The men in blue-and-red coats and white britches worked like they weren’t paying attention to anything else. Two rolled the gun forward again and tilted it up, and one stuck a wedge behind it. Another placed a charge in the barrel and one rammed it down with a pole. Another placed a canister and wadding in the barrel and the man with the pole shoved it down. Another stood holding the linstock, and with the sharp pick he made sure the vent was clear. Another poured powder in the vent and the one with the linstock touched his smoking string to the hole. The cannon jumped back two feet in the air, and smoke bloomed from the end as I heard a whizzing above. I don’t reckon the whole thing took more than a minute. The men in blue and red carried the cannon forward on poles and started all over again. I aimed at the one with the ram pole and when I squeezed the trigger he sank down like a drunk man into the weeds and peavines. Another man took up the pole and rammed it in.
The line of Continentals was stabbing redcoats with bayonets. They stuck some in the belly and some in the heart. Anybody that ran got stuck in the back. A Marylander lunged forward and thrust his musket. As the Tory jumped back he tripped over a body and the bayonet drove right into his groin. He gave a terrible scream and blood spurted from the straddle of his britches. The Marylander pulled out the bayonet and ran him through the heart. The Tory fell backward over the one already dead.
Some redcoats turned and started running. And some threw down their muskets and raised their hands. I saw men of the Royal Fusiliers drop to their knees with their hands up. And some men lay on the ground with their hands raised.
“Tarleton’s quarter,” one of the patriots shouted, and drove his bayonet into a man’s face. I’d never seen such terror in the eyes of men. The British had never lost before, I reckon. They had thought we were whipped. It was the surprise when we turned around that panicked them. Some of the redcoats were praying and some had wet their pants.
“Taste this rebel steel,” a volunteer hollered, and ran his bayonet through a man’s mouth.
“Stop that. I say stop that!” somebody yelled. It was Colonel Howard. He was a young man with brown hair and he rode out in the middle of the mess with his sword held high. “Surrender!” he shouted at the British. “Surrender and we’ll give you good quarter.”
A Marylander lunged at a fusilier with his bayonet after the Tory raised his hands. Colonel Howard tapped the Continental on the cheek with his saber. “We will give good quarter,” he said. “We are not Tarleton.”
All down the line I saw colonels like Pickens and even Morgan himself ordering their men to give quarter. In a few minutes most of the redcoats had thrown down their guns. Some were running back in the smoke and some crouched on the ground with hands over their eyes as if they didn’t want to see what was happening. Grown men and big men cried like babies.
That’s when I saw Tarleton and his Green Dragoons gallop onto the field on the far side. His saber was raised and he was shouting something. He rode down on the Virginians like he was clearing brush. He slashed a man on the neck, and blood jumped out as if a keg had been opened. He was coming in our direction and I started to reload.
Tarleton’s cavalry trampled men that didn’t see them coming. A cannon fired and a bullet sang over my head like a frog call. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Colonel Washington’s cavalry sweep around behind the Tories. Their white-and-blue coats still looked bright, compared to everything else on the field. They swung all the way around the running fusiliers. Whenever a man still held a gun they slashed him. Only the Highlanders on the right had stayed together and not run; they kept firing. Here and there a redcoat was still trying to bayonet a patriot.
A Delaware regular and a Virginia militiaman both ran toward a cannon to claim it at the same time. All the artillery soldiers were dead and lying in the weeds. It looked like the Virginian was going to reach the grasshopper first, but suddenly the Delaware man threw out his spontoon spear and used it like a pole to vault right on top of the cannon, claiming it for his company. It was an odd thing to see among all the killing.
Just as I got reloaded, I saw this redcoat looking right at me. I was the only one nearby that wasn’t running around. The redcoat threw down his musket and held his hands up, but there was a wild, panicked look in his eye.
FOURTEEN
“DON’T CUT OFF MY FOOT,” I said. “Please don’t.”
“You’ll have to lie still,” the officer said.
It seemed I was sinking back into the warm mud. I was letting go. And I heard Mama’s voice, as if she was right behind me where I couldn’t see her. “Josie, you never did what you was told,” Mama said. “You never did.”
As I sank, Mama said I never gathered eggs until it was dark and the fox got them. And I never helped her scrub the floor. I was off playing in the woods when she had to get down on her knees and scour the kitchen and hallway.
Mama said I was never any help, but a burden and a headache, though she loved me anyway. She worked so hard her hands cracked and her back got crooked, and washing clothes every day gave her rheumatism. She had used all her money to send me to school.
I wanted to say I was sorry, but couldn’t move my lips. It was like a dream where you are scared but can’t scream. I was frozen with disappointment about myself. I was weak as a pile of dust. When you blame yourself and take the blame and admit you’ve done wrong, you usually feel better. At least you feel stronger, like you have cleared the air and can start again. Chastising yourself makes you feel clean and bare, as if you can see how things fit together.
But as I sank into the mud I felt lost, for if Mama blamed me I couldn’t get rid of the blame by just admitting it. Saying I was sorry didn’t make any difference, for it was like the world was blaming me and God was blaming me. I needed to sort it all out and strengthen myself, but I felt only weaker.
“Don’t cut my foot off,” I whispered. “Please don’t cut my foot off.”
Mama talked behind me, behind my ears. She said I’d teased Mr. Griffin and tried to get his attention. She said I’d played the flirt and the wanton. I had shaken my bosoms at him and sat on his lap.
“I tried to be a daughter,” I said.
Sometimes if you have done wrong and you blame yourself and accuse yourself more than others do, you feel better. If you humble yourself into the dirt, and below the dirt, you at least feel you can go on. But now, I scolded myself and condemned myself and I just felt weaker. I had killed Mr. Griffin, and I had killed redcoats. And Mama kept on talking. She wouldn’t stop telling about all the things I had done wrong. She didn’t know I had quarreled with John, and that I had deceived him.
I saw how much Mama’s voice was my own voice accusing me. Mama was in my own mind. As I floated in the mud and began to rise in the swamp water, I heard it wasn’t Mama at all. It was me saying awful things about myself and low-rating myself.
THERE WAS THE SOUND of shovels ringing in the dirt, and picks ringing on rocks. And I thought: They are digging my grave. They are shoveling out a hole for me before I’m dead. Unless I’m already dead and don’t even know it. Maybe I am in torment, and the punishment is to hear them dig my grave.
But when I opened my eyes I saw maybe a dozen men at the edge of the woods swinging picks and driving shovels into the ground. The red soil they flung up was so bright it hurt my eyes. And the broom sedge was so bright it sparkled like a collie dog.
“Who has died?” I said.
“Over a hundred redcoats,” somebody answered.
And I remembered the battle and all the men that had been killed. How could they dig a grave for each of those that had fallen? It would take days, and maybe weeks, to bury all the dead soldiers. I raised my head and tried to lift myself on my elbows to see across the field. The men working stopped and took off their hats. They leaned on their shovels and picks and looked to the right. I pushed myself up to see, and what I saw was a little group of soldiers standing by a grave at the far end of the clearing. A tall man in black stood beside them,
holding a book he seemed to be reading from. I caught a few words that drifted across the field and through the hum in my head.
Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord:
Even so, saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labors.
The words were like sweet music. After the weakness and lostness I had felt, it was wonderful to see the sunlight on the field and remember the victory. But I didn’t see General Morgan. I strained to look toward the men by the grave and didn’t see any soldiers I knew.
“Where is Captain Cox?” I said.
“What you say?” an orderly answered.
“Where is the militia?” I said.
“Army done gone north,” the orderly said. “Nobody but the wounded here. And the dead.”
Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery.
He cometh up, and is cut down like a flower;
he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.
In the midst of life we are in death:
Of whom may we seek for succor, but of thee, O Lord,
who for our sins art justly displeased?
I was thrilled to hear those words. It was like the world had ended but I was still alive. I had slept and then awakened at the bitter end, or after the bitter end. And it was sweet to be there, to listen to the service. Lines from a hymn drifted across the field, as if music was coming out of the ground or from the edge of the sky. The music was coming right through the tall grass and broom sedge. The music seemed to be floating out of time, or beyond time. And then the words of the book came again.
We therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust;
In sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ.
I thought it was John’s voice. It was a voice so much like John’s. But I knew it couldn’t be my husband, for he had disappeared with the Tories. I knew he must be dead. I raised myself on my elbows, but my arms shook with the effort. My whole body trembled and I fell back to the ground. Pain and weakness washed over me. A sour taste rushed up into my mouth. My head was washed sideways and I closed my eyes to make the field and sky stay still. I saw the cabin on Pine Knot Branch burning. I felt I was running with the soldiers and the dragoons were chasing us and chopping off heads and arms.
“EARTH TO EARTH, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” floated across the air. “As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.”
I was sure it was John speaking. It had to be his voice, for no one else sounded so musical and so young. No one else made the words so clear and important when he said them.
“John,” I said. “I’m here.”
“You be quiet,” the orderly said. “You have lost a lot of blood.”
I tried to raise myself again but couldn’t. I didn’t have the strength to lift my head. My head swam so badly my thoughts got washed away. You are my husband, I wanted to say. I wanted to shout across the field that I was sorry we had quarreled. But I was too sick to make words come out. The words stayed somewhere in the back of my head and I couldn’t hear myself. I could almost think the words, but couldn’t say them.
O God our help in ages past
Our hope for years to come.
Our shelter from the stormy blast
And our eternal home.
It was John’s voice I heard slipping across the field in bright sunlight. It had to be. But I was helpless to call out or go to him. I was helpless to make my tongue say what I wanted to say. I was weak and I despised my weakness. When I called out it was only a groan that came from my throat. My tongue had melted, like a lump of butter, and had no feeling. My tongue lay in the back of my mouth and was helpless.
“John, you must come to me,” I tried to call out.
“You be still now,” the orderly said.
I have got to walk across the field or call across the field, I thought. But all I did was sink back into the muck and clabber of the swamp.
“TIE HIM HERE,” a voice snarled.
I opened my eyes and saw a bloody man led by two others to a tree.
“This is what we do to deserters,” a man in uniform said.
“Ain’t a deserter,” the bloody man said. I saw he was a boy from the militia. I’d seen him in McDowell’s militia that morning.
An officer came up to the men and asked where the boy had been caught.
“We found him in the swamp,” one of the captors said. “He was hid inside a holler tree.”
“I was answering a call of nature,” the boy said. He spoke like some of his teeth had been knocked out. His mouth was bloody and blood ran down on his chin.
“You was answering the call of a coward,” said one of the men holding the boy.
The officer stood in front of the boy and asked him questions. He asked him what his name was.
“Hez Carlton,” the boy said and spat out blood.
“You have shamed yourself and the militia, Hez,” the officer said.
“Ask Luther,” the boy said. “Ask Luther if I run away.”
“Don’t know no Luther,” the officer said.
“You say ‘sir’ when you speak,” one of the men said, and slapped the boy across the side of the head.
“Ask Luther, sir,” the boy said. He was crying and tears mixed with the blood on his chin. The officer asked him what company he had been in, and what rank he had. The boy cried and wiped his nose on his sleeve. The officer asked him how long he was in the battle.
“I was there till the end,” the boy said.
“What was you doing at the end?” the officer said.
“I was running like everybody else, from the horses,” the boy said.
“You never even seen the end of the battle,” one of the men said.
“I seen all there was,” the boy said. You never saw such a look as was in his eyes. He was confused about what had happened to him, and he was scared. He couldn’t understand what had gone wrong that day.
“We won in spite of cowards like you,” the officer said.
The men that gathered around said the boy ought to be hanged.
“No, no,” one of the men who had found Hez said. “You don’t hang deserters; you shoot them.”
They argued about it for a long time. Some said he wasn’t worth the powder and lead it would take to kill him. Others said he wasn’t worth the rope it would take to hang him.
“But a rope can be used again,” one soldier said.
“You can’t use a rope that has hung somebody,” another soldier said.
I wanted to tell them to let the boy go. I wanted to say he wasn’t any more scared than the rest of us had been. It was just an accident that Pickens and Hughes had been able to stop us and send us back to the line. The boy had run away before the officers stopped us. I wanted to say he was just a boy, and now the battle was over it didn’t matter anyway.
But I couldn’t move my lips or tongue. I couldn’t move my neck. As much as I wanted to speak, I couldn’t say a word. My throat was locked and my tongue had melted.
“I didn’t go to hurt nobody,” the boy said.
“You let everybody in your company down,” the officer said.
I wanted to call out to John to come and help the boy. John could talk about mercy and compassion and forgiveness. He could talk about humility and kindness. John could talk better than anybody I knew. But he was over on the far side of the field conducting a funeral, and I couldn’t call to him or see him anymore. If it was John.
The men decided they would hang the boy named Hez. They called for a rope and somebody got one from a wagon. The boy tried to jerk away from the men holding him, but they fitted the noose over his head. The boy shook his head like he was trying to shake loose from his body.
“Don’t do it to him,” I tried to say. But nothing came out of my mouth. Hez Carlton was no older than me. He had run when the rest of us ran from the Green Dragoons
. He had hidden in a tree, instead of running until he was a long way from the Cowpens.
They dragged him over to a tree at the edge of the field. The boy’s legs kept folding under him and he couldn’t walk. They carried him backward to the black gum tree. But there was so much brush and little limbs on the tree they had to hack them away before they could throw the rope over a big limb. They finally got the rope over a branch and jerked it tight.
“You’ve got to help him, John,” I tried to call out. But not a word came from my mouth. I couldn’t even get the attention of the orderly because he was looking at the boy with the rope around his neck. Everybody was watching the boy called Hez.
They pulled the rope tight and Hez’s head was jerked back. “Mama,” he hollered out. He twisted around but they had tied his hands and he couldn’t take hold of the rope. They jerked on the rope and he stood on tiptoes.
If John couldn’t help him, I had to pray that God would help him. Only the Lord could save Hez. Only Jesus’ mercy would keep the boy from hanging. The boy coughed and choked as the rope got tighter. He squealed a little and coughed again as the rope cut into his throat.
Please, Jesus, save the boy, I prayed. He hasn’t done anything the rest of us wouldn’t do. I know it could be me hanging there, or Gaither or T. R. Show us your mercy, I prayed. Show that you care for the fall of the sparrow. Show that you are listening.
I closed my eyes so tight they hurt. And I strained so hard to say the words my throat hurt. I couldn’t hear much. I couldn’t hear myself say the words. All I could hear were crows calling across the field.
As they jerked the boy off his feet the coughing stopped, and there was a gasp from his throat, and a grunt. His eyes bulged out and he twisted and wrenched around, and kicked out to reach the ground. He jerked the rope like a trout that was caught.
Brave Enemies - A Novel Of The American Revolution Page 30
