Fort Pillow Read online

  “All that would have been worse,” Forrest agreed. “Don't mean what happened was good.» He glowered at the beast that had brought him from Jackson. Its writhing was almost over now. Its blood pooled on the muddy ground and started soaking in. A man had an amazing lot of blood in him-you found out how much when he spilled it all at once. A horse had even more. Forrest had had plenty of horses shot out from under him, but he didn't think he'd ever had one hurt him so much when it went down. “Got to get me another animal. Will you tend to that for me?”

  “Yes, sir,” Chalmers said, and then, stubbornly, “You'd still be safer on foot.”

  “I'd be slower on foot,” Forrest said. “Nothing else matters now. And you don't think dismounted men are getting hit?” A wounded trooper howled and cursed as his friends led him back toward the surgeons. Forrest pointed to him the way a schoolmaster would have pointed to an example on the blackboard. He chuckled when that occurred to him, because his own acquaintance with teachers and blackboards was so brief and sketchy. He could read. He could write, too-after a fashion-however little he cared to do it.

  Even if he had no education, he owned other talents in abundance. He had nerve and a fierce and driving energy. He also had an unfailing knack for seeing what needed doing at any given moment. And he could make people listen to him and take him seriously and do what he told them to do. Set against all that, knowing how to spell didn't seem so important. He had men under him who could spell. He was the one who set them in motion.

  “A horse!” James Chalmers shouted now. “Get General Forrest a horse! “

  One of the troopers brought up a large, sturdy-looking beast. A horse needed to be of better-than-average size to bear a man of his weight. “Thank you kindly, Edgar,” Forrest said.

  “You're welcome, General!” Edgar's face glowed with pride: Bedford Forrest knew him well enough to call him by name! Edgar didn't know Forrest could call most of his men by name. He learned names quickly, and they were the easiest handle you could grab to get somebody to follow you.

  Mounting hurt. It would have hurt worse if the blamed horse had fallen on his other leg. Jim Chalmers would have said he was lucky it didn't. Forrest didn't give a damn what Chalmers would have said. Almost getting his leg broken wasn't lucky, not so far as he could see. When he booted the horse into motion, riding hurt, too.

  But walking would have hurt worse. And it would have been slower, and speed counted now. Speed always counted to Bedford Forrest. Plenty of people knew how he talked about getting there first with the most. If you got there first, sometimes having the most didn't even matter.

  Over the next hour, he painstakingly reconnoitered from the Mississippi to Coal Creek. Like General Chalmers, Captain Anderson begged him to do the job on foot so he would offer the Yankees less of a target.

  Voice testy-maybe the pain was talking through him-Forrest answered, “I'm just as apt to be hit one way as another.” And he had that sturdy horse shot out from under him (though it was only wounded), but got yet another remount and finished the reconnaissance. When he did, his smile was purely predatory. “We've got 'em,” he said.

  V

  Below the bluff on which the innermost line of Fort Pillow's works sat, a crescent-shaped ravine ran north into Coal Creek. Corporal Jack Jenkins crouched in that ravine, only a few feet away from General Forrest, when Forrest declared that he and his men had the Federals inside the fort.

  Jenkins was glad General Forrest thought so. Forrest commonly knew what he was talking about. Jenkins hoped the general did this time. He hoped so, yes, but he was a hell of a long way from convinced.

  If Coal Creek Ravine wasn't hell on earth, you could see it from there. Jenkins had ridden through the Hatchie bottoms to get to Fort Pillow. Coal Creek seemed a distillation of everything that was worst about the bottom country. The ground was muddy enough to suck the shoes right off a man's feet. Every sort of clinging vine and thorn bush seemed to grow there, all of them clutching at trouser legs and tunic sleeves when Jack and the other troopers in Colonel Barteau's regiment tried to push on toward the fort.

  Poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac… Jenkins tried not to think about any of those. If he broke out in welts later on, then he did, that was all. Now he just wanted to close with the enemy.

  One thing worked in his favor, and in favor of the rest of the men in the Second Tennessee Cavalry (C.S.). Because Fort Pillow stood so high above Coal Creek Ravine, and because its earthen rampart was so thick, the soldiers inside the fort had to crawl out on top of the earthwork to shoot down into the ravine. When they did, Confederate sharpshooters farther back and higher up had clean shots at them. After a couple of Federals were wounded, or perhaps killed, the rest seemed less eager to expose themselves.

  The cannon inside Fort Pillow would not bear on the ravine at all. Every so often, shrapnel rounds or solid shot would snarl by overhead, but they always came down far to the rear.

  That didn't mean the troopers in Coal Creek Ravine went altogether free of bombardment. The Yankee gunboat out in the Mississippi lobbed an occasional shell into the ravine. Jenkins hated the gunboat. It could strike with impunity, for the Confederates weren't able to shoot back at it. But it was firing blind. Just as the bluff and the fort atop it shielded the gunboat from C.S. fire, so they also shielded the Confederates from the sailors who aimed the boat's cannon.

  Some of the black men and Tennessee Tories inside Fort Pillow had nerve enough to keep exposing themselves to Confederate fire. One Negro soldier crawled out on top of the earthwork and had his pals within the fort pass him one loaded rifle musket after another, so he sent an almost continual stream of bullets down into the ravine.

  Corporal Jenkins took a shot at him. So did a couple of other Confederate troopers not far away. The smoke that burst from their rifles announced where they were. In moments, the Negro sent minnies whistling through the undergrowth close to each of the three men.

  As Jenkins reloaded, he said, “To hell with me if that nigger's not too dumb to realize how much trouble he's in.”

  “I wouldn't be crazy enough to stick myself out there, that's for damn sure,” one of the nearby Confederates agreed.

  More bullets whipped past the colored man. Had he been white-even if he were only a homemade Yankee-Jenkins would have respected his courage. But the corporal didn't want to admit, even to himself, that a Negro had courage. If a black man could be brave, wasn't he much the same sort of man as a white? And if he was much the same as a white, how could he also naturally be a slave?

  Those two things didn't fit together. Jenkins could see that as plainly as Abe Lincoln could. Where it forced the President of the United States to conclude that all men should be free, it forced the Southerner and most of his comrades to deny the possibility that Negroes could show the same sort of courage as white men.

  If Jenkins saw a black man exposing himself to enemy fire, then, the blue-uniformed Negro couldn't be brave. He had to be stupid instead.

  Another Minie ball clipped leaves and twigs a few feet away from Jenkins. “This here's warmer work than I reckoned it would be,” he said.

  “We'll get 'em,” another trooper said. “Long as they don't get reinforced from down the river, we'll get' em. And even if they do, we've still got most of the high ground. We'll make' em sorry they holed up in there.”

  Squelching through the mire at the bottom of Coal Creek Ravine, Jenkins thought of high ground as little more than a rumor. Something slithered over his boot and vanished in the bushes. Maybe it was just a water snake, not a copperhead or a cottonmouth. He hoped so, because he didn't know how far away it had slithered.

  After what seemed like forever and was probably fifteen minutes or so, the Negro soldier let out a holler and scrambled back into the fort. “Somebody nailed the son of a bitch!” Jenkins exclaimed. “About time!”

  “You see where he got it?” one of his friends asked gleefully.

  “Not me.” Jenkins shook his head. “I was ra
mming a cartridge home.” That was true, but he wasn't sorry to have been screened off by the undergrowth. The damn coon had come too close to hitting him a couple of times. “So where?”

  “They shot him right in the ass,” the other C.S. trooper said. “Probably give him a brain concussion,” Jenkins said. “Remember that Yankee general who said he was going to make his headquarters in the saddle?”

  “That was General Pope. He had his headquarters in his hindquarters, just like that nigger,” the other man said. “Once he ran up against Bobby Lee, it didn't matter where his headquarters were at anyways.”

  “You're sure right there,” Jenkins said. Every Federal general who'd operated against Robert E. Lee had come to grief. The Confederates' luck wasn't so good out here in the West. But they were still in the fight, and the Union troops holed up in Fort Pillow would pay for forgetting it.

  A bullet cracked past Bill Bradford, close enough to make him duck. He imagined he felt the minnie tug at the brim of his slouch hat, but the hat seemed untouched when he took it off and looked at it. He set it back on his head, pulling it down low as if to make himself a smaller target.

  Another Confederate fired at him. Again, the bullet made him flex his knees. This time, though, he felt no phantom tugs. He scowled at the cloud of black-powder smoke rising from one of the barracks in front of the fort. The Confederates seemed to infest both rows of wooden buildings.

  “Captain Carron!” he called.

  “Yes, sir?” the artilleryman answered, standing by his twelve-pounder.

  “Will that piece of yours reach those barracks halls? The Rebs have got men in them, and they're close enough to make the fire annoying.” That was a polite way to put it. When the Rebs almost parted his hair with a Minie ball, Major Bradford wasn't just annoyed. He was scared green.

  Captain Carron shook his head. “Sorry, Major, but I can't do it.

  The gun won't depress far enough to hit those huts. “

  “Damnation,” Bradford said. “How am I supposed to shift the devils sheltering in them, then?”

  “You could burn them out,” Carron suggested.

  Bradford hadn't thought of that. Now that the artillery officer planted the idea in his mind, though, he found that he liked it. “Lieutenant Leaming!” he said. “Where the-? Oh, there you are.”

  “Yes, sir. Here I am,” his adjutant agreed. “What do you need from me, sir?”

  “I want you to gather a-a storming party, I guess you'd call it,” Bradford answered. “The Rebs are shooting at us from those barracks.” He pointed. “I want the men to take torches along with their Springfields. They are to burn down the buildings and then return to the fort. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” Leaming said. “Do you think fifty men will be enough? Shall I send some niggers along with our Tennessee troopers?”

  “If fifty can't do the job, no larger number can,” Bradford said. “And no, leave the niggers here inside the fort. I don't know how well they'd fight out in the open, and they shouldn't go out where they can be captured, anyway. Forrest's men don't love colored soldiers.”

  “All right, sir,” Leaming replied. “I'll tend to it.”

  There was some small delay assembling the storming party. There was a larger delay equipping the troopers with torches. But they swarmed out of the fort bravely enough. “Hurrah!” they shouted as they went forward. “Hurrah!” The U.S. war cry wasn't so impressive as the Rebel yell, but they showed good spirit.

  The Confederates didn't have many men in those barracks buildings. H they had, they could have slaughtered the onrushing men from the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry. They did knock down a couple of soldiers, but only a couple. Then the men in blue reached the first row of barracks.

  Major Bradford whooped when smoke began to rise. The rains of the past few days had soaked the wood; he'd feared it wouldn't catch. But two or three of the buildings started burning. His men also fired at the Confederates lurking there. And they'd gone out with fixed bayonets. They could skewer any Reb who got too close.

  Most of the time, a bayonet made a good knife and a good candle holder, but not much else. In close combat where a foe might jump out any time, though…

  The Federal assault naturally drew the enemy's notice. Confederates ran toward the two rows of barracks buildings, too. The Rebs rushing up had no kind of order, but they outnumbered the men from the U.S. storming party.

  “Come on!” Bradford shouted to the Tennessee troopers inside Fort Pillow and to the colored artillerymen now fighting as infantry. “Shoot those Rebel bastards! Don't let them gain a lodgment there!” He wondered if the Negroes knew what a lodgment was. It didn't matter. They could see that letting the Confederates shoot at them from cover at close range wasn't a good idea.

  As he ordered the black men to shift position behind the earthwork so more of them could fire at the wooden buildings, he paid them the highest compliment any officer from Tennessee could give: he forgot what color they were. He treated them the same way as he treated the troopers from his own regiment. In time of danger, they were all just.. soldiers.

  Maybe some of the Negroes had dipped up a little too much Dutch courage. They capered and gestured to show their scorn for the enemy. Along with obscene taunts, they thumbed their noses and stuck their thumbs in their ears and waggled their fingers. They made ridiculous faces, their expressions all the more absurd because their teeth and tongues and eyeballs showed up so well against their dark hides.

  And Major Bradford laughed and slapped his thigh and urged them on. Let the Rebs see his men weren't afraid (even if he was). Let them see Negroes could fight, too. He wouldn't have believed it himself, but he had no more doubts. They could. They really could.

  A minnie kicked up dirt between Matt Ward's feet as he ran toward the two rows of wooden huts in front of Fort Pillow. Another snapped past at about breast height. A couple of feet to the right and it would have torn his heart out.

  He didn't have time to be afraid-or maybe he was already as afraid as he could be, and one more near miss made no difference. He dashed past somebody who lay on the ground writhing. Poor bastard, he thought, and tried not to remember that that could still happen to him. With luck, it was only a flesh wound, and the other man would get better if it didn't fester. Without luck… Well, that was one more thing you didn't want to think about.

  Then he got in back of the second row of wooden shacks. Bullets stopped flying all around him. His relief lasted perhaps half a minute. After that, he realized the fight went on, and at close quarters. This was different from shooting at the enemy from long range. You had to think about when you pulled the trigger here, because you were hideously vulnerable if you fired and missed and had to reload. Ward wished for a six-shooter instead of his single-shot Enfield.

  Wishing didn't make a revolver fall out of the sky. He edged up to the space between two buildings. Ever so cautiously, he stuck out a hand, as if to feel if the enemy was there.

  When no one shot at him, he looked into the space. No Yankee rushed toward him or, worse, waited with aimed rifle musket for a target more deadly than a hand. Carrying his own weapon at the ready, he moved up toward the first row of buildings.

  Smoke made him cough. The homemade Yankees had already fired some of the barracks. He saw a running shape through the smoke. Friend or foe? The other soldier saw him, too, and started to bring his musket up to his shoulder.

  That decided Matt. Anyone who aimed a weapon at him was an enemy, no matter which uniform he had on. Ward shot first. The other soldier screamed and staggered and fell. He fired, too, but wildly, into the air.

  He wasn't dead. He feebly tried to crawl back toward Fort Pillow. That told Ward he really was a damnyankee. Rushing forward, the Missourian drove his bayonet home again and again. He'd never used it before, but he'd never been in a mad, cramped fight like this before, either.

  He was amazed and more than a little appalled at how many times he had to stab before the other man stop
ped moving. Sometimes people were harder to kill than anyone who hadn't fought in war could imagine.

  Just then, with the Enfield unloaded, Ward felt all too easy to kill. He reloaded as fast as he could, trying his best not to drop the cartridge or fumble with the ramrod or do any of the other stupid things that would waste time. He'd heard of men who, in the heat of battle, rammed home cartridge after cartridge without ever putting a cap on the nipple. With the roar of gunfire all around, they got too excited to notice that their piece wasn't roaring or belching smoke or kicking. Sometimes they would cap it with several rounds in the barrel. Then the rifle musket commonly blew up in their face.

  Cartridge bitten open and rammed home. Copper cap on the nipple. Enfield half cocked. Ward nodded to himself. He was ready to shoot again. The smoke got thicker. He coughed and rubbed at his streaming eyes. Between the smoke and the black powder he got on his face whenever he reloaded, he hoped his fellow troopers wouldn't shoot him for a nigger.

  The row of buildings closest to the fort was on fire. The damned Tennessee Tories had done that much, and Ward didn't see what he and his comrades could do but let those huts burn. The second row remained intact. The barracks there could still give the Confederates good cover… if the Federals didn't fire them.

  Another indistinct shape came through the smoke. No, this fellow had a torch in his hand, which left no doubt whose side he was on. “Forrest!” Ward shouted, and fired at him.

  To his disgust, he missed. Before, he'd sniped at men inside Fort Pillow from several hundred yards, and was pretty sure he'd scored hits. Here he could damn near spit on this bluebelly, but he missed him. It was embarrassing. It happened all the time, but it was still embarrassing.

  “Jesus God!” the enemy trooper screeched when the rifle musket roared not thirty feet away and the minnie cracked past him. He dropped the torch and dashed back toward Fort Pillow in great terrified bounds, his feet hardly seeming to touch the ground. Ward didn't think a catamount could have caught him, let alone a mere man.