Bright Starry Banner

by Alden R. Carter

  Rosecrans expects the men to cheer, but they only stare at him impassively. An officer makes a quick translation into Norwegian, and then there are nods, many a thoughtful “Ya.” Rosecrans peers at them more closely, recognizes Colonel Hans Heg’s imperturbable 15th Wisconsin. The massive Heg says something in an undertone and the men are silent. Rosecrans salutes them, gives Carlin, who is sucking on his unlit pipe, a nod and gallops off, embarrassed.

  Carlin gets his pipe lit, gazes at the sky. “Well, Colonel,” he says to Heg. “I suppose we should go forward to do the general’s bidding while there is still a little light.”

  “Ya,” Heg says, in his fatigue nearly lapsing into his native tongue. “I suppose ve should.”

  Hazen has been swearing under his breath almost continuously since orders came to take the brigade to the ford. “This is a goddamn disaster, Bierce. You and I, we saw this coming yesterday, but nothing was done. And now we’ll have to fight tooth and claw to hold a flank that should have been impregnable! General Rosecrans must have lost his wits entirely. Thomas should take command before it’s too late.”

  The brigade forms, hurries overland toward the ford. Rosecrans intercepts it a quarter mile short of the gun line. “Colonel Hazen, keep your men in column. I want you in formation to cross the river as quickly as possible. General Beatty has Price’s and Grider’s brigades re-forming behind the right flank of the guns.”

  Hazen frowns. “But surely, General, I should deploy for the defense before considering going over to the attack.”

  “No need. I have infantry enough in place.”

  Still Hazen frowns. “May I ask how much?”

  Rosecrans takes only an instant to calculate. “Counting yours and Gibson’s brigade in easy supporting distance and not counting Price’s brigade, which is pretty cut up, twenty-three regiments and three battalions of Pioneers. Across the river Grose has his brigade and what’s re-forming of Fyffe’s. They’ve got a good position, can hold off the Rebels’ right flank.”

  For the only time in Bierce’s experience, Hazen is discomposed. Finally, he manages, “My God, General, you have laid an extraordinary trap. I had not appreciated it till now.”

  Rosecrans chuckles. “Yes, it appears that we have. I wish I could claim to have planned it a day or two ago, but the circumstances and the pieces seem to have fallen together rather nicely. But hurry, Colonel, your brigade is a piece not quite in place.”

  “General, if I may ask, how many guns are in—” But Rosecrans is cantering away.

  A staff captain pauses before following, grins. “At last count, forty-two.”

  “Holy God,” Hazen whispers, surprising Bierce a second time, for he had never imagined hearing either awe or the invocation of the deity from Hazen.

  The staff captain’s count is low. By the time Hazen orders his men to lie down two hundred yards south of the right end of Negley’s line, Captain Mendenhall has forty-five guns of various types and calibers standing hub to hub from the northern edge of the high ground to the field south of the lane. Another dozen guns are in place six hundred yards to the south, their muzzles trained on the ford’s right flank.

  Rosecrans is betting everything on the Rebels’ aggressiveness. He orders Mendenhall to fire only enough pieces to lure them on. Mendenhall passes on the order, instructing the remaining gun crews to double-shot their guns with canister.

  Mendenhall lights a cigar, either forgetting or choosing to ignore for once his rule about smoking close to the caissons and limbers with their loads of powder and explosive shells. He studies the gun line. It is perfect: forty-five guns to fire straight on with canister, twelve more to throw solid shot, case, and shell from the flank. Thank you, God, he thinks, I am fulfilled.

  The Confederate infantry plunges on through the early dark. Ahead, a gentle slope rises to the top of the narrow bluff on the east side of the river. Beyond it they will find the Yankees, a milling herd, pathetic as sheep panicked by wolves. They will tear through them, scattering them across the landscape, cross the river, never-minding the cold, climb the far slope, shooting the battery horses, bayoneting the cannoneers, then manhandling the guns around to fire on the fleeing bluecoats. Then and only then will they have the high ground—high ground and rest.

  Riding behind an Ohio regiment of Stanley’s brigade, Rosecrans unsheathes his saber for the first time in three days. But the sword is heavy in his hand: a trinket, symbol of an era passed long, long ago. He sheathes it again. I’ll send it home, he thinks. Let my sons hang it on the wall.

  He should go back up behind the guns now, get the best view he can. Some of the men prone in front of him turn, look up, faces pale with fear. He smiles. “Boys, do you see that little ridge beyond the river?”

  There is murmured assent.

  “Well, in about five minutes, the Rebs will pour over it and come right at you, yelling that infernal yelping of theirs. Don’t pay it any mind. Lie still until you can see the buttons on their coats and then fire low. Drive them back. Do you understand?”

  Again, murmured assent. He laughs softly. “There, boys. You see, it’s as easy as rolling off a log.”

  Later, Corporal Johnny Green will hear another man muse: “It was like we kicked in the door of hell and the devil was there to greet us.” Cresting the slope and flooding down the far side, all of them yelling like lunatics, Kentucky Brigade is hit with a blast beyond human imagining. The concussion of so many guns—and there are not six or eight or ten, as they’d expected, but dozens, scores—blasts everything in front of the gun line, lays the brown grass flat, stupefies the prone ranks of Federal infantry, leaving hundreds of men bleeding from nose and ears, levels the riverside brush, combers the river, and slams into the far slope with a crash that shivers the ground itself.

  Mendenhall will make a rough calculation later that night: Each doubleloaded piece on the gun line fires between 48 and 66 lead or iron balls per discharge. Using as an average figure the 54 fired by a twelve-pounder Napoleon, multiplied by 4 rounds per minute, times 45 guns, and roughly 9,720 canister balls hit the charging Rebel line in the first minute.

  Johnny Green remembers the plucking fingers, the snatching at his clothing, the invisible hand that slaps the slouch hat from his head, tugs repeatedly at his long hair, and all the while the whispering—unheard, for nothing can be heard in the roar of the guns—yet detected by the skin itself: the whispered breath of the bullets in their passing. That he remembers; that and the sensation of being illuminated, as he supposes someone might be by footlights on a stage, exposed to an immense audience beyond the lights, unable for the moment to move in the glare, stage-struck, without line or cue. But it is only a momentary sensation, for to hesitate is to die, and no one except those instantly killed really stops moving. Those in the front ranks plunge on toward the river bottom, no longer charging, only seeking the deepest, darkest cover. The middle ranks die, a very few men managing to scramble back up the slope. The following ranks turn, flee, scores of men dropping in the seconds they are silhouetted against the sky. Green, stumbling back through the screaming wounded, the mangled dead, sees a shell from the flank drop into a mass of men. The explosion flings body parts high as the trees, kills a dozen men in less time than the flare of a match. Green throws himself into the gap created by the explosion, rolls down the reverse slope, scrambles to his feet, and runs.

  On the west bank of the river, the Yankee soldiers cheer wildly. The 78th Pennsylvania rises up, splashes into the river, firing at the backs of the Rebels. Colonel Joseph Scott of the 19th Illinois sees the Pennsylvanians going forward, will be damned if he’ll watch a bunch of Easterners stealing a Western victory. He draws his sword, screams “Follow me!” and plunges into the river. Colonel John Miller is caught only momentarily off guard before ordering his other three regiments forward. He is not a professional, doesn’t give a damn what the professionals think; the chance is here and he will take it.

  On the far slope, a Rebel color sergeant march
es stiff-backed toward the crest, refusing to run. At the top he turns, his face gaunt with anger and despair, shakes a fist at the Yankee line. It is an act of such surpassing bravado that many of the Federal infantrymen cheer.

  Hurrying toward the river with Hazen’s brigade, Bierce witnesses the scene, thinks: We will never beat such men unless we destroy them utterly. We will have to burn our way clear across the South to do it.

  Private Gervis Grainger is tardy again. All his life, people have yelled at him for being late: his mother, his father, the priest, his teachers, in the last year corporals and sergeants. With a few dozen others of the Confederate 6th Kentucky, he has worked his way through the trees west of the river to within sight of the ford. Crouching behind a tree, he adjusts the sights on his Enfield, squints down the barrel, trying to pick out the sergeant among the crew of a silent Napoleon near the end of the Yankee gun line. Shouted commands drift across the quiet field, remind him of the shouts of men at harvest time, bidding goodnight in the gloaming.

  Before he can choose his target, a tremendous flash blinds him. He drops flat, holds onto the pitching earth. How long this goes on he cannot calculate. Five minutes? Ten? Then cheering from downstream, the crash of musketry, the sound of men whooping as they go over to the attack. A band begins playing The Girl I Left Behind Me. He can see the shine of brass instruments as it crosses the ford, leading a heavy column of infantry. It is an outrage this music. He looks about to see if the other boys are likewise incensed. But they are gone, and he knows suddenly that he is tardy again, as if abandoned daydreaming by a brook while the rest of the class ran to lessons at the ringing of the schoolhouse bell.

  He jumps up, sprints for the river. Downstream he hears shouts, sees men in blue. “You, Reb, halt!” He fires at them, sees the bullet skip on the water, flying through the band. He jumps as far as he can, lands in the water, bullets shivering the surface around him like trout rising to feed. He tries to save his Enfield, cannot, drops it, and scrambles up the opposite bank, the bullets whirring about him.

  The field beyond is chaos, thousands of men running for their lives. Two or three intact regiments are trying to cover the retreat, firing by the rear rank at the long dark line of blue infantry rising out of the river bottom. A riderless gray horse gallops past, dragging the body of an officer. Grainger lunges for a trailing rein, just manages to grab it. At that instant a solid bolt from a Parrott rifle decapitates the beast. Blood erupts from its neck, thick and powerful as a fire hose, drenching Grainger to the waist. He runs on, wiping at his eyes. He comes abreast of four men struggling under the weight of a litter bearing a grievously wounded colonel. Another solid shot, this a round one fired from a smoothbore, strikes the party at an angle, killing the man at the front right, the colonel, and the bearer at the opposite corner. The surviving men stand unhurt, dumbstruck, the splintered poles in their hands. “Come on!” Grainger yells. “Run!”

  Bierce cannot recall hearing a single note of music since the last measure of Home Sweet Home echoed on the river the night before the battle. This is entirely different music, the blare of the Irish tune in hard cadence, warlike. Hazen’s brigade double-times across the rear of two of Cruft’s regiments thrown out in a long line and sweeping down to drive the pesky Rebels of the 2nd and 6th Kentucky back across the river. General Palmer is leading them personally, shouts to Hazen: “Go after them hard, Bill! God, for another hour of daylight!”

  Rosecrans meets them at the ford. “Colonel, leave three of your regiments in reserve on the other side of the river.”

  “General, I must protest—”

  “Colonel, for the love of God, be still! Take your lead regiment over to the left, pick up three of Grose’s regiments, and drive hard for the Rebel flank. Turn them if you can. Now go, man!”

  Hazen slaps his horse with the reins, gallops across the ford, shouting orders.

  All the hours of seemingly pointless drill are paying off. The Yankee regiments wade the river, sweep in parade-ground order, bands playing, up the slope covered with the Confederate dead and wounded. Hundreds of Rebs taken prisoner in the river bottom trudge in the opposite direction under a provost marshal’s guard.

  In the fields beyond the bluff, Miller’s brigade forms on the right, Stanley’s brigade in the center, and Grider’s brigade under General Sam Beatty on the left. Brigadier General Negley, the affable botanist, takes command, orders the line forward into the gloom. Hazen’s column circles behind, reaches Grose’s breastworks. Grose is blazing away at the Rebel flank with musket fire and two freshly arrived batteries. “Colonel!” Hazen shouts. “I’m to take three of your regiments, form a column, and try to get round the Rebel flank.”

  Grose turns, and Bierce is impressed, as he always is, at the kindness in the old man’s face. “Take them, Bill! Godspeed.”

  In minutes, the 36th Indiana, Union 23rd Kentucky, and the 24th Ohio fall into column behind Hazen’s 41st Ohio. All three of Grose’s regiments have been roughly handled in the last hour. The 24th has had four commanding officers since 3:00 P.M., fighting first under Colonel Frederick C. Jones, then Major Henry Terry, then Captain Enoch Weiler, and now Captain A. T. Cockerill. Yet the men cheer as they come out from behind their breastworks to chase the Rebs.

  Color Sergeant George Lowe tries to rally the 18th Tennessee. He plants the Confederate colors, shouts, “Rally here, boys! Come—” At that, he grunts, throws out his arms. Corporal William McKay catches at the staff as Lowe half turns and pitches on his face. A minié ball drills McKay through the thigh, felling him within an arm’s length of Lowe. Captain Nat Gooch shouts at Private Logue Nelson, “Pick up those colors, soldier!”

  “Pick up the fucking things yourself. I got a wife and kids,” Nelson snaps.

  Gooch does, is immediately shot down.

  Nelson swears, grabs the colors. “Come on, boys. This ain’t no place for reasonable men.”

  Left behind, Corporal McKay lies in the brown grass, feeling the blood running warm down his leg. He manages to get his belt off, cinches it above the wound. He hears a clatter of horses, curls up to avoid being trampled. A four-gun Confederate battery swings into position atop the rise. “Down here,” McKay shouts. “Give me a hand, boys.”

  No one responds, and a moment later, the first of the guns fires directly over him. The muzzle flash sizzles McKay’s hair, scorches his skin, leaves him deafened. He shouts, screams, curses, barely able to make out the faint sound of his own voice. No one pays the least mind. Fleeing men rush up the hill, throwing themselves flat each time the gun captains shout: “Ready!” The mob becomes so thick that the gunners of Wright’s Tennessee Battery have to cease fire. They start to limber up but Major Rice Graves, chief of division artillery, shouts, “Wright, you’ve got to hold them back! Double-shot your guns and fire as soon as our boys get clear!”

  McKay tries to crawl, but his leg won’t hold under him. He tries pulling himself out of the way with his hands, cannot. He screams again, sees a cannoneer glance his way and then back at the approaching enemy. McKay burrows his head against Gooch’s corpse, pulls a flap of the captain’s tunic over his head. A Yankee battery gets the range, starts firing at Wright’s guns. McKay sees a shell come bouncing up the hill, trailing fuse sparks. It bursts a dozen feet over his head, fragments raking his legs, the concussion breaking his left arm and rendering him blessedly unconscious.

  Federal infantry rushes the hill, so close behind the fleeing Rebels that Wright gives the order to fire too late, most of the canister flying high. The Yankees shoot down the horses, overwhelm the cannoneers, kill Wright. Only one gun gets away.

  Privates Mike McClarey and Pat Reilly run for Wayne’s Hill, the brush whipping around their legs, the shouts, cheers, and fire of the Yankees urging them on. Reilly stumbles, rolls over clutching a leg drilled by a minié ball. McClarey sweeps him up in a fireman’s carry, manages to reach down for his own musket, and stumbles on toward the hill, the bullets whicking around them.

&nbs
p; Brigadier General Gideon Pillow passes Colonel William Preston at the gallop. “We’re buggered, Preston! Run for your life!”

  Preston has no intention of running. He grabs the banner of the 45th Tennessee, begins laying about him with the flat of his saber. Joined by the regiment’s colonel and a corporal’s guard of stubborn veterans, they begin forming a line, fall back step by step before the Yankee tide.

  The Confederate cavalry finally moves to aid the infantry. Pegram leads his small brigade forward against Grider’s brigade on the Yankee left flank. But he mistakes the 20th Tennessee for Yankees and fires on them instead. The 20th has had about all it’s going to take for one day, immediately returns fire. But Private Logue Nelson, the most unwilling of color bearers, runs out in the field, waving the regiment’s banner and screaming profanities at both sides. Pegram’s cavalry joins the retreat.

  Wharton has better luck. He deploys Huwald’s battery of horse artillery and a double line of dismounted troopers to block Hazen’s flanking column. It is enough. In a cold fury, Hazen has to waste most of the remaining light deploying in line of battle.

  Negley’s advance drives all before it. Many of the men who fled an hour earlier join the advance, scooping up muskets and cartridge boxes, attaching themselves to the nearest company. The line recaptures the lost ridge, pushes on into the field past Beatty’s original line and toward Wayne’s Hill. But there is no light to go farther, and Negley has no choice but to order the line to halt.