Seth dug his heels in and pulled on the bridle, taking another step upward as the horse took one more step. The dirt was more slippery but the incline not as great here. Seth finally made it to the top of the ditch’s walls and gave another tug, and the horse took another tentative step.
“Help Stephen!” Will ordered and gave a final nudge to his mount, which leaped onto solid ground. Turning to take in the situation, Will found that the Federal cavalry had now made it out of the old works and was streaming across the open field toward him.
Seth slid back into the ditch and led Stephen’s horse up. Scattered rifle shots rang out as horseman drew up to the parapet wall above them and shouted for them to surrender.
“Hurry!” Will shouted, leaning down and thrusting one hand down to help Seth up.
Seth was finally out of arm’s reach of Will, something he’d not been often, and this time freedom was at hand. Leaning over his horse and off balance, Will was at a disadvantage.
“Give me your hand!” Will commanded, and tried to grab hold of Seth’s collar.
Seth backed away one step and looked down the ditch. Several horses were careening dangerously near at a full gallop, and their riders did not look like they might care who they trampled to catch up.
“I free, I not go ‘long wif Massah Hunter,” Seth shouted, running the opposite direction and away from the pursuing Yankees.
“Damnit,” Will swore and turned his mount, reaching for his sidearm only to be stayed by Stephen grabbing his arm.
“Sir, you want to be captured?” Stephen shouted.
To punctuate the declaration, a pistol round whizzed by, fired by the first trooper to reach the spot where they had just climbed out. It was fired high and missed by a comfortable margin. Will dug spurs in and put his horse into a gallop, followed closely by Stephen.
Shouts from below to halt went unheeded. The enemy troopers making for them from the open field were going to be another problem. The Confederate army had to be near; they just needed to go northwest and away from the entrenchments and hope they blundered into them before the Federal cavalry caught up.
The ground in front of the entrenchments was uneven and hilly; tree stumps littered the area where a growth of forest had once stood, cut down to clear a field of fire. The Federals were coming at them at a right angle to cut them off. Will angled their progress further north and splashed across a low-lying creek and quickly up the embankment. To his dismay he ran into entrenchments again, this time former Federal works built to oppose the Corinth works. These were not as well constructed and were instead deep furrows in the earth, but also lined with abatises. They were not built to sustain an attack but for protection from sharpshooter fire.
Stephen let out an audible groan as he bounded up the creek’s embankment and saw the earthworks before them.
Federal horsemen were splashing out of the creek and down it, hoping to cut him off as they raced their horses down the line looking for a break. Scattered rifle shots echoed from behind. The line suddenly ended, and Will angled the horse to cross through the large break and into the rear of the works. A scattering of battery positions had been built with high walls, and Will raced parallel with them, keeping himself out of sight of the pursuers who were now just nearing the opening.
The Federal earthworks were not so extensive, and the broken countryside made the mad dash more of a mad gallop between obstacles. Where were the Confederates who were supposed to be near?
It was a barren landscape that they raced across now, strewn with cast-off equipment and broken gun carriages and fields that had not been tilled or planted for more than a season. Coming up to a road, Will slowed as movement caught his eye. A cavalry troop was picking its way lazily down it, without flankers or skirmishers out. Confederate.
“They ours?” Stephen asked breathlessly before turning to see where their pursuers were.
“Yes, but we don’t want to get shot at by them neither.” Will stood his horse and waited for the group to come abreast of him before calling out.
“Halloo!”
The horsemen stopped as the leader of the troop ordered a halt with a raised hand. Two riders peeled off from the front of the column and approached cautiously.
“Halloo,” Will called again.
“What’s yore regiment?”
“What’s yours, Private?”
“Seventh Cavalry, Adams’s regiment.”
“You on patrol or picket?” Will asked.
“Flankers. Who are you?”
“Do you have an officer present? We have to report enemy dispositions.”
“Not until you answer my question,” the private snapped and raised his pistol.
“Lieutenant Hunter, 1st Alabama Cavalry; Clanton’s regiment.”
“First Alabama? They ain’t in the Army of the West!” the other said and raised his carbine.
Will tried to contain his anger. “We escaped from Ohio and just came through the enemy lines, so if you want to know what’s in front of you, then take me to your commander.”
“Go fetch Lieutenant Dunkle, I’ll hold them here,” the private said to his companion. He watched Will and Stephen closely, his hand on the carbine resting against his thigh and directed toward Will. The man had several days’ worth of stubble upon his chin and cheeks and looked to have been in the saddle for days. His slouch hat sat high on his head, revealing a greasy and sweaty forehead and matted hair.
“You seen some hard ridin’?” Will asked. The man didn’t flinch or appear inclined to conversation and merely beheld Will and Stephen with suspicion.
Will kept his hands on the pommel of the saddle and tried to look relaxed. Soon there was a crowd of noncommissioned officers surrounding him, as well as the lieutenant.
“Sergeant, go post a squad ahead on the road and put another on that fence line,” the lieutenant said and pointed to the area Will had just crossed. “Now, Lieutenant, what do you have to say?”
Lieutenant Dunkle was no more than a boy, younger than Will and barely able to grow anything resembling a mustache, but he was trying. His eyes were keen, however, and he was looking from Will to Stephen and back again.
“Just came from the area of the Pittsburg Landing road with some guerrillas, but they was caught. The enemy has occupied a section of our old works from the Pittsburg road all the way to here, wherever here happens to be.”
“The Gravel Hill road. Jenks says you escaped from Ohio?” Dunkle asked.
“A week ago; lucky we get this far as a Federal cavalryman. They don’t ask too many questions.”
“They’s some Federal supply wagons just beyond the enemy lines that the guerrillas was trying to get to our army with when they got caught. Powder and artillery rounds, boxes of minié balls. It might still be possible to collect them.”
“That so?” Lieutenant Dunkle said and looked about him as if deciding to believe Will. “Parker, disarm the good lieutenant, if you would. Pardon the inconvenience, but I don’t want to find myself in the same situation if you’re a spy.”
Will glared at the one the Dunkle called Parker but surrendered his pistol and carbine, nodding for Stephen to do the same. Stephen looked at Will uneasily.
“What if they pullin’ the same corn we was?”
Dunkle regarded Stephen coldly. “We know who we is; we don’t know who you is.”
Will ignored the remark. “If you push too much further down this road, you’ll run into the lot we just got away from. Didn’t you know the enemy was near?”
“We was expecting to find him, yes.”
“Then you would have ridden into an ambush certain, since you had no flankers or skirmishers out. I watched you ride up easy as you please and would still be standing here had I not called out.” The boy wasn’t going to take too kindly to being scolded in front of his men, but Will was going to school him anyway.
The lieutenant drew himself up. “Just you never mind that, we just a screen, an’ orders to fall back on contact.
I’ll thank you just the same for the intelligence. Parker, recall the flankers and fall back in on the road. We’ll push on a little further to verify what the lieutenant says. The colonel will be wanting to know what’s out here.”
Dunkle was inexperienced and haughty to boot, Will decided, reminding Will of an earlier version of himself. Dunkle would have had his troop in a bind had he stumbled upon the men pursuing them, and would have lost most in the process. There was prudence in caution, Will said to himself, remembering his headlong charge down the Bark road the day before Shiloh and his capture.
True to his word, Dunkle pushed his troop further down the Gravel Hill road until fired upon by cavalry vedettes posted in a tree line. He spread his troop out and made a show of pushing forward, but the skirmishing was just noise. More Federal cavalry began moving around him, and he wisely pulled his skirmishers back. This was the game, the riddle: was the force out in front large or screening something else behind it? Were they themselves an advance guard of another force or a screen? Cavalry moved about in fluid motion, always looking for the flank and vulnerability, or else pretending to be a powerful force only to melt away in an instant.
“Anyone moving up behind us?” Will asked Dunkle.
“No, main force is pushing down the Chewallah road to the west of us; we’re here to make the Yankees think we’re pushing down Gravel Hill as well. We’ll maneuver a bit and then fall back on the main body once they figure we ain’t what we pretend to be.”
Will was familiar with this cat-and-mouse game and had played it many times before. It was important to deploy and act like you meant business right before you no longer meant it and turned tail. You never directly engaged the enemy unless you thought you could bag the whole lot.
“Clanton’s regiment is in Kentucky; you a long way off from rejoining your unit.”
“Was on a little side trip,” Will replied dryly, and a quick glance from Stephen goaded Will into describing the getaway and loss of Seth.
“Took a long chance,” Dunkle commented. “Federals is all over the place.”
“If we take Corinth, I aim to now regardless see my wife and child. Stephen here wants to get home to Carthage.”
“You ridin’ a lot on that hope. We take Corinth, we clear the Yankees out of Mississippi and Alabama an’ retake Nashville, an’ then we push the Yankees right back into Ohio,” Dunkle said with enthusiasm as the column jostled down the narrow roadway.
“Just need me a clear line of march back to Huntsville an’ I catch a fortnight with my wife in Montgomery.”
Dunkle halted the troop and took a long look. An expanse of open field on his left and a tree-lined border drew his attention for several moments. “When you captured?” Dunkle asked Will.
“Right afore Shiloh; scrapped with some infantry too close to they’s camp and got gobbled up when that nigger’s owner put me under arrest.”
“He yore captain?”
“Kearns was his name—a halfwit, but had connections an’ got hisself elected captain.”
“Sergeant Purdy.” Dunkle waved his subordinate forward. “Take your squad around to the left of Sergeant Mackey an’ dismount, form skirmish, and advance a hundred yards. Demonstrate only, mind you.”
Turning back to Will, Dunkle said “We’ll give Mizner’s troopers something to think about for a spell.” Dunkle motioned with his chin in the direction of a group of Federal cavalryman, busily dodging between low-lying swells in the ground and their old earthworks. “Can’t say I knows exactly where Clanton’s regiment is now; after Corinth the regiments were broken up and scattered about various departments, an’ we’ve been marching and countermarching ever since. We gave them a good black eye at Iuka; arrogant bastards marched right into a trap; but General Price was already making preparations to leave when the Yankees marched pretty as you please into a cauldron of fire!”
“That who I got in front of me? Price?”
“No better general than laid his hand on a map. Van Dorn has command, an’ he marchin’ from the northwest. We get to squeeze on ‘em this time. Rosecrans got cocky at Iuka. Now he’s all alone an’ holed up in Corinth. We keep pushin’ ‘em into they’s works an’ get around ‘em afore they can fortify this approach. Brilliant.”
In the distance, another group of Federal horsemen were seen maneuvering en echelon, company front in two lines.
“They bringing up another few troops;” Dunkle said and whistled to his troop bugler. “Sound the recall, Stroop.”
The firing had been sporadic and largely just for show, seemingly from both sides, as no one was down or even nursing a scratch. With the call came immediate activity as those squads that were dismounted retreated to their mounts and the other squads, riding back to the road.
Leaving a line of horse deployed across the road, the rest of the troop trotted easily back the way they had come. Will and Stephen rode up front with Dunkle.
The game was repeated as the troop deployed and waited for the enemy to venture forth. Will was sorry he couldn’t join in the fun. Stephen was glad he wasn’t involved.
****
Seth leaned up against the crumbling dirt wall of the parapet and caught his breath; he had run along the ditch for a few minutes until he decided that no one was pursuing him. Hunter and Murdoch hadn’t shot at him and the Yankees didn’t pay him any attention. He heard the shouts, the scattered shots, and horses straining to climb out of the ditch. Once he finally had the courage to turn over his shoulder for a quick glance, the ditch was empty and the sounds of horses fading into the distance. There was only one direction to head, back through the works and toward the town. If what he’d heard from the Rebels were true, he hadn’t much time before he ran into more of them.
Scrambling up the parapet wall, Seth slipped back down into a narrow trench. Tree branches and boards used to shore up the walls were crumbling as weeds grew between the mud chinking. Seth looked about nervously. For as far as he could see was emptiness, just the lonely and abandoned earthworks. He felt a disquiet in the peacefulness. Alone and on his own, he felt he was in more danger here than he’d been with the ruffians or with Hunter. A rumbling ahead of him, the sounds of gunfire, put a spring in his step as he quickly exited the trench line and briskly walked in the direction he hoped he’d find the town. An eruption of cannon fire put impetus to his step.
Chapter 6
Second Texas Comes Home
The fighting had been desultory all morning and the resistance light. Michael walked behind his battalion’s skirmish line as they steadily pushed forward and the enemy gave way, never having intended to stand for long. One crouched more than walked in these situations, but one didn’t crawl either. There was a dignity to show and a fearlessness in the face of fire. Michael grasped his scabbard and used it to point directions occasionally, it being more comfortable to hold it than to have it jangle against his hip. They had finally broken into an open field with the enemy works eight hundred yards ahead, massive in their length and formidable in construction. That the enemy was manning them now was somewhat unwelcome, his memory of these works before their retreat from Corinth the first time being of fondness for the security they gave.
The enemy in front of them was falling back slowly, deploying their own skirmishers and keeping a battle line just out of musket range to sit and wait, but each time Michael closed with his skirmishers, the enemy fell back, as did the battle line. They had taken the Davis bridge over the Hatchie without effort the evening before, pouring across it and taking up positions in preparation for this advance. The enemy either did not seem aware of their presence or were unconcerned. Either way, it meant they were having an easy time of it.
The other regiments of Moore’s brigade were deploying behind the skirmish line, elements of each regiment in a wide arc that picked at and prodded the enemy in their front. Rogers was with the rest of the 2nd Texas, and the brigade battle line was moving forward in spurts, keeping a good distance from the skirmishers. The acti
on was lively, each man popping off a round and taking a few strides forward before halting to reload. It was more noise than much else, no casualties on either side, but even the noise sapped their energy. The advance began several miles back, and the enemy maintained a constant presence in front of them, doing their job, slowing the 2nd Texas’s advance to a crawl. Being in command of the skirmish detail was something new to Michael. Smith had always taken charge of the left wing. Now he could strut about and make decisions. Michael didn’t fancy himself a tyrant, but he was liking being in command.
“Sir.” Captain Wyrich approached. “We going to need to replenish tins soon; the skirmishers are about out of what they carried with them.”
“Corporal!” Michael called out to his man.
“Sir.”
“Inform the colonel that skirmishers need to replenish rounds.” Inform the colonel, Michael mused to himself—such a simple order and communication to give, but it still carried a sense of importance that he was relishing.
The corporal trotted off across the field to the main line. Michael knew it would be time to swap roles; his companies would resume the battle line, and the other battalion would assume the skirmish line. Forty rounds goes slow while on the battle line if fire is directed by the commander, but quickly when the fighting is Indian style and the man is free to fire at will.
Michael went down the line and relayed the warning to prepare to fall in on the main body once the other battalion moved forward. The men were sweating profusely even though the morning could have been called cool. Yet the advance pressed on. They had passed the former Federal earthworks a time ago, useless for their needs, but the Federals were busily fortifying the old Confederate works, and these were pointing in the right direction, with their walls and gun positions business-end toward them.
The Shiloh Series: Books 1-3 Page 79
