CHAPTER V. LINING UP FOR BATTLE
THE 200TH IND. GUARDS THE WAGON TRAIN, AND DEFEATS AN ATTACK.
"RAIN agin to-day," said Shorty, disgustedly, as, on the morning of Dec.30, 1862, he crawled out of the shelter which he and Si had constructedby laying a pole in the crotches of two young cedars, and stretchingtheir ponchos and pup-tents over it. "Doggoned if I don't believeTennessee was left out in the flood, and they've been tryin' to make upfor it ever since. I'd rather have the flood at once, and be done withit, for then I'd join the navy instead of paddlin' 'round in this dirtyglue that they call mud." "Never saw such a grumbler, Shorty," said Sicheerily, as he punched the soaked embers together to start a blaze toboil their coffee by. "Last Summer the dust and dry weather didn't suityou. Do you want to do your soldierin' in heaven?"
"Hurry up with your grub, boys," said the Orderly-Sergeant, whocame spattering through the muck of leaves and mud into which thecamping-ground had been trampled. "The regiment's to move in 15 minutes.The 200th Ind. guards wagon-trains to-day. Yesterday Wheeler's cavalrygot in among our wagons and raised thunder--burnt about a mile of 'em."
Shorty grumbled: "That means a tough day's work pryin' wagons out ofthe mud, and restin' ourselves between times runnin' after a loto' skippin', cavortin' cavalry that's about as easy to ketch as ahalf-bushel o' fleas. Anything I hate it's rebel cavalry{58} alltear-around and yell, and when you git ready to shoot they're on theother side o' the hill."
"Well," said Si, removing a slab of sizzling fat pork from the end ofhis rammer, laying it on his hardtack, and taking a generous bite, "wemustn't allow them to take no wagons away from the 200th Ind., slosharound as they may. We want all that grub ourselves."
"Well, hump yourselves," said the Orderly-Sergeant, as he spattered on;"fall in promptly when assembly blows. Got plenty o' cartridges?"
Two or three hours later every man in the 200th Ind., wet to the skin,and with enough mud on him to be assessable as real estate, was in atemper to have sassed his gentle old grandmother and whipped his bestfriend. He believed that if there was any thing under heavens meanerthan Tennessee weather it was an army mule; the teamsters had evenless sense and more contrariness than the mules; the army wagon wasa disheartening device of the devil, and Tennessee roads had beenespecially contrived by Jeff Davis to break the hearts of Unionsoldiers.
The rain came down with a steady pelt that drove right through to thebody. The wagon wheels sank into every mud-hole and made it deeper.Prying out the leading ones seemed only to make it worse for the next.The discouraged mules would settle back in the breech ings, and notpull an ounce at the most critical moments. The drivers would becomeblundering idiots, driveling futile profanity. In spite of all the mudthe striving, pushing, pulling, prying, lifting, shouting 200th Ind.gathered up on their hands and clothes, it increased momentarily in theroad.{59}
The train had strung out over a mile or more of rocky ledges and abyssesof mire. Around each wagon was a squad who felt deeply injured by thecertainty that their infernal luck had given them the heaviest wagon,the worst mules, and the most exasperating driver in the whole division.
"I couldn't 've made a doggoneder fool than Groundhog, that teamster,"said Shorty, laying down his rail for a minute's rest, "if I'd 'a'had Thompson's colt before my eyes for a pattern. That feller was bornaddled, on Friday, in the dark of the moon."
"Them mules," dolefully corroborated Si, scraping an acre, more or less,of red Tennessee soil from his overcoat with a stick, "need to be brokeagain with a saw-log. Luck for old Job that the devil didn't think o'settin' him to drive mules. He'd 'a-bin a-goner in less'n an hour."
"Doggone it, here they come," said Shorty, snatching up his gun.
Si looked in the direction of Shorty's glance. Out of the cedars, a mileor more away, burst a regiment of rebel cavalry, riding straight for thefront of the train.
With his tribe's keen apprehension of danger, Groundhog had jumped fromhis saddle, nervously unhitched his mule, and sprung into the saddleagain, ready for instant fight.
"Get off and hook that mule up agin," commanded Si sternly. "Now geton your mule and go to the head of your team, take the leaders by thebridles, and stay there."
"If you ain't standing there holding your mules when we come back I'llbreak your worthless neck."{60}
The bugle sounded "Rally on the right flank," and Si and Shorty joinedthe others in a lumbering rush over the miry fields toward the right.Their soaked clothes hung about them like lead. They had not a spoonfulof breath left when they got to where, half-a-mile away, Co. A hadtaken a position in the briers behind a rail fence, and had opened along-ranged fire on the cavalry, which was manuvering as if trying todiscover a way to take the company in flank. Another fence ran at rightangles away to the right of Co. A's position. The cavalry started forthat.
"Capt. McGillicuddy," shouted the Colonel, "take your company back tothat fence as quick as you can, run along back of it, and try to keepthose fellows on the other side."
Away the panting company rushed for the fence. The field was overgrownwith those pests of the Southern plowman, called locally "devil's shoestrings," which stretch from furrow-ridge to furrow-ridge, and aresnares to any careless walker. The excited Indianians were constantlytripped on these, and fell headlong in the mud. Down Si and Shorty wentseveral times, to the great damage of their tempers. But in spite of allrain, mud, lack of breath and devil's shoe-strings the company got tothe fence in advance of the cavalry, and opened a scattering fire aseach man could get his damp gun to go off. Si and Shorty ran back alittle to a hillock, from which they could get long-distance shots onwhere the cavalry would probably try to tear down the fence.
"It's all of 600 yards, Si," said Shorty, as he leaned against a youngoak, got his breath back in long gulps, and studied the ground. "We kinmake it, though, with our Springfields, if they'll give us time to cooldown and git our breaths. I declare I want a whole Township of fresh airevery second. That last time I fell knocked enough breath out o' me tofill a balloon."
"There, they're sendin' out a squad now to go for the fence," said Si,putting his sight up to 600 yards. "I'll line on that little persimmontree and shoot as they pass it. I'll take the fellow on the clay bankhorse, who seems to be an officer. You take the next one on the spottedbay."
"Better shoot at the hoss," said Shorty, fixing his sight. "Bigger mark;and if you git the hoss you git the man."
The squad made a rush for the fence, but as the leader crossed theline Si had drawn on the persimmon tree through his sights, his musketcracked, and the horse reared and fell over in the mud. Shorty broke theshoulder of the next horse, and the rider had to jump off.
"Bully shots, boys. Do it again," shouted the Captain of Co. Q, hurryingsome men farther to the right, to concentrate a fire upon the exposedpoint.
Si and Shorty hastily reloaded, and fired again at the rebels, who hadpressed on toward the fence, in spite of the fall of their leader. Butnot having an object in line to sight on, Si and Shorty did not succeedin bringing anybody down. But as they looked to see the effect, theyalso saw a cannon-flash from a hill away off behind the cavalry, and thesame instant its rifled shot took the top off the young oak about sixfeet above Si's head.{62}
A CLOSE SHAVE 62]
Shorty was the first to recover his wits and tongue. "Doggoned ifsomebody else hain't been drawin' a bead on trees," he said, lookinginto Si's startled face. "Knows how to shoot, too."
"I didn't notice that measly gun come up there. Did you, Shorty?" saidSi, trying to get his heart back out of his mouth, so that he couldspeak plainly.
"No. I didn't. But it's there all the same, and the fellers with it haveblood in their eyes. Le's run over to where the other boys are. I'm aprivate citizen. I don't like so much public notice."
They joined the squad which was driving back the rebels who had startedout to break the fence.
Presently the cavalry wheeled about and disappeared in the woods. Therear was scarcely out of sight, and th
e 200th Ind. was just beginning tofeel a sense of relief, when there was a sputter of shots and a chorusof yells away off to the extreme left.
"Just as I expected," grumbled Shorty. "They are jumping the rear of thetrain now."
Leaving Co. A to watch the head of the train, the rest of the regimentbolted off on the double-quick for the rear. They did not get there amoment too soon. Not soon enough, in fact. As they came over the crestof the hill they saw Co. B, which had been with the rear, having morethan it could attend to with a horde of yelling, galloping rebels, whofilled the little valley. Co. B's boys were standing up manfully totheir work, and popping away at the rebels from behind fences and rocks,but the latter had already gotten away from them a wagon which had beenfar to the rear, had cut loose the mules and run them off, and wereplundering the wagon, and trying to start a fire under it.
The fusillade which the regiment opened as the men grained the crestof the hill, put a different{64} complexion on the affair. The rebelsrecognized the force of circumstances, and speedily rode back out ofrange, and then out of sight. As the last of them disappeared over thehill the wearied regiment dropped down all around to rest.
GROUNDHOG FLED 64]
"We can't rest long, boys," said the sympathetic Colonel; "we've got tostart these wagons along."
Presently he gave the order:
"Go back to your wagons, now, and get them out as quickly as you can."
Si and Shorty took a circuit to the left to get on some sod which hadnot been trampled into mortar. They heard a volley of profanity comingfrom a cedar brake still farther to the left, and recognized the voiceof their teamster. They went thither, and found Groundhog, who had fledfrom the scene, after the manner of his race, at the first soundof firing, but had been too scared to fasten up his traces when heunhitched his saddle mule. These had flapped around, as he urged hissteed forward, and the hooks had caught so firmly into the cedars whenhe plunged into the thicket that he was having a desperate time gettingthem loose.
"You dumbed, measly coward," said Si. "I told you I'd blow your headoffen you if you didn't stay by them mules. I ought to do it."
"Don't, Si," said Shorty. "He deserves it, and we kin do it some othertime. But we need him now in our business. He hain't much of a head, butit's all that he's got and he can't drive without it. Le's git the muleloose first."
They got the mule out and turned him around toward the wagons.
"Now," said Shorty, addressing Groundhog, "you white-livered son-in-lawof a jackass, git back to that wagon as fast as you kin, if you don'twant me to run this bayonet through you."
There was more straining and prying in the dreary rain and fathomlessmud to get the wagons started.{66}
"Shorty," said Si, as they plodded alongside the road, with a rail onone shoulder and a gun on the other, "I really believe that this is thetoughest day we've had yet. What d'you s'pose father and mother'd say ifthey could see us?"
EARNING THIRTEEN DOLLARS A MONTH 57]
"They'd probably say we wuz earning our $13 a month, with $100 bountyat the end o' three years.," snapped Shorty, who was in no mood forirrelevant conversation.
So the long, arduous day went. When they were not pulling, pushing,prying, and yelling, to get the wagons out of mudholes, they wererushing over the clogging, plowed fields to stand off the nagging rebelcavalry, which seemed to fill the country as full as the rain, the mud,the rocks and the sweeping cedars did. As night drew on they came upto lines of fires where the different divisions were going intoline-of-battle along the banks of Stone River. The mud became deeperthan ever, from the trampling of tens of thousands of men and animals,but they at least did not have the aggravating rebel cavalry to botherthem. They found their division at last in an old cottonfield, and wereinstantly surrounded by a crowd of hungry, angry men.
"Where in blazes have you fellers bin all day?" they shouted. "You oughtto've got up here hours ago. We're about starved."
"Go to thunder, you ungrateful whelps," said Si. "You kin git your ownwagons up after this. I'll never help guard another wagon-train as longas I'm in the army."