by Harold Keith
Suddenly away off to the south they heard a dull, heavy “Pum!” It seemed to come from the direction of Sigel’s ridge. Crouching in the sodden brush, Jeff glanced at Millholland, who was down on his knees next to him, peering intently through the leaves of a buckeye bush.
“What was that, Sergeant?”
Calmly Millholland checked the cartridge box fastened to his belt and listened.
“Cannon,” he whispered hoarsely. “Probably Sigel.”
The Kansas Volunteers caught their breath, braced themselves, and looked inquiringly at one another.
The distant booming began to come faster and faster. Soon it was answered by the much louder “Brrom! Brrom!” of an awakening rebel battery from the creek below. Long ropes of orange flame streaked from the dark woods of the rebel-held creek.
“Blam!”
The deafening roar came from a Union battery located two hundred yards behind them. Jeff ducked and heard the grapeshot rushing noisily through the quiet air over his head, as though projected by a giant slingshot. His eardrums throbbed, and the ground beneath his feet trembled.
Now the guns were all speaking boisterously together. “Pum! Brrom! Blam!” Both ridges and the valley between were alive with long, slow lines of fire. The Battle of Wilson’s Creek, Missouri, had begun.
A wild burst of cheering rang out one hundred yards below as Lyon’s first line of attack hurled itself down the ridge and across a small field filled with wheat shocks and onto the brown- and gray-clad Confederates who were trying frantically to form a battle line in front of their tents.
Just before the two lines met and fused, there came a different sound, a menacing mutter and snarl, like thousands of beans being dropped into hundreds of tin pans. Jeff knew what that was—musket fire. Drawing in his breath, with solemn wonder he watched the Union line strike the Confederate one, bending it backward and driving it in confusion toward the creek.
Feeling a wild thrill at the solid charge of the first Union advance, he yelled joyfully at the top of his lungs. It was time for the second line of advance—his line—to join the battle.
Hoofbeats sounded behind him. A mounted staff officer in full uniform galloped up full tilt, jerking on his reins. As the bay horse slid to a stop, it kicked up a shower of small rocks and gravel. On the shoulders of his blue uniform coat, the officer wore the chevrons of a major. There was an urgent expression on his handsome face.
“Got your line formed, boys?” he called stridently. “Be ready. We’ll give you the word in a minute.” He kept looking back impatiently over his shoulder. Then his nervous eyes swept up and down the line of men before him and fell on Jeff, the smallest one in the platoon.
“Boy!” he barked, pointing with his gloved hand. “Something has happened to delay the quartermaster. Go to the rear and find him. Tell him to join us on the double. Hurry!”
Jeff recoiled. “Sir,” he protested, saluting weakly, “can’t you please send somebody else? I want to stay with the boys here.”
The major stared harshly at Jeff while he tried to control his plunging horse. Then he saw Jeff’s stricken face and his own countenance softened perceptibly.
“Do as I tell you,” he ordered firmly. “Another time you shall have your chance to fight in battle. What’s your name?”
Jeff swallowed miserably. He was the most disappointed man in Lyon’s army.
“Bussey, sir,” he replied tonelessly. “Jefferson Davis Bussey.”
The officer looked at him sharply, then recovered himself. “Very good, Bussey. Better start at once.” Wheeling his horse around, he galloped off along the ridge.
Wild with anger, Jeff stood and watched him ride out of sight. Recklessly he considered ignoring the command. Then Millholland stepped quietly to his side.
“You heared him, kid. Like it or not, it’s a order. Better git started.”
Jeff looked defiantly at the sergeant. Millholland looked right back at him.
Throwing one last yearning glance at his comrades, most of whom looked as if they would enjoy changing places with him, Jeff stepped back out of line. Still clutching his bayoneted musket, he trudged to the rear, descending the same slope they had marched up. Behind him the cannon were booming like thunderclaps, and he could hear the salvos of musket fire and the wild, frenzied shouting of the second line of advance, his line, as it charged down the ridge without him.
Hot tears of disappointment stung his eyes. Twice he walked blindly into trees. Never again, he told himself, would he obey an order that took him away from his comrades.
“Bussey!”
Jeff stopped abruptly and looked up. Before him in the growing daylight stood Captain Clardy, saber in hand. He broke into a volley of abuse.
“Get back into line, you little yellow-bellied cur,” he stormed.
Jeff’s patience, already threadbare, snapped. He matched Clardy, glare for glare.
“I know where the line is,” he shouted back. “I don’t need no old grouch like you to help me find it.”
Clardy seemed to gasp and explode, all in one motion. Raising his saber and waving it threateningly, he took a step toward Jeff. Jeff cocked the hammer on his rifle and coolly pointed the bayoneted gun at his captain’s commissary department.
With his finger on the trigger, Jeff looked Clardy squarely in the eye.
“What are you doing back here yourself, so far away from the fighting?” Jeff asked. “At least I’ve got an excuse. A major just ordered me back to find the quartermaster. I didn’t want to come, but he ordered me to.”
Hand tightening whitely on his saber, Clardy fixed Jeff with a look of hatred. Now Jeff’s own anger was rising and he felt a rash, uncontrollable urge to nettle the bullying officer, shocking him out of his attitude of arrogant authority.
“What’s your excuse for being here instead of on the front?” Jeff taunted grimly. “Are you looking for some other widow’s eight hundred dollars?”
Clardy’s face drained and turned a sickly yellow. Fear leaped into his face, and his right hand shook so badly that he almost dropped his saber. His breath began to come in little wheezing gasps. Jeff saw that he had shaken him clear down to the toes of his immaculately blackened shoes. It was Clardy whom Sparrow had been talking about!
Clardy’s green eyes swept Jeff with murderous cunning.
“Who told you that?” he snarled.
“A little bird,” Jeff twitted him. “A little bird who flew into the widow’s barn when the rainstorm struck, and saw a wolf sneaking toward her house.”
Clardy’s face glittered, suddenly triumphant. His voice went high and shrill, like a woman’s. He panted, “Sparrow! You must mean Sparrow. He’s the only man in my company from Osawatomie. You’ve been talking to Sparrow, haven’t you?”
“Remember the storm, Captain? How the rain came down blindingly? It blinded everybody, even the Miami County sheriff.”
Deliberately Clardy sheathed his saber. Still panting, he was very white now and spoke with terrible earnestness. “Better keep your mouth shut, boy, if you value your life.”
Jeff felt the hair prickling on the back of his neck. He knew a deadly threat when he heard one.
Clardy went on, “Never talk to me again as you have today, boy. Never talk to anybody else about me, either. You look like a sensible lad. I’ve been a little hard on you, I know. But I see no reason why we can’t be friends.”
Keeping his bayonet in the captain’s belly, Jeff shook his head decisively. Clardy couldn’t buy him off with a cheap promise of favor in the future.
“Why not?” Clardy asked, a flicker of surprise coming into his face.
Jeff said flatly, “Because I don’t want any kind of a deal with you.”
The anger came back into Clardy’s face, leaving it bloodless again. With a final murderous glare at Jeff, he moved off through the gray light of dawn toward the front.
Jeff was careful not to turn his back on him until he passed from sight in the timber. Laughing griml
y to himself, he relaxed a little. Now that he had told Clardy off, he felt a little better.
After wasting half the morning looking for the quartermaster, Jeff finally found him replacing a broken wagon wheel three miles in the rear. Quickly he relayed the major’s order to him and rode back with him in one of the wagons, hoping to find his outfit and still participate in the battle. But as they advanced along the road, they began to meet Union soldiers hurrying to the rear.
Many of the men had lost their hats and their guns. Some were hurt and walked with wounds untended and still bleeding. Others wore crude bandages and used their rifles as crutches. All looked sick, defeated, and very tired.
Astonished, Jeff jumped down from the quartermaster’s wagon.
“How’s the battle going?” he asked anxiously. He didn’t understand their haste and he saw no rebel prisoners among them. He put the question to man after man, but they just looked at him with glazed eyes and kept walking.
“They whopped us,” one lanky fellow said, finally. “Lyon got killed an’ Sigel got lost. Hundreds of our boys got shot.”
Another quavered, “No use fightin’ no more. We air done up the spout.”
Shocked, Jeff could scarcely believe his ears. “Why, we were winning it when I left,” he said with disbelief. “What happened?”
“They was too many of ’em. We drove ’em back at fust, and I thought we had ’em licked. But they kept coming on, regiment after regiment, all on the double quick, until they had as many as three lines agin’ us in some places. Mister, you wouldn’t have a smoke on you, would you?”
Jeff shook his head dully. It was a calamity. The army—his army—had been licked. He felt like bawling. Sobered by the bad news, he groped on, trying to find comrades from his own squad in each cluster of weary, discouraged men he encountered. Finally he discovered part of his company walking northward, through a potato field.
Dirty and exhausted, they wore a dazed, disenchanted look on their smoke-blackened faces that suggested they had come straight from hell. John Chadwick was the first one Jeff recognized. A bloody bandage was wrapped around his left arm, where a rebel Minie ball had struck him. Pete Millholland had torn off most of his own shirt to dress the wound.
“What happened?” Jeff asked.
John just looked at him bleakly and, without answering, hurried on toward the rear as though to put as much distance as possible between himself and the horror he had seen. Noah followed, carrying John’s gun. He had lost his cap. There was dirt on his face and a long, red welt across his neck.
“Zed Tinney got killed,” Noah reported briefly. “Shot in the forehead when our line charged. Ford Ivey was probably killed, too. He fell when we were retreating. Several of our boys got hit. We were lucky to be in the second advance line. Our first line lost almost one third killed.”
Zed Tinney dead. The news sobered Jeff. Blinking, he thought of Zed’s last words. “I’m glad I’ve always lived a good life.”
Quickly Jeff fell into step beside Noah. He took John Chadwick’s gun and carried it himself. He would miss Ford Ivey, too.
Pete Millholland lumbered wearily into view, carrying three muskets under one brawny arm. There was a dark circle around his mouth where the black powder had spilled as he tore open cartridge after cartridge with his teeth. He spat out his tobacco, wiped off his chin with his free hand, then wiped his hand on the leg of his homespun trousers.
“We’da whipped ’em if we’d had more men,” the big sergeant growled. “We chewed ’em purty good anyhow, I think. Your friend Jimmy the drummer boy is a cool ’un,” he told Jeff. “At the first rebel volley, Jake Lonegan threw down his rifle and run like a rabbit. Jimmy dropped his drum, picked up Jake’s musket with the bayonet on it, and charged right on with our boys. I saw him later an’ he asked about you.”
Ashamed, Jeff felt his ears reddening. His bitterness returned. What must the men think of him! Desolate, he jammed his hat down over his eyes and fell in behind the others.
They hiked all the way back to Springfield. Walking wearily into the town at dusk, they read their defeat in the frightened faces of the people staring at them on the streets. They didn’t look much like an army any more and they knew it. Disorganized, they would have been easy prey for a rebel pursuit. But the Southern army, as Millholland had said, and as Lyon had planned, was itself too badly battered to follow up its victory.
Later Jeff found Jimmy gulping cold water from a well behind a tavern. He still had Jake Lonegan’s musket with him. Despite his heroism, his boyish face was crestfallen.
“I lost my new drum, Jeffy,” he said mournfully. “Jist when I was learnin’ to beat it good, too. Now that General Lyon’s dead, do you think they’ll send me clear back to St. Louis fer losin’ it? It was a fifteen-dollar drum. Made in Boston, Massachusetts.”
Jeff dropped his head. His old misery returned. He couldn’t speak. Although Jimmy was only fourteen, he had already won the respect of all the men. Jeff envied him profoundly.
It was growing dark. After they had eaten the remainder of the corn pone and the apples Jeff had in his pocket, they went out into the horse lot behind the tavern. Jeff’s legs ached. He felt he could sleep for a month. Lying down, they pulled an old tent over them.
Just before they dozed off, Jimmy said fervently, “Jeffy, I hope I never have to hear another gun go off, long as I live.”
Jeff tucked a corner of the canvas around his shoulder. What was the matter with Jimmy and all the others? He wished with all his heart that there would be another battle tomorrow. But he knew there wouldn’t be. The army was licked.
8
Hard Lessons
At daybreak next morning, Jeff awakened to feel something hard toeing him in the ribs. Rolling over, he saw a rough black shoe covered with gray Missouri mud.
Slowly his eyes traveled upward. Above the shoe and the dirt-begrimed ankle was a blue pants leg; tucked in the waist of the pants was a faded blue blouse. The man wearing the shoe, the pants, and the blouse was holding his musket in both hands. He was obviously a sentry. Jeff recognized Ben Gerdeon, a Franklin boy in his own outfit. Behind him, Jimmy had thrown off the canvas coverlet and was staring sleepily about him.
“We’re marchin’ in thirty minutes,” Ben told Jimmy. “Your mess is t’other side o’ the tavern yonder.”
Jeff wiped the sleep out of one eye with his ragged sleeve. Bracing himself on one elbow, he sat up. A pale, sickly glow had begun to illuminate the eastern horizon. Against it the sharply angled tavern roof was silhouetted black as ink. He smelled sowbelly frying and felt a fierce hunger. He hadn’t had a square meal since he’d been home on furlough. And he probably wouldn’t get another one for longer than that. You never did in the army. Jeff yawned and squinted inquiringly at the guard.
“Where we goin’, Ben?”
Ben looked down at Jeff pityingly. “You ain’t goin’ nowheres. Cap’n Clardy has got you down fer duty with the ambulances. You gotta report to the field hospital in twenty minutes. Jeepers, Jeff, the cap’n sure must hate you. What did you ever do to him to rate thet stinkin’ duty?”
Jeff blinked uneasily and didn’t answer. Clardy hadn’t lost any time. He pulled his legs up under him and climbed to his feet. His legs still felt dead. Six hours’ sleep wasn’t nearly enough after you’d marched twenty-seven miles in a day and a night.
Jimmy, sitting up groggily, his eyes half shut, was trying to pull on his shoes.
“Where’s he and you and the army going?” Jeff asked the guard.
Ben shouldered his gun. “To Rolla,” he said. “An’ then the Ioway an’ Missouri troops may ride on the steamcars to St. Louey. Got orders to march to the Gasconade River an’ ford it at the mouth o’ Little Piney. Guess where they found Sigel last night! Asleep in bed right here in Springfield! He’s in command, now that Lyon’s dead, but some o’ the other brass don’t like it. They think we mighta won the battle yestiddy if Sigel had done what he was supposed to.” And clenching his
jaws angrily, Ben walked off.
After breakfast, Jeff told Jimmy good-by and reported to the field hospital half a mile south of Springfield. After the battle, the ambulances had picked up the most dangerously wounded and transported them there.
Jeff never forgot that day. The field hospital proved to be two large, gray Sibley tents thrown together in a clump of big-boled oak trees. Cows were still grazing peacefully in the pasture. Jeff’s detail carried those who had bad leg wounds to and from the amputation tent, where the tired surgeons who had already worked all night were destined to labor all day as well.
Finally only a dozen men were left. They lay on litters under the trees, awaiting the surgeon’s saw. Their groans and cries of agony wrenched Jeff’s heart. With wet eyes he passed among them, brushing flies and gnats off them, moving them into the shade, carrying water to them.
“Jeff!”
He spun around. Somebody had called his name. Carefully he scanned the litters on the ground. Then he saw a familiar figure stretched out on a pile of yellow straw. One long leg was rudely swathed in bloodstained bandages. The face was haggard and stubbled with beard. Suddenly Jeff recognized him. Ford Ivey!
“Ford,” Jeff gasped joyfully. “They told me you had been killed.”
The tall boy with warts on his face clutched Jeff’s hand thankfully in both of his and looked nervously at the amputation tent nearby. One flap of it was turned back. Inside Jeff could see the surgeons, bareheaded and with sleeves rolled up, frowning as they toiled busily in the semidarkness. Ford’s hands trembled.
“Don’t let ’em cut off my leg, Jeff,” Ford begged. There was fear in his eyes. Big crystal drops of sweat beaded his pale face. Then the pain of his mangled leg struck him.
“Oh!” he moaned, gripping Jeff’s hand with all his strength. “It hurts awful. I can’t stand it!”
“Easy, Slim,” counseled an older, sandy-haired fellow from an adjoining litter. “This is gonna be lots better than dyin’ with gangrene.” Although his leg, too, was encased in bloody bandages, he was calmly smoking a shuck cigarette.
