South Mountain
14 September1862
First Sergeant Jeff Savage had ridden out of Summerton, Texas, a week after he had been married. He’d pointed his horse north, leaving behind his new wife, Amy. But he didn’t ride to join the Confederate forces of Robert E. Lee. He had been destined to wear the blue of the Union.
At the time he’d thought it the right thing to do. But now, as he joined his men while they formed up, ready to assault Turner’s Gap at South Mountain, he wasn’t so sure.
He was part of the Colonel John Gibbon’s Brigade; a non-commissioned officer in the 6th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment. Which, at that point in time, numbered not much more than four-hundred men.
They’d been ordered forward that morning, and now, late in the afternoon, were finally in position. The men of the 6th had been listening to rifle fire and cannons all day. This was their turn.
Their mission was to act as support for the 7th Wisconsin regiment as it advanced on the right. On the left was the 2nd Wisconsin, supported by the 19th Indiana. Thus, they would form a second line a little way behind the first.
The artillery support was to be provided by a small section of the 4th U.S. Artillery.
Savage could hear one of the other sergeants, a brute named Foster, barking orders at his men. At one point he thought he heard Foster threaten to shoot any man who took a backward step.
‘Don’t that bastard ever let up?’
Savage looked to his left at the young first lieutenant. His name was Paul Tally. Savage had been with him for almost two months now, ever since Tally had come in as a replacement. Now he was in command of B company since Captain Rodgers had gone down ill.
‘Easy, sir,’ Savage cautioned him. ‘Let’s just take one hill at a time.’
‘I wish Major Dawes would get rid of him. Or a Reb for that matter. Maybe today, if we’re lucky.’
Savage nodded. ‘Maybe, Lieutenant.’
He adjusted the grip on his musket. It was all ready to fire its .58 caliber round and had its bayonet fixed.
Tally said, ‘I’m sure glad we ain’t going up there first.’
Savage shifted his gaze to their front and the sloping ground which lay before them in the distance.
There was movement to their right and Major Dawes appeared with Captain Nelson. The major looked at Tally and said, ‘Lieutenant, I want some skirmishers out in front of the advance. You and your men move forward. I’ve told Lieutenant Wilson to do the same.’
Tally and Savage looked along the line to where Wilson was already falling out with his men. Savage ground his teeth together when he saw that Foster was one of them.
‘You just may get your wish, sir,’ Savage murmured.
‘What was that, Sergeant?’ Dawes snapped.
Savage looked at the young major with the black beard and hair to match. He said, ‘We’re going to catch hell getting up there, sir.’
Dawes nodded. ‘Get ready to move out.’
Tally said, ‘Looks like I spoke too soon.’
#
The young private fell beside where Savage lay hunkered down behind a large, granite rock. His sightless eyes stared blankly at him and blood ran from a ghastly wound in his throat where a Reb Minié ball had ripped through it.
To the front of the advancing skirmishers was a two-storey house with Confederate sharpshooters stationed in it. And the bastards could shoot.
The advance was bogged down because of it and to top it all off …
BOOM!
... the Rebs were throwing artillery at them.
‘Sergeant Savage!’
Savage looked to his right and saw Tally crouched behind a fallen tree. ‘Sir?’
‘We need to dig them Rebs out of that damned house! Otherwise the 7th will be up our ass with nowhere to go.’
Savage looked behind them and saw the advancing ranks of the 7th Wisconsin. Out front, an officer waved his sword over his head as he urged his men on.
Beneath him the ground seemed to heave and then explode upwards. The earth engulfed the officer and when it came back down, he was gone. The hole that opened where he had been moments earlier, was quickly being closed as the Wisconsin men came on doggedly.
A voice called out from Savage’s left and he turned his head to see Wilson crouching low and headed his way. He dropped beside Savage and then Tally joined them both.
‘We need to flush those bastards out of that house,’ Wilson said.
Savage noticed a small cut on the young officer’s cheek. Probably made by a sliver of rock or a wooden splinter.
‘We were just discussing that, Joel,’ Tally told the officer.
‘What do you suggest?’
Tally shrugged.
‘I guess we could try a frontal assault,’ Wilson proposed.
‘That’ll just get everyone killed, sirs,’ Savage told them in a blunt tone.
More explosions erupted behind their position. Men screamed as they fell. One kept up his high-pitched cries and when Savage glanced in his direction, noted that the man was writhing on the ground, grasping at the place where his legs used to be.
‘Sergeant Savage!’
His eyes snapped back to Tally.
‘What do you propose, Sergeant?’
Savage held up an insubordinate hand and looked back towards the house that the Rebs were using. The support artillery had already blown a substantial hole in it, but the sharpshooters were still able to occupy the damaged building.
‘All right. This is what we can do. I’ll take some men with me and hook around the left of the house. Lieutenant Wilson can do the same with some of his men. Lieutenant Tally, if you hold a base of fire from here and keep the Rebs’ heads down, it might just work.’
Tally nodded. ‘Okay. Do it.’
Savage and his men were about ready to move when a captain from the 7th Wisconsin appeared. ‘What in hell is the damned hold up, Lieutenant?’
‘There’s sharpshooters in the house to our front, Captain. My men are just about to clean them out.’
‘Well, hurry it up, damn it. I need to get my men to the top of this damned thing.’
Tally ignored the last comment and looked at Savage. ‘It’s all yours, Sergeant Savage.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Savage murmured and climbed to his feet.
‘Shit!’ Savage cursed. He’d lost two men already and he was still short of the blasted house.
A Reb Minié chewed dry splinters from the deadfall behind which he was sheltering. He glanced across the way to see how the others were going. It looked as though Wilson’s men hadn’t fared much better.
Savage watched as they tried to push further forward at Wilson’s urging. The officer rose to his feet and started forward. He’d gone all of two steps when his head snapped back, and he fell to the ground like a rag doll.
Savage cursed. ‘Damn it.’
He gritted his teeth and said to the three remaining men with him, ‘Come on, let’s get these bastards.’
Savage led them forward at a run. Lead fizzed about them as the Rebs let loose with a furious volley. Another of Savage’s group fell, shot through the throat, blood spurting.
Finally, they made it. Savage hugged a side wall and started to work his way around to the back. From his position, through the thin walls he could hear those inside firing their muskets.
Savage said, ‘Follow me.’
He crashed in through the back door and found himself in a large kitchen. The two men behind him followed closely as he made his way along a narrow hall. As they moved down it, they checked three rooms and found them empty.
At the front of the house the hall opened out into a large foyer littered with glass from smashed windows and other debris.
There was movement behind them and the men whirled around to see Foster and one other man with him. There was no sign of Wilson.
Before any of them could speak, gunfire sounded from one of the two rooms at the front on the ground floor. It was closely followed by more from upstairs.
By using hand signals, Savage told Foster and his man, plus one of Savage’s, to go upstairs and take care of the Confederates on the second level.
They moved slowly up the stairs to the landing while Savage and his remaining man entered the room where the enemy was.
It was a living room and the once-pristine furniture it contained, was either turned over or smashed when the front wall had been breached by artillery fire.
The larger pieces had been used to form a barricade at the large, jagged opening where two Rebel sharpshooters had taken up position.
One of them must have sensed the intruders’ presence and he swung about to see them just inside the living room doorway. He gave a shouted warning and desperately tried to free his six-gun from its holster.
Savage lunged forward and closed the gap between them. The rifle with the bayonet attached, lanced out and its tip rammed into the soldier’s chest with brutal force. A scream of pain escaped his lips.
Blood spurted when Savage ripped the bayonet free and then stabbed the man again. This time, however, the steel tip grated against bone before it slipped between two ribs and pierced the heart.
Meanwhile, the second sharpshooter had turned and brought his rifle up to fire at Savage. There was nothing he could do as he pulled the bayonet free except brace himself for the shot when it came.
When it did come it wasn’t from the Reb. It was from the soldier behind Savage. He’d snapped off a shot even though Savage was close to where the shot was aimed. The soldier’s thinking was, his sergeant was dead if he didn’t do it; it was worth the risk.
As it was, the lead slug slammed into the Reb’s chest and killed him before he could fire.
‘Hell, Sarge. He almost had you there.’
Savage let out a ragged breath. ‘Yeah, thanks.’
The house was suddenly filled with the screams of a man from upstairs. Pain-filled, unceasing screams which chilled the blood. Through them, the two men below could hear shouts.
‘Come on,’ Savage snapped and headed for the stairs.
He took them two at a time and once at the top, ran along the hall to the room where the screams were emanating from.
When he burst through the open door into the room, he found Foster and the two other Union soldiers.
The one from Savage’s small force looked at his sergeant with pleading eyes. ‘You gotta make him stop.’
When he looked at Foster, Savage could see what he meant. The first of the sharpshooters was on the floor, dead. The second was being brutally tortured by the deranged sergeant.
Foster was continually stabbing him with his bayonet which was fixed to his musket. Nothing killing, however. Thus, the constant screams.
Blood streamed from the Confederate’s legs, arms, lower abdomen; every place that pain and suffering could be inflicted without causing death.
Savage grasped Foster by the shoulder and tried to drag him away.
The sergeant shook Savage free and kept going.
Foster stabbed the man in his guts. ‘How do you like that, you son of a bitch?’
‘Foster, stop!’ Savage snapped.
Still he kept on.
Savage tried again. This time Foster whirled about, his eyes wide and crazy. ‘Frig off you bastard or I’ll do the same to you.’
Savage’s move was swift and violent. He drew his six-gun and swung it up and across. The hard barrel cracked against Foster’s jaw and the foresight opened a long, jagged gash in his cheek.
Foster went down hard and never moved. His man started to protest when Savage turned and pointed the cocked sidearm at his face. Eyes glittered with fire when he snarled, ‘Get away from me!’
The soldier retreated from the room.
‘What are we going to do about him, Sarge?’
Savage looked at the Rebel soldier who was now hunched over whimpering. He set his jaw firm and shot the tortured man in the head.
‘What about Foster?’
‘Leave him there. With a little luck, the Rebs will get him.’
Once they had extricated themselves from the house, Savage joined up with the rest of the 6th Wisconsin who were now engaged, along with the other regiments, in a battle of attrition against Confederates dug in behind some stone walls.
Savage and the rest of the 6th were on the right flank of the 7th. They’d been at each other for hours and now it was dark. Finally, with ammunition all but gone, they were ordered to conserve what little they had, and silence fell along the Union line.
Lieutenant Tally dropped down beside Savage and whispered, ‘Something’s up. We’re getting reports of movement all along our front.’
‘You reckon the Rebs are pulling out, sir?’
‘I guess we’ll find out soon. How are the men off for ammunition?’
‘Some of the boys are already down to throwing rocks. Most of us have a couple of good volleys left before we’re down to doing the same.’
Tally nodded. ‘I’ll do what I can to get some more ammunition brought up before dawn. Maybe Colonel Bragg will be able to get his hands on some.’
Savage knew it was wishful thinking. There would be none brought up to them. Come morning, they would have to fix bayonets and charge, or leave the field of battle. Savage said, ‘Yes, sir.’
Tally mumbled something under his breath.
‘What was that, sir?’
‘I said this is a bastard of a position to be in, Jeff.’
‘We’ll make do, sir.’
Tally was silent for a moment and then asked, ‘Tell me, Sergeant, what makes a man from Texas come north to fight for the Union? I mean, you don’t have to answer, but I’m curious.’
‘It was simple really. I just think that our country should be a united one. Not divided by those who wish to get rich by enslaving a race of people.’
Tally was about to ask another question when the night erupted with gunfire. Lead hornets cut through the air out of the darkness. Bright orange flashes lit the night, illuminating the men behind them.
‘Shit!’ Savage shouted. ‘Stand to! Rebs to your …whatever! Open fire!’
All along the line the Union troops started to return fire. The Confederates were taken by surprise. They’d emerged from their cover behind the stone wall under the illusion that their enemy was out of ammunition. Now they had learned the hard way that they were wrong.
The 6th Wisconsin used what little ammunition they had left and cut the Confederate troops to ribbons. On their left, the 7th Wisconsin fixed bayonets and charged. Once they had closed far enough, they too unleashed a leaden hell and forced the Rebel troops back.
After it was all over, the 6th Wisconsin regrouped and prepared for the next attack.
Around midnight, Lieutenant Tally found Savage and said, ‘We’re being relieved. Gather your men and fall back.’
Savage breathed an inward sigh of relief. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘One more thing, Sergeant. Good work, today.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
When they withdrew, the 6th had lost a total of ninety men. Eleven killed and seventy-nine wounded.
It was here at Turner’s gap that the brigade, which consisted of the 2nd, 6th, and 7th Wisconsin, along with the 19th Indiana regiment, earned the nickname, “The Iron Brigade”.
In a few days, the 6th Wisconsin, along with Savage, would be back in battle once more at a place called Antietam, in a bloody killing ground filled with corn.