THE RIVERLAWN CAVALRY ON THE FLANK
The aide-de-camp was a stranger to Lieutenant Sterling, who therefore
hesitated to answer such a question; but Deck immediately introduced
him to the staff-officer, adding that he had saved the wagon-train from
the enemy by taking to the meadow, and had brought it over a mile
through the mire.
"You have done well, Lieutenant Sterling, and I will mention the matter
to the general," said the captain.
"Thank you, Captain Woodbine. I have forty men, besides the
quartermaster-sergeant and thirteen mule-drivers," added the chief of
the escort very respectfully.
"You are a commissioned officer?"
"I am, Captain."
"You may retire, but remain within call."
"The presence of this officer solves the difficulty," continued the
aide-de-camp. "He has to conduct his wagons within our lines, and he
can take charge of the prisoners after you have disarmed them. They do
not seem to be disposed to fight, and the escort is sufficient. They
will be here in a very short time. Lieutenant Sterling!" he called.
This officer hastened back to the point, and saluted the captain; and
this time he noticed the gold cord of a staff-officer on the sides of
his trousers, which had been concealed before by a clump of bushes in
which he stood. He had been an officer in the regular army, a West
Pointer, who had resigned in "piping times of peace."
"I have to assign you to an important duty in addition to your present
service, and I have no doubt you will perform it as well as you have
the conduct of the wagon-train," said Captain Woodbine.
"I should certainly have been captured if Lieutenant Lyon had not
fought and beaten the enemy's cavalry," replied the chief of the
escort.
"It would not have been your fault if you had been. What is left of the
enemy will be placed in your charge, and you will march them to our
lines beyond Jamestown. They will be disarmed as soon as they come in,"
said the captain.
Lieutenant Sterling was then sent over to the road with a message to
Life Knox to march the cavalry, dismounted, to the point, and to bring
over his own men, except a guard for the wagons and the horses. They
were on the ground as soon as the Confederates reached the forest. They
came on foot, and left the horses where they had been abandoned.
An orderly sergeant, as he appeared to be from the chevrons on his arm,
advanced and asked for the commanding officer; and Deck was pointed out
by the riflemen, as his men ascended the bank to the solid ground. He
presented himself to the lieutenant, and saluted.
"I am Sergeant Pfeffer, and we desire to surrender, for we can do
nothing more," said he.
"Where are all your commissioned officers?" asked Deck.
"They are all killed or badly wounded," answered the sergeant.
"How many men have you now?"
"Fifty-eight; and we started out early this morning with a full
company," returned Pfeffer, with no little bitterness in his tones.
"You will march your men in single file along this bank, and deposit
your arms of all kinds on the ground," said Lieutenant Lyon.
He directed Life to supervise the ceremony, sending the weapons by his
own men and the riflemen to the wagons; and the quartermaster-sergeant
was directed to load them in the vehicles. Deck hurried the business,
for the aide-de-camp was impatient at the delay. As soon as this duty
had been accomplished, and Lieutenant Sterling was thus in condition to
handle the prisoners, Deck ordered the cavalrymen and the riflemen to
return to the road, mount their horses, and form in the usual order, in
column, under the command of Sergeant Knox.
Captain Woodbine instructed Lieutenant Sterling to have the prisoners,
under a guard of his own men, bring in the wounded, bury the dead, and
lead their horses to the forest. He was told to be very cautious, and
to shoot any prisoner who attempted to escape or make any serious
trouble. With forty men, armed with muskets of the best quality, the
captain declared that he could control the greater number of prisoners.
The aide-de-camp, who may take command of any body of troops in the
field if he finds it advisable to so, and Lieutenant Lyon hastened to
their horses, and mounted, and the column moved up the road. Lieutenant
Sterling proved himself to be a man of energy and determination. He
drew up his command around the prisoners, and then addressed them. He
told them what they were to do, and warned them that any man who
attempted to escape, or offered any opposition to his orders, would be
summarily shot.
Forming the remains of the company by fours, with his own men on the
flanks, he marched them to the stream. They were first required to
dispose of the dead and wounded, who numbered over forty, and to do
what they could to aid the latter. Quite a number of them who had not
been disabled had been hit and more or less injured, and the lieutenant
had excused the worst cases from duty.
The horses were all led to the point, and the wounded who were able to
ride them were mounted. It was late in the afternoon when the
cumbersome column was ready to move. Lieutenant Sterling's infantry had
worked hard all day, and were considerably fatigued by their hard labor
at the wheels of the wagons. He mounted the best horse he could find,
and gave a steed to each of his men. A horse was also given to each
wounded prisoner able to ride him; but the others were required to go
on foot, for the officer would not trust them with horses for fear they
might attempt to escape.
The prisoners had the head of the column, the mounted ones in their
rear, with a file of the mounted infantry on each flank of them. The
wagons completed the column, with guards on each side of them, mounted
like the others. Each vehicle had a led horse behind it; for there were
more of them than of prisoners. The lieutenant, mindful of the
instructions of Captain Woodbine, kept a careful watch over his charge,
riding up and down the line on both sides. In due time, though not
until in the evening, he delivered the wagon-train to the chief
quartermaster at the camp, and the prisoners to the provost marshal. He
was highly commended later for his efficient service.
It would require a whole volume to give the details of the battle, as
it began in the early morning, and continued with more or less
intensity till evening, when the enemy were driven back to their
intrenchments on the Cumberland River. General Thomas cannonaded till
dark, and he intended to storm the works the next morning.
Lieutenant Lyon's command, accompanied by Captain Woodbine, reached the
Millersville Road in the middle of the afternoon, where they found a
portion of the First Kentucky Cavalry waiting for them, detained there
by the written order of the aide-de-camp. The column was reformed, and
marched with all haste for a distance of two miles, where the captain
turned into another by-road, made by teams hauling out wood from the
forest, and running parallel to the one by which the force had reached
the meadow, and nearly to the pike.
At a point on this road Captain Woodbine had sent the companies in
advance of the First Kentucky, by what looked like a cattle-path, to a
position in the woods where they might intercept the retreating enemy,
or at least annoy them. The Confederates were moving to the south by
the pike and each side of it, the infantry passing through the miry
region. The Riverlawn portion continued on the same road till they came
in sight of the intrenchments on the north side of the Cumberland,
where the rear of Major Lyon's command was drawn up.
At this time in the afternoon no considerable portion of the enemy had
advanced near their intrenchments, and there appeared to be nothing for
the squadron to do. The major wanted to know what his son had been
doing; and Deck gave him a brief account of his operations at the
meadow. Not a man had been lost in the affair, which had been fought by
the sharpshooters behind the trees near the point. The artillery's guns
were still booming on the air in the distance.
Captain Woodbine had chosen the position to be occupied by the
squadron; and he had sent the remainder of the regiment to which it
nominally belonged to a point farther north, for reasons of his own
which he did not explain, but probably he desired to keep the
Riverlawns by themselves.
The riflemen were now reunited; and while Deck was telling his story to
his father, Captain Woodbine conducted the body, now under the command
of Captain Ripley, from the hill behind which the two companies of
cavalry were stationed, so that they could not be seen by the enemy, to
another hill which commanded the pike and the meadow. Here he posted
them, and gave the commander his orders.
From this height the sharpshooters could harass the enemy retreating
over the pike, and also the two regiments of infantry retiring over the
low ground, the first of which was within twenty rods of the hill. It
was evident that it was marching towards ground to the west of the
hill, where the ascent was less difficult. They were within range of
the riflemen, and the fight in this section of the field was extremely
likely to begin here. But the First Kentucky Cavalry was posted near
them, and would be obliged to bear the brunt of it.
Captain Woodbine went to these troopers, and moved them to a more
favorable position, where they could support the sharpshooters; for
they were nearly, if not quite, as efficient as a battery would have
been in the same place. Directly in front of the Riverlawn Cavalry was
a hill overlooking the intrenchments of the enemy, which sheltered the
command from the guns if they were fired in that direction; and the
aide-de-camp rode his horse up the declivity, which was partially
covered with trees.
Then he dismounted, hitched his horse, and placed himself behind a
tree, where he could see all the force he had taken under his command,
and all the approaches of the enemy who were hurrying down the pike and
on both sides of it. Just then he wished he had half a dozen regiments
of troops, for he believed that with a sufficient force he could cut
off the retreat of the enemy to his works.
He had five companies of cavalry and fifty-six riflemen, less than a
single regiment; and he could only impede, but not check, the retreat.
Major Lyon surveyed the country around from all points; and when he saw
the captain on the hill, he ascended it in order to make a startling
proposition to him.
"We are within half a mile of the enemy's intrenchments, Captain
Woodbine," the major began.
"Hardly as near as that, Major," replied the aide-de-camp.
"A quarter of a mile would make no difference with my plan."
"Ah, then you have a plan?" replied the captain with a smile.
"I am not an engineer, as I believe you are; but I have been looking
over those earthworks. I see a place where I believe I could ride my
squadron over them; and I presume there is not a large force there, for
it has the river on one side. We have something less than six hundred
men, all mounted, and I fancy we could ride over the artillerymen it
contains."
"I don't believe you could get into the works, in the first place,"
returned the captain with a laugh. "If you did get in, you would find
yourself outnumbered two to one."
"I should be willing to feel of them, at any rate," added the major.
"Do you suppose a general with ability enough to command an army of
five or six thousand men would be so stupid as to march from his
intrenchments, and, going away ten miles to attack another army, would
leave his base of retreat insufficiently manned?"
"I supposed they would have been sending up re-enforcements to the
battle-field all day; and they could not have done that without
reducing greatly the number in the works. However, I am not a very
experienced soldier, Captain Woodbine, and I am willing to admit that I
should not have undertaken the enterprise on my own responsibility,"
replied the major.
"Of course it may be possible that the garrison within the fort has
been reduced to a number equal, or even less, than your force; but I
should say it would be foolhardy in the extreme to make such a venture
without a certain knowledge of the extent of the force behind the
breastworks. But the riflemen have opened on the regiment nearest to
them," added the captain, as the crack of a rifle was heard on the
other hill, not more than a quarter of a mile distant.
Other shots followed in rapid succession; but they were fired one at a
time, in accordance with Captain Ripley's tactics.