The Better Angels of Our Nature (41 page)

“Forshaw—
who is
this drowned rat?” Porter inquired cheerfully of Jesse shivering in her blanket. He then asked her the question Jesse had heard him ask of many a subordinate as he passed along the deck of his ship, “Do you have your underflannels on, my boy?”

Jesse tried to answer but her teeth were chattering so much only a strange whirring noise emerged.

Porter laughed heartily as he said, “Later, lad, you can tell us all about your adventure, later!” The robust seafarer beamed at her, he beamed at her a lot these days, a strange kind of knowing, winking smile and a slight inclination of the head, as though they shared a secret and he was reassuring her that it was quite safe with him.

Porter’s flotilla, knocked about, with the exception of the
Henry Clay,
which had sunk without the loss of one single hand, was now at anchorage at New Carthage, on the west bank of the river.

Seven days later, under cover of darkness, it was the turn of Porter’s remaining vessels to run the batteries; twelve more barges and six more transports, packed to the rafters with forage and rations and ammunition. All made it but for the
Tigress,
whose cargo had been even more important than bullets and food and hay. She’d been carrying the medical and surgical supplies. The
Tigress,
which was holed below the waterline and sank, had served as Grant’s headquarters at Pittsburg Landing and had brought McClernand up from Memphis to take over Sherman’s command in December. Jesse mourned for the fact that McClernand was no longer aboard when she sunk.

The New Carthage area opposite Grand Gulf turned out to be unsuitable to make the crossing to the east bank and put troops ashore; the Rebels had fortified Grand Gulf since Grant had chosen it for his crossing point. So by the time the
Tigress
had sunk to the bottom of the Mississippi two of Grant’s corps, one led by McPherson and the other by McClernand, were marching down the west side of the Mississippi to Hard Times, a plantation twenty-odd miles farther south. Porter ran his ships past the Grand Gulf fort at night and came down to Hard Times to pick up the cheering men waiting on the west bank.

The following day, McPherson’s Seventeenth and McClernand’s Thirteenth Corps crossed the Mississippi and set foot on the east side of the river at Bruinsburg Landing, guided by a contraband. This was further cause for cheering as the men suddenly realized they were now on the same side of the river as the enemy. All that was between them and Vicksburg’s back door were two Rebel armies and they would be dealt with in due course.

On April 20, Grant issued Special Orders No. 110. The purpose of this last move, he wrote, was “to obtain a foothold on the east bank of the Mississippi River, from which Vicksburg can be approached by practicable roads.” They’d done it.

However, Sherman was to remain behind for a special purpose. Grant had asked him to complete yet another difficult task before he and his corps could join the rest of the army. Grant wanted something to distract Pemberton’s attention from the original crossing point at Grand Gulf.

So Sherman, the theater lover, predictably put on a fine show for his audience, the Rebels manning the fortifications at Snyder’s Bluff, on the Yazoo River, not far from the December assault at Chickasaw.

Jesse, watching with Captain Jackson from the bridge of a transport, thought this serious exercise the most comical sight she’d ever seen. Sherman disembarked the men from the steamers and marched them up the east side of the Yazoo, where they waited. Then the steamers would go upriver, and take onboard the very same men, and repeat the pantomime several times at four different locations, with much clattering of equipment and shouting of orders, presenting the very opposite of a secret landing. Small groups even found time for foraging expeditions, scaring the wits out of the local plantation owners, stealing cattle and pigs from nearby farms, and herding them aboard their steamers with exultations that would have gladdened the heart of any buckaroo.

The following morning, as a grand finale, the navy’s guns opened fire on the already panicked men in their fortifications, adding even more weight to the impression that
this
was a full-scale Yankee assault.

This “display of strength” continued until Grant finally wrote to Sherman from Bruinsburg, “I am on dry ground on the same side of the river with the enemy. Come up and join me.”

Meanwhile Grant left Bruinsburg and headed east twenty miles, to Port Gibson, where his men fought a day-long battle, taking control of the roads leading to Grand Gulf, Vicksburg, and Jackson, the state capital.

By May 1 the Rebels had fled Grand Gulf and retired across Big Black River, north through Bayou Pierre, where they hung around awaiting reinforcements from Pemberton that never came. Grant made his new supply base at Grand Gulf. Here he halted his army and waited for Sherman, who was marching his corps eighty-three miles through the muddy bayous and down the Louisiana side of the Mississippi.

On May 7, when Sherman arrived, his friend David Dixon Porter was waiting to ferry him and his troops across to the east side of the river.

There was still the vital question of a supply line, of feeding his men. Napoleon had said, “An army marches on its stomach,” and American soldiers seemed to get hungrier than most.

The farther they marched into the interior of the state the more stretched would become their supply line, making it vulnerable to Rebel attack.

Grant decided to move without a supply line. His men would subsist almost exclusively from what they found in the countryside, they would eat off the civilian population. Each regiment would take along the army staple of hardtack, coffee and sugar and salt. Meat—poultry, bacon, beef—and vegetables could all be found aplenty in this rich agricultural area. Southern farmers would feed Northern soldiers as they marched.

The prospect of the army in hostile territory depending for sustenance on what the men could steal from the locals filled Sherman with foreboding, but, as always, he put his full weight behind Grant’s decision.

On May 8 the Army of the Tennessee cut loose from its supply base and resumed its overland advance, all three columns moving in a northwesterly direction, McPherson on the right toward Raymond, McClernand on the left covering Big Black River crossing points, and Sherman’s corps in the center, closing in on Auburn, all heading toward Jackson. Grant’s immediate goal, as the railroad that ran from Vicksburg to Jackson, was Vicksburg’s only connection with the rest of the Confederacy. If Grant’s army could break this link and destroy the supplies already at Jackson, Pemberton’s army and Vicksburg itself would be cut off. Pemberton, realizing this at the same time as Grant, had at last come out of Vicksburg to face Grant’s army. He was marching east toward Raymond.

At sundown on May 12, Sherman was with Grant at Auburn, on Dillon’s Plantation, off the Old Port Gibson Road, when news arrived that McPherson had, in his first independent field command, clashed with Rebels in a two-hour battle at Raymond, six miles southwest of their position. McPherson had driven the enemy out of town, no doubt with Grant’s urgent inducement still ringing in his ears: “We must fight the enemy before our rations fail.”

Grant and Sherman conferred. Both men agreed that a wrong move now and their troops would be trapped, caught between two enemy armies, Pemberton now reported to be at Edward’s Station, on the Mississippi Southern Railroad, in their front, and Joseph Johnston rumored to be gathering a large force at Jackson, in their rear. Spies had told Grant that Pemberton was expecting Grant to attack Edward’s Station directly from his present position at Auburn, before continuing his march to Vicksburg, and no doubt Johnston was readying himself to move out of Jackson and attack Grant’s rear. Raymond was just fourteen miles west of Jackson. Therefore, Grant would do the unexpected. Instead of continuing to Vicksburg via Edward’s he would turn his columns and head directly for Jackson. He would send McPherson forward to attack Johnston, to soften him up, then follow with Sherman’s corps to finish the job and push the Virginian out of the capital, preventing him from achieving his immediate ambition—joining his army with Pemberton’s.

This accomplished, they could catch Pemberton while he was still wondering where Grant’s army had gone and force him out into open battle. It was common knowledge that the two Rebel generals had been feuding. Pemberton’s first thought was of defending Vicksburg, and he wished to return to the town to command his divisions from behind the safety of his defenses. Joe Johnston, on the other hand, wanted Pemberton to stop worrying about Vicksburg, and defeat Grant before he managed to reach the city.

By 11:00
A
.
M
. on the fourteenth, Sherman and Grant had reached the outskirts of Jackson in pouring rain to hear that McPherson had already attacked the town.

Shells were still exploding on all sides. A clean-up movement was underway by Sherman’s infantry.

Grant followed Sherman across the bridge over a stream, where their party emerged from the woods to see the line of entrenchments, from behind which the enemy was keeping up a brisk artillery fire, enfilading the road ahead.

Raising his voice to be heard above the exploding shells that came ever closer to finding their mark, Sherman turned his mount to find Jesse following closely in his wake, a tiny figure all but hidden inside an overlarge oilskin.

“Go to the rear!” his hoarse voice called, while a series of shells exploded in the woods behind them.

Jesse saw Grant watching her, as one small branch plonked onto her hat, then another and another, before turning his introspective gaze onto Sherman, who was bellowing at the girl,

“Did you hear me? I said go to the rear!” He shortened up his horse’s reins as the nervous animal tossed her handsome head restively. He had chosen to give Dolly, his “cowardly” sorrel mare, another chance to redeem herself in battle conditions. Her response was not promising.

Jesse frowned and cupped a hand over her ear as though she couldn’t hear above the angry roar of shot and shell which shook the earth, and the zip-zip-zip of musket fire as it cut the leaves. Her horse suddenly defied those that had added the epiphyte “Old” before his name, and leapt into the air, a veritable colt once more, causing Sherman’s high-strung mount to break and run, carrying the commander some distance away before he could sufficiently quieten the anxious animal.

In the next moment, there was one tremendous explosion and a shower of debris, clods of dried mud, bits of shattered foliage, broken branches and all that was human and equine rained down through the smoke-filled air. On the spot where Sherman had only moments before been sitting his horse, issuing a whole flurry of commands, an exploding shell had scooped a crater out of the innocent earth, leaving a lieutenant of artillery, two orderlies and their mounts, writhing on the ground in mortal agony.

If Jesse pretended not to hear Sherman, after he galloped back across the field to rejoin them, Grant clearly did. He stared in amazement as the Ohioan, tears streaming from his smarting eyes, removed his battered hat, used it to strike Jesse hard across the head, not once but twice, and spat out, through a cloud of dust and gunsmoke, “
Damn you,
I am sick and tired of giving you orders you do not obey.”

Jesse fell back, out of sight and out of mind, to where Captain Jackson sat calmly upon his calm horse, watching.

“Well,” he said philosophically, with a sniff, “you ain’t never gonna make old bones, and that’s the gall darn truth.” Maybe this thought consoled him, for he was smiling.

Ten minutes later the loud cheers from the men in the front line confirmed that the Rebels had fled. Joe Johnston and his army were retreating along the Jackson and Great Northern railroad, in the opposite direction to Vicksburg. Johnston’s decision to abandon Jackson had separated the two Rebel armies.

The Army of the Tennessee could now march on the ineffectual Pemberton and Vicksburg.

21

Lords, knights, and gentlemen

So sudden had been the Federal attack on Jackson and so complete the Rebels’ retreat, that many of the inhabitants did not realize what had taken place. Now as they came out of shops, saloons, and eateries, and from their homes, they stood around as if punch-drunk, as if too shocked to be afraid of the blue bellies rapidly filling their streets.

In and around the town looters were on the rampage, fired up by barrels of bad rum found in the cellars and given out before the battle had ended.

When Sherman was told, he threatened severe punishment for soldiers caught drunk on the streets. But it wasn’t just blue bellies.

There were also contrabands to deal with, men, women, and children who had swarmed into the Union lines over the last few days, and who were now milling about the town, many of the males being plied with rum by their liberators.

Jesse, watching from the sidewalk outside the hotel, could just wonder at the sight. They came on foot, on aged mules or horses, in farm carts, some driving masser’s best barouche now that he had fled, fairly loaded up with whatever they could take from the houses of their old tormentors. Small children and babies shared space with grandparents, an old painting, a musical instrument, a bookcase, an antique blunderbuss, but nothing of any real value to the hungry or the homeless. Why hadn’t they taken food or blankets or even cooking utensils? Had these downtrodden people been so enthralled by this abstract idea known as “freedom” that they’d cleaned out the plantation attic, instead of the kitchen larder?

By early afternoon, the only Rebel soldiers in the area were prisoners. While the Union surgeons attended the wounded, the rest were rounded up and herded into a cattle pen alongside the railroad tracks. Once there, they were given canteens of water and hard bread and excitedly questioned, as if they, the Yankees, were invaders from a foreign land, eager to learn about a strange race of people called Southerners.

As daylight was fading, Sherman, charged with policing the town, and never one to take provost duties lightly, had already dealt uncompromisingly with the skulkers, stragglers, and deserters of all persuasions and colors.

Satisfied that order had been restored, Sherman met McPherson and Grant at the Bowman House, principal hotel of the town, to discuss the unfolding developments over a good bottle of wine and a very decent meal, which, much to McPherson’s surprise, Corporal Davis shared. At least the food, if not the wine. Grant, on the other hand, did not seem at all surprised to hear Sherman order the young corporal to sit at the table with them, “like a civilized person.”

After dinner, Jesse took up her favorite position, curled up on the armchair in a corner of the large dining room from where she gazed longingly at the brandy decanter, not for herself, of course, but for a thirsty surgeon of her acquaintance. She had already appropriated three large green pears and handfuls of figs the size of a man’s thumb from the fruit bowl, and concealed them inside her baggy shirt. However, the cut-glass decanter stood there like a challenge; how to find a way to transfer the French brandy within to her canteen, under the eyes of these men.

Sherman was now at the map spread out on the polished oak dining table, the symbols of civilized living—decanter, fruit bowl, silver cutlery—pushed aside to make room for the practicalities of war.

“When Mac and I leave Jackson in the morning I want you to remain behind for one day to tear up the railroad tracks, burn the arsenal, the factory, the foundry, and all other public property that could be of use to the Rebels,” Grant told Sherman, joining him at the map. “We’ve rid ourselves of Johnston, for now, but we mustn’t allow Pemberton to cross the Big Black. I want to smash Pemberton’s army before he gets back to Vicksburg. We can settle this campaign at the Big Black, and then march on Vicksburg.”

There was a brisk knock on the door and Charles Dana walked in, briskly, squinting. Erstwhile newspaperman and now assistant secretary of war, whom everyone knew had been sent here by Stanton to spy on Grant and report on his drinking, had crossed with Grant at Bruinsburg. After greeting each man in turn, he handed Grant a dispatch.

“I rode my rear end off to get you that, General Grant, kindly read it aloud, sir, no doubt General Sherman and General McPherson will want to congratulate you and each other!” With that, the nearsighted Dana made unhesitatingly, instinctively for the brandy decanter, without bumping into anything that stood between him and it.

Watching him, Jesse screwed up her face. While Grant, reading the dispatch, let out what was for him a hoot of pleasure.

“It’s from Mr. Stanton,” he announced. He passed it to Sherman, saying, “Read it aloud, will you, Sherman?”

“‘General Grant has full and absolute authority to enforce his own commands, to remove any person who, by ignorance, inaction, or any cause, interferes with or delays his operations. He has the full confidence of the Government, is expected to enforce his authority, and will be firmly and heartily supported; but he will be responsible for any failure to exert his powers. You may communicate this to him.’”

Sherman was beaming around his cigar as he slapped Grant on the back and congratulated him. This dispatch was a not-so-veiled reference to McClernand and his attempts at causing trouble with his communiqués directly to Mr. Lincoln. This was total support, and support for Grant was support for his best subordinates. No longer did Sherman have to worry about losing Grant and coming under McClernand’s self-serving command.

“Thank you for this—” Grant was effusive, for Grant, as he shook Dana’s hand before the bearer of good tidings used it to relieve Sherman of his plate of roast beef with a cheerful, “Are you going to finish that, General? No, then allow me to finish it for you.” He tucked the beef inside a chunk of freshly baked bread and devoured it hungrily with the brandy.

Jesse watched him with resentful gaze. The crusty bread and the rare beef were also earmarked for that surgeon and his equally deserving steward. As for the brandy, if she didn’t act soon there would be nothing left to steal. Fate, however, was about to take a hand.

“Where’s that smoke coming from?” McPherson interrupted the celebrations to ask, pointing out the window, where black plumes were indeed billowing into the sky beyond the capitol building.

Sherman went to the door, opened it, and was almost knocked over by Colonel Wilson, rushing through to announce in his excited, reedy voice: “The convicts in the penitentiary have been released by their own people; they’ve set the prison buildings on fire.”

Sherman had long since gone to the front of the hotel to see what was happening. Grant now followed, with Wilson and McPherson bringing up the rear. Jesse stared at Dana, who was staring squint-eyed at the brandy decanter. He reached out for it; his hand hovered there, and then withdrew. He shook his head and hurried after the generals. The brandy could wait. He wanted to have something exciting, if not scandalous, to report to his master in Washington.

Jesse wasted no time. She drained the decanter to the last drop and rammed home the stopper. Then she put the canteen over her shoulder.

An hour later Jesse returned to the hotel dining room to steal the remaining fruit in the bowl. She was just fastening the strap on her groaning saddlebags when Cartwright’s head appeared around the door.

“Captain Van Allen said I’d find you in here. Got any booze?”

“Schhh—” she told him, and gestured for him to come in. “Close the door.” They were like two schoolchildren plundering the school larder at midnight.

She gave him the canteen. He sniffed the contents appreciatively and grinned. “Good girl. What else you got?” She showed him the fruit, some of which he took for Jacob, who was suffering a rare bout of constipation. “How ’bout tobacco?” There was a knock on the door. They both fell silent.

“Jesse?” It was Thomas Ransom’s distinctive voice.

“Chrissake!” Cartwright exploded. “I thought he’d be in Vicksburg by now waving Old Glory from the courthouse.”

Jesse looked at her companion uncertainly. Ransom opened the door and came in.

“Can’t turn ’round without bumpin’ into you,” the surgeon told him. He took the canteen and threw himself lengthways on the couch.

“We
are
going in the same direction,” Ransom pointed out good-naturedly, wincing slightly as he put the gunnysack he was carrying on the armchair. He produced three apples, a small jar of honey, some corn-bread, a hunk of brittle-looking toffee, and a small pouch of tobacco. “It’s not much, but you can share it with the doctor, and Jacob, of course,” he told Jesse.

Poor Ransom, his generosity was admirable, but misplaced. Jesse was turning into an expert forager. The occasional still-warm egg snatched from under a protesting hen, a wedge of freshly baked fruitcake disappearing off a window ledge where it had foolishly been left to cool. Some dried bacon stolen from a smokehouse that parched the throat but filled an empty stomach, cold, hard sweet potatoes, and a handful of overripe corn supplemented the petrified bread and coffee still untouched in her saddlebags after three days. Five days’ rations, Jesse could proudly boast, was easily stretched to ten if need be, for she was already learning, like so many other “veterans” of this rough and toughened army, “to live off the country.”

“The provisions came from my own mess table,” Ransom was saying, “the tobacco from a prisoner, an artillery captain, in exchange for a pair of my dry socks.” His smile was rueful as he placed the tobacco pouch in the doctor’s lap. “I hope you will appreciate my sacrifice and think charitably of me in my one pair of wet socks while you smoke it,” he said laughingly.

Cartwright took the tobacco as he took everything, with a resentful grunt. He looked at the Vermonter’s suddenly tight features as he winced again, passing a hand across his stomach.

“What’s the matter, got the Tennessee trots?” He knew the signs, the pale skin, the drawn look about the eyes. “Or is it ‘Mississippi mudslide’ in this state?”

“I’m fine.” Ransom was quick, too quick, to respond. “I don’t believe you have noticed?” He turned back to the girl, and made a slight forward motion of his shoulder, before grinning broadly.

“You’ve got your stars, sir,” Jesse said.

“Yes, it’s official, at last.” Ransom smiled at her hesitantly. “Won’t you congratulate me, Doctor?” he asked the surgeon who was watching them from the couch.

“Yer—congratulations.” The surgeon took a swig from the canteen.

The Vermonter brought something from his coat. “Jesse, I would like you to have these.” He put his eagle straps in her hands. “Take care of them for me.”

“I’d rather not.”

“I want you to have them.” Ransom stared at her, a pained expression on his handsome features and Cartwright stared at him.

“I wouldn’t know what to do with them.” Jesse put them on the table. “Send them to your mother.”

“But I want you to have them.”

“I said no.” There was a moment of strained silence before Jesse said in a calmer voice, “I can’t be responsible for them—after. They’ll be lost.” She put the eagles onto the empty gunnysack and pushed the sack toward him. Their eyes met for an instant and Ransom said, “All right. But if you change your mind—”

“I won’t.”

“I have something else for you,” the Vermonter said with an attempt at forced cheerfulness, “to celebrate my promotion.” He took a necklace from his pocket. “Some of the men were making them from the iridescent shells we found at Lake Providence. I thought of you—”

“General Ransom—” she began and then looked at Cartwright, who was lying on the couch grinning at her maliciously. “Thank you, sir.”