A Blaze of Glory (4 page)

Before wearing the uniform Seeley knew nothing of fighting, and very little of weapons. But the men first chosen by Forrest to lead the training had seen something of a leader in this man of barely twenty-two, and with so many of the new troops eager but utterly unprepared for life in the army, Forrest and his company commanders recognized the urgent need for leadership. Within short weeks, Seeley had risen to the rank of lieutenant, an event followed by a stream of enthusiastic letters home to his young wife and parents, who urgently waited for any kind of news from their fledgling soldier. It was no different anyplace the war had already spread, families both North and South full of passionate certainty that their magnificent army would bless them with a quick and total victory. On both sides, the citizenry had shown pride and enthusiasm for the drums and parades of new recruits, so many believing that whatever this war would become, there would be celebration and glory for all the young men who made the long march.

Seeley’s father had been among those, a man who knew nothing of the army. But the older man had still offered a lecture of caution that his son not shame the family, that the best measure of a man was his backbone for a stout brawl. Seeley’s young wife, Katie, was less certain of that, and when the day came when Seeley marched off to join the grand parades, she had released his hand reluctantly, a short tearful kiss that tempered his lust for the Great Fight. There had been words, a final farewell from her that had settled into his heart with a nagging sadness. He would not accept that, not completely, that his wife did not want him to go at all, that this duty did not mean as much to her as it did to most everyone else. And so his letters home had begun immediately, and no matter how much joy he tried to communicate to them all, his promotion in particular, he could not hide from a frustrating uneasiness that she did not truly understand how important this was. Her message spread subtly through her letters, soft sadness, and he knew that all those things that mattered to the rest of the family did not truly matter to her. No matter how heroic he might become, what kinds of trophies of war he might bring them all, his absence had already taken something from her, left a wound he didn’t really understand. They had, after all, been married for only four months.

In December 1861, Lieutenant Seeley had seen his first glimpse of the enemy whose very existence seemed to inspire so much hatred in the men around him, a hatred he tried to embrace, because it was the right thing to do. The fight had been at Sacramento, Kentucky, a brief affair that did little to turn the tide of the war. But there was more to the results than the handful of casualties shared by both sides. With three hundred horsemen, Forrest had surprised and attacked a force of nearly five hundred Federal cavalry. By using a double-flanking tactic, combined with an all-out frontal assault, the Confederates had won the day, the shaken Federals able to stand their ground for only a short while. Seeley’s only direct confrontation with a bluecoat was a brief glimpse of the man’s back, a horseman springing from a cluster of brush who did not fight, but instead spurred his horse away in a rapid retreat. Seeley had not been close enough to the man to fire his weapon, but in the primary assault Forrest and many of the others had traded a good deal of fire with the enemy, much of it manic and badly aimed. The aftermath was glorious. It was after all, a victory.

Seeley had been annoyed, knew that by dumb chance he had missed his first opportunity to cut down the hated Yankees. But that frustration had been tempered quickly by the sight of the first blood he had seen, a mortal wound that had brought down a Federal captain named Bacon. Seeley had not lingered close to the desperately wounded man, had watched some of the others, Forrest included, who had done all they could to make the man’s final hours comfortable. He had been surprised at that, had expected the wounded Yankee to spit out viciousness toward his enemies, and them to do the same. When Bacon died, Seeley had thought of leading a cheer, but there was none of that from Forrest.

Whether or not the engagement at Sacramento produced much practical advantage for either side, higher up the chain of command, Forrest and his horsemen caught the attention of officers on both sides, and for the first time west of the Appalachian Mountains, Federal commanders began to take Confederate cavalry and their audacious commander seriously.

“
W
ould you have me shoot them, sir? These are our own people.
My
people. Begging your pardon, sir, but to shoot them down for a barn full of goods … we could never come back here. We’d be no better than the Yankees.”

“Do not explain the obvious, Lieutenant. You did all you could hope to do. I will not order anyone in my command to shed the blood of Southern citizens for no good reason. These are my people as well. Despite their panic, I do not believe the Yankees will do them such great harm. Not civilians.”

“The civilians don’t seem to agree with you, Colonel. I never saw such a thing. They were … well, they were crazed, sir. I admit that I feared for my men. If any one of those people had shown arms … had fired upon us … it would have been a disaster, sir.”

Forrest stood, moved out from behind the desk of the makeshift headquarters. He was tall, wide shoulders, a taut-faced, handsome man. There would be no mistaking who was in command here. He moved to a window of the elegant room, stared into darkness.

“Put it out of your thoughts, Lieutenant. I have confronted a mob already, another of the storage depots, and I saw the same response. Thankfully, we used the horses as moving barricades, and drove the people back. But I heard the same as you. Somehow this absurd rumor has spread that we will burn this place, citizens be damned. You cannot cure that kind of madness from a people who embrace it with such fear. I know little of this General Grant. He is a West Point man, for certain. I saw no great brilliance in his capture of either Henry or Donelson. He had superior arms and used them with effectiveness. But … we spilled a great deal of their blood, and that will inspire some of them to revenge. You may depend on that. But no matter what other despicable faults our enemy may possess, no matter how they cling to a cause that no decent man can justify, I do not believe their professional officers are trained to be barbarians. No matter what anyone in Nashville believes, the Yankees are just men, not monsters.”

“They come by their barbarism naturally, sir. I’ve heard the talk. They are using foreigners, savages. The Lincolnites have offered a bounty for the scalps of our soldiers.”

Forrest looked at Seeley, a glare that silenced him.

“I will not entertain that kind of rumor in this headquarters. You wear the uniform of a professional soldier, Lieutenant. You will behave like one. Your men will behave like the gentlemen they claim to be. The Yankees have driven us to this war, and I have pledged to kill any one of those bluecoats who dares assault my country, who dares to raise his saber against my own people. That is as simple as it needs to be, Mr. Seeley. We have a duty to perform, and it is not made easier by encouraging childish nightmares among the people. You heard it yourself. The citizens of this fine city believe that it is
we
who are going to burn the place to ashes, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“There you have it, Lieutenant. Panic is a disease. I admit, it can be a useful disease when rallying someone to your cause. But we do not require that here. What we need from these people is assistance. Yes, this city will be occupied by Yankees. There is no alternative to that, not right now. It is a catastrophe for this country, but from the army’s point of view, it is simply a setback that we will one day correct. We are doing everything in our power to create an army with the power to dictate the terms of this war, but it is not an easy process, certainly not as easy as these citizens expect. We have done everything short of
begging
them to assist this army in a myriad of ways. When the war was elsewhere, they were very pleased to go about their own business and ignore every request we made of them. We insisted they blockade the river with obstructions that would hold away the Yankee gunboats, and the merchants cried out that we would hurt their pocketbooks. General Johnston beseeched them to dig earthworks, and they laughed at him. Their message was clear: Keep the war away, so that we may live in comfort, without inconvenience. Well, we have failed to do that, Lieutenant. So now they rise up like wild dogs and curse us for our failures. Until a man stands up against the enemy and faces the bayonet, he has no right to curse anything this army does. Richmond may judge our generals, and our generals may judge the troops in their command. But no civilian has the right to curse this army. These people refused to accept their responsibility to assist our cause, and now their city cannot be defended. That is a strategic decision made by General Johnston that has no alternative. But I refuse to feel pity for these people.” He stopped, called out beyond the walls of the room. “Sergeant, have we heard anything of Mr. Stevenson?”

Seeley stood back from the door, saw the sergeant appear, an older man, hesitant.

“Uh, no, sir.”

“So, every one of the railroad people and the commissary officers has vanished, is that correct?”

“Yes, sir, so it seems. Mr. Stevenson in particular was said to have left the city in his own railcar, well before we arrived.”

“Wonderful. The president of the railroad company hears a thump of thunder from forty miles away, and scampers out of here like a mule with his tail afire. All of them … running from monsters that burst out of their own minds! What manner of men do we put in charge of such valuable posts?”

Forrest didn’t wait for a response, moved to one side of the desk, pulled his hat from a small coatrack.

“Remain here, Sergeant. I need you here in the unlikely event someone brings any
good
news. Ride with me, Lieutenant. Our orders are to vacate this city as soon as the enemy appears, and General Johnston awaits me in Murfreesboro. I am to report to him there once our job is complete. I am doubtful we can salvage all the supplies and stores stockpiled here, but we will do all we can. Wagons, railcars, horseback, I don’t care. What we cannot carry, we will burn. The people of this city have made their own beds, Lieutenant. We are not here to provide comfort for a few lions of Nashville society. This army must be fed and clothed and our men will have our blankets.” He put the hat on, adjusted it, moved to the doorway, the sergeant standing aside. He turned again to Seeley, took a long breath, and the young man saw sadness, unexpected.

“Lieutenant, do you understand what we must do to win this war?”

Seeley felt weight behind the question, wasn’t sure what Forrest was expecting from him.

“I think so, sir. We must kill Yankees.”

“That is partially accurate. We must kill more of them than they can kill of us. But we must do much more. We must show more courage than the Yankees. We must show more spirit and more fire and more of everything that makes a soldier. There are far more of them, and they bring much more to the fight than we can put in their way, more artillery, more gunboats, more horses, more recruits. If we are to win this war, our leaders must be … well,
smart
. Or better than that, they must be
ingenious
. We cannot repeat the mistakes that occurred at Fort Donelson. We allowed the Yankees to get the better of our measure, Lieutenant. We must make better decisions, faster decisions, we must strike hard and often and in the most unexpected way. We must find the enemy’s weaknesses and exploit them without hesitation.” He paused and Seeley waited for more. Forrest said slowly, “As for you and me … we must have the will to face that man in the blue coat and we must drive our knife into his heart, and when the blood spills, we must not turn away.”

Seeley felt Forrest’s glare, nodded slowly.

“I understand, sir.”

Forrest tilted his head slightly, still stared at him.

“No, son, you don’t. Not yet.”

O
n February 23, Forrest’s scouts reported the arrival of the first column of Federal troops, just across the Cumberland River at the small town of Edgefield. Though great quantities of supplies still lay scattered throughout the depots and warehouses of Nashville, Forrest’s men, and the others charged with shipping those supplies south, had no choice. What could not be hauled aboard wagons and the limited number of railcars had to be put to the torch. Then, with no fanfare, Forrest and his cavalry rode away from the city. Two days later, on February 25, the mayor of Nashville, who understood the perfect inevitability of his situation, surrendered the capital of Tennessee to the Federal forces, without a shot being fired.

JOHNSTON

MURFREESBORO, TENNESSEE FEBRUARY 26, 1862

“
W
e could do little else, sir. It was a most unglamorous affair.”

Forrest was pacing, ignored the others in the room, and Johnston allowed the man’s anger, would not insist on decorum. There was already too much anger in this army, and Forrest was one of the few who had earned the right to complain. Forrest kept up his pacing, filled the small office, avoided the others, who sat in opposite corners, away from Johnston’s desk.

“I’m not sure how much of the stores were burned, General. We could not salvage as much as I had hoped … as much as I was ordered to, sir. This army will suffer for that.” Forrest paused, and Johnston could see he had something more to say, something rehearsed.

“You have more, Colonel?”

“Sir, if you will allow, my men will return to Nashville … well, perhaps the southern perimeter of the city. We can strike hard at the enemy with discretion. No doubt the Yankees are feeling fat and lazy with their easy conquest, and their guard will be down. My men have become quite adept in the quick strike. I will assure you that our losses will be kept to a minimum.”

Johnston shook his head.

“No. I believe the enemy is expecting us to stand tall, and he will be preparing for us. He knows what we sacrificed by abandoning Nashville, and he knows that our retreat was extremely unpopular. I am quite certain the citizens there are squalling every chance they get. I have great appreciation for the striking power of cavalry, Colonel, and your men have performed extremely well. But they have been in the saddle for too long, and you must not drive them to exhaustion. I am sending you south, to Huntsville. Camp your men there, and allow them rest. You cannot drive your men or their mounts without some respite.”

Forrest stared sharply at Johnston, and Johnston felt the protest coming, held up his hand.

“No discussion on this, Colonel. Do not take this as an insult. I have approved your promotion to full colonel, and that is a high compliment. You should reflect on that. I know precisely what your men have accomplished, and you will continue to be a valuable service to this army. Many …
things
will take place in the next few weeks, changes perhaps, involving commanders or spheres of authority. Richmond is a noisy place right now, Colonel. There is a considerable lack of confidence in certain commands in this theater. We must all recognize where our best assets lie, whom we may trust and depend upon. Your good work is noted, and will be mentioned prominently to Richmond. But I need you to rest your men. Be prepared to return to action within two weeks.”

To one side, the engineer, Gilmer, spoke up.

“I for one am pleased that we have at least one commander in the field who realizes what a war is.”

Johnston knew that Gilmer was hot, had been as frustrated as anyone in Johnston’s command by the failures at the two forts, and the astounding lack of cooperation offered the army by the civilians in Nashville. Johnston had heard this already, did not need another debate on failure.

“Let that be, Colonel. A discussion for another time. Colonel Forrest, you have your instructions. Offer your men my deepest respects and assure them they will be of great service to this army. But feed them, do what you can to replenish and refit their weapons, and see to your horses. I will call upon you when the time comes.”

Forrest slumped.

“As you wish, sir. But the enemy is so close …”

“Right now, that is not your concern. Captain Morgan’s cavalry are on the prowl between this headquarters and the enemy, and he reports success in damaging the bridges and rail lines that are in the enemy’s hands. We are blessed with good cavalry.”

Gilmer spoke up again, his arms clamped hard across his chest.

“And not much else.”

Johnston did not need the engineer’s contribution, not right now.

“Colonel Gilmer, your good work is noted as well. Please accompany Colonel Forrest outside, and see that my staff provides the horsemen with anything they require to begin their journey.”

The instructions silenced both men, and Forrest offered a brisk salute, said, “I wish only to serve, sir.”

Gilmer growled something Johnston couldn’t hear, led Forrest out of the room. In a chair to one side, a fourth man sat back, observing, a smile on his face. The two men were alone now, and Johnston said, “What could possibly inspire your good cheer, Governor?”

“I do love
headquarters
. Generals can slice their way through the most thorny of situations just by their authority. That is never as simple for a politician. In my world, it is essential that we
dance
through our pronouncements, make sure that no one’s feelings be injured.”

“I do not seek to insult anyone. But I am in command, and until President Davis has a change of mind about that, I will not hesitate to tell my officers what I expect of them.”

Harris laughed. He was a thin, balding man, his face adorned with a wide mustache. Officially, Isham Harris was the governor of Tennessee, but from Johnston’s first days in command of the forces west of the Appalachians, Harris had been attached to the general’s staff. It was an arrangement that seemed to work for both men, Harris appreciating Johnston’s mannerisms, the habit Johnston had of choosing each word carefully. Johnston was soft-spoken, would never rail aloud at anyone in his command, no matter what he might be feeling. Some made the deadly mistake of assuming Johnston’s slow speech to be slowness of brain, but Harris had always seen past that, had seen too many men in Nashville, and in the army, whose quick words did not always mean a quick mind. But Harris brought more than insight to Johnston’s headquarters. As governor of what had become the most hotly contested state in the West, Harris was an effective bridge between the army and the civilian authorities. It was supposed to be a positive complement to the army’s operations, that the civilians would heed their governor’s call for labor and materials, as well as volunteers to fill the army’s ranks. But to Johnston’s dismay, and the dismay of most of the state governors, it seemed nearly impossible to convince the people that this was becoming a war in the most dangerous sense, that the bloody fights were sure to spread, that no one could expect to remain comfortable. Nashville had been the most infuriating example of a people who cherished the illusion that their gallant army would wipe the Yankee threat completely away.

Long before the Federal troops had moved toward the two rivers, Johnston had issued requests from Texas to Richmond that with the woeful condition of his army, the lack of effective weapons and training and supply lines, the only way the Confederates could hope to achieve a significant victory was for the Federal command to make a deadly stupid mistake. So far, the only mistake Henry Halleck seemed to make, and make repeatedly, was one of delay. Johnston had heard just enough about the backbiting and intrigue that had sifted through the Federal commands to appreciate that clashes among bluecoated generals might offer the Confederate army the time it desperately needed to prepare for any major conflict on a more equal footing. Even though Johnston had been able to maintain his ragged defensive line across southern Kentucky, the strengthening of his army had been woeful. And, finally, Halleck and his generals had found the will to send a powerful fist into Tennessee.

While Johnston was still headquartered in Kentucky, the Southern newspapers had of course demanded aggression, as though Johnston’s army could simply rise up and march northward, threatening every city from Cincinnati to Chicago. Thankfully, Isham Harris seemed to be the one prominent politician who understood that even his own Tennessee could not be protected if the Confederacy did not equip and supply an army adequate to the task. It was the primary reason Johnston welcomed him to his staff. Harris was virtually the only politician west of the Appalachians who did not try to tell him how to run his command.

H
arris absorbed Johnston’s words, rubbed his chin, nodded.

“
You do not seek to insult
. Nicely phrased. I will remember that one. You really should consider politics, my friend. Once all of this military unpleasantness passes, I would heartily support you seeking some office.
Senator
Johnston, perhaps. Yes, that would be useful. We require a bit more respect in the Confederate government than some of the states seem willing to offer.”

Johnston had heard this before, that by his many years wearing a uniform, he would somehow be entitled to govern.

“No, I’ll leave government to those who enjoy that particular … game. You ever meet Sam Houston?”

“No, pretty sure I would remember that.”

“I knew him well. Those who served under him in Texas came to understand that commanding and governing require different talents. He was the most unpopular man, with the greatest popularity of any man I ever knew.”

Harris laughed again.

“You mean, he was respected and hated at the same time?”

Johnston paused, thought of Texas, fights and frustration, Indians and Mexicans and stubborn homesteaders.

“Sam Houston was …
obeyed
. Leave it at that. No other opinion is required. But I understand now how important that is. Here, I am
obeyed
. That would never be true if I was in a civilian suit in Richmond. Zachary Taylor understood that. Now, there was a man who was obeyed and loved, at the same time. But I must confess, when he ran for president, I was astonished. I knew he didn’t want the job, but there were too many in this country who thought a general
should
be president. It’s very easy for a man who has complete authority cast upon him … to become convinced he knows what’s best for everyone else. And not just the army. I’ll hold to my belief that soldiers don’t necessarily make good presidents. Besides, I have no patience for politics. Another lesson I learned from Zachary Taylor: Give a politician the opportunity to intrude into the affairs of the army, and disaster will follow. Those who insist that their lofty offices give them special abilities … well, when men’s lives are the price we pay for blunders, it is best to minimize blunders. Politicians seem to thrive on blunders. Taylor was a stubborn man, perhaps the most stubborn I have known. He wouldn’t allow men of lofty position to assume command of anything, no matter how much pressure Washington put on him. Winfield Scott was the same way.”

“Both were great generals, Sidney, but they both caught the
disease
. They failed to heed your philosophy, and so, when power called to them, they succumbed to it. Zachary Taylor won his election. Scott was more fortunate. He failed, and so his reputation as a soldier is secure.”

Johnston was tiring of the conversation, had too many details gathered on his desk, too many disasters flowing through his army. He shook his head.

“Men of high influence want to influence everything around them. No way to run an army. I won’t have it here. Men like Forrest … they earn their rank. This army is only beginning to discover how valuable that is.”