Taking a hard swallow to choke back his own emotion, Moore continued. “I was proud to watch the 2nd charge up into the work and plant the colors on the parapet and knew that only the hearts of Texas could stand such a profound slaughter of their own without flinching. I regret that it was not I leading instead of ordering, as the deep affection I have for my old command weighs heavy today.” Moore sniffed, a moistening of his eyes clearly showing.
“The brigade will be marching and crossing the river without further being called upon it; indeed, without further being called upon the whole division if God and the enemy allow.” Moore nodded slightly and sighed. Turning to Michael, he said, “Form on the road in march column, the rest of the brigade will follow.”
“Sir.” Michael saluted and ordered a right face, by the right flank march, and the 2nd Texas filed off onto the roadside and halted in front of the colonel and his staff. There would be little fanfare, the brigade musicians having already been detailed to see to the wounded. Michael stood at the head of his men and waited for the signal to start the march. His men. The thought was still foreign. Finally in command and answerable to no one. If only his old first sergeant Mahoney could see him now. Perhaps he was seeing him now, from the lofty heights of heaven. Would that these men might look upon himself someday as they had upon General Moore, with affection and pride. Would they hold Colonel Rogers in the same esteem?
A cloud of dust and the tramping of more feet shook Michael from his gaze skyward, not realizing that he was even looking into the blue, to the road where the tired-looking men of Lovell’s division were marching toward them. There was no cheering, no jesting, no relieved faces to greet the newcomers from Van Dorn’s army. It was not the men’s fault that their commander was an incompetent. Michael watched the lead battalion trudge by and nodded only absently. They would soon be clear, and he could finish taking to the roadway.
****
Will Hunter had almost made it across the Crum’s Mill bridge when his curiosity got the better of him.
The bridges over the Tuscumbia at Crum’s Mill had been busy since nightfall when he’d taken to the roadside to rest, tying his horse to a tree to let it nibble at the grass while he fell into a deep sleep. The cracking, creaking, tromping of horse hooves and wagon wheels lulled him to sleep so soundly that it was the bite of a cold morning that finally roused him. All along the path soldiers sat, slept, brewed coffee, looked beaten and forlorn, and seemed as if they had no care in the world. Deserters or just stragglers, he knew not which, were taking their time making it down the road. Men without commands and commands without their men—no one cared which. His horse was still there, as were his accouterments, things easily stolen from a deeply sleeping trooper had he not taken the precaution of removing the saddle and sleeping upon it as a pillow.
Taking his own time, he had brewed up what was left of the Yankee coffee found in his saddlebags. Loneliness was a new thing for him again. Alone in this sea of soldiers. He would just saddle up and ride across the bridge with this flow of humanity and then strike out for Alabama to let Sarah know he was still alive and then make his way toward Kentucky to find his command. That seemed simple enough. As the sun began its rise on a new day, he’d had his fill of lazing about.
Keeping out of the flow of traffic along the roadway made his progress slow, as the sides of the road were crowded with all means of soldiery impeding the way. Once the Crum’s Mill bridge was reached, he’d waited for a time, not wanting to get mixed up with the wagons and angry officers storming about, rounding up loose soldiers for whatever onerous duty they had been sent to round men up for, and when he finally found an opening, a brigade had streamed past at the double quick. The sounds of a cannonade were coming from up the road. Then he’d seen his old friend, Lieutenant Dunkle, with the 7th Tennessee going in twos along the roadway to get in ahead of the infantry. His way across was assured, but damn his curiosity, he thought as he pulled his horse back out of the stream and turned it about to follow the track of the brigade. He was at loose ends, why not see what was going on?
“You again?” Lieutenant Dunkle exclaimed as Will moved his horse next to the man.
“Me again,” Will grinned.
“Thought you would’ve lit out by now,” Dunkle said, jarred by the pace the troop was making down the road . . . not a gallop, but not an easy canter either. Enough to keep having to cushion the movements of the horse by riding a little more on the stirrups.
“Was. Thought I’d see what was happening up this road,” Will replied.
“What’s happening is we’re in a mess of trouble. Enemy’s got the east side of the Davis Bridge an’ we got the west, and the devil to pay if he gets the west side too,” Dunkle said as he kept his attention fixed up the road. The cavalry troops were forced to stay off the road as a stream of artillery batteries met them coming down from the east, followed by a scattering of soldiers either alone or in small groups despondently trudging their way away from the growing cannonade.
“So they’s going to be a mad dash back down this road soon,” Will replied. “As long as I’se here, what you want me to do?”
“As long as you can shoot an’ bark an order, stick with me. The troop knows you is a good officer, an’ they’ll listen to you if I’m disabled. But you ride with us an’ you follow my lead again,” Dunkle replied.
“I started this fight with you, I’ll finish it or fall,” Will returned.
Now the road was filled with the sad-looking columns of infantry, looking angry and soaked to the bone, battalions the size of companies demarcating whole regiments. The noise up ahead was the booming of several of their artillery batteries firing across the river and bridge. The Confederate infantry was turning tail, and so was another battery of artillery. The cavalry halted and dismounted. Will leapt from the saddle and grabbed his carbine. There wasn’t anything to shoot at; the artillery batteries in place were shelling the ring of hills a thousand yards away, but the troopers were filed off in through a wood to overlook the Hatchie as it flowed past. On the opposite bank, a skirmish line of the enemy was scattered, and the troop was spread out in like formation. The crack of their carbines soon echoed amidst the trees. Evidence that the enemy had tried to slip down the embankment and cross was seen in the materiel that lay on the opposite bank, rifles and a few corpses just at the water’s edge.
Aside from the skirmishers, the enemy wasn’t making an attempt to cross. At least not yet.
****
General Bowen arrived at the head of the brigade just as Villepigue’s brigade was spreading itself out in battle line. Evidence of hard fighting was all about as the 6th Mississippi broke out of column of march and into column of companies. It was the artillery that was getting the worst of it, and soon to be his infantry. Rounds were arching their way over the bridge and into treetops or bounding down the roadway from the far heights on the east side of the bridge, and the enemy’s infantry was spread out in front of the road and its surrounding fields looking as if it would only be a few moments before they tried to charge across.
The 6th Mississippi and the balance of Bowen’s brigade had been ready to cross the Crum’s Mill bridge when the order came to double quick the five miles up the State Line road to the Davis bridge. The sorry state of the troops they passed was enough to decide General Bowen on other matters; the army should not have been taken by surprise at the Davis bridge, it should have been held and picketed by a large force the evening before. That it was not had come as a surprise when the order came that Price’s divisions were in trouble. They had been in the van and sent up the road to cross at the Davis bridge, the one division that should have been someplace else.
General Lovell’s orders were to hold the west side of the bridge, anything to keep the enemy from gaining the opposite shore and marching down the State Line road and taking the remainder of the army as it attempted to cross at other points. Bowen could not recall an army affair that quite matched what he was witnessing now. The
debacle that was Pea Ridge, the confusion the night of April 6 at Shiloh after Johnston’s death, the sickening of Beauregard’s army in the trenches around Corinth before the Confederates abandoned the town might have all vied for top of the list before today.
Worse, it was his own command that appeared to be failing them, the soldiers that is. The enemy, fortunately, was not making any overtures to cross the bridge.
All three of Lovell’s brigades arrived and spread out to cover the approaches and the known fording places. They spread out for a mile at either end of the bridge, covering the thin line with a cloud of skirmishers, but if the enemy really did intend to push across, there was little to prevent him from gaining the shoreline.
Still disgusted with the whole campaign to this point, Bowen stood with his staff within sight of the bridge and just watched as the cannonade continued unabated. As Maury’s batteries were withdrawn, Lovell’s came into battery, positioned to command the bridge, and tried to entertain the enemy batteries within reach with solid shot. Unfortunately, the infantry proximity to the guns also meant that punishing rounds were falling in among the lines of battle.
He was already composing the letter in his head. A letter directed to the secretary of war, G.W. Randolph, and to General Bragg about the conduct of the campaign and more pointedly about his commander, General Van Dorn. Improper reconnaissance of the enemy lines about Corinth on the night of October 3; improper reconnaissance of his lines on October 2, and further of the use of what the army already knew to be the geography on the western end of the outer works that they themselves had constructed. The army should have made quick work of the outer defenses and pushed the enemy right into the town on October 3. The battle had been lost there, the action on October 4 already a foregone conclusion.
General Bowen became agitated the more he thought about it, and he decided he’d have to postpone the letter until they were safely away. It might be improper to complain of your superior above his head, but the man needed to be removed from command. If it cost Bowen his own stature, so be it.
“Captain Pierce, ride back to Crum’s Mill. I want to know when the tail end of the column is well up and crossing. I want to know when I can begin falling back,” Bowen ordered and peered through his glasses at the Metamora Heights beyond the bridge on the west side of the Hatchie. The high ground around the bridge bristled with cannon, and enemy brigades were moving about to both north and south along the path of the riverbank. They were going to attempt to cross.
The firing intensified along the embankment as the cavalrymen of the 7th Tennessee engaged the enemy skirmishers, who were now sliding down the bank and trying to rush into the riverbed. Their supports lined the bank in one long battle line and fired a volley that sent the Confederate troopers to the dirt. Spread out and unable to concentrate any fire, the Confederates shot at the solitary figures trying to wade across, but the return fire from the enemy muskets on the far side made taking aim hazardous.
“Pulling back; we’ll fall back and form one hundred yards back,” Dunkle called to Will, who was kneeling behind the skirmishers fifty paces from him.
“Up boys, to the rear,” Will called and backpedaled slowly. A loud splashing noise replaced that of the gunfire from moments before as the enemy line of battle slipped down the bank and pushed into the river. A few scattered shots rang out as those Confederates still near enough to the bank to take aim fired, but the majority were already backing away and waiting for the first Yankee to pop his head above their side of the bank and take a round to the head.
Regathered and still in skirmish formation, the Confederates waited and swung their line into an arc, with the right still connecting with the river and the left swung out into the trees as far as they dared to go and lose sight of the bank.
The first heads popped up, and a scattering of return fire echoed as Federal soldiers attempted to pull themselves up and onto the ground. The ground along the riverbank was tree lined but for several places covered with scrawny shrubs, and these soon vanished as men grabbed hold to pull themselves up and pulled them out of the ground. It was a little like shooting at squirrels: the enemy head would pop up and attempt to lift his rifle up over the bank, and you’d shoot at it only to have the head pop back down or have the man pop up full-bodied on the bank and take a knee and fire. A few of the enemy were felled as they did so easily enough, but soon the whole bank was crowded with them, and in numbers.
The game of hide-and-seek ensued as the enemy dodged in and among the trees as they advanced, using the cover to shield as much of themselves as they could as they moved. Likewise, the Confederate troopers did so as they retreated, but soon they ran out of trees and came out into the open by the roadway.
As Will broke out of the trees, he noted that they were not alone in feeling the pressure, as a column of infantry attempted to charge across the bridge. A wall of lead met them as the head of the column ran across, canister shot from the artillery and concentrated volleys of the infantry drawn up around the guns, the enemy cannon ceasing its fire. The front ranks melted into the earth and onto the already bloody planks of the bridge.
Stephen and his 6th Mississippi held their rifles in the act of firing after the echo of the volley ceased to ring in their ears. The volley had been a single crack of sound, more like thunder, and the roll of the smoke faded to reveal a tumble of forms at the head of the bridge and the remainder attempting to climb over their fellows to get out of the way. Another crack of sound came as the other regiments of Bowen’s brigade fired a volley at the bridge. Thrown into confusion, the enemy battalion retreated, and the 6th Mississippi reloaded and readied for them to make another go.
Villepigue’s regiments were moving forward to confront the enemy who’d made it to their side of the river as the cavalry continued to fall back.
“That’ll teach ‘em to cross again!” Pops yelled.
The enemy cannon resumed their fire, and rounds landed close by, bounding into the air and shaking the ground. Their guns not close enough to fire canister, but grapeshot and timed fused rounds, were showering the ground with shrapnel.
“They made it across,” Stephen said.
“We hold ‘em,” Earl added.
“Not fer long,” Pops replied. “We gonna be goin’ back soon; look at ‘em swarmin’ like locusts over there.”
It was true; the battalions of blue-coated infantry were swarming across their path and to both the right and the left of the bridge, their banners flying, and more were queuing up to rush the bridge again.
The gray-clad men at arms were also crowding the west side of the bridge, but only because they were being squeezed from either flank as more cavalry burst into view on their right, falling back through the trees.
General Bowen rode over to where Villepigue was standing with his staff on the left flank of the battle lines of his brigade.
“We pull back by brigades, artillery first, and fall back five hundred yards at a time. Get the batteries in place and fall back behind the cavalry screen,” Bowen suggested.
Bowen and Villepigue were equals, and since Lovell was not on the field, it was up to each of them to see to their brigades and make decisions on the conduct of the field. Lovell had stayed with Rust’s brigade at Crum’s Mill.
“Agreed. You pull back first, as my line is now engaged,” Villepigue answered. The enemy emerging from the trees was but a single regiment and was keeping itself in the tree line.
“Good, General,” Bowen replied and rode back to his staff to issue the orders. Swearing to himself, he thought of his letter once more and added to the list of complaints the failure to secure the Davis bridge for the retreat. They had five miles to cover; five long miles to fall back over without being overwhelmed and destroyed or captured. The army’s trains had better be well up, Bowen groused to himself as he rode to the rear to find a good spot to halt and cover the retreat from.
Chapter 20
Watch the Cornered Man
Three t
imes the enemy closed up, and three times the Confederate lines stood their ground. First the cavalry would come at a hard gallop, having stayed horsed and keeping the enemy from forming march column long enough to make progress along the road. Staying in the trees and along the roadway, firing from the saddle and always threatening to come charging down on the enemy should he mistakenly expose a regiment’s flank, and then melting away down the road.
The brigades of Bowen and Villepigue and their artillery batteries took turns forming line of battle and retreating to stay out of musket range, intent only to keep the enemy formations constantly changing from march column to battle line.
Bowen’s brigade was halted and letting Villepigue’s tired columns rush by. The retreating army had gotten one thing right: they were well up and crossing the last bridge to safety left open to them by the enemy. The cavalry had yet to come thundering down the road, so there was some respite yet to be had.
Will Hunter was enjoying himself. Despite the missiles flying by his ears, he was enjoying playing coy with the enemy infantry. Finally enemy cavalry came into view and began deploying in front of the infantry. The 7th Tennessee was strung out on the left side of the road in double column when the troop of cavalry arrived. The blue-clad horsemen darted forward to charge the 7th Tennessee’s front across a wide field, but as they did so, the Confederates turned tail and rode hard to clear the muzzles of the Appeal battery. A thunderous roar of cannon shook the ground as the Appeal battery fired a volley, four guns rocking backward and spraying the charging Unionists with double-shotted canister. Shrieking horses, crying men, and shouts by troop commanders filled the air even as the echoes of the cannon fire were still reverberating about the field. Watching as the enemy cavalry beat a hasty retreat, he hoped the 1st Alabama was having this much fun, wherever they were at this moment.
The Shiloh Series: Books 1-3 Page 104
