The Bishop of Cottontown Part 22

"_I present this young man as a Christmas gift to my old friend, his grandsire, Colonel Jeremiah Travis. The man who could fight his guns as he did at s.h.i.+loh, and could offer to die for a friend, is good enough to receive pardon, for anything he may have done or may do, from_

"A. LINCOLN."

Afterwards came Franklin and the news that Captain Tom had been killed.

CHAPTER III

FRANKLIN

But General Jeremiah Travis could not keep out of the war; for toward the last, when Hood's army marched into Tennessee the Confederacy called for everything--even old age.

And so there rode out of the gates of The Gaffs a white-haired old man, who sat his superb horse well. He was followed by a negro on a mule.

They were General Jeremiah Travis and his body-servant, Bisco.

"I have come to fight for my state," said General Travis to the Confederate General.

"An' I am gwine to take keer of old marster suh," said Bisco as he stuck to his saddle girth.

It was the middle of the afternoon of the last day of November--and also the last day of many a gallant life--when Hood's tired army marched over the brow of the high ridge of hills that looked down on the town of Franklin, in front of which, from railroad to river, behind a long semicircular breastwork lay Schofield's determined army. It was a beautiful view, and as plain as looking down from the gallery into the pit of an amphitheatre.

Just below them lay the little town in a valley, admirably situated for defense, surrounded as it was on three sides by the bend of a small river, the further banks of which were of solid rocks rising above the town. On the highest of these bluffs--Roper's k.n.o.b--across and behind the town, directly overlooking it and grimly facing Hood's army two miles away, was a federal fort capped with mighty guns, ready to hurl their sh.e.l.ls over the town at the gray lines beyond.

From the high ridge where Hood's army stood the ground gradually rolled to the river. A railroad ran through a valley in the ridge to the right of the Confederates, spun along on the banks of the river past the town and crossed it in the heart of the bend to the left of the federal fort. From that railroad on the Confederate right, in front and clear around the town, past an old gin house which stood out clear and distinct in the November sunlight--on past the Carter House, to the extreme left bend of the river on the left--in short, from river to river again and entirely inclosing the town and facing the enemy--ran the newly made and hastily thrown-up breastworks of the federal army, the men rested and ready for battle.

There stands to-day, as it stood then, in front of the town of Franklin, on the highest point of the ridge, a large linden tree, now showing the effects of age. It was half-past three o'clock in the afternoon, when General Hood rode unattended to that tree, threw the stump of the leg that was shot off at Chickamauga over the pommel of his saddle, drew out his field gla.s.ses and sat looking for a long time across the valley at the enemy's position.

Strange to say, on the high river bluff beyond the town, amid the guns of the fort, also with field gla.s.s in hand anxiously watching the confederates, stood the federal general. A sharp-shooter in either line could have killed the commanding general in the other.

And now that prophesying silence which always seems to precede a battle was afloat in the air. In the hollow of its stillness it seemed as if one could hear the ticking of the death-watch of eternity. But presently it was broken by the soft strains of music which floated up from the town below. It was the federal band playing "Just Before The Battle, Mother."

The men in gray on the hill and the men in blue in the valley listened, and then each one mentally followed the tune with silent words, and not without a bit of moisture in their eyes.

"Just before the battle, Mother, I am thinking most of thee."

Suddenly Hood closed his gla.s.ses with that nervous jerk which was a habit with him, straightened himself in the saddle and, riding back to General Stewart, said simply: "We will make the fight, General Stewart."

Stewart pressed his General's hand, wheeled and formed his corps on the right. Cheatham formed his on the left. A gun--and but few were used by Hood in the fight for fear of killing the women and children in the town--echoed from the ridge. It was the signal for the battle to begin. The heavy columns moved down the side of the ridge, the brigades marching in echelon.

At the sound of the gun, the federal army, some of whom were on duty, but the larger number loitering around at rest, or engaged in preparing their evening meal, sprang noiselessly to their places behind the breastworks, while hurried whispers of command ran down the line.

General Travis had been given a place of honor on General Hood's staff. He insisted on going into the ranks, but his commander had said: "Stay with me, I shall need you elsewhere." And so the old man sat his horse silently watching the army forming and marching down.

But directly, as a Mississippi regiment pa.s.sed by, he noticed at the head of one of the companies an old man, almost as old as himself, his clothes torn, and ragged from long marching; shoeless, his feet tied up in sack-cloth and his old slouch hat aflop over his ears. But he did not complain, he stood erect, and gamely led his men into battle. As the company halted for a moment, General Travis rode up to the old man whose thin clothes could not keep him from s.h.i.+vering in the now chill air of late afternoon, for it was then past four o'clock, saluted him and said:

"Captain, will you do me the favor to pull off this boot?"

Withdrawing his boot from the stirrup and thrusting it towards the old man, the latter looked at him a moment in surprise but sheathed his sword and complied with the request. "And now the other one?"

said Travis as he turned his horse around. This, too, was pulled off.

"Just put them on, Captain, if you please," said the rider. "I am mounted and do not need them as much as you do?" and before the gallant old Captain could refuse, he rode away for duty--in his stocking feet!

And now the battle began in earnest.

The confederates came on in splendid form. On the extreme right, Forrest's cavalry rested on the river; then Stewart's corps of Loring, Walthall, French, from right to left in the order named. On the left Cheatham's corps, of Cleburne, Brown, Bate, and Walker.

Behind Cheatham marched Johnston's and Clayton's brigade for support, thirty thousand and more of men, in solid lines, bands playing and flags fluttering in the afternoon wind.

Nor had the federals been idle. Behind the breastworks lay the second and third divisions of the 23rd Corps, commanded in person by the gallant General J. D. c.o.x. From the railroad on the left to the Carter's Creek pike on the right, the brigades of these divisions stood as follows: Henderson's, Cas.e.m.e.nt's, Reilly's, Strickland's, Moore's. And from the right of the Carter's Creek pike to the river lay Kimball's first division of the Fourth Corps. In front of the breastworks, across the Columbia pike, General Wagner, commanding the second division of the Fourth Corps, had thrown forward the two brigades of Bradley and Lane to check the first a.s.sault of the confederates, while Opdyck's brigade of the same division was held in the town as a reserve. Seven splendid batteries growled along the line of breastworks, and showed their teeth to the advancing foe, while three more were caged in the fort above and beyond the town.

Never did men march with cooler courage on more formidable lines of defense. Never did men wait an attack with cooler courage.

Breastworks with abatis in front through which the mouth of cannon gaped; artillery and infantry on the right to enfilade; siege guns in the fort high above all, to sweep and annihilate.

Schofield, born general that he was, simply lay in a rock-circled, earth-circled, water-circled, iron-and-steel-circled cage, bayonet and flame tipped, proof against the armies of the world!

But Hood's brave army never hesitated, never doubted.

Even in the matter of where to throw up his breastworks, Schofield never erred. On a beautiful and seemingly level plain like this, a less able general might have thrown them up anywhere, just so that they encircled the town and ran from river to river.

But Schofield took no chances. His quick eye detected that even in apparent level plains there are slight undulations. And so, following a gentle rise all the way round, just on its top he threw up his breastworks. So that, besides the ditch and the abatis, there was a slight depression in his immediate front, open and clear, but so situated that on the gentle slope in front, down which the confederates must charge, the background of the slope brought them in bold relief--gray targets for the guns. On that background the hare would loom up as big as the hound.

There were really two federal lines, an outer and an inner one. The outer one consisted of Bradley's and Lane's brigades which had retired from Spring Hill before the Confederate army, and had been ordered to halt in front of the breastworks to check the advance of the army. They were instructed to fire and then fall back to the breastworks, if stubbornly charged by greatly their superiors in numbers. They fired, but, true to American ideas, they disliked to retreat. When forced to do so, they were swept away with the enemy on their very heels and as they rushed in over the last line at the breastworks on the Columbia pike the eager boys in gray rushed over with them, swept away portions of Reilly's and Strickland's troops, and bayoneted those that remained.

It was then that Schofield's heart sank as he looked down from the guns of the fort. But c.o.x had the forethought to place Opdyck's two thousand men in reserve at this very point. These sprang gallantly forward and restored the line.

They saved the Union army!

The battle was now raging all around the line. There was a succession of yells, a rattle, a shock and a roar, as brigade after brigade struck the breastworks, only to be hurled back again or melt and die away in the trenches amid the abatis. Clear around the line of breastworks it rolled, at intervals, like a magazine of powder flas.h.i.+ng before it explodes, then the roar and upheaval, followed anon and anon by another. The ground was soon s.h.i.+ngled with dead men in gray, while down in the ditches or hugging the b.l.o.o.d.y sides of the breastworks right under the guns, thousands, more fortunate or daring than their comrades, lay, thrusting and being thrust, shooting and being shot. And there they staid throughout the fight--not strong enough to climb over, and yet all the guns of the federal army could not drive them away. Many a gray regiment planted its battle-flag on the breastworks and then hugged those sides of death in its efforts to keep it there, as bees cling around the body of their queen.

"I have the honor to forward to the War Department nine stands of colors," writes General c.o.x to General Geo. L. Thomas; "these flags with eleven others were captured by the Twenty-third Army Corps along the parapets."

Could Bonaparte's army have planted more on the ramparts of Mount St.

Jean?

The sun had not set; yet the black smoke of battle had set it before its time. G.o.d had ordained otherwise; but man, in his fury had shut out the light of heaven against the decree of G.o.d, just as, equally against His decree, he has now busily engaged in blotting out many a brother's bright life, before the decree of its sunset. Again and again and again, from four till midnight--eight butchering hours--the heart of the South was hurled against those bastions of steel and flame, only to be pierced with ball and bayonet.

And for every heart that was pierced there broke a dozen more in the shade of the southern palmetto, or in the shadow of the northern pine. After nineteen hundred years of light and learning, what a scientific nation of heart-stabbers and brother-murderers we Christians are!

It was now that the genius of the confederate cavalry leader, Forrest, a.s.serted itself. With nearly ten thousand of his intrepid cavalry-men, born in the saddle, who carried rifles and shot as they charged, and whom with wonderful genius their leader had trained to dismount at a moment's notice and fight as infantry--he lay on the extreme right between the river and the railroad. In a moment he saw his opportunity, and rode furiously to Hood's headquarters. He found the General sitting on a flat rock, a smouldering fire by his side, half way down the valley, at the Winstead House, intently watching the progress of the battle.

"Let me go at 'em, General," shouted Forrest in his bluff way, "and I'll flank the federal army out of its position in fifteen minutes."

"No! Sir," shouted back Hood. "Charge them out! charge them out!"

Forrest turned and rode back with an oath of disgust. Years afterwards, Colonel John McGavock, whose fine plantation lay within the federal lines and who had ample opportunity for observation, says that when in the early evening a brigade of Forrest's cavalry deployed across the river as if opening the way for the confederate infantry to attack the federal army in flank and rear, hasty preparations were made by the federal army for retreat. And thus was Forrest's military wisdom corroborated. "Let me flank them out," was military genius. "No, charge them out," was dare-devil blundering!

The shock, the shout and the roar continued. The flash from the guns could now plainly be seen as night descended. So continuous was the play of flame around the entire breastwork that it looked to the general at headquarters like a circle of prairie fire, leaping up at intervals along the breastworks, higher and higher where the batteries were ablaze.

In a black-locust thicket, just to the right of the Columbia turnpike and near the Carter House, with abatis in front, the strongest of the batteries had been placed. It mowed down everything in front. Seeing it, General Hood turned to General Travis and said: "General, my compliments to General Cleburne, and say to him I desire that battery at his hands."