Bright Starry Banner

by Alden R. Carter

  “John Wharton, commanding a brigade of C.S.A. cavalry.”

  The man extends a hand. “Ed Kirk. I wish I could say I commanded anything at this point, but that would be suggestio falsi.”

  Wharton smiles. “You are a lawyer?”

  “Yes. And you?”

  “The same, though Latin does not come so easily to me. Here, let my surgeon have a look at your leg.”

  Trulen climbs in, makes a brusque examination. Well, if it’s Latin they want… . “The bullet penetrated the adductor longus, fractured the femur and must be lodged in the gluteus medius.”

  Kirk takes a breath. “Is it mortal?”

  Trulen tries to soften his tone. “Not necessarily, but quite possibly.”

  “General,” Wharton says, “I have things I must attend to. We’ll try to find a private house willing to take you in.”

  “Thank you, but never mind. The same treatment the men get will suffice.”

  “Of course,” Wharton says, knowing that no man would truly turn down better. But a gentleman, even a Yankee, must play the role.

  Colonel William Gibson and the stubborn survivors of Willich’s brigade come out of the cedars near the Wilkinson Pike with cartridge boxes empty. Gibson stops, stares at the waiting line of gray cavalry. He sighs. “Reverse your muskets, boys. Nothing much we can do but go over and surrender.”

  No one disagrees; they have done what they could. They reverse their Springfields, roll their colors, form ranks, and set out across the field. The Reb cavalry is good-natured, gives them a brief cheer, tosses a few jibes about “pretty boys marching,” though Gibson’s men are far from pretty in their torn, bloody, powder-stained ranks.

  Gibson is about to present his sword to a young lieutenant when there is a sudden outbreak of firing and yelling up the pike to the west. The officer spins his horse. “Wait here, Colonel! We’ll be back,” he shouts. The Rebels disappear in a cloud of flying hooves, mud, and manure.

  Gibson looks to his major. “I don’t know of anything in military etiquette that requires us to wait.”

  “No, sir.”

  Gibson turns to the men. “Come on, boys. Let’s go find some cartridges.”

  Up the pike a regiment of blue cavalry is skirmishing with the Rebels as Gibson’s men march across the pike, over a strip of field, and into the cedars again. Despite their fatigue and the horrors of the morning, they are laughing. Wait here! For the love of Mike, just how stupid do you think we are?

  As far as Colonel Lewis Zahm knows, his three regiments of Ohio cavalry make up the only intact force of Union cavalry on the field. General Stanley has Minty’s brigade somewhere up the Wilkinson Pike guarding the supply trains, while the dozen miscellaneous companies scattered among the infantry divisions seem to have disappeared entirely. Still, he will do what he can to keep the Reb cavalry from getting too cocksure.

  He waits first in the cedars to the south of the Wilkinson Pike, hoping to ambush the Rebs as they approach. But someone is too eager, starts firing, and the surprise is lost. The Rebs bring up a battery and he has nothing to answer it, must fall back.

  He waits next in the creek bottom north of the pike, hoping to hear the sound of Minty’s brigade coming from the west to join him. After an hour, he sends the 1st and 4th Ohio to the next belt of cedars, a mile to the north, and then leads the 3rd Ohio charging down a country lane toward the pike. It is just a quick slap at the Rebs: dash in, create a little noise and upset, and then get out. Pistols and carbines, no sabers, for God’s sake.

  The Rebs recoil in surprise, roll up their line to strike back, but by then Zahm has sounded the retreat and the 3rd Ohio is falling back while several hundred Union prisoners bolt for the cedars. A half mile down the pike, Zahm sees a tattered regiment of blue infantry marching defiantly across the pike and into the cedars. Zahm laughs. We’ve got a little spunk yet, he thinks.

  Wharton stares at the captain who has brought him McCook’s supply train. The man obviously expects accolades, but Wharton is angry. “What was in that other train?”

  “Well, I’m not sure, General. There was a pretty good-sized escort and we couldn’t get a look.”

  “Flat-loaded?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Damn it, man! That was the ammunition train. A dozen of those wagons are worth more than a whole damned supply train!”

  The captain gulps. “But we grabbed General McCook’s personal wagons, sir. One of the boys found his dress uniform.”

  “What the hell do I care about McCook’s dress uniform? Are the Yankees throwing a ball for us?” Wharton stands glaring at the man and then sighs. No point in this. “All right, get back to your squadron. Wait. You said that ammunition train went north?”

  “Yes, sir. I mean, I think so. They seemed to be headed that way.”

  When the man is gone, Wharton stares morosely at the cedars to the southeast where the roar of artillery and muskets has become continuous. Polk attacking and running into heavy going. If only Wheeler were here… . Suddenly, his patience with the professionals snaps. To hell with them, he thinks. I’m going after that ammunition train.

  Rosecrans is issuing orders one atop another. Sheridan is to hold his position at all hazards. Thomas is to send Rousseau in on Sheridan’s right. Van Cleve is to withdraw to this side of the river, leave Price’s brigade to guard McFadden’s Ford, and march Fyffe’s and Sam Beatty’s brigades up the pike to man a line beyond Rousseau. McCook is to re-form Johnson’s and Davis’s north of the Nashville Pike.

  Garesché scribbles, squinting low over the paper, tears page after page from his dispatch book, handing them to orderlies and aides who dash off into the battle. A shell howls overhead, explodes above the Nashville Pike two hundred yards to the south. Eyes still on the dispatch book, Garesché says, “General, perhaps we should—”

  “Where’s Burke?” Rosecrans snaps.

  Garesché looks up in surprise at Rosecrans’s demand for the commander of the provost guard. “You ordered Colonel Burke and his regiment to guard the supply train at Stewart’s Creek, General.”

  Rosecrans frowns. “Yes, yes. Of course. I sent Stanley up there too. Shouldn’t have done either. Send for them. No, leave Burke there. Too late for him to do much good. But I need Stanley and that brigade of cavalry.”

  “But certainly General Stanley has heard the battle and will be coming on his own accord.”

  “You have more faith in the hearing and initiative of General Stanley than I do, Colonel. Send the order.”

  “Yes, sir.” And how is it to get through? Garesché wonders. He scribbles in his dispatch book: General Stanley. The commanding general directs that you… .

  Rosecrans is already giving another order. “Ask General Thomas to send his provost guard up the pike to form a straggler line. Every man in this army needs to get into a regiment and fight like hell.”

  “Yes, General,” Garesché says, flipping a page and starting the message to Thomas. His hand still moving, he looks about, spots the orderly he wants. Hodges of the shifty, vulpine look. Just the man. He beckons him over, hands him the order to Stanley. “Get to General Stanley. He’s up the Wilkinson Pike this side of Stewart’s Creek. You will have to dodge a lot of Reb cavalry. Walk if you have to. Pretend you’re a deserter if you need to. But get there.”

  “I’ll find him, Colonel.”

  “Good man.”

  Rosecrans has stopped speaking, is concentrating on the sound of battle swelling to the south. A staff captain sent earlier to Sheridan gallops up on a lathered horse. “Report,” Rosecrans snaps.

  “General Sheridan has established a new line near the Harding house south of the Wilkinson Pike, General. Some of Davis’s division are holding on his right. The whole line’s bent back pretty far, General. Almost parallel with the pike.”

  Like a barlow knife closing, Garesché thinks, and we’re between blade and strike plate.

  The captain takes a breath, trying to control his voice. “The casualti
es are terrible at all ranks, sir. General Sill’s dead.”

  Rosecrans sucks in a breath. “I’m sorry to hear it. But we cannot help it. Brave men must be killed.” He turns to the rest of his staff. “Never mind, we will make everything right. This battle must be won.” He wheels Boney, rides along beside the river-soaked, shivering ranks of Van Cleve’s men, who are trudging along McFadden’s Lane toward the Nashville Pike. He calls encouragement to the men, his tone jocular. “March hard, boys. Whipping the Johnnies will warm you up. Mind your officers. Fire low. Always fire low. Then go in with the bayonet.”

  The men like Old Rosy, give a cheer as he passes. He pauses briefly to speak to white-bearded Van Cleve, the old farmer who graduated from West Point, served his time, and resigned from the army years before most of these soldiers were born. Van Cleve nods solemnly. Rosecrans kicks Boney into a canter, climbing up the rise to where Tom Crittenden and Tom Wood have established headquarters for the left wing. He ignores Crittenden, speaks directly to Wood. “General Wood, leave one of your brigades with General Palmer to hold this part of the line. Take the rest of your division up the pike as soon as Van Cleve is clear.”

  “Yes, sir. How far am I to go?”

  “Far enough to support Van Cleve’s right and to protect our flank.”

  “Am I to form a crochet or—”

  Rosecrans needs to move, loses patience with Wood’s obtuseness. The orders are clear enough already. “Don’t worry about that, General! I will be there to help you get your men in line. Just get them up the pike for now.”

  He descends to the railroad embankment, rides on west toward his headquarters, the staff stretching out behind. Wood, who stepped on a nail the night before, adjusts the crutch he has slung like a carbine from his saddle, speaks casually to Crittenden: “Did you see that another of your generals is also gimpy this morning?”

  Crittenden is staring distractedly at Rosecrans’s retreating staff. “I’m sorry, General. What did you say?”

  “I said that another of your generals has a bad hoof today. Van Cleve has a boil on his heel. Quite painful, I’m told. It seems you’ll have to depend on a pair of lame division commanders in this fight.”

  “Yes. Yes, I see.” Crittenden manages a smile. God, he needs a drink. Oh, he feels steady enough, but … chilled. Yes, that’s it. A whiskey to warm the blood.

  “I should be about obeying General Rosecrans’s orders,” Wood says. “Altogether, he seems to be taking the reversal of our plans well. But, in your place, I would stay close to him today. I think he may need your counsel and something of your optimism, your élan.”

  Crittenden stares at Wood, so grateful that he could almost cry. “Yes, you’re right. I think my place is near to his hand. But I will keep in close contact with you, Palmer, and Van Cleve. I’ll come see you when you’re in position.”

  “We will welcome that, General.” Wood salutes and rides down the hill. Passing Crittenden’s chief of staff, an old friend, he growls: “Well, Frank, as one coon said to the other when the dogs were after them, ‘We’ll all meet at the hatter’s.’”

  Phil Sheridan stalks behind his line, a sword in one hand, his soft black hat crushed in the other, the butt of a tar-black cigar clamped in his teeth. The Rebel attack is incessant, the sheer weight of it bending in the division’s flanks for all the furious stubbornness of his men. A courier hands him a sheet torn from Garesché’s dispatch book: The general exhorts you to hold your position at all hazards. The day depends on it.

  Sheridan crumples the sheet in a fist. Then it is we who are to be sacrificed to make up for the errors of our commanders, he thinks. Goddamn McCook! Rosy should have known better than to leave him in command.

  He thinks of Sill, dead in front of First Brigade’s line. Can I follow poor Sill’s advice? Can I give ground gradually and still obey my orders? He reaches out a hand for a dispatch book, jots quickly: We are giving ground slowly at great cost to the Rebels. This part of the line will hold together at all hazards.

  He hands the dispatch to an aide, digs in a pocket for a fresh cigar. Sill’s uniform blouse is tight across his back and too short in the sleeves, though Sill was a taller man. Odd that Sill, usually so fastidious, had picked up the wrong blouse on leaving their campfire the night before. Now he has died wearing my blouse while I fight wearing his, Sheridan thinks. Did he take a bullet intended for me?

  It is a natural enough thought for a man with the blood of Hibernia flowing in his veins. But Sheridan dismisses it with a snort. No, he is not meant to be killed in battle. Somehow he knows this, has known it ever since the Yakima bullet clipped the bridge of his nose and killed the orderly beside him. Private John McGrew. Sheridan has always remembered the name, though he bore the man no particular regard. It is simply something filed in a mind that, for all Sheridan’s pugnacity, is orderly, calculating, gauging of men and situations. “Hold there, goddamn it!” he yells at a squad of men giving back a few feet. “Don’t give the bastards an inch until I tell you to!”

  Phil Sheridan stalks on down the line, fresh cigar puffing furious clouds. He shouts, swears, berates, but all the time he is calculating. Yes, he will give ground but only in exchange for a barrel of blood for every inch. He will not be driven by a bunch of goat-screwing, scratch-ass rednecks. That is for goddamn sure.

  Garesché cannot believe the pandemonium on the Nashville Pike. The army that had set out from Nashville, the army that had seemed a mighty engine of Faith in his imagination, is broken now, smashed, become an immense flotsam of men, beasts, and vehicles washing across the pike. From every elevation along the river, Rebel batteries fire into the heaving mass as fast as they can load; the shells and solid shot ripping holes and rents that are closed almost instantly, filled by the rush of human, animal, and vehicular panic. Beneath it all, Garesché imagines a thickening mire of mud, flesh, blood, and despair, a primordial slime infested with slithering, terrible things: great eyeless worms trodden up and sliding among the men, stinging blindly to either side. My God, he thinks, we are done, finished. We can do nothing but flee, hoping to save enough of the army to defend Nashville.

  Rosecrans turns to him, eyes seeming to glow in an ashen face. “We must win this battle, Julius. We are going to win it! I will not permit any other result!”

  A round of spherical case shot, fired, Garesché would guess, at maximum range, explodes over the pike, spraying a squad of cavalry with shrapnel. The squad itself seems to explode, its fragile order tearing apart in screaming fragments. “General,” Garesché begs, “you must not expose yourself in a place like this. If you are lost, we are all—”

  “Pah! The only safety is in destroying the enemy! Just make the sign of the cross and go in.” Rosecrans brings a gloved hand from forehead to sternum, then shoulder to shoulder, urges Boney forward. Horse and general plunge from the embankment into the mob of refugees, Rosecrans waving his hat. “Take courage, soldiers! Take courage! We will make it right. Reform on the far side of the road. We’ll go back in together.”

  Garesché rides after, his own shaking fingers making a hasty sign of the cross while somewhere in the back of his mind, unbidden, an old woman croons of battle, death, and beauty, of light coming down golden as an aureole, red as a heart pierced in stained glass.

  Judge John Kennett, commander in name but not in reality of Rosecrans’s cavalry division, is not used to being supernumerary. All his adult life he has filled a role of importance in his community, his county, and—in recent years—his state. Hundreds have appeared in his court seeking judgment. Many more have come to his chambers or to his home seeking advice, political support, a few dollars to help them over a rough patch: any of the many kinds of help that Judge Kennett can, and is usually disposed to, give.

  When war came, he’d raised a regiment, continuing in field service long after most of the duffers his age went home. He enjoys the camaraderie of army life, the masculinity of it, all those things of youth he had supposed gone from his life. Stanl
ey has been kind to him, and he has tried to be of service, though in truth he has become little more than a hanger-on with little to do but drink coffee, read his Homer, and chivvy the young men of the staff. But, goddamn it, he had not expected to miss the battle entirely!

  He accepts another cup of coffee from Magee, the ubiquitous headquarters orderly. Major Goddard, the assistant chief of staff, is seated at his field desk at the far end of the tent, scanning the messages coming in and then sending them down the constantly shifting courier line to Rosecrans and Garesché. Kennett stares again into the rainy morning, listens carefully with his better ear to the sounds of battle. The firing is by far the heaviest to the southeast on the far side of the Wilkinson Pike. But that is infantrymen’s business. Kennett is more interested in the scattered but often intense fire to the west. Our cavalry against their cavalry, or perhaps their cavalry against some stubborn clumps of our infantry. Either way, it is a cavalryman’s business. His business.

  Judge John Kennett glares into his coffee cup. Christ, the coffee gets worse every day! Two hundred and fifty years of English-speaking civilization on this continent, and we still can’t make decent coffee. Appalling. He begins to toss the remaining half cup into the weeds, drinks it instead, then steps around behind the tent to empty his bladder. Done, he buttons up, takes a deep breath of the frosty morning with its dank smell of fallen leaves and wet cedar. In one of the trees a flash of red and a cardinal bobs on a branch. Kennett watches it. Oh, hell, he thinks. I’ve lived long enough.

  Inside the tent, he calls to Goddard. “Major, I’m going for a look over west. I’ll send back word.”

  “Yes, Colonel. I’ll tell General Rosecrans.”

  If he ever shows up and if he gives a damn, Kennett thinks. “Thank you, Major.”

  Out in the yard he waves to the remnant of his staff: a half dozen youngsters led by a particularly callow lieutenant who is the son of a business acquaintance. “Come on, boys, let’s go join the fun.”

  Captain Thruston, his infantry guards, and his unwilling teamsters have worked the train of ammunition wagons across a half mile of what must be the worst road ever dignified with a name. Not that it is an official name, but by this time Thruston’s men have provided so many choice descriptions of the alley hacked through the cedars that Thruston concludes that it must have gained a certain patronymity.