Raiding With Morgan

by Jim R. Woolard

  “Something wrong, Corporal?” an observant Owen Mattson inquired.

  Ty faced his father. “That sapper officer issuing orders a minute ago was the same trooper I overheard at the sinks and the night we skirted Cincinnati. I know it’s him, sure as sleet is ice. He has blond hair and the heavy jaw, just like you said his father did.”

  Ty started to turn his head for another look and his father said, “Keep your eyes straight ahead.”

  “But, Father—”

  “Eyes straight ahead. I don’t want him thinking we have any interest in him. He’s riding a red roan, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Twice this morning, out of the corner of my eye, I caught him staring at me. It wasn’t a friendly or curious stare. It was one of pure hate. I had a chance to observe him later without his knowing it. I believe we’ve identified our would-be assassin.”

  “What are you going to do, now that we’ve identified him?”

  “Nothing at the moment. I don’t know his name yet, but even if I did and I confronted him, it would be your word against his as to whether or not he told his cousin he planned to kill me. You didn’t see him in the dark either time you heard his voice, so you can’t identify him personally, and since he enrolled under a different name, there’s no written record he’s of Stedman blood. He’s holding a royal flush, son.”

  “Then we’re really not much better off than we were.”

  “Yes, we are. Knowing who to look for may give me the edge I need when he makes his move.”

  Ty’s frustration was unbounded. He wanted to scream “not if he shoots you in the back,” but he held his tongue. Stating the obvious was a waste of time that benefited neither him nor his father. What was to happen would happen. He remembered Shawn Shannon telling him how his father had said during the Comanche ambush at Blue Springs that cost Boone Jordan his leg, “An honest prayer isn’t to be scorned in any situation.”

  Ty took that advice to heart and didn’t much care if anyone noticed his bowed head.

  CHAPTER 14

  With opposing forces reduced to the occasional bushwhacker, the raiders double-quicked the remaining five miles to Chester, Ohio, arriving at one in the afternoon. The town straddled the Salt River. Once the advance elements were across the bridge, the raiders invested the town and prepared to defend it against an attack from the northern and eastern points of the compass, as nobody knew for certain where the Union regular forces were located.

  Ty dismounted at the foot of the steep hill in the middle of Chester. The county courthouse, an imposing stone structure with entryways on three levels, occupied the top of the hill. “Must be on important business if you climb that bugger,” Ebb White quipped.

  The remark drew a meager laugh from a worn-down Ty. Now that the sheer excitement and terror of running the Pomeroy gauntlet and charging the Union regulars had subsided, he was spent and famished. The sight of Private E.J. Pursley and Corporal Sam Bryant bearing a stock of freshly stolen cheese, crackers, jerked beef, baked honey cakes, and jugs of hard cider set his mouth to watering. The mess cook and his helper had raided grocery baskets and boxes of goodies prepared to feed home guards gathering later in the day to blockade the town. Returned from his ride the length of the column, Shawn Shannon joined his messmates for the impromptu meal.

  Sam Bryant watched his messmates feast on the baked honey cakes, shook his head, and laughed. “You boys remind me of children on their first visit to our Lexington confectionery. They spy all those cakes, pies, doughnuts, sweet breads, different colors and flavors of hard candy, and black licorice and their faces light up like the morning sun. If they’re allowed, they’d eat till their bellies burst.”

  Ebb White agreed, saying, “Yeah, and you need enjoy that kind of hurt whenever you can. You don’t have many chances at sweets no matter how old you be, not at least where I hail from.”

  Always seeking to lighten the moment, Given Campbell gave Sam a deadpan look and said, “Now, Private Bryant, I trust after the war, you intend to return to your candy making and making children happy. You’ve been with this outfit fourteen months and there’s still more daylight between your butt and the saddle than the greenest cavalry recruit in the short history of the Confederacy. When you made the leap over that Corydon barricade and then back again, there wasn’t a clean pair of drawers in our mess.”

  That observation drew a guffaw from Ty and the others that made their ribs hurt. Before the laughter petered out, Given Campbell’s roving eye for feminine lovelies struck again. He fettered out three young ladies studying the raiders from the door of a black-shuttered Baptist church. “Too bad we don’t have the time to introduce ourselves. But then they’d just be fawning over Ty in a whipstitch.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Ty responded. “Women never pay any attention to me that I’ve noticed.”

  “That’s because you don’t pay them any attention,” Given said. “They gape at you in every town. He’ll learn, won’t he, Shawn? He’ll learn the pretty gals like red hair, green eyes, and square shoulders. I’ve watched them swoon over your father till even I was embarrassed.”

  Ty wasn’t sure where the conversation was headed. Was he being kidded? He was glad to see his father approaching the mess. “Glad you’re here, Lieutenant. You and Ty, come along with me. General Morgan is about to hold a council of war.”

  Ty didn’t hear any laughter behind him. Maybe Given Campbell wasn’t joshing with him. Maybe he should start watching for friendly females as soon as the war was over. He found that a most pleasing prospect.

  General Morgan’s council of war convened in the yard of a large redbrick house encircled by a porch roofed with black shingles. In attendance were Colonels Duke and Johnson, the line officers of both regiments, Captain Byrnes, the artillerist, several of the general’s aides, and those officers on detached duty with his personal staff.

  Ty thought General Morgan’s face lacked its usual high-spirited cast. For the first time, he appeared tired and his eyes were dull. It was a shocking sight for Ty. He had begun to believe John Hunt Morgan was immune to the stresses and strains of combat that taxed and ate away the enthusiasm of mere mortals like him.

  General Morgan’s gaze swept over the gathered officers. “Lieutenant Shannon, please step forward.”

  The others parted to make way for Shawn Shannon, who saluted and said, “Yes, sir.”

  “Lieutenant Shannon, did you deliver my orders to Colonel Gibbon’s rear guard?”

  “Yes, sir. They were working hard to close up the wagon and baggage train when I rode forward.”

  “What is the status of the column, Lieutenant? I want the unvarnished truth and nothing less.”

  “It’s strung out and confused, sir. Companies are strewn together, and there are additional wounded to tend. Some horses are on their knees. They won’t move, even if whipped.”

  Ty observed officers nodding in agreement with Shawn Shannon’s assessment. The raider’s situation was growing more desperate by the hour. Everyone in the yard wished he were standing on the breeze-brushed bank of the Ohio instead of baking under the July sun, fifteen miles short of freedom and safety.

  General Morgan said, “That confirms reports I’ve received since we arrived. Gentlemen, I’m not proceeding without a trustworthy guide. We will rest the men and horses and fill canteens and let the column form up until we find such a guide.”

  Colonel Johnson objected—his tone firm, yet obedient.

  “Sir, if we delay long, we won’t reach Buffington Island before dark. The advance scouts confirmed a few minutes ago that the Ohio is still running high and a crossing in the night without boats would be very difficult. The scouts say the ford is free of Yankees and their gunboats, as of right now. Daylight today may be our only chance of saving the fighting elements of your command, sir.”

  General Morgan shook his head. “Colonel Johnson, the men and horses need a breather, and I won’t allow the wounded to fall into Yankee han
ds by default. We’ll spare as many of them captivity as we can. We owe them dearly for their service. We will resume our march, once we rest and secure a reliable guide.”

  Ty swore he saw a fleeting frown of disapproval twist his father’s brow. One second, it was there; the next, it was gone, as if Owen Mattson had squashed the hint of disobedience at conception. “Son, we’re in for a rude Yankee welcome tomorrow. I’m afraid the renowned battlefield luck of our general is about to run dry. But our commander has spoken and we Mattsons do our duty, come what may.”

  Two hours later, the column was on the move again, without a reliable guide. Owen Mattson and Shawn Shannon joined the advanced guard. Ty stayed with General Morgan’s entourage.

  The way roughened beyond Chester. The column marched along dirt roads that wound to the crests of steep hills and then dropped sharply into ravines and small valleys overgrown by heavy brush. The troopers walked their flagging horses up the inclines and trotted them down the other side, sparing their mounts as much as possible. The squeal of dry wagon axles under great stress emanating from the baggage train sounded like screeching owls. Ty looked ahead and behind atop each crest, marveling how the column resembled an oversized worm crawling through tall grass, brown and gray skin contrasting with its sun-dappled, emerald-green surroundings.

  The only rain the raiders had experienced since departing Brandenburg had been a single light shower a week past, and the ever-present cloud of hoof-stirred dust wrapped the column that afternoon, adding to the misery of troopers so close to collapse that many shifted constantly in the saddle to stay alert. A number of troopers wore stolen ladies’ hats with their blue veils overlaid with bandanas, enduring the joshing and catcalls of their comrades in a vain attempt to deter the sun and the grit that miraculously coated every sliver of exposed skin.

  Ty was longing to reach the Ohio. At the first opportunity, he planned to hop into its waters, muddy or not, boots and all. A mud bath beat no bath, hands down.

  The memorable event of the hot, miserable trek occurred outside the hamlet of Bashan. The column encountered a funeral procession bound for the local cemetery. The boys in the advance guard halted the procession, removed the coffin from the hearse, laid it gently at the side of the road, and confiscated the hearse and the horses of both undertaker and mourners. Ty long remembered Ebb White’s quip as they rode by the enraged, fist-shaking, cursing-in-God’s-name preacher. “It will be the only time in the Hell-bender’s ministry wounded soldiers replace a dead soul.”

  As they neared their destination, Ty was clinging to his saddle horn with both hands, trusting a game Reb to maintain their place in line. It was shortly before dark when the column descended from the rugged hills into a narrow valley that ran parallel to the Ohio, the site of the Buffington Bar, and the village of Portland, which hovered over it.

  Every trooper stood in his stirrups, seeking to sight the flooded river. Long before the others, Ty’s keen eyesight picked out the faint sheen of its dark waters.

  Silly as it was, he felt the joy of the traveler returning to shore after a long voyage at sea.

  PART 3

  BUFFINGTON ISLAND

  We have at last made Buffington Island. General Morgan’s temporary headquarters is located in a large, two-story farmhouse one mile north of the village of Portland. A snore-scarred hush prevails throughout its rooms as I write in the wee hours of the morning. The men are fatigued, hollow of cheek and eye, tucked up from hunger and dispirited. We are lacking morale, gumption and ammunition. By the latest reports Captain Byrnes has but twenty rounds remaining per cannon. A sizable Yankee force is entrenched behind solid earthworks to our front beyond Portland. We know not how many blue-bellies will oppose us come dawn. We do know that they are in the vicinity in the thousands while we now number but sixteen hundred, six hundred troopers having been killed, captured or wounded since we crossed the Kentucky-Tennessee border. Our day of reckoning is upon us. We have led the enemy a merry chase, but the fox has been brought to bay, and that same enemy craves a full measure of revenge on his terms and on his ground. We will know our fate on the morrow, be it escape, death or imprisonment.

  —Journal of Lieutenant Clinton J. Hardesty, Morgan’s Confederate Cavalry, 19 July 1863

  CHAPTER 15

  Just beyond the intersection of the Chester Road and a north-south road that ran the length of the narrow valley parallel to the Ohio, a lit lantern swung from side to side in the dark. “That’s Captain Mattson’s signal, General Morgan,” Lieutenant Hardesty said. “He has located temporary quarters for us.”

  General Morgan’s entourage continued on the Chester Road for forty yards and reined through the open gate of a wrought-iron fence. The farmhouse at the end of the graveled, buggy-wide lane was a towering black shadow. One by one, coal oil lamps responded to the touch of wooden matches and sprang to life, illuminating the first floor of the dwelling.

  Owen Mattson met General Morgan as he stepped onto the home’s front porch. “Owner’s a tad up in arms, but without arms, sir,” Ty’s father said, drawing a chuckle from his superior officer.

  Lieutenant Shannon opened the front door from within the house. A bald, rotund, beardless, middle-aged male, starched white shirt unbuttoned at the throat, suspenders dangling at his waist, stepped into the center hallway from a formal living room and said in a near shout, “I am Magistrate Cordell Bainbridge, and I will not grant Rebel trash like you the use of my home as long as I draw breath!”

  General Morgan removed his hat, bowed, introduced himself, and said, “Quite frankly, I would prefer to be elsewhere, Magistrate Bainbridge, but I have no choice but to intrude on your privacy. The hour is late and I need quarters and food for my staff officers. The necessities of war demand such, not gentleman John Hunt Morgan of Lexington, Kentucky. I pray our abrupt arrival did not frighten any female residing within your abode. May we enter?”

  “Man can charm a rattlesnake,” Ebb White mumbled behind Ty.

  Sure enough, being spoken to as one gentleman to another, not enemy to enemy, coupled with General Morgan’s genuine concern for the emotional welfare of any female who might be hiding elsewhere in his home, squashed Magistrate Bainbridge’s outburst. Bainbridge buttoned his shirt, looped his suspenders over his shoulders, and nodded decisively. “Sir, on those terms, I grant you the hospitality of my home for the night.”

  Ty was certain the fact he was speaking with General John Hunt Morgan had played a major role in Magistrate Bainbridge’s acceding to the general’s wishes. Ty bet that for the balance of Bainbridge’s days on earth, the mollified magistrate would tell the tale of this rare event in his life to anyone with a willing ear.

  As Magistrate Bainbridge escorted General Morgan into his formal parlor, Lieutenant Shannon tugged at Ty’s sleeve. “Womenfolk are in the kitchen. Old Box won’t catch up to us for three hours, maybe more. Get them started preparing the general’s supper. Wouldn’t resist a bite myself.”

  Ty headed down the center hallway of the Bainbridge home, noting the rich blue Brussels carpet, the diamond pattern of the silk wallpaper, etched glass of the coal oil chandelier, the large wall mirror, and the painted portrait of Magistrate Bainbridge hanging above a slim marble-topped table. Like his grandfather, Magistrate Bainbridge was a citizen of stature, power, and substance in the community of Portland, Ohio. Grandfather Mattson, however, was too strict in his thinking and lacked the necessary vanity to commission a self-portrait.

  Twelve chairs surrounding a mahogany dining table, a sideboard, buffet, and china cabinet of the same polished wood, a mirror that covered half of a wall and a chandelier befitting a foreign prince graced the dining room in which Magistrate Bainbridge sustained his rotund waistline and hefty jowls.

  The kitchen Ty sought was behind the dining room, accessible from both the dining space and the hallway via separate doors. A bone-tired, sleep-starved, hungry Ty didn’t bother knocking on the hallway kitchen door. He swept it open and barged into the kitchen,
smack into the enticing smells of roasting meat, boiling coffee, and baking pie, strawberry he was certain.

  An assortment of pots, frying pans, cooking utensils, spices, and gourds hung from the ceiling over a large square, oilcloth-covered table in the center of the substantial kitchen. A cast-iron stove, with side-by-side ovens, covered the back wall. Opposite Ty was a large porcelain sink, with a sideboard supporting a hand pump for water. The third wall, outfitted with floor-to-ceiling shelves, served as the kitchen’s pantry. Judging by the full larder of preserved fruits and vegetables, extensive stock of canned goods and the bursting flour and sugar bins that filled those shelves, until tonight the real war had truly been fought hundreds of miles from the Bainbridge home.

  Two females occupied the kitchen. A handsome black woman, with gray hair, was slicing melon on the center table with a well-honed knife. What Ty judged a nicely shaped posterior, undoubtedly female, owing to the coal-black hair trailing above it, was bent over in front of the cast-iron cookstove. The owner of the nicely built rear and midnight tresses slid something from the oven, with mitt-protected hands, straightened, turned about, and nearly dropped her freshly baked pie upon sighting Ty. Eyes bluer than the brightest spring sky widened and pinned themselves on Ty’s face. “You don’t know enough to knock? Maybe you didn’t have a mother with proper manners.”

  Ty Mattson hadn’t much experience with full-grown females, but minimal exposure to the fairer sex didn’t hinder his ability to discern the beautiful from the pretty, the unusual from the ordinary. He was staring at the most beautiful and most unusual female he’d ever seen. A finely sculpted nose, firm chin, rounded cheekbones, and generous mouth—full lower lip trembling at the moment—fit perfectly with her sky-blue eyes and raven hair.