Crossing the Deadline (10 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Sunday, September 25, 1864, 12:01 a.m.

Henry Dorman, Big Tennessee, and I are sitting, our backs against the southern wall, when, without warning, a cannon shot sails from the eastern hilltop, over the fort, and lands in the cornfield to our west. The explosion is close enough to make lanterns rattle against the fort's walls. Soldiers who had fallen asleep fumble for their guns and peer out from their stations into the darkness.

“That shot didn't miss the fort by much!” somebody yells from the eastern wall. “Recalculation will bring it closer.”

Colonel Lathrop runs from the tiny building used as the command center. “What do you see?” he asks Major Lilly.

“Nothing. It's hard to see 'em with darkness and trees giving them cover.”

“How could they miss the fort?” I ask.

“They didn't miss. It's a warning shot.”

I clench a gun with one hand and my bugle with the other and stare into purple darkness, waiting. Each minute seems like an hour. Everybody sits in silent anticipation for a second shot.

After a long wait, somebody says in a loud whisper, “What's going on?”

“They want us to know they've arrived,” Colonel Lathrop says. “They're playing with us like a cat plays with a mouse. Remember, we have forty rounds per man, so make every shot count.”

My hope sinks. We're fish in a barrel, low on ammunition, and outmanned by several thousand.

* * *

Through the wee hours of the morning we sit clutching our guns and wait. Just before dawn, Colonel Minnis decides a picket needs to slip out of the fort to the west and into the cornfield. “Scout an escape to the west,” I hear him tell the squad of eight. “I'm sure Forrest has moved troops around to the north and is now in charge of the railroad between us and the Tennessee line. So that route is out of the question.”

I turn to Henry Dorman. “Forrest has plenty of troop strength. The idea that he might have left us an escape route is wishful thinking. He would be an idiot to leave the west flank unguarded.”

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, as dawn breaks, gunfire erupts from the far side of the cornfield. “They've gotten into a skirmish,” Major Lilly says. “They'll be headed back our way. Forrest has us covered on all sides.”

I can't see the cornfield, but the gunfire grows louder. There's enough light to see men at the western wall in ready position, muzzles aimed through thin slits between planks and bricks. A cool breeze brings a waft of gunpowder mixed with dried cornstalks across the field. It floats up the hill and over the fort's walls. So the elephant is getting closer, and this is what it smells like.

* * *

Full daylight arrives slowly. Sergeant Survant calls for Colonel Lathrop to come to the northeastern wall and look
out a tiny window called the embrasure. To protect the cannon and men, only the barrel sticks out the embrasure. When the colonel reaches the spot, two men pick up the handspike, while four others roll the cannon back until its barrel is fully inside the fort. One private points to the top of the hill across the ravine.

Colonel Lathrop removes his hat and sticks his head through the opening. He turns and yells toward the center of the fort. “Colonel Minnis, two ten-pound Parrott guns on the eastern hill!”

“Troop movement approaching from the south!” William Peacock yells from the wall near where Henry and I are crouched, our backs against the fort.

Private Dorman grabs his gun and nuzzles against the fort. “I'm scared, Stephen,” he whispers.

“That's okay, pard. You're not alone. Everybody is.”

Colonel Lathrop walks away from the cannon and toward Colonel Minnis to discuss the situation. At exactly the same time, a shell sails over the eastern wall and strikes the ground inside the fort. Timbers, bricks, and earth fly into the air and rain down upon soldiers. The explosion is so powerful, debris reaches my area. I have to turn toward the ground and cover my head with my arms. When
rocks stop falling, I can see that a jagged hole, large enough for a pair of horses to run through, has appeared in the northern wall. There are five, maybe six, men lying on the ground, motionless.

Uninjured men nearer the explosion dive closer to the eastern side of the fort to use the wall for protection. One man scampers behind the wall of the hospital. Another hops to safety, dragging what appears to be a useless, mangled foot behind him, like a sack of horse feed.

A soldier lies on the ground, writhing silently in pain. I throw down my gun and bugle and rush to help him. Blood trickles from his left ear and he snorts red bubbles out both nostrils. It's Colonel Lathrop. “Nurse!” I yell. Several Negro soldiers sprint to help drag him into the hospital. He's conscious, but barely.

Colonel Lathrop grabs the sleeve of a black soldier and pleads, “Don't surrender the fort.” As he utters his last words, Colonel Lathrop's hands and arms go limp, and the smells of gunpowder, dirt, and gardenias swirl through the air.

I hurry out the hospital door and back to the southern wall. “Was that the colonel?” Henry asks.

“Yeah,” I say.

“How is he, Stephen?” Peacock yells over to me.

I shake my head. “He's gone. I was holding him when he died.”

“I'm sorry,” Henry whispers.

Henry begins rocking back and forth, clutching his bugle. “We don't stand a chance against cannons firing down on us from higher ground.”

“I know,” I say. “It's one thing to be brave in a fair fight, but it's lunacy to fight a useless battle.”

“No. And they won't storm the fort with infantry,” Henry says. “They'll use big guns to do as much damage as they can from afar. Wear us down like boot heels.”

* * *

I hear the squad in the cornfield retreating in full gallop back toward the fort. Because of the huge gap in the wall, I can hear when they race under the trestle and to the corral.

“They're safer in the cornfield,” Henry says. A minute later they're running back inside the fort.

“Caleb Rule!” Colonel Minnis yells. “Take nine men back down into that ravine and guard those horses,” he orders. The soldier called Caleb, a farrier from Tennessee, hastily gathers a team of men. They crouch low along the eastern wall and
leave. They're gone only minutes when a cannon shell, fired from the north, strikes the ground near the horses. Caleb's squad reappears almost instantly at the hole of the fort.

As soon as they are inside the fort, tufts of sod kick up around their feet. Minié balls, fired from trees on the eastern hillside, strike one of the men and he falls like timber. Other shots kick up pieces of ground as the men run for cover. Caleb makes a zigzagged path until he's put the hospital between him and the snipers on the hillside. A few men dive toward the safety of the eastern wall.

Caleb peeks out from behind the hospital, using it as a shield from the snipers. He looks our way, steps back several feet, leans forward, and sprints from behind the hospital toward us. Two shots hit the ground, sending a spray of dirt into the air just behind his heels.

A Negro soldier hurries from his position near the western wall to behind the hospital. He peeks around the corner, kneels, and loads his gun. The building provides perfect cover. After waiting for what seems like forever, he pulls the trigger. In the quick silence following the shot, I hear a splat from the hillside followed by the breaking of large tree limbs as a body falls from a tree and tumbles through dried leaves down the hillside.

Caleb's out of breath but hasn't lost his sense of humor. “Sharpshooters . . . in . . . trees at the top of that ravine,” he says, and laughs. He stands up and cups his hands around his mouth. “We got sharpshooters, too!” he yells up into the trees. A shot is fired, and he dives for the ground. When he looks up, he says, “What's that blood on Henry's chest? Was he hit?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Sunday, September 25, 1864, 8:38 a.m.

I look over my right shoulder. Henry's sitting, his back against the wall, cradling his bugle with both arms, rocking back and forth as if in a trance. I hear soft, muffled moans, and he's biting his lip so hard, his front teeth have sliced all the way through. Blood's running down his chin and pooling onto his shirt.

I slap Henry on his shoulder. “Stop biting your lip!” I yell.

He stops rocking, but his stare is fixed somewhere distant. “Stephen, I ain't going to prison,” he says. “I'd rather die here and get it over with fast.”

But I know Henry's wrong. I pray, for both our sakes, a Confederate bugler sounds the call requesting our surrender. At least we have a chance to survive a prison stay, but zero odds if we continue fighting. The call for surrender doesn't come.

A speck of sun finally appears in the eastern sky, and another man limps in from the cornfield. He's favoring his right leg, where his britches have a gash the size of my palm. The pant leg below that spot is soaked in crimson red. I watch him grab a piece of splintered wood dangling from the wall of the fort. The plank comes loose in his hand, and he falls like a quail shot to the ground. He pulls himself up, uses the plank as a crutch, and starts toward the hospital. He hobbles to the building, but, as he reaches the door, a shell whizzes past his head. The building looks like a snowdrift hit by a locomotive engine. Debris flies in every direction. Nobody inside can still be alive. Timbers, bedding, and surgical equipment rain down over the fort.

The ground feels alive, breathing and beating. I don't see the Negro sniper who used the hospital as a shield. He must be buried beneath the building's rubble.

I turn to the wall and peer through an opening barely wide enough for the barrel of my gun to fit. I see soldiers move from tree to tree, but they are too far away to take a shot. Moisture runs down my thigh. I fear I've been hit by a bullet or a plank from the hospital. I look down. Thank God, it's not blood. I've only wet myself.

The occasional shot fired from our rifle pit stops the
progress from the south, but we all know they won't advance much closer from that direction. They are not there to attack the fort. They're there to prevent us from escaping. Attacks grow more intense from the north and east as the day goes on. Time crawls, and the ground never stops shaking. Not a minute passes that somebody doesn't scream out in agony or yell to God for mercy.

By nine p.m., snipers from the hill have driven off all the Negro soldiers from the western wall, and they're now dispersed among all the troops ringing the inside of the rest of the fort. One fellow squeezes between Henry and me.

A shell explodes near Colonel Minnis, and he falls to the ground. The hospital's a wasted heap of smoking rubble, so soldiers carry the colonel to the underground magazine, where munitions are stored.

Major Cunningham takes command and hurries toward Major Lilly. He's a few feet from us when a minié ball shoots through his back and comes out of his chest.

Major Lilly takes command and, through the roar of explosions, yells at me, “Stephen Gaston, sound ceasefire!”

I bring my bugle to my lips, stand, and point the barrel toward the eastern hillside. I sing the words in my head as
I play the notes as loudly as I've ever played before, “C-ease Fire. C-ease Fire. C-ease Fire.”

Our men stop firing, and soon, so do the rebels.

“Major Lilly,” somebody calls. “We are close to running out of munitions. We have a pile of Smithfields, but they're too large of a carbine to use.”

Major Lilly surveys the destruction to the interior of the fort. Gaping holes sprinkle the western and northern walls. The hospital's gone. Major Lilly thinks for a minute, then stands. “The lead is soft enough to pare. Whittle the Smithfields down to fit.” He sounds angry. “If that's all we have to use, we'll have to use them.”

Can't he see the situation is hopeless? He's said so from the moment we arrived at the trestle.

“Men, hold your fire until they're close to the fort. Then make every shot count.”

The rebs must have thought they had waited long enough for a sign of truce from us, because an explosion near the center of the fort sprays dirt over every part of me. The shell explodes with so much force, it blows the bugle plum out of my hand. A golden glint of metal flies up and away from me.

I spit dirt for several seconds and feel that something has me pinned to the ground. At first I think it's a log from the
redoubt. But then, whatever it is, slowly moves on its own. It's not made of wood at all. It's the giant fellow called Big Tennessee.

“Keep your heads down, boys,” Big Tennessee says to Henry and me. “It's going to get real bad now.”

I'm still confused and dazed from the explosion as Big Tennessee drags me closer to the eastern part of the fort. “Stay close to the wall so the snipers can't pick you off,” he says.

Henry looks at me and stands up. “Do you remember when we snuck into the prison in Indianapolis and saw those men at death's door?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say, half dazed.

“I can't do it, Stephen,” he says. “I'm not going to die a slow death in prison.”

Before I understand what Henry's doing, he's standing and facing the center of the fort. He takes two steps into the open line of firing. Big Tennessee tugs his arm to pull him back to safety, but Henry yanks loose and looks back at me. “Stephen, remember, I love my wife to the moon and back,” he says calmly, and walks farther into the open. He stops, bends over, and retrieves a shiny piece of metal from the dirt. It's my horn. As soon as it's in his hands, a shell explodes
just beyond his feet. I duck, but not before seeing him tossed ten feet into the air. The force throws him against the wall of the fort. Bricks come loose and fall on top of him.

I rush over. He's facedown. I pull jagged bricks off his back. Blood pumps from his neck like water from a spring. “Henry! Henry!” I yell. I reach for his shoulder to turn him over and notice he's still clutching my horn in his hand.

“Don't!” Big Tennessee shouts at me, and reaches for my shirttail. I pull away so hard, my shirt rips in his hand.

“Stephen, don't move his body!” he screams at me. “He's gone.”

Big Tennessee is right. I should have listened to him. I never should have turned Henry over.