Polk rode to army headquarters at the head of an entourage of staff officers, all nattily turned out in clean uniforms with sparkling gold braid and trim.
Standing off to one side, Sandie chuckled and whispered to Dr. McGuire “One wonders why he left the marching band at home.” The doctor nodded, grinning. Polk had the most spit and polish staff either man had ever seen in any army, east or west, north or south.
Dismounting from his horse, Polk prepared his emotions for the meeting with Jackson, carefully tucking away the foul temper aroused by the commanding general’s arrogant and overbearing conduct. Not only had Jackson sent Loring to attack Wildcat Ridge and then sacked him without even so much as a “by your leave,” but then that man had sent Stewart and not Polk to decide whether that attack should go forward. It was as bad as any of the slights perpetrated by Braxton Bragg, but Polk knew he had to proceed carefully and remain the good cleric in his chief’s eyes. For now.
Sandie greeted Polk, and led him into Jackson’s tent. After some brief pleasantries and questions about Featherston’s status on the left, Jackson began issuing orders.
“General Polk, you will commence the attack in one hour, at 12 o’clock, by advancing Featherston’s Division en echelon, by brigade and to the right.”
Polk understood. He was to commence a rolling attack down the line, one brigade after the other.
“Sir, begging your pardon, but Featherston’s three frontline brigades have been in a vicious little fight all morning with Yankee skirmishers. It ended only a short while ago, and they have shot off half their ammunition. The men must replenish their cartridge boxes before making a major attack. If I could have but an additional hour to do that...?”
Sandie expected Jackson to tell Polk to redistribute ammunition from his reserve brigade, bringing everyone up to an acceptable level, or even that Featherston should charge with pikes if he had to. Instead, Jackson quietly nodded, giving his assent.
Behind his serene smile, Polk was satisfied, if only slightly. He didn’t actually know how much ammunition Featherston’s men had used or how much they needed, let alone how much time would be required to top up their cartridge boxes. What mattered was that he had gotten his say in, and it stuck. That was a start.
Jackson continued. “When Featherston’s last brigade goes forward, General French is not to move. Instead, he is to remain where he is and wait for a passage of the lines.”
“And just who will be passing through French’s line, General?”
Jackson ignored the question. “Featherston is to keep the pressure on. He is not to break contact with the enemy, not without direct orders from me. I want you to keep a close eye on him, General Polk. He is new to division command.”
Polk realized the interview was over. He stood and saluted. “Yessir.” Sandie handed him a set of written orders, one for himself, one for Featherston and one for French, and sent him on his way.
1 p.m.
Headquarters, Army of the Tennessee, USA
McPherson was reading the latest report from John Smith, indicating the situation east of town had stabilized, when he was approached by his chief of staff, Colonel William T. Clark.
“Mac, I have the initial reports from those prisoners we took earlier this morning. They confirm the identity of the four secessionist divisions posted opposite. I think the presence of Stevenson, Clayton and French are beyond doubt. It’s definitely Polk’s Army of Mississippi infantry, plus Stewart’s Corps.”
McPherson nodded. Clark was an eastern-educated lawyer, and was very good at sorting through papers and reports. It was why McPherson had brought him up to his present post.
“There is something else, sir.”
The fretful tone in Clark’s voice caused McPherson to give him his full attention. “Yes? There is a problem?”
“Many of the prisoners boast that Stonewall Jackson is over there, and he has Hood’s Corps with him. Now it could just be loud, no account talk. You know how the Rebs are. But the other fellows cussed and hushed the braggarts up quick.”
“But that isn’t all, is it?”
“No, General. The prisoners from what we think is Loring’s Division. They say it’s now Featherston’s Division, on account of Jackson putting Loring under arrest.”
That aroused McPherson’s curiosity. Rebel prisoners were often full of bluster and balderdash, and sending out false deserters with orders to spread equally false information was an old Confederate ploy. Even so, that last detail was a little too elaborate. It had the whiff of truth to it.
McPherson stood up and said “I want to see these men, and hear that story myself.”
“I thought you might, sir.”
CHAPTER 10
1 p.m.
Featherston’s Division, Army of Tennessee, CSA
The Confederate Left
Winfield Featherston was a trim, handsome man in early middle age, armed with the genial smile of a Mississippi lawyer and politician. His men called him “Old Swet,” and he didn’t lack for personal courage. Yet he knew the more senior generals whispered he was unfit for higher command, so he was eager to prove himself. He was keeping a close eye on his watch, and when the minute hand struck one, he nodded to his bugler. The call rang out, and the advance was begun.
The skirmishers crossed a thickly wooded gully with a muddy, rocky watercourse at the bottom, and climbed up onto the tableland beyond. Featherston’s three lead brigades followed, marching in columns by division so as to pass more quickly over the rough terrain. Even so, it took almost an hour to cross the half-mile distance and form a new line on the other side. Featherston’s fourth brigade brought up the rear, following a few hundred yards behind and in reserve.
As his main line formed up and dressed their ranks out of sight of the enemy, Featherston dismounted and went forward, to the edge of the ravine with the skirmishers. Taking up a position behind a tree, he surveyed the ground before him, and what he beheld left him appalled.
All the forest and undergrowth in the ravine had been felled and turned into a maze of abatis, a tangle of sharpened tree branches. At the bottom of the ravine was a stream, Coon Creek, and the Yankee line stood on the other side. The ground the Federal position stood on was too gnarled with tree roots to dig up, so instead the Yankees had built log barricades, fronted by a palisade of sharpened stakes.
Featherston sent back for his superior, and showed him the Yankee fortifications. “I can’t attack this, General Polk,” he whispered, so as to keep the men from overhearing him. “Sending the division to assail that line isn’t war, it’s murder!”
“You have no choice, General Featherston,” Polk replied quietly, standing in the open and unfazed by the bullets cracking against the nearby tree trunks. “The commanding general has ordered it, and must be obeyed. You saw what happened to poor Loring when he protested too much.”
Featherston imagined himself sent back to brigade command with his hopes dashed, or perhaps meeting an even worse fate. Robert E. Lee had already sent him packing from the Army of Northern Virginia more than a year ago. He knew Old Jack was a harsh taskmaster, and the thought of what he might do...
“Very well, although I want my protest noted. For the record, General Polk.”
“So noted, General Featherston.” Polk smiled, seeing himself as nursing the grievances of men like Featherston, laying bricks of support. Polk was isolated now, his resentment unshared, but that would change, given time. The anti-Bragg faction wasn’t built in a day, after all.
The Mississippians of Featherston’s own former brigade advanced out of the trees and onto the slope of the ravine, and were met instantly by blasts of canister. They rushed forward through the spray of iron balls, pouring down the ravine through the gaps in the abatis. Bunched up and disordered, the butternuts splashed through the stream to find their way around the next layer of obstacles, when the Yankees rose from behind their log walls, pointed their muskets down, and unleashed heavy, rolling volleys of fire.
>
The advance quickly stumbled to a gory halt, the Rebel infantry throwing themselves behind the abatis, the odd boulder, or onto the slope before the Yankee line, anywhere that offered even the slightest hope of escaping the avalanche of bullets and canister balls pouring down onto Coon Creek. They were joined by Scott’s Alabamans, and then Adams’s Mississippians. With all three brigades in the ravine, the Federal fire spread noticeably thinner, and Featherston saw a chance.
“Sound the charge,” he ordered his bugler.
After a few minutes’ pause, men all along the creek began the crawl up the slope in small groups, returning fire as best they could. Featherston saw General John Adams, the sole Old Army man among his brigadiers, stand up, brandishing his sword and calling on his colors to follow him. His whole brigade came on slowly behind him. They had advanced not more than a dozen yards before Adams fell, mortally wounded. The advance on the right halted, men throwing themselves back down onto the ground.
“Retreat! Sound the retreat!” Featherston cried. The division was soon scrambling back up their own slope and to the cover of the tree line, the Federals shooting at their backs the entire way. Scott’s Brigade fell into positions behind the trees and rocks around Featherston, returning fire. He watched as a trio of men hauled a gum blanket bearing Thomas Scott into the woods.
“Scott! Sweet Jesus, Scott! Are you alright?!”
Scott was oddly cheerful. “Never fear, Winnie. I took a ball in the foot. Can’t walk, but I reckon I’ll live. Can’t say the same for poor old Adams. You saw?”
Featherston nodded, stifling tears. He suddenly realized Scott was putting on a show for his men, and that he was spoiling it with his outburst. “Yes. Yes, I did. General Scott, turn command of your brigade over to your next man...”
Scott interrupted “That’d be Snodgrass, sir. Will do.”
“... and I’ll send word to Quarles. He’ll bring his boys up and replace yours on the firing line.” After that catastrophe, I need a fresh brigade on the firing line, Featherston thought. Quarles is that brigade.
Featherston saluted and saw Scott off before returning his attention to supervising his line. His orders were to stay in contact with the enemy, and for that a long range firefight would do. He wouldn’t put his men back into Coon Creek’s seething cauldron, whatever god damned Stonewall Jackson might do to him.
2:45 p.m.
Hood’s Corps, Army of Tennessee, CSA
The Confederate Center
Jackson closely watched the Federal line from the place where the Military Road crossed Redding Ridge, paying no heed to the odd cannonball or exploding shell. The roar of muskets and guns coming from the enemy right, over by the Horseshoe Bend, told him all he needed to know.
No need to wait for Polk’s confirmation. He knew Featherston was engaged. Forrest had reported strong infantry on his front hours ago, so the enemy had committed at least some of his reserves to a place that was miles away from the critical point, where his main blow would fall. Stewart had most of the army’s heavy guns, and was bombarding the enemy’s left. Hood’s Corps was formed up behind the center. It was time.
Jackson’s eyes lit up brightly, but otherwise he appeared calm. He said flatly “Order the artillery pressed forward, Captain Smith,” and then rode away to join Hood.
From late morning and into the afternoon, Hood’s light, six pounder batteries had been infiltrated from behind Redding Ridge, through the thin woods. Now these batteries were unleashed. Several of these guns clattered out onto the Military Road and went forward, stopping to unlimber some 300 yards from the Federal line. The muzzles of several more field guns emerged from the woods, 200 yards before the Federal left-center. These guns opened on the surprised blue troops, blasting selected points of their earthworks with solid shot and canister.
Union artillery reacted quickly, smoothly diverting counter-battery fire from Stewart’s heavy guns on Haynie Hill to this new threat. Within minutes, the first Rebel gun on the Military Road was silenced, soon followed by another. Covered by Stewart’s guns and under some cover, the Rebel cannons in the valley fared better, and these soon had the Yankee infantry and gunners in front of them keeping their heads down.
Cheatham, Cleburne and Hood were in the rear, sitting mounted along with their staffs amid a stout lance of a column, eight brigades strong, aimed squarely at the Union center. Hood and Cheatham were chatting and in high spirits, while Cleburne was barely mindful of the conversation, his thoughts focused on the attack to come.
Having taken full advantage of the time afforded him, Cleburne had ordered all his division’s muskets to remain unloaded, putting his staff and even himself to work with spot inspections to ensure the division’s weapons stayed that way, all the while painstakingly briefing his officers on what why he wanted it that way and of what was expected of them. There would be no temptation for his men to stop and fire, not with the added necessity of having to load from scratch. What was more, his men had started the day on full bellies and with full canteens, were well-rested, well-armed, and well-trained.
In Cleburne’s experience, such preparation and attention to detail was the key to battlefield success, starting in the training camp, and running right up to the very moment the orders were given and the men committed. Burdened with this attitude, Cleburne always fretted before an attack, worrying whether there was anything more he could do. But he always kept that anxiety tucked away behind a practiced mask of grim severity. Doubt was infectious, and he took care not to send the wrong message to his soldiers.
A courier came for Hood. He thanked the man graciously, and read the message. Hood said “It’s time. Gentlemen, I’ll see you at the top.”
Cleburne and Cheatham rode back to their divisions. Reaching the front of his Tennesseans, Cheatham pulled his flask from under his coat and guzzled the dregs. Turning to his chief of staff, he said “Major, reload me” and traded his empty flask for a fresh one.
Thus fortified, Cheatham trotted between the double lines of Maney’s and Strahl’s Brigade. Fletcher and his company were standing in Maney’s first line, a front row seat for Cheatham’s brief speech.
“Boys,” Cheatham called out, “I have a confession to make. I pine for my homeplace, for my family. I admit it, I’m homesick! The thought of it makes Old Frank here weepy as hell!”
After the laughter from the ranks died down, Cheatham continued. “I want to go home, boys. And I know I’m not alone. Ten minutes of shitfire and lead, and then it’s on to Nashville. Who will come with me?”
Fletcher looked to the ground as men all around him gave Cheatham three hearty hurrahs. He was past cheering about anything to do with fighting, even for Old Frank.
The order to advance was shouted out, and Fletcher stepped off, the Grimes brothers alongside him. Maney and Strahl’s brigades walked over the top of Redding Ridge, where they found French’s Division, the men lying down behind their earthworks. Shouts of “Prepare for passage of lines!” were heard up and down the line. French’s soldiers lay prone, doing their best to stay out of the way of the passing Tennesseans, and shouting encouragement as they went by.
From French’s main line, they walked down into the light woods in the valley bottom. The odd shell or case shot exploded in the tree tops, but these did little harm unless they struck just so, adding wooden splinters to the shower of iron. After a few minutes, the advancing Johnnies passed another line, this time composed of French’s retreating skirmishers, and repeated the passage. This was even easier than before, as the skirmishers were in loose order and there was no earthen embankment to cross.
Coming up to their own artillery, the forefront of Cheatham’s advance, Maney and Strahl, halted their brigades briefly, sidling to the left and into proper alignment. Marching a little more slowly, but with somewhat greater care to precision, the first line of Cleburne’s lead brigades, Granbury’s Texans and Lowery’s Alabamans, arrived on Maney’s left and paused for a few minutes to dress their ranks just
as Cheatham’s troops stepped off.
Maney’s Brigade was the first to step out of the cover of the undulating forest and into the afternoon sun. Fletcher squinted and saw what looked like 200 yards of open ground leading up to the Yankee position. Up and down the line, officers drew their swords, and waved them above their heads or jabbed them at the earthworks ahead, shouting “Forward! Onward!”
Fletcher merely gritted his teeth, made a conscious, deliberate effort to put his foot forward, and stepped out with a shout of “Come on!”
Nathan smirked. The Captain was never much for show, even less so over the last year. Brave, but not flashy. It was one of the things Nathan liked about him. Then he heard the boom, hunched his shoulders and put his head down in an involuntary spasm, but continued to press forward. He looked up and suddenly realized he was alone, no one standing to either side of him.
Nathan spun around and found Willie lying two steps behind him, already trying to sit up, part of his face thick with blood. He threw himself down to his brother with a cry.
Willie mumbled “I’m alright. Alright!” feeling at his face with one hand and trying to shoo Nathan away with the other. Nathan batted Willie’s hands out of the way, pulled his brother’s jacket open and felt down the right side of his chest, where the coat had been perforated. He pulled out a shredded Bible, full of bits of metal and wood, and then threw it away.
“Nathan!” Willie cried, confused, but outraged at the loss of his Bible. Nathan saw Willie’s musket, lying nearby and smashed to bits. A splinter from the stock had sliced his brother’s face open, and was still stuck halfway up his cheek. His eye was still there, clear and fine. Nathan had seen wounds before, terrible wounds, and almost laughed with relief at the sight of this one.
“Reckon your musket were hit by a bolt or something like that.” Canister rounds were packed with one-inch iron balls in the main, but also with whatever leftovers happened to be on the foundry floor.
Willie cried “Captain Fletcher!” and pointed to his left. Nathan went over and found the Captain lying on the ground, fumbling for something in his pockets.
Stonewall Goes West: A Novel of The Civil War and What Might Have Been (Stonewall Goes West Trilogy) Page 20
