Stranger in Dixie

by James Fearn

  Confederate cavalry had engaged the enemy’s advancing troops early in April and had reported that a vast column of men some fifteen miles or so long was marching up the Old Post Road towards Pleasant Hill, stretching as far back as Grand Ecore. It was estimated that a force of some thirty thousand men had been deployed to smash southern resistance once and for all. General Taylor’s Confederates, less than nine thousand in all, stood between the Yankees and the total surrender of Louisiana.

  ‘Lieutenant Francis!’ said Captain Gray, a tall, slim officer with an aquiline nose and a neatly trimmed moustache. He had assumed command of the Twenty-eighth after its reconstitution following the Vicksburg exchange. ‘Inform the men that we march tomorrow morning at dawn.’

  ‘We’ll take up position near Moss’ Plantation, East of the Natchitoches Road,’ commanded Gray. John shuddered at the thought of the proximity of the enemy. Peter Moss’ Plantation was less than two miles South of his own farm. John began to worry about the well-being of Anna and the children, if only she had taken his advice to move into town as he had suggested the other day when he was at home. John felt instinctively that the Confederates were badly outnumbered. It would take a superb strategy to repel the northern hoards with the limited forces of the South.

  There was one distinct advantage the Confederates had over the invaders, the heavily wooded terrain between Mansfield and Natchitoches. Union supply lines would be stretched very thinly increasing their vulnerability. Indeed on 6 April, as the Union army moved along the narrow road and through the ravines shaded by towering pines, intermittent rain was turning the dusty well-trodden road into a muddy track slowing up the troops and impeding the progress of the supply train. Several skirmishes involving Confederate cavalry had already taken quite a heavy toll of the footsore Federals, but there were no sources of clean freshwater to be found in that region, so General Banks was forced to keep his men on the march until they reached Ten-Mile Bayou, just a morning’s march from Mansfield.

  By this time, the Confederate forces had consolidated their positions in and around Moss’ Plantation. They rested nervously in preparation for what they knew would be for many of them a battle to the death in defence of their own family and property. No fighting man could ever have had a greater incentive than this.

  Early on the morning of the 8 April, General Taylor began moving his infantry and cavalry in formations designed to confuse his Yankee opponent. The ruse was effective because the Federal Commander concluded that Taylor was attempting to concentrate his greater force on the Confederate left flank in preparation for a flanking movement, but, in fact, Taylor had moved his cavalry to the right flank and was poised to attack the northern flank of the Union spearhead.

  Meanwhile, John and his men readied themselves for an attack on the entrenched Federals. In front of them stretched an open field, which extended five hundred yards to the South. There a wooden rail fence gave partial protection to the Yankee infantry.

  Many of the men were smoking in the tense pre-battle atmosphere as they sat in their trenches. Some were trying to write letters to their loved ones, and one was reading aloud the Lord’s prayer. Light musket fire could be heard from the South as small parties of Confederate cavalry carried out their needling skirmishes, and smoke from the Federal muskets could clearly be seen behind the palisade. Gradually, an eerie stillness settled over the field as the last of the cavalry disappeared from sight.

  Looking carefully over the top of the trench, John could just make out the blue-coated enemy troops scampering around their fortification. There is nothing like the sight of the enemy to focus one’s attention on the dangers at hand.

  ‘John!’ whispered Wlliam Cope, a fellow officer. ‘How are you feelin’?’

  ‘Terrified,’ came the frank response. ‘If it was not for my family up the road, I’d quit right now and go back to Australia.’ John could not bear the thought of defeat. The fate of female civilians at the mercy of a rampaging victorious army was too ghastly to contemplate. The image of Anna’s face kept flashing into his mind. They waited in silence. The suspense was unbearable.

  Impatient at what he thought was unnecessary delay, General Moulton rode out in front of his men, yelled the order to advance and led his brigade of Louisianians and Texans across the open field and down the hill into the ravine. The whole field erupted with puffs of smoke from the howitzers and the exploding shells. Clouds of dust rose up like fountains through the trees where the Federal infantry was positioned. Now and then, swirling mists of light blue gun smoke curled upward, and the spluttering of musketry broke through the booming of the big guns.

  Some of John’s men were felled by the whistling shot as they ran bravely towards their concealed foe. He felt sick at the sights around him, but impelled by an overwhelming desire for vengeance, he loaded and reloaded, blasting towards the now-retreating enemy line.

  Following Moulton, the inspired Confederates surged over the fence. Suddenly, John began to experience the heady exhilaration of victory. The sight of the Federal troops running towards the woods hotly pursued by his men gave him a great sense of power that would have surprised himself in pre-war days, that John Francis would ever derive satisfaction from the wanton destruction of his fellow man could never have been imagined by his family in England. What capricious tricks war plays upon the human psyche!

  When the order to charge had been given, John’s men had run recklessly towards the enemy’s cannons and muskets with menacing shouts. Yet within a few hours, the survivors of these same men would be ministering to the wounded left on the battlefield, Confederates and Yankees alike.

  Up the hill and on into the woods, they ran. Here the Twenty-eighth encountered a second line of resistance from the Union brigades. The Federal cannons blasted furiously, hurling shot and shell as thick as hail. The noise was deafening, and the smell of igniting gunpowder irritated the noses and burnt the already-parched throats of the fighters. John ran crouching as low as he could in the desperate hope of evading the deadly musket fire. Glancing through a cleared patch in the woods, he was awestruck to see the trees falling faster than a hundred men could cut them down with axes. The ground was being torn to pieces before his very eyes creating holes large enough to bury a horse. This horrific scene of devastation made John’s blood run cold, and he wondered if anyone could survive such a hail of death and destruction, for it seemed that there was no place in which to stand up or lie down without being exposed to shot and shell.

  ‘God protect me!’ he prayed instinctively. When a fighting man stares into the face of death, there is little room for atheism. His voice trembled as he whispered to himself. ‘Dear Anna, how I love you.’ The words seemed to comfort him momentarily.

  Screaming at the tops of their voices, the confederates charged up to the guns that were throwing grape and canister. The Union gunners turned and fled when they saw the ferocity and determination of their foe. Mounted upon his battle horse, General Moulton made an easy target, and with a cry of defiance, he dropped from his mount felled by a Yankee marksman. The men were shocked to see their champion fall and were seized with an avenging anger. John urged his men forward, and he was reloading his musket when a charge of enemy grapeshot struck him in the left arm. With a look of anguish, John noticed blood seeping from the wound through his uniform.

  Captain Gray immediately ordered John to get out of the firing line. He believed that it was no place for troops carrying wounds. He would usually redeploy such men to support duties, if they could manage them. ‘Lieutenant Francis!’ he ordered. ‘Take two of your men and return to Mansfield immediately. Advise the Matron at the hospital that the casualties are much greater than we figured. Warn her that we are going to need many more beds than we reckoned.’

  As John and his party departed for Mansfield, they did not mount their horses immediately but carefully picked their way through the plantation. All around him, John could hear the unf
orgettable cries and moans of wounded and dying men. Some called for water. Some murmured the names of their loved ones. ‘Harriet!’ called one. ‘Beatrice!’ cried another. ‘Oh my god!’ And in desperate hope that their comrades might return to help them, others called out the names of their regiments: ‘Fourteenth Illinois!’ ‘Twenty-eighth Louisiana!’ John realised that he was surrounded by friends and foes. Ironically, all had been reduced to the same demeaned status of casualties of war—comrades in affliction, united in death.

  Within forty minutes, John and his detachment had reached the Town Hall, which had been converted into a temporary field hospital, and delivered the Captain’s missive. The Matron seemed relieved when John advised her that he had had experience as an army nurse in an earlier campaign.

  ‘Oh, bless you, soldier!’ she cried. ‘See if you can set up the old Baptist Church as another field hospital. We’ve already taken over the Methodist and Campbellite churches and some of the storehouses. Oh, I hope we can cope!’

  Assuming command of the operation, John soon had the small building set up with twenty-five commandeered bedsteads and tables bearing piles of clean bandage materials provided by the ladies of the town, ready for the surgeons.

  The following day, the makeshift hospital was crowded with wounded men, some on beds, others lying on sheets on the floor with palliasses for pillows. The stench of rotting flesh and the noises of delirious men gave the place a macabre air. The only word to describe is was ‘gruesome’.

  Just as night was falling, one of the nurses was holding a candle in one hand while attending to a young soldier with the another. Suddenly in his delirium, the young Confederate lad knocked the candle from her hand, igniting the loose cotton used as bedding. John came running in response to her screams. Within seconds, the bed was ablaze, and the fire was spreading throughout the building, fuelled by spirit-soaked rags and flimsy cotton sheets. John’s men rushed to the scene and began to help the wounded to safety. Some of them were passed through the windows to waiting help outside. The more seriously injured were carried outside and laid carefully on the rough grass. Within ten minutes, John and his two privates had lifted twenty-eight men to safety.

  By now the dry timbers of the old building had caught fire, and the heat and acrid smoke made it almost impossible to get inside, let alone see. But the screams of the conscious wounded were fearful to listen to. So with a deep breath, John decided to make an attempt to get one more lad to safety. Covering his head with a wet towel, he inched his way along the floor across the burning timbers towards the nearest trapped soldier. Lifting him up in his arms, he noticed the blue uniform of a Union man with a dark skin. ‘Hold on, man. We’ll get you out.’

  But those were the last words that John Francis was to utter. Seconds later, the blazing oak roof beams collapsed, and all who were still inside beneath the inferno went to meet their maker, ironically in a place of worship.

  Anna had been working as a nursing aide in the Town Hall while that was happening and was busy dressing a wounded man’s arm when Moses appeared at the door. Shaking with shock, Moses called out, ‘Mrs Anna! Where are you?’ Anna looked up in surprise but knew instantly that something was wrong when Moses rushed to her and threw his great brown arms around her.

  Holding Anna comfortingly, Moses tried to console her, but nothing he said could stop the tears that rolled down her cheeks. Indeed his own eyes were red with smoke and tears.

  They laid John’s remains to rest in a little graveyard in Mansfield just a few miles from the old church where he had given his life, trying to save one of the Union men. John Francis had lost his life just a few miles from the little farm which he and Anna had created, and where his fatherless children now played, wondering why their daddy had never come home from the war.

  Hope was fading in Louisiana just as it was elsewhere in the South. Although it was almost another year before the rebels were finally crushed, pockets of defiance were still being reported as the news grew progressively worse.

  Living conditions in the north-West of the State went from bad to worse. Robberies became so prevalent that special military patrols were set up to guard the civilian population. A wave of demoralisation spread rapidly and large groups of men deserted the army, taking their arms and ammunition with them. The country was thus filled with armed deserters, and many of the loyal troops became concerned about the security of their own families.

  Anna always made sure that her house was locked and the window shutters bolted, when she retired for the night. She was aware of several break-ins in the district and was concerned for the safety of her children. Awakening early, one morning, Anna went out to the chicken coup to collect the eggs, and to her great dismay, she found that they had been stolen and two chickens were missing. This experience brought home to Anna her vulnerability in a world where law and order were breaking down. She explained to the children that it was most likely that a poor hungry soldier had taken the eggs, not wanting to disturb them at night. But she knew within her heart that there was evidence that evil lurked outside, and that her home was no longer the haven it once was.

  ‘That’s all right, Mummy,’ said Anola. ‘Soldiers can’t fight if they’re hungry.’ Little did the child realise how close the wolf had come to their own door.

  For several weeks, Anna had not been feeling well in the mornings, and it was becoming clear to her that she was probably pregnant for the fourth time. Her mind went back to the little grave at Forest Creek, but, nevertheless, she felt a real sense of joy at the thought of carrying within her John’s last contribution to the world. This baby was indeed someone special. There was great rejoicing when Moses and Molly heard the news. A quick calculation confirmed to Moses that John had not wasted his time while he was at home on leave, two weeks before the battle of Mansfield. A broad smile spread across his face as he congratulated Anna with a knowing look.

  John’s recent death had posed quite a few legal problems for Anna. One of these was the question of the legal protection of Anola and William. And now there was another to consider. Having no Father, they were required to be registered, and for two adults to be appointed as tutors. Such persons had the legal responsibility of guardianship for minors to ensure their basic education and general well-being. Jesse Godbehere, John’s employer and friend, agreed to accept this responsibility with Anna, and, as part of the discharge of his duty, Jesse agreed to review the children’s progress every few weeks.

  It was on one such occasion that Jesse and his wife, Mary, called late one afternoon. Satisfied that the children were progressing well, the Godbeheres sat down to chat with Anna.

  ‘And how are yer copin’, Anna?’ queried Jesse. ‘It must be lonely for you here by yourself.’ Anna knew that Jesse spoke out of the kindness of his heart, but was nevertheless mildly resentful at the implied assumption that she may not be coping. After all, she had run the family and the farm for several years during John’s absence at the war.

  But Anna did not show her innermost thoughts. ‘We’re doing fine, sir,’ she said confidently.

  ‘Yer, my girl. But how about you? Is there anythin’ that Mary and I can do to help?’ he persisted. Anna was grateful for his genuine concern. It was common knowledge that many war widows were experiencing hard times from creditors because of their late husbands’ property debts. Many of the soldiers had felt that people at home were not being fair to their families. They resented the grasping and tight-fisted attitudes of creditors while they were risking their lives for the Confederacy. In reality, Anna had a debt of more than $700 to her creditors, Brown and Steele. Although there had been no demands from them as yet, Anna wondered how long they would hold their hand.

  ‘Anna,’ said Mary. ‘Have you ever thought about goin’ back home to your family in Australia? Your prospects in this country ain’t too bright, you know. Many of our men have been lost in the war, and there’s no guarantee that you’d marry a
gain in this place. Whatever your decision, you can reckon on us to support you and John’s little family.’

  Mary’s concern and thoughtfulness suddenly brought everything to a head, and Anna released her pent-up emotion in a flood of bitter tears. She had borne the responsibility of the family and the farm alone for so long. When John was away at the war, Anna was the strong, supportive mother. When the farm needed managing, Anna did everything with Molly’s occasional help, ploughing the field, sowing the seed, tending the seedlings, and bringing in the harvest, such as it was. When the seasons were poor, Anna faced her creditors stoically. There was never a murmur of complaint. And here it was, at last, a tremendous catharsis, an outpouring of all the frustration, worry, and loss that she had borne over those long, lonely years. Mary enfolded Anna in her arms as she sobbed uncontrollably.

  It was a good ten minutes before Anna’s composure had been restored. Anna and William stood silently at the door, wondering why their mummy was so upset.

  ‘You are right, sir. I do need help,’ she said, swallowing her pride. Anna proceeded to explain the situation with respect to her debt and how she really had no idea how it would ever be repaid.

  ‘Ah’ll think about the situation,’ said Jesse. ‘Mary and I will come back next week and discuss the situation with you. Now take buck up, Anna. There’s an answer to every problem.’

  In the immediate post-war period, the southern States experienced an influx of northerners seeking to profit from the period of reconstruction in the South. They travelled lightly and became known as carpetbaggers because of the large colourful bags in which they carried their few possessions. Many were quite genuine in their desire to help re-establish political and economic stability, but there were some who were rogues, and Anna had been warned to be on the lookout for such people and their grand schemes.