Talons of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

  When Jamie reached Wheeler’s position, he had to smile, for Joe Wheeler had chosen a position far north of the established Rebel lines. General Wheeler was determined to be the first to draw blood.

  “People might say you were spoiling for a fight, Joe,” Jamie remarked, riding up to the young general’s side.

  But Joe did not smile. He tried, but the smile just couldn’t form on his lips. He looked at Jamie through sad and serious eyes. “My men just took a few prisoners, Jamie. From a Yankee cavalry unit. That one facing us not five hundred yards away.” He pointed. “They’re in those woods right over there. And they’re not green troops; they’re a crack outfit. Colonel MacCallister, you might ought to take your men over to the west some; get out of this area. Join up with General Hardee. As a matter of fact, I strongly suggest that you do that.”

  Jamie studied the younger and smaller man for a moment. “Now why would I want to do that, Joe?”

  Wheeler sighed. “Because the newly promoted and appointed commanding officer of one of those companies of Yankee cavalry is your son, Captain Matthew MacCallister.”

  20

  Jamie sat silent for a moment. The day he had been dreading had arrived, as he had been certain it would. In one of the letters, Kate had asked him what he would do when the moment came. At the time, he did not know; but now he did. “I am needed at this location, General,” Jamie said. “And here I will stay unless you order me away.”

  “I won’t do that, Jamie. I do need you here. All right, here it is. I have Maney’s Tennesseans to my right. You and your men take the left. It’s going to get very hot over there very quickly, Colonel.”

  Jamie smiled. “Considering the weather, Joe, we could all stand a little heat.” Jamie gave the young general a very sloppy salute, lifted the reins and rode back to his Marauders. He said nothing to any of his men about Matthew commanding a company of Federals.

  When one of Crittenden’s senior officers saw the battle flag of the Marauders through his field glasses, he immediately rode over to Matthew’s company. “Shift your company over to that ridge, Captain.” He pointed. “You support those green troops from Illinois. They’re going to need help.”

  “Yes, sir.” Matthew had no idea that he had been facing his father.

  All the remainder of that day, the Union troops threw themselves against the Confederate lines and were repulsed each time, sustaining heavy losses. The Rebels were beginning to stiffen their lines and dig in, and the fighting was fierce.

  The Federals would charge, and each time, the men under the command of Joe Wheeler would drive them back. When night fell, the ground was littered with the dead and the wounded. Joe called for a ceasefire to gather the wounded, and the Union commander readily agreed. Jamie volunteered to be one of the men to enter the bloody grounds.

  “You didn’t even have to ask, Colonel,” Wheeler said, sadness in his voice.

  Jamie walked among the dead in his section, looking for Matthew. He knelt by a wounded Union soldier and found the boy could not walk; one leg was badly mangled by grapeshot. Jamie picked him up and carried him through the Union lines and to a field hospital.

  Nearly everyone knew who the big man with the black shirt and black waist-length leather jacket was, and the lines parted as he walked through, softly talking to the boy, whom Jamie guessed to be no more than seventeen at the most. The field hospital fell silent for a moment as Jamie was shown in.

  “Colonel,” one of the doctors said, even though Jamie wore no insignia. He was that well-known. “Put him here, please, sir. If you would.”

  Jamie laid the boy on a table, actually a kitchen table scrounged from somewhere, and stepped back.

  “Thank you, sir,” the wounded private said. “I do thank you deeply.”

  “It’s all right, boy.”

  “All you goddamn Southerners have to do is surrender and it would really be all right,” a man with a slight wound said.

  “Shut your mouth!” a voice barked from the front of the tent, and Crittenden stepped inside the tent. He walked up to Jamie and nodded. “Thank you for bringing that lad in, sir. It was most kind of you.”

  “Wars are savage, sir. But men don’t have to be.”

  “Well put, Colonel.”

  Both men looked at the boy Jamie had carried in. He was already out from laudanum, and the surgeon was lifting a saw to cut off his leg, just above the knee.

  “General Wheeler asked to tell you that this cease fire will hold until the ground is cleared of all wounded. I can’t speak for the other commands; just this one.”

  “Thank you, sir. Litter bearers!” Crittenden snapped. “Move it!”

  “Dad!” the voice came from behind the men.

  Jamie turned to look at Matthew, a bloody bandage around his forehead and one sleeve of his jacket damp with blood, the arm hanging limp.

  “Your . . . son?” General Crittenden questioned. “Of course. I should have guessed.”

  Matthew limped to his father’s side, and Jamie caught him just as Matthew collapsed. A doctor rushed to the men and quickly cut away Matthew’s jacket sleeve.

  “He’ll keep the arm,” the doctor said. “But he’s out of this battle. Will you put him on that table over there, Colonel?”

  Jamie carried his son to the table and then walked back to where Crittenden stood. “The sad thing is,” Jamie said, “before this war is over, I may have grandsons fighting each other.”

  “Sadder still, Colonel,” the general replied, “I know men who do!”

  * * *

  Jamie did not get to speak with his son that night, but left the hospital tent with the certain knowledge that at least one of his sons was out of the war for now. He had no idea that Ian, his oldest, was there also, but the unit he commanded was being held in reserve. As the year of 1862 drew to a bloody close, Ian would be called to the front at a place named Hell’s Half Acre.

  * * *

  Yankees and Rebels fought to a virtual standstill for several days. A little ground would be taken, a little ground would be lost, and a little ground would be retaken. The dead and wounded continued to mount.

  On the next to last day of the year, Jamie and his Marauders rode with General Wheeler’s cavalry to attack at the rear of the Union forces. As dawn broke they spied almost four hundred Federal supply wagons moving with only a light guard.

  “Take them,” Wheeler shouted to Jamie. “I’m moving on northward.”

  Jamie and his over five hundred men swept down and took the wagons after only a light skirmish.

  “Go home, go back to your units, or head west and get out of this damnable war,” Jamie told the almost eight hundred prisoners, which included about a hundred Negroes who were serving as drivers and laborers.

  “Do that include us?” a Negro asked.

  “Of course, it does,” Jamie told the startled Negroes. “Just don’t head South,” he added with a grin. “That would be the wrong direction to take.”

  Those in Jamie’s command who believed strongly in slavery, and who would not hesitate to shoot a Negro—and there were still a few—had learned to curb their passions if they wished to remain a Marauder. Jamie had rid himself of most of those men until only a few remained. The unit was such a proud one, with such a distinguished and colorful history—albeit a short one—that Jamie never lacked for volunteers. Once in, only death or a grievous wound would cause a man to leave.

  “You’re Colonel MacCallister, aren’t you?” a captured major asked.

  “I am, sir.”

  “Well, sir,” the Union major said, “if you don’t believe in slavery, which you obviously do not, what the hell are you doing fighting for the South?”

  Jamie looked at Sergeant Major Huske, sitting his saddle beside him. Huske rolled his chaw of tobacco to the other side of his mouth and spat. “Well, sir. Most of us here don’t hold with enslavin’ another human bein’. You Yankees got this here war all wrong. I’m in this tussle for my homeland, not for slavery. Y
’all run along, and be careful now, you hear?”

  Jamie personally escorted the wagons, filled with much needed medicines, including a large supply of laudanum, along with warm clothing (even if it was the wrong color), food, and ammunition, back to the Confederate lines and turned it over to Wheeler’s second in command.

  An hour later, Wheeler rolled and rumbled in with an additional two hundred wagons, filled with the same kind of supplies. It was a rich haul for the Rebels and a demoralizing strike against the Union forces, and those two actions very nearly ended the fighting that day, except for light skirmishing.

  But the next day, the last day of 1862, and for the following three days of the new year, the ground around Stones River would live up to its name of Hell’s Half Acre.

  * * *

  In some places along the line, the Blue and the Gray were less than fifty yards from each other. They called back and forth. Some of the calling was filled with rancor; most was friendly during the periods of quiet.

  “You Yankees love ’em so much, we gonna bury you bastards with your goddamn niggers!” one Rebel called out.

  “Aw, shut up, Jones,” another Rebel said. “Me and this Yank was talkin’ about farmin’. What all do you raise up yonder in Michigan, Yank?”

  “Niggers,” Jones butted in, hate in his words.

  “Jones,” his comrade in arms said, about to lose patience. “You fixin’ to let your ass overload your mouth most directly. I’m gonna take the butt of this rifle and loosen some teeth in your mouth if you don’t close it right promptly. You got any coffee and sugar with you, Yank?”

  “Lots of it. What you got to trade?”

  “We got plenty of tobacco. That fair with you?”

  “Sure is.”

  “Hold your fire up and down the line!” Rebel and Yankee sergeants hollered. “We’re fixin’ to make a swap here and don’t nobody get itchy trigger fingers.”

  Trading back and forth among the Blue and Gray went on until war’s close. These little unofficial truces were very common when both sides faced each other across creeks. Both sides would use tiny makeshift sailboats to swap articles back and forth.

  Then, at their officers’ commands, the savage fighting would once more resume.

  * * *

  On the last day of 1862, the armies began massing for attack several hours before dawn. As the night gave way to a foggy dawn, Union pickets along the west side of the now backward L-shaped lines blinked their eyes and stared hard into the gray mist. All of them thought they’d seen gray shapes moving toward them. But the shapes quickly melted into the haziness of the morning, and the pickets did not report what they felt was only an illusion.

  It was not an illusion. It was twelve thousand gray-clad Rebels moving to attack on the west side of Stones River, between Franklin Road and Wilkinson Pike.

  At the curve of the backward-shaped L, one full division of Confederates were supposed to attack at the same time, theoretically severing the Union lines. Had that happened, the terrible battle yet to come would have been avoided and the Rebels would have secured a clear victory. But the commanding general of that crucial division of Rebels was drunk that morning, having consumed about half a gallon of Tennessee-brewed Who-Hit-John the night before. He couldn’t even get on his horse, much less command troops.

  Since the lines had shifted dramatically during the night, with the Federals pulling back and regrouping, Jamie and his Marauders were now at the extreme north end, at the top of the backward L, facing a regiment of Crittenden’s men, on the east side of the river.

  “Now how in the hell did we manage this?” Captain Dupree questioned, staring across the river at the Blue, who were staring back at him.

  “I don’t know,” Jamie said, lowering his field glasses. “But here they come!”

  The Marauders had dismounted and formed up in a line. They laid down a withering fire that stopped the Federal advance cold on the west bank of the river, for one of the requirements to get in the Marauders was being a crack shot with rifle and pistol. The first volley killed or wounded several hundred Union soldiers. The Blue line pulled back and stayed back.

  On the south side of the Union lines, the right side of the oddly shaped lines, the Rebels had advanced and pushed the Union forces back until they were in full retreat.

  For several hours the Blue and Gray smashed at each other. Badly outnumbered to begin with, Confederate losses were now so great that every troop being held in reserve was called up and committed to the fight. Shortly after noon of that bloody day, the Federal lines had been hammered into a V-shape, the V surrounded on three sides by hard-fighting Rebels.

  Jamie had gathered together, in addition to his own men, about four companies of Rebels who had been cut off from their units or were leaderless due to the many wounded and dead. He sent Little Ben Pardee galloping to General Breckinridge asking for permission to cross the river and close the top of the V, thereby completely boxing in the Union forces.

  But Breckinridge could not be found. He was right in the middle of his own men, on the ground by the river, fighting with a pistol in each hand, his color bearer right beside him, holding the Confederate battle flag.

  Ben did find a colonel who told him to race back to MacCallister with orders to “hold, by God, hold!”

  “Hold what, goddamnit!” Jamie thundered. “We’ve got them on a rout. You ride back to that colonel and tell him that, Ben.”

  But the colonel was dead, shot through the head.

  Jamie could do nothing except hold, for he had no one to support him if he crossed the river.

  By two o’clock that afternoon, the Federal V had begun to straighten out somewhat. Jamie was still on the east side of the river, but he was now facing a full division of Union troops.

  “Have we been forgotten up here?” he roared.

  Yes, for all intents and purposes. But so, too, had the Yankee general, Price, who had a full division all ready to cross the river at the only fording place for a mile in either direction. But Price thought he was facing a division of the butternut boys, for Jamie had sent men back down the line to beg, borrow, or steal as many cannon as they could.

  Jamie started a cannonade that sent Price’s men ducking for cover. Price sent out a message that read, “Am facing a full division of Rebels with artillery. Need help desperately in order to cross the river. Orders?”

  The orders came back: Hold on the west side.

  The troops of the Blue and Gray, a mile north of the heavy fighting, sat and stared at each other across the river.

  Bragg had been reinforced by some three brigades who had just arrived, and as dusk began to settle, he ordered a charge against Yankee positions at the center of the line. The fresh troops charged point-blank against the guns of the Federals. The charge was a terrible blunder, and the Confederates were forced to withdraw; they had lost almost half of the men from the three fresh brigades.

  That ended the battle for that day. Both sides could not have fought another minute had their commanders given the orders to do so. Confederate and Union soldiers simply collapsed where they were, too exhausted to go on. After an hour of rest, both sides began evacuating the wounded.

  General Bragg, commander of the Confederate forces engaged in battle at Stones River, sent a message to Jefferson Davis in Richmond wishing him a happy new year.

  Then he retired to his tent and went to bed.

  21

  The battlefield was littered with thousands of wounded, and since the killing field was so long, stretching for several miles, many of the wounded did not receive aid until the next day. Still others froze to death, their blood sealing them to the cold ground. A cease-fire had been ordered from both sides. Rebels aided wounded Yanks, and Yanks aided wounded Rebels. Nearby towns were filled with the injured, no one paying any attention to the color of the uniforms. Makeshift hospitals were set up, and the doctors were so busy sawing off mangled arms and legs, a lot of the severed limbs were just tossed out th
e nearest window.

  No one on either side slept much that bitterly cold night, for both sides were busy regrouping their exhausted and widely scattered troops. Many of the troops were short on food and ammunition, but it was desperate on the Union side, due to those hundreds of wagons that had been seized by Jamie and Wheeler containing badly needed supplies.

  No commander on either side slept that night, for they were too busy rallying their men, preparing them for the fight that both sides felt sure would resume at dawn.

  Dawn broke gloomy and sunless, and the men were simply too cold, too hungry, and too tired to pick up the fight. Both sides finally rose stiffly to their boots and roamed the miles of battlefield, picking through the equipment and taking what could be used, and that included taking weapons and ammunition off of the stiffened and frozen dead.

  Few shots were fired at Stones River on that first day of the year 1863. During the night came the rain, then sleet, and then the whole mess turned to snow, making life even more miserable for the Blue and the Gray.

  But on the second day of the new year, the commanders roused their men and the battle resumed, reluctantly at first, for the overall commanding general of the Confederate troops at Stones River, Bragg, very nearly had a mutiny on his hands: one of his own generals was threatening to kill him over some point or slight that was never really brought to light . . . although many rumors persisted for months. Whatever the reason, passions cooled and the threat never materialized.

  Fighting commenced at about twelve o’clock, in the midst of a raging sleet storm.

  Jamie and his men had been ordered back to plug up a gap in the Confederate lines. Jamie now commanded over a thousand men, with some thirty pieces of horse-drawn artillery. He forded the river and positioned his men on a ridge near the center of the now U-shaped Union lines and, without orders (nobody really had orders other than to attack), opened fire with his cannons until he was forced to halt the barrage for fear of hitting Rebel troops who were charging across an open field and up a slight hill. Leaving a captain in charge (the captain’s company had been virtually wiped out several days back), Jamie and his Marauders mounted up and joined the charge.