The Bishop of Cottontown Part 24

"Old Hick'ry! Old Hick'ry, forever!" came back from the lines.

Again the old sword came to attention, and again a deep hush followed.

"Men," he said, drawing a huge rifled barreled pistol--"this is the pistol of Andrew Jackson, the rebel that whipped the British at New Orleans when every gun that thundered in his face, meant death to liberty!"

"Old Hickory! Old Hickory!!" came back in a frenzy of excitement.

Again the old sword came to attention--again, the silence. Then the old man fairly stood erect in his stirrups--he grew six inches taller and straighter and the black horse reared and rose as if to give emphasis to his rider's a.s.sertion:

"Men," he shouted, "rebel is the name that tyranny gives to patriotism! And now, let us fight, as our fore-fathers fought, for our state, our homes and our firesides!" And then clear and distinct there rang out on the night air, a queer old continental command:

"Fix, pieces!"

They did not know what this meant at first. But some old men in the line happened to remember and fixed their bayonets. Then there was clatter and clank down the entire line as others imitated their examples.

"Poise, fo'k!" rang out again more queerly still. The old men who remembered brought their guns to the proper position. "Right shoulder, fo'k!"--followed. Then, "Forward, March!" came back and they moved straight at the batteries--now silent--and straight at the breastworks, more silent still. Proudly, superbly, they came on, with not a shout or shot--a chained line with links of steel--a moving ma.s.s with one heart--and that heart,--victory.

On they came at the breastworks, walking over the dead who lay so thick they could step from body to body as they marched. On they came, following the old c.o.c.ked hat that had once held bloodier breastworks against as stubborn foe.

On--on--they came, expecting every moment to see a flame of fire run round the breastworks, a furnace of flame leap up from the batteries, and then--victory or death--behind old Hickory! Either was honor enough!

And now they were within fifty feet of the breastworks, moving as if on dress parade. The guns must thunder now or never! One step more--then, an electrical bolt shot through every nerve as the old man wheeled his horse and again rang out that queer old continental command, right in the mouth of the enemy's ditch, right in the teeth of his guns:

"Charge, pieces!"

It was Tom Travis who commanded the guns where the Columbia Pike met the breastworks at the terrible deadly locust thicket. All night he had stood at his post and stopped nine desperate charges. All night in the flash and roar and the strange uncanny smell of blood and black powder smoke, he had stood among the dead and dying calling stubbornly, monotonously:

"Ready!"

"Aim!"

"Fire!"

And now it was nearly midnight and Schofield, finding the enemy checked, was withdrawing on Nashville.

Tom Travis thought the battle was over, but in the glare and flash he looked and saw another column, ghostly gray in the starlight, moving stubbornly at his guns.

"Ready!" he shouted as his gunners sprang again to their pieces.

On came the column--beautifully on. How it thrilled him to see them!

How it hurt to think they were his people!

"_Aim!_" he thundered again, and then as he looked through the gray torch made, starlighted night, he quailed in a cold sickening fear, for the old man who led them on was his grandsire, the man whom of all on earth he loved and revered the most.

Eight guns, with grim muzzles trained on the old rider and his charging column, waited but for the captain's word to hurl their double-shotted canisters of death.

And Tom Travis, in the agony of it, stood, sword in hand, stricken in dumbness and doubt. On came the column, the old warrior leading them--on and:--

"The command--the command! Give it to us, Captain," shouted the gunners.

"_Cease firing!_"

The gunners dropped their lanyards with an oath, trained machines that they were.

It was a drunken German who brought a heavy sword-hilt down on the young officer's head with:

"You d.a.m.ned traitor!"

A gleam of gun and bayonet leaped in the misty light in front, from shoulder to breast--a rock wall, tipped with steel swept crus.h.i.+ngly forward over the trenches over the breastworks.

Under the guns, senseless, his skull crushed, an upturned face stopped the old warrior. Down from his horse he came with a weak, hysterical sob.

"O Tom--Tom, I might have known it was you--my gallant, n.o.ble boy--my Irish Gray!"

He kissed, as he thought, the dead face, and went on with his men.

It was just midnight.

"At midnight, all being quiet in front, in accordance with orders from the commanding Generals," writes General J. D. c.o.x in his official report, "I withdrew my command to the north bank of the river."

"The battle closed about twelve o'clock at night," wrote General Hood, "when the enemy retreated rapidly on Nashville, leaving the dead and wounded in our hands. We captured about a thousand prisoners and several stands of colors."

Was this a coincidence--or as some think--did the boys in blue retreat before they would fire on an old Continental and the spirit of '76?

An hour afterwards a negro was sadly leading a tired old man on a superb horse back to headquarters, and as the rider's head sank on his breast he said:

"Lead me, Bisco, I'm too weak to guide my horse. Nothing is left now but the curse of it."

And O, the curse of it!

Fifty-seven Union dead beside the wounded, in the little front yard of the Carter House, alone. And they lay around the breastworks from river to river, a chain of dead and dying. In front of the breastworks was another chain--a wider and thicker one. It also ran from river to river, but was gray instead of blue. Chains are made of links, and the full measure of "the curse of it" may have been seen if one could have looked over the land that night and have seen where the dead links lying there were joined to live under the roof trees of far away homes.

But here is the tale of a severed link: About two o'clock lights began to flash about over the battle-field--they were hunting for the dead and wounded. Among these, three had come out from the Carter House. A father, son and daughter; each carried a lantern and as they pa.s.sed they flashed their lights in the faces of the dead.

"May we look for brother?" asked the young girl, of an officer. "We hope he is not here but fear he is. He has not been home for two years, being stationed in another state. But we heard he could not resist the temptation to come home again and joined General Bate's brigade. And O, we fear he has been killed for he would surely have been home before this."

They separated, each looking for "brother." Directly the father heard the daughter cry out. It was in the old orchard near the house. On reaching the spot she was seated on the ground, holding the head of her dying brother in her lap and sobbing:

"Brother's come home! Brother's come home!" Alas, she meant--gone home!

"Captain Carter, on staff duty with Tyler's brigade," writes General Wm. B. Bate in his official report, "fell mortally wounded near the works of the enemy and almost at the door of his father's home. His gallantry I witnessed with much pride, as I had done on other fields, and here take pleasure in mentioning it especially."

The next morning in the first light of the first day of that month celebrated as the birth-month of Him who declared long ago that war should cease, amid the dead and dying of both armies, stood two objects which should one day be carved in marble--One, to represent the intrepid bravery of the South, the other, the cool courage of the North, and both--"the curse of it."

The first was a splendid war-horse, dead, but lying face forward, half over the federal breastworks. It was the horse of General Adams.

The other was a Union soldier--the last silent sentinel of Schofield's army. He stood behind a small locust tree, just in front of the Carter House gate. He had drawn his iron ram-rod which rested under his right arm pit, supporting that side. His gun, with b.u.t.t on the ground at his left, rested with muzzle against his left side, supporting it. A cartridge, half bitten off was in his mouth. He leaned heavily against the small tree in front. He was quite dead, a minie ball through his head; but thus propped he stood, the wonder of many eyes, the last sentinel of the terrible night battle.