King's Mountain

by Sharyn McCrumb

  * * *

  “Where is Ferguson?” I asked one of the Burke County men, for they had been on the side of the ridge where the major had begun his last desperate ride. This fellow, who was guarding the prisoners, pointed to the eastern end of the ridge, only a few yards beyond the camp. “Still down there near that little spring, where his men laid him out.”

  There was a score of other things to be done in the aftermath, but having come so far on account of the taunting of this arrogant man, I meant to see him in extremis, if only for a moment. I might have saved myself the trouble of asking for Ferguson’s whereabouts, for there was a steady stream of men making their way down the steep slope to stare at the corpse of the Redcoats’ commander. Even wounded men were limping down the hill to view the body; others, too badly injured to walk, were being carried to the scene by their loyal comrades. Perhaps they felt that, even if they died of their wounds, they had been rewarded by the sight of their enemy brought low through the efforts of a makeshift army.

  I edged through the crowd, the more easily done because many of the men recognized me and parted their ranks to let me through.

  Now that Major Ferguson was diminished by death, he looked as insignificant as a child, sprawled out in the weeds, his hat and his checkered hunting shirt in tatters from the weapons fire, and awash in blood. Half of Ferguson’s face sheared away by the force of the bullet that killed him, and his arms lay at twisted angles to his body—broken, both of them, either by the shots or by his fall from the horse. He had been shot eight or nine times, though, judging by the blood and the holes in his clothing.

  The men who crowded around Ferguson’s body were still angry. It did not matter to them that he had been a brave soldier, doing his duty as he saw it. I’m not sure it mattered to me, either. He had called us banditi, and threatened to burn our homes and kill our families. An honorable death in battle did not even the score in the minds of our citizen soldiers. They were busy parceling out Ferguson’s possessions—his checkered shirt, his boots. The pistol, sash, and his sword would be reserved as trophies for the commanders.

  Shelby had come down the hill to see the remains as well. He stopped a little above me on the slope, and said in the manner of one pronouncing a eulogy, “Well, Ferguson, we have burgoyned you.”

  Someone in the crowd touched my arm. “I think I’m the one that took him down, Colonel. I had a clear shot, and I aimed for his head.”

  I turned and recognized the speaker as one of my own Watauga men—Robert Young, a good soldier and a marksman to be reckoned with.

  “Very likely you did,” I murmured.

  “It was John Gilleland—I reckon you know him, Colonel, ’cause he’s from Washington County as me—well, sir, it was Gilleland that spotted Ferguson first. He yelled out, ‘There he is in the big shirt,’ and he tried to take a shot at him, but all he got from his musket was a flash in the pan, so he called for me to shoot, and I did, and I believe I brought him down, though there were half a dozen of us all taking aim at him at once. Gilleland is sorely wounded, though, I’m sorry to say.”

  “We’ll see that he’s looked after,” I said. “But you did well.”

  Robert Young flushed with pleasure. “Well, Ferguson had it coming, especially after that letter that was read to us on the trail a few days back. The one where he tells the rich planters, If you don’t stop those Backwater Men, you will be pissed upon forever.

  Half the crowd grouped around the corpse overheard Robert Young’s remark, though I’m sure someone would have remembered that phrase sooner or later.

  “Pissed upon forever!” The words became a chant and then a taunt, and as I turned and made my way back up the slope, I heard raucous laughter, and an acrid odor reached my nostrils. The men were suiting the action to the word. I did not turn back. I did not particularly want to see it happen, but I did not stop it, either. Ferguson had made me feel like a bear tied to a stake, and I thought a quick and easy death was more than he had deserved.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  October 7, 1780

  The spell of the battle was wearing off now, and I became aware of the smell of blood, and for the first time I really saw the piles of bodies I had passed before as if I had been sleepwalking. One of the dead was a young woman, shabbily dressed and sprawled out on the wet grass with an arm outstretched reaching out for something that could no longer matter now. I stopped to look down at her. She had fallen close to the baggage wagons; perhaps she had been trying to reach one for safety. She looked young—perhaps twenty—with a face unmarred, for she had been shot through the heart, and the red curls that tumbled about her face were tipped with blood. Perhaps that blaze of hair had made her a tempting target for some coldhearted marksman. The pall of death had not yet settled over her features, so that at a glance one might think that she was merely sleeping. A servant, I thought, from her ragged clothing. I wondered why the Tories had not sent her away before the fighting began, but then I realized that there had not been time. They had only minutes from the time their sentry fired the warning shot until the first of our militias began to climb the ridge. No one had spared a thought for the wretched young woman caught in their midst. She must have spent her last moments in blind terror, and because of that, I thought of my bride, bonny Kate, who had also been caught in a battle when Old Abram’s men attacked Fort Watauga four years back. I had saved her that day, but this young lass was not so fortunate, and the memories of my Kate’s peril moved me to pity.

  “We must see about burying this woman,” I called out to a passing officer.

  “That’s Ferguson’s doxy, that is,” the fellow replied, nudging the body with the toe of his boot. “I heard one of the prisoners say so. Reckon she got hit early on. Probably got caught up in all the smoke, so they couldn’t properly see her.”

  “Yes.” I hoped it was quick, and that she did not suffer.

  One of the prisoners stood up. “I’ll do it, with your permission, sir.”

  A short mousey-looking man stood looking at me, with an expression that mingled fear with sorrow. “It’s Major Ferguson I’m thinking of, but I could put her in the grave with him. He wouldn’t mind that, I reckon.”

  He wasn’t in uniform, and he didn’t look like he’d done any fighting. “Who are you?” I said.

  “Elias Powell, sir. I am—was—Ferguson’s manservant. I’d like to do this one last thing for him and bury him proper. He was a good officer.”

  I considered it. We had settled the score with Ferguson in the battle, and answered his “pissing letter” in kind, and that was an end to it. Now he could have his honor back. “All right,” I said to Powell. “See what you can do to help your wounded comrades first, but when time permits, bury the both of them. You may take some of the prisoners to help you dig the grave, and we will send a guard with you. Find something to make a shroud. We have to see to our own wounded, and then bury our dead.”

  Elias Powell nodded his thanks. He looked down at the red-haired woman crumpled at my feet. “She wasn’t a bad woman, sir,” he said. “She was just trying to live through this war, same as the rest of us.”

  “Yes. It is a great pity that the innocents must suffer as well.”

  As I started to walk away, another thought struck Elias Powell, and he called after me, “Did you happen to see the other one, sir?” I looked back and he went on, “There was another washerwoman. Virginia Paul. We called that one laying there Virginia Sal. I only wondered what became of the other one.”

  “Yes, I remember her. She came running down the ridge just as the shooting started. We asked her how we could recognize Major Ferguson, and when she told us, we let her go. If she got hold of a horse, she may be halfway to Charlotte Town by now. Or perhaps she ran into our soldiers down the road and they detained her. I wonder why the other one didn’t go with her.”

  Elias Powell shivered. “I don’t reckon any of us could follow where that one was going. But I thank you for the news, Colonel, and I’ll see to
the burying when I can.” He knelt down and scooped up the body of the young woman, and, staggering a little under its weight, he shuffled off to lay her body in the pile with the others.

  * * *

  Perhaps the young woman had not suffered but others did, and were suffering still. I could hear the feeble cries of the wounded, Whig and Tory alike, all over the plateau. They begged for water, or called out to their comrades to help them.

  A few yards away I saw a dark-haired young fellow in muddy blood-smeared clothes, kneeling beside one of the blood-soaked Tories, probing for wounds. I judged that he must be the Redcoats’ surgeon. We would have need of him. I needed him now.

  I started toward the Tory physician, but big Ben Cleveland came stumping across the field, and reached him first. Scarlet with rage, Cleveland hauled the doctor to his feet and slapped him across the face with the back of his hand. “You’re a prisoner now! You’ll treat our wounded, not yours!”

  The fellow rubbed at the mark on his cheek, but he faced Cleveland with calm resolve. “I’ll treat any man who needs me, sir.”

  I stepped in before they could quarrel further. “Pardon me, Cleveland, but I have need of this prisoner. My brother is gravely wounded. Come with me, please, Doctor.”

  Cleveland sighed. “Is it Valentine?”

  “No. My younger brother, Robert.”

  “It’ a curse, I tell you,” Cleveland declared. “I mean, think on it, Colonel Sevier. My brother Larkin was wounded on the way here. Isaac Shelby’s youngest brother was wounded this afternoon, and now you tell me that your brother is a casualty as well. Mighty like a curse, ain’t it?”

  “Mighty bad luck, anyhow. I hope they all recover quickly. May I borrow the doctor here?”

  “Take him and welcome,” said Cleveland.

  “Thank you. Doctor, come with me.”

  The Tory surgeon stood still for a moment, glaring at Cleveland, but I touched his elbow, and murmured, “Please. My brother needs help.”

  The doctor glanced at me, and nodded. “Lead the way, sir.”

  He stooped to pick up his leather bag, and then he followed me back across the plateau, hesitating every now and then when we passed a wounded man, but I gave him a look that said I would brook no diversion from the task at hand, and he made no trouble about it.

  As the doctor and I made our way toward the southwestern slope, I heard voices whooping and cheering behind me. I turned and saw that some of the men had managed to catch Ferguson’s white horse, and they were leading it over to Ben Cleveland. I suppose they meant to present it to him to make up for the one that had been shot out from under him during the battle. I was glad of this. Now we could be sure that the big man would make it home safely to Wilkes County.

  * * *

  At last we threaded our way past the fallen soldiers, and reached the edge of the hill. As we began to make our way down, the doctor’s foot slipped on a pile of wet leaves, and he nearly fell, but I braced myself against a tree and caught his arm, steadying him until he regained his balance.

  He muttered thanks, and I said, “I am Colonel Sevier, commander of the Watauga militia. What’s your name, Doctor?”

  “Johnson,” he said, scraping the mud off his boot on a fallen log. “Uzal Johnson. From New Jersey. I was commissioned by the New Jersey Volunteers before I came south.” The bitterness in his tone suggested that he regretted this decision.

  “And you have studied medicine?”

  “Yes, I qualified at King’s College in New York.” He gave me a mirthless smile. “I think I am equal to the task of treating the wounded, sir. Heaven knows I’ve had enough practice at it by now. Bullet wounds and smallpox—I’ve seen enough of them for two lifetimes of doctoring.”

  We were where my militia had fought only a few hours ago, though now it seemed to me as if a week had passed, for much had happened, and weariness was fogging my mind. A moment later I heard Valentine calling out for me, and I could see him waving from the edge of the stream among the trees at the base of the ridge. Near him, I saw our younger brother Joseph kneeling beside Robert, who sat propped against a tree, pale but conscious. Joseph had taken a dipper of water from the creek, and was dabbing at Robert’s face with a bit of cloth.

  When he saw me coming, Robert raised a hand to hail me, but then his face contorted with pain, and he let it fall again. I took the last few yards of the slope at a run, and the little Tory surgeon followed me as best he could.

  “Hello, Bob,” I said, willing myself to sound cheerful. “You never could stay out of trouble, could you?”

  He managed a faint smile. “I got hit when my back was turned. I reckon they were aiming at you, Jack, for that’s the part of me that most resembles you.”

  I laughed. “Well, now they can tell us apart both coming and going. I have brought you a surgeon, Bob. We’ll soon set you to rights.”

  While Dr. Johnson knelt beside Robert and began to study his patient, I drew Valentine and Joseph aside for a whispered discussion a few yards away. “When did he get hit?”

  “Early on, Jack,” said Joseph. “He was right close to me as we went up the slope. It was sheer bad luck. He was stooping to pick up his ramrod, and just then someone let fly with a load of buckshot, and got him in the lower back.”

  “Can you tell how bad it is?”

  Valentine shook his head. “Hard to tell. He never passed out. There’s blood, but the shot went in deep. He’s hurting, of course, but we both know that’s no sign. Sometimes flesh wounds can pain you more than mortal ones. Now that you’ve come, I reckon I’ll go look for some whiskey. We can cleanse the wound with whatever he doesn’t drink.”

  “Round up my boys when you get a chance,” I told Joseph. “It’ll soon be dark, and I want all of us together by then. We’ll be staying here tonight.”

  Joseph glanced up the hill, and I knew that he was thinking that sleep would be hard to come by on that battlefield amongst the dead and dying, but he made no comment, and merely nodded and hurried away.

  When Valentine and Joseph had gone, I got some water from the stream at the doctor’s request, and then I knelt down beside him as he probed the wound with a small, sharp instrument. Robert was paler now, but he seemed determined not to cry out. When Uzal Johnson had washed the wound, I noticed that there didn’t seem to be overmuch blood, which led me to hope that the wound wasn’t mortal.

  “How do you feel?” I said, patting my brother’s shoulder.

  “There’s a good many hurt worse,” he said, trying to turn a grimace into a smile. “At least I’m not yelling my head off.”

  The doctor looked up, as if he intended to say something, but then he thought better of it, and went back to probing the wound. The sun was low in the sky now, and there was more shadow than light in the woods. It was colder now, too, as night was setting in—not cold enough, though: the stench of spilled blood and the odor of dead bodies would soon fill the plateau with a new horror, when darkness finally hid the sight of the carnage.

  We sat there in silence for a few minutes, while the doctor concentrated on his grisly task, and in my weariness I nearly sank into sleep, despite my worries for Robert.

  At last, Uzal Johnson sat back on his heels and flung the probing tool down on his coat, which he had laid next to Robert when he began. “Well, I can’t find it!” he snapped. “I doubt I could find a cannonball in this darkness.”

  “Shall I build you a campfire?”

  He shook his head. “The pellet is in too deep. Even if I could see well enough, I think I might do more harm than good by digging around trying to get it out. We don’t want him to lose any more blood.”

  He stood up and headed for the stream to clean his hands, and I followed him, so that I could ask about Robert without his overhearing us. “How is he?”

  The doctor sighed, and, fishing a scrap of linen out of his bag, he swirled his hands in the creek water and began to wipe them. “The pellet went into his kidney, best I can tell.” I waited for him t
o tell me the implications of that, and after a moment he went on, “It’s a grave wound, but it could be worse. He has two kidneys; he can live without one of them if he has to.”

  “Yes, better to be shot there than in the head or the heart. But what of the injury itself?”

  “Time will tell. I have cleaned the wound as best I could. I can sew it up, and bandage it to keep it uninfected. After that…” He shrugged. “He has not gone into shock, which is a good sign, considering the hard few days he has had. He is young and strong. He might recover if he will stay somewhere close by and rest for a week. Two weeks would be better. Put him with a farmer hereabouts, and let them keep him in bed until the wound heals, and he should be all right.”

  From his resting place by the stream, Robert called out, “Where have Joe and Valentine gone?” he said. “I could use that whiskey they promised.”

  “They should be back soon. They’ve probably gone back to get James and the horses. Then we can see about getting you lodgings with some local Whigs. How far can he travel safely, Doctor?”

  Uzal Johnson shook his head. “Impossible to tell, Colonel. Any time spent on horseback might jog that pellet loose and do more damage. I wouldn’t go three miles if it was me.”

  Robert tried to laugh. “In my place, Doctor, I’ll wager that you would. We are half a day’s ride from Charlotte Town, and if Tarleton isn’t here now, he could be at any moment. And if the Redcoats were to find me laid up in a cabin in these parts, I reckon I wouldn’t have to worry anymore about this gunshot wound, ’cause they’d hang me before you could say Jack Robinson.”

  Johnson nodded. “You must weigh the risks, sir.”

  Robert looked up at me, and braced his arms as if to push himself to stand up, but a spasm of pain must have hit him, for he thought better of it and settled back down against the tree. “I want to go home, Jack.”

  “This man advises against it,” I said, nodding toward Uzal Johnson. “He’s a good doctor, Bob. He has been to college up in New York.”