Against All Odds

by Drew McGunn

  Worse, discovering the buried torpedoes had been a destructive lesson in Sidney Johnston’s deviousness. Davis watched hospital orderlies spill out of one of the remaining barges and hurry up the slope, searching for more survivors. The reports coming in from the divisional field hospitals were ghastly. Even though less than three hours had elapsed since the attack had begun, more than a thousand broken bodies of men who might yet live had been hauled back across the river. The latest reports indicated far more men were still on the other side of the river, waiting to be transported.

  The platform on which he stood shook as someone ascended the ladder. A grim face appeared, and Davis’ adjutant climbed onto the platform. “We’ve been pushed out of their second defensive line, again sir. The Tennessee Brigade managed to hold a section of the line until they were forced back.”

  Davis dreaded the answer to his unspoken question. But bad news doesn’t become more palatable by delaying the answer. The adjutant continued, “We’ll not know the number of casualties yet, but General Mercer reports that as much as a third of the brigade have been killed or wounded.”

  “Merciful God,” Davis swore. “We can ill afford losses like that. Where in the hell is Swift’s Corps? They should have already attacked.”

  The officer shrugged. “Nothing yet, sir. But he had to cut upriver twenty miles before crossing. There aren’t many roads cutting through this wilderness. But at least when they attack, there aren’t more of those damnable balloons in the sky.”

  A lone balloon hung over the battlefield, no doubt telegraphing messages to operators down below, where the intelligence was sent as fast as the electrical current could travel. Davis wondered aloud, “How much time to repair the balloon we captured at the Sabine?”

  “The holes in the silk were substantial, sir. But word from New Orleans is that our own signal corps will take it up soon. And, we’re building another just like it.”

  Davis allowed a hollow chuckle to escape his lips, “Not according to my Varina. She says we’ve commandeered every silk dress between Mobile and Savanah to make it.”

  The men atop the tower laughed at the image of Southern women giving up their prized silk dresses for the good of the Alliance. Davis continued, “Still, though, the idea that we’ll be able to put our own balloons over a battlefield and report on the comings and goings of our enemy has a certain appeal.”

  His adjutant raised a weary hand, “Perhaps, sir. But unless we’re going to unstring miles and miles of copper wiring, we don’t have enough wire to connect a bunch of telegraph machines together on a battlefield. My understanding is that General Johnston has been practicing with mobile telegraphy for several years. We’re playing catchup.”

  Davis dipped his head in acknowledgment, “True. But as long as the North doesn’t stab us in the back, we’ve got Texas outnumbered at least five to one. If, heaven forbid, we don’t destroy Johnston’s army today, we can still wear them down and force them to surrender.”

  “Yes, sir. On the other hand, with the betrayal of Kentucky, Virginia, and now apparently North Carolina we’re now outnumbered four to one. If they backstab us, we’ll be hard-pressed to stop them.”

  Davis growled, “Dismissed, Major.”

  In the distance, he heard several detonations, like artillery shells exploding. He peered across the river. For the moment, Hardee’s I Corps was hunkered down in the captured trenches near the river. While enemy artillery continued targeting Allied barges, the explosions came from farther away. Adding to the blasts was the faint rattling of gunfire.

  General Swift’s II Corps had arrived.

  ***

  Jimmy flinched as another torpedo exploded in the field in front of his position. He gripped his carbine and scanned the area to his front. From the direction of the river, gunfire echoed across the fields. To his sixteen-year-old ears, the explosions seemed to be rolling toward the 1st New York. He chanced a look to either side and gathered strength from the grim expressions worn by his fellow squad-mates.

  Beyond the field, he saw shadows moving inside the tree-line, and a moment later, horsemen broke through the foliage, charging across the farmland. The lead horse and rider were only a few paces into the fallow field when the ground beneath the horse’s hooves erupted, sending inch-round bits of shrapnel everywhere.

  Riders steered their mounts around the carnage, screaming at the top of their lungs. More mounts found the buried torpedoes, turning the middle of the field into a slaughterhouse.

  A hand smacked the back of Jimmy’s head, “Hey, Duckbill, don’t sit there with your mouth catching flies. Shoot.”

  The squad’s corporal was already moving down the line when Jimmy turned, ready to give the NCO a mouthful. The devil take him, Jimmy thought as he cocked his carbine’s hammer and fired into the milling mass of men and horses at the opposite end of the field.

  As he grabbed a paper cartridge and tore the end off with his teeth, Jimmy envied the Texians, with their breechloading rifles. Although, as he tamped the ramrod done the barrel, seating the powder and bullet in its base, he knew that some of the militia battalions were armed with the same rifled muskets carried by the Yankee volunteers.

  He braced the carbine on a fence post and watched as the horsemen retreated into the protection of the woods. Behind them, dozens of men and horses were down. Some were dead, whether from the torpedoes’ explosions or from the marksmanship of the 1st New York, he couldn’t say. More, though, cried out in pain. Worse were the screams from the horses. Charging a fixed position seemed like a terrible idea. A man, by himself, seemed a big enough target. Put him on a horse, and the target’s more than twice as big. Given a choice, Jimmy’d just as soon shoot the rider, but in the heat of battle, he didn’t like thinking about it, but he figured he’d hit a horse if it came down to him and the man on top of that horse.

  Across the acreage, a couple of gunshots ended the worst of the screaming. I don’t care a damn for those bastards, Jimmy thought, but they’ve got enough grit to put those poor beasts down.

  The sun inched a bit more into the morning sky. The fog of the early morning was but a memory when Jimmy heard what sounded like steel sliding on steel. He’d barely had time to wonder what he’d heard when soldiers broke out of the tree-line on the other side of the field. The gray jacketed soldiers had socketed bayonets onto their rifles, and they were racing across ground that last year at this time was covered in cotton plants.

  Jimmy sighted down the barrel of his carbine and fired. He ducked behind the fence and with practiced skill went through the steps reloading his gun. The cavalry hadn’t detonated all the torpedoes, and as the Allied infantry reached halfway across the field, explosions shook the ground.

  His carbine reloaded, Jimmy raised his head over the fence. Many of the soldiers were down who had started across the hundred paces of Hell between the tree line and the wooden rails behind which Jimmy sheltered. Trailing them came even more.

  Why aren’t they forming a line and firing? Jimmy puzzled, as the distance between the attacking survivors and the defenders narrowed. That’s what they’re supposed to do.

  A high-pitched caterwauling rose from the men who sprinted the last fifty paces. The sound sent a chill down Jimmy’s spine even as he raised his gun, firing at a soldier less than a hundred feet away. He threw the butt of his weapon behind his feet and tore another cartridge in half. He rammed the charge down the barrel as he spat out bitter tasting black powder.

  A bearded man with a long scar down the side of his face leapt over the fence, bayonet-tipped musket before him. Jimmy tumbled back, managing to hold onto his weapon even as he lost his balance. The bearded foe pivoted to his left and lunged, plunging his bayonet into the trooper who moments before had been next to Jimmy.

  Unbidden, tears stung Jimmy’s eyes as he fumbled for a percussion cap. As he tugged the little copper cap from its leather case, the Allied soldier used his foot to push Jimmy’s companion from the gore tipped bayonet. Cocking the
hammer back, Jimmy pressed the cap onto the nipple.

  The gray jacketed soldier, eyes wild, swung his rifle around as he saw Jimmy, prone on the ground before him. He lowered his gun, lining up the bayonet on Jimmy. The youth cocked the hammer and fired. Gritty smoke filled the space between Jimmy and his assailant. When the smoke cleared, all the young trooper saw was a pair of feet draped over the fence’s wooden railing.

  Glancing around, as he crawled back to his feet, Jimmy didn’t see anyone else from his squad. But, coming across the field were hundreds of more soldiers. He turned and ran.

  Chapter 22

  Charlie tossed one of the ballasts over the side of the balloon, causing the airship to bounce higher. While mist still lingered over the water, the ground below was clear of fog. He shook his head as he scanned the space between the waterfront and the secondary trench line. In moments of doubt, he wondered if Heaven and Hell were real places. The carnage strewn below answered half the question. If hell had a name, it was Beaumont, Texas.

  Men scoured the bank of the Neches River. When they found a survivor, they unrolled the stretcher and gently lifted the broken, injured soldier onto the canvas litter before hurrying back to one of the surviving barges.

  “How do you count all of them?” Sam wondered aloud.

  Charlie tried to blot out the image of the hundreds, perhaps even thousands of men broken on the riverbank. He turned toward where he could see and hear fighting. “Easier perhaps to count the enemy still on their feet.”

  The army’s grand battery had been pulled back. Now more than a mile separated it from the fiery remains of Beaumont and the bloody banks of the Neches. Barges, flames still licking at consumable wood, were beached where their crews had been forced to abandon them. To Charlie’s trained eye there were more watercraft damaged, out of action, than still plying across the Neches.

  “Sam, I count twenty-five barges out of action. There are still more than twenty operational. Mostly looks like they’re pulling back their wounded. If command wants coordinates, let me know.”

  Charlie tuned out the noisy clattering of the key and studied the army’s flank. The fields which once flanked the army were cluttered with broken bodies. They must have paid a butcher’s bill to collapse the army’s flank. The army’s grand artillery battery now bent in an arc, covering the flanking army’s advance.

  “Colonel Sherman’s compliments, Major,” Sam chimed, “Let him know if the enemy sends any reinforcements across the barges and provide coordinates for them.”

  Sam leaned back, rubbing his eyes, “Let them take their dead and wounded back. I can’t imagine how many they’ve lost.”

  Charlie swore and pointed at the battlefield, “Look, Sam. Our flank has failed. They’ve breached both defensive lines. The only thing holding our army here is the fact most of our battalions managed to hold their formations together when they were pushed out. But, God have mercy, we must have lost four or five thousand men.”

  Sam’s face was gray. In a quiet voice, he said, “Do we even know who won?”

  Charlie shrugged as he lifted the binoculars. The two lines of entrenchments facing the Neches River flew the Allied flag. But most who seemed to hold those positions were among those who would never rise again. He swung his binoculars and at the army’s extreme left flank, he saw a solitary lone star flag flying where the perpendicular left flank had once tied into the main line. “Wait. I see one of our flags still on the front.”

  He pulled a hand-drawn map from his jacket and looked at it. “Sam, send a message, do we still have a line to the Rangers?”

  A few minutes passed. Sam turned away from transcribing the response. “No. It’s cut.”

  Charlie fiddled with the focus on the glasses and strained to see the distant defensive position. He wondered how Jesse Running Creek had handled the attack. Was he still alive?

  On the extreme left flank, where the defensive line created an “L,” the defenders still held a narrow section. Neither the enemy attacking from the river nor those who flanked the army had broken that small section of the line.

  Gray-clad bodies were scattered all the way to the edge of the trench. But over the earthworks flew the lone star flag, defiant, like Galveston Island surviving a destructive hurricane.

  The telegraph machine clattered to life, and Sam’s pencil scratched across a piece of paper. The pencil snapped, and Sam muttered, “Oh, shit.”

  Wheeling around, Charlie looked at his operator, whose gray face had grown even more ashen. Sam blinked, as though something bothered his eyes. He choked back a sob. “General Johnston. He’s dead.”

  ***

  Dirt cascaded around his head as Major Jesse Running Creek ducked. Bullets peppered the top of the trench where his head had been an instant before.

  The nearest Allied soldiers were closer than a hundred feet away. Thinking about the carpet of bodies littering the field, he amended the thought, the nearest living Allied soldiers were closer than a hundred feet away.

  An empty box once containing ammunition was overturned. A Ranger slumped against it. As Jesse leaned in, he heard the rhythmic breathing of someone catching whatever rest he could. Another Ranger stood next to him, he had tied a shaving mirror to a bayonet and raised the mirror over the lip of the trench.

  Jesse patted him on the back, “Any movement lately?”

  The Ranger slid a glance away from the mirror, “Not since the last time. Any word on more ammunition, sir? I’ve maybe twenty rounds left.

  Jesse’s cartridge box still held a few rounds, and he pulled a handful of brass cartridges and handed them over. “Make every one count, Jim.”

  He stepped over a body as he moved down the line. It was not the first corpse he’d been forced to step over or around as he made his way down the “L” shaped perimeter. He turned the corner, continuing down the truncated line, stopping every few feet, offering a word of encouragement or leaning down to close the eyes of one of the fallen. The position which had once protected the army’s flank continued for more than a mile. But most of it had fallen to the enemy hours earlier. The Rangers’ line ended less than a hundred paces after the sharp turn. In the end, sandbags and broken boxes created a barricade. Behind it was a lone Gatling gun, facing the enemy-held trench. Jesse didn’t want to know how his Rangers had manhandled the weapon into the trench’s narrow confines.

  “Sir, are there any more ammo boxes?” one of the gunners asked.

  A sad look passed over Jesse’s face, “No. Most of our boys are down to less than twenty rounds. How much do you have?”

  The gunner held up a long, thin metal magazine, “We’ve got two of these left, and enough rounds to fill one up again.”

  Jesse did the math. A little over a hundred rounds.

  He turned away from the gun and went and found Colonel Brooks. Crouching down, Jesse said, “I don’t want to surrender. By God, we’re Rangers, and we could hold this line until the last man. But for what? The opportunity to kill a couple hundred more of those bastards? There’s less than three hundred of us still on our feet.”

  He looked down at Brooks, lifting the blanket covering the colonel’s face. The small hole over the left eye had a rivulet of dried blood that had trickled into his hairline. Mercifully, someone had closed his eyes. Brooks was beyond answering Jesse’s question. Even so, the Cherokee officer felt a sense of rightness unburdening himself to the colonel.

  His knees creaked as he stood, there was no one else to talk to. Whatever decision he’d make would be on his own. The telegraph lines had been down since shortly after the flanking attack had struck. Even now, as he looked into the sky and saw a balloon floating overhead, he wondered if it was Charlie Travis’ balloon.

  Frustrated, he slammed his fist into the brittle earth, If only there was a way to communicate.

  The morning sun was warm enough, even if it didn’t hold a candle to the summer sun, still a couple of months away. If he decided to hold out, at least the blistering summer su
n wouldn’t sap the strength of his men. He blinked away the tears and turned away. The light continued to dance in his eyes as it reflected from a dead Ranger’s belt buckle.

  An idea sprang to life. He raised his voice, “Find the telegraph operator, now!”

  A few minutes later, young Billy Vandergrift hobbled into sight. A bloody rag wrapped around his calf explained his limp. Jesse grabbed the telegraph operator by the shoulder and pointed at the balloon, “Can you use a mirror to signal that thing?”

  Despite his pained expression, Vandergrift’s face lit, “Hell, yes, Major. I’d get my own shaving mirror,” he said, as he rubbed a hand over a downy cheek, “but I left mine at home.”

  Another Ranger offered the operator a mirror, and a moment later, Vandergrift flashed a signal toward the balloon.

  Moments passed before a reflective light flashed back from the balloon.

  Jesse said, “Tell them, we’re almost out of ammunition. We need relief.”

  A few minutes passed before the balloon signaled a response. Vandergrift gasped, “Shitfire. General Johnston’s dead, sir. Colonel Sherman holds command of the front. You’re to hold. The enemy is more disorganized than we are.”

  Jesse’s shoulders sagged. Albert Sidney Johnston had been with the army since before the Comanche War. Since William Travis had resigned to run for president, Johnston has been in command of the army. Now, who would command? He shook his head, if the Rangers didn’t get relief soon, it wouldn’t matter to him.

  “Tell them, we need more ammunition, we’re nearly out.”

  Minutes elapsed as the mirror flickered the sun’s reflection. Vandergrift finally said, “The artillery can provide cover if the enemy attacks. The balloon can provide coordinates if we’re attacked again.”

  The signal hadn’t gone silent long before a banshee wail arose from the Southern soldiers in the secondary trenches who stood and raced toward the Rangers’ much-reduced line.