The Rock of Chickamauga: A Story of the Western Crisis
“When the flies begin to buzz around me I’ll think they make a mighty poor noise compared with the roar of three or four hundred big cannon and a hundred thousand rifles that I’ve listened to so often. If a yellow jacket should sting me, I’d say what a little thing it is, compared with the piece of shrapnel that hit me at some battle not yet fought. Maybe I’d find things so quiet I just couldn’t stand it. Wars are mighty unsettling.”
“I’m thinking,” said Dick, “that before this war is over all of us will get enough of it to last a lifetime. We’ve got the edge on ‘em now, since Vicksburg and Gettysburg, but the Graybacks are not yet beaten by a long shot. We’ve heard how Lee drew off from Gettysburg carrying all his guns and supplies, and even with Gettysburg we haven’t been doing so well in the East as we have in the West. You know that, Ohio?”
“Of course, I do. But I think the Johnnies have made their high-water mark. Great work our army did down there at Vicksburg, and we’ll have the chance to do just as well against Bragg. We’ll defeat him, of course. Now, Mason, notice that light flickering on the mountain up there!”
He pointed to the crest of a ridge two or three miles away, where Dick saw a point of flame appearing and reappearing, and answered by another point farther down, which flickered in the same manner.
“Signals of some kind, I suppose,” replied Dick, “but I don’t know who makes them or what they mean.”
“I don’t know what they mean, either,” said Ohio; “but I can guess pretty well who’s making them. That’s Slade.”
“Slade!” said Dick.
“Yes, you seem to have heard of him?”
“So I have, and I’ve seen him, also. I heard, too, that he was up here making things unhappy for our side. He was in Vicksburg, although you may not have heard of him there, but he got out before the surrender. A cunning fellow. A sort of land pirate.”
“He’s all of that. Since we’ve been coming through the mountains he and his band have picked off a lot of our men. Those signals must mean that they’re preparing for another raid. I shouldn’t like to be a half-mile from our lines to-night.”
“Why can’t we smoke him out, Ohio?”
“Because when we’re half way up the slope he and his men are gone on the other side. Besides, they can rake us with bullets from ambush, while we’re climbing up the ridge. And when we get there, they’re gone. It’s these mountains that give the irregulars their chance. See, two lights are winking at each other now!”
“How far apart would you say they are, Ohio?”
“A mile, maybe, but one is much higher than the other up the mountain. The lower light, doubtless, is signaling information about us to the higher. I see your colonel and our colonel talking together. Maybe we’re going to set a trap. It would be a good thing if we could clean out those fellows.”
“I’m thinking that your guess is a good one,” said Dick, as he rose to his feet, “because Colonel Winchester is beckoning to me now.”
“And there’s a call for me, too,” said Ohio, rising. “Talk of a thing and it happens. We’re surely going for those lights.”
They had reckoned right. General Thomas, when he saw the signals, had summoned some of his best officers and they had talked together earnestly. The general had not said much before, but the incessant sharpshooting from the bushes and slopes as they marched southward had caused him intense annoyance, and, if continued, he knew that it would hurt the spirit of the troops.
“We shall try to trap Slade’s band to-night,” said Colonel Winchester to Dick and the other young officers who gathered around him. “We think he has three or four hundred men and my regiment can deal with that number. We will defile to the right without noise and make our way up the mountain. An Ohio regiment, which can also deal with Slade if it catches him, will defile to the left. Maybe we can trap these irregulars between us. Sergeant Whitley will guide my force.”
The sergeant stepped forward, proud of the honor and trust. Dick, looking at him in the moonlight, said to himself for the hundredth time that he was a magnificent specimen of American manhood, thick, powerful, intelligent, respectful to his superior officers, who often knew less than he did, a veteran from whom woods, hills, and plains hid few secrets. He thought it a good thing that the sergeant was to be their guide, because he would lead them into no ambush.
As Dick turned away for departure Ohio said to him:
“We’ll meet on the mountain side, and I hope we’ll catch our game, but don’t you fellows fire into us in the dark.”
Dick promised and his regiment marched away toward the slope. All were on foot, of course, and they had received strict instructions to make no noise. They turned northward, left the camp behind them, and were soon hidden in the dark.
Dick was at the head of the column with Colonel Winchester and the sergeant. Warner and Pennington were further back. The darkness was heavy in the shadow of the slope and among the bushes, but, looking backward, Dick clearly saw the camp of General Thomas with its thousands of men and dozens of fires. Figures passed and repassed before the flames, and the fused noises of a great camp came from the valley.
Dick took only a glance or two. His whole attention now was for the sergeant, who was looking here and there and sniffing the air, like a great hound seeking the trail. The soldier had melted into the scout, and Colonel Winchester, knowing him so well, had, in effect, turned the regiment over to him.
Dick and other young officers were sent back through the column to see that they marched without noise. It was not difficult to enforce the orders, as the men were filled with the ardor of the hunt, and would do everything to insure its success. When Dick came back to the head of the column he merely heard the tread of feet and the rustling of uniforms against the bushes behind them.
The sergeant led on with unerring skill and instinct. They were rising fast on the slope, and the great forest received and hid them as if they were its wild children returned to their home. The foliage was so dense that Dick caught only flitting glimpses of the camp below, although many fires were yet burning there.
The wisdom of putting the regiment into the hands of the sergeant was now shown. Rising to the trust, he called up all his reserves of wilderness lore. He listened attentively to the voice of every night bird, because it might not be real, but instead the imitation call of man to man. He searched in every opening under the moonlight for traces of footsteps, which he alone could have seen, and, when at last he found them, Dick, despite the dusk, saw his figure expand and his eyes flash. He had been kneeling down examining the imprints and when he arose the colonel asked:
“What is it, Whitley?”
“Men have passed here, sir, and, as they couldn’t have been ours, they were the enemy. The tracks lead south on the slope, and they must have been going that way to join Slade’s command.”
“Then you think, Sergeant, we should follow this trail?”
“Undoubtedly, sir, but we must look out for an ambush. These men know the mountains thoroughly, and if we were to walk into their trap they might cut us to pieces.”
“Then we won’t walk into it. Lead on, Sergeant. If the enemy is near, I know that you will find him in time.”
The sergeant’s brown face flushed with pride, but he followed on the trail without a word and behind him came the whole regiment, implicit in its trust, and winding without noise like a great coiling serpent through the forest.
Dick was a woodsman himself, and he kept close to the sergeant, watching his methods, and seeking also what he could find. While they lost the trail now and then, he saw the sergeant recover it in the openings. He noted, too, that it was increasing in size. Little trails were flowing into the big one like brooks into a river, and the main course was uniformly south, but bearing slightly upward on the slope.
The sergeant stopped at the melancholy cry of an owl, apparently three or four hundred yards ahead. Both he and Dick raised their heads and listened for the answer, which they felt sure was ready. The long, sinister hoot in reply came from a point considerably farther away, but at about the same height on the slope.
“They have two forces, sir,” said the sergeant to Colonel Winchester, “and I think they’re about to unite.”
“As a wilderness fighter, what would you suggest, Sergeant?”
“To wait here a little and lie hidden in the brush. We’re rightly afraid of an ambush if we go on, then why not make the same danger theirs? I think it likely that the other force is coming this way. Anyway, we can tell in a minute or two, ‘cause them owls are sure to hoot again. If I’m right, we can catch ‘em napping.”
“An excellent idea, Sergeant. Ah! there are the signals you predicted!”
The owl hooted again from the same point directly in front, and then came the reply of the other, now nearer. The sergeant drew a deep breath of satisfaction.
“Yes, sir, I was right,” he said. “Their meeting place is straight in front. Will you let me slip forward a little through the brush and see?”
“Go ahead, Sergeant. We need all the information we can get, but don’t walk into any trap yourself, leaving us here without eyes or ears.”
“Never fear, sir. I won’t be caught.”
Then he disappeared with a suddenness that made the colonel and Dick gasp. He was with them, and then he was not. But he returned in ten minutes, and, although Dick could not see it in his face, he was triumphant.
“There’s a glade not more’n four hundred yards ahead,” he whispered to the colonel, “and about a hundred and fifty men, armed with long rifles, are lying down in it waiting for a second force, which I judge from the cry of the owl will be there inside of five minutes.”
“Then,” said Colonel Winchester, breathing fast, “we’ll wait ten minutes and attack. It would be a great stroke to wipe out Slade’s band. I’m sorry for those Ohio fellows, but the luck’s ours to-night, or I should say that the sergeant’s skill as a trailer has given us the chance.”
It was soon known along the black, winding line that the enemy was at hand, and the men were eager to attack, but they were ordered to have patience for a little while. Their leader wished to destroy Slade’s whole force at one stroke.
Colonel Winchester took out his watch and held it before him in the faint moonlight. He would not move until the ten minutes exactly had passed. Then he closed the watch and gave the signal, but stationed officers along the line to see that the men made as little noise as possible. The long black column moved again through the forest and Dick, full of excitement was at its head with the colonel and the sergeant.
They reached a slope, crept up it, and then spread out, as they knew that the valley and the enemy were within rifle shot. Dick, glancing through the bushes, saw the glitter of steel and caught the murmur of voices. He knew that their presence was not yet suspected, and he did not like the idea of firing from ambush upon anybody, but there was no occasion for testing his scruples, as the advance of so many men created noise sufficient to reach the alert ears in the glade.
“Up, men! The enemy!” he heard a voice shout. Colonel Winchester at the same moment ordered his men to fire and charge with the bayonet.
A terrible volley was poured into the valley, and it seemed to Dick that half of Slade’s force went down, but as they rushed forward to finish the task they met a fire that caused many of the Union soldiers to drop. Slade was evidently a man of ability. Dick saw him springing about and blowing a little silver whistle, which he knew was a call to rally.
But the surprise was too sudden and great. The irregulars, fighting hard, were driven out of the valley and into the woods on the upper side of the glade. Sheltered in the underbrush, they might have made a good defense there, but a sudden tremendous cheer arose, and they were charged in the flank by the Ohio regiment, coming up on the run.
Spurred by emulation the Winchester men also rushed into the underbrush, and those of Slade’s men who had not fallen quickly threw down their arms. But they did not catch the leader, nor did they know what had become of him, until Dick caught sight of a little, weazened figure under an enormous wide-brimmed hat running with three or four others along the mountain-side.
“Slade! Slade!” he cried, pointing, and instantly a score, Dick and the sergeant among them, were hotfoot after the fugitives. Several shots were fired, but none hit, and the chase lengthened out.
Sergeant Whitley exclaimed to Dick:
“We catch the pack, but if we don’t catch the leader there’ll be another pack soon.”
“Right you are! We must have that little man under the big hat!”
Dick heard panting breaths, and Warner and Pennington drew up by his side.
“Slade’s about to escape!” exclaimed Dick. “We must get him!”
“I’m running my best,” said Warner. “Look out!” Slade suddenly faced about and fired a heavy pistol. Dick had dropped down at Warner’s warning cry and the bullet sang over his head. The sergeant fired in return, but the light was too faint, and Slade and the three who were with him ran on unharmed.
The pursuit, conducted with such vigor, soon led to the top of the mountain, and they began the descent of the far side. Several more shots were fired, but they did no damage, and neither side was able to gain. Two of the fugitives turned aside into the woods, but the pursuit kept straight after Slade, and his remaining companion, a slender, youthful figure.
“I think we’ll get ‘em,” panted the sergeant. As he spoke one of the little mountain rivers so numerous in that region came into view. It was narrow, but deep, and without hesitating an instant the fugitives sprang into it and shot down the stream, swimming with all their strength, and helped by the powerful current.
Slade was in advance, and he was already disappearing in the shadows on the far bank, but his comrade, he of the slender figure, was still in the moonlight, which fell across his face for a moment. A soldier raised his rifle to fire, but Dick stumbled and fell against him and the bullet went high in the air.
The moment had been long enough for Dick to recognize Victor Woodville. He did not know how he happened to be with Slade, but he did not intend that he should be shot there in the water, and his impulse was quick enough to save Victor’s life. In another moment the young Mississippian was gone also in the shadows, and although several of the Union men swam the river they could discover no trace of either.
“I’m sorry,” said the sergeant as they walked back to the other side of the mountain, “that they got away.”
“Yes,” said Dick, “it was too bad that Slade escaped.”
CHAPTER XIII. THE RIVER OF DEATH
Dick knew that he had saved young Woodville’s life, but his conscience was quite dear. If he had the same chance he would do it over again, but he was sorry they had not caught Slade. He felt no hostility toward the regular soldiers of the Confederacy, but he knew there were guerillas on their side, as well as his own, who would stop at nothing. He remembered Skelly, who, claiming to be a Union partisan, nevertheless robbed and even killed those of either party whenever he felt it safe to do so. Slade was his Southern complement, and he would surely get together a new force as venomous as the old.
But Colonel Winchester and the commander of the Ohio regiment were full of pride in their exploit, as they had a right to be. They had destroyed a swarm of wasps which had been buzzing and stinging almost beyond endurance, and they were still prouder when they received the thanks of General Thomas.
The corps moved forward the next day, and soon the whole army was united under Rosecrans. It was a powerful force, about ninety thousand men, the staunch fighters of the West, veterans of great battles and victories, and to the young officers it appeared invincible. Their feeling that it was marching to another triumph was confirmed by the news that Bragg was retreating.
Yet the two armies were so close to each other that the Northern vanguard skirmished with the Southern rearguard as they passed through the mountains. At one point in a gap of the Cumberland Mountains the Southerners made a sharp resistance, but they were quickly driven from their position and the Union mass rolled slowly on. Exultation among the troops increased.
“We’ll drive Bragg away down into the South against Grant,” said Ohio to Dick, “and we’ll crush him between the two arms of the vise. That will finish everything in the West.”
While Dick was exultant, too, he had certain reservations. He had seen a like confidence carried to disaster in the East, although it did not seem possible that the result here could be similar.
“I don’t think they’ll keep on retreating forever, Ohio,” he said. “All our supplies are coming from Nashville, and we are getting farther away from our base every day.”
But Ohio laughed.
“Our chief task is to catch Bragg,” he said. “They said he was going to occupy Chattanooga and wait for us. He’s been in Chattanooga, but he didn’t wait for us there. He’s left it already and gone on, anxious to reach the Gulf before winter, I suppose.”
The Union army in its turn entered Chattanooga, a little town of which Dick had seldom heard before, although he greatly admired its situation. The country about it was bold and romantic. It stood in a sharp curve of the great river, the Tennessee. Not far away was the lofty uplift of Lookout Mountain, a half-mile high, and there were long ridges between which creeks or little rivers flowed down to the Tennessee.
One of these streams was the Chickamauga, which in the language of the Cherokee Indians who had once owned this region means “the river of death.” Why they called it so no one knew, but the name was soon to have a terrible fitness. Chattanooga itself meant in the Cherokee tongue “the hawk’s nest,” and anybody could see the aptness of the term.
While Lookout Mountain was the loftiest summit, some of the other ridges rose almost as high, through the gaps of which the Northern army must pass if it continued the pursuit of Bragg.
September had now come and the winds were growing crisper in the high country. The feel of autumn was in the air, and the coolness made the marching brisker. The division to which Dick belonged was advancing slowly. He often saw Thomas, and his admiration for the grave, silent man grew. It was said that Thomas was slow, but that he never made mistakes. Now the rumor was spreading that he had warned Rosecrans to be cautious, that Bragg had a powerful army and when he reached favorable positions, would certainly turn and fight.
Not many were impressed by these reports. They merely said it was “Pap” Thomas’ way of looking at the dark side of things first. Hadn’t they driven Bragg through the Cumberland Mountains and out of Chattanooga, and now they would soon be on his heels deep down in Georgia. But Dick, noticing Colonel Winchester’s serious face, surmised that he at least shared the opinion of his chief. And when the lad looked up at the great coils and ridges he felt that, in truth, they might go too far. If the Northern men were veterans, so were the Southern, and neither had taken much change of the other at Shiloh, Perryville and Stone River.
The Winchester regiment was thrown forward as the vanguard of the infantry, and the face of the colonel grew more serious than ever, when the best scouts rode in with reports that the Southern retreat was now very slow. There was news, too, that Slade had a new band much larger than before, and they formed a rear guard of skirmishers which made every moment of a Northern scout’s life a moment of danger. The Winchester regiment itself was often fired upon from ambush, and there were vacant places in the ranks.
Dick did not know whether it was his own intuition or the influence that flowed from the opinions of Thomas and Winchester, but much of his high exultation was abated. He regarded the lofty ridges and the deep gaps with apprehension. It was a difficult country and the Southern leaders must know that the Northern army was extended over a long line, with Thomas holding the left.
His premonitions had ample cause. Bragg as he fell back slowly had gathered new forces. Rosecrans did not yet know it, but the army before him was the most powerful that the South ever assembled in the West. Polk and Cleburne and Breckinridge and Forrest and Fighting Joe Wheeler and a whole long roll of famous Southern generals were there. Nor had the vigilant eyes of the Confederacy in the East failed to note the situation.
Just as the armies were coming into touch a division of the Army of Northern Virginia was passing by train over the mountains. It was led by a thick-bearded, powerful man, no less a general than the renowned Longstreet, sent to help Bragg. The veterans of the Army of Northern Virginia would swell Bragg’s ranks, and the great army, turning a sanguine face northward, was eager for Rosecrans to come on. The Southern force would number more than ninety thousand men, more numerous than ever before or afterward in the West.
It was now late in September, the eve of the eighteenth, and Dick and his comrades lay near the little creek with the rhythmical name, Chickamauga. It was the very night that a portion of the Army of Northern Virginia had arrived in Bragg’s camp. The preceding days had been full of detached fighting, and the night had come heavy with omens and presages. The least intelligent knew now that Bragg had stopped, but they did not know that Longstreet was to be with him.
Dick and his comrades sat by a smothered fire, and the vast tangle of mountains and passes, of valleys and streams looked sinister to them. There had been skirmishing throughout the day, and as the darkness closed down they still heard occasional rifle shots on the slopes and ridges.
“Don’t these mountains make you think of your native Vermont, George?” asked Dick.
“In a way, yes,” replied Warner, “but my hills are not bristling with steel as these are.”
“No, you New Englanders are fortunate. The war will never be carried on on your soil. You shed your blood, but, after all, the states that are trodden under foot by the armies suffer most.”
“There are lights winking on the mountains again,” said Pennington.
“Let ‘em wink,” said Dick. “Their signals can’t amount to much now. We know that Bragg is before us, and a great battle can’t be delayed long. Fellows, I’m not so sure about the result.”
“Come! Come, Dick!” said Warner. “It’s not often you’re downhearted. What’s struck you?”
“Nothing, George, but, between you and me and the gate post, I wish that our old ‘Pap’ Thomas commanded all the army, instead of the left merely. I’ve learned a few things to-day. The enemy is spreading out, trying to enfold us on both wings.”
“What of it?”
“It means that they are sanguine of victory, and they want to stand between us and Chattanooga, so they can cut off our retreat, after we’re beaten, as they think we surely will be. But their main force is not far from us now, so a scout told me. It’s massed heavily along the right bank of the Chickamauga.”
“And if there’s a battle to-morrow we’re likely to receive the first attack?”
“Could it come any better than at the place where Thomas stands?”
They sat long by the fire and Dick could not rest. Shiloh, his capture, and his knowledge of the secret Southern advance, of which he could give no warning, came back to him with uncommon vividness. He knew that no such surprise could occur here, but they seemed to be lost in the wilderness. The mountains and forests oppressed him.
“Well, Dick,” said Warner, “we’re posted strongly. We’ve rows of sentinels as thick as hedges, and I’ve the colonel’s permission to go to sleep. I’ll be slumbering in ten minutes, and I’d advise you to do the same.”
He lay on a blanket and soon slept. Pennington followed him to slumberland, but Dick lingered. He saw lights still flashing on the mountains, and he heard now and then reports from the rifles of the skirmishers, who yet sought each other despite the darkness. But he yielded at last and he, too, slept until the dawn, which should bring nearly two hundred thousand men face to face in mortal combat.
Dick was awake early. The September morning came, crisp and clear, the sun showing red gleams over the mountains. He heard already the sound of distant rifle shots in front, and, through his glasses, he saw far away faint puffs of smoke. But it was a familiar sound in this mighty war, and he found himself singularly calm. He never knew how he was going to feel on the eve of battle. Sometimes the constriction at his heart was painful, and sometimes its beat was smooth and regular.
