Fort Pillow

by Harry Turtledove

  You ought to know. Bill Bradford didn't have the nerve to say it out loud, but he would have taken his oath it was true. Did Forrest order his men to slaughter the Federal garrison once they got inside Fort Pillow? Up until this moment, Bradford had thought so. Now he didn't. The Confederate general sounded too much like a man who knew exactly what he was talking about. He'd… How did he put it? He'd looked the other way and turned his troopers loose.

  And his hands stayed clean, or clean enough, and the Rebs did what they wanted to do anyway. And if the troopers from Bradford's regiment and the colored artillerymen who fought alongside them suffered-Bedford Forrest didn't care.

  “See to this fellow,” Forrest told the lieutenant, who saluted. Forrest walked off, his longs strides taking him away in a hurry.

  The lieutenant scowled at the trooper who'd been watching over Bradford. “What's your name, soldier?” the officer asked.

  “Ward, sir. I'm Matt Ward.”

  “Well, all right, Ward. You heard General Forrest-we've got to keep this bastard alive.” With Forrest out of earshot, he sounded downright disgusted. He went on, “We'll let him stick this other son of a bitch in the ground, since he's so damn hot to do it. And then we'll take him along with us. But I'll tell you something else.”

  “Yes, sir?” Ward sounded as uninterested as a Federal private would have. You want to run your jaws, he might have been saying. Say what you've got to say and leave me alone.

  “If he gets out of line — if he gets even a little bit out of line — you shoot him in the belly,” Forrest's staff officer said. “In the belly, you hear? He shouldn't just die. Let him die slow, and hurt while he's doing it. You hear me?”

  “Yes, sir,” Ward said. “I'll take care of it, sir.”

  The lieutenant scowled at Bradford. “Do you hear me, you goddamned son of a bitch?”

  “I hear you, Lieutenant,” Bradford answered, as coldly as he dared. “I have given Colonel McCulloch my parole. And do you recollect General Forrest talking about the laws of war? Deliberately abusing a prisoner goes dead against every one of them.”

  “Bradford, if it wasn't for Colonel McCulloch and General Forrest, we'd roast you and smoke you over a slow fire till we came up with something to really make you suffer,” the Confederate officer said. “So thank the high officers and your lucky stars you aren't screaming right this minute. “

  Major Bradford thanked Nathan Bedford Forrest for losing his brother. He couldn't imagine what he'd do without Theo; they'd been in each other's pockets their whole lives. Yes, the Confederate commander had lost a brother, too, but so what? Jeffrey Forrest really was just a Reb, after all.

  And Bradford thanked Bedford Forrest for the loss of Fort Pillow. With the fort, he'd lost any prayer of advancing his own military career, even if he got exchanged. Who would give a fort to a man who'd proved he couldn't hold one? Nobody. And the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry (U.S.) was a ruin. All the men at Fort Pillow were either dead or captured. The rest… The rest would probably elect a new commanding officer as soon as they found out what had happened here.

  Two Negroes came up, shovels on their shoulders like Spring?1elds. Forrest's staff officer scowled at them. “Damn coons got no business wearing uniforms and pretending to be soldiers,” he muttered.

  “They didn't pretend. They fought.” To annoy the Confederate, Bradford concealed his own amazement that the colored artillerymen could do any such thing. One of them looked ready to go on fighting, too, restrained only by the presence of enemy soldiers in overwhelming numbers. The other black was a beaten man, but so were a lot of whites from the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry.

  “I want to know what you think, I'll ask you,” the C.S. lieutenant snapped. He turned to the Negroes. “Dig a hole, and we'll throw the dead Bradford in it. You want to dig a big hole so we can throw both Bradfords in, that's fine by me.”

  Neither black man rose to the bait. The one who still looked to have fight in him said, “Jus' the two of us diggin', we ain't gonna be done by sundown.”

  “Then keep digging till you are, damn you,” the Confederate said. “You need 'em, we'll have torches up so you can do the job right. General Forrest said we have to do this, so we will.” When he spoke of Forrest, he might have been quoting the Gospel.

  The Negroes began to dig. Forrest's staff officer watched them for a while. Then, seeming satisfied they wouldn't slack off when his back was turned, he went away to do something else. A few minutes later, he showed up out of the blue to make sure they were still working hard. Bill Bradford nodded to himself. Sure as hell, the lieutenant was used to getting labor out of slaves.

  As for Bradford… He watched the grave deepen. He watched the sun sink toward the horizon. And, parole or no parole, he watched for his chance.

  Corporal Jack Jenkins looked at his rifle musket with a strange mixture of pride and revulsion. He'd never done more killing with the weapon, but it would be a bastard to clean. Not only was the bayonet bloody all the way to the hilt, but the stock was a mess of blood and brains and hair stuck on as if with glue. He'd used it to beat wounded Federals to death so he wouldn't have to waste more ammunition on them.

  “Look,” he said now. “I've been smashing up niggers and Tennessee Tories.” He held up the rifle musket. Some of the strands of hair clinging to the stock were long and blond and straight, others black and tightly curled.

  “That's about enough, Corporal,” said a captain he barely knew.

  “You can hear they aren't shooting people up top anymore.”

  “I wasn't shooting 'em down here anymore, neither, sir,” Jenkins said reasonably. “I was just breaking their goddamn heads.” He displayed the rifle musket again to prove his point.

  For some reason, the gore-clotted weapon didn't seem to please the officer. He turned away, muttering to himself. After a moment, he made himself turn back. “Just don't kill any more Union troops,” he said. “That's an order.”

  “Not unless they try and give me trouble, sir.” Like any soldier who'd served for more than a few days, Jenkins knew how to get what he wanted and seem obedient at the same time.

  “Oh, no, you don't.” Like any man who'd been an officer for more than a few days, the captain knew when he was hearing disobedience in a compliant mask. “If one of these bastards tries to kill you, you can punch his ticket for him. To kill you, you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jenkins said sulkily.

  “All right. Otherwise, you can lift their wallets and clothes, but otherwise leave 'em be,” the captain said. “You understand that?” “Yes, sir.” Jenkins sounded even more reluctant this time.

  He had reason to sound reluctant, too. The Federals alive and unwounded were cringingly anxious to stay that way; what odds that one of them would have the nerve to try to kill anybody? They reminded Jenkins of nothing so much as beaten dogs, rolling over on their backs and baring their throats and whimpering to keep from getting beaten some more.

  Even robbing them wasn't much sport now. Almost all of them were barefoot; the ones who still wore shoes didn't wear any that were worth stealing. Jenkins wouldn't have thought Yankees could have shoes as ragged as any that belonged to one of Forrest's troopers, but he would have been wrong.

  The same went for their trousers. The whites and Negroes who still wore them were welcome to what they had on.

  I can have fun with 'em, Jenkins thought. That goddamn captain didn't say I couldn't. He strode up to a white man. “You a homemade Yankee?” he demanded.

  Before the Federal trooper answered, his eyes flicked to Jenkins's fearsome rifle musket. If he'd thought about defiance, one look changed his mind. He nodded. “Reckon I am.”

  “You a dirty, stinking Yankee son of a bitch?” Jenkins demanded. The captive stood mute. Jenkins knocked him down and kicked him in the ribs-probably not hard enough to break any, but you never could tell. Standing over him, breathing hard, Jenkins growled, “You a dirty, stinking Yankee son of a bitch?”


  “Reckon I am,” the prisoner choked out.

  “Say it out loud.” Jenkins kicked him again, harder this time. “Say it out loud, God damn you, or you'll be sorry. I'll make you sorry, you hear?” He kicked the white man hard enough to make pain shoot up his own leg.

  “I'm a dirty, stinking Yankee son of a bitch!” the man bawled, plainly as loud as he could. It didn't fully please Jenkins, but it would have to do. He gave the fellow one more boot to remember him by, then moved on to the next closest prisoner, a Negro.

  “How about you, Rastus?” he asked, hefting the rifle musket. “You heard that other fella, so what do you reckon you are?”

  The black man sang out with no hesitation at all: “I's a dirty, stinkin', Yankee son of a bitch!”

  Jenkins knocked him down, too, and kicked him hard enough to make what he'd given the Tennessee Tory seem like a love pat by comparison. “Reckon you can get off easy, do you? Nobody gets off easy today, boy. What you are is, you're a lousy, shit-eating nigger dog. Now let me hear you say that, Cuffy, or else the Devil'll roast you even blacker'n you are already.”

  “I's a lousy, shit-eatin' nigger dog!” the Negro said.

  “Louder!” Jenkins kicked him again. This time, the Negro shouted it, tears running down his face. He still wore blue wool trousers. “Turn out your trousers,” Jenkins told him.

  “I ain't got nothin' — Oof!” The black broke off with a grunt of pain, for Jenkins kicked him yet again.

  “Turn 'em out, boy! You reckon you don't got to do what a white man says any more? You better think twice. You used to be a slave?” Jenkins asked. The colored soldier hesitated, no doubt trying to decide whether a lie or the truth would do him more good. “Answer me, you fucking nigger piece of shit!” Jenkins kicked the Negro hard enough to make him groan and clutch at his ribs. No, the captain hadn't said a word about shoe-leather. “Answer me!”

  “Yes, suh! I was a slave! Do Jesus, don't kick me no mo'!” “Well, boy, if you was a slave, you know how you're suppose to act 'mongst your betters. I tell you to turn out them pockets one more time, by God, it'll be the last thing you ever hear. You reckon I'm funnin' you? You can find out-you bet you can.”

  The Negro decided not to take the chance, which proved he wasn't so dumb after all. Out came a grimy handkerchief, some greenbacks… and a shiny gold eagle.

  “Ain't got nothin', huh?” Jenkins scooped up the money the way a redtail flew off with a chick wandering around the farmyard. The ten dollar goldpiece went deep into his own pocket. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen a gold coin. Even silver was in desperately short supply in the cash-strapped South. Federal greenbacks passed for hard money these days, though even they sold at a discount against specie. As for the banknotes Southern banks issued… They were like weevily hardtack. You held your nose, you closed your eyes, and you went ahead and used them. “Got any more?” Jenkins barked.

  “So help me, that's it,” the Negro wheezed, hand pressed against his ribs again.

  “Last chance, coon,” Jack Jenkins said. “I'm gonna search you. If I find more, you go straight into the goddamn river.”

  “Ain't got nothin',” the colored artilleryman said. Jenkins patted every pocket he had, felt his chest to see if he was hiding a bag around his neck, even took off his socks and threw them away. He didn't find anything. Either the Negro was telling the truth or he had a devil of a good place to stash stuff.

  Corporal Jenkins kicked him once more, almost for good luck. “That's what you get for lyin' to me the first time,” he said, and went off to see if he could find another Federal who hadn't been properly frisked. Ten dollars in gold! You could buy a hell of a lot of Confederate paper money for ten dollars in gold. Or you could buy a hell of a lot of things-if anybody in these parts had them to sell.

  The sun was going down. Mack Leaming watched it sink with indifference marred by pain and bitterness. The sun is setting on me, he thought. If he didn't get someone to help him, if he had to lie on this cold, wet, miserable slope till morning, he feared he wouldn't see the next sunrise.

  He'd done everything he knew how to do. Several Confederates went past him, skipping goat-like down the side of the bluff and slogging back up from the riverside. He called out to them-and they paid him no heed.

  He even raised his arms in the three motions to shape the Grand Hailing Sign of Distress, but either none of Bedford Forrest's followers was a Freemason or Confederate Masons were a cold-blooded lot indeed, their hearts hardened against their Union brethren. He would rather have believed the former than the latter; Freemasonry was supposed to transcend national allegiances. But regardless of whether the truth lay in ignorance or in malice, it seemed all too likely to kill him.

  Leaming must have dozed-or passed out-for a little while.

  When he returned to himself again, the sun had dropped closer to the Mississippi and the trees beyond it. He had to look at his arms to see if they still shaped the Grand Hailing Sign. They did, not that it seemed likely to matter.

  Someone in boots came down the slope. Leaming didn't bother to turn his head at the sound. But, where so many Confederates passed on the other side like the priest and the Levite in the Book of Luke, this man stopped. Mack Leaming looked up at him. He wore the two bars of a first lieutenant on either side of his collar. Was he, could he be, a Samaritan in this hour of need?

  The Confederate officer studied Leaming as he lay there on the ground. After a pause that had to last more than a minute, the Reb coughed a couple of times and asked, “Are you by any chance a… traveling man, sir?”

  Hope flowered in the wounded Federal. That was a question a Freemason might ask a stranger to see if he too belonged to the order. Careless of the pain, Leaming nodded. When he first tried to speak, only a dusty croak passed his lips. He tried again, gathering his feeble reserves of strength. “I travel.. from West to East,” he got out-the East was the direction from which enlightenment came.

  “I thought so,” the C.S. lieutenant breathed. “A man does not shape the Grand Hailing Sign by accident. No doubt our forebears chose it for just that reason.” He knelt by Leaming. “Well, brother, I will do what I can for you. Where are you hit?”

  “Below the shoulder blade,” Leaming answered. “I was shot from the top of the bluff, so the minnie went down…” He had to gather himself again before asking, “Could I have some water, please?”

  “Of course,” the Confederate said, where all his comrades told Leaming no or pretended not to hear him. The man undid the tin canteen at his belt and held it to Leaming's mouth. It was captured U.S. issue, with a pewter spout. Never had Leaming tasted anything more delicious than the warm, rather stale water that ran so sweetly down his throat.

  “Thank you,” he said when the enemy officer took the canteen away. He could hear how much more like himself he sounded with a wet whistle. “From the bottom of my heart, friend, thank you. You are the good Samaritan come again.”

  “I doubt it. I doubt it very much,” the Reb said. “When we attacked this place, I wanted to see every man jack in it lying dead at my feet.”

  “You've got most of what you wanted,” Leaming said. Prisoners were still carrying bodies off the slope and away from the riverside.

  “With the force we had and the positions we soon gained, y' all were mad to try to resist us,” the C.S. lieutenant told him. Bedford Forrest had said the same thing when Major Bradford refused to surrender. As things turned out, the Confederate general had a better notion of what was what than his Federal opponent.

  “We might have held you out in spite of everything if you hadn't moved men forward while the flag of truce was flying,” Leaming said.

  “We brought them up to warn off the steamer, not to move against the fort,” the Confederate lieutenant said sharply. “You could have protested at the time if you thought we were doing anything underhanded, but you never said a word.” Leaming bit his lip, for that was true. He wondered if the Reb's anger would drive him away, but
it didn't. The Confederate went on, “Let's get you taken care of, if we can.“

  He straightened up from beside Leaming and shouted. Two colored soldiers hurried over to him. Both were barefoot; one wore only his drawers and undershirt. “What you need, suh?” they asked together. They spoke to the Reb as respectfully as if to a U.S. officer. Maybe they treated him like a master. Maybe they were just afraid he would order them killed if they got out of line even a little-and maybe they were right to be afraid that way.

  The lieutenant pointed to Leaming. “Take him up to the top of the bluff. Be as gentle as you can-he's got a nasty wound.”

  “Yes, suh. We do dat.” Again, the Negroes spoke together. One grabbed Mack Leaming's legs, the other the upper part of his body.

  He groaned when they lifted him, not because they were harsh but because he couldn't help himself.

  Up the steep slope he went. He groaned whenever a Negro's foot came down on the ground. He knew the blacks weren't trying to be cruel-on the contrary, in fact. But the slightest jolt made the long track the Mini? ball tore through his body cry out in torment. Tears ran down his cheeks. He bit the inside of his lower lip till he tasted blood.

  “Here you is, suh. We lay you down on the ground now,” said the black who had him by the shoulders. Leaming yelped like a dog hit by a wagon wheel when they did. After lying still for a moment, he sighed. He still hurt, but with a steady ache, not the sudden, fiery jolts he'd known when they were moving him.

  “Do you want some more water?” the Confederate lieutenant asked.

  “Oh, please,” Leaming said.

  “All right. I'm going to lift your head up a little so you can drink easier.” Leaming gasped when the Reb did that, but he couldn't deny it helped: not nearly so much water dribbled down the side of his face. And the smoothest whiskey in the world couldn't have done a better job of reviving him than that plain, ordinary water-so he thought, anyhow.

  “God bless you,” he said, and held out his hand. He was not surprised when the C.S. lieutenant's grip matched his own. They smiled at each other.