Heading West

Prologue

         This short story is based on a character from my family history, and is as true as I can make it up to the point that he joins Forrest.  He and his brother actually joined another infantry outfit, and apparently survived the war, but there is no record of him returning home to Mississippi after the war.  I like to think that he went west, and made a name for himself that has now been forgotten.

Chapter One

         The early morning light through the mist made the blue hills seem to fade into another realm.  Maybe heaven, or maybe just some fairytale land where wars never happened.  Boney could hear the first stirrings in the woods behind him as the camp started to come alive.  Muffled coughs and  groans, the clink of tin cups, the pop and hiss as someone added kindling to the coals of the cook fire.  He idly scratched  the star between the eyes of his chestnut-colored horse, Hannibal, as he watched the mist rising.  Napoleon Bonaparte MacKay, Boney to his friends, had always been an early riser, usually up and about before the first streaks of dawn spread across the sky.  Since joining the army, early dawn seemed to be the only time he could be alone with his thoughts.  Even the hard marches demanded of him and his comrades by “That Devil Forrest” were not enough to quell the joshing and chatter on which an army of rough men thrived.          

         Boney turned away from the picket line where Hannibal stood, back toward the woods where Company B of the 15th Mississippi Cavalry was camped.  It was time to roust his lazy younger brother John out of his blankets and get some breakfast going.  John was the real reason Boney was here.  At the beginning of the war, John was only fifteen, and Pa wouldn’t let him join up.  Boney, caught up in the excitement of Secession, had joined the first company formed from Amite County, Mississippi, which was soon added to the 3rd Mississippi Infantry Regiment.  His regiment was sent to Mobile, Alabama, to meet the expected Yankee invasion of that valuable port city.  After three months of sand fleas, chiggers and unbearable heat, Boney had been sick of the Army.  One of his best friends had died of fever.

         When the Yanks didn’t invade, his regiment was transferred to the command of Albert Sidney Johnston, who was desperately trying to put together an army at Corinth, Mississippi, that would be big enough to stop the flood of Union troops inching south from Kentucky into Tennessee.  The train carrying his regiment through south Mississippi had been wrecked by a drunken engineer, and most of Boney’s company had been killed or injured.  That was the last straw.  Boney had just walked away and gone home.

         Two months later, when John turned sixteen, he finally prevailed upon their father Jesse to let him sign up.  After all, Jesse had only been sixteen when he had fought for Andy Jackson in the Creek Indian War and at New Orleans.  Realizing that his brash younger brother would probably get himself killed in the first skirmish, Boney had had no choice but to go with him.  Having seen enough of  the army to know that the infantry were likely to be cannon fodder, he convinced his brother to join a cavalry company being raised in the county seat by the local judge.  Jesse gave them two of the three horses on the family farm, and because they could provide their own mounts, they were immediately accepted into the company.

         They were soon put under the command of a fellow Mississippian named Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was making a name for himself with audacious raids behind Union lines.  Now, after more than three years of blood and slaughter, starvation, and death of every kind, Boney knew that the war was lost.  Shiloh and Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain, and all the other killing fields had been for nothing.  After Nashville, where the western army destroyed itself in one last suicidal effort, Forrest’s boys were about the only effective force left in the west, and they were being driven deeper into Alabama by overwhelming numbers of Yankee cavalry.  The only questions left now were how to get his brother safely away, and where to go.

         Surrender was not an option, not really.  Bad feelings ran so deep between the remaining warriors in blue and gray that they were likely to get shot down if they tried. Some of the boys had just up and gone home.  But Pa’s farm had been burned during a raid, and he’d moved into town.  Besides, if Boney’s thinking was right, there wouldn’t be much opportunity in the South for some time to come.

         Boney  ran his hand over the stubble on his chin, and started walking back toward the camp.  “It’s got to be west“, he thought.  There was supposed to be gold out west, and opportunities for men with fighting experience.  Maybe Denver.  Hell, maybe go all the way to California.  First, though, he had to get them away from the armies without getting shot or hung.

Chapter Two

         

         Two days later, just before sunset, Boney’s company was detailed as rearguard for the retreating Confederates.  They were to hold, to the last possible minute, a small wooden bridge over a deep, muddy creek , then retreat across and fire the bridge.  They were backed up by two six-pound cannons stationed on the far bank of the creek.  When the artillery ceased firing and limbered up, that would be the signal to burn the bridge.

         Boney had secretly convinced his sergeant to detail John as a horse-holder, in the rear on the other side of the creek.  Boney figured he would have his hands full just getting himself across the bridge, much less his impulsive and hot-headed brother.  He and his other messmates were lying in a slit trench behind a log, waiting for the enemy to show.  Looking back, he could see his brother across the creek, holding the reins of their four horses, and cursing steadily.  The woods were getting dark now, and the shadows of the trees stretched long across the road to the bridge.  Two thin streams of smoke rose from the center of the bridge where firepots full of hot coals smoldered, and stacks of fat pine waited to set the bridge aflame.

         Boney took a swallow of water from his canteen, and returned his gaze to the road in front of him.  They had repeated this scenario many times in the retreat from Tennessee.  First, a Yankee scout would step around the bend in the road, three hundred yards away, or if he was smart, would peer through the bushes at the edge of the bend.  He would see the little eight-man squad entrenched on both sides of the road.  In a little while, a company of dismounted cavalry would ease through the woods in a loose skirmish line, carefully moving up to within range, and would begin to lay down fire on their trenches.  The artillery would loose a few rounds, the boys would try to pick off a few of the enemy, and then the Confederates would retreat back across the bridge, pausing to set fires.  They could then hold off the Yankee skirmishers until the bridge was engulfed, giving the main force time to put a few more miles between themselves and pursuit, hoping beyond hope to find reinforcements or a place to make a stand.

         Suddenly, Boney and his companions heard a low rumble approaching down the road.  The noise quickly grew to the thunder of many hooves, and the men looked wide-eyed at each other.  From around the bend, an entire company of Union cavalry burst into view, a captain, with saber drawn and long hair streaming, leading the pack.  Later, Boney would conclude that the young captain must have been told about the bridge by a local, and had decided to grab promotion and fame before the war came to and end with a glorious charge to capture the prize.  The Confederates cocked their rifles, and when the captain had reached a point about one hundred and fifty yards away, let loose a volley.  Scarlet bloomed on the breast of the captain, and he flipped backward out of his saddle.  Four horses crashed to the road in a tangle of screaming, kicking flesh.

         The captain may have been young and inexperienced, but the men behind him were hardened veterans.  They hardly slowed at all as they swerved around or leaped over the flailing horses, kicking their own mounts back into a full gallop.  They knew that as foolish as the captain had been, they now had an opportunity to ride down the defenders, whose rifles were empty.  Seeing this, the lieutenant in charge of the cannons across the creek ordered his men to limber up and get the hell out of there without firing a shot.  The cannon were too valuable to risk.  Sergeant Wilson, in charge of the Confederate squad, also instantly realized the danger, and ordered the retreat.  Boney’s position was closest to the bridge, so he was the first to pound onto the planks, running full out.  He heard a man scream as the blue tide ran him down before he could reach the bridge.  Boney knew it was too late to fire the bridge, and didn’t even pause as he flew by the smoldering pots.  But the two men directly behind him, whether out of  stupidity or suicidal courage, stopped and tried to light the kindling.  They saved Boney’s life.  The bridge was only wide enough for a wagon to cross, and the charge had funneled into a space only two horses wide.  As the three surviving men in the center of the bridge realized that they would not make it across, the sergeant turned and leapt over the rail, but the last two, those that had tried to set the fire, turned at bay.  They were brothers from South Alabama, and both stubborn as mules.  They swung their rifles like clubs at the first two horses’ heads, causing them to rear and jamming up the column behind them.  In a moment, they were shot down by the pistols of the two riders, but Boney had reached the other bank and was snatching reins of Hannibal from his already mounted brother.

         “This way,” he shouted at John, and spurred the horse into the brush on the west side of the road, following the creek bank.  After a couple of hundred yards of  crashing through thick branches and leaping over downed trees, Boney pulled his horse to a stop.  As John halted beside him, Boney strained to hear over the labored breathing of the horses.  He could hear the receding thunder of hooves as the Yankees pursued the fleeing cannons, but no sounds of pursuit coming through the woods.  “I think we’re clear,” he said.

         Three hours later, and a couple of miles downstream, Boney outlined his plan to John as he built a small fire near the bank of the creek.  John still had his Enfield carbine, though Boney had dropped his on the sprint across the bridge, and they each had a pair of  Navy revolvers in their saddle holsters, as well as three days rations of salt pork and coffee.  “Most of the Yankees are moving south and east, trying to cut Forrest off from the holdouts in Georgia,” he said.  “We’ll head northeast toward Muscle Shoals, and try to get across the Mississippi around Memphis.  Then it’s Arkansas, and points west.”

         “What’ll we do for a living when we get there?” asked John.

         “Whatever we can, with four pistols and a carbine, I reckon,” answered Boney.

         The next morning, they set off on their journey, with dreams of gold and a future as big and as dangerous as the West.