AND CAPTURE OF THE REBEL STRONGHOLD.
FOR the next few days there was a puzzling maze of movements, which must
have completely mystified the rebel Generals--as was intended--for
it certainly passed the comprehension of our own keen-eyed and
shrewdly-guessing rank-and-file and lower oflficers.
Regiments, brigades and divisions marched hither-and-yon, wound around
and over the hills and mountains, started out at a great rate in the
morning, marched some distance, halted apparently halfway, and then
perhaps went back. Skirmishing, that sometimes rose to the proportions
of a real battle, broke out at unexpected times and places, and as
unexpectedly ended. Batteries galloped into position, without much
apparent warning or reason, viciously shelled some distant point, and
then, as the infantry were girding up themselves for something real to
follow all the noise, stopped as abruptly as they had begun, and nothing
followed.
This went on so long, and apparently so purposelessly, that even the
constant Si and Shorty were shaken a little by it.
"It can't be," said Shorty to Si, one evening after they had gone into
bivouac, and the two had drawn away from the boys a little, to talk
over things by themselves, "that old Sherman's got one o' his crazy fits
again, can it? They say that sometimes he gits crazier 'n a March hare,
and nobody kin tell just when the fit'll come on him. I never did see so
much criss cross work as we've bin doin' for the last few days. I can't
make head nor tail of it, and can't find anybody else that kin."
"I can't make it out no more than you kin," assented Si. "And I've
thought o' that crazy idee, too. You know them boys over there in
Rousseau's old division was under Sherman once before, when he was
in command at Louisville, and they say that he got crazier'n a locoed
steer--actually looney, so's they had to relieve him and send him back
home to git cured. They'd be really scared about things, but their
officers heard old Pap Thomas say that things wuz goin' along all right,
and that satisfied 'em. I ain't goin' to worry so long's old Thomas is
in command o' the Army o' the Cumberland, and we're in it. He'll take
care that things come out straight."
"You bet," heartily agreed Shorty. "The Army o' the Cumberland'll be all
right as long as he's on deck, and he kin take care o' the other
armies, too, if they git into trouble. I struck some o' the Army o' the
Tennessee when I went back with them prisoners today, and got talkin'
with 'em. I asked 'em if Sherman wasn't subject to crazy fits, and they
said yes, he had 'em, but when he did he made the rebels a mighty sight
crazier'n he was. They went on to say that we'd git used to Sherman
after awhile, and he'd show us some kinks in soljerin' that we never
dreamed of."
"Sich plaguey conceit," muttered Si.
"I should say so. But I never seen anybody so stuck on theirselves as
them Army o' the Tennessee fellers. Just because they took Vicksburg--"
"With all the navy to help 'em," interjected Si.
"Yes, with more gunboats than we have army wagons. They think they know
more about soljerin than anybody else in the world, and ackchelly want
to give us p'ints as to how to git away with the rebels."
"The idee," said Si scornfully. "Talkin' that way to the best soljers
in the world--the Army o' the Cumberland. I hate conceit, above all
things. I'm glad I hain't none of it in me. 'Tain't that we say it, but
everybody knows it that the Army o' the Cumberland's the best army in
the world, and the 200th Injianny--"
"I told 'em that the Army o' the Cumberland was the best army, because
it had the 200th Injianny in it, and, would you believe me, they said
they'd never even heard o' the 200th Injianny?"
"Sich ignorance," groaned Si. "Can't they read? Don't they git the
papers?"
"There'd bin a fight right, there, if it hadn't bin for the officers. I
wanted awfully to take a fall out of a big Sergeant who said that Thomas
might be a good enough man for Chairman of a convention o' farmers,
but when he went to war he wanted to have sich leaders as Sherman,
McPherson, and Logan, and Osterhaus. But he'll keep. We agreed to see
each other later, when we'll have a private discussion, and if he has
any head left on him he'll freely acknowledge that nobody in the Army o'
the Tennessee is fit to be named in the same day with Pap Thomas."
"Better turn him over to me, Shorty," said Si, meditatively. "I think
I'm in better shape for an argument just now than you are. You've bin
doing a good deal in the last few days, and I'm afraid you're a little
run down."
"No; he's my meat. I found him, and I'll take care o' him. But there's
just one thing that reconciles me to this business. In spite o' all this
sashayin' and monkeying we seem to be continually edgin' up closter to
them big cliffs where the rebels are, and something's got to bust
purty soon. It's jist like it was at Tullyhomy, but old Rosecrans ain't
runnin' things now."
"But Thomas is in the center, as he was then, and we're with him," said
Si hopefully. "There's tattoo, Le's crawl in."
The other boys had been affected according to their various temperaments
by the intricate and bewildering events of the past few days. The first
day or two they were all on the tenter-hooks of expectation and anxiety.
Every bugle-call seemed to be a notice for them to rush into the great
battle. Every time they saw a regiment moving, they expected to follow
and fall into line with it. They wondered why they were not sent in
after every skirmish-line they saw advancing. When a rebel battery
opened out in the distance they girded themselves in expectation of
an order to charge it. But Si and Shorty kept admonishing them that it
would be time enough for them to get excited when the 200th Ind. was
called on by name for something; that they were not expected to fight
the whole campaign, but only to do a limited part of it, and they had
better take things easy, and save themselves for their share when it
should come to them.
It was astonishing how soon they recognized this, and settled down to
more or less indifference to things that did not directly concern their
own regiment. They were just at the age to be imitative, and the example
of the veterans around them had a strongly-repressive effect.
So, after the second or third day of the turmoil of the opening
campaign, they ceased to bother themselves openly, at least, as to why
their regiment did not move when others did, as to why they did not go
to the help of others that were fighting, and as to when they were to be
summoned to make a desperate assault upon the frowning palisades of rock
which were literally alive with rebels and belching cannon.
When the regiment was lying still they occupied and amused themselves,
as did the others, according to their several bents. The medical-minded
Alf Russell watched the movements and deportment of the Surgeons at
every opportunity, and was especially interested in everything that he
could catch a glimpse of, from feeling a man's pulse to extracting
a bullet. The lathy Gid Mackall, whose appetite did not need the
sharpening it got from the free mountain air, put in much of his time
cooking, all possible variations of his rations with anything else that
he could get hold of, and devouring the product with eagerness. In spite
of Si's strict prohibition against card-playing, the sleepy headed
Jim Humphreys was rapidly, but secretly, mastering all the tricks and
mysteries of camp gambling, and becoming an object of anxiety to the
older gamesters whenever he pitted himself against them. Sandy Baker,
whose tastes ran to mechanics, "tinkered" constantly with his rifle and
equipments, studying the nature and inner workings of every part, and
considering possible improvements. Sprightly Harry Joslyn was fascinated
with the details of soldiering, and devoted himself to becoming perfect
in the manual of arms and the facings. Little Pete Skidmore was keenly
alive to all that was going on, and wanted to know everything. When he
could trust himself not to get lost from his regiment, he would scurry
over to the nearest one, to find out who they were, where they had come
from, what they had been doing, and whither they were likely to go. But
Monty Scruggs was constantly in the public eye, as he loved to be. His
passion for declamation pleased officers and men. He really declaimed
very well, and it was a reminder to them of home and the long-ago school
days to hear him "spout" the oldtime Friday afternoon favorites.
Therefore he was always called upon whenever there was nothing else
to engage the men's attention, and his self-confidence and vanity grew
rapidly upon the liberal applause bestowed on him. He was a capital
mimic, too, and daring as well, and it was not long before he began to
"take off" those around him, which his comrades enjoyed even more than
his declamations.
The llth of May, 1864, saw all the clouds of battle which had been
whirling for days in such apparently diverse directions, gathering about
the deep gorge in Rocky Face Ridge through which the railroad passed.
"Buzzard Roost," as this was named, was the impregnable citadel behind
which the rebel army had taken refuge after its rout at Mission Ridge
the previous November, and the rebel engineers had since exhausted
every effort to make it still more unassailable. The lofty mountain rose
precipitously for hundreds of feet on either side the narrow gorge, and
the last hundred feet was a sheer wall of perpendicular rock. The creek
which ran through the gorge had been dammed, so that its waters formed
a broad, deep moat before the mouth of the gorge. The top of the ridge
swarmed with men, and to the rear of the gorge guns were massed in
emplacements to sweep every foot of the passage.
It seemed madness to even think of forcing such a pass. A thousand men
in the shelters of that fastness could beat back myriads, and it was
known that Joe Johnston had at least 50,000 behind the Ridge. Yet
Sherman was converging great rivers of men from the north, the northwest
and west down upon that narrow gap, as if he meant to move the eternal
rocks by a freshet of human force.
The rebels thrown out in advance of the gorge, on outlying hills, rocks
and cliffs, were swept backward and into the gap by the resistless
wave of blue rolling forward, fiery and thundering, gathering force and
vehemence as it converged into a shortening semi-circle about the rugged
stronghold.
The 200th Ind. moved forward and took its place in the line on a hill
commanding a view of the entrance to the gorge, and there waited its
orders for the general advance, which seemed imminent any instant.
For miles to the right and left the woods were crackling with musketry,
interspersed with the booming of fieldpieces.
The regiment had stacked arms and broken ranks.
For an hour or two the men had studied with intense eagerness the
bristling fortifications of the gap and the swarming foemen at the
foot of and on the summit of the high walls of rock. They had listened
anxiously to the firing to the right and left, and tried to make out
what success their comrades on other parts of the long crescent were
having. They had watched the faces of the officers to read there how the
battle was going.
But one after another found this tiresome after awhile and set himself
to his usual camp employments and diversions. Some got out needles and
thread, and began repairing their clothes. Some gathered in groups and
smoked and talked. Many produced the eternal cards, folded up a blanket
for a table, and resumed their endless sevenup and euchre or poker for
buttons and grains of corn. Jim Humphreys found his way into one of
these games, which was played behind a clump of bushes, and the buttons
represented dimes. He was accumulating fractional currency. Gid Mackall
embraced the opportunity to cook for himself a savory stew with some
onions distributed by the Sanitary Commission. Sandy Baker went over his
gun, saw that every screw was properly tight, and dropped the tiniest
amount of oil on the trigger and the hammer, to ease their working. Pete
Skidmore wandered down to the flank of the next regiment to find out
if anything new had occurred. Harry Joslyn got himself into the exact
"position of a soldier," with his heels together, his toes pointed at an
angle of 45 degrees, and went through the manual of the piece endlessly.
Si and the Orderly-Sergeant communed together about the rations for the
company, and the various troubles there was always on the Orderly's mind
about the company's management. Shorty got off by himself, produced from
his breast his mementoes of Maria, and read over her last letter for the
thousandth time, though he knew every word in it. But he seemed to get a
new and deeper meaning every time he read it.
Groups of officers would come up to a little rise in front, study the
distant ridge with their glasses for awhile, and then ride away.
A couple of natty young Aids followed their superiors' example, rode
up, dismounted, and studied the enemy's position with great dignity
and earnestness, that it might have full effect upon the brigade behind
them.
Monty Scruggs saw his opportunity. He bound some tin cans together to
represent field glasses, mounted a stump, and began intently studying
Buzzard Roost.
This attracted the attention of the others.
"What do you see, Monty?" they shouted.
"See?" answered he. "Just lots and gobs. I see old Joe Johnston over
there, with Pat Cleburne, and Hood and Bragg, and Joe Wheeler. They're
all together, and pulling off their coats, and rolling up their sleeves,
and shaking their fists at the 200th Ind., and daring it to come on."
[Illustration: CAPTURE OF REBEL STRONGHOLD. 185]
"Tell 'em not to sweat. Just hold their horses. We'll be over
presently," shouted the others, with yells of laughter. "What else do
you see?"
The young Aids turned around and glanced angrily at Monty and the
laughing crowd.
"I see old Jeff Davis there, with his Cabinet of traitors. He's writing
a fresh proclamation to his people, with his blind eye, and has got his
good one fixed on the 200th Ind., which he's telling Joe Johnston is
bound to give him more trouble than all the rest o' the army."
"Good! Good!" yelled the rest. "So we will. Old Jeff's right for once.
What else do you see?"
"Stop that, my man," said one of the Aids savagely. "You're disturbing
us."
"Go ahead, and don't mind 'em," shouted the others. "They're only Second
Lieutenants any way. Tell us what you see."
"I see way by Richmond, old Unconditional Surrender Grant's got Bob
Lee by the throat, and's just wipin' up the State of Virginny with him.
Lee's eyes is bulging out like gooseberries on a limb, and his tongue's
hanging down like a dog's on a hot day--"
"Get down off that stump at once, and go back to your place," said the
Aid authoritatively.
"Don't mind him. He's only a staff officer. He can't order you. Go
ahead," shouted the rest.
"I see a couple o' young Second Lieutenants," started Monty, but the Aid
sprang at him, and in an instant there was a rush of the other boys to
defend him. Capt. McGillicuddy, who was usually conveniently deaf and
blind to the boys' skylarking, looked up from the paper he was reading,
hurried to the scene, quieted the disturbance, ordered Monty to get down
and go back, and spoke sharply to the Aid about paying any attention to
the men's harmless capers.
The bugle blew "Attention," and everybody sprang to his place, and
waited eagerly for the next command.
"Men," said the Colonel, in his gentle, sweet voice, which, however,
was distinctly audible to the farthest flank of the regiment, "we are
ordered to help our comrades by attacking the mountain over there. You
see what is before you, and that it will be terrible work, but I know
that you will do all that you can do for the honor of dear old Indiana."
An enthusiastic cheer answered him.
"Battalion--Take--Arms!" commanded the Colonel. "Right
face--Forward--File left--March!"
The regiment filed down through the woods on the hillside, and as it
came into the opening at the bottom was greeted by a volley from a
battery on Rocky Face Ridge. The shells screamed viciously over the
heads of the men, and cut through the tops of the trees with a deafening
crash.
"Wastin' good cast-iron on the landscape, as usual," laughed Shorty, to
encourage the boys. "I always wonder how the rebels pick out the fellers
they make cannoneers of. When they git hold of a feller who can't shoot
so's to hit anything less'n a Township set up edgewise, they put him in
the artillery."
"Mebbe they'll come closter next time," said little Pete with a shiver,
as he trotted a little nearer Shorty.
"Naah, they'll never come no closter," said Shorty, contemptuously.
"They couldn't hit even the side o' the mountain if it wasn't in their
way and no place else for the ball to go."
Just then a shell screamed so close above Shorty that he involuntarily
ducked his head.
"What makes you juke, if they can't hit nothing?" inquired little Pete,
and the rest of them had regained composure enough to laugh.
"O," said Shorty composedly, "that feller wasn't shootin' at me. He was
shootin' at the 1st Oshkosh, which is a quarter of a mile behind. If
he'd hit me it'd 'a bin an accident, and I don't want no accidents to
happen just now."
Approaching the cleared space in the center of the valley, the regiment
went into line in the brush and pushed through to the edge of the woods.
The moment that it appeared in the fringe of brushwood a sharp volley
came from the line of rebels in the brush along the opposite side of the
clearing. Evidently they were not expecting an advance at that moment,
for their firing was wild, and wounded but a few men.
"Hold your fire till we are across," shouted the Colonel.
"Forward--Guide center--Double-quick--March!"
With a yell the regiment swept across the clearing into the brush
beyond. A furious, noisy scrambling ensued in the thickets. Neither side
could see 10 yards ahead, and the firing, though fierce and rapid, was
not very effective. Men shot at sounds, or motions of the bushes, and
the bullets, glancing on the limbs, whistled in all directions. But the
200th Ind. pressed furiously forward, and though the rebels resisted
stubbornly they were gradually pressed back up the hill. Occasionally
one was killed, many were wounded, and squads were caught in clumps of
brush and compelled to surrender. Si and Shorty kept their boys in
hand, on the left of Co. Q, restrained them from firing until they saw
something to shoot at, and saw that they did not advance until their
guns were loaded. They heard a crashing volley delivered on their right
front, and springing swiftly in that direction, came to a little break,
across which they saw a squad of 15 or 16 rebels under the command of
a Captain, with their guns still smoking, and peering into the woods
to see the result of their fire. Si rushed at the Captain, with leveled
gun, and ordered him to surrender.
"Are you an officer?" said the startled Captain as soon as he could gain
words. "I'm a Captain. I'll not surrender to any one under my rank."
"I'm Captain enough for you," answered Si, thrusting the muzzle of his
gun close to his face. "Surrender this minute, or off goes your head."
The Captain dropped his sword, and his men yielded.
The prisoners were conducted to the rear, and when Si returned with his
squad to the regiment he found it had forced its way to the foot of the
high wall of rock that rose straight up from the slope.
The rebels on the crest, 100 feet above, had been trying to assist their
comrades below, by firing with their muskets, and occasionally sending a
shell, where they could get their howitzers sufficiently depressed. Now
they had bethought themselves to roll rocks and heavy stones off the
crest, which fell with a crash on the treetops below.
The 200th Ind. was raging along the foot of the wall, trying to find a
cleft in it by which they could climb to the top and get at their foes.
Standing a few yards in the rear, under a gigantic white-oak, whose
thick branches promised protection from the crashing bowlders, the
Colonel was sending parties to explore every place that seemed hopeful,
and report to him. When Si came up with his squad he was directed to go
to the extreme left, and see what he could find.
He did so, and came to a little open space made by the washings which
poured over the crest of the rock when the rain descended in torrents.
There was a cleft there, but it was 40 feet above them, and surrounded
by rebels, who yelled at the sight of his squad, and sent down a volley
of bowlders. Si and his squad promptly dodged these by getting behind
trunks of trees. They fired at the rebels on the crest, who as promptly
lay down and sheltered themselves.
The firing and stone-throwing lasted an hour or more, and then seemed to
die down from sheer exhaustion.
As the stones begun to come down more fitfully, and at longer intervals.
Shorty shouted to those on top:
"Say, you fellers up there, ain't you gittin' tired o' that work? You
ain't hurtin' nobody with them dornicks. We kin dodge 'em easy, and
you're just strainin' yourselves for nothin'. Let up for awhile, till we
both rest and git a fresh hold. We'll amuse you if you will."
"What'll you do?" asked one of the rebels, peering over the crest.
"Lots o' things. I'll turn one o' my famous doubleback-action
flip-flaps, which people have come miles to see, when I was traveling
with Dan Rice. Or we'll sing you a song. We've here the World Renowned
Ballad-Singer of Bean Blossom Crick. Or we'll make you a speech. We have
here the Justly-Famous Boy Orator of Pogue's Run."
Everything had become quite still all around during this dialog.
"Give us a song," said the rebel, and his comrades' heads began showing
over the edge of the rock.
"Now, no rock-throwing and no shootin' while he's singing'," said
Shorty. "Give the boy a chance to git back to his tree after he's done."
"All right. We'll play fair. But no politics," came back from the rock.
"Go out there, Alf, on the gravel, and sing to 'em," said Shorty.
Alf Russell hesitated a moment, and then climbed up on the pile of
washings and after clearing his throat, sang "When This Cruel War is
Over" in his best style, and was applauded from the top of the rock and
below.
"Now, give us your speech. But no politics," the rebels shouted.
Monty Scruggs stepped up on the mound and recited "Bingen on the Rhine"
in his best school-exhibition style. The delight of the rebels was
boundless.
"Hip-hip--Hooray! Good! Good!" they shouted. "Give us another."
Monty scratched his head to think of something appropriate, and then
occurred to him Webster's great speech in defense of the Union, which
was then a favorite in the schools.
"When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in
heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments
of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent;
on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, with fraternal
blood. Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable."
The rebels listened with growing impatience to the words, and as Monty
concluded with his best flourish they yelled angrily:
"Heah, we told you no politics. Git back thar, now, quick, or we'll bust
your haid with this heah rock."
Shorty and Si raised their guns to shoot the man with the bowlder, and
Monty skipped back to the shelter of his tree, saying with a grin:
"I was bound to give 'em a little straight goods before I quit, and they
got it. Old Dan Webster's very words."
"The orders is to stay right here for the night," said the
Orderly-Sergeant, coming up through the brush to Si, "and be ready for
anything that comes. I don't know what old Sherman means--whether he is
going to send over some balloons to lift us to the top of the rocks,
or set us to tunneling through. I suppose it ain't my business to know.
I've got enough to do running this company. But something's got to bust
inside the next 24 hours, and when it does there'll be the dumbedest
smash this country ever saw. Stay where you are till further orders, and
make yourselves as comfortable as possible."
The rebels on the rocks having quieted down, the boys stowed themselves
around the roots of the trees, made little fires under the shelter of
the rocks, cooked their suppers, smoked their pipes, and finally rolled
themselves in their blankets and went to sleep.
Little Pete "snugged" in with Shorty, but when that gentleman was
awakened by Si a little after daylight, Pete was gone.
Shorty fumed around at this while he was cooking his breakfast, for he
wanted Pete to be there and eat heartily, in preparation for the arduous
struggles of the momentous day which was breaking for them.
But little Pete continued to be absent. No one had seen him, no one had
heard his voice, no one know anything about him. Shorty became greatly
worried, and the others shared his feelings, and began beating up the
woods around in search of some place that he might have fallen into.
With the daybreak the firing away to the left, where a lodgment had been
made on Rocky Face Ridge, beyond the gap, broke out afresh, and rolled
down toward the gap. The squad listened intently to it as it came
nearer, for they felt that it meant the beginning of the day's bloody
business. The crests above them remained silent.
Suddenly they heard little Pete's voice calling:
"Sergeant Klegg! Corporal Elliott!"
They looked in every direction, but could see no Pete.
"Sergeant Klegg! Corporal Elliott! Look up here. I'm up here on the
rocks."
They turned their eyes to the crest, and there saw Pete waving his hat
to them.
"Come up here," he called. "There ain't no rebels up here. They've all
gone off down into the valley."
From their tense hearts the boys sent up a cheer, which drew all
attention to them. The news quickly spread along the line, and was
received with cheers.
"Go down that way about 100 yards," Pete called down, "and you'll find a
tall pine blowed down agin the cliff. You kin climb that, and git up to
where its top lays right agin a bunch of bushes. Shorty rolled on my leg
this morning, and waked me up before daylight. I then thought I'd git
up and take a look, and see how things appeared before they got to
shooting. I found the pine tree, and dumb it mighty quiet, intending
to sneak up close to the rebels. But I couldn't find none. They was all
gone."