Raiding With Morgan (23 page)

It was a Christmas miracle of sorts that Snag and Mouse were on leave for the holidays. After a full night of cooking, sanctioned by salivating guards, Ty, Shawn Shannon, Sam Bryant, and Given Campbell served their guests biscuits, tea, beans and bacon, buttered baker's bread, toasted molasses, boiled onion steeped in water, cheese, peach pie, onion pie, and doughnuts, the most sumptuous prisoner feast in the short history of the camp. The absence of beef and pork, real meat, dulled not a single appetite.

The small joys of Christmas faded on the last day of the year. In early December 1863, President Abraham Lincoln had proclaimed amnesty for all Confederate soldiers below the rank of general, and the camp guards took great delight in telling the Rebels that the president had changed his mind and ruled his proclamation did not extend to prisoners of war. Upon hearing the news, most of the Kentuckians agreed with Ebb White's assessment, “We'll be whipping boys for the blue-belly guards till the last shot is fired on the battlefield, and I don't think the fighting will be over anytime soon.”

The prospect of little improvement in the Kentuckians' situation for months, perhaps years to come, was reinforced when the raging blizzard roared in from Lake Michigan on New Year's Eve, 1864, doubling their physical miseries.

Long before dawn, any thought of revenge against Jack Stedman's son or romancing Dana Bainbridge deserted Ty Mattson's shivering body. Body warmth and food were first and foremost in his mind and his life.

No matter how frustrating it might be, everything else had to wait.

T
he arctic weather that lasted through mid-January didn't deter Commandant DeLand from implementing new directives from his superiors designed to continue the Union program of retaliation and prevent future escapes. The guards were instructed to shout only one challenge to prisoners seen near the fence or outside the barracks at night and to shoot at any prisoner who didn't respond. The rule continued that a prisoner visiting the sinks had to remove his clothes, no matter the weather. Two divisions of fifteen Yankee enlisted men, each with one officer and one corporal, patrolled the grounds and barracks during daylight hours. The patrols inspected prison quarters twice per day to search for tunnels, broke up congregations of Rebels inside and outside the barracks, and watched their fellow guards, reporting any dereliction of duty on their part. Patrolling Yankee officers were given the authority to arrest Union soldiers for lingering amongst and talking to prisoners.

To further confine prisoners to White Oak and Prisoner's Squares, Confederate sergeant majors were barred from leaving White Oak and Prisoner's Squares to draw rations from the camp commissary. The guards assumed that task, and when shortened rations were delivered consistently, prisoner complaints fell on deaf ears. Newsboys selling papers were banned from the camp. The directive limiting all prisoners to one written letter of two pages every thirteen days lowered camp morale to the deepest point yet, though a few prolific letter writers like Cally Smith and Sam Bryant had the wherewithal to bribe the guards on the sly to deliver their outgoing mail to the Chicago post office.

The delivery of coal for newly introduced coal stoves and the removal of its ashes added to the grime, vermin, and rat droppings already ground into the mud-enriched dirt floors of the barracks. The ongoing shortage of rations and the outlawing of stoves for cooking provided boiled food, which made for a dietary blandness that turned meals into cheerless affairs. The daily ration consisted of beef, light bread, and soup one day, then just beef and bread the next. Fresh beef was delivered each morning, but a dejected, stove-banned E.J. Pursley hated preparing it. The beef he received was always neck, flanks, bones, and shanks, the poorest-quality cuts, for the civilian contractors sold the choice cuts to Chicago butchers.

Ty kept his sanity by daydreaming of Dana Bainbridge and her beauty. One snowy, boring afternoon, Shawn Shannon asked out of the blue what his future plans were and Ty's lack of shyness for once startled him. “I will win Dana Bainbridge's hand and marry her, whether her father approves or not.”

“And then what?”

Ty had to acknowledge that his future planning beyond marrying Dana was more than a tad fuzzy. The proverbial question was how could he and Dana fashion a life together? He was clueless as to his status with his grandfather. By law, he was slated to inherit his grandfather's property and assets, but that might be ancient history by now. Though he knew his grandfather loved him in his own rigid, high-principled way, Enoch Mattson's personal philosophy made it doubly difficult for Ty to draw close to him again after abandoning him with no worthy explanation. Was there any forgiveness in Enoch Mattson's heart? There had not been a smidgen for his dead father.

So where did that leave him? Nowhere, most likely.

Shawn Shannon read Ty's puzzled look. Aware of Ty's awkward Kentucky situation, he decided to offer a possible solution to his dilemma, one he'd been biding time with. “If there's nothing for you at home, you might consider traveling to Texas with me. I own part of a parcel of land that can support a herd of cattle. My uncle owned a bank and a mercantile store before the war and made himself some money. I'm Uncle Paige's closest living relative. I was tired of fighting Comanche and chasing down outlaws for pocket change, so Uncle bought the land and we were about to become partners in a cattle ranch when the war broke out. Uncle is a tough old bird and he'll be there when I return.”

“What about my limp? I don't know how long I can stay on a horse, any given day. I might not be much use to you as a cowboy.”

“Uncle Paige and I share big ideas. Uncle believes there'll be a big demand for beef in Northern cities after the war. He intends to take full advantage of it. But while he'll front the money, the rest is up to me.”

Shawn Shannon stopped talking, nodded his head, and then smiled. “Ty, you're a well-educated young man. It will take a few years, but we'll build a sizable spread. I don't like paperwork, money handling, or watching the market. You'd make a good ranch manager, and Uncle has other holdings that will need tending as he ages. If you want to try the cattle business with me, once we're shut of this place, I've a place for you in Texas.

“Who knows,” Shawn Shannon said with a chuckle, “maybe that gal of yours would enjoy a new style of life? Texas is a different world from Portland, Ohio. What do you think?”

Ty was too stunned to answer. Before his father's death at Buffington Island, he had often thought of returning to Texas with him, providing he measured up to Owen Mattson's standards. Now Shawn Shannon was offering him a chance to do just that, with the promise of a livelihood that would financially support a wife and children. It was the opportunity and adventure many a man dreamed about but seldom realized.

It was Ty's turn to smile. “I won't know until I ask her, will I?”

“That's great. You can take your father's place.”

“What do you mean ‘take your father's place'?”

“I intended to make the same offer to Owen. I just never got him to stand still long enough in one place so I could discuss it with him. If I can't have him for a partner, his son will do just fine.”

Ty frowned. “Did you say ‘partner'? I thought you said ‘ranch manager' before.”

“I did. That's for starters. If you work out, there'll be a full partnership for you when Uncle Paige passes. I wouldn't have insulted Owen with anything less.”

The evening bugle sounded. Before Ty could thank him, Shawn Shannon waved him off and said, “We'll talk in more detail later. One more thing for now, I know you haven't heard from that Portland gal yet. Don't give up on her. That gleam in her eye when we talked about you was a lot more than female curiosity. Awe struck, I'd call it. Like she'd finally met in the flesh the type of man she always wondered about.”

Despite the penetrating cold and hunger pangs, Ty slept well after his excitement abated. Shawn Shannon had unexpectedly become his potential savior. His ranching venture offered Ty the solid footing he'd been missing since his father's murder. Moreover, Shawn didn't believe Ty was being naïve in pursuing Dana Bainbridge.

His final waking thought was of his grandfather. Perhaps with his improved stature, he could muster the courage to write to him, knowing that rejection wouldn't devastate him, as he'd feared it might.

 

The next morning, Cally Smith brought vital news to Shawn Shannon. Cally and Sam Bryant had a knack for circumventing the ban on contact with Union soldiers and extracting information from their officers and guards. Their ability to fulfill the monetary promises associated with their bribery was legendary.

“Lieutenant, we've been hearing a lot of hammering and sawing over in Prisoner's Square beyond DeLand's headquarters. I learned from that Yankee Danby that the blue bellies are building a larger, higher stockade, with a guard walk, and that's just the half of it. They're planning to lump all of us prisoners together there in one new, huge Prisoner's Square.”

“Just how big will the new square be?” Shawn Shannon asked.

“Danby saw the drawings. This sucker will run two city blocks from north to south and two blocks from east to west, a space of about forty acres. He says it will hold twelve thousand prisoners.”

“Good gosh!” a listening E.J. Pursley exclaimed. “Are they building new barracks for that many?”

“Nope, not all of them,” Cally said. “They're cutting our barracks into sections, putting them on rollers and wheeling them to the new square.”

“That will be come spring, right?” Ty asked Cally.

“Nope, this month and next. DeLand won't risk having the spring thaw slow him down.”

Shawn Shannon said, “They expecting help from us?”

“Danby claims they are, but the other boys in White Oak Square say they're not helping them move us from one bad spot to another. DeLand can hire Chicago contractors, for all they care.”

“Well, by damned,” E.J. said, “I'll move if they give us back a floor before everyone of us is toted off to the hospital.”

Breakfast call and more pressing issues stilled conversation about Colonel DeLand and his new square. Given Campbell was plagued by fever and a hacking cough. Ebb White's stomach refused to hold food. Four members of Barrack Ten had smallpox and two others symptoms. Treatment for them was nil, as the beds of both the White Oak and the Smallpox Hospitals were jammed with patients. Eyewitness reports confirmed that measles, mumps, pneumonia, and sinus infections were ravaging the camp. It was a common occurrence to open the barrack door and spy four Rebels in butternut clothing carrying a wrapped body to the camp graveyard.

Though Ty had been vaccinated, he feared smallpox the most. Hardly an afflicted soul returned from that hospital. Still without a winter coat, he kept his two blankets wrapped around him night and day, and he cleaned his plate at every meal to conserve what remaining strength he possessed. The portions on his plate grew ever smaller, due to the growing shortage of rations, and it became more difficult to keep from shivering constantly.

Back from one of his visits to their neighbors, gadabout Sam Bryant revealed that prisoners in Barracks Four and Five were killing the big gray rats roaming the camp, dressing them out like deer, and boiling them for supper. One Kentuckian had bragged to Sam that boiled rats tasted like tender chicken. Lieutenant Shawn Shannon, the highest-ranking officer in Barrack Ten and an ex-Texas Ranger—not one whom the 144 Rebels housed there wanted to reckon with—drew the line and backed E.J. Pursley's condemnation of rat meat. The barrack would boil shoe, boot, and belt leather for a meal before eating rodent fare.

Disregarding the weakened and diseased condition of its charges, Yankee brass commenced the transfer to the new Prisoner's Square in mid-January. The Rebels in the old Prisoner's Square refused to assist their captors, as had the Kentuckians, slowing the arduous process of rolling the White Oak barracks to their new locations to a crawl.

As night fell a week later, Barrack Ten was amongst those still en route. Quick to pounce on the opportunity to make life insufferable for the Kentuckians, Snag ordered the guards to bar Morgan's men from sleeping in their old quarters.

Sergeant Clarence “Snag” Oden took particular pleasure in jabbing the air with his bayoneted rifle and announcing, “Grab what you want from inside, but be quick about it. We'll see how many of you rock-hard raiders freeze to death and leave your rations for others. They'll love you for dying. Make do, me buckoes, make do.”

The blustering, Chicago-born, authority-protected bully was unfamiliar with outdoor survival and underestimated the skills of woods- and plains-born men. In short order, a makeshift tent city composed of mattresses, blankets, and the bottom planks from barrack bunks mushroomed before his eyes. Unused coal was interspersed with stove wood and ignited in front of the temporary shelters to fight the raw chill of the wind. A supper of cold beef, cold bread, and hot coffee filled as many bellies as possible. Much to Snag's chagrin, the experienced raiders had put themselves in the best position for lasting until morning.

The cold, the thick mud, and the scampering herds of huge rats made for a memorable night. Around two in the morning, Shawn Shannon awakened Ty and handed him a tattered winter coat, which Ty hastily donned. Shannon was dressed in a leather jacket, which Ty hadn't seen before.

“Two of the boys with pneumonia passed away,” Shannon explained. “Snag will puff his chest and credit the cold, but they could've lasted till morning if they'd been healthy.”

The raiders were glowering at the guards and hustling to start new fires and prepare some kind of breakfast on a greatly reduced supply of coal and wood when civilian contractors with teams of horses swung through the gate, eliciting cheers throughout their ranks.

“About time General Orme showed the sense of a Kentucky raccoon,” Given Campbell said. “I need be careful, though, not to flatter the old fart overly much.”

As usual, Given Campbell's biting humor drew laughs and brightened the morning, but gloom soon reared its head again. Snag Oden killed the good mood of the prisoners nearest him by bellowing at the top of his lungs, “Dump the stoves out of those barracks, that will ease the pull for the horses!”

An outraged E.J. Pursley, standing between Ty and Shawn Shannon, not more than ten feet behind Snag, shouted in return, “Wait a by-damned minute. There was nothing said about dumping my stove, you big shit.”

As Snag's head turned, Shawn Shannon stepped in front of the outraged E.J. “Who said that?” an equally outraged Snag demanded, walking with his usual swagger toward Ty and Shawn Shannon.

“Keep your trap shut, E.J.,” Shannon said over his shoulder.

Expecting to encounter a cowering prisoner, Snag stopped six inches from Shawn Shannon's nose, bayoneted rifle resting butt first on the ground. “I aim to stick whoever said that,” Oden seethed.

A stony expression tightened the skin at the corners of Shawn Shannon's eyes and mouth. Ty's breath caught. He admired the lieutenant's skill at suppressing his anger, but he worried that one wrong word might give Snag reason to employ his blade, which he had done before and killed a prisoner.

Shawn Shannon's black-as-midnight eyes bored into Snag's and Ty saw him flinch. Ty wondered if the bully realized he'd bitten off a mighty big chunk of trouble.