Rifles for Watie (8 page)

Jimmy must have seen the sergeant in his mirror because his hand was trembling.

“How old are ye?” the sergeant asked, stepping around in front of Jimmy and looking at him accusingly.

Jimmy's face blanched. He looked sheepish. “Sixteen, sir.”

“That's a lie,” the sergeant snorted. “Likely you're nearer thirteen.” He looked shrewdly at Jimmy. “Why are you shavin' atall? They ain't no whiskers on either side of yer face. They ain't even any goose down.” With a dirty forefinger he reached up suddenly and wiped the soap off one side of the boy's face, exposing a cheek as smooth as a girl's.

Jimmy stood silent, still holding the open razor.

The sergeant growled, “Come with me. I wish I knew what recruitin' officer signed ye. He'd get a court-martial and a dismissal, forfeitin' all pay and allowances.”

Jimmy's face was tragic. Jeff saw him swallow helplessly and wished there was something he could do.

Jimmy found his voice. “Sir, they won't kick me out of the army for this, will they? I'm fourteen but I'm big for my age.” His big blue eyes stared beseechingly at the sergeant.

The sergeant said, “They otta make ye walk clear back to wherever ye came from.” Still scowling, he marched Jimmy off to see the captain. Jeff was flabbergasted. No wonder Jimmy had trouble standing the long, hard march.

Next evening they camped twenty-five miles north of Springfield and Lyon ordered vedettes and guards posted and sent out scouts.

“We're gettin' close,” Millholland told them. “Captain says the rebels are comin' up fast from the South. Looks like we're gonna have a battle, all right.”

Elated, Jeff got up and took his rifle into the woods to clean it and replace the old load with a new one. If there was going to be a fight, he aimed to be ready. Pointing his gun at the sky, he fired it off so he could clean the breech.

A sentry came running up, frowning with excitement. “Did you fire that gun?”

Jeff nodded.

“Did your captain give you permission?”

Jeff stared at him innocently. “No, sir. I didn't know I needed permission. I just shot it off so I could clean it. When I go hunting in the woods at home and want to clean my gun, I always shoot it off like that. Why? Is it against the rules?”

The sentry raised his own rifle across his chest. “You're under arrest,” he said sternly. “Come with me.”

Jeff was taken before Captain Clardy. Clardy stared coldly at him. When he recognized Jeff, the long scar on his left cheek turned livid. For a full moment his wild green eyes darted over Jeff. His look was like a whip. Feeling it, Jeff writhed uncomfortably.

“Put him on all-night sentry duty,” Clardy snarled and turned his back on them.

Although he had marched all day in the torrid heat, Jeff walked sentry all night. At nine o'clock his eyes began to feel heavy, at eleven he was nodding, at midnight he was dozing on his feet and went to the cook's mess to get a cup of hot coffee so he could stay awake, helping himself to the pot on the fire. As he stood drinking, he heard the cooks snoring loudly as they slept on quilts under the stars. Then he heard a voice, calling his name.

Jeff went closer and saw Sparrow, the cook, sitting up in his bunk. He reeked of alcohol.

“Bussey . . . you're a fool,” Sparrow mumbled thickly. “Nex' time he gits rough with you . . . ask him how the widow Spaulding died . . . back at Os'watomie . . . an' where her eight hundert dollars went.”

Jeff's jaw dropped. “Who you talking about?”

Sparrow winked at him owlishly. “Ask him . . . who bashed her skull in th' night o' th' storm . . . I saw him slip up to her house . . . I wash fishin' fer flatheads an' went inter her barn to get outa th' rain . . . He better not . . . git rough . . . with me.” Falling back on his bunk, Sparrow began to snore.

There was something familiar about the cook's mumbled threat. Jeff remembered his words in the army kitchen back at Leavenworth: “Clardy knows he wouldn't dare talk like that to me. I could tell you something about Asa Clardy that he wouldn't want you ner nobody else to know.”

Thunderstruck, Jeff walked back to his post. Was Sparrow talking about Clardy? Had there been a murder or was the cook babbling from a drunken dream?

Just thinking about it the rest of the night helped keep him awake. Relieved at four o'clock in the morning, he slept in his uniform a couple of hours before the army started marching again. Noah awakened him ten minutes before they lined up. Jeff was tired and logy. He just had time to wash his eyes in cold water and swallow some cold bacon and fried potatoes Noah had saved for him when he heard the cavalry bugles.

That night they camped four miles north of Springfield. Jeff heard the staccato beat of a drum, coming from the Missourians' mess. Suddenly he saw Jimmy, surrounded by German bandsmen.

One was teaching him to beat the various calls. A parade drum hung from a strap around his shoulders. A pair of polished drumsticks was in his hands. When he saw Jeff, he beamed with pleasure.

“General Lyon says I won't have to go home,” Jimmy said joyfully. “I'm going to be a drummer. They're gonna let me hone the surgical instruments, draw maps, and carry water to the barbers. When I reach sixteen I get to go back into the army.”

The next morning they marched into the edge of Springfield. Laborers in Union blouses were digging earthworks around the town. As one of the workers raised his pick, he looked familiar. With a glad shout Jeff ran to his side.

“David!”

David Gardner stared up wearily, despair written all over his freckled boyish face. His clothing was sweaty and dirt-begrimed, his hands dirty, calloused, and raw with blisters.

A rough-looking guard with a sandy hawk-wing mustache stepped threateningly in front of Jeff.

“Move on,” he commanded. “These is deserters. Cap'n says nobody's to talk to 'em.”

Jeff said, “He's from my home county over in Kansas. If I could just speak a word to him . . .”

The guard looked ugly and showed his teeth. “I don' care if he's yore long-lost brother! Move on or I'll run you in.”

Reluctantly Jeff moved on. As he walked he sighed with relief. At least David hadn't been shot. When they had got back to Leavenworth from Linn County, Jeff had gone with David to Millholland, explaining that David was returning voluntarily to his outfit. Millholland had promised to pass on that information to the regimental court-martial handling David's case. Apparently the sergeant had done as he promised.

When the army marched into the streets of Springfield just before noon, the town was in a near panic. It was August 9, 1861. Everybody knew a battle would soon be fought. The whole town seemed frightened. All afternoon Jeff watched the excitement and the confusion, while the soldiers lay resting on the grass beneath several gigantic oak trees in the shady town square. Merchandise and household goods were being loaded into wagons, ready for flight. People were cooping their chickens, harnessing their teams, calling to their children. Storekeepers and citizens presented food and tobacco lavishly to the soldiers. Everybody was afraid that if the rebels won, they would ravish the town.

A merchant's wife gave Jeff two pairs of socks and a small sack of apples. Surprised, Jeff stammered his thanks.

“Good luck,” the woman said. Then she added, “My, but yore awfully leetle and younglike to be fighting in a war. You ought to be home with your mammy.”

After giving Jeff a long soulful look, she began sniffing and dabbing at her eyes with the bottom of her blue calico apron.

Jeff didn't like her pessimism. “Corn,” he told himself disgustedly. “She acts like we're all going to be killed by the rebels. We can take care of ourselves.”

General Lyon rode up on a big gray horse and, without dismounting, began to talk to the Kansas Volunteers. He was a short, slender, bony man of about forty-five, with a rough, homely face. A coarse reddish-brown beard ran up past his ears into his thick sandy hair. He wore a blue uniform with heavy yellow epaulets concealing his frail shoulders. Jeff knew that he had fought with honor in the Mexican War and against the Indians.

The general said, “Men, we're going to have a battle. We're going to march out and try to hit 'em before they know we're comin'. Don't shoot until you are given orders. Wait until they get close. Fire low—don't aim higher than their knees. And don't get scared. It's no part of a soldier's duty to get scared.”

Scared? Who was scared? Jeff felt a gay excitement. His chance to strike a blow for his new state had come at last. He reached toward the left side of his belt, feeling for his bayonet. It was there. His pack was on his back, and his musket was in his hand. He was impatient to get started.

The thin, sweet trill of a bugle pealed in the early twilight. A dozen drums began to beat. An officer shouted, “Fo'wud mawtch!”

Thousands of feet began to stamp the hard, dusty ground in unison. The soldiers' heads rose and fell as one as they marched four abreast at quick step. The long blue column moved southward.

  
7

Battle of Wilson's Creek

General Lyon had decided upon a bold plan of battle. His smaller Union army had no reinforcements. Their provisions were running low. A superior force was in front of them and General William J. Hardee with nine thousand more rebels was reported marching to cut off their communications. Retreat seemed wise. But Lyon didn't propose to retreat and be closely pursued all the way back to St. Louis. Boldly he decided to attack and hurt the enemy so he could not follow them.

His plan was to march secretly at night the twelve miles to where Price's and McCulloch's rebel army was encamped, and strike at daybreak in a surprise onslaught. Lyon with thirty-eight hundred men and two batteries would hit the rebels from the north. Colonel Franz Sigel with twelve hundred men and one battery was to fall upon the Confederates from the south.

As the infantry swung along briskly, clouds covered the western sky, and Jeff thought he could smell rain in the air. Millholland raised his bearded chin, eyeing the heavens hopefully.

“A rain ud be jist right for us,” he said. “Might cause 'em to draw in their pickets. If they do, we'll give 'em a real surprise.”

“Wonder what them rebels looks like?” quavered a frightened boy in the ranks.

Jake Lonegan, the grizzled sergeant from Junction City, snorted. “They wear horns,” he croaked. “A common article o' diet among 'em is young an' tender babies.”

As they moved nearer the enemy, there was silence in the ranks. The road grew rockier. Fearing that the enemy could hear them approaching, they stopped to bind the cannon's wheels in blankets and the horses' hoofs in sacks, then resumed the march. Jeff's company, commanded by Clardy, was stationed near the rear. Behind them were the horse-drawn ambulances, their shelves filled with bottles and drugs, and the doctors and medical orderlies with their cases of sharp surgical instruments.

The men were solemn, now that the hour of battle approached. Jeff could sense it in their white, wistful faces and hear it in their hushed whispering. They exchanged messages to be delivered to relatives and sweethearts back in Kansas in the event they were killed.

Jim Veatch, a Westport boy who liked to play cards, tossed his deck into the sumac bushes at the side of the road and grimly resumed his marching. In the dim light, the white faces of the cards settled slowly over one bush, decorating it gaily.

Puzzled, Jeff nudged Noah Babbitt, marching next to him. “Noah, why did he do that?”

“He probably doesn't want to be killed in battle with playing cards on him,” Noah said, gravely. “It's a superstition lots of soldiers have. They've been told in church that it's wrong to play cards. They're afraid if they get killed with playing cards on them, they won't go to heaven.”

Then Jeff saw Neeley North, a breezy recruit from Shawnee Mission, stoop and carefully pick up the cards Veatch had thrown away, pocketing them.

“Neeley's not so superstitious,” Noah explained. “He'll probably sell Veatch's cards back to him if they both live through the battle.”

If they both lived through the battle! Jeff stepped around a limestone outcropping in the dusty road, scoffing inwardly. They had been told back at the fort that very few soldiers were killed in proportion to those who fought. What made everybody so gloomy? War was a lark, an adventure made for men.

Swinging blithely along, he felt Noah's steady gray eyes on him.

“How do you feel, youngster?” Noah asked. “Haven't you got scared yet?”

Jeff shook his head. “I've been waiting a long time for this night.”

The Kansas Volunteers were the worst-dressed troops Jeff had ever seen. The war had just begun, and much of the new equipment hadn't yet arrived from the Northern factories. Jeff was wearing the civilian pants and shoes that had been furnished him at the fort, and army drawers, blouse, and socks. On his head was the same hat his mother had plaited from Linn County wheat straw.