Against All Odds

by Drew McGunn

  At the extreme left flank of the attack, from amid the men of the 21st Infantry, dozens of riflemen climbed to their feet and screamed in defiance at the rebel line as they charged. Others leapt to their feet and followed. Charlie raised his binoculars and found the men who were leading the vanguard toward the enemy trenches. He stopped breathing as he caught sight of their ebon skin. “Oh, dear God, no!”

  The Negro soldiers that Colonel Montoya had recruited, to a man, were charging across the last hundred yards, their bayonet-tipped rifles pointing toward the trenches before them. Charlie peered through the smoke and saw hundreds of men crammed into the rebel trenches. Even though to Charlie’s bird’s eye view, they didn’t appear bigger than ants, the near constant flashes left little doubt about their ability to return fire despite the withering attack from the Texian riflemen.

  He strained to watch through the binoculars as tears streamed from his eyes. The Negro soldiers slogged through the hail of bullets as dozens fell, wounded or dead. By the time they were within fifty yards of the rebel trenches, the few who remained standing looked behind them and saw the pockmarked ground littered with the bodies of their fellow soldiers.

  Charlie wiped away the tears as he watched what remained of the two battalions slowly retreat.

  ***

  Mid-October 1852

  The bodies were bloated, buttons on their blue jackets pulling against the buttonholes. They swung from ropes slung over a branch on a tall tree, a silent message. Jimmy swallowed bile as he sat atop his horse a few feet away from Colonel Brown and the commander of the Missouri regiment, Franz Sigel.

  The men closest to the hanging bodies grumbled. Jimmy Hickok overheard one soldier mutter, “We burn their plantations and kill their slavers, and they kill any of ours they capture. God in heaven, but this is getting ugly.”

  Jimmy turned and looked at Colonel Brown. If the commander had heard the grumbling, he ignored it. What he couldn’t ignore was Colonel Sigel. “Mein Gott, Colonel,” the German-born officer swore. “This killing every man who you think owns slaves has got to stop. It’s madness.”

  Brown scowled back. “These slave masters have sown the wind; it is only fitting they reap the whirlwind.”

  Sigel’s head shook violently. “This Forrest fellow has taken to killing those of our men he captures because of this. Those men hanging there are dead because of you.”

  Brown’s frown deepened. “Forrest will stand before his maker and answer for his crimes against this army of liberation, Colonel, just as those men who grew fat and lazy on the whip-scarred backs of the Negro now stand before Almighty God to answer for their crimes.”

  Jimmy’s heart sank as he listened. He’d seen some of the men Brown had ordered to their deaths. The land in Western Arkansas was hard. He’d not seen any fat or lazy men thereabouts. But the youth understood Brown’s position. When the campaign had begun, the notion of sending the kind of men to hell who’d killed his father had seemed only just. But the longer the campaign lasted, the sicker he became of back and forth killing.

  Sigel snapped, “Be careful, Colonel, unless your telegraph wires run directly to the Almighty, you may want to let him do the judging. This—”

  Gunshots broke the silence. Jimmy involuntarily ducked as the two regimental commanders turned and looked to where the shot came from. Cries echoed among the trees as bullets found soft targets. A shrieking, keening sound rose from where the gunshots had come. Dread rose within his gut as Jimmy crouched low in the saddle, gripping his revolver in one hand and reins in the other. A gray haze settled over the ground as the men around him returned fire.

  Jimmy couldn’t see anything except trees and gun smoke beyond the swinging bodies, but not being able to see didn’t mean death couldn’t reach out and strike him down. A bullet zipped by his ear and he leaned forward, alongside his mount’s neck. He fired into the unknown, once, twice and a third time before the hammer snapped down onto an empty chamber. He swore and grabbed a second cylinder. As he tried to break open the Colt revolver, the loaded cylinder slipped through his fingers, bounced off the saddle horn before disappearing into the leaves covering the ground.

  “Shit,” he swore as gray-clad riders emerged through the smoke. He, like most of the men in the 1st New York, was low on ammunition. Despite carrying ample supplies when the column had headed south from the railhead in St. Joseph, Missouri, the regiment had burned through most of it clashing with Forrest’s cavalry the past couple of months.

  He cast a glance around. Brown had moved away, his voice thundering above the crash of gunfire, “Send the heretics to Hell, boys! Reload and fire again.”

  After casting a final glance for the lost cylinder, Jimmy nudged his mount over to where the Colonel rallied his men, where some of them had dismounted and were firing at the advancing Southerners. He drew up a few feet away, praying no bullet would find him. If the colonel needed him, he wanted to be close at hand.

  The rising din of gunfire and mounted men advancing through the swirling mist of smoke added to the confusion. A soldier, still atop his horse, lurched to one side and slid off his mount near Jimmy. It’s time to get the hell out of here. No matter how he felt, though, he was compelled to stay by the Colonel.

  Brown’s horse stumbled as several bullets struck the beast. As the animal crashed to the ground, word spread quickly that the colonel was down. Morale crumbled and Jimmy watched in shock as most of the men around him ran away from the advancing Southerners.

  The youth had watched the colonel’s horse fall. Brown rolled away from the dying animal as his men turned to run. Finding himself alone, Jimmy wheeled his horse around and came alongside the prone colonel.

  Brown blinked a few times as he struggled to sit. “Bless you, boy. Help me up. Those sons of perdition would hasten the day of our judgment I fear.”

  Jimmy shimmied down and grabbed Brown’s arm, helped him into the saddle, and hoisted himself behind his commander as Brown dug his heels into the mount’s side.

  They hadn’t gone far, when one of the men from the 3rd Missouri called out in German, “Texanische Dragoner!”

  Moments later, a column of men appeared, racing through the dispirited Yankees. At the head of the column, someone carried the lone star flag. Jimmy’s mouth sagged as he watched them spread out as they galloped through. Each man wore a brace of revolvers at his waist, and a bowie knife stuck in his belt. Their lack of uniforms only added to the air of menace surrounding them.

  Jimmy turned, watching them spread out as they swerved around trees and jumped fallen logs. Then gunfire started anew. He could imagine the Texians emptying their pistols into the advancing Southerners. Whatever happened, happened quick. Only minutes passed before the Texians cantered back to where Brown’s little army rested. One man, larger than most of the rest, guided his horse through the 1st New York’s exhausted troopers until he let his reins fall on his saddle horn and stare down at Colonel Brown, where he was catching his breath.

  Jimmy’s eyes were drawn to the shiny silver star pinned to his brown hunting jacket. The Ranger drawled, “You’d be Colonel John Brown?”

  Brown gave a curt nod. “By the grace of God, I am.”

  The big-boned Texian allowed a sigh to escape his lips. “I’m Colonel Bill Wallace, these boys I’ve brought with me are from the Frontier Battalion. And you, sir, are under arrest for murder.”

  Chapter 13

  25 November 1852

  Horace Greeley adjusted the cloth wick on the oil lamp as he set his pen down and picked up the sheet of paper. He shook his head; writing shouldn’t be this hard. But seldom before had the presidential elections been as contentious. Still, the system had worked. By the time the states had counted all their ballots and determined who won their respective electors, a victor clinched a majority of electoral votes – barely.

  Three weeks have elapsed since Columbia’s men, from the sandy Florida beaches to the crowded tenements on Manhattan Island, turned out to perform their
civic duty. What should have been a stately quadrennial election turned into an electoral brawl.

  The twenty-eight states of the Union are apportioned 283 electors, from their 56 senators and 227 representatives. To win, a candidate needed to claim 142 electors. In a four-way race, even the newspaper of record feared no candidate would do so, forcing the divided House of Representatives to sequester themselves until a victor could be named. Providence favored our great nation, and we avoided that calamity.

  As earlier reported, the Democratic Party splintered into regional factions. The northern branch rallied around Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois while the southern faction coalesced around Senator Jefferson Davis of Alabama. The Southern Democrats captured the electors of nine states. They are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee. While they won more than two-thirds of the popular vote in Alabama, they barely mustered 42% of the vote in Kentucky. No doubt had South Carolina allowed a popular vote, Senator Davis would likely have bested his performance in Alabama. In all, the Southern Democrats won 71 electors.

  Southern Whigs, under the tattered banner of former Congressman John Tyler, carried four states with 42 electors. They are Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, and Virginia. Only in North Carolina was Tyler able to take more than 50%. His lowest margin of victory came in Missouri, where he carried 42% of the electorate.

  The Northern Democrats, under Senator Stephen Douglas, convinced one in three voters across our great nation to cast their ballot for the Illinois senator. Despite collecting so many votes, the Senator only carried five states’ 27 electors. He won the popular vote in Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Rhode Island, and Vermont. He took Delaware’s 3 electors with only 33% of the vote, the lowest margin of victory by any presidential candidate. The senator even failed to claim 50% of the vote in his home state of Illinois.

  Having survived a last-minute effort by Millard Fillmore’s supporters to steal the nomination, Senator William Seward of New York emerged as the candidate carrying the banner of the National Whig Party. Senator Seward won the barest plurality of the popular vote. Of more than three million votes cast, the senator collected less than 38%. He carried Connecticut, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Of the states he won, he carried a majority of the vote in 7 states, the strongest performance of any candidate. He clinched 143 electors and the presidency.

  By winning the electoral college outright, President-Elect Seward thwarted Southern Democrats’ attempt to deny the Whig’s a majority of the electors. Had they succeeded, the election would have been decided by the House of Representatives. With 14 free and 14 slave states, each having but one vote in the House, it is likely they could have denied the Presidency to Senator Seward.

  Greeley dipped the nib into the inkwell and corrected a word as he smiled at what he wrote. The past few weeks had been nerve-wracking as the nation had waited for each state to release their results and announce their electors. South Carolina had been the first to announce. When the only votes to be counted are those in the state legislature, it’s easy to know the results almost immediately. Michigan and Florida were the last to report. The telegraph lines that carried the results across most of the country barely penetrated parts of those two states. Until Michigan reported, nobody knew if Seward would get to one hundred forty-two electors.

  He frowned as he continued proofing his article.

  We only learned a week ago which way Michigan would go. By a mere 9,000 vote margin in Michigan, Senator Seward became President-elect Seward. Of over three million votes cast, a mere 9,000 kept the House of Representatives from deciding the election. Southern Democrats, unhappy with those 9,000 men from the west, have determined the election was not legitimate, for reasons they alone understand.

  These Southern Democrats will meet at Christmastime in New Orleans to discuss their response to the election. Like the South Carolinians fifteen years ago who railed against the tariff and threatened secession when President Jackson sat in the Executive Mansion, the Democrats in the South closely tied to the Southern Cross movement are now calling for secession and annexation of Texas in the same breath. The newspaper of record is hard pressed to explain to readers how these radicals demand that the federal government annex an independent nation that wants no part of annexation while calling for their own secession. It’s hard to fathom that we are part and parcel of the same nation as such lunatics. If they have their way, we may not be for long.

  ***

  24 December 1852

  Colonel Justin Lamont tipped his hat to the throng of women carolers singing Joy to the World, as he hurried by. New Orleans was decorated for Christmas, and people streamed in and out of storefronts to buy last-minute gifts.

  The building he hurried toward was on the corner of Charles and St. Louis streets. The City Hotel & Exchange was the largest hotel in the historic French Quarter. Before passing through the ornate double doors, he checked his reflection in the glass windows. He ran his hand over his new gray frockcoat. The months on the Texas front had left his uniforms from South Carolina threadbare and stained. He was glad to be away from the Sabine salient, where the rebels from Texas and their Southern allies remained, waiting for the South’s response to the recent presidential election.

  He’d still be there, save for the fact that he was one of a dozen South Carolinians appointed by the legislature to represent the Palmetto State’s interests at the convention now underway in the Exchange’s large hall. At other times, the Exchange was a favorite place for public events, like slave auctions. But today, several hundred men convened there to decide the fate of the South.

  When he came through the doors, he heard a familiar voice, “Merry Christmas, Colonel Lamont. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  When he turned, Lamont saw G.T. Beauregard coming toward him. “General, a pleasure. I am but of servant of South Carolina. When she calls, I must answer.”

  Beauregard returned his salute. “As must we all, Colonel. I’ve just returned from South Carolina where I’ve been working with your own Governor Means to establish schools of the soldier, to train more volunteers.”

  Lamont smiled at the news. “Given what may be coming, more soldiers will be necessary. I hope, though, that you’ll dispense with the tactics with which my own men were trained. Massed musket fire has proved completely ineffectual in dealing with Johnston’s army.”

  “I’ve reached the same conclusion. I’ve been in correspondence with General Hardee, and he’s in agreement. We’ve thrown out Winfield Scott’s manual and are devising our own.” Beauregard paused, eying Lamont, as though taking his measure. “As a matter of fact, we’re taking Travis’ training manual for the army of Texas and are modifying it.”

  Lamont repressed the rage he felt whenever he heard William Travis’ name. South Carolina’s interests were a distant second to his desire to see Travis’ pay for his game leg and the attack on his plantation nearly a decade earlier.

  Beauregard said, “I’ve read that General Hardee has changed our strategy in Texas.”

  “You could say so,” Lamont conceded, forgetting his anger at Travis, for the moment. “I had thought he was wrong to give up Beaumont to the abolitionists, but General Johnston could have flanked us as soon as more of their army was mobilized. Crossing the Neches River ain’t that difficult the further north you go. You read about Johnston’s failed effort a few months ago? It cost him several hundred casualties for nothing. Our position on the Texas side of the Sabine is so strong, and there’s no way for him to flank us, not without invading the United States.”

  Beauregard shrugged, “Perhaps. But this convention will decide if it’s the United States that General Johnston would be invading. Before long, things could become very different.”

  A few days later, Lamont stood against the outer wall of the domed Exchange as the men in the crowded hall waited to for the final vote to be tak
en. The debate had been rancorous and fractious. Delegates from Kentucky and Maryland left the previous day when it became clear they were not going to moderate the Convention’s goals.

  From a platform in the center of the hall, where auctioneers usually conducted slave auctions, the president of the Convention, Lt. Governor Joshua Ward of South Carolina leaned on a cane as he spoke, “Before we vote, I’ll summarize the articles upon which we’ll vote and which each delegate has received.

  “The Convention of States assembled in New Orleans on December twenty-fourth, in the year of our Lord, eighteen hundred and fifty-two has been charged to determine the best way forward in the aftermath of the November election after the avowed abolitionist William Seward won the election with only the support of ten of the twenty-eight states.

  “Seward campaigned on not letting any new states into the Union unless they were free. The balance of our nation has, since its very inception been a balance between slave and free. By declaring he’ll countenance no new slave states, Seward has avowed the South to be an unloved and junior partner in our republic. We have been marginalized in the House of Representatives for a generation now, and under Seward, we’ll be marginalized in the Senate, as well.

  “Our way of life, the very fiber of our existence is found in our peculiar institution. As of the last enumeration, the total value to our nation’s economy of Southern slaves is more than fifteen-hundred million dollars. That is nearly equal to that of all the northern states combined, although, in the North, it is collected most heavily among the industrialists of New York and Philadelphia.”

  Lamont found himself nodding in agreement. He had no notion about where industrialists in the North were congregating, but that their interests and his were at odds was indisputable, as far as he was concerned.

  Ward continued, “Seward and his cohorts would doom us to penury and poverty. Despite their many protestations to the contrary, they’d as soon see the Negro our equal than to share power with us any longer. We must stand united against the depredations of the North. To that end, the convention will vote upon articles of secession, to be submitted before each Southern State’s duly elected legislature. Upon ratification of the seventh state, those ratifying states will constitute a new alliance of states and shall meet again here in New Orleans to organize a new national government to secure our shared and common interests.”