Raiding With Morgan (16 page)

T
he bright bloom of hope faded for the Raiders with two events that occurred almost simultaneously. Cannon fire commenced behind Ty at the mouth of Chester Road. Puffs of powder smoke rose above the trees that screened him from a view of the action. Heavy small-arms fire accompanied the roar of the Federal cannons. From last evening's meetings with General Morgan, he understood how critical it was for Colonel Johnson to stand firm against whatever fire the Yankees brought to bear on his position. If the blue bellies broached his lines, they would fall upon the baggage train and wreak havoc the length of the valley.

New cannon fire from a different point on the compass rang in Ty's ears. He spun to the left toward the Ohio and there was the Yankee gunboat everyone had dreaded while praying the river wasn't high enough to permit its passage upriver to Buffington Island. Those oh-so-familiar puffs of powder smoke laced the deck of the gunship as her Dahlgren guns launched shells with a thunderous
boom.

Turning his shoulders, Ty checked the status of Colonel Duke's Fifth and Sixth Kentucky. His jaw dropped open. Companies of dismounted, blue-uniformed cavalry were pouring from the cornfields at the south end of the valley. The Yankees in sight soon outnumbered Duke's men. From his high vantage point, Ty could see many more rifle barrels protruding above the shielding cornstalks, barrrels Duke's men couldn't detect on flat ground.

Ty caught movement out of the corner of his eye on the far right. Despite Lieutenant Shannon's warning regarding Federal sharpshooters, he rose on his tiptoes. Kepi-covered heads and blue-uniformed shoulders appeared to be floating on air above the tall corn. A thin black line, tipped with a tiny swatch of yellow, loomed above each Union horseman. The memory of how the raider column had appeared from the hilltops of Chester Road flashed through Ty's mind. He was immediately certain of what he was watching. The billed caps and the upper portions of tasseled horsewhips were the gear of Union artillerymen. Three pairs of horses, with a rider for each pair, towed a single Union cannon. A quick head count told Ty four pieces of artillery would soon be shelling Colonel Duke's outnumbered regiments.

He didn't linger to confirm the horses and cannons he couldn't yet see were actually there. He knew their number and location; all he needed to do was report to Colonel Duke.

Two newly positioned Union cannons on the Rebel's far left entered the fray. Ty spurred Reb into a full gallop. The blue-belly line was advancing afoot at a measured pace when he reached Colonel Duke. Though Duke was short in stature and finely limbed, with a youthful face despite his chin-wide beard and cropped mustache, like his brother-in-law General Morgan, Basil Duke possessed a first-rate military mind. He gave Ty his complete attention upon hearing the words “Union cannons.”

“How many and where, Corporal?”

“Four pieces, sir, to our far right. They should be in action in a few minutes.”

The Rebel situation worsened as Colonel Duke assessed the potential impact of Ty's revelation. The two long guns the Rebels possessed were perched on a knoll on the raider's left flank, stationed there the previous evening to support Duke's dawn assault. The knoll was beyond the raider's foremost line at the moment. The two Rebel field pieces were blasting away as fast as they could load.

Tired of the harassing fire, fifty mounted Union troopers charged the knoll, sabers slashing left and right, and dislodged the undefended Rebel gunners. The few lucky survivors fled for their lives.

Duke motioned to his second in command. “Colonel Grigsby, mount an attack and retake that knoll.”

It was too late.

Dismounted Union troopers were flooding the knoll. Colonel Grigsby led the counterattack as ordered and ran straight into volley after volley of Yankee bullets. Gray bodies jerked, stumbled, and fell into the path of those still pushing forward. The attacking raider line slowly wilted, halted, and then panicked and retreated at a full run.

Ty marveled at how Colonel Duke suddenly was everywhere at once, shouting orders, turning retreating troopers to face the enemy, and placing the balance of the Fifth and Sixth Kentucky behind and beside them to present a united front again and quell the panic before it engulfed his entire command.

Ty stayed within arm's length of Colonel Duke, awaiting further orders. Every chance he had, he scanned all directions, but he failed to locate his father and Shawn Shannon. Were they amongst the Rebel dead littering the dust and yellow stubble of the cornfields?

Ty palmed sweat from his brow and mouthed a silent prayer asking the Lord to protect the both of them. The ever-vigilant Basil Duke saw Ty's lips moving and said with a tight smile, “Say one for me, too, Corporal.”

Colonel Grigsby, chest heaving from exertion, came bounding up and saluted. “Sorry, sir, their volleys were too intense to withstand.”

“I allow you did your best, Colonel. Now prepare to defend the road and the ford behind us. We can't allow our means of escape to be closed off. In light of what has beset us, I must confer with General Morgan. I shall return as quickly as I can. Follow me, Corporal.”

Colonel Duke pointed at the horse holders waiting behind him. “My horse, please, Private.”

A skinny trooper, with a hooked nose and an Adam's apple the size of a walnut, led a mud-colored gelding from the horse line. Colonel Duke swung into the saddle with the smooth grace of the veteran horseman and spurred the gelding into a trot. Ty mounted and urged Reb alongside the colonel's gelding.

What Colonel Duke and Ty encountered after passing through the wagons lining the ford road, waiting for the opportunity to cross the Ohio, were unengaged Rebel regiments in complete disarray. Unrelenting Yankee cannon and rifle fire poured down on them from the western hills, scattering troopers and horse holders to the four winds, separating officers and sergeants from their regiments and companies. Ty witnessed troopers emptying their pockets of Federal greenbacks and other stolen items, actions that expressed their fear of what the enemy might do if they were captured and discovered them. The tail end of the baggage train was frantically reining off the ford road and madly seeking refuge of any kind in the narrow northern neck of the valley where no blue-belly weapons belched smoke and fire.

Cannon balls sounded like tearing canvas as they
zeezed
through the air. A bouncing ball struck a mounted trooper riding in circles, severing his head and right shoulder. The dead trooper's fingers clutched the reins with a fierce, unyielding grip and his body hung upright in the saddle for agonizing seconds before pitching to the ground.

Taken aback by the horror of it, Ty leaned from the saddle and retched, parting company with his breakfast. He hawked and cleared his pipes, unaware that tears were dampening his cheeks.
At least,
he thought dismally,
it's a quick death with little suffering.

Colonel Duke ignored the unholy commotion surrounding him and angled toward the river road and the Bainbridge residence. Apparently, he believed the general could best be found there or close by. In the midst of a pitched battle, Ty found himself wondering if Dana Bainbridge had taken to the family root cellar yet?

He shook his head in an attempt to clear his mind and failed. Romantic foolishness knew no limits when lovely young females were involved.

General Morgan was standing on the Bainbridge porch with Lieutenant Hardesty, Old Box, and two of his personal staff. Three couriers stood with reins in hand on the gravel driveway. The Bainbridge family members were either inside the house or safely ensconced in the root cellar beneath it.

A bleak-appearing General Morgan lowered his field glasses as Duke dismounted and saluted. “No need for military protocol, Basil. Where do we stand?”

Basil Duke's response was pointed and perceptive. “The Yankee cannons, gunboat, and superior numbers make it impossible for us to ford the Ohio at Buffington Bar. Our only course is to withdraw and try to ford upstream beyond the reach of their gunboat.”

John Hunt Morgan was not a dithering officer. He understood that the odds had turned against him in ninety short minutes. “Retreat is inevitable. I will attempt to organize an orderly withdrawal, though some frightened teamsters and troopers have already broken rank. Basil, your Fifth and Sixth Kentucky and Colonel Johnson's Seventh and Tenth will delay the Yankee advance as long as possible, while the rest of our forces depart the field.”

Stepping to the front of the Bainbridge porch, General Morgan extended his hand. “Good luck and Godspeed, Basil.”

Colonel Duke grasped his brother-in-law's hand, held it for a long second and, aware that neither of them might survive the day, said just loud enough for Ty to hear, “It's been a long ride, General. The men have done us proud. If it ends here, so be it. We'll not be forgotten.”

General Morgan, voice cracking a tad, said, ”I, too, pray the men receive the honor and glory due them. Off with you now.”

Ty prepared to follow Colonel Duke, but General Morgan noticed his lifting of Reb's reins and said, “Corporal Mattson, you will remain here. I have special orders for you.”

Shifting his gaze to the waiting couriers, General Morgan barked, “Private Samuels, you will accompany Colonel Duke.”

The chosen courier leaped into the saddle and followed Basil Duke. General Morgan smiled and confronted Ty. “Corporal Mattson, you will seek out Colonel Johnson, obtain the status of his command, and report back to me posthaste. Your father is with Johnson. Just look for where the action is the hottest and that's where you'll find them.”

Discounting the danger of riding into perhaps the heaviest fighting, a delighted Ty saluted General Morgan and touched Reb's flanks with his spurs. As usual, the big gray shot off at a gallop. Taking the shortest route, Ty disdained the open gate of the driveway to the south and put Reb over the iron fence enclosing the Bainbridge yard.

Within a quarter mile, even the inexperienced Ty determined General Morgan's proposed orderly retreat was not doable on a large scale. The remnants of Colonel Johnson's Seventh and Tenth Kentucky were spread in thin lines, well out to each flank, trying to keep them from being turned. Union shells, grapeshot, and shrapnel rained from the high ground firmly in Yankee control; more and more blue-clad, mounted troopers swarmed Chester Road.

The Union breakthrough was precipitated by the collapse of Colonel Johnson's right flank, which provided the howling Yankees direct access to the baggage train at the rear of his troopers. Ty rode in a wide half-circle to skirt the growing mass of men, horses, and wagons milling behind Johnson's rapidly weakening front.

The continuous roar of Union cannons was deafening. As Colonels Duke and Johnson succumbed to Yankee pressure and fell back toward the center of the valley to form new tighter lines, they were subjected to a three-way Yankee long-gun cross fire from the Ohio to the east, the southern cornfields and the ridge looming above Chester Road. Ty groaned in despair. Except for Rebel rearguard action to prolong the retreat further, until they ran out of ammunition, the battle was lost.

Ty rode ever forward, cringing as a shell burst short of Reb. Shards of flaming-hot metal sought his body. Somehow he and the big gelding escaped unscathed. He couldn't begin to count the number of
pishing
bullets he had heard in the last few minutes. The smoke-fouled, blistering-hot, river-bottom air was alive with death, not caring which trooper—blue or gray—perished.

A stolen circus wagon, of all things, collided with a lumbering supply wagon; the wheels and beds of both vehicles imploded on impact. Horses impaled by flying splinters and snagged in snarled harnesses screamed in agony as their leg bones snapped and they smashed into each other. The result was a pile of useless equipment, animals, and injured and dead men that became an impediment causing additional wrecks.

Ty spotted the blazed face and the four white stockings of a chestnut horse emerging from behind what remained of the brightly painted circus wagon. He stood in his stirrups, waved with an upthrust arm, and reined Reb toward the site of the wreck. His father saw him coming and slowed his prancing chestnut.

Blood darkened Owen Mattson's shirt at the left shoulder. His hat was missing and his shirt was torn open to the waist. It was an insanely small detail to catch in the heat of a raging battle, but Ty noticed the chestnut's right ear had been shot completely away. He marveled at the chestnut's training and lack of fear. A lesser mount would have bolted from the field, bit or no bit.

Owen Mattson smiled as calmly as if he were seated at a mess fire. “Been a long morning all the way around, son.”

Ty blurted out, “Are you all right? How bad is your wound?”

“It can wait until this dingfod is over. What are your orders, Corporal?”

Owen Mattson's thinking of military duty first settled Ty's quaking nerves. Now that he was with his father, he was certain that everything would be fine. “To determine the status of Colonel Johnson's regiments and report their status to General Morgan,” Ty answered.

“We know more than enough to make that report. We best find General Morgan. I'm concerned about his personal safety. I won't have the Yankees trumpeting to the ends of the earth how they whipped and captured the ‘Thunderbolt of the Confederacy. ' Damned if I will. Where did you last speak with the general?”

“On the porch of the Bainbridge house.”

“That's well north of here, near the river road, smack beside our line of retreat. General Morgan will maintain known headquarters until he's forced to abandon them. Let's ride.”

The clutter of the river road worsened steadily. The wagons previously lined up nearest the ford had abandoned all hope and jammed themselves in amongst the wagons from Colonel Johnson's sector, already racing to escape the death-dealing Yankees. Having abandoned any semblance of military discipline, mounted Rebels weaved their way through the stampeding horde at a full gallop. Ty and his father trotted their horses far enough off the road to avoid wagon crashes and the frightened troopers fleeing in justified haste.