The Bozeman Trail

Chapter Six

San Antonio, Texas

Saturday, April 5, 1862:

The Oasis was much less crowded now than it had been before the regiment left. That was understandable since business had been exceptionally good over the last several weeks. Young men had come, not only from the surrounding ranches, but also from all over Texas to be a part of the regiment. Consequently, as the regiment was forming, the new recruits spent many evenings in the saloon, talking loudly of deeds of daring as yet undone.

With the departure of the regiment, most of the saloon’s customers were gone. There remained only those men who were too old to serve, and a few young men who, for one reason or another, had refused to go with the others.

On this particular day, four of the young men who did not leave with the regiment were sitting around a table in the Oasis Saloon. The four were James Cason, Bob Ferguson, Billy Swan, and Duke Faglier. Although Duke had arrived in San Antonio only a few months earlier, he had already formed a friendship with James, Bob, and Billy.

Nobody knew much about Duke, for he was a very quiet-spoken young man. James was curious about his new friend’s past, but would never presume to question him.

“Has anyone heard from the regiment?” Billy Swan asked.

“Pa said that Mr. Murback got a letter from Abner,” James said. “The letter came from somewhere in Louisiana.”

“Are they fightin’ in Louisiana?” Bob asked.

“According to the letter they hadn’t seen any fighting yet. They were just marching every day. He said he thought they might be going up to Tennessee.”

The men were silent for a long moment, then James spoke again.

“This is turning out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be,” James admitted.

“What is?” Bob asked.

“Staying behind while all our friends have gone to war. Knowing that they are facing dangers while we are safe at home.”

“You aren’t having second thoughts, are you?” Bob asked.

“I don’t like the way others look at us, or what they think of of us. And I don’t fault them for their opinions. But as for the war? No, I’m not having second thoughts. No good can come of this war, and I don’t want to have anything to do with it.”

“I agree that no good can come of this war,” Bob said. “But I must confess that I feel a little like you. I feel guilty about being at home while all the others our age, and some much older, are doing our fighting for us.”

“That’s just it, though,” James said. “I don’t really feel that they are fighting for me. This isn’t my cause.”

“True. But it is our state. Also, there is something to be said for the glory of battle.”

“There is no glory in battle,” Duke said, emphatically. It was his first comment on the subject, and he punctuated his statement with a swallow of his beer.

In the few months the others had known him, this was the most resolute statement Duke had ever made.

“Oh, come, Duke, are you saying you weren’t just a little stirred by the flags and drums and excitement?” Billy asked. “I don’t have any personal stake in this war, but I would be lying if I said I had absolutely no desire to test myself on the battlefield.”

“Your first test would be to keep from soiling your britches,” Duke said.

“Wait a minute!” Billy bristled. “Are you saying I would be afraid?”

“That’s not what I mean by soiling your britches. It’s just that by the time the fighting starts, nearly everyone is suffering from camp diarrhea, and many a man embarrasses himself when the shooting begins. But yes, I’m sure you would be afraid. Although I’ve only known you a short time, you don’t strike me as a fool, Billy Swan, and anyone who isn’t afraid is a fool.”

The others were quiet, giving way to Duke’s observations. He continued.

“Then, when the fighting does start, you feel completely alone, even though you are in the middle of thousands of men. You think that every bullet, every exploding shell, every cannonball is coming straight for you.

“But you learn you aren’t the only target when you have to step over the dead and dying; men lying on the ground with their guts spilling in the dirt, or with bloody stumps twitching uncontrollably where arms and legs once were. Finally, you realize that all the dead on that field are the same. It doesn’t matter whether they are Yanks or Rebs, they all speak the same language, pray to the same God, and die in the same mortal agony. They are your neighbors, friends”—Duke paused for a moment before he added softly—“and brothers.”

Duke took a swallow of his beer, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, knowing that he had the complete attention of the others. “No, my friends,” he finished. “There is no glory in battle. And believe me, any guilt you may have about avoiding that madness is misplaced.”

James, Bob, and Billy were totally shocked by the intensity of Duke’s comments. But if they were waiting on him to elaborate, they were disappointed, because he said nothing else.

“So, you reckon Abner is going through all that, now?” Bob asked.

“I reckon he is,” James said. He held up his glass. “To Abner,” he said.

“And to everyone else caught up in this war,” Duke added.

They drank the toast, then James sighed. “I agree with everything you said, Duke. Still, it’s going to be hard to hang around here and face our neighbors. And as the war goes on, it’s going to be even harder.”

“It won’t be hard if we aren’t here,” Billy suggested.

“If we aren’t here? What do you mean? Are you suggesting that we should go somewhere?”

“Yep,” Billy replied.

“Where?”

“Dakota Territory.”

“Why do you want to go there?”

Billy smiled, clasped his hands together, put his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Gold,” he said, simply.

“Gold?”

“I got the news from a whiskey drummer this morning,” Billy said. “They’ve recently discovered gold in the Dakota Territory. They say it’s as big a strike as what happened in California a few years ago. Only thing is, the whole country is so caught up in this war that hardly nobody is paying attention to it.”

“If that is true—” James started.

“It is true,” Billy interrupted. “The drummer swears to it. In fact, he said he was giving up his sales job and was going up to Dakota himself.”

“What do you think, James?” Bob asked. “You think maybe we ought to go up there and have a look around?”

“Well, if you want my opinion,” Duke said before James could answer, “I think we would be fools not to. Think of how many people got rich out of the California strike, and who knows how many went out there. If everyone back here is caught up in the war, there won’t be that many people out there. That means our chances of getting a piece of that gold pie would be much better. And more importantly, the fewer the people, the larger that piece of pie will be.”

“What do you say, James?” Bob asked again, his voice now hopeful.

Though no one had elected James to the position, he was the unquestioned leader of the little group and everyone waited now to see what his response would be. They knew that, without his support, the adventure would be stillborn.

James smiled broadly. “I say let’s do it,” he said.

“Yeah!” Bob said, and the boys laughed and shook hands as they contemplated what lay before them.

“Lord, wouldn’t Abner like to go with us, though?” James said.

Corinth, Mississippi April 5, 1862:

Though the day had begun with rain, it was ending now with a clear, red sunset, shining through oaks that were green with new growth. The moon, in crescent, rose in a dark blue twilight, then, finally, the sky darkened and the stars came out.

Standing out on the porch of the house, Abner could hear faint bugle calls in the distance, and he looked toward the dark woods that separated the two armies. On the other side of the woods was the enemy. There, men dressed in blue were bedding down for one last night before the killing began.

Whippoorwills called from the woods, and as Abner looked out across the field where the Confederate army was bivouacked he could see the glow of campfires around which men in gray, sharing the same language, culture, religion, history, and, in some cases, family as those in blue, waited for the events of tomorrow.

Abner thought about what General Johnston had said with regard to the great bloodletting that was about to take place, then he thought about James Cason, Bob Ferguson, and Billy Swan, back home in Texas. They refused to come to war because they didn’t want to kill their own kin, or be killed by their own.

Abner had a first cousin who lived in Illinois. Cephus Murback was the son of Abner’s father’s brother. Cephus and Abner were within a few weeks of being the same age; they were of the same name and same blood. Was Cephus on the other side of the line tonight? Could it be possible that, tomorrow, he would kill one of his own kin? Or be killed by one of his own kin?

“God,” Abner prayed under his breath. “How have we let it all come to this?”

The next morning, on Sunday, April 6, 1862, on the Mississippi-Tennessee border, near a small church meeting house called Shiloh, General Johnston commenced the battle that would, ever after, bear the name of the little meeting house.

The attack met with immediate, initial success as the Union lines sagged and crumpled and Union troops fled to safety under the bluff along the river. A few brave Union soldiers held on at a place called the “Hornet’s Nest,” though at a terrible cost in terms of lives lost.

The Shiloh campground had been General Sherman’s place of bivouac during the night before, but now General Beauregard made the little log church his personal headquarters. From it, he issued orders and dispatched reinforcements where they were needed, thus affording General Johnston the freedom to move up and down the line of battle, giving encouragement to the men.

Abner was with Johnston, who was at that moment on the extreme right end of the battle line. To those who needed a calming influence, Johnston spoke quietly. “Easy, men, make every shot count. Keep calm, don’t let the Yankees get you riled.”

To those he felt needed more spirit, he injected a note of ferocity to his words: “Men of Arkansas, you are skilled with the Arkansas toothpick, let us use that skill with a nobler weapon, the bayonet. Use it for your country! Use it for your state! Use it for your fellow soldiers! Use it well!”

General Johnston was well mounted on a large, beautiful horse, and his presence among the men, whether he was speaking or not, was all the inspiration they needed. His progress along the line could be followed easily through the rippling effect of hurrahs shouted by the soldiers.

“Hey! Lookie here!” a soldier shouted as they came across what had been a Yankee camp. “These damn Yankees left their food still a-cookin’!”

“Yahoo!” another shouted, and to Abner’s surprise and frustration, nearly half the army broke off its pursuit of the fleeing Union soldiers to sit down and eat the breakfast the Yankees had so recently abandoned.

“You men!” Abner shouted. “Leave that be! We’ve got the Yankees on the run! Let’s finish the job, then you can come back to it!”

“Are you kiddin’? There won’t be nothin’ left,” a corporal said, grabbing a couple of biscuits and a hunk of salt pork.

“Lieutenant, let the stragglers be,” General Johnston shouted to Abner. “We have more important things to do! We’re losing cohesion here!”

Abner could see what Johnston was talking about. The underbrush, gullies, twisting roads, and pockets of stiff Union resistance had disrupted the orderly progress of the attack. The three lines of battle, so carefully sketched out on the battle map, had become terribly disjointed. Divisions, brigades, and regiments became so intermingled that men found themselves fighting side-by-side with strangers and listening to commands given by officers they didn’t even know. Over it all was the cacophonous roar of battle: thundering cannon, booming muskets, shrieking shells, screams of rage, curses of defiance, fear, and pain, the whole enshrouded in a thick, opaque cloud of noxious gun smoke.

“Lieutenant Murback, get back to Beauregard as quickly as you can. Tell him I wish to reorganize into four sections, Hardee and Polk on the left, Bragg and Breckinridge on the right!”

“Yes, sir,” Abner replied. “Where will you be, General?”

“I? I will be here, right in front of this . . . this hornet’s nest,” Johnston said, referring to the ferocious fighting that was going on in front of them.

Abner galloped back to Shiloh Church. Some of the wounded had straggled back as far as the church and many were sitting or lying around on the ground, attended to by doctors and their orderlies. Beauregard was in conversation with two colonels when Abner reported to him.

“General Johnston’s compliments, sir,” Abner said, saluting.

“Yes, yes, what is it, Lieutenant?” Beauregard asked, obviously displeased at being interrupted during this critical time.

“The general wishes you to reorganize into four sections, Hardee and Polk on the left, Bragg and Breckinridge on the right.”

“Reorganize in the midst of battle?” Beauregard replied. “And how am I supposed to do that, did the general say?”

Abner shook his head. “I’m sorry, General, he didn’t say. He just said to reorganize into four—”

“—Sections, Hardee and Polk and the left, Bragg and Breckinridge on the right—yes, yes, I heard that,” Beauregard said. Sighing, he stroked his Vandyke beard, then looked at the two colonels. “Colonel Livingston, you get through to Polk and Hardee, Colonel Virden, you see Bragg and Breckinridge. Tell them to reestablish the integrity of their divisions, then continue in a coordinated attack.”

“Very good sir,” both colonels replied, saluting.

Beauregard turned to Abner. “Very well, Lieutenant, you may tell General Johnston that I am complying with his order.”

“Yes, sir,” Abner said saluting, then remounting for the ride back.

When Abner returned from his mission, he saw General Johnston heading toward a peach orchard that was occupied by several pieces of Confederate artillery. The trees were in full bloom, and each time one of the guns would fire, the concussion would cause the flower petals to come fluttering down in a bright pink blizzard.

Across the way from the peach orchard a little band of Yankees stubbornly held onto a piece of elevated ground. Twice they had repelled the charges made by the Bexar Fusiliers. On the second charge, Colonel Culpepper and two of his officers were killed, and now the Texans were milling around, as if wondering what to do next.

“Come on, boys!” Johnston shouted to the Texans. “We must dislodge them from that position! Do it for your fallen commander! I will lead you!”

Holding a tin coffee cup he had just liberated as if it were a saber, Johnston rode at a gallop toward the Yankee defenders. With a Rebel yell, the men in gray surged after him. This time the Yankees gave way, and the small hill was captured. Johnston came riding back, smiling broadly, his uniform torn and one boot-sole shot away.

“They didn’t trip us up that time,” he said. “We carried the day, boys. We carried the day. Tonight, we will water our horses in the Tennessee river.”

Suddenly Johnston began reeling in his saddle.

“General, are you hurt?” Abner asked.

“Yes, and I fear seriously,” Johnston replied quietly. He put his hand to his forehead.

Abner jumped down from his horse and moved quickly to help the general out of his saddle. Johnston, who had now grown very weak and pale, lay down under a tree. Isham Harris, the governor of Tennessee, saw Johnston down and he came over quickly to see what was wrong.

“Where are you hurt, General?” Harris asked.

“I . . . I truly don’t know,” Johnston answered. “But I have suddenly become very . . . dizzy.”

Harris started unbuttoning Johnston’s clothes, looking for the wound. Then he found it, a small, clean hole just above the hollow of the knee. From that neat bullet hole, Johnston was pumping blood profusely, the result of a cut artery. Harris put his hand over the wound, trying to stop the flow, but he was unable to do so.

“General, you seem to be bleeding very badly, and I don’t know how to stop it. Tell me what I should do.”

Johnston’s eyelids fluttered, and he tried to talk, but he no longer had the strength to speak.

“Maybe some brandy,” Harris suggested. From his hip pocket he took a flask, then he tried to pour some liquor into the wounded man’s mouth, but the brandy just rolled right back out again, unswallowed.

“Try to take some down, General. Please try to take some down.”

“Sir, apply a tourniquet,” Abner suggested.

“A tourniquet?” Harris replied, obviously confused by the term. He shrugged. “I don’t know what a tourniquet is.”

Quickly, Abner removed his belt and wrapped it around the general’s leg, just above the wound. Putting a stick in it, he twisted it down as tightly as he could get it, then he looked into Johnston’s face.

“General! General! Can you hear me?” Abner shouted.

When there was no answer, Abner lifted Johnston’s eyelid with his thumb and looked into his eye, then leaned forward to listen to Johnston’s chest. Finally, with a sigh, he took off the impromptu tourniquet and stood up.

“Is he . . . ?” Governor Harris asked.

“Dead,” Abner replied, answering the unfinished question. He started toward his horse.

“Where are you going?” Harris asked.

Abner mounted. “General Beauregard must be told,” Abner said.

“What are your orders, General?” Abner asked after informing Beauregard that Johnston was dead.

“You are relieved of your duties as an aide de-camp,” Beauregard said. “You may return to your own regiment.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“As soon as you return, inform Colonel Culpepper.”

“Colonel Culpepper is dead, sir.”

“Very well, inform whoever is in command that we will continue our attacks against the Sunken Road. The Yankees are holding there and we must dislodge them.”

“General, we have already launched twelve separate attacks against that road, all without success,” said a colonel with a smoke-blackened face. “And the toll has been terrible,” he added. “Each time we make an attack, we must climb over the bodies of the men who were killed previously.”

“Then we will launch attack number thirteen,” Beuregard insisted. “And this one will not fail. I have ordered artillery support.”

Abner watched as the heavy guns were brought up from other places on the field. One by one the caissons were unlimbered, swung around, then anchored in place. The gun crews went about their business of loading the guns with powder, grape, and canister. Then, at nearly point-blank range, sixty-two guns opened up on the defenders in the Sunken Road. The Hornet’s Nest, as both armies were now calling this place, was enveloped in one huge crashing explosion of grapeshot, shrapnel, shards of shattered rock, and splintered trees.

Finally, the artillery barrage stilled and the Confederates launched their attack, not running and screaming across the field, but marching as if on parade. Abner Murback, who, only two days earlier had been a private, was now commanding one of the companies of the Fusiliers, and he marched in front of his men, his pistol drawn.

For a moment it was quiet, except for the beating of the drums, the jangle of equipment, and the brush of footsteps. It was so quiet that Abner could hear talking in the Yankee lines.

“Here come the Rebs,” someone said.

“My God, ain’t they ever goin’ to quit? We done kilt near as many people as they got in the whole state of Mississippi.”

The Confederates continued their advance. There were no challenging Rebel yells, no cheers, no vitality in their movements. Scattered throughout the first rank were the drums, whose cadence not only kept the men marching as one but relayed the officers’ orders as well. The drummers were young, some as young as twelve, but already their eyes were glazed over with the same hollow stare as those of their older comrades.

Abner led his men down to the creek, then into it. The backwater slough was knee-deep with mud and stagnant standing water, and it slowed the attackers’ advance even more.

“Fire!” the Yankee artillery commander shouted.

In one horrendous volley, more than sixty cannon fired, belching out flame, smoke, and whistling death. The artillery barrage was followed almost immediately by a volley of deadly accurate riflefire. Hundreds of attacking soldiers went down in the withering fire, and the attack was stopped in its tracks. The remaining Confederate soldiers turned and scrambled back out of the water, up the embankment, and into the timberline beyond, leaving their dead and dying behind them.

One of the dead left on the field was Lieutenant Abner Murback of Bexar County, Texas.