A Lieutenant at Eighteen Page 20

  CHAPTER XVII

  THE OVERWHELMING DEFEAT OF THE ENEMY

  Sergeant Knox had marched the platoon of dismounted cavalry to aposition near the end of the road, in readiness to move to theassistance of the train escort, as ordered by Lieutenant Lyon, when hesaw the enemy marching over the meadow towards the wagons. When Deckrealized the havoc made by the sharpshooters in the ranks of theConfederate company, he suspended the command to move, and watched theflow of events from the woods. He saw the enemy on the meadow drop uponthe ground, and those in the water remount their horses.

  Leaving Life in command, with orders to move to the train if the enemyapproached it, he made his way over to the point where he could obtaina better view of the troopers in the water. He found them wading in thestream, covered by their horses. Butters was a great horse-fancier, aswell as a dead shot with his rifle, and had ordered his men by messagealong 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 thesharpshooters.

  "I am not, for the Cornfeds have made breastworks of their horses,"replied the volunteer lieutenant. "I ordered my men not to kill thepoor beasts if they could help it."

  "I think that was a mistake," added Deck.

  "The hosses ain't Seceshers," replied Butters, not exactly pleased withhis superior's criticism.

  "But every one of the horses is doing more soldier work than any of themen; for he is saving his rider from certain death, and the soldierscan't do that for each other," replied Deck, made somewhat earnest bythe tone of the commander of the sharpshooters. "I love and respect agood horse as much as you do; and I sometimes think Ceph, the animal Iride, knows as much as I do, and in his way more. Your men are the mostskilful with the rifle as a body I ever saw or heard of. But thosehorses are not such as you raise in this part of Kentucky, or where Icame from. They are mean stock, and though I am sorry to do so, I mustorder you to shoot the horses; for your compassion for the poor beastshas 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 obeyyour orders," replied Butters, mollified by the compliment to his menand himself, to say nothing of the praise of Kentucky horses.

  "Your men have ceased firing," added Deck, who did not believe in anystay of a successful action.

  "The men have come to the end of the line, and I have not started a newround," Butters explained.

  "Then start it by bringing down the first horse at the head of thecolumn," continued the Riverlawn lieutenant. "Tell the next man tobring down the soldier as the horse drops. Do you know the location ofthe horse's brain?"

  "I ought to; I'm a hoss-doctor to home, and I've had to shoot 'em aforenow when they got a broken leg, or were too sick to get well. You'llsee whether I know where the brains is," replied Butters, as he raisedhis rifle and fired. "Fire at the man!" he called to the first numberin the line as the animal dropped, splashing his former rider withwater, which seemed to blind him; for he was stooping forward, moreeffectually to conceal his head behind the animal.

  Number one discharged his piece, and almost instantly the trooperfollowed the horse. Butters went to the second rifleman, and orderedhim to shoot the next horse, telling him the part at which he was toaim. He proceeded along the whole length of the line, instructing theeven numbers to shoot the horse, and the odd the man. Not a man failedto hit his mark, and there was soon a gap in the column. Every officerhad fallen, and a panic seized the privates as the death-line marchedup the stream. They were brave men; but the horses and men seemed tofall as though they had been prostrated by bolts from heaven, and themen could not see their executioners.

  Without any orders, unless the sergeants gave them, the men leaped outof the stream, and ran with all the speed the nature of the groundwould permit. The deserted horses remained in the brook, and notanother one of them was shot. Not only those who had been more nearlyexposed to the deadly fire of the sharpshooters, but those who were farin the rear of them, fled from the field. Of course they had leaped outof the water on the farther side of the stream, and were running to thenorth, or in the direction of the road from Jamestown to Harrison, andwere liable to fall in with the outskirts of General Thomas's camp.

  Deck witnessed the utter rout of the company of cavalry, and heproceeded to thank Butters and his men for the very effective servicethey had rendered. They had fought the battle and won it, and thecavalrymen had done nothing to assist them. The lieutenant of thecompany of Unionists expressed his opinion loud enough to be heard byall the sharpshooters, that there was not another body of men in thewhole country that could equal them in the accuracy of their aim. Heshould commend them in the highest degree to Major Lyon, and his reportwould be transmitted in due time to the general in command.

  "I will leave you and your men here, Lieutenant Butters, to watch theenemy," continued Deck. "In about an hour or two send me a report ofanything that happens about here;" and he hastened back to the foot ofthe by-road.

  The battle had been fought and apparently won; for the Confederateswere out of rifle-range in a very short time. A vigorous cheer was sentup about the time that Deck came in sight of the train, proving thatthey realized their own safety and that of the train. But the younglieutenant's brain was busy, though he ordered his command to returnthe cheer of the escort.

  The wagons, over a dozen in number, were safe from the hands of theenemy; for they had enough to do in the vicinity of Logan's CrossRoads, as the roar of the cannon in the battle was heard in thedistance. Deck was studying up some way to extricate the wagons fromtheir miry plight. If he could but procure a sufficient quantity ofboards or planks, he could get them to the hard ground. He asked Miltonif any could be procured, and was assured that none could be obtainedshort of Jamestown.

  He gave the order to march, and directed Life to go ahead, and selectthe most favorable ground for the passage. The lieutenant followed himat the head of his command, and reached the train in a short time; andthough 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 renewedhis struggle to move the wagons forward when Deck saluted him as hecame out to meet him.

  "Lieutenant Lyon of the Riverlawn Cavalry," said Deck, as he gave hishand to the officer.

  "I need not say that I am exceedingly glad to meet you, for you havesaved my men and the wagon-train," was the answer. "Permit me topresent 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 somedeep mud before," replied Lieutenant Sterling. "Without your timelyaid, my command would all have been prisoners, and the wagons been inpossession of the enemy. But I am bewildered at the manner in which youhave done this thing. I did not see your force till you marched out onthe 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 myplatoon for this occasion."

  "I saw the enemy fall when they started to march over here, and afterthey took to the stream; but I could not make out the force that firedthe shots. There must have been a hundred of them."

  "Only thirty of them; but I believe they did not waste a shot," repliedDeck. "Will you oblige me by giving me the date of your commission?"

  "Whatever the date of my commission, I shall cheerfully resign thecommand to you; for you have a larger force than mine, and you havefought the battle here that saved me, though you must have beenoutnumbered 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," answeredLieutenant Sterling; and he proceeded to inform his command of thefact, for all of them had been ordered to suspend work.

  "Do you happen to know wha
t any of your wagons contain?" asked Deck,who was ready to address himself to the task of moving the wagons tothe forest road.

  "They are loaded for the most part with rations for the troops, andgrain 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 Ican," replied the officer.

  "Plenty of it, Lieutenant," replied this man. "It is in the first wagonin the line."

  "Bring out at least a hundred feet of inch-rope," added Deck. "You werenot moving the wagons to the nearest hard ground."

  "My aim was to get them to a road indicated on the map over in thatdirection," replied Lieutenant Sterling, pointing over towards the oneby which the Riverlawns had come from Jamestown. "According to thescale on my map it is about two miles over there."

  "That is very true; but, according to the fact, it is less than a thirdof 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 theroad 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 paththrough the woods," added the lieutenant from Ohio, as thequartermaster-sergeant rolled the rope out of the wagon.

  Deck called his men, who had been thoroughly rested by their stay inthe 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 thepole, and pass it out through the three pairs of mules. Sixty men weredetailed to man the rope in two lines. This required a part of theescort, and the rest of it were ordered to stand by the wheels. Thenegro driver of the first wagon was told by Life to go to the rear endand push; but this was done only to get him out of the way, for hisbrutality had disgusted both the lieutenant and the sergeant, as bothof them believed in kindness to animals. They had seen the beatingsbestowed 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 movethe wagon, as well as by the blows heaped upon them.

  Life patted them on the neck, and coaxed them, and he certainlysucceeded in bringing them to a good-natured condition of mind.

  "Now, boys, straighten out them ropes!" shouted Life to the soldierswho manned them. "Pull steady for all you're wuth! Now, my beauties!Hi! now! Come, my beauties!" said he, taking the nigh head leader bythe head, and leading him along.

  To the astonishment of the men looking on, this mule made a flying leapnearly out of his harness, and then pulled as steadily as awell-trained horse; and the rest of the team followed his example. Lifeseemed to have some hypnotic power over a horse, and it appeared thathe 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. Keepit a-going!"

  The men seemed to regard the work as a sort of enjoyable farce; andthey cheered each other along, and some of them took to singing. Theydid not seem to be exerting all their strength, but the wagon movedalong at quite a lively pace. If they had stopped two minutes, thewheels 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 ofthe wagon-train high and dry in the by-road.

  Here one of the riflemen was waiting for the lieutenant, being amessenger from Butters.