Fort Pillow Read online

  Sergeant Clark pulled the lanyard. The shrapnel round roared away. The gun rolled back. As Sergeant Robinson put his shoulder to the carriage to wrestle it forward again, he hoped some of the iron fragments from that round blew a white man's balls off. Let's see you come round the slave cabins with a bulge in your pants then, God damn your scrawny soul to hell.

  The reloading ritual began once more. It felt almost like a dance. Only the music was missing, and the gun crew didn't really need it. They could go through the steps with no accompaniment but the boom of the Springfields to either side and the whine and crack of enemy minnies darting past.

  Like any soldier of any color, Robinson had hated all the hot, sweaty hours he spent on the drill field learning how to handle a cannon. He knew the rest of the colored men in the crew felt the same way. He'd hated white sergeants screaming at him. Dumb-ass coon! Clumsy fool! And those were some of the nicer things they said. But they turned raw black recruits into a real gun crew, something that was more than the sum of its parts, and he owed them a reluctant debt of gratitude for that.

  He'd also heard that drill sergeants were just as merciless toward whites. That made him feel a little better. Fair was fair.

  “Give 'em hell, boys!” Major Booth came up behind the crew. The gunners worked harder than ever under the commandant's eye. That, no doubt, was exactly what he had in mind. When the gun was ready, he tipped his hat to Sergeant Clark and asked, “May I do the honors?”

  “Uh, yes, sir.” Clark handed him the lanyard. Booth gave it a hearty tug. The gun thundered. Looking pleased with himself, Booth returned the match to the sergeant.

  A couple of bullets thumped into the earthwork close by. More cracked past. Enemy fire always picked up when Major Booth was around. “Suh, you wants to be careful,” Ben Robinson told him. “They got sharpshooters out there tryin' to pick you off.”

  Booth laughed lightheartedly. Ben always remembered that-how cheerful the commandant sounded, as if he'd just heard a good joke. “They can try, Sergeant,” he said-he was always careful to use colored underofficers' ranks when he spoke to them. “The bastards have been trying for a while, but they haven't got me yet.”

  “Yes, suh.” Ben didn't see how he could say anything else. He couldn't very well tell Major Booth to go somewhere else because when the Rebs were shooting at Booth they were also shooting at him. He wanted to, but he couldn't.

  And then he heard the unmistakable wet slap of a bullet striking flesh. “My God! I'm hit!” Major Booth exclaimed-a cry more of disbelief than of pain. Booth's hands clutched at his chest. Bright blood welled out between his fingers. “My God!” he said again, more weakly this time. Blood bubbled from his mouth and nose, too. That meant it was a bad wound, about as bad as a wound could be. The thought had hardly crossed Ben's mind before Major Booth's legs gave out and he crumpled to the ground.

  “Lawd!” Ben Robinson whispered. Major Booth wasn't just the commandant here. He was the man who'd turned the Negroes he led from field hands into soldiers. If Booth couldn't go on leading, command would fall to Major Bradford. And Booth couldn't-that wound looked sure to kill him, and to kill him fast. As for Major Bradford.. A lot of the men in the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry had no more use for colored soldiers than the Confederates had. They didn't fight for the U.S.A. because they wanted emancipation; they fought for the U.S.A. because they couldn't get along with their neighbors who fought for the C.S.A.

  Captain Carron came out of the horrified trance that seemed to grip everyone around the fallen Major Booth. “Take him to a surgeon!” he said. “Maybe the sawbones will be able to do… well, something, anyway.” His voice trailed off. A surgeon couldn't do much for a chest wound, any more than he could for one in the belly. A man either got better or he died.

  Major Lionel Booth was going to die. The way he plucked at Robinson's sleeve when the Negro started to lift him told him as much. Booth tried to say something, but more blood came out instead of words. He fought to breathe-he was drowning in his own blood.

  When Robinson and two other soldiers from the gun crew laid him in front of the green-sashed surgeon, the white man said, “Good God, it's the major!”

  “Yes, suh,” Robinson said. “Help him if you can, suh.”

  “Help,” Major Booth echoed feebly. “Please help. Please…” His eyes rolled up in his head.

  “He gone?” Charlie Key asked.

  The surgeon felt for a pulse at Booth's wrist. “Not yet,” he answered. “He's-” He broke off, then said something vile, aimed not at the Negroes but at fate. “Now he's gone.”

  “Lawd!” Robinson said again. “What is we gonna do?”

  Major William Bradford felt the weight of the world crashing down on his shoulders. He'd resented Major Booth when the younger officer brought his colored artillerymen up from Memphis. He'd resented him, yes, but he'd come to lean on him, too. Booth knew more about soldiering than he did, and that was all there was to it. Booth didn't get stuffy about passing on what he knew, and Bill Bradford knew he'd learned a lot in the couple of weeks since Booth arrived.

  Rather more to the point at the moment, Lionel Booth had kept his head when the Confederates attacked-and when Bradford was on the edge of losing his. Now he was down. Now Fort Pillow was in Bradford's hands again, no matter how much he wished it weren't.

  We can hold on. We will hold on, Bradford thought. And maybe

  Booth isn't hit as badly as people say.

  No sooner had that hopeful thought crossed his mind than a soldier came pelting toward him from where the surgeon was working. “He's dead!” the man shouted. “He's dead, sir!”

  Well, so much for that, Major Bradford thought unhappily. It's all mine now. It was his before Booth and his coons got here. He didn't want it back, not like this, but what he wanted didn't seem to matter. He gathered himself, or tried to. “Keep firing!” he shouted to the embattled garrison, and immediately felt a fool. What were they going to do? Stop? Not likely, not with Bedford Forrest's wolves prowling out there. Bradford tried again: “We'll whip' em yet!”

  “You tell 'em, Major!” That was one of his own troopers. They would follow where he led. But what about the niggers? They'd have to, wouldn't they? He was the senior officer left alive, no matter how little he wanted the distinction to land on him at this time in this way.

  “Major! Major! Major Bradford, suh!” This time, one of Major Booth's colored soldiers-one of his colored soldiers now, for better or worse-dashed toward him from the parapet as if all the furies of hell were at his heels.

  “What is it?” Bradford asked. What is it now? he almost said, but he swallowed the last word in the nick of time. It would have sounded too much like panic. He felt panic hammering hard inside him, but didn't want to show it. That would only make it spread.

  “Suh, the Secesh done shot Lieutenant Hill through the head out by the old barracks,” the Negro answered. “He fall down, he twitch a few times, an' he dead now jus' like Major Booth.”

  “Oh, good God!” Bradford exclaimed. “One thing on top of another!” Hill was-had been-Booth's adjutant, which meant he'd become post adjutant when Booth took command. Now… he hadn't outlived his superior by more than a couple of minutes.

  “Yes, suh-one thing after another. But I reckon we's hurting the Rebs, too,” the Negro said. He still showed fight. That was good.

  “We'll just have to carry on the best way we can,” Bradford said, and then, “Thank you for letting me know.”

  “Yes, suh,” the colored sergeant answered. He gave Bradford a salute that would have won the heart of any drill sergeant on a practice field. Bradford tried to return it as smartly; he'd already seen the Negroes set more stock in such gestures than did the troopers he led. His salute was spoiled when a minnie cracked past overhead. Both he and the colored man ducked. He would have been humiliated if he did and the artilleryman didn't. As things were, they smiled at each other, both admitting that bullets could scare a man no matter what color he
was.

  After a bob of the head, the Negro trotted back to his station. “Lieutenant Leaming!” Bradford shouted, and then, when that didn't accomplish anything, “Mack! Where in damnation are you?”

  “Right here, sir,” Leaming said. “What do you need?”

  “A nigger just told me the Rebs have killed Lieutenant Hill outside the works. That makes you post adjutant again,” Major Bradford answered.

  “Good Lord!” Leaming said. “I think their sharpshooters really are trying to pick off our officers. We're losing them too fast for anything else to make sense… Are you all right, sir?”

  “Yes,” Bradford lied. He'd always been proud of his major's tunic with its two rows of seven brass buttons each. Now, like Joseph's coat of many colors, his tunic with the many shiny buttons-he made sure they stayed shiny-was liable to land him in danger. He imagined some skinny, mangy Rebel drawing a bead right between the rows, squeezing the trigger, and… He flinched, though no bullet came close.

  “What are your orders, sir?” Lieutenant Leaming asked.

  “What else can we do but keep on with what we've been doing?” Bradford replied. “Major Booth was sure help would come from Memphis. We just have to hang on till it gets here, that's all.”

  “Yes, sir.” Leaming stepped closer to Bradford so he could lower his voice: “Damned if the coons aren't fighting, sir.”

  “I wouldn't have believed it, either,” Bradford said. “A good thing, though. Without 'em, we couldn't have held this place ten minutes against that swarm of Rebs out there. Thousands of those bastards! Thousands! “

  “Sir, Major Booth didn't think there were all that many of them,” Leaming said. “He guessed fifteen hundred, maybe two thousand at the outside.”

  “Nonsense!” Major Bradford said. “Look at them. Just look at them. They've got more soldiers running around than a dog has fleas. And if Major Booth were as smart as he thought he was, he wouldn't have walked into a minnie, now would he?”

  “I… guess not, sir,” his adjutant answered.

  “However many Rebs there are doesn't matter anyhow,” Bradford said. “Can you imagine what they'd do to us if we surrendered? They hate colored soldiers, and they hate Tennessee Union men. They could have the Army of Northern Virginia out there, and we'd still have to fight. Isn't that right, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, sir, I guess it is, when you put it like that,” Leaming answered.

  “All right, then. We'll fight on, just the way we would have if Major Booth were still here.” Bradford hesitated, then blurted, “I wish he still were.” But Fort Pillow was his again, no matter what he wished.

  Nathan Bedford Forrest rode toward the sound of the gunfire ahead. It was somewhere near ten in the morning. He'd been in the saddle since setting out from Jackson. He was so tired, he could hardly see straight. His horse had to be every bit as weary. The ideal cavalry trooper was a little bandy-legged fellow who didn't weight more than 140 pounds. Well over six feet tall and somewhere close to 200 pounds, Forrest didn't fit the bill. But he was what he was, and the horse had to put up with it.

  He knew exhaustion would fall away from him like a discarded cloak once he got to the battlefield. Most of the time, he was a quiet, soft-spoken man. In a fight, everything changed. His voice rose to a roar that could span the field, no matter how wide. He became a furious and ingeniously profane swearer. Some men turned pale when they fought-they were afraid of what might happen to them. Forrest went hot and ruddy, like iron in a smith's forge. Instead of being hammered, though, he smashed the damnyankees himself.

  His nostrils twitched. Yes, that was the brimstone reek of gunpowder in the air. It smelled like Old Scratch coming up from the infernal dominions for a look around. Forrest's lips skinned back from his teeth in a fierce, mirthless grin. He intended to make Fort Pillow into hell on earth, all right.

  The ground around the fort was only indifferently cleared. A good many trees still stood, and stumps; fallen trunks lay scattered every which way. Even inside the outermost perimeter, plenty of cover still remained. He watched his men use it to good advantage, scooting forward from one stump to another as if they were in an Indian fight from the days before he was born.

  Seeing a trooper not far away, Forrest called, “Where's General Chalmers?”

  “Who wants to know?” the man answered, not looking up from the revolver he was reloading.

  “Bedford Forrest, that's who.” Forrest's voice crackled with danger, the way the air will crackle just before lightning strikes. When the battle fit hit him, he was almost as hard on his own men as he was on the Federals. “Now where is he, you son of a bitch?”

  The trooper hadn't been pale. Why should he be, when he was safely out of enemy rifle range? But he went white when he raised his head and saw General Forrest. He almost dropped a percussion cap, and had to fight to say, “He-He-He's over yonder, sir.” He pointed west and a little south.

  “All right,” Forrest said. “I don't see you in the fight once you finish loading that hogleg, though, you'll answer to me, man to man. You hear?”

  “Y-Y-Y-Yes; sir,” the man answered-not the first time Nathan Bedford Forrest had reduced a man from his own force to frightened stammering. But what he did to the Federals…

  He found Brigadier General Chalmers about where the trooper said he would. Chalmers was urging his men forward-always a good thing for a general to do, especially when he wasn't far from the firing line himself. Nothing encouraged soldiers like officers who shared their risks.

  “How's it look, Jim?” Forrest asked.

  James Chalmers whirled. Even in the informal world of the Confederate army, even in the extra-informal world of Forrest's command, an officer who led a brigade didn't expect to be addressed by his Christian name… unless a superior did it. “Hello, sir,” Chalmers said, saluting. “So you finally made it up here, did you?”

  “No, but I reckon I'll get here pretty soon,” Forrest answered dryly.

  His brigade commander blinked, then decided he was joking and laughed. “Well, I'm glad to hear that, sir. We can use you.”

  “It looks pretty good, from what I've seen of it,” Forrest said.

  “I think so.” Brigadier General Chalmers nodded. “They sent out skirmishers after we started driving in their pickets, but we shifted them, too. Just about all the Federals are back inside the main position there. They should have hung on to some of the knobs around it. They should have, but they damn well didn't. Now we've got men on, em, and we can shoot down into their works. This isn't the best place for a fort with a small garrison, no matter what General Pillow thought when he set one here. “

  “Already knew that myself,” Forrest said. “If the Yankees can't figure it out, too damn bad for them. The riffraff they've got in there, they're asking for everything we give 'em.”

  A bullet cracked past. Chalmers flinched. So did Forrest; he was no more immune to that reflex than most of his soldiers were. It annoyed and angered him, but he couldn't do anything about it. However little he cared to admit it, even to himself, he was made of flesh and blood like any other man.

  Straightening, Chalmers said, “You might do well to get down from that horse, sir. It makes you a target for the bastards holed up in there. You wouldn't want some damn nigger to be able to say he shot the great General Forrest, would you?”

  “No, but I'm not going to worry about it, either,” Forrest answered. “And I want to see this place for my own self from one end to the other, and the horse'll tote me around faster'n I could go on shank's mare.” He always carried out his own reconnaissance when he could. More than once, he'd seen things nobody else did. He went on, “You keep crowding our boys forward, you hear, Jim?”

  “I'm doing it,” Chalmers said shortly.

  “I know you are. Keep doing it. Do more of it. Get' em close to the enemy. Use that high ground. I don't want the Federals moving around a lot in there. They should ought to be scared to death to step away from that parapet.”
<
br />   “I'm doing it,” Chalmers repeated. This time, he smiled a little. “I've got sharpshooters picking off the Union officers whenever they see the chance, too.”

  “There you go,” Forrest said. “That's what we need. If those coons and galvanized Yankees haven't got anybody to tell 'em what to do, they won't tend to something that needs tending, and we'll get the bulge on 'em that way. “

  He started to ride on toward the Mississippi, but a minnie caught his horse in the neck. Blood gushed forth, hideously red and stinking like a smithy. Forrest tried jamming a finger in the wound, a trick that had kept another mount of his alive for some little while. This horse writhed and thrashed and reared, then crashed to the ground, pinning Forrest's leg beneath it.

  Pain shot through him. He roared out curses, kicked at the animal with his free leg, and beat it with his fists. It rolled off him and thrashed away its life, kicking slower and more weakly as blood rivered out of it.

  General Chalmers ran up to Forrest. “Are you all right, sir?” he asked, alarm making his voice almost as shrill as a woman's. “Can you get up?”

  “Don't rightly know.” Forrest made himself try it. His breath hissed out between his teeth. Moving hurt like fire. But he could move, anyhow. “Don't reckon anything's broken,” he said.

  His right trouser leg was torn. His flesh was bruised and scraped and battered. The whole leg would be purple and black and swollen tomorrow, if it wasn't already. But it bore his weight even if it screamed. He took a couple of limping steps. Yes, he could manage.

  “You were lucky,” Chalmers said as he tried to walk off the worst of it.

  “Lucky, my ass,” Forrest ground out. “If I was lucky, that damned Yankee minnie would've missed my horse. If it did hit the stupid critter, he wouldn't have fallen on me. That there's luck, General. This you can keep this.”

  “The fall could have broken your leg-or your neck,” Chalmers said. “The minnie could have hit you instead of the horse.”