The officer smiled. “Good. If it weren't for you and soldiers like you, we'd never get ourselves a free Confederacy.”
“Well, hell. We'll manage.” Jenkins had as much faith in that as he did in the Resurrection and the Second Coming. “Ain't we whipping the damnyankees out of their shoes here?” He hoped he found a dead Federal with feet his size. His own shoes were falling to pieces.
Around the bend, on the Mississippi River side of the bluff, the gunfire suddenly picked up. So did the shouts and yells. Jenkins had listened with much amusement to the Federals' cries of dismay when their precious gunboat left them in the lurch. After it steamed away, the coons and the homemade Yankees quieted down for a while. Now the fighting picked up again. And by the way the Federals moaned and wailed, things weren't going any too well for them. The Rebel yells that also rang out said those other Confederates on the far side of the enemy were having fun.
And the Federals were heading this way: the shouts were getting louder. For the first time, they also sounded frightened. Gauging things by ear-which was all he could do-Jenkins thought the Federals had put up a pretty fair fight until now. But the men heading this way didn't sound like soldiers under control. They seemed like men who'd had everything they could take, and a litde more besides.
Any Union soldier who saw Jack Jenkins's smile would no doubt have called it nasty. No matter how much the bluebellies had taken, they were about to get some more.
“You see, boys?” that know-it-all lieutenant sang out. “We didn't need to go to the fight. It's coming right to us. Y'all ready to give those Federals a little taste of Southern hospitality?”
“We'll give 'em just what they deserve, by God!” Jenkins said, and the lieutenant didn't grumble or fuss one bit. He only nodded. And his smile was every bit as predatory as the corporal's.
“Here they come!” Half a dozen troopers sang out at the same time as the Federals rushed up to Coal Creek and started away from the Mississippi along its southern bank.
They didn't find the safety they hoped for. They were in no kind of order, and didn't seem to be under any officers' control. Jenkins shot the lieutenant a glance of mingled annoyance and respect. Maybe the men who told ordinary soldiers what to do had some uses after all. Maybe.
“Let 'em get close,” the lieutenant said now. “Let 'em get close, and then give 'em a good volley at my command. May I face eternal damnation if we don't break those sons of bitches. Hold your fire till I give the order, y'all hear?”
Nobody said no. Even more to the point, nobody started shooting. On came the men in blue. Their “Hurrah!” made a poor excuse for a battle cry, but they used it when they were in good spirits. They weren't cheering now-oh, no. Some of them skidded to a stop when they saw a line of Confederates in front of them. Others kept coming-not so much because they were eager to attack, Jenkins judged, as because they didn't know what else to do.
Only a handful of Federals raised Springfields to their shoulders and fired, trying to clear the way of Bedford Forrest's men. One luckless Confederate howled and crumpled, clutching at a shattered knee. “At my order…,” the lieutenant said, and then, “Fire!”
Jenkins's rifle musket bucked against his shoulder. Smoke and flames belched from the muzzle. He took off his hat and fanned the air in front of him, trying to clear it enough to see not just through his own piece's smoke but that from the rest of the rifle muskets as well. The Union charge, such as it was, shattered like crockery on a big rock. Only eight or ten men in blue were down, but even the ones who didn't take a minnie felt the Angel of Death brush them with his dark wings.
“Charge!” the lieutenant shouted. A revolver in one hand and his ceremonial saber in the other, he set his own example.
Against determined foes, it would have been madness. It would have been suicide. But the Federals had no fight left in them. Some turned and pelted back in the direction from which they'd come. Others threw down their guns and tried to surrender.
Sometimes that worked, sometimes it didn't. Jack Jenkins saw some of his comrades send Federals back toward the rear-often with a kick in the rear as they went. Others shot men in blue uniforms at point-blank range or bayoneted them even as they got down on their knees and begged for mercy.
“Don't shoot! Sweet Jesus, please don't shoot!” a Federal sergeant called to Jenkins. He held out empty hands. “See? I ain't got no gun.”
He also didn't have an accent like Jenkins's. He was no Tennessean, no homemade Yankee. He really did come from up North; he seemed to pronounce every letter in every word. And that likely meant… “You one of those fellows who tell nigger soldiers what to do?” Jenkins barked.
“Yes, that's right,” the sergeant answered. “But-”
He got no further. Jenkins pulled the trigger. The minnie caught the Yankee right in the middle of the chest. The man stared in astonished reproach for a moment, as if to say, What did you have to go and do that for? He opened his mouth, as if to ask the question. His knees buckled instead. He flopped and thrashed on the ground like a sunfish just pulled from a stream.
“Hold still, God damn you,” Jenkins said, and used his bayonet. He stabbed several times, till the U.S. sergeant finally stopped moving. “You turn niggers into soldiers, you deserve worse'n I just gave you.
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than a bullet cracked past his head. For all he knew, a colored soldier fired it. He reloaded his own piece in feverish haste. He felt naked if he couldn't shoot back at the enemy. Some Yankee cavalrymen and even foot soldiers were getting repeating rifles that gave a company almost a regiment's worth of firepower. He thanked heaven nobody in Fort Pillow seemed to have guns like that. The lead they put in the air would have made storming the place gruesomely, maybe impossibly, expensive.
As he stowed his ramrod in its tube under the rifle musket's barrel, he wondered why the Confederacy couldn't make repeating rifles for its troopers. U.S. soldiers weren't any braver than their C.S. counterparts; with his own fierce pride, Jenkins refused to believe they were as brave. But the Federals would never lose the war because they ran short on things. Guns, ammunition, uniforms, railroads to take men where they needed to go, gunboats… The men in blue seemed to pull such things out of their back pockets, along with more food than they knew what to do with.
As for the Confederates… How many of Bedford Forrest's men were wearing captured clothing? Quite a few had blue trousers. A standing order required shirts to be dyed butternut right away, to keep the troopers from shooting at one another by mistake. A lot of Confederates carried captured weapons, too. The South simply couldn't make or bring in enough to meet its need.
Before the war, Southerners sneered at Yankees as nothing more than merchants and factory hands. The charge was true enough. But the South hadn't realized it brought strengths as well as weaknesses. Men fought wars, but they fought them with things. No matter how brave you were, you'd lose if you didn't have food in your belly, if you didn't have bullets in your rifle musket, if you didn't have gunboats to control the rivers. The Federals didn't have to worry about anything like that. The Confederates did, more and more as the fight dragged on.
But not right here, not right now. Forrest's motto was Get there first with the most men. He had the most men here, right where he needed them, and the Federals were melting away like snow in the hot sun.
A Negro running in front of Jenkins gave a despairing screech, threw his hands in the air, and wailed, “Do Jesus, don't kill me! I ain't done nothin' to nobody!”
“You one of those niggers yellin' you wouldn't give us quarter?” Jenkins growled.
“Oh, no, suh, not me! I ain't one o' them bad niggers!” The black man shook his head so hard, his cap flew off and fell to the ground beside him. He didn't seem to notice; all his fearful attention was on Jenkins. “I don’t want to fight no mo.
“I bet you don't, boy,” Jenkins said. “You a runaway?”
The Negro hesitated. If he said no, the way he talked w
ould betray him-he sounded like someone from the deep South, from South Carolina or Georgia or Alabama or Mississippi. But if he said yes, he was liable to seal his own fate. Jenkins could watch the gears meshing and turning behind his eyes. In the end, all he said was, “Don't kill me, suh. I surrender.”
“You had your chance. All of you bastards had your chance. You should've took it when you could.” Jenkins squeezed the trigger.
Even he winced at what the Mini? ball did. It tore off the bottom half of the black man's face, leaving him gobbling and bleating because he could no longer make sounds resembling human speech. Blood poured down his front. But he would not fall. He would not die. He slumped to his knees and imploringly stretched out his hands to Jenkins. His eyes were enormous in his shattered face.
“Christ!” That was the Confederate lieutenant. He shot the colored soldier in the side of his head with his revolver. The Negro didn't try to stop him-the poor bastard's last gobble before he toppled over might have been meant Thank you. The lieutenant shook his head. “I wouldn't let a dog live with a wound like that, Corporal.”
“I'm sorry, sir,” Jenkins answered; it was horrific enough to sober him, which said a great deal. “I was gonna finish the son of a bitch. I had to reload, that's all.” He was doing it as he spoke. He forgot-or maybe he chose not to remember-that he'd bayoneted the white Tennessean after his bullet didn't finish the man right away.
“Well…let it go,” the lieutenant said. “Stinking bluebellies didn't give up when they had the chance. Now they're going to pay for it.”
“Oh, hell, yes.” There Jack Jenkins agreed with the officer one hundred percent. He stowed his ramrod and went back to the fight.
The smoke from the New Era's stacks was only a receding stain against the northern skyline. Nathan Bedford Forrest smiled a slow smile, the smile of a big cat that has fed well. The Federals inside Fort Pillow had surely counted on the gunboat's firepower to save their bacon for them. There had to be a great wailing and gnashing of teeth among them now, for they'd leaned on a reed that broke and pierced their hand.
Gunboats were wonderful-where the Mississippi was wide, and where they could shell soldiers who couldn't answer back with rifle muskets. If a gunboat came close enough to fire canister, though, good shots could put enough minnies through the gunports to remind them that the fight had two sides. Sailors didn't like being forced to remember that.
Now the New Era was gone, and Fort Pillow was gone, and nothing remained but the aftermath Forrest foresaw as soon as the U.S. commander refused to lower his flag. War means fighting, and fighting means killing, he thought with somber satisfaction. Quite a few generals on both sides shied away from that simple, brutal truth. He didn't. He never had. You did what you needed to do.
And now his men were… doing what they needed to do. He was abstractly sorry they were, but knew better than to try to stop them. Nothing so corroded an officer's authority as giving orders no one heeded. If he tried to stop the soldiers from paying back the Federals, they wouldn't listen to him. And so he hung back from the fighting, where usually he led the charge.
Some of the Federals were able to surrender. Grinning troopers herded white soldiers along-and some blacks as well. When the prisoners didn't move fast enough to suit them, a prod with the bayonet worked as well as spurs on a horse.
One of the soldiers in blue, a Negro, waved to Forrest. “I knows you, General,” he called. “I knows you, sure as anything.”
“Wouldn't be surprised,” Forrest answered-the black man looked familiar to him, though he couldn't put a name on the fellow. “You come through my nigger lots down in Memphis?”
“Yes, sub, I done that,” the black answered. “I done that a couple times, matter of fact.”
Bedford Forrest believed it. A slave who was sold more than once was liable, even likely, to be an uppity nigger, and one who was likely to run off and make trouble. Putting on the U.S. uniform, this one had made as much trouble as he could. Eyes narrowing in concentration, Forrest said, “I still don't recollect your name, but the last time I sold you I got… let me see… twenty-one hundred dollars for your worthless nigger carcass.” He spoke without malice; he might have described a good horse as crowbait the same way.
“That's my price, all right. “ The Negro's voice held a certain pride, too-it was a good price, a damn good price. Then the man did a double take and stared at Bedford Forrest. “How you remember? How many niggers you done sold since I go through there six, seven years ago?”
“Selling niggers is my business,” Forrest said. “I better remember — I'm in trouble if I don't. I wouldn't have got such a good price for you if you didn't have good teeth-I remember that, too. They still sound?”
“Sure enough are, suh.” The colored soldier's eyes got wider yet. “Do Jesus! You mus' be some kind o' hoodoo man, you call to mind a thing like that.”
“Not me.” Bedford Forrest's smile was half reminiscent and, again, half predatory. “Like I say, I've got to remember those things. When I came to Memphis, I didn't have fifty cents in my pockets. When the war started, though, I don't know if I was the richest man there, but hell with me if I can name four who were richer. And I got that way buying and selling niggers. What do you do when you're not trying to murder your masters?”
“I's a carpenter, sub,” the black man said. By the way he said it, he was a good carpenter, too, someone who took pains with his work.
That suited Forrest fine. “All right, then,” he said. “You'll know when to use oak and when to use pine, when to use nails and when to cut mortises and tenons, what kind of shellac to use, how to match grains-all those kinds of things. That's your business, so sure you know. Well, niggers are my business.”
In spite of himself, a certain sour edge touched his voice. No matter how rich he'd grown in Memphis, some people looked down their noses at him because he was a slave trader. That didn't keep them from buying and selling with him. Oh, no. He was useful. But he wasn't welcome in some homes no matter how much money he made. Hell with' em, he thought. He'd grown up on a hardscrabble farm, and lost his father while he was still young. He'd had to be the man in his large family himself then, and he'd damn well done it. If the men who owned slaves didn't care for the men who sold them, what did that prove? Only that they were fools. It was like despising the butcher while you ate his beefsteaks.
“Your sojers damn near kill me,” the Negro said.
“That's what you get for tryin' to fight white men,” Forrest retorted. “No, suh. I knows about fightin',” the colored artilleryman said.
“They killin' lots 0' Federals tryin' to give up. Onliest reason I didn't get shot is, trooper who catched me didn't have no bullet in his gun. I was tryin' to surrender, honest to God I was.”
“Too bad.” Bedford Forrest's voice went cold and hard. “I told Major Booth I could take that stupid fort. I told him he'd pay the price if he didn't give up. He wouldn't listen. Now he is paying the price, and so are you.”
“He done paid it, sub. Major Booth, he dead-he got kilt this mornin', 'fo' noon.”
“Oh, really?” Forrest heard the surprise that got into his voice in spite of himself. The Negro nodded solemnly. “Then who led the garrison there?” the Confederate commander asked.
“Major Bradford, he been in charge o' things ever since Major Booth die.”
“Bradford? That miserable little son of a bitch?” Forrest growled; the head of the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry (US.) was not one of his favorite people, to put it mildly. The colored soldier nodded again. Forrest aimed a scarred forefinger at him like a pistol barrel. “You say Booth's been dead since before twelve o'clock?”
“Two-three hours 'fo' that, suh. Cross my heart an' hope to die.”
The Negro matched action to word.
“When we had the truce this afternoon before my men stormed the fort, every single note-every one-the Federals sent out to me had Booth's name on it,” Forrest said.
With a shrug, the
black man answered, “I don't know nothin' 'bout that, suh. I's jus' powerful glad to be alive.”
“And you'll stay alive,” Forrest promised. “You told me something I didn't know-something I needed to know, by God. I wish I would've known it sooner, that's all.” He stabbed out his index finger again. “What's your name?”
“I's Hiram Lumpkin, suh.”
Bedford Forrest laughed. “To hell with me if I know how I ever forgot that.” He raised his voice to a shout: “Guards! This here nigger, this Hiram Lumpkin”-he spoke the name with enormous relish-”he just did me a favor. Y' all make sure you treat him good. I hear anything happened to him, it'll happen to you, too, only worse. You got that?”
“Yes, sir!” the Confederates chorused. Union troops didn't faze them. Their own fierce leader? That was a different story.
The Negro in blue saluted as if Forrest were one of his own officers. “Thank you kindly, suh. This here nigger, he right grateful.”
“Go on, then,” Forrest said, and Hiram Lumpkin hurried off into captivity with joyful strides. For his part, Forrest shook his head. “So Booth was dead all along, and Bradford never let on? How about that?” He could see why Bradford kept the senior officer's death a secret. Lionel Booth was a real soldier, and had a pretty good notion of what he was doing. Bradford, on the other hand, was nothing but a lawyer with a loud mouth. Had Forrest known he was in charge at Fort Pillow, he would have pushed the attack harder. Without a doubt, the place would have fallen sooner.
And so Bradford let him think the experienced officer still held command. And it deceived him, too. Bedford Forrest slowly nodded to himself. It cost the Federals in the end. When Forrest demanded a surrender, he was sure Major Booth would have given him one. Booth was no fool. He could see what was what, and he could see the writing on the wall. Bradford pinned his hopes on the New Era-and got them pinned back when she sailed away.
Fort Pillow Page 18
