“A cavalry raid at its best,” said Stephen Forbes, “is essentially a game of strategy and speed, with personal violence as an incidental complication. It is played according to more or less definite rules, not inconsistent, indeed, with the players’ killing each other if the game cannot be won in any other way; but it is commonly a strenuous game, rather than a bloody one, intensely exciting, but not necessarily very dangerous.”2
So had Grierson’s cavalrymen found this raid to be after two weeks of continuous marching through the heart of the western Confederacy. Of the nine hundred men in the two Illinois regiments, only one had been killed, Sergeant William Buffington of Company B. Four had been wounded, three had been left en route because of illness, and half a dozen stragglers who may or may not have been captured were listed as missing.
And on the dawn of this beautiful May day, the fifteenth day of the raid, there was nothing to indicate that their luck might change. “A gentle breeze floated through the trees,” said Sergeant Surby, “causing a rustling among the green leaves of the oaks. Perched among the branches was the mocking bird, singing a variety of notes, the whole impressing the beholder with a sense of a Creator of all this beauty. … We little dreamed what a change would be produced in a few hours.”
Lieutenant-Colonel William Blackburn, who probably more than any other officer in Grierson’s brigade loved the game of cavalry raiding, had requested command of the advance on this day. “I charged him particularly to make a cautious advance,”3 Grierson said afterwards, and Grierson himself rode near the head of the column with the Seventh Regiment, probably suspecting that the day might not end so peacefully as it had begun.
As the column moved rapidly southwestward along the thickly forested watershed between the Amite and Tickfaw Rivers, “marching through woods, lanes, and byroads,” Grierson threw off two small expeditions in short feints eastward, designed to alarm Magnolia and Osyka and keep the rebels’ attention off the main body of his troops. About nine o’clock, he ordered Lieutenant G. W. Newell, Company F, of the Sixth Regiment, to move off with a squadron on the flank in search of fresh horses. Lieutenant Newell’s instructions were to rejoin the column during the noon bivouac, probably at or near Wall’s Bridge on the Tickfaw River.
Following the cross-country course selected by Colonel Grierson, the scouts encountered only a few civilians during the morning. They captured one wagon filled with tobacco, a very welcome commodity which was immediately confiscated and distributed among the men in the advance.
Around ten o’clock the scouts emerged from the woods upon the main road running from Liberty to Osyka. “I at once discovered,” said Sergeant Surby, “by the newly-made tracks, that a column had passed, and could not have been long before.” He sent a scout back on the gallop to inform Lieutenant-Colonel Blackburn, and in a few minutes both Blackburn and Grierson came up to the road. They dismounted and examined the tracks carefully, attempting to estimate the size of the enemy force which was traveling in the same direction the column would have to follow in order to cross the Tickfaw River at Wall’s Bridge.
Grierson ordered Sergeant Surby to advance with extreme caution. “Let nothing escape your observation on either side of the road,” he said. “If you see anything suspicious, report back to me at once. And don’t get more than half a mile from the advance.”
“After receiving these instructions,” said Surby, “I started, followed by my scouts.”4
III
The tracks which Sergeant Surby was trailing so cautiously on the morning of May 1 were not more than an hour old. They were the tracks of three Confederate cavalry companies under command of Major James De Baun, a lithe, six-foot Creole from New Orleans, a man in his forties who looked younger than most of his troopers, a swarthy dark-haired fighter with piercing black eyes.5
Before dawn Major De Baun had urged his command out of their brief night encampment near Liberty, marching rapidly along the road toward Osyka. His orders of yesterday from General Gardner had informed him that Grierson’s raiders were moving south along the railroad toward Osyka; he did not suspect that he had already cut across the Yankees’ course, leaving them on the road behind him.
At 11:30 in the morning De Baun reached Wall’s Bridge. His destination, Osyka, was only eight miles away, but as he was not certain of finding water farther along he ordered a brief noon halt beside the Tickfaw, sending seven rear guard pickets back half a mile as a routine security measure. The pickets rode leisurely away from the bridge past a cotton field, turned a sharp angle, and halted beside a graveled driveway which curved out of sight through a dense growth of live-oaks and silver poplars that almost concealed a white two-story plantation house standing 300 yards back from the road.
De Baun’s pickets were hungry. Their breakfast before dawn had been scanty and they had almost nothing left for noon. The view of the well-kept plantation was tempting, and four of the seven pickets rode their horses up the driveway in search of food. The three men left behind dismounted. Two sat down on a log beneath the tall oaks at the drive’s entrance; the third stretched out on the ground with his hat over his face.
Back at Wall’s Bridge, Major De Baun watched the last of his men cross the bridge and join the others watering their horses in the river. At 11:45 A.M., fifteen minutes after he called the halt, two shots echoed suddenly, followed by irregular carbine firing. The sounds came from the west, from the road where his rear guard was picketed.
De Baun shouted a command to his men to get their horses out of the river and into the concealment of the thick woods. “I immediately ordered the bridge to be dismantled and the men ambushed,” he said, afterwards, “posting men at the bridge to destroy it as soon as the rear guard would have reported.”
But the rear guard did not report. De Baun waited ten minutes, standing impatiently at the bridge end and staring up the road which ran straight out through a natural lane of water oaks screening the cotton field to the right. Finally he ordered Captain E. A. Scott to proceed “up the road to ascertain, if possible, the cause of the delay.”6
Captain Scott signaled his orderly to come forward with two horses. They mounted and rode rapidly up out of the lane of trees to where the road swung to the right in a wide angular bend around the field. Here the captain and his orderly turned to take a short cut across the field, but after they had gone a few yards, Scott pulled his mount up suddenly. He saw four horsemen in butternut riding slowly along the road toward them a quarter of a mile away. They were not De Baun’s men but they did not appear to be Yankees.
IV
After receiving orders directly from Colonel Grierson, Sergeant Surby proceeded cautiously for half an hour. The woods were too thickety to use his Butternut Guerillas on flank; he kept them strung out in single file so that each scout was always in sight of the man behind and ahead of him, assuring immediate contact with the head of the column. The tracks and the horse dung were very recent, and Surby kept his eyes always on the road to his front. The sun was directly overhead, and Surby guessed that the rebels would probably halt soon for noon bivouac.
He passed a plantation entrance, the house concealed by a solid green growth of live-oaks and silver poplars. A few yards beyond this driveway he turned a sharp bend in the road. About 300 yards ahead of him on the roadside were three horses, saddled. He could see no men.
Surby halted and waited until three of his scouts caught up with him. He sent the first one back to report to Colonel Grierson and then went forward slowly with the others. “Revolvers ready at hand,” he ordered, and as the scouts came up to the saddled mounts, they saw three Confederate soldiers—two sitting on a log, the third lying on the ground—their carbines stacked carelessly against the log.
The rebels had seen the scouts by now, but they made no move to challenge these three strangers in shabby butternut jeans.
Surby slowed his horse, keeping his revolver concealed. “Hello, boys,” he said softly. “On picket?”
One of the rebel
s on the log grinned and replied: “Yes; been on about an hour and feel devilish tired.” The man on the ground sat up and yawned. “Been traveling night and day after the d----d Yanks, and I’ll bet my horse they will get away yet.”
“That is just our case,” Surby said. He was studying the terrain, thick forest on the left, a cotton field beyond slanting down toward a wooded bottom where the river lay, and there he guessed would be the enemy force, waiting. He noted a side road curving in to a white plantation house almost obscured by trees, and guessed then that this was a second entrance to the same plantation he had already observed around the angular bend of the road. Surby signaled the two scouts behind to cover him, then slid his revolver back into its holster, threw one leg over his saddle and stepped down.
At that moment, two shots followed by carbine firing exploded upon the somnolent noonday, the sound breaking from somewhere beyond the green foliage that screened the plantation house.7
A few minutes before this unexpected gunfire alarmed Sergeant Surby on the road and Major De Baun down at Wall’s Bridge, the advance company of Grierson’s column had come to a halt beside the main driveway to the plantation house. G Company, Seventh Illinois, was in the advance and the men halted gratefully there in the shade as soon as Surby’s scout met them on his way to report to Colonel Grierson.
Only four hundred yards separated G Company from Surby and the Confederate pickets, but neither group was visible to the other because of the angular turn in the road. Captain George Trafton, in command of G Company, was also acting as battalion commander, and he had dropped back a few hundred yards with Colonel Grierson for a conference with the regimental officers, leaving Lieutenant James Gaston in command.
Lieutenant Gaston dismounted in the thick shadows of the live-oaks, probably wondering what lay beyond the screen of shrubbery through which the driveway led. He waited five minutes and there was no sound or sign of action from front or rear. Lieutenant Gaston then signaled the second lieutenant, William H. Styles, to come forward. He told Styles to take over the company while he rode in to the plantation house. With a dozen men behind him, Lieutenant Gaston rode gaily up through the curving driveway.
A few moments later Gaston and his men came suddenly into full view of the plantation house, brilliant in its whiteness against the abundance of enveloping vegetation. But a gate blocked farther passage. “As they rode up to the gate they were surprised at seeing four armed rebels standing around in the yard, their horses being tied outside the gate. The ‘rebs’ were surprised as well, and both parties showed a disposition to fight.”8
Lieutenant Gaston immediately shouted a surrender order, but two of the rebels replied with quick fire, two resounding bursts, one carrying a load of buckshot that ripped through the blouse of one of Gaston’s men, wounding him slightly.
After opening the driveway gate, the Yankees charged forward, Lieutenant Gaston swinging his saber, the men’s carbines rattling a scattered volley. Gaston captured two of De Baun’s men; the other two escaped by fleeing on foot around the plantation house and disappearing into the woods beyond.
The lieutenant had won his little skirmish but the gunshots had warned Major De Baun of the enemy’s approach.
Back on the road, Sergeant Surby acted quickly when he heard the first shots. He decided there was no time for further questioning of the pickets. “Giving my scouts the sign, each of us covered his man with a revolver and ordered them to surrender and raise their hands over their heads, or we would fire. They complied at once, and I ordered one of my men to dismount and secure their arms, and then, directing them to mount, double-quicked them back to the head of the column.”
Amid the confusion of G Company’s alarm over the firing inside the plantation yard, Sergeant Surby met Lieutenant-Colonel Blackburn. Blackburn immediately ordered him to turn back and resume scouting. “I was ordered to proceed cautiously.”
Summoning George Steadman, Uriah Fowler, and Arthur Wood to accompany him, Sergeant Surby advanced slowly around the bend of the road. As the four Butternut Guerillas passed the side entrance to the plantation house and neared the green-stripped cotton field, they saw two Confederates sitting motionless on horseback far down the open slope, a quarter of a mile away. “Those two men were looking very earnestly at us.”
The sergeant ordered Wood to continue along the road while he and Steadman and Fowler cut across the field directly toward the horsemen. They had advanced about a hundred yards when one of the rebels stood up in his stirrups and shouted: “What in hell does all that firing mean?”
Surby cupped his hands and replied that reinforcements were coming and the pickets had fired on the advance. “Nobody hurt,” he added.
The two Confederates laughed, and one replied: “Is that all?”
The scouts could see now that one of the rebels was a captain; he was waving his orderly forward to meet them.
“Fowler!” Surby said quickly. “Let him ride up between us. I’ll manage him.” They checked their pace and spread out to receive the galloping rebel.
He was very young, his face flushed from heat and excitement, and he was grinning when he pulled his horse up short between Surby and Fowler. “How are you, boys,” he drawled. “How much force have you got?”
Surby had turned his mount obliquely, shielding his left hand from the distant officer’s view. He had his revolver cocked and pointed directly at the rebel orderly’s chest. “Don’t talk or make a move,” he said quietly. “Fowler, take his arms before I blow him through.”
Fowler moved in expertly, blocking the action from the Confederate captain who was now approaching slowly. As soon as the orderly was disarmed, Surby glanced around at Steadman; he was surprised to find Steadman dismounted and leading his horse toward the Confederate captain.
The two met about a hundred yards from Surby. Suddenly Steadman released his horse and caught the Confederate’s bridle with one hand, swung his body in alongside the horse, grasping the man’s revolver holster and demanding that he surrender. Steadman was over-confident. He was also the smallest of the scouts, and this rebel captain was a big man—and stubborn.
The captain made a quick movement to release the scout’s hold on his holster. “Who and what in hell are you?” he cried.
Surby, who had been anxiously watching Steadman’s careless procedure, spurred his horse into a quick lunging gallop across the field and came up just in time to persuade the rebel officer to change his plans for escape. “I noticed the gold bars on his collar which in the Southern army denotes captain. He proved to be Captain E. A. Scott.”
Captain Scott was trembling with rage at his own stupidity, a reaction which Surby at first interpreted as fear for his life. “Don’t be alarmed, Captain,” Surby said reassuringly. “We’re Illinois boys and we’ll treat you right. Just follow me now.”
Scott forced a smile. “I’m not afraid,” he replied firmly. “But I should not have been your prisoner had it not been that I was deceived in your dress.”9
Surby did not reply. When he faced back toward the plantation house he saw Company G approaching in column of twos. Lieutenant-Colonel Blackburn was riding alongside Lieutenant Styles, and as soon as Blackburn noted that the scouts were returning with prisoners he galloped his horse forward to meet them.
Blackburn sat high in his saddle, a huge man on a huge bay stallion. His tight uniform was streaked with salt stains and dark patches of sweat; his sun-burned cheeks above his bluish beard were flushed with the eagerness of the hunter in the chase. “Sergeant!” he shouted. “Bring along your scouts and follow me, and I’ll see where those rebels are hiding!”
Surby checked his reins, expecting Blackburn to halt, but the colonel continued past him at a slow trot down the sloping cotton field toward the wooded surround of Wall’s Bridge. Restraining a spoken warning to his commander, the sergeant ordered Steadman and Fowler to conduct the prisoners back into the column, and then swung about. Lycurgus Kelly and Sam Nelson had just come up from th
e advance, and Arthur Wood had joined him during the scuffle with the reluctant Confederate captain. Surby motioned them to follow him, and the four galloped across the field after Blackburn.
“It seemed to me,” Surby said afterward, “that this was a rash movement on the part of Colonel Blackburn, but he had ordered me to follow him, and it was my duty to obey.”
The scouts overtook Blackburn at the edge of the field, and the colonel led the way out into the sandy road pitted with hoofprints. He halted for a moment in the bright sunlight, the four scouts drawing up beside him, facing down the shaded lane that led straight to the lonely bridge and the dark inscrutable undergrowth beyond. It was a relief when Blackburn clucked his stallion forward and broke the silence with the faint creaking of saddle leather. The river was visible now, below and to one side of the bridge, the stream’s surface spotted with twinkling flashes of sunlight.
Then they were close enough to see the roiled waters where the enemy’s horses had stood to drink, the muddy slope of the far bank disturbed and pocked with the passage of men and animals. The bridge lay directly before them, fifty feet long, wide enough only for one wheeled vehicle, the siding dismantled, the planks strewn hastily at either end. But the flooring was still intact.
Blackburn was in the lead when without warning, just as he reached the bridge: Wha-a-a-ng! The single report was followed almost instantaneously by a rattle of fire, the bullets whining and skipping through the leaves, echoes swallowed up by succeeding explosions.
Blackburn charged upon the bridge, his horse’s hooves pounding hollowly. Surby and his scouts pushed close behind. The scattered firing suddenly concentrated into a volley. “It seemed as though a flame of fire burst forth from every tree.” Blackburn’s horse was whinnying in pain. The big bay twisted sideways and dropped abruptly, the bridge trembling and spraying dust from its floor seams. Surby’s own horse was rearing. He felt a stab of fire running through his thigh.