14 The Drunken Squad’s Last Stand

The disgraced Kentuckians, about twenty in number, were at the head of the gully. Sibley had taken only three drinks that morning, the attack coming too early for his arrangements, and his head was comparatively clear. He saw a dense mass of the enemy pressing up the ravine, which was wider at the far end, and it must have reminded him of Buena Vista, where the foe was five to one and the Americans yet won.

I knew those men, and I knew that a battle song was singing in the ears of Sibley—the chant of generations. His forefathers had fought the Indians and the English, almost without ceasing, and he, having fought for his country in war and himself in peace, had no mind to shun the fighting now, when it was pressed upon him, and would not be denied. He cocked his rifle and fired into the gray of the advancing Southern regiment. Then some one pulled at his arm. It was the boy Masters, who in the heat of a permanent admiration imitated his virtues and his vices, particularly the latter.

“They’ll walk over us,” said the boy, pointing to the gray mass in front. “Our captain’s killed, and what shall we do?”

“Yes, Billy, he’s killed; but he told us to hold this gully, and we needn’t disobey him because he’s dead.”

The boy made no reply, but pushing himself up by Sibley’s side fired at the Southern force. The rest of the twenty imitated his example. They were not a pretty lot; there was Congdon, a tall, raw-boned, loose-jointed mountaineer, who spoke in dialect and stole his comrades’ rations; and Purvis, of Maysville, whose chief virtue was silence; and Walker, famed for laziness; and Williams, of Louisville, who was not much older than Masters; and Clymer, of Paducah, who was the oldest of them all, and others of the same type, gaunt, brown, and long, all united by the two great common bonds—love of whisky and hatred of work.

“Come boys,” said Sibley, “you can all shoot; now show it!”

Twenty rifles poured a deadly volley into the advancing mass, which staggered and fell back, leaving a cluster of fallen, but recovering itself came on again. The twenty meanwhile reloaded rapidly and continued their own little battle, content with it and oblivious of the wider one that raged around them.

Never before had the twenty shown so much skill with the rifle, never before had they handled their long-barrelled weapons with such speed, and never before had they sent their bullets straighter to the mark. Jets of flame leaped from each muzzle, and the stream of lead sent into the advancing masses kept up an unbroken song. Their faces grew red with the fever of combat, and they drew quick breaths. The barrels of their rifles, fired so often, burned at the touch.

The general conflict deepened in intensity and tumult as the Northern army came more and more into action. Sherman’s division held fast to the ground around the little church of Shiloh, sinking its feet there, and refusing to yield to the torrent of bullets and cannon balls that beat upon it and broke gaps in its ranks, closed up immediately after by the living. The thick smoke gathered against the tops of the trees, through which the sun came only in pale rays, and under which men fought with furious energy in the half light. The thunder of the cannonade was unceasing, though it rose and fell in volume; but the minor note, the shrill and more spiteful crash of the small arms, was as steady as the sweep of a prairie wind. Save in front of Sherman it was a series of combats, waged by regiment against regiment, company against company, and man against man, a long, uncertain line of battle, winding, intermingling, and without plan. They met and fought in the dark and smoky woods, over hills, down gullies, tangled in thickets and among the trees, and the impartial cannon balls swept down bushes, trees, and men alike.

Meanwhile Shaftoe and I clung to the shelter of our rocks. I started to rise once, but he pulled me down.

“Don’t be a fool!” he said. “You would be killed before you could draw three breaths. Save yourself. It’s the right thing to do. You will be needed.”

I obeyed.

Sibley, who felt only the heat of battle, marked the regiment that was advancing upon his comrades and himself.

“Down upon your faces!” he cried; “they are about to fire!”

All the twenty threw themselves flat, and at the same moment the front line of the enemy burst into flame. The crackle of the rifles was lost in the thunder of the battle that rolled incessantly around them, but Sibley and his comrades heard the whiz of the bullets as they flew like a swarm of disappointed bees over their heads.

“Now, up, boys!” he cried, “and let ’em have it!”

The battle fever was surging in his veins and heating his brain, and always the boy Masters, with a face as red as Sibley’s own, was fighting at his elbow. I watched them both.

The men sprang to their feet, all except one, who lay crouched, with his eyes to the enemy.

“What’s the matter with that drunken fool Johnson? Why don’t he get up?” asked Sibley.

“He can’t; he’s got a bullet through his skull,” replied Congdon, the mountaineer, with commendable calmness.

“It’s just as well; his face is to the enemy,” said Sibley. Then he gave again the order to fire. All their rifles crashed at once. Marksmanship was one among the small set of virtues owned by these men; the front line of the attacking force reeled back before such a well-aimed volley, and the dark objects lying in the weeds before it showed that the bullets had sped true.

“Hurrah!” shouted Sibley; “that took the sand out of their gizzards!”

A volley from the second Southern rank flew over the head of the first and into the twenty. Five men fell. Two rose again; one of the two was bleeding from a bad wound in the shoulder and turned pale.

“Captain,” he said to Sibley, applying to him the term which was familiar in our State, and not always a mark of rank, “I got it hot and hard in the shoulder and it’s time for me to hunt a hospital.”

“Hospital the devil!” said Sibley. “Don’t you see the enemy coming?”

The man said nothing more, but began to reload his rifle. The boy Masters fired, and shrieked with joy.

“I got one! I got one!” he cried. His face writhed with delight.

Sibley patted him approvingly on the shoulder. The fighting blood in the boy evidently found a response in the kindred blood of the older man.

“You’re going to make a soldier, Billy,” he said.

Then Masters forgot there was such a thing as danger.

“Maybe they’ll turn back,” said Clymer.

Sibley frowned at him. The speech was untimely and inappropriate.

“Turn back? not from the gates of hell! They’re our own blood, and the hinges of their backbones are not oiled! We mustn’t forget one thing or we’ll never win this war, and it’s that the Johnny Rebs are as good as we are. I came mighty near being a Johnny Reb myself. There’s my brother Abner, he’s one. Abner and I could never get along together. When the war came on I said to Abner, ‘Which army are you going to join?’ ‘The Southern, of course,’ he said. ‘All right,’ says I; ‘then I’m going to join the Northern army,’ and join it I did the very next day. Nothing but brother Abner’s stubbornness kept the South from getting a mighty good soldier. Don’t you fool yourself, the Rebs will keep coming.”

“Then it’s time to take a drink,” said Clymer.

He produced a flask from his pocket, three or four others doing the same, and all drank from them, deeply, unctuously, and as a tribute of respect to the valour of the advancing foe. The blood flew to their brains and their courage flamed up. They saw many enemies, but their veins blazed with Homeric fire. They were only a lot of loafers, worthless in peace, but courage was their pocket piece, and they were ready to face armies.

“How the battle grows! Just listen to the shells and the song they sing!” cried Sibley.

The combat curved on either side of them in a red whirlwind.

Their immediate enemy halted a little as if choosing between ways, and the men took breath. More artillery rapidly came into action on either side, and now the dominant note of the battle—the sibilant song of all great battles—the screaming of the shells and shrapnel was heard rising above everything, over the thunder of the cannon as they were discharged, over the rattle of the rifles, the shouts of the men, the cries of the wounded, the neighing of the horses, the clank of moving wheels, and the tread of the charging brigades, drowning everything else, singing their terrible song, filling the ears of the soldiers, and whistling through the forest with all the rage and force of a storm.

The boy Masters was affected and quivered. His face became pale. The flame of the cannon fell upon it and showed its leaden hue.

“It’s all right, Billy,” said Sibley, protectingly. “It’s not a pretty song; it doesn’t tell of cool water and green grass, but I’ve known worse.”

“They’re getting ready to give us another volley,” said Purvis. “I think we’d better drop.”

A piece of shrapnel, whistling with heat and speed, struck him between the eyes and he fell without a word. I was glad on Billy’s account that he fell face downward.

“He’d have been a good soldier; he’s earned his six feet of earth,” said Sibley, as they rose after the volley. But the twenty had been reduced to fifteen. Williams, the Louisville man, was pouring out a stream of rich and unctuous oaths. A bullet had nipped him on the shoulder and the wound stung.

“Come, come, Williams!” said Sibley; “you’re in luck! A hundred thousand rebels after you and able to give you only a flea-bite. If you curse so much for a little thing like that, what would you say if you had a leg or two shot off?”

A shell screaming in its flight passed over their heads, and all bowed to it.

“We’ll give the right of way every time to as much iron as that,” joyously exclaimed Sibley, in whose head the blood and fever of battle was rising higher and still higher. “What are you doing there, Congdon?”

“Sharpshooting.”

The long, slim mountaineer was lying upon the ground, his slender, flexible form seeming to accommodate itself to every rock and bump, and to coil around it like a serpent. His eyes were glittering with ferocious joy as he looked down the sights of his rifle and picked his target. He was like an Indian triumphantly stalking his victim.

“By the Lord, it’s bushwhacking!” cried Sibley. “You mountaineers can’t help it; you were born to it. What else could you expect from a man from Breathitt County, Kentucky?”

Sibley and his little force occupied a good position, and with true military spirit they made the most of it, inflicting a heavy loss upon the advancing enemy and deranging his plans. Wherefore, they, the gully’s defenders, became important. It was a detached little battle waged with an energy and fire of great pressure to the square inch, and the Southerners paused merely to consider the best plan of attack. This obstacle annoyed them, and they would sweep it out of the way. The Kentuckians saw them stop, and the little band’s shout of triumph was heard for a moment amid the sound of the shells—a human note that defied rivalry. Sibley had all sorts of courage, natural, Dutch, and otherwise, fused this morning into a sparkling tonic, and he sprang upon the highest rock.

“Come on!” he shouted to the enemy. “We are here giving a dinner, and there are plates for you. Why don’t you come?”

Williams grasped him by the legs and pulled him down at the crest of an oratorical flight, a dozen bullets whistling the next instant where his head had been, and lamenting in intelligible tones its disappearance. They did not know its hardness.

“You’ll get yourself killed!” shouted Williams.

“What of it?” replied Sibley. “There’s supposed to be a slight risk in war.”

Then the survivors renewed the combat with fresh energy and passion. They sheltered themselves as much as the gully would permit, creeping forward in their zeal to meet the enemy, and always they sent their bullets into his close ranks.

While they fought the battle spread, detached battles joining and forming into a great whole that blazed and thundered and swayed back and forth. The line of fire on either side of the Kentuckians came nearer. Shells and shrapnel, not aimed at them nor fired by their immediate foe, flew over their heads. The columns of smoke rolled up like the waves of a flood, and thickened and darkened. The blaze of the firing streamed through it in countless flashes. The trees burned; millions of sparks flashed in the air.

“It’s growing warm,” said the boy.

“Yes, Billy; and don’t forget that it can grow warmer,” replied Sibley.

“They’re coming again,” said the boy.

“Yes, Billy, but we’ll give ’em the same old welcome,” replied Sibley.

Congdon, still hugging the ground in that’ frightful similitude of a snake, fired into the Southern ranks, and cursed between his teeth because the smoke would not let him see whether a man had fallen to his bullet. Williams looked at the dense mass of the enemy and felt that the odds were too great.

“Hadn’t we better retreat?” he asked Sibley.

“Retreat! No! Maybe the fate of the whole army will depend upon our holding this place.”

“Then I will not give an inch,” said Williams. And he did not; for a second later a bullet passed through his heart and he held the ground upon which he had stood. Two more men fell before the bullets, and a bursting shell killed another. All around them the battle whirled and thundered.

The boy shivered again.

“Take a drink of this, Billy, and we’ll win immortal honour and glory,” said Sibley, patting him on the shoulder with one hand and offering the flask with the other.

The boy drank, and a bullet saved him the trouble of returning the flask by dashing it to pieces in his hand.

“There was nothing left in it; no matter,” said Sibley. “Steady now, boys, and we’ll beat the Spartans at the old Greek what-do-you-call-it place.”

A shell passed so near that the rush of air knocked him to his knees; he was up again in a moment, sanguine and defiant, and cheered on his men as the attack upon them grew fiercer. Congdon was killed as he hugged his rock, and he continued to hug it in death. A shell exploded among them and slew four men. They were only seven now, and three of the seven were wounded. But Sibley did not notice it. He looked straight ahead.

“Give it to ’em, my bullies!” he cried. “We’ve scared ’em already! Don’t you see they are getting ready to run?”

The flash of the rifles aimed at them was very near, and coming nearer. The bullets sang to right and left, and the shrapnel flew overhead. A shell struck the earth close to them and covered Sibley with dirt. He cursed the shell from a full and vivid vocabulary.

“Clymer is killed,” said the boy.

“Is he? That’s not news on a day like this,” replied Sibley.

“We’re only six,” said the boy, and then he added: “We’re only five now, for there goes Morton. The shrapnel did it.”

“Hold the gully!” shouted Sibley. “If there’s nobody else, you and I will do it, Billy.”

But the others did not flinch. The fire of battle was coursing through their veins, and they saw red. The chorus of the bullets and the shell had become a familiar tune. Their rifles replied with undiminished ardour.

A piece of shrapnel struck the boy in the shoulder and he began to tremble.

“Never mind, Billy,” said Sibley. “It’s only a scratch.”

Billy went on with his firing. There was a duty to be done and no time for trifles. But his eye and his hand grew unsteady. His wound was worse than he or Sibley would admit. The enemy, the hills, and the flashing of the guns before him made only a red blur, and an absent look came over his face as if his mind wandered back to the sheen and long, gentle roll of the blue grass, with the dusty gold of the sun floating over it like a tawny veil.

“Fire at ’em now!” shouted Sibley, and the five sent their bullets to the mark. An answering volley came, and two of the Kentuckians fell.

“The company is now small, but very select—eh, Thornton?” said Sibley to the third man. Sibley was wounded in the neck and his eye was wild.

“It’s time to go,” said the boy, whose mind was wandering further amid green fields and through lustrous sunshine.

“No, Billy, not yet; but I think the time for us all to go is almost at hand.”

The battle converged about them, hovering closer and closer, giving forth continuously its ominous cry. The screaming of the shells, flying in showers, rose to a pitch unequalled before. It was a fierce, triumphant note, like a storm shrieking through a ship’s rigging. But the boy did not hear it. He heard only the trickle of cool water among green fields that he had known, and the hum of the honeybees. I watched his face, and I knew.

“How that artillery flashes! Its blaze blinds me,” said Sibley. The bullets flew in gusts around him.

“It’s time to go,” said the boy. “The corn is ripe in the fields.”

“Yes, Billy; but the battle’s only begun.”

“Thornton’s killed.”

“Then, Billy, only you and I are left. Close up, and we’ll win the biggest victory the world has ever known.”

Sibley’s dingy blue uniform was stained dark red in many places. His eyes saw through a mist. A thousand little pulses were beating in the top of his head. The bullets pattered on the stones and earth around the two like a hailstorm. The boy was becoming weak and his head swung to one side, oscillating like a top.

“See how the sun shines in old Kentucky!” he said.

“Yes, it shines, Billy. But the rebels are coming, and they are so near I can see their eyes shining too. Just hear the bullets whistle!”

“It’s like music, isn’t it?”

“The music of hell! Hold up your head, Billy! What!—dead! Poor boy, he died like a hero!”

Sibley was wounded in a half dozen places, and sank to his knees. He was unable to reload his rifle; but the little pulses were still beating in the top of his head, the red mist was yet there, and he continued to shout defiance. Fresh volleys swept the field, and the next moment no voice was heard in the gully save that of the whistling bullets.

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