeasure. A medical orderly sprinted close behind him.

  “Keep marching, you fools! Nobody ordered you to stop,” Clardy roared. Then he disappeared up ahead, plunging through the brush as he skirted the column.

  “Route step! Keep marchin’!” Millholland barked. “Hup! Hup! Hup!”

  Swallowing hard, Jeff tried to march on tiptoe so he could see better. For the first time he felt a slight panic. He looked at Noah, then at Millholland, but they were staring stonily ahead as they marched. Soon he heard voices and somebody weeping loudly with pain.

  Captain Clardy and the medical orderly appeared. Between them limped Walter Van Orstrand, a Douglas County boy from their own company. His weak face twisted with suffering, he was blubbering and sniffing. His left hand was wrapped in a bloody white bandage which he held tightly clutched in his right hand.

  “Captain, I tell you it was an accident,” the boy kept pleading and sobbing.

  “You’re a liar,” Clardy stormed, his face black with rage. “You deliberately shot it off so you’d get a discharge. Well, it won’t work. I’ll have you court-martialed for cowardice. You’re yellow as a dandelion.” His rough voice rang with scorn.

  “No, Captain, no,” the boy whimpered piteously. “Honest I’m not. My gun jest went off while I was marching.” He gave another howl of pain. “Oh, it hurts, awful!”

  “Shut up your sniveling!” roared Clardy. “You were carrying the gun over your shoulder. It’s a long gun. You couldn’t have shot off your finger unless you stuck it over the muzzle. You’re jest a yellow-bellied coward, that’s all!” Their arguing became fainter and fainter as they passed toward the ambulances in the rear.

  The men began to mutter to one another in low voices as they marched.

  “What happened? What happened?” everybody asked, although everybody had a pretty good idea now.

  Jake Lonegan grunted, shifting the pack on his back with a single swagger of his powerful shoulders. “Cappen’s prob’bly right. The man prob’bly got so scared that he shot off his own finger jest to git a discharge. They do it in every war.”

  Leave the army, when they were just heading into their first battle? Jeff could hardly believe his ears.

  Jeff looked at Lonegan and sighed. He envied the brawny sergeant who had bulging muscles and weighed two hundred thirty pounds. In their training bivouac, Lonegan had shown a perfect mastery of the manual of arms and could throw down any man in the company. In the election of officers he had been the almost unanimous choice of his squad.

  The night deepened. The pace slowed. The road wound up and down several small, rocky hills covered with timber. Once Jeff saw the dark outline of a log house, although all the windows were dark and no dog barked. He felt thirsty and, without slackening his marching pace, took a drink out of his canteen. The water tasted cool and sweet. It was surprising how well you could see after you got used to the darkness.

  At one o’clock in the morning by Millholland’s big silver watch, they stopped in the roadside grass and rested a couple of hours. Jeff checked the priming and the hammer on his musket, then lay down on the rough ground and slept. At three o’clock he felt a hand shaking his shoulder and heard the sergeant’s voice whispering in his ear.

  “Fall in and keep silent. We’re mighty close to the enemy.”

  It was cool on the ground. As Jeff got quickly to his feet, he could hear the June bugs droning sleepily from the grass roots. Their song sounded plaintive, almost hushed. Reaching into his pocket, he drew out a small package containing the last of his rations, a strip of cold bacon, some stale corn pone, and two apples from the sack the lady storekeeper had given him at Springfield. He had given all the other apples away. He was too excited to eat much.

  A flash of lightning illuminated the scene, and Jeff saw that Zed Tinney, a quiet, religious boy who lived near Wabaunsee, was clutching in one hand a small Bible bound in black leather. Fear and despair ruled his face. Resigned to being killed in battle, he was praying quietly to himself. Lonegan saw him and stepped across the intervening space.

  “Hello, Parson,” he taunted. “What time does the revival start?”

  Millholland walked up to Lonegan, scowling fiercely. In a low voice he said, “You shut up an’ git back over thar with your own outfit. Iffen anybody in my squad wants to pray, he shore can, an’ nobody’s gonna laugh at him, neither. You hear me?”

  For a moment the two big sergeants glared at each other. Then, to Jeff’s surprise, Lonegan walked obediently back to his own squad. And Millholland went up several notches in Jeff’s estimation.

  Tinney paid no attention to the incident. His mind seemed far away. “I’m glad I’ve always lived a good life,” Jeff heard him whisper. “I’m glad that I’ve never knowingly harmed a soul.”

  Again the army was put in motion. It now marched southeast in column by companies, the batteries by section, and a line of skirmishers in front. Disappointed because his company wasn’t selected for duty with the skirmishers, Jeff felt a cool moisture on his face and looked up.

  A fine drizzle of rain that was little more than mist had started. Word came back from the skirmishers that apparently no rebel pickets were out.

  Jeff was elated. He wanted to get on with the fighting. If they could win this battle, the war might be over in Missouri, and they could go somewhere else and fight. He was in the second line of advance. He knew that the advan
ce line, which had drawn the honor of hitting the Southerners first, was somewhere ahead. He wished fervently that he was with it.

  They left the road and climbed silently up a rocky slope. He could feel the wet brush pulling at his trouser legs and thighs. When they finally crested the ridge, they halted, panting silently. Despite the inky darkness, Jeff knew through some sixth sense that they were on an elevation.

  Breathlessly he squinted over John Chadwick’s thick shoulder and felt a cold chill run along his spine. In the valley below lay the sleeping rebel camp. He could see the sheen of their dying campfires and hear their mules braying faintly in choruses.

  A half hour passed. The night wore on toward a gray dawn. Jeff was on the north hill with Lyon. Sigel was on the south hill. Between the two hills flowed the spring-fed waters of Wilson’s Creek. The Confederates were camped along both its brushy banks. The slow rain stopped, and the stars began to shine brightly between broken patches of clouds.

  “Fix bayonets,” came a whispered command. As Jeff groped at his belt, he heard faint clicks all around him and knew that the Kansas Volunteers were clamping the long steel knives onto the tips of their musket barrels.

  It was almost daybreak. The country was open, and here and there Jeff could begin to see dark objects. Excited, he felt no fatigue whatever from the twelve-mile march, although he knew he should have been dog-tired. He looked around at his comrades.

  “I don’t mind going,” somebody whispered. “The thing I dread most is parting with Mother.”

  Jeff frowned impatiently in the dark. Why be so gloomy?

  “The hardest thing for me to part with will be my g-g-g-graybacks,” Bill Earle whispered, trying to take away some of the sting of death.

  The stars paled. Birds began to twitter. Now Jeff could see the live-oak trees taking shape all around him and smell the cool, musty odors of the woods. His bare hand brushed accidently the leaf of a dwarf oak and came away wet. Everything was dripping.