THE OVERWHELMING DEFEAT OF THE ENEMY
Sergeant Knox had marched the platoon of dismounted cavalry to a
position near the end of the road, in readiness to move to the
assistance of the train escort, as ordered by Lieutenant Lyon, when he
saw the enemy marching over the meadow towards the wagons. When Deck
realized the havoc made by the sharpshooters in the ranks of the
Confederate company, he suspended the command to move, and watched the
flow of events from the woods. He saw the enemy on the meadow drop upon
the ground, and those in the water remount their horses.
Leaving Life in command, with orders to move to the train if the enemy
approached it, he made his way over to the point where he could obtain
a better view of the troopers in the water. He found them wading in the
stream, covered by their horses. Butters was a great horse-fancier, as
well as a dead shot with his rifle, and had ordered his men by message
along his line not to kill the animals if they could help it.
"You are not doing as much execution among the enemy as you were,
Lieutenant Butters," said Deck as he came up with the head of the
sharpshooters.
"I am not, for the Cornfeds have made breastworks of their horses,"
replied the volunteer lieutenant. "I ordered my men not to kill the
poor beasts if they could help it."
"I think that was a mistake," added Deck.
"The hosses ain't Seceshers," replied Butters, not exactly pleased with
his superior's criticism.
"But every one of the horses is doing more soldier work than any of the
men; for he is saving his rider from certain death, and the soldiers
can't do that for each other," replied Deck, made somewhat earnest by
the tone of the commander of the sharpshooters. "I love and respect a
good horse as much as you do; and I sometimes think Ceph, the animal I
ride, knows as much as I do, and in his way more. Your men are the most
skilful with the rifle as a body I ever saw or heard of. But those
horses are not such as you raise in this part of Kentucky, or where I
came from. They are mean stock, and though I am sorry to do so, I must
order you to shoot the horses; for your compassion for the poor beasts
has brought the action to a standstill, and we are doing nothing."
"I don't know but you are right, Lieutenant Lyon; at any rate, I obey
your orders," replied Butters, mollified by the compliment to his men
and himself, to say nothing of the praise of Kentucky horses.
"Your men have ceased firing," added Deck, who did not believe in any
stay of a successful action.
"The men have come to the end of the line, and I have not started a new
round," Butters explained.
"Then start it by bringing down the first horse at the head of the
column," continued the Riverlawn lieutenant. "Tell the next man to
bring down the soldier as the horse drops. Do you know the location of
the horse's brain?"
"I ought to; I'm a hoss-doctor to home, and I've had to shoot 'em afore
now when they got a broken leg, or were too sick to get well. You'll
see whether I know where the brains is," replied Butters, as he raised
his rifle and fired. "Fire at the man!" he called to the first number
in the line as the animal dropped, splashing his former rider with
water, which seemed to blind him; for he was stooping forward, more
effectually to conceal his head behind the animal.
Number one discharged his piece, and almost instantly the trooper
followed the horse. Butters went to the second rifleman, and ordered
him to shoot the next horse, telling him the part at which he was to
aim. He proceeded along the whole length of the line, instructing the
even numbers to shoot the horse, and the odd the man. Not a man failed
to hit his mark, and there was soon a gap in the column. Every officer
had fallen, and a panic seized the privates as the death-line marched
up the stream. They were brave men; but the horses and men seemed to
fall as though they had been prostrated by bolts from heaven, and the
men could not see their executioners.
Without any orders, unless the sergeants gave them, the men leaped out
of the stream, and ran with all the speed the nature of the ground
would permit. The deserted horses remained in the brook, and not
another one of them was shot. Not only those who had been more nearly
exposed to the deadly fire of the sharpshooters, but those who were far
in the rear of them, fled from the field. Of course they had leaped out
of the water on the farther side of the stream, and were running to the
north, or in the direction of the road from Jamestown to Harrison, and
were liable to fall in with the outskirts of General Thomas's camp.
Deck witnessed the utter rout of the company of cavalry, and he
proceeded to thank Butters and his men for the very effective service
they had rendered. They had fought the battle and won it, and the
cavalrymen had done nothing to assist them. The lieutenant of the
company of Unionists expressed his opinion loud enough to be heard by
all the sharpshooters, that there was not another body of men in the
whole country that could equal them in the accuracy of their aim. He
should commend them in the highest degree to Major Lyon, and his report
would be transmitted in due time to the general in command.
"I will leave you and your men here, Lieutenant Butters, to watch the
enemy," continued Deck. "In about an hour or two send me a report of
anything that happens about here;" and he hastened back to the foot of
the by-road.
The battle had been fought and apparently won; for the Confederates
were out of rifle-range in a very short time. A vigorous cheer was sent
up about the time that Deck came in sight of the train, proving that
they realized their own safety and that of the train. But the young
lieutenant's brain was busy, though he ordered his command to return
the cheer of the escort.
The wagons, over a dozen in number, were safe from the hands of the
enemy; for they had enough to do in the vicinity of Logan's Cross
Roads, as the roar of the cannon in the battle was heard in the
distance. Deck was studying up some way to extricate the wagons from
their miry plight. If he could but procure a sufficient quantity of
boards or planks, he could get them to the hard ground. He asked Milton
if any could be procured, and was assured that none could be obtained
short of Jamestown.
He gave the order to march, and directed Life to go ahead, and select
the most favorable ground for the passage. The lieutenant followed him
at the head of his command, and reached the train in a short time; and
though some of the soldiers had sunk in the mud down to their knees,
they were pulled out of it. The lieutenant of the escort had renewed
his struggle to move the wagons forward when Deck saluted him as he
came out to meet him.
"Lieutenant Lyon of the Riverlawn Cavalry," said Deck, as he gave his
hand to the officer.
"I need not say that I am exceedingly glad to meet you, for you have
saved my men and the wagon-train," was the answer. "Permit me to
present myself as Lieutenant Sterling of the Ninth Ohio Infantry."
"You have had a hard march from the pike so far."
"I have; the toughest time I ever had in my life, and I have seen some
deep mud before," replied Lieutenant Sterling. "Without your timely
aid, my command would all have been prisoners, and the wagons been in
possession of the enemy. But I am bewildered at the manner in which you
have done this thing. I did not see your force till you marched out on
the meadow. I heard a number of rifle-cracks, as I judged they were,
but I did not see a man."
"It was wholly done by a volunteer company of riflemen, attached to my
platoon for this occasion."
"I saw the enemy fall when they started to march over here, and after
they took to the stream; but I could not make out the force that fired
the shots. There must have been a hundred of them."
"Only thirty of them; but I believe they did not waste a shot," replied
Deck. "Will you oblige me by giving me the date of your commission?"
"Whatever the date of my commission, I shall cheerfully resign the
command to you; for you have a larger force than mine, and you have
fought the battle here that saved me, though you must have been
outnumbered by the enemy. My commission bears date Dec. 27."
"I was commissioned two weeks earlier than that."
"Then you rank me, and I am very glad that it is so," answered
Lieutenant Sterling; and he proceeded to inform his command of the
fact, for all of them had been ordered to suspend work.
"Do you happen to know what any of your wagons contain?" asked Deck,
who was ready to address himself to the task of moving the wagons to
the forest road.
"They are loaded for the most part with rations for the troops, and
grain for the horses and mules, with some general supplies."
"Do you know if there is any rope among the supplies?"
"The quartermaster-sergeant can answer that question better than I
can," replied the officer.
"Plenty of it, Lieutenant," replied this man. "It is in the first wagon
in the line."
"Bring out at least a hundred feet of inch-rope," added Deck. "You were
not moving the wagons to the nearest hard ground."
"My aim was to get them to a road indicated on the map over in that
direction," replied Lieutenant Sterling, pointing over towards the one
by which the Riverlawns had come from Jamestown. "According to the
scale on my map it is about two miles over there."
"That is very true; but, according to the fact, it is less than a third
of a mile to the woods where we came upon the meadow."
"But it would take me longer to cut a road through the woods to the
road than it would to wallow through the mud to the road."
"But there is a by-road through the woods to the main road."
"I am a total stranger here, and I did not know there was even a path
through the woods," added the lieutenant from Ohio, as the
quartermaster-sergeant rolled the rope out of the wagon.
Deck called his men, who had been thoroughly rested by their stay in
the woods, whether they needed it or not. The long rope was uncoiled;
and Life was directed to make the two ends of it fast to the end of the
pole, and pass it out through the three pairs of mules. Sixty men were
detailed to man the rope in two lines. This required a part of the
escort, and the rest of it were ordered to stand by the wheels. The
negro driver of the first wagon was told by Life to go to the rear end
and push; but this was done only to get him out of the way, for his
brutality had disgusted both the lieutenant and the sergeant, as both
of them believed in kindness to animals. They had seen the beatings
bestowed on the animals before; and Deck, looking through his glass,
was satisfied that the mules did not pull a pound under the beating.
Perhaps they were disgusted with the failure of their efforts to move
the wagon, as well as by the blows heaped upon them.
Life patted them on the neck, and coaxed them, and he certainly
succeeded in bringing them to a good-natured condition of mind.
"Now, boys, straighten out them ropes!" shouted Life to the soldiers
who manned them. "Pull steady for all you're wuth! Now, my beauties!
Hi! now! Come, my beauties!" said he, taking the nigh head leader by
the head, and leading him along.
To the astonishment of the men looking on, this mule made a flying leap
nearly out of his harness, and then pulled as steadily as a
well-trained horse; and the rest of the team followed his example. Life
seemed to have some hypnotic power over a horse, and it appeared that
he had the same influence over the mules. The men tugged at the rope,
and the wagon was hauled out of the mire.
"Keep it moving!" shouted Deck. "If you stop, it will mire again. Keep
it a-going!"
The men seemed to regard the work as a sort of enjoyable farce; and
they cheered each other along, and some of them took to singing. They
did not seem to be exerting all their strength, but the wagon moved
along at quite a lively pace. If they had stopped two minutes, the
wheels would have sunk down into the mud.
"John Brown's wagon got stuck in the mud,
And we pull it through the black miry flood,
As we go marching on,"
sang the soldiers; and in a few minutes more they landed the first of
the wagon-train high and dry in the by-road.
Here one of the riflemen was waiting for the lieutenant, being a
messenger from Butters.