Rifles for Watie (18 page)

Battle of Prairie Grove

Rebels ahead!

Twelve miles south of Fayetteville, in northwestern Arkansas, Jeff and the Kansas Volunteers overtook the main force of the enemy at the crossing of Illinois Creek. General T. C. Hindman, the rebel commander, had the stronger position. His fourteen thousand rebels—mostly Arkansawyers, Texans, and Missourians—were defending a heavily timbered ridge known as Prairie Grove. The Union army was stationed in open fields.

Suddenly they heard the booming of cannon.

John Chadwick's china-blue eyes were popping with fear. “Hark!” he called nervously. “What's that?”

Oscar Earnshaw snorted in fright and blew his nose. “It ain't duck hunters.”

“Wish to God it was,” quavered somebody else.

It was two o'clock. Jeff didn't know it was Sunday until he dug the tiny calendar memorandum out of his shirt pocket. December 7, 1862, it read. Impatiently he peered hard ahead into the timber held by the Confederates. All he could see was trees.

Bill Earle changed his rifle to his left hand and, lifting one foot, looked at it wearily.

“Ow!” he complained in his high, clear voice. “This blister's killin' me.”

A recruit from Leavenworth raised his canteen with both hands and drank deeply. Bright drops of water ran down his smooth cheek.

“Darn,” he gulped, coming up for air. “Our new commander sure likes these forced marches.”

Bill Earle scowled at his sore foot. “He don't jest like 'em. He loves 'em. Twenty-five mile from Babcock to Cane Hill. Then twelve mile chasing that rebel general, Marmaduke, all over the Boston Mountains. Then fourteen more today on top of that. That's better'n fifty mile I've walked in the last three days. Back home, the fartherest I ever walked was from the back door to the barn. Shucks, I'm too tired to fight.” He squinted disgustedly at his scuffed army brogans. Both soles were loose and flapping.

They had marched all night to reach the battleground. It had been a dark, cloudy night, too. Several times the new commander had halted the column to scratch a match on his saber guard so he could see his compass and set their course anew.

Although the calves of his legs felt heavy, Jeff hadn't minded the last fourteen-mile hitch in the warm, balmy weather. He liked the blue haze of the Arkansas mountain country.

He had even liked the quiet mountain shower they had passed through yesterday. They had seen it coming across the valley, the falling, lifting clouds wrapping the mountain's piny shoulders in gray shawls of rain while the thunder rolled and growled majestically. Unlike the rains in Kansas, there was no wind. Everything was so still that long before the rain struck the marching blue columns, Jeff could hear it whispering softly on the fallen leaves a quarter of a mile away as it approached. Wearing overcoats and slickers or covering themselves with blankets and squares of oilcloth, the infantry had taken the drenching like stock in the field. Afterward the smell of the wet pines was everywhere, and a small herd of cows, their clean-washed red and brindle sides gleaming in the bright sunshine, spread out over a roadside pasture.

Today the sun was shining, and Jeff could hardly wait for the fighting to start. For the twentieth time he checked the priming on his rifle and the cap box in his belt.

“What's the new commander's name?” he asked, curiously.

Earle snorted. “I don't know his name. I sure hope he knows somethin' about fightin'.”

A tousle-headed private from Shawnee Mission looked apprehensively to the southeast, where the rumbling of the guns began to grow louder. “We'll soon find out if he does.”

Noah, who had set type on newspapers and seemed always to know everything, eased the pack off his broad back with his left hand while still holding his rifle in his right. “His name's Blunt. He's a doctor from Maine. Used to be a sea captain before that. Moved out to Anderson County, Kansas, in 1856. Been practicing medicine at Greeley ever since.”

A grizzled private from Minneola spat a brown spray of tobacco juice onto the tan prairie grass. “Gawsh!” he swore disgustedly. “Commanded by a bloody sawbones! What'll the politicians think of next?”

“Wonder if he's a foot doctor?” Bill Earle asked, hopefully.

The new sergeant glared belligerently at everybody. “Stow the gab!” he barked. “We're liable to be in action any minute now.”

Pike waved one long arm in the direction of the Confederates. “Those fellows over there mean business. They think they're fightin' for their homes, their wimmen, an' their kids. If you don't think they're ready to take you apart, lissen to this. It's a circular Hindman issued three days ago to every man in his command. Our cavalry took 'em offa prisoners this mornin'.”

He drew a sheet of yellow paper from his blouse and thrust it triumphantly into Noah's placid face. “Here, Babbitt. You repeat it to 'em. I cain't read.”

Planting his size twelves wide apart in the prairie grass, Noah began slowly to read the rebel general's statement to his soldiers:

“Remember that the enemy you engage has no feeling of mercy or kindness toward you. His ranks are made up of Pin Indians, free Negroes, Southern Tories, Kansas Jayhawkers and hired Dutch cutthroats. These bloody ruffians have invaded your country, stolen and destroyed your property, murdered your neighbors, outraged your women, driven your children from their homes, and defiled the graves of your kindred. If each man of you will do what I have here urged upon you, we will entirely destroy them. We can do this; we must do it; our country will be ruined if we fail. A just God will strengthen our arms and give us a glorious victory.”

The men were stunned. Jeff was wonderstruck. It was his first contact with propaganda.

“Gosh, Noah,” he blurted incredulously. “Is he talking about us?”

Noah nodded soberly. “He shore is.”

Now the rumbling of the cannon came from all around them. Jeff was surprised that they were campaigning at all in winter. Usually both armies seemed to have an unwritten agreement that after the first frost each would go into winter quarters and not molest the other until spring. Apparently Blunt, their new commander, was an ignorant chap who had not been schooled in the accepted military customs.

Jeff wiped an arm across his face. At that, he believed he preferred campaigning in winter. Especially the clear winy winters of Western Arkansas. Their last commander, a general named Schofield, didn't believe in winter fighting. Noah had found a St. Louis newspaper in a fence corner while they were chasing Marmaduke. In it was a dispatch from Schofield's army correspondent saying, “The Army of the Frontier has fulfilled its mission and has gone into winter quarters near Springfield, Missouri. General Schofield is about to leave for St. Louis to recruit his health, which has been shattered by long and arduous duties in the field.”

“Humph!” Noah grunted. “There's nothing wrong with Schofield's health. He probably went to St. Louis to try to get a promotion to major general.”

From the woods ahead, a drumming of hoofbeats. A squadron of Union cavalry, wearing long gauntlets, came riding helter-skelter out of the trees. It looked as if they had been used roughly. Some had lost their hats and carbines, others had had their horses shot out from under them and were riding double. They had ridden into the timber, found the enemy, determined his position, drawn his fire. Now it was the infantry's job to go in and clean up, if it could.

Noah spat on the ground in disgust. “Buttermilk Rangers!” he said scornfully. Jeff didn't understand why Noah held the cavalry in such contempt.

Mitchell jeered the cavalry openly: “Better get on back to the rear, boys. Yous stirred up a fuss. We'll settle it for yous. Go on back to the rear and git yous some more buttermilk.”

Jeff saw a tiny, circular puff of white smoke blossom above the trees. Then suddenly on the prairie some fifty yards in front of their line, a dash of dust, and something whizzed noisily over their heads, buzzing like a monster bee.

“Blam!”

Jeff dove flat on his stomach. He felt a painful jar as several of his comrades jumped in on top of him to escape the glancing rebel cannon ball.

“Boys, if I ain't flat enough, won't some o' you please jump on me and mash me flatter?” Bill Earle said weakly from the bottom of the pile.

“Git back into line!” Clardy roared sternly. “Eyes front! Stop your cowardly dodging! Any man leaving his station again will be shot!” With the flat of his sword, Clardy spanked a timid recruit in the seat of his pants and pushed another roughly into position.

Sheepishly they re-formed their line. Jeff felt his breathing quicken. He saw another tiny spiral of smoke appear above the tops of the trees. This time a charge of grape came flying overhead, screeching like forty locomotives. Again the men ducked instinctively, but this time only a few left the line.

“It's all right, boys,” Jeff heard Bill giggle in his nervous tenor. “Just dodge the biggest of 'em.”

Jeff felt a hysterical urge to laugh but discovered that he couldn't. For some strange reason, his throat had gone dry as a bone. The insides of his palms itched, and he could hear his pulse pounding. Again he checked the load in his rifle and was angry at himself. He knew there was nothing wrong with the rifle load.

Furious because he couldn't control his odd behavior, he clenched his jaws and shook his head vigorously. He had looked forward so long to his first battle. And now that the long-awaited moment had finally come, he discovered that some queer species of paralysis had gripped his legs. His chest felt heavy, as if a blacksmith's anvil was weighing it down. It was hard for him to breathe.

Noah looked at him anxiously. “What's the matter, youngster?”

Jeff licked his lips and swallowed once. Perplexed, he shook his brown head. “I don't know. My stomach feels bashful.” Embarrassed, he looked around, hoping nobody would get the wrong idea and impute this accursed nervousness to cowardice. He was fiercely determined not to disgrace his family or his county.

Suddenly the Union drums began to roll, loudly and ominously. The noise was startling. Jeff's lips flattened on his teeth. He squinted down the line of infantry at the nearest drummer boy. To his surprise, he saw Jimmy Lear. Then Jeff remembered that there were Missouri troops in action. General Herron's two divisions had marched gallantly more than one hundred miles from Wilson's Creek, Missouri, to support them. Varnished drumsticks whirring in his hands, Jimmy was staring sternly straight ahead and stepping lightly up and down as his feet marked the time, a look of concentrated duty on his boyish face.

“Flam-a-dee-dee-dee! Flam-a-dee-dee-dee!” rang the drums weirdly and vibrantly. Jeff stretched his neck, trying to catch Jimmy's eye, so he could wave at him. But Jimmy was keeping his mind on his business.

“Fall in!”

Obediently Jeff backed into line, dressing up on Noah's tall form next to him. A spiteful crackle of rifle fire, punctuated by the deeper roar of cannon, broke suddenly from the woods. Now the stinking, acrid odor of gunpowder was on the air. A rebel bombshell screeched over their heads, hunting for them. Jeff imagined he could hear it say, “Where-is-yuh, where-is-yuh, where-is-yuh—booooom!”

He began to hear tiny thuds here and there in the ground. They reminded him of the first, isolated dropping of hailstones during a spring storm on the Kansas prairies. Tardily he realized they were rebel rifle bullets.

“Fix bayonets!” Mechanically Jeff groped for the scabbard at his belt. Fingers shaking, he managed to clamp the long knife over the muzzle of his rifle. He shot a quick look at Noah. It was good to have Noah next to him.

“Be ready, youngster! We're goin' in after 'em!” Noah yelled. Jeff pulled a couple of long breaths and felt the goose bumps rising on his arms.

He heard Clardy cursing. Big Jake Lonegan had thrown down his musket and run in terror to the rear. Jeff felt a powerful urge to follow him. He could hear the officers shouting threats, too, but they failed to stop the big sergeant or even to slow him down.

“Eyes front!” bellowed Clardy. “Any man leaving his position will be shot!”

Swallowing nervously, Jeff found he could not keep his thoughts on the coming battle. Oddly, they kept wandering back to Linn County. It was a Sunday afternoon, and his family had probably just returned from church in the rock mission at Sugar Mound. He could see his mother, busy over her fireplace ovens, cooking the Sunday dinner, with Bess and Mary both helping, each careful not to soil the Sunday dresses they had not yet taken off. He could see his father unhitching Jack and Beck from the buckboard and Ring crouching mischievously by the gooseberry bushes, waiting to give the mules a run when they were liberated through the corral gate.

Tears stung Jeff's eyes. Angry at himself for showing emotion, he winked them off. What in the world was the matter with him? The rebel fire grew hotter. What funny music the rebel Minie balls made. Some of them mewed like kittens. Others hummed like angry hornets or whined like ricocheting nails.

A soldier on Jeff's right went down with a strangled moan, clutching and raking at his stomach. Jeff began to pray hard, straight from the heart. He hadn't dreamed that war was anything like this. He vowed that if by some miracle he came out alive, he would always go to church thereafter.

“Forward march!” Jeff barely heard the command above the battle's din. But every man obeyed. Bayoneted muskets carried at the ready, they strode blindly forward to whatever fate awaited them. Angrily Jeff thought of how little control a soldier in the ranks had over his own destiny.

It was a soldier's business to starve to death, take the guff from the officers, march all night, and be shot to pieces in the daytime without ever opening his mouth in protest. Suddenly he felt a violent anger. The officers had him, coming or going. He was like the farmer's dog trotting to town beneath his master's wagon. If he stood and fought, the town dogs all ganged him and whipped the whey out of him. If he turned and ran for home, they chewed his tail from behind. Either way they had him.