A Rainbow of Blood: The Union in Peril an Alternate History (17 page)

VERMILLIONVILLE, LOUISIANA, 2:22 PM, OCTOBER 21, 1863

Banks never knew what hit him that afternoon. Bazaine's attack crashed
into his army all along the line. The French general had reduced his tactical problem to a very simple point-it would be a shoving match with all
the odds on his side. Banks could shove him westward all he wanted; the
ground stretched easily and unimpeded for mile after empty mile. He
would simply be falling back on his communications. However, Bazaine
had only to shove Banks's corps east for a tenth of a mile before they
were pushed into Lake La Pointe or fell off a short, steep plateau into the
shallow river that fed into the lake at its base. Should they struggle out of
that, their retreat east would carry them into the marshy waters of Bayou
Teche, and beyond that Lake Grand. A very simple problem indeed.

Banks's army was positioned in line of battle on a north-south axis
just east of the main road leading north from Vermillionville. Major General Franklin's XIX Corps was on the right flank, with XIII Corps on the
left and the cavalry held in reserve.

Banks may have been an amateur who rejected Franklin's sound advice, but his two corps were veterans, and Bazaine's army felt their bite
immediately. But they were victims of a saying by Alexander the Great's
canny father, Phillip II-an army of deer commanded by a lion will always beat an army of lions commanded by a deer. They also suffered
from the damned had luck of fighting an army of lions commanded by
a lion. Banks almost immediately proved the long-dead Macedonian
correct by losing control of the battle. He forgot, if he had ever learned,
that the primary role of the commander in battle is the allocation of the
reserve. So, when Washburn tried to relieve the quickly depleted brigade on the right of his corps, Banks countermanded the order for the replacement brigade to move into the line. However, Banks never countermanded Washburn's original order for the brigade in contact to pull out.

The Prince de Polignac saw the confusion in the opposing firing line
as it filed away to the rear, leaving a gaping hole. He rode to the front of
his two regiments, pointed his sword to the void in the enemy line, and
shouted, "En avant, mes enfants!" and in English, "Go, get'em, boys!" The
Texans responded with high-keening Rebel yells, borrowed in admiration from their mortal Comanche enemies on the wild frontier. At the
sound, the neighboring French Zouaves instinctively paused in their
firing; it was savage and alien to their military style and experience. The
Yankees were all too familiar with it.

The Texans raced through the opening. Franklin was not even
aware of what was going on. He had all he could do trading hammers
and blows with Walker's Greyhounds. His men were Grant's veterans
of the Vicksburg Campaign, but they had never seen such hard fighting.
It was Franklin's great good luck that Polignac rolled up the flank of XIII
Corps instead of turning north against his own corps. Struck from flank
and rear, Washburn's brigades came apart. The prince was riding the
foaming crest of a tidal wave, his colors party desperately trying to keep
up with him. His Texans, exultant in their success, followed the gallant
chevalier of France as his ancestors had followed the plume of Henry IV.
There was no doubt that they were led by a fighting man who met every
standard of Texican manhood.

So when they saw him lurch back in the saddle, his sword flying
from his hand, a groan rose from their ranks. His aide was beside him
in an instant to prevent him from falling from his horse. Men rushed up
on foot to ease him to the ground. His regiments rushed by, stabbing
with their bayonets and bludgeoning the fleeing mass of panicked men
in blue. Bazaine watched in awe. He thought he had seen everything. He
said to his staff, "You see, messieurs, the furor Texicus. Consider it your
privilege to have witnessed it." He paused only for the briefest moment,
then announced. "Now I shall commit my reserve." He called forward
the commander of the Imperial Guard Zouave regiment and pointed
farther down the Union line that was now showing the effects of the disaster rolling up their flank. "There, Colonel Moreau, there is where you
will strike, and they will fly apart."

On the open southern flank of the battle, the two great cavalry hosts
faced each other. Bazaine had placed his cavalry there to tell the enemy
plainly that his line of communications had been cut. That does wonders
for an enemy's confidence, he knew, and it had done just that, sending
excited shouts through the XIII Corps regiments along the line as the
French were advancing rapidly on them from their front. Banks had been
provoked to bring his cavalry division of almost three thousand men
out of reserve. He gave Brig. Gen. Albert Lee the order to drive the enemy cavalry from the field. Lee would have suggested, had Banks been
anything but visibly panicked, that he now deal with the French cavalry
as dismounted infantry employing their Sharps breechloading carbines to bring down so many that they would have to move off. Instead, he
found himself drawing his saber and riding to the head of his thirteen
regiments.

Across the field, the French commander also drew his saber as his
Chasseurs a Cheval, hussars, and lancers sat stock still waiting for the
command. The French would have been outnumbered had the cavalry
of Harrison's brigade not reinforced them. The Texans were not used
to the massed cavalry action that clearly was shaping up, but they were
game for anything. While the French thought in terms of their sabers and
lances, the Texans felt the handles of their revolvers.

From across the field, the French and Texans heard the Union
bugle call signaling the advance at a trot. The entire Union division was
quickly in motion. The French commander waited to let his horses save
their strength for the last command when they would burst forward in a
gallop. Let the Americans tire their horses. He would wait. After all, he
was a veteran of a dozen European and North African battlefields, and
he knew cavalry. When the Americans had closed half the distance between them, he gave his own order and the serried, colorful French lines
flowed forward, the drabber Texans on their right flank. At the last moment, the French bugle call for the charge at the gallop sounded, and the
French squadrons seemed to leap forward as sabers and lances dropped
to the attack. The French were in their element, their national spirit embodied in the wild assault of mounted chivalry, the white arm of the
French Army. A shout of "Urraaaah!" ripped from them seconds before
five thousand horsemen crashed into each other.

In the center, Washburn was overwhelmed by the unfolding disaster, swept away by the flood of fugitives from his disintegrating front.
It was then that the Zouave Regiment of the Guard swept forward in a
blaze of color-big, bearded men advancing in impeccable order until
Moreau bellowed across their front, "En avant, mes enfants! En avant!"
With a shout, they charged. Behind them, Bazaine ordered a general
advance. Moreau led his Zouaves against that part of the line held by the
Iowa and Wisconsin regiments of one of Washburn's stoutest brigades,
commanded by Col. Charles L. Harris, the last steady unit as the rest
wavered.

The farmers of the 11th Wisconsin were veterans to the core, hammered into a special toughness under Grant in the Vicksburg Campaign, the same mettle as the three Iowa regiments in line with them. Their
front was already littered with the fallen, but they responded with precision to the command to fire. A sheet of flame spit from the line, and the
charging Zouaves went down by the hundreds. Their entire colors party
was swept away as the eagle fell to the ground. Miraculously, Moreau
was untouched, despite riding at the head of his regiment. He would
find eight bullet holes in his uniform and cap that night. He looked back
to see a guardsmen snatch up the fallen colors and rush forward. The
impetus of the charge had not been broken as his Zouaves jumped over
the bodies of the dead and wounded. Still, they dropped as the Americans were firing at will. The eagle went down again, and again it was
retrieved to lead the crest of the attack, and for a third time it fell and
rose again. Moreau found himself rolling in the dirt, his horse dead, and
himself bleeding from wound in the thigh. He staggered to his feet and
faced forward.

Bazaine's staff was exclaiming their admiration for the charge of the
Guard Zouaves, but their general saw the American line stiffening by the
example of Harris's brigade. "Messieurs, it will not do for the Emperor's
Guards to not have their glory. Let us help them." By then, the Zouaves
had fallen hack a hundred yards, dragging their colonel and colors with
them. French artillery rolled up on either flank to pour canister into the
Wisconsin and Iowa men. They might have stood all day had not the
panic on their right finally dissolved their flank brigade as the Prince de
Polignac's Texans hammered their way down the line. Harris tried to
refuse his right, but the 21st Iowa was swept away by the flood of fugitives. It was then that Moreau, a bandage around his thigh and mounted
on a fresh horse, again ordered the pas de charge. The drums beat above
the din of battle. Again the Zouaves came on in a rush, and again many
fell, but the American fire slackened and then died away as the brigade
fell back.

With that, the entire XIII Corps ceased to be a fighting formation,
save for the remnant of Harris's brigade, and turned into a mass of fleeing men and vehicles. They did not see the drop of the plateau until
it was too late, and the men behind pushed over hundreds of those in
front. Caissons, guns, wagons, and ambulances careened over the edge
to shatter at the base in a mass of splintered wood and maimed screaming horses. The thousands on foot tumbled over the precipice to leap into the shallow, marshy water of the bayou that fed into Lake La Pointe.
Many more fell into the lake itself to drown splashed helplessly about.

Into this chaos, the remnants of Banks's cavalry were slowly pushed
toward the lake from the south. The cavalry fight had been the most vicious of all the killing that day, for it was man-to-man fighting at sword
or lance length, and a pistol was just as close in that mass of struggling
men and animals. Superior French skill with saber and lance were
matched with American practice with the revolver, but the unraveling
of XIII Corps forced Lee to save what he could. Only parts of the 1st
Louisiana (Union loyalists), 2nd Illinois, and 4th Indiana were able to cut
their way out of the French encirclement. The rest were driven into the
shallows of the lake to add the terror of animals and shouts of men to the
miasma hanging over the battlefield.

Thousands were already surrendering. Only the survivors of Harris's Brigade kept any semblance of order as they fought backward,
leaving their dead and wounded in their trail. By the time they had been
pressed to the edge of the plateau, Harris realized they could go no farther. He ordered his men to throw down their weapons. Moreau rode up
to him, the side of his horse soaked with the blood that oozed from his
thigh, and saluted with his sword as Harris offered his. Moreau refused
and said in French that he could not accept the sword of such a gallant foe. Harris didn't understand a word, but the sentiment was plain
enough. He was glad of what little balm he could find.

Bazaine rode into the chaos that has long ceased being a battle as his
troops were disarming the dazed Americans. Banks, most dazed of all,
was led up to him by the Chasseurs a Pied that had captured him. In that
effusion of gracious condescension at which the French excel, he greeted
Banks, complimented him on his conduct of the battle, ascribed the
fate of the battle to Dame Fortune, and invited him to share his dinner
that night.

Barely two hundred yards from this exquisite chivalry, the Sudanese had lost all sense of restraint. They had fought through the toughest
part of the battle carried forward in the last charge by the intoxication
of their battle cry, "Allah u akbar!" They just found it easier to kill when
men threw down their weapons. Possessed already of the African Muslim style of war, they were like beasts. Their French officers had done nothing to restrain them against the Mexicans and now could do nothing
with them.