With the colors now out, Michael grabbed the men carrying them and told them to run. “Re-form on the colors, re-form on the colors!” Michael shouted and continued to get men out of the hole. Minié balls were whipping past his ears, clipping his clothing, raising the hairs on the back of his neck, plucking into the ground around him, and killing those whom he’d just gotten out.
Now everyone was running. Michael waited to get the remaining men going. The hole was four feet to five feet deep and took some effort to lift oneself out of. The Texans were nearing panic; shouts, curses, and the cries of those being struck as defenders regained the battery’s walls and fired into the thinning masses of soldiers trying to free themselves offered the sounds of hell to Michael’s ears.
“Go, go, get moving! Go!” Michael shouted and shoved men rearward. Several officers remained to get their companies out, seeing to their first duty to their men, and more were struck by the converging fire of the enemy infantry now regaining their former line. With nothing left but the dead and wounded in the ditch, Michael took his leave, briefly pausing by the riddled bodies of Rogers and several others who had been cut down in the same burst of cannon fire. Giving only a brief salute to his fallen commander, Michael ran for all he was worth. The colonel’s body armor had been no good against canister fire. Rogers had insisted on wearing it each time he went into battle, a premonition perhaps that this day he might need its protection. The regiment had long ago let go of any secret shame at their colonel’s superstition. He’d seen to his men, he’d led them into a death trap, but he had been conspicuous in leading them to the top. The way back was littered with dead and dying, and the last of the 2nd Texas were running for their skins to escape the killing field.
Instead of a re-formed line, stretching out the length of the field, what Michael saw before him was nothing. No re-formed defensive line, no line of cannon up on the ridge to receive the inevitable counterattack by the enemy, no streaming banners standing defeated yet defiant. No rallying of the brigades for another go. Nothing. Moore’s brigade was still milling about out of rifle shot, as were the survivors of Phifer’s regiments, but nothing else was to be seen of the rest of the army.
Michael caught up with the colors and directed that they fall into place with the brigade, then went to find Moore to report. What he found instead of his friendly and accommodating friend was a harried and angered Moore.
“Sir, I’ve pulled the 2nd from the battery; Colonel Rogers fell before it, and we could not bring his body off,” Michael said between puffs of breath.
“Major, prepare your men for march. The army’s been ordered to retreat!” Moore said, this last word with a measure of disgust.
“Sir, retreat?” Michael blanched. It was a word he’d heard too often. Retreating from Pittsburg Landing, retreating from Corinth the first time, retreating from Iuka.
“Get your men in line of march; the 2nd will take the lead, Major.” Moore turned back to his discussion with his staff, leaving off the characteristic salute.
Returning to the 2nd’s line, Michael found there were still men coming in, and those who though wounded were still ambulatory were hobbling up. The enemy did not appear to be making any attempt to follow, though a cloud of skirmishers was tentatively moving forward. Michael took a quick toll of what was left of the regiment. Sour and exhausted expressions returned his gaze as he slowly walked the length of the survivors, those who had erased the ignominy of Shiloh. Michael only felt confusion and remorse. Good men had fallen before that battery, and they were not even going to give it another go.
If it were possible to march under an ill star, the 2nd Texas must march under it. By no failure of their own making they had given it all, more than they should have, and yet the prize was denied them, denied Rogers as he led the regiment into the face of the fort. The survivors of all of Moore’s brigade looked nearly dead themselves, standing and panting and looking out over the field they had so dearly paid for with blood. The battery stood, the wretched banner still floating over it and its face covered in the dead and dying.
“Sir, deploy skirmishers?” his friend Captain Wyrich asked wearily.
Michael looked at his friend stupidly. He heard the words, but the meaning escaped him for the brief moments he stood staring past the man’s shoulder. “Um, no, Captain, form for retreat.”
The look in Wyrich’s eyes was a mix of relief and regret. Relief no doubt that the men would be taxed no further. Regret that the field was lost for good. His friend saluted, a weary gesture that was not needed at this moment. If Michael could have embraced Wyrich in joy for still being alive, he would have. But the men of the regiment were looking on, and it was not his place to display anything but control over his own emotions.
The 25th Mississippi were deploying as skirmishers as Michael walked down his company line, locating each commander or his replacement and repeating the order to prepare to march. He was met with neither elation or relief, just quick nods of exhaustion. It was a cruel fate to have to retreat in the face of the enemy when the force of arms had failed, the contest not to be renewed.
A crackling of fire was all that remained of the booming noise of just an hour before. All about the field, the Federals had occupied their former defensive lines. The skirmishers of both sides were plying their deadly trade, but the sounds did not have that characteristic tinge of excitement or danger, just warning shots fired to tell their opposites to tread no further forward. It was a fitting end to the contest, with neither side rushing to bring on more death. It was still morning. Noon had not struck, and the field was to become the place of mourning for lost comrades instead of more fighting, more attacks, more use of the available daylight. To retreat when the contest had just been joined meant the army was in real trouble.
Without emotion, Michael gave the order to face to the right and by the right flank march. The regiment, without fanfare or cheer, took the step and marched away from the field, leading the rest of the brigade in its retrograde movement along the Memphis pike. The quiet was unnerving. The birds had not even returned yet to song; only the sounds of feet stepping off on the hard road were heard. Michael, in the lead and trying to look anything but sorrowful, passed General Moore as he and the staff stood off the road’s side to watch his command pass. He brought his sword to salute, a movement that brought the hilt to eye level, and turned his head to the right, though he did so more out of habit and training than out of thought of rendering honors—his mind was still clouded with images of the fight. General Moore was deserving of the honors despite the failure. It had not been Moore’s failure. Michael was glad nonetheless to return to the march and his own thoughts as he passed his commander. Moore and his staff returned the salute with a look of sorrow and grief as the regiments passed in review, their numbers far too small, testament to the exertions of the last several days and the hard fighting.
Standing off to the side of the road was a lone cavalryman. He looked on, unconcerned with the fates of those infantrymen who were no longer in the ranks. He had other things on his mind.
Chapter 14
Curse the Feet That Wander
Will Hunter was still in shock. The battle had gone swimmingly from where he was atop the hill, and he’d made up his mind to go ahead and collect his man and finally depart for a safer haven, going so far as to descend the hill and make for the spot he’d seen Seth go down. He’d made sure to keep that spot in his mind’s eye and was headed straight for it when the infantry began streaming back in wild confusion. With so many bodies running and jogging toward him, he quickly lost where Seth was; then it was impossible to fight his way through the survivors of Moore’s regiments as they were equally intent on getting out of the way. The artillery was also sweeping the ground again. Worse, Will had left his mount on the hilltop.
Turned around and now lost, Will frustratedly returned with the infantry. They would go again, he thought, re-form and make another go. Minutes passed and no effort was made to rally, an
d the enemy skirmishers advanced partway across the field. Will watched with growing alarm as the regiments did nothing. When they did move, it was to form march column and move off. It was a long, dispirited climb back up the hill to his mount. The generals had all gone, and it was just him left to look at the field strewn with supine forms. It was over. He was empty-handed after all.
For the first time, he felt lonely. Stephen was with his unit; himself detached, his nigger just yards away but unreachable unless he fancied himself shot or a prisoner, and his war somewhere else. A soldier becomes accustomed to his pards and the close company of other soldiers. Being off on his own was queer, unnatural. It reminded him of his former avocation when he had hunted runaways alone, with just his wits and good sense to guide and keep him company—but this was altogether different. He wanted to get back to his own kind, his fellows, if they were all still alive. Peters and Mitchell, two men who might be captains by now of their own troops, had been his close companions through peace and now war. They both might even be dead.
The thought of taking his prey all the way to Alabama, just to satisfy the urge to complete what was left incomplete, came to him in a ludicrous light. On the paddle steamer, the undertaking was rationalized away as acceptable risk. Will wasn’t going to have to fight through an army to get his man to Alabama, or so he thought. Seth was out there now and Alabama just a days ride to the east. Fighting through that army now was beyond ludicrous. But he entertained it, for a brief moment.
Will moved his mount back down the hill toward the Memphis road and watched the marching columns for a few moments. The infantry were bedraggled and dispirited. They were quitting the field, one they had fought through only the day before and now just as quickly were abandoning. Will was glad the 1st Alabama was not attached to this sorry lot. Price and Van Dorn must have been incompetents of the first order. Slowly, Will turned his horse about and fell in with the crowd of humanity moving up the road. They soon passed over where the fighting had been fiercest the day before. Dead horses littered the ground where a battery had once stood, a Yankee battery whose carriages had already been scavenged for what was useful, and the dead in blue left by the Yankee retreat were still lying unburied. Some of their own dead were yet to be buried; details had started but would obviously not be finishing their work, leaving the dead to be buried by the Federals. It was also becoming clear that this would not be a leisurely retreat. There would be a rush to find and maintain a suitable position if the enemy decided to press them, and Will noted the urgency in the couriers who plied the roadside with messages to and from the heads of the columns with orders and counterorders.
As the old works were passed, the entrenchments standing idle and empty once again, Will pressed forward as a regiment with artillery battery peeled off into the reverse slope of the works to await the enemy. He wasn’t going to wait. Perhaps he would run into Jackson’s 7th Cavalry from Tennessee once again and fall in with his new friend Lieutenant Dunkle’s troop. At a gentle trot, Will continued down the Memphis pike.
****
Seth kept himself pressed close to the ground, though the racket was over. Was it the end of the Yankees in the town or the end of the Confederate attack and a lull before more violence, he didn’t care. He’d gotten this far and wasn’t going to risk being shot by anyone. He was safest here. That was, until the sounds of footsteps through the grass alerted him to someone’s approach.
Calls of “got one here” rang out in the deathly quiet, a quiet compared to the incomparable noise being made by the guns of thousands of people intent on killing one another in the most hideous of ways. The noise had petered out almost as quickly as it had begun that morning, but the sudden silence after hours of the noise had Seth checking himself to see if he weren’t asleep, the change great enough to bring a sense of the dream state.
“Get up, nigger.” A voice rattled Seth out of his confusion. “What you doin’ out here?”
Seth rolled over and into a sitting position, shielding his eyes from the sudden brightness. “Massah?”
“Escaped, eh? Get along, that way,” a soldier wearing a dark blue shell jacket and OVM brass belt buckle said. He jerked a thumb over his left shoulder before continuing past. It didn’t take but a moment for Seth to finally relax. The buckle said it all: a man from Ohio whose uniform meant safety. A line of other soldiers were slowly picking their way along the field where Seth had hidden himself. Wounded Confederates were being carried toward the town, and as Seth stood to obey the gruff command, he was hailed by another soldier to come over to him.
“Grab his shoulder, will ya?” The man pointed to a Confederate lying in a pool of blood with a ghastly wound to his leg. If the Confederate cared who it was who was carrying him, he didn’t let on. Seth and the Yankee brought the wounded man along slowly to a collection of wounded laid out in rows, one for the living and another for the dead. The rows of wounded outnumbered that of the dead, but the dead were in a macabre way and drew Seth’s attention. The dead from the assault on the battery and across the plain were laid out with arms and legs missing, heads bashed in, entrails bulging out, hands and fingers grasping at air, faces contorted or angelic in composition despite being torn apart by missiles.
Laying the Confederate down, the man turned to repeat his steps and then called after Seth, “C’mon, we got more where this come from.”
Yankee soldiers were combing the grass-covered field for wounded enemy. As if the starting gun had sounded the end of a race, enemy became friend. The whites were spending as much time dragging their enemies into shelter and care as they would have done for their own kin. The dead were left were they had fallen, the wounded were being carted away into the town from the collection point, and Yankee surgeons were plying their trade over the prone forms. They were not discriminating between the men: those in blue were suffering just as much as those in gray and butternut. Should he ever put on the blue to fight, would either side give him so much attention if wounded? He thought not.
“How’d you come out here?” the soldier asked as they were making their third trip out.
“Escape from a man whut took me from a riverboat, Massah,” Seth replied. How to explain that only weeks ago he had been enjoying shelter and food and working in the stalls of a paddle steamer, only to find himself cowering on the field of battle?
“Kidnapped?” the man asked in surprise.
“Dun’ know whut that means, Massah, but suppose it whut happen,” Seth replied, confused by a term that had little meaning to a man born into captivity. “Is not a chile, but was napped from mah riverboat, Massah.”
“Your ancestors was kidnapped from Africa by other savages or them heathen Moors an’ sold into slavery. Suppose that what it means for you, just another transfer of control,” the man replied.
“I’se suppose so,” Seth said. It was all about being moved about without having a say as to where one went. Escape and freedom meant none of that ever again, unless of course one was found out or turned in or led along as he had been by Will. He was confused by these soldiers’ treatment of their enemy. They didn’t leave them alone to suffer and die. They didn’t leave them or shoot them where they lay. There was a strange care being taken by them.
“Why you doin’ this?” Seth asked finally after their fifth trip out. “Why you bother wif dese men?”
“We take care of their wounded, they take care of ours,” was the reply. “They men like us. Well, like me anyhow,” the soldier added.
There were hundreds now gathered in front of the battery position, all laid out for the painful wagon ride into the town; those who could walk or be carried along were staggering past the battle positions and into the railway station where more were being worked on by the surgeons’ hacksaws.
“They’s a collection camp fer niggers in the town, other runaways what been coming in since we took the town,” the man said. “You find shelter and food there.”
Seth nodded. He was hungry. He was more than hungr
y; he was feeling the trembling in his limbs from exertion and lack of sustenance. There were more wounded to be brought in from the field and more to be carried to the ambulances and wagons for ferrying to the railway station and still more to be buried where they had fallen. The work was not to end. Soon, other Negroes were marched up from their camp to help in bringing in the ghastly cords of stiffening wood. The area around Battery Robinett was picked clean of wounded Confederates, and Seth’s companion was drawn back to other duties, leaving him without employment. The daylight was fading fast, the hours having gone by unnoticed by him in the work.
Walking down the Memphis pike as it led into Corinth carried him past the ruined railroad station and along the tracks strewn with equipment and bloody rags and clothing. Caps and hats lay about, discarded or lost in the combat or marking the last resting place of the deceased before his body was carried off. Railcars stood empty and detached and marked with the splintered evidence of the intense fire that had struck their sides. Other cars were being loaded with wounded as a locomotive was put to ready to force a way through to Bethel, where Grant still had his headquarters. Everywhere there were soldiers in blue, and a sense of protection eased Seth’s mind, though a guarded sense. He’d experienced a sort of freedom in Ohio, but it was not total. Even though these soldiers in blue represented something different from those in gray, there was not wholly a total freedom even in Ohio. There was still the deference to be paid and an inequality to be recognized. He might not find himself tied by a rope or lashed, but neither would he find that he was free to go about as he pleased. Seth kept a weather eye on everyone, waiting, for any moment someone might drag him away.
The Shiloh Series: Books 1-3 Page 96
