There wasn't-there couldn't possibly be-any mockery in those words. Education or no, fancy talk or no, Bedford Forrest knew without false modesty that he'd done more for the Confederate cause in the West than just about anybody else. When the war was young, he saved a large part of the Confederate garrison in Fort Donelson when his superiors, after breaking out, idiotically marched back in and had to surrender to the Yankees.
He fought hard at Pittsburg Landing, and took a wound that almost killed him; that bullet still lay somewhere near his spine, and still pained him. His first set of cavalry raids up into Tennessee and Kentucky at the end of 1862 did such a good job of wrecking U. S. Grant's supply line that they delayed his attack on Vicksburg by months. He fought at Chickamauga, and still wished Braxton Bragg would have listened to him and pushed the pursuit. That Federal army would be extinct now; the Confederates would hold Chattanooga. Instead..
Forrest's hands tightened on the reins. If only they were tightening on Braxton Bragg's scrawny neck. Bragg couldn't win. And when, in spite of himself, he did win at Chickamauga, he frittered away the victory. But he was Jefferson Davis's particular friend, and so his malign influence in the C.S.A. seemed to go on forever.
I should have killed him, Forrest thought. I should have challenged him. Not even a spineless wretch like that could have wriggled off the hook. He shook his head. Too late now. Too late for a lot of things in the West.
General Chalmers said something. Lost in his own dark thoughts, Forrest heard his voice without noting the words. “I'm sorry, General,” he said, shaking his head again. “That went right on by me.”
“I said, will you go forward with the men when they storm the fort?” “Oh.” The question spawned more dark thoughts. Slowly, Forrest answered, “Matter of fact, I wasn't planning to.”
“I see.” By Chalmers's tone, and by his raised eyebrow, he didn't.
Were Chalmers speaking of some other man, the two-word response might have been an accusation of cowardice. Not with Bedford Forrest. Some gushing Southern newspaper wrote that he'd killed more men in close combat than any general since medieval days. He had no idea if that was so. But he was large and strong and fast, and he usually went straight for the hottest action.
Cautiously, Chalmers said, “Do you mind my asking why, sir?” “Yes, dammit.” Forrest's voice was rough, even harsh. He disliked being put on the spot.
“Very well, sir.” By Chalmers's tone, he didn't like it, but he knew he couldn't do anything about it.
Forrest was just as well pleased to keep his mouth shut. If he said he had no stomach for what lay ahead, Chalmers would think him soft. If he said he was afraid he couldn't stop it, Chalmers would think him weak. If he said nothing at all, Chalmers could think whatever he damn well pleased.
He turned to Jacob Gaus. “You ready there?” “Oh, yes, sir,” the bugler answered.
“Anything that wants doing before we sound the assault?” Forrest asked the officers nearby. Neither Chalmers nor Captain Anderson nor Captain Goodman nor any of the others said a word. “Well, then”-Forrest tipped his hat to Gaus-”go ahead, Jacob.”
“Ja.” Gaus raised the battered bugle to his lips. The fierce horn call belled across the battlefield.
VIII
MAJOR WILLIAM BRADFORD WATCHED LIEUTENANT Leaming and the rest of the truce party walk back from their parley with the Confederates. His brother came up beside him. “Won't be long now.”
“No, I don't reckon it will, Theo,” Bradford said. The Confederates in the truce party rode off toward the knoll to which Bedford Forrest had repaired not long before. They no longer held up the white flags they'd used to call for the parley.
“Can we hold 'em out?” Theodorick Bradford asked quietly.
“If you didn't think we could, you should have spoken up at the officers' council,” Bill Bradford said angrily.
His older brother flushed. “Nobody else did. Damned if I wanted you to reckon I was a quitter.”
“I reckoned you were somebody who would tell me what was on his mind. Maybe I was wrong,” the garrison commander said.
Captain Theodorick Bradford turned away. “Excuse me, Sir;” he said, lacing the polite title with disdain. He stormed off without waiting to find out whether his brother excused him or not. Bill Bradford swore under his breath. What could he do about making up with Theo? Nothing, not right now.
About a quarter of a mile away, the Confederates from the truce party were talking with the other Rebs. One of the men on that low rise pointed toward Fort Pillow and then out to a couple of places Secesh soldiers had overrun. Bradford wished he could hear what the enemy soldiers were saying. In war as in cards, one peek at the other fellow's hand was worth all the calculating in the world.
A Confederate soldier raised a bugle. The afternoon sun gleamed off the polished brass as if off gold. For a moment, time seemed to stand still, poised between one thing and another. Then, faint in the distance but very clear, the horn call reached Bill Bradford and the embattled fort.
And it reached the C.S. cavalry troopers all around Fort Pillow. The truce shattered like a crystal goblet dropped on a hardwood floor. A shattered goblet spilled wine. A shattered truce spilled claret of another sort.
A great roar of musketry arose inside the fort and around it. Yelling like fiends, like devils, like men possessed, the Confederates swarmed out of the positions they'd gained earlier in the day and rushed for the bluff. “Shoot 'em!” Major Bradford screamed. “Shoot, em down like the cur dogs they are! “
All six of the cannon inside the fort bellowed at the same time, sending canister forth against Forrest's fighters. Cursing gun crews wrestled the pieces back into position and reloaded as fast as they could. Not all their curses were aimed at the enemy. “Shit! High!” “High, goddammit!” “Can't we lower them fuckin' muzzles any more?” Bradford heard that again and again. The very way Fort Pillow was made seemed to conspire against the defenders.
But the foul-mouthed colored artillerymen and their equally blasphemous white superiors weren't the only ones battling desperately to keep the Confederates away from the fort. Whites from the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry and Negroes from the newly arrived artillery regiments stood side by side behind the earthen parapet, blazing away at the charging, yowling enemy and then ramming fresh minnies into the muzzles of their Springfields. Race, for the moment, was forgotten. Quick firing counted for more.
Bradford ran now here, now there, rushing men from spots that weren't so badly threatened to those in mortal peril. Before long, he hardly knew where to send soldiers and where to hold them back. The whole earthwork seemed in mortal peril.
And, while danger might have made the defenders forget about race, the attackers remembered all too well. Along with the usual Rebel yells and random shouts and oaths, Forrest's men raised another cry: “Black flag! Black flag!”
Ice ran through Bill Bradford when he first made out those words through the din of musketry and cannon fire and other yells and screams. In Bedford Forrest's note demanding surrender, he'd warned that he couldn't answer for consequences if the Federals in Fort Pillow refused. He'd warned, and he hadn't been joking, even if Bradford believed he was. Black flag! was the cry for no quarter.
“Hold them out, men!” Bradford yelled. “For your lives, hold them out!”
He drew his army Colt and shot at the Confederates-too many of them were within pistol range. The revolver's cylinder spun. He fired again. He wished his men had even a handful of newfangled Sharps or Henry repeating rifles. They fired so fast, they could easily break a charge like this. You simply couldn't reload Springfields quick enough.
Some of Forrest's troopers fell on the steep slope leading up to the bluff. Wounded enemy soldiers dragged themselves away from the intense gunfire. The dead lay where they fell. Ravens' meat, Bradford thought-a bit of perhaps poetry he'd heard somewhere. In this part of the country, turkey buzzards and black buzzards accounted for more unburied corpses than ravens.