The Fateful Lightning (50 page)

Jones spurred the horse, led the way in front of his own column, looked back toward Franklin, no smile, a hard, cold stare.

“Fall in, Mr. Franklin. Route step, forward march.”

NEAR POCOTALIGO, SOUTH CAROLINA—JANUARY 21, 1865

H
e had watched Hardee’s withdrawal from Savannah from a stand of pines, the cavalry spread out as protection, should any of the Yankees attempt to interfere. Throughout that dismal day, his men had shivered in silence, matched by the gloom of the column of soldiers as they passed. There had been no Yankees, nothing at all to prevent Hardee’s troops from making good their escape across the river, and they were now moving farther into the South Carolina countryside.

At Pocotaligo, many of those men had boarded railcars, would add to Hardee’s new defensive position in Charleston. Others would move out to the west and north, anchoring new garrisons at anyplace Hardee or Beauregard had considered ripe for attack. Wheeler had simply followed orders, what remained of his horsemen doing the same. There was little energy in the troops, some of that from the lack of decent food. The horses were no better, mounts dying in every camp, others barely strong enough to bear their riders.

If morale was sour enough among Wheeler’s men, there had been the infuriating visit by Inspector General Alfred Roman, sent specifically by Beauregard to investigate rampant rumors that Wheeler’s
men had lost all effectiveness as a fighting force, and worse, that many of the troopers had become little more than bandits, raiding and stealing horses and any other valuable commodity the local populace might present. Roman’s report had gone back to the generals, claiming that Wheeler’s men were displaying “a brutal interference with private property. Public rumor condemns them everywhere, and not a few do we find in Georgia as well as in South Carolina who look upon them more as a band of highway robbers than as an organized military band. Had I the power to act in the matter, I would relieve General Wheeler from his command, not as a rebuke, but as a punishment…”

Beauregard’s reaction to Roman’s infuriating report was to offer the War Department in Richmond a recommendation that dug hard at Wheeler: “Unless Wheeler’s command can be properly organized into divisions, under good commanders, a large portion of it had better be dismounted forthwith. Its conduct in front of the enemy and its depredations on private property render it worse than useless.”

Wheeler was, naturally enough, outraged, and he responded with a letter of his own, claiming that there was “positive proof that the country swarmed with organized parties who do not and never did belong to my command” despite the fact that in nearly every instance, those roving gangs identified themselves to the civilians they plundered as being Wheeler’s men.

But Wheeler had one hard and fast friend: William Hardee, who countered Beauregard’s dismal assessment with at least a hint that Wheeler was an asset that the army could not afford to lose. Hardee added to the fray by telling Richmond and Beauregard that “the reports of its disorganization and demoralization are without foundation, and the depredations ascribed to his command can generally be traced to bands of marauders claiming to belong to it.”

To Wheeler’s enormous relief, any suggestion that his cavalry was to be disbanded was, for now, ignored.

I
nspector General Roman was long gone, but the sting of his report still gnawed its way through the men. Seeley knew as well as any other commander that, whether or not his troopers had
decent horses, the men themselves were lacking even the most basic weaponry. In Seeley’s most recent command, three hundred men had dissolved to barely a hundred, many disappearing from the various camps, presumed to have deserted. As he inspected his men every morning, Seeley could see for himself that those men who could ride were often missing pistols, and a third had no muskets at all. Uniforms were a thing of the past.

At Pocotaligo, the rail depot and telegraph line that ran toward Charleston had been untouched by the Yankees, Hardee keeping as close communication with Wheeler’s positioning as possible. As reports from the various scouting parties found Wheeler, he had wired Hardee that his first priority was farther inland, close to the Savannah River. There was no secret to what Sherman was attempting to do, a significant march along the river, which aimed itself straight toward Augusta. Wheeler had responded by riding that way, accompanied by a sizable portion of his command, keeping close to the northern banks of the Savannah River. Wheeler’s decision had far more to do with another report his men had offered, that Kilpatrick’s horsemen were accompanying that column, would likely lead the way into the city of Augusta, or, if Sherman changed course and made a crossing of the river into South Carolina, Kilpatrick would certainly cross first, ensuring a safe passage for the infantry across Sherman’s pontoon bridges. It was no more a surprise to Seeley than it was to other officers in Wheeler’s command that if Kilpatrick’s whereabouts could be confirmed, Wheeler would do everything he could to stand in his way.

Seeley’s own men seemed not to care just what duty they were assigned, whether they were in close pursuit of Yankee cavalry or just guarding the rail depot. It had been many weeks since there was a fight of any kind, the Federal surge into South Carolina close to Savannah seemingly just for show, to prevent any Confederate forces from adding to the men Hardee had kept in the city. Now, with Savannah fully in Sherman’s hands, Seeley had expected a rapid advance northward, knowing full well that the columns he had seen, Hardee’s men, numbered fewer than ten thousand. If there had ever been confusion before as to Sherman’s numbers, that uncertainty was gone. With so many camps spread out in and around Savannah,
Wheeler’s scouts had confirmed more than once that if Hardee was to be attacked in Charleston, he would be outnumbered at least five or six to one.

T
he land they rode through was flat, mostly featureless, miles of sandy ground, flat grassy fields, cut through by low bottoms, cypress patches, bog holes, and mud pits. The ride had misery of its own, but today that misery had been compounded by another change in the weather. They had grown used to the cold, the lack of any threat from Sherman allowing the men to settle into camps where the fires stayed high. But now the hard chill was punctuated by rain, the sandy roads deepening, the weakened horses struggling all the more.

The orders had come from General Dibrell, passed along to him from Wheeler, that care had to be taken that Sherman wasn’t merely feinting toward Augusta, that Charleston could still be the primary target. Seeley knew that General Hardee would need every piece of information the cavalry could give him, that if any significant column was suddenly to appear along the coast, Charleston had to be made ready.

He kept his gaze downward, water flowing in a cold stream off the bill of his hat, soaking what was already soaked, his seat and legs rubbed raw by the rough cotton of his pants, every move by the horse scraping his skin. Up ahead, the road narrowed, thickets of pine woods pushing together, a small farmhouse to one side, no sign of the farmer. No, Seeley thought, he has more good sense than to do anything in this weather. What would he do, anyway? What grows here? They say rice needs plenty of water. Well, there’s that. And snakes. And every kind of bug the Almighty set on this earth. Maybe too cold for those critters. Just as well. There’s enough misery right here.

He pulled to one side of the road, looked back to his small column, the men stretched out, great open gaps between them. He held up his hand, stopped the lead horsemen, called out, “Hold here. Let them group up.”

He looked again to the front, had none of that itchiness, the sharp sense that, up ahead, maybe in those trees, there might be a threat, an ambush. He hadn’t seen any Yankees in weeks, beyond those he had scouted in their camps from a perch above the Savannah River. Yankees may not be any smarter than us, he thought. But they surely got enough sense not to go marching on roads this bad, in weather that could drown a fish.

The column was drawing up closer now, the faces of his men showing him more misery than he felt himself.

“Keep up, boys. No straggling. This ain’t a place you want to get lost in.”

No one responded, even the old man, Gladstone, keeping his curses to himself. Seeley rode back into the middle of the mushy sand, heard a voice behind him ask, “Where we going, anyway?”

He turned again, saw one of his lieutenants, Gibson, a man younger than he was. “We’re going where we’re told to go. General Dibrell sent us to scout down closer to where we can see Beaufort. You heard the order, just like I did. You have a problem, tell him.”

“How much further?”

There was no playfulness in Seeley’s mood, his words coming in more of a shout than he intended. “Have you seen me with a map? You got one? We’ll know we’re at Beaufort when we see Beaufort. You confused about that? Look for a whole passel of tents and a thousand colored soldiers. Ain’t you been paying attention? Yankees took that place long time ago, put a whole pile of Negroes in there, figuring nobody’d mess with ’em.”

“We aimin’ to mess with ’em?”

“We’re ordered to scout them, make sure they’re sitting tight. That too complicated for you?”

He turned away, spurred the horse, tried to calm himself, the rainwater sliding down the back of his wet shirt. He yanked on his raincoat, the rubber and canvas doing nothing to keep him warm. He knew they’d follow him, had gone through far worse than this, but his patience was gone completely, no time for talking about it, no time for discussions about just how futile this duty might be. Just do the job, he thought. We get close to Beaufort, there’s gotta be somebody
nearby who’s got a roof we can crawl under. And if they wanna complain about us to General Anybody, they can go right ahead.

He rode closer to the hourglass of trees, the road piercing through tall, thin pines, a muddy pond visible to one side, surrounded by a stand of cypress. He stared that way, his eyes dancing with the sleepiness, more water streaming down from his flopping hat. There was a flicker of motion, a dark figure in the distance, then more, and now he heard the sound he knew too well. The musket ball passed overhead, and he was jolted awake, stopped the horse, stared that way, searching the rain, the thicket of trees. Now another ball came past, closer, in front of him, and Seeley held his stare through the driving rain, searching the distant trees, felt strangely disconnected, as though this were unreal, an odd dream. The men were gathering up behind him, no one seeming to hear what was happening, and more musket fire came, the hard
zing
, a wet slap impacting a man behind him. Now the men responded, aware, the man tumbling from the saddle, the others calling out. Seeley waited a long moment, still couldn’t believe it was happening, that there would be Yankees out here. Our own men, he thought. Has to be. Another patrol, lost, probably. Panic and stupid.

“Hey! We’re your own! Hold fire!”

The rain drowned out his voice, more zips and hisses from the musket balls, Gibson calling out, “Sir! Pull back! Take cover!”

“Gotta be our own men! Damn fools!”

The men were backing away, seeking shelter on the backside of the trees, and Seeley felt raw anger, would find their officer, if there was one, scream into the man’s face. He jerked the reins, the horse pulling back, stumbling in the deep sand, Seeley falling to one side, hands grabbing for him, Gibson, others. He righted himself, more musket fire coming, the air buzzing like so many bees, and he jerked the reins again, said, “Pull back! Let’s find out what’s going on. I’ll stick that officer’s sword where there’s no sunshine! Take cover, till they find out how stupid they are! Who’s hit?”

Gibson called out, “It’s Simpson, sir! Not bad. Slit the top of his shoulder.”

“Dress it best you can. Damn their souls!”

The men were down, the horses pulled back, and Seeley crouched low close to the road, his ankles buried in wet mud. He looked back, saw Gladstone spitting out a brown stream of tobacco, a smile on the old man’s face. Yeah, you think this is funny. How about this?

“Sergeant! Take three men, move out through these trees. Get as close as you can, find out what kind of jackass is in charge out there. If you can call him off, do it. Tell him who we are! There’s gotta be some kind of garrison keeping watch on Beaufort. They got nothing better to do than shoot at anybody they see.”