Bright Starry Banner

by Alden R. Carter

  The mare tries, slumps back. So does the colonel. Damn. Double and triple damn. He grits his teeth against the pain of her weight, manages to free his saber. God, he hates to do this. Damned good horse. Hit in the chest but went down like a camel to give him time to jump free. And he’d been too damned slow. He prods her with the point of the saber. Come on, girl. You can rest in a minute. Just rise up now. That’s it, that’s it.

  Moore hobbles to his feet as the mare lays her head down again. He would like to dispatch her with his revolver, but it is gone, perhaps lying beneath her, and he has no time to find another. He limps forward as fast as he can to overtake his line. Damned good horse. He’ll miss her.

  Brigadier General Charles Cruft cannot imagine what ferocity drives the Rebels forward through the cannon blasts. He orders his reserve regiment, 1st Kentucky Union Volunteers, into the cottonfield to blunt the charge. Briefly, Cruft’s tactic seems to work. Colonel David Enyart deploys the 1st Kentucky smartly, first rank kneeling, second and third ranks standing, in the classic formation for volley firing since the time of Marlborough. Colonel John Carter of the 38th Tennessee responds exactly as Cruft hoped, halting his regiment to the front left of the Cowan house and returning fire by volleys.

  Carter’s halt uncovers the flank of the 8th Tennessee to a murderous fire from the 31st Indiana and Captain William Standart’s Battery B, 1st Ohio Artillery. The 8th Tennessee shudders to a halt. Lieutenant Colonel John H. Anderson, commanding the 8th in place of Colonel Moore, is trying to mount a charge when the colonel reappears, limping but otherwise seemingly uninjured. “How is it we’re stalled, Anderson?” he shouts.

  Anderson stares at him. “Colonel! I thought—”

  “Yes, so did I for a moment. Come on, the men can’t stay here.”

  Moore pushes through the line, sword uplifted. Color Sergeant J. M. Rice sees him, shouts “Come on, boys. The colonel’s back.”

  But before the word can spread far enough to stimulate a cheer or a lunge toward the Yankee line, both Moore and Rice are felled by Hoosier bullets. Shot through the heart, Moore is killed instantly. Rice tries to struggle ahead on his knees but slumps forward, the banner going down into the smoke.

  To the left, the slugging match between the Union 1st Kentucky and Carter’s 38th Tennessee has taken on a more modern look, every soldier firing as fast as he can while maintaining as low a profile as possible short of digging a hole. Satisfied that he’s done his job in stalling the Rebel charge, Enyart begins withdrawing the 1st. But rather than finding Cruft’s main line shored up in the minutes won in the open field, the Union 1st Kentucky stumbles into a scene of inexplicable chaos, courtesy of Brigadier General Alexander P. Stewart, C.S.A.

  It has always puzzled Alex Stewart that his men call him “Old Straight.” He has never viewed himself as particularly stern or strict. He likes his boys, enjoys a joke, will sit up late with his young officers trying to untangle a philosophical conundrum. When he sits for a photograph, he smiles. But he does believe in rigor—in order, method, accuracy, and preparation, whatever the task. After fifteen years of teaching these principles as professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Cumberland University in Nashville, he sees no reason to abandon them now that he has once again donned a uniform.

  The attacks on Sheridan have failed because they were made piecemeal without effective artillery support. Stewart doesn’t intend to make the same mistakes, even if his lengthy preparations cause other commanders some personal distress. Their comfort is not his concern. At 10:25 A.M., he sends his infantry forward behind the first effective Rebel bombardment of the day. The infantry breaches the east side of Sheridan’s stronghold, ending nearly three hours of furious Yankee resistance.

  By 11:00 A.M., Stewart has ripped a gaping hole in the center of the Federal line. The brigades of Patton Anderson, Manigault, and Maney come in on his left, widening the breakthrough as Stewart wheels to charge Colonel Timothy R. Stanley’s brigade of Negley’s division.

  Colonel William B. Cassilly, commanding the 69th Ohio Volunteers of Stanley’s brigade, hates the cold. After all, Bill B. Cassilly isn’t a young man anymore. Not old, mind you, but old enough to worry about the cold penetrating the joints and triggering the rheumatism. And that worry justifies a certain amount of medicinal brandy. So it is that the colonel is taking a counteractant dram when Stewart hits Stanley’s line. By now, five Rebel batteries have coordinated their fire. The result is not a rain of shot on Cassilly’s position, but an absolute deluge. The colonel tries to ride through it to bolster the confidence of his men, but his damned horse won’t cooperate, insists on bolting for the rear. “I have to see the general,” Cassilly shouts at Major Eli J. Hickcox as his steed carries him out of sight.

  Hickcox does not exactly know what the colonel has shouted, but gathers that he is now in command. “Hold on, boys, hold on!” he yells. “Take the best cover you can.” This is, of course, not only a superfluous command but a rather silly one. Yet, Hickcox feels it is important to say something. Dozens of men are blown apart by the cannon fire. The air is full of shell fragments, treetops, and body parts. Hickcox is knocked off his feet by a blow to his right side, cannot rise. It is the strangest sensation, his legs entirely unaccountable, as if they had ceased to be. He feels his side, cannot at first identify the rough object protruding from the anterior of his right kidney. He cranes his neck, stares in horror at a wooden splinter as thick as his forearm and twice as long. For a moment of desperate disbelief, even hope, he searches for the opposite end, only to find it three inches to the left of his navel, its point piercing the wool of his uniform blouse. His viscera has turned liquid and he has the sense that he’s soiled himself. God, not that, he thinks. Not that, too.

  Captain David Putnam takes command from Hickcox but is shot within minutes through the left palm. He tries to carry on, but the wreckage of bone and muscle is too complete, the pain too excruciating. Captain Joseph H. Brigham assumes command, but by then the 69th Ohio is in full flight and he can do nothing but run to catch up.

  Outflanked by Manigault and Maney and hit straight on by Stewart, Stanley’s brigade breaks for the rear. Its collapse uncovers the right flank of Negley’s other brigade, commanded by Colonel John F. Miller. Miller is caught off balance, an unusual circumstance for a man who has, at thirtyone, achieved remarkable success in law, politics, and most recently the army. The approbation of Jack Miller is not quite universal. Phil Sheridan likes but distrusts him, Bill Hazen despises him, and George Thomas has cautioned Negley against reposing too much confidence in him. Their reservations are based on the same perception, that Miller, although a man of great enthusiasm and charm, is careless of the details of soldiering, simply does not know enough to command a brigade in a crisis.

  Seeing Stanley’s line buckle, Miller rushes to realign his regiments to meet Stewart’s attack. But refusing a flank under fire is a movement requiring no small precision and proves beyond him. Stewart’s brigade rolls around Miller’s right flank into his rear, while Patton Anderson’s brigade plows headlong into Miller’s east-facing line.

  Fortunately for the Army of the Cumberland, the soldiers of the 78th Pennsylvania have snugged themselves into a limestone outcropping on Miller’s right flank. In relative misery, they are about as comfortable as any soldiers in the army. The rocks provide a degree of protection from the weather and the opportunity to boil coffee over small fires. The limestone also provides a first-class fortress, and the Pennsylvanians blaze away on three sides as Stewart and Anderson envelop Miller’s line.

  Whatever his deficiencies as a tactician, Miller is an exceedingly resolute man. If his men must fight back to back like the Texans at the Alamo or Herkimer’s militia at Oriskany, so be it. He rides among them, showing not the least fear, though the air is filled with the twitter-buzz of minié balls. The men respond, fire until their cartridge boxes are empty. The 37th Indiana runs short first. Miller pulls it back, sends it to resupply from the brigade ammunition
wagons.

  Lieutenant Colonel William D. Ward leads the 37th back into the fight a few minutes later. “The wagons are gone, Colonel!” he shouts. “Must have pulled out with the first shot.”

  Miller looks at him with what seems to Ward an oddly detached curiosity. “Where’s Colonel Hull?”

  “Shot, Colonel. Wounded, dead, I don’t know. I took command.”

  Miller nods. “Very well. Search the pockets of the dead and wounded.”

  It is a fearful thing, this searching of the pockets of dead and maimed men. Private Jimmy Reid crawls to the body of Private Horst Mueller, a man he has never liked but with whom he has shared many a cooking fire and chill night when a soldier would snuggle up to the devil himself for a little warmth. Mueller is dead, must be, from the look of the terrible wound in his chest. But as Reid reaches across the body to search the far coat pocket, Mueller’s big hand closes on his forearm. “Vhat for you doing? My vatch is mine, you little shit.”

  Before Reid can respond, Mueller has rolled atop him, other hand clawing for his throat. “Jesus, Mueller, stop! I need bullets. I thought—”

  A kick tumbles Mueller off him. Sergeant Elehazer Prust points a bayoneted rifle at Mueller. “Fight Rebs if you can still fight, Mueller.”

  But Mueller comes up with a rock in a big hand and Prust whips the rifle butt across his head. The big man sprawls, the chest wound that seemed only to ooze a moment before whining as it sucks air. Prust rips open Mueller’s pockets, scoops up a handful of cartridges. “Take these and get in line, Jimmy. Make ’em count.” Prust’s hand hesitates over Mueller’s watch at the same moment Mueller takes a final, croaking breath, convulses, and lies still. Prust jams the watch into the gaping mouth. “Here, take it to hell if it means that much to you!”

  The Rebel infantry is moving too fast for the Rebel gunners to cover the advance. They cease fire to shift their guns forward. The fight between Miller and Patton Anderson becomes a slugging match between lines of infantry. The Pennsylvanians are driven from their rocks. Miller intercepts them, leads them back into line. The 37th Indiana gives way for want of ammunition. The 74th Ohio follows. Miller lets them go, orders the 21st Ohio to cover the retreat with their Colt Revolving Rifles. Colonel James Niebling shouts, “Give ’em hell by the acre, boys!” The Buckeyes, particularly those without their gloves, grit their teeth and obey.

  The five-shot, .56 caliber Colt Revolving Rifle is a spectacularly bad weapon. Heavy, awkward, and temperamental, its cylinder throws off a shrapnel of lead, brass, and burned powder with every shot. The Buckeyes have learned to wear heavy gloves to reduce the hours spent picking fragments out of their hands. But for all the defects of design, the Colts can lay down an impressive volume of fire, and the 21st manages to hold back the Rebels long enough for the brigade’s three other regiments to cut their way through to the Nashville Pike. The Buckeyes launch a forlorn bayonet attack to gain a few more minutes and then try to follow. But they are now almost surrounded and most have to surrender, the bargain slightly improved by the opportunity to part with their revolving rifles.

  Miller leaves behind half a dozen guns. Riding forward through the carnage, Stewart spots a Yankee gunner trying to haul away a twelve-pounder field howitzer with a single horse. One of the howitzer’s wheels has jammed between two rocks, and the soldier is working feverishly to pry it loose with a rail. “No one harm that man!” Stewart shouts. He rides forward, reins up beside the man. “Give it up, son. Your horse isn’t strong enough, and there’s only one of you.”

  The soldier looks up, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I drug this gun all the way from Ohio, General.”

  “I know, I know. You’ve done a good job. Give over now. We’ll see to things.”

  The man drops the rail, stumbles away sobbing toward the Rebel rear. The butternut soldiers part, a few of the men reaching out to pat him on the back.

  Funneled by Anderson’s line on one side and Stewart’s encircling line on the other, the refugees from Stanley’s and Miller’s brigades flee northward through Cruft’s position. Colonel Enyart’s Union 1st Kentucky, falling back from its standup fight with the 38th Tennessee in the cottonfield, is flabbergasted by the resulting chaos. On every side, fleeing men are shouting of disaster; of Sheridan and all his men captured; of Stanley’s brigade pulverized; of Miller, his entire staff, and a good half the men gobbled up by the butternut horde.

  Enyart fights his way through to Cruft. “My God, General. What’s happening?”

  “Panic is what’s happening! Form your men facing south and hold them steady. I won’t be stampeded!”

  For an hour now General Dan Smith Donelson has held his men to the fight against Cruft. Donelson’s line strains, writhes, would give way, but he holds it, rides along behind it, sword hacking the air, shouting at the men to keep firing. The Yankees are killing them, maiming them—two, three, perhaps ten to one—but he will not give way, will not retreat, will never take his Tennesseans back so that Braxton Bragg can accuse them of cowardice. “Return with your shield or upon it,” he screams at one point, quoting the Spartan mother, but his words are lost in the racket of cannon and musket fire. One aide hears, looks at the general strangely, but is killed before he can suggest to any of his fellows that the general is mad.

  There is chaos in the woods behind Cruft’s line and the Yankee fire becomes disjointed. Donelson cranes, trying to make out what is happening. “The Yankees are retreating, General!” his adjutant shouts. “Stewart’s gotten in behind them.”

  Stewart! An over-educated twit, but a Tennessean. Well, good for him and his boys. “Charge!” Donelson shrieks. “Charge, you sons of Tennessee!”

  Only minutes after he announces his determination not to be stampeded, Cruft has little choice but to retreat. Captain William Standart’s Battery B, 1st Ohio Artillery, manages to hold off Stewart briefly, but Donelson’s line charges then, rolling over Cruft’s position. Half a thousand Yankees, not counting the wounded lying on the field, are forced to surrender. Donelson would kill them all, sends them to the rear instead.

  Rosecrans has another sudden memory of the ball of fire, incredibly lovely within its cloud of glass splinters, rolling across the laboratory table to envelop him, swallow him, take his breath and replace it with flame. He’d burned then within the fire, watched himself reflected in the beakers, the crucibles, the windows, a torch from waist to hair, dancing with flaming arms thrown wide.

  Now, as then, the roaring about him seems subdued, though clear in its every detail. He gallops down the Nashville Pike toward the Round Forest, past where George Thomas is siting a battery of Parrott rifles in support of Rousseau. “General Thomas,” he shouts. “Deal with that situation in the woods yonder. I’ll look to the fight ahead.”

  Thomas raises a hand in acknowledgment, kicks his mare a bit too hard so that the horse jerks forward with a start that must wrench Thomas’s agonized back. Rosecrans notes this, as he notes everything, his brain aflame with consciousness as it was on the night he breathed the living fire and knew for a few wild moments the divine horror that must have visited the disciples in their Pentecostal ecstasy.

  George Thomas eases the mare into a smooth trot, rides up the pike to find Shepherd and the regulars. Since the war’s beginning, generals have debated whether to break up the regular units, distributing the veterans of the Old Army among the new volunteer regiments to supply a leavening of experience. But old Scott—and Thomas agrees—favored keeping them together for moments like this. Thomas cannot see the fighting in the cedars, but he can hear it, can guess from the survivors streaming from the woods that Stanley, Miller, and now Cruft have given way. Yet he does not hurry up the pike, both for his back’s sake and because to do so, when he is famous for deliberate speed, would be to communicate undue alarm, might even be interpreted as panic.

  All the time shells and bullets scream and buzz about him. Staff officers and orderlies fall, men whom Thomas knows, will later regret losing should he h
imself survive. But for the moment their loss is irrelevant to the task. He must not show fear, worry, or sorrow, must devote himself utterly to constancy, to restoring the line.

  Lieutenant Colonel Oliver Shepherd watches Thomas coming up the pike, guesses what the orders will be, can even guess how they will be stated. He turns to his adjutant. “Get the men ready.”

  The regulars are beat up, three hundred out of sixteen hundred men lost when they’d been ambushed by Rains’s brigade in the woods to the right of John Beatty’s position. Now, from the look of things, they’re about to be asked to plug another hole. But that’s all right; they know who they are, know what they’re made of.

  Thomas points toward the cedars where Cruft’s line is coming apart. “Shepherd, take your brigade in there and stop the Rebels.”

  “Yes, sir,” Shepherd answers.

  Thomas turns his mare, trots back the way he’s come. Nothing more is necessary; Shepherd and the regulars know their trade.

  First Sergeant Delford Sullivan, Company B, 16th United States Infantry, lifts the dead boy’s right ankle, places it over the left, and rolls the corpse over with a deft twist. He begins going through the boy’s pockets. Behind him, Lieutenant Gilbert Winston snaps, “For God’s sake, Sullivan! Leave the poor bastard in peace.”