Fort Pillow

by Harry Turtledove

  Major Leaming laughed, too, more from a sense of duty than for any other reason. “I'll take it out to him, sir,” he said. Unlike George III, Forrest had nothing wrong with his eyes. Oh, no.

  When Leaming reached the flags of truce, he found the Confederate general no longer waited by them. He handed Bradford's note to Captain Goodman. “Here you are, sir,” he said.

  “May I ask how your commander replies, sir?” Goodman remained polite.

  “We will not surrender,” Leaming answered.

  Captain Goodman's eyebrows leaped. “Won't you reconsider? We can take that place, and it will be terrible if we do. Our men have good reason not to love nigger soldiers and galvanized Yankees. I speak from a concern for the unnecessary effusion of blood, and that effusion will be very great when Fort Pillow falls.”

  “Major Br-Booth is of the opinion that it will not fall.” Leaming corrected himself fast enough to keep the Confederate from noticing his near slip.

  “Well, Lieutenant, all I can tell you is that when a Yankee commander believes one thing and General Forrest believes another, General Forrest commonly proves right,” Goodman said. “Your superior will not change his mind?”

  “He is determined,” Leaming replied.

  Captain Goodman sighed. “On his head be it. Very well, sir. I shall take his answer to General Forrest, and after that… after that, we shall see what we shall see. Good afternoon, gentlemen. A pleasure making your acquaintance.” He saluted. So did Captain Henderson and Lieutenant Rodgers.

  Leaming returned the courtesy, along with Captain Young and Lieutenant van Horn. Then they and the common soldiers with them turned around and started back toward Fort Pillow. “Can we really hold this place?” Young asked quietly. “The Confederates' confidence doesn't strike me as their usual bluff and bluster.”

  “Major Bradford thinks we can. Between the parapet and the New Era, he believes we have enough to beat back the Confederates.” Leaming paused a moment; leaving it there didn't seem just to the commandant. “He held an officers' council before sending me out with his reply. No one opposed continuing resistance.”

  “All right.” By the frown that further darkened Young's face, it wasn't even close to all right, but he couldn't do anything about it. “We're going to have a hot time of it, a devil of a hot time, but with God's help we'll come through.”

  He didn't say anything about the gunboat's help. The New Era was right down there on the Mississippi. Leaming hoped God was close by, too.

  Bedford Forrest watched Captain Goodman ride back toward him. When the junior officer got within hailing distance, Forrest called, “Well, Captain? What will it be?”

  Goodman held up a scrap of paper. “You'd better see for yourself, Sir.

  “That doesn't sound good,” Charles Anderson said at Forrest's side. “No, it doesn't.” Forrest nodded. “If the Federals in there think they can hold us out, they've even bigger fools than I credit them for.” As Goodman came up, Forrest held out his hand. “Give me the note.” “Yes, sir.” Goodman passed it to him.

  “ ‘General-I will not surrender.' “ Forrest read it aloud. He slowly nodded a couple of times. Major Booth obliged him on one point: he could not doubt the other man's meaning. “Well, we gave them a chance. If they're such blockheads that they won't take it, it's their hard luck, not ours.” Even to himself, he sounded like a judge passing sentence.

  “It's their funeral, is what it is,” Waiter Goodman said. “I tried to tell that to Leaming, but he didn't want to hear it. Reckon he's got his orders, and that's that.” He shrugged. “That'll be that, all right. “

  “I thought they would give up. I really did,” Forrest said. “Everybody knows we don't mistreat people who surrender to us. The way our men feel about those damned Federal Tennesseans, and about niggers with guns in their hands… Well, Booth'll find out he's made a worse bargain than the one I tried to give him.”

  Captain Anderson pointed out toward the Mississippi. “What about the gunboat, sir? If the enemy goes down by the river, it's in good position to rake our boys hard.”

  “We've handled gunboats before. I expect we'll deal with this one the same way,” Bedford Forrest answered. “She has to open her gunports to use her cannon. If we've got men blazing away at 'em every time they do open up, she'll lose gunners too quick to stay in the fight for long. Shoot everything blue betwixt wind and water until their flag comes down.”

  “All right, sir. I'll tend to it,” Anderson said. “Colonel Barteau ought to have the same order, in case the gunboat shifts so her guns bear on his men.”

  “Well, Captain, I can't very well tell you you're wrong, on account of you're right.” Forrest called for a runner. He gave the man oral orders to deliver to Barteau over by Coal Creek. When the runner had them straight, he saluted and loped away.

  What would the U.S. soldiers be doing, up inside Fort Pillow? Pontius Pilate might have shrugged the shrug Forrest shrugged then. He washed his hands of the Federals. He didn't see what they could do to hold him out except what they were already doing-and that wouldn't be enough.

  “General Chalmers!” Forrest said.

  Chalmers was talking with Captain Goodman a few feet away. He broke off and nodded to his superior. “Yes, sir? What do you need?”

  “Your men ready?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. No doubt about it,” Chalmers said. “When Gaus blows his bugle, they'll go forward as if it were Gabriel's trumpet.”

  Jacob Gaus looked at the beat-up instrument he held in his right hand. “God can afford to issue Gabriel something better than this,” he said, which set all the officers around him laughing. The bugler added, “Or if He can't, then I am afraid Satan is ahead in the race.”

  Bedford Forrest was a steadfast believer. That didn't stop him from laughing his head off now; the words, and Gaus's guttural accent, were too funny to resist. Aiming a forefinger at the German, he said, “You are a blasphemous toad, Jacob.”

  “Ja,” Gaus agreed placidly. “But I am your blasphemous toad, General. “

  “That you are-who else would have you?” Forrest needed a moment to bring his mind back to the business at hand. But when he did, he pointed toward the high ground the Confederates had won early in the fight. “You still have plenty of sharpshooters on those little knolls, General? “

  “Oh, yes, sir,” Chalmers said. “I wouldn't move men off 'em, not when they're up higher than the Federals' position. They can shoot right into the fort, and the troops inside can't do a thing to stop 'em.”

  “I know. That's why I want 'em there. That's why only a damn fool would reckon he could hang on to Fort Pillow unless he had a big enough garrison for the outer line.” Now Forrest pointed ahead, to the ditch in front of the earthwork the U.S. soldiers still held. “And that's why only a damn fool would reckon a no-account trench like that one would keep our boys out of his works, too.”

  “Easier fighting a damn fool than someone who knows what he's doing,” Chalmers observed.

  “That's a fact,” Forrest said. “All the same, even a galvanized Yankee ought to have eyes to see this. By God, Chalmers, even a nigger ought to have eyes to see this. Your sharpshooters over yonder can fire at that stretch of the Federal works so they're shooting along the Yankee's firing line instead of straight at it, and the sharpshooters over there can do the same to the other stretch.”

  “The technical term is enfilading fire, sir,” Chalmers said.

  Was he slyly poking fun at Forrest or really trying to teach him something? Chalmers was not a West Point man, but he'd been to college; he was a lawyer in Mississippi when secession came, and helped lead his state out of the Union. He doubtless looked down his nose at an unschooled nigger-trader like Forrest-he might, but he'd better not show it, not when that un schooled nigger-trader outranked him.

  “I don't care much about the technical term, Jim,” Forrest said. “I know what I want to do, and I can get it done just fine without fancy talk.” He snorted, thinking of the
evasive answer the Federals in Fort Pillow tried to palm off on him. Well, they wouldn't get away with it, by God.

  “We've all seen that, sir,” Chalmers said.

  There wasn't-there couldn't possibly be-any mockery in those words. Education or no, fancy talk or no, Bedford Forrest knew without false modesty that he'd done more for the Confederate cause in the West than just about anybody else. When the war was young, he saved a large part of the Confederate garrison in Fort Donelson when his superiors, after breaking out, idiotically marched back in and had to surrender to the Yankees.

  He fought hard at Pittsburg Landing, and took a wound that almost killed him; that bullet still lay somewhere near his spine, and still pained him. His first set of cavalry raids up into Tennessee and Kentucky at the end of 1862 did such a good job of wrecking U. S. Grant's supply line that they delayed his attack on Vicksburg by months. He fought at Chickamauga, and still wished Braxton Bragg would have listened to him and pushed the pursuit. That Federal army would be extinct now; the Confederates would hold Chattanooga. Instead..

  Forrest's hands tightened on the reins. If only they were tightening on Braxton Bragg's scrawny neck. Bragg couldn't win. And when, in spite of himself, he did win at Chickamauga, he frittered away the victory. But he was Jefferson Davis's particular friend, and so his malign influence in the C.S.A. seemed to go on forever.

  I should have killed him, Forrest thought. I should have challenged him. Not even a spineless wretch like that could have wriggled off the hook. He shook his head. Too late now. Too late for a lot of things in the West.

  General Chalmers said something. Lost in his own dark thoughts, Forrest heard his voice without noting the words. “I'm sorry, General,” he said, shaking his head again. “That went right on by me.”

  “I said, will you go forward with the men when they storm the fort?” “Oh.” The question spawned more dark thoughts. Slowly, Forrest answered, “Matter of fact, I wasn't planning to.”

  “I see.” By Chalmers's tone, and by his raised eyebrow, he didn't.

  Were Chalmers speaking of some other man, the two-word response might have been an accusation of cowardice. Not with Bedford Forrest. Some gushing Southern newspaper wrote that he'd killed more men in close combat than any general since medieval days. He had no idea if that was so. But he was large and strong and fast, and he usually went straight for the hottest action.

  Cautiously, Chalmers said, “Do you mind my asking why, sir?” “Yes, dammit.” Forrest's voice was rough, even harsh. He disliked being put on the spot.

  “Very well, sir.” By Chalmers's tone, he didn't like it, but he knew he couldn't do anything about it.

  Forrest was just as well pleased to keep his mouth shut. If he said he had no stomach for what lay ahead, Chalmers would think him soft. If he said he was afraid he couldn't stop it, Chalmers would think him weak. If he said nothing at all, Chalmers could think whatever he damn well pleased.

  He turned to Jacob Gaus. “You ready there?” “Oh, yes, sir,” the bugler answered.

  “Anything that wants doing before we sound the assault?” Forrest asked the officers nearby. Neither Chalmers nor Captain Anderson nor Captain Goodman nor any of the others said a word. “Well, then”-Forrest tipped his hat to Gaus-”go ahead, Jacob.”

  “Ja.” Gaus raised the battered bugle to his lips. The fierce horn call belled across the battlefield.

  VIII

  Major William Bradford watched Lieutenant Leaming and the rest of the truce party walk back from their parley with the Confederates. His brother came up beside him. “Won't be long now.”

  “No, I don't reckon it will, Theo,” Bradford said. The Confederates in the truce party rode off toward the knoll to which Bedford Forrest had repaired not long before. They no longer held up the white flags they'd used to call for the parley.

  “Can we hold 'em out?” Theodorick Bradford asked quietly.

  “If you didn't think we could, you should have spoken up at the officers' council,” Bill Bradford said angrily.

  His older brother flushed. “Nobody else did. Damned if I wanted you to reckon I was a quitter.”

  “I reckoned you were somebody who would tell me what was on his mind. Maybe I was wrong,” the garrison commander said.

  Captain Theodorick Bradford turned away. “Excuse me, Sir;” he said, lacing the polite title with disdain. He stormed off without waiting to find out whether his brother excused him or not. Bill Bradford swore under his breath. What could he do about making up with Theo? Nothing, not right now.

  About a quarter of a mile away, the Confederates from the truce party were talking with the other Rebs. One of the men on that low rise pointed toward Fort Pillow and then out to a couple of places Secesh soldiers had overrun. Bradford wished he could hear what the enemy soldiers were saying. In war as in cards, one peek at the other fellow's hand was worth all the calculating in the world.

  A Confederate soldier raised a bugle. The afternoon sun gleamed off the polished brass as if off gold. For a moment, time seemed to stand still, poised between one thing and another. Then, faint in the distance but very clear, the horn call reached Bill Bradford and the embattled fort.

  And it reached the C.S. cavalry troopers all around Fort Pillow. The truce shattered like a crystal goblet dropped on a hardwood floor. A shattered goblet spilled wine. A shattered truce spilled claret of another sort.

  A great roar of musketry arose inside the fort and around it. Yelling like fiends, like devils, like men possessed, the Confederates swarmed out of the positions they'd gained earlier in the day and rushed for the bluff. “Shoot 'em!” Major Bradford screamed. “Shoot, em down like the cur dogs they are! “

  All six of the cannon inside the fort bellowed at the same time, sending canister forth against Forrest's fighters. Cursing gun crews wrestled the pieces back into position and reloaded as fast as they could. Not all their curses were aimed at the enemy. “Shit! High!” “High, goddammit!” “Can't we lower them fuckin' muzzles any more?” Bradford heard that again and again. The very way Fort Pillow was made seemed to conspire against the defenders.

  But the foul-mouthed colored artillerymen and their equally blasphemous white superiors weren't the only ones battling desperately to keep the Confederates away from the fort. Whites from the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry and Negroes from the newly arrived artillery regiments stood side by side behind the earthen parapet, blazing away at the charging, yowling enemy and then ramming fresh minnies into the muzzles of their Springfields. Race, for the moment, was forgotten. Quick firing counted for more.

  Bradford ran now here, now there, rushing men from spots that weren't so badly threatened to those in mortal peril. Before long, he hardly knew where to send soldiers and where to hold them back. The whole earthwork seemed in mortal peril.

  And, while danger might have made the defenders forget about race, the attackers remembered all too well. Along with the usual Rebel yells and random shouts and oaths, Forrest's men raised another cry: “Black flag! Black flag!”

  Ice ran through Bill Bradford when he first made out those words through the din of musketry and cannon fire and other yells and screams. In Bedford Forrest's note demanding surrender, he'd warned that he couldn't answer for consequences if the Federals in Fort Pillow refused. He'd warned, and he hadn't been joking, even if Bradford believed he was. Black flag! was the cry for no quarter.

  “Hold them out, men!” Bradford yelled. “For your lives, hold them out!”

  He drew his army Colt and shot at the Confederates-too many of them were within pistol range. The revolver's cylinder spun. He fired again. He wished his men had even a handful of newfangled Sharps or Henry repeating rifles. They fired so fast, they could easily break a charge like this. You simply couldn't reload Springfields quick enough.

  Some of Forrest's troopers fell on the steep slope leading up to the bluff. Wounded enemy soldiers dragged themselves away from the intense gunfire. The dead lay where they fell. Ravens' meat
, Bradford thought-a bit of perhaps poetry he'd heard somewhere. In this part of the country, turkey buzzards and black buzzards accounted for more unburied corpses than ravens.

  The Confederates swarming up the slope clutched their rifle muskets and shotguns and pistols in their fists. Hardly any of them fired.

  But not all of Forrest's men were rushing Fort Pillow. Sharpshooters on the knolls a quarter of a mile outside the parapet took a deadly toll on the defenders.

  A bullet cracked past Major Bradford's face, so close that it made him jerk back in surprise and alarm. It smacked into the side of the head of a trooper from the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry. That sound was too much like the one you made when you chunked a rock at a rotten watermelon. The trooper let out a small, startled sigh-not even a groan-and crumpled as if all his bones turned to water. He died before he hit the ground.

  A colored soldier got hit in the side of the neck. Blood sprayed everywhere. The Negro shrieked and dashed wildly through the fort. His wound plainly wasn't mortal, or didn't have to be if someone saw to it, but his pain and fright were liable to kill him if the minnie didn't.

  Bradford saw more and more U.S. soldiers hit in the flank. He pointed out toward the clouds of black-powder smoke that marked the Secesh sharpshooters' positions. “Those sons of bitches are murdering us!” he shouted. “Can we stop them?”

  “Maybe the cannon can blast them off those knolls,” a sergeant said. But he didn't sound hopeful, and Bradford knew why not: the guns inside Fort Pillow hadn't been able to shift the Confederate marksmen since they gained their places. What with all the fallen timber and the stumps on those low rises, the Rebs enjoyed cover almost as good as the earthwork gave the Federals.