Chapter 18

THE OVERWHELMING DEFEAT OF THE ENEMY

Sergeant Knox had marched the platoon of dismounted cavalry to a position near the end of the road, in readiness to move to the assistance of the train escort, as ordered by Lieutenant Lyon, when he saw the enemy marching over the meadow towards the wagons. When Deck realized the havoc made by the sharpshooters in the ranks of the Confederate company, he suspended the command to move, and watched the flow of events from the woods. He saw the enemy on the meadow drop upon the ground, and those in the water remount their horses.

Leaving Life in command, with orders to move to the train if the enemy approached it, he made his way over to the point where he could obtain a better view of the troopers in the water. He found them wading in the stream, covered by their horses. Butters was a great horse-fancier, as well as a dead shot with his rifle, and had ordered his men by message along his line not to kill the animals if they could help it.

"You are not doing as much execution among the enemy as you were, Lieutenant Butters," said Deck as he came up with the head of the sharpshooters.

"I am not, for the Cornfeds have made breastworks of their horses," replied the volunteer lieutenant. "I ordered my men not to kill the poor beasts if they could help it."

"I think that was a mistake," added Deck.

"The hosses ain't Seceshers," replied Butters, not exactly pleased with his superior's criticism.

"But every one of the horses is doing more soldier work than any of the men; for he is saving his rider from certain death, and the soldiers can't do that for each other," replied Deck, made somewhat earnest by the tone of the commander of the sharpshooters. "I love and respect a good horse as much as you do; and I sometimes think Ceph, the animal I ride, knows as much as I do, and in his way more. Your men are the most skilful with the rifle as a body I ever saw or heard of. But those horses are not such as you raise in this part of Kentucky, or where I came from. They are mean stock, and though I am sorry to do so, I must order you to shoot the horses; for your compassion for the poor beasts has brought the action to a standstill, and we are doing nothing."

"I don't know but you are right, Lieutenant Lyon; at any rate, I obey your orders," replied Butters, mollified by the compliment to his men and himself, to say nothing of the praise of Kentucky horses.

"Your men have ceased firing," added Deck, who did not believe in any stay of a successful action.

"The men have come to the end of the line, and I have not started a new round," Butters explained.

"Then start it by bringing down the first horse at the head of the column," continued the Riverlawn lieutenant. "Tell the next man to bring down the soldier as the horse drops. Do you know the location of the horse's brain?"

"I ought to; I'm a hoss-doctor to home, and I've had to shoot 'em afore now when they got a broken leg, or were too sick to get well. You'll see whether I know where the brains is," replied Butters, as he raised his rifle and fired. "Fire at the man!" he called to the first number in the line as the animal dropped, splashing his former rider with water, which seemed to blind him; for he was stooping forward, more effectually to conceal his head behind the animal.

Number one discharged his piece, and almost instantly the trooper followed the horse. Butters went to the second rifleman, and ordered him to shoot the next horse, telling him the part at which he was to aim. He proceeded along the whole length of the line, instructing the even numbers to shoot the horse, and the odd the man. Not a man failed to hit his mark, and there was soon a gap in the column. Every officer had fallen, and a panic seized the privates as the death-line marched up the stream. They were brave men; but the horses and men seemed to fall as though they had been prostrated by bolts from heaven, and the men could not see their executioners.

Without any orders, unless the sergeants gave them, the men leaped out of the stream, and ran with all the speed the nature of the ground would permit. The deserted horses remained in the brook, and not another one of them was shot. Not only those who had been more nearly exposed to the deadly fire of the sharpshooters, but those who were far in the rear of them, fled from the field. Of course they had leaped out of the water on the farther side of the stream, and were running to the north, or in the direction of the road from Jamestown to Harrison, and were liable to fall in with the outskirts of General Thomas's camp.

Deck witnessed the utter rout of the company of cavalry, and he proceeded to thank Butters and his men for the very effective service they had rendered. They had fought the battle and won it, and the cavalrymen had done nothing to assist them. The lieutenant of the company of Unionists expressed his opinion loud enough to be heard by all the sharpshooters, that there was not another body of men in the whole country that could equal them in the accuracy of their aim. He should commend them in the highest degree to Major Lyon, and his report would be transmitted in due time to the general in command.

"I will leave you and your men here, Lieutenant Butters, to watch the enemy," continued Deck. "In about an hour or two send me a report of anything that happens about here;" and he hastened back to the foot of the by-road.

The battle had been fought and apparently won; for the Confederates were out of rifle-range in a very short time. A vigorous cheer was sent up about the time that Deck came in sight of the train, proving that they realized their own safety and that of the train. But the young lieutenant's brain was busy, though he ordered his command to return the cheer of the escort.

The wagons, over a dozen in number, were safe from the hands of the enemy; for they had enough to do in the vicinity of Logan's Cross Roads, as the roar of the cannon in the battle was heard in the distance. Deck was studying up some way to extricate the wagons from their miry plight. If he could but procure a sufficient quantity of boards or planks, he could get them to the hard ground. He asked Milton if any could be procured, and was assured that none could be obtained short of Jamestown.

He gave the order to march, and directed Life to go ahead, and select the most favorable ground for the passage. The lieutenant followed him at the head of his command, and reached the train in a short time; and though some of the soldiers had sunk in the mud down to their knees, they were pulled out of it. The lieutenant of the escort had renewed his struggle to move the wagons forward when Deck saluted him as he came out to meet him.

"Lieutenant Lyon of the Riverlawn Cavalry," said Deck, as he gave his hand to the officer.

"I need not say that I am exceedingly glad to meet you, for you have saved my men and the wagon-train," was the answer. "Permit me to present myself as Lieutenant Sterling of the Ninth Ohio Infantry."

"You have had a hard march from the pike so far."

"I have; the toughest time I ever had in my life, and I have seen some deep mud before," replied Lieutenant Sterling. "Without your timely aid, my command would all have been prisoners, and the wagons been in possession of the enemy. But I am bewildered at the manner in which you have done this thing. I did not see your force till you marched out on the meadow. I heard a number of rifle-cracks, as I judged they were, but I did not see a man."

"It was wholly done by a volunteer company of riflemen, attached to my platoon for this occasion."

"I saw the enemy fall when they started to march over here, and after they took to the stream; but I could not make out the force that fired the shots. There must have been a hundred of them."

"Only thirty of them; but I believe they did not waste a shot," replied Deck. "Will you oblige me by giving me the date of your commission?"

"Whatever the date of my commission, I shall cheerfully resign the command to you; for you have a larger force than mine, and you have fought the battle here that saved me, though you must have been outnumbered by the enemy. My commission bears date Dec. 27."

"I was commissioned two weeks earlier than that."

"Then you rank me, and I am very glad that it is so," answered Lieutenant Sterling; and he proceeded to inform his command of the fact, for all of them had been ordered to suspend work.

"Do you happen to know what any of your wagons contain?" asked Deck, who was ready to address himself to the task of moving the wagons to the forest road.

"They are loaded for the most part with rations for the troops, and grain for the horses and mules, with some general supplies."

"Do you know if there is any rope among the supplies?"

"The quartermaster-sergeant can answer that question better than I can," replied the officer.

"Plenty of it, Lieutenant," replied this man. "It is in the first wagon in the line."

"Bring out at least a hundred feet of inch-rope," added Deck. "You were not moving the wagons to the nearest hard ground."

"My aim was to get them to a road indicated on the map over in that direction," replied Lieutenant Sterling, pointing over towards the one by which the Riverlawns had come from Jamestown. "According to the scale on my map it is about two miles over there."

"That is very true; but, according to the fact, it is less than a third of a mile to the woods where we came upon the meadow."

"But it would take me longer to cut a road through the woods to the road than it would to wallow through the mud to the road."

"But there is a by-road through the woods to the main road."

"I am a total stranger here, and I did not know there was even a path through the woods," added the lieutenant from Ohio, as the quartermaster-sergeant rolled the rope out of the wagon.

Deck called his men, who had been thoroughly rested by their stay in the woods, whether they needed it or not. The long rope was uncoiled; and Life was directed to make the two ends of it fast to the end of the pole, and pass it out through the three pairs of mules. Sixty men were detailed to man the rope in two lines. This required a part of the escort, and the rest of it were ordered to stand by the wheels. The negro driver of the first wagon was told by Life to go to the rear end and push; but this was done only to get him out of the way, for his brutality had disgusted both the lieutenant and the sergeant, as both of them believed in kindness to animals. They had seen the beatings bestowed on the animals before; and Deck, looking through his glass, was satisfied that the mules did not pull a pound under the beating. Perhaps they were disgusted with the failure of their efforts to move the wagon, as well as by the blows heaped upon them.

Life patted them on the neck, and coaxed them, and he certainly succeeded in bringing them to a good-natured condition of mind.

"Now, boys, straighten out them ropes!" shouted Life to the soldiers who manned them. "Pull steady for all you're wuth! Now, my beauties! Hi! now! Come, my beauties!" said he, taking the nigh head leader by the head, and leading him along.

To the astonishment of the men looking on, this mule made a flying leap nearly out of his harness, and then pulled as steadily as a well-trained horse; and the rest of the team followed his example. Life seemed to have some hypnotic power over a horse, and it appeared that he had the same influence over the mules. The men tugged at the rope, and the wagon was hauled out of the mire.

"Keep it moving!" shouted Deck. "If you stop, it will mire again. Keep it a-going!"

The men seemed to regard the work as a sort of enjoyable farce; and they cheered each other along, and some of them took to singing. They did not seem to be exerting all their strength, but the wagon moved along at quite a lively pace. If they had stopped two minutes, the wheels would have sunk down into the mud.

"John Brown's wagon got stuck in the mud, And we pull it through the black miry flood, As we go marching on,"

sang the soldiers; and in a few minutes more they landed the first of the wagon-train high and dry in the by-road.

Here one of the riflemen was waiting for the lieutenant, being a messenger from Butters.