16
Jamie and his Marauders had just made camp and set up picket lines when they heard the sounds of approaching horses. Two heartbeats later, the Marauders were in a defensive position, behind cover, with rifles and pistols at the ready.
But the approaching men were Rebels, dressed in plumed hats and gray coats with a red sash around the middle. One was a lieutenant, and he let out a rousing yell at the sight of the Marauder’s battle flag.
“By God, it’s MacCallister’s Marauders!” he yelled, and jumped from his horse. He strode up to Jamie and saluted smartly. “I’m Lieutenant Will Smith, from Morgan’s Raiders. And I have some news for you, sir.”
After introductions all around, the lieutenant and his men settled down for bacon, pan bread and coffee.
“The news, Lieutenant?” Jamie pressed the young officer.
“By all means, sir. We are attached to General Edmund Kirby Smith. We, being Colonel John Hunt Morgan and his Raiders. Colonel Morgan got a wire from President Davis telling him that you and your fine band of men were on the way and instructing you to join us, if you will.”
“Fine with me,” Jamie said.
Will Smith beamed, fairly busting with more news. Jamie, amused, waited, sipping his coffee and eating bread and bacon.
“Your son, Falcon, is a scout with us, sir.”
Jamie smiled, and then slowly nodded his head. “I want to see him as soon as possible, Mister Smith.”
“How about tomorrow morning, sir?”
* * *
Father and son first shook hands, and then embraced for a moment, to the cheering of Morgan’s Raiders and MacCallister’s Marauders. Then they walked off to stand alone for a few moments of private conversation.
“I got some letters for you, from Ma,” Falcon said, handing his father a packet of letters, tied with two ribbons, one Blue, one Gray.
Jamie smiled. “Your mother always did have a touch of the dramatic in her, Boy.” Jamie put the letters in his pocket. “How’d you come by these?”
“I went home for a visit. Stayed a few days. Ma is well. Ian is fighting for the Yankee side; so is Matt. Two of Juan’s boys, Jorge and Tomas, have joined up with the Gray. Joleen’s husband is with the Blue. Sam, Jr., joined up with the Blue. Wells and Robert are with some Negro regiment up north. Swede and Hannah’s oldest boy left to join up with some unit in Iowa. Of course, Morgan is still scouting for the army out west. I hope he stays out there.”
“There are plenty of men still in the valley to protect the people?”
“Ample, Pa. Ample.” He smiled. “I heard about you and your men teachin’ the Yankees a hard lesson about ridin’ roughshod over civilians.”
“I think they got the message, all right.” Jamie gave his youngest son a good once-over. Falcon had leaned down some, but was still almighty big, with bulging muscles in his arms and shoulders. He was a handsome young man, lean-hipped and cold-eyed; but his eyes could fill with good humor in an instant. “But those men weren’t representative of most Union soldiers, Falcon. We have an equal amount wearing the Gray who are just as bad, or worse.”
Falcon studied his father for a moment. “How come, Pa?”
“How come what, boy?”
“How come you joined up with the Gray?”
“I don’t know that I can put the why of it into words. It just seemed like the right thing to do.”
“Me, too, Pa. Thing that worries me is, when this war is over, no matter who wins, is this goin’ to tear our family apart?”
“I don’t believe it will, boy. We’ll probably argue about it for years to come. There might even be a few blows exchanged. But we’re too close a family to let it destroy the way we feel about each other.”
“I hope you’re right, Pa. But it’s not been that way among a lot of other men. Right here in Morgan’s command there’s a man named Ferguson who has a brother fightin’ for the Blue. They’ve sworn to kill each other. They hate one another. Really hate. They go into battle lookin’ for each other. Here in East Tennessee and Eastern Kentucky times are cruel. Meaner than any place I’ve seen fightin’ in this war. Some units—on both sides—kill prisoners.”
Jamie gave him a sharp look. “Colonel Morgan?”
Falcon shook his head. “Oh, no, sir. He wouldn’t stand for that. His men hit hard and fast and they don’t mess around. But a prisoner is treated well. But I never seen such hate as I’ve found in these mountains.”
“I would imagine, son, some of these families have been feuding for years. The war is just an excuse for many. I hold no rancor toward any man who follows his conscience in this conflict. And when it’s over, it will be over, and then we’ve all got to get in double harness and pull together to rebuild this nation . . . or nations, as the case may well be.”
Falcon smiled sadly. “You know as well as me, Pa, that we ain’t gonna win this war. But I’m gonna fight ’til it’s over. The Federal government just don’t have the right to tell me what I can or can’t do as long as I’m doin’ my best to live right.”
Jamie put a big hand on his son’s shoulder. “I think, boy, you just summed up why the both of us are here.”
* * *
Morgan’s Raiders and MacCallister’s Marauders had a combined force of over sixteen hundred men, and they were an awesome sight as they rode west the following morning. General Smith had ordered the guerrilla fighters to harass and disrupt Federal forces along the supply line between Nashville and Louisville.
Along the way, Morgan acted as recruiter for the Southern Cause, and enlisted several hundred volunteers. As they rode toward a town just across the border in Kentucky, where a unit of Union troops were garrisoned, pro-Union bushwhackers harassed the long column.
After one of his own men was shot and wounded from ambush, Jamie personally charged Satan into the brush and came back half-dragging a young boy of about twelve or thirteen. His musket was taller than he was.
“You better throw that one back, Colonel,” one of Morgan’s men good-naturedly called. “He’s not big enough to be a keeper.”
“I’ll have the cook make him up a sugar tit,” Morgan said with a laugh. “Then we can send him on back to his mama.”
Jamie dismounted and put the boy over his knee and proceeded to tan his butt proper until the boy’s rear end, under his homespun britches, was hot enough to heat bathwater just by sitting in it.
Then Jamie set the lad on his bare feet and glared down at him. “Boy, you use this rifle to help keep your family fed. You use this rifle to defend hearth and home in case of attack. But we’re not attacking your home or bothering your ma.” He handed the lad his musket. “Now you git, boy. Move!”
The boy took off like the devil himself was nipping at his heels. He did not look back.
Years later, he would still be boasting that Jamie MacCallister was the one who put him squarely on the path of righteousness.
Jamie walked over to the man the boy had wounded. The ball had just grazed the man’s arm; it was a burn, but not a serious one.
“You all right, Jennings?”
“Oh, I’m fine.” He chuckled. “But that boy will long remember that hidin’, I’m thinkin’.”
With a twinkle in his eyes, Morgan had personally mixed up a bit of sugar and butter, tied it in a knot at the end of a clean handkerchief, and solemnly handed it to Jennings. “Here, son,” he said. “With a terrible wound like that you’d best be pacified with your own sugar tit!”
Red-faced amid the laughter, Jennings climbed back into the saddle, and the column rode on ... but with a grin, Jennings sucked the sugar tit dry.
“I’d like to have one of them myself,” Falcon muttered.
* * *
The Raiders and the Marauders attacked the garrison just across the border in Kentucky without losing a man. The battle lasted about fifteen minutes before the Union commander, seeing that he was badly outnumbered, surrendered. Jamie noted with satisfaction that the prisoners were all well-treated. One of Morgan’s men, Ferguson, a man who hated Yankees, wanted to kill them all.
“Restrain yourself, Champ,” Morgan told the man. “Or leave my command.”
The man gave up his habit of killing Yankee prisoners—for the time being.
In less than a month, Morgan and MacCallister seized tons of supplies, hundreds of horses, tore up miles of railroad track, took more than fifteen hundred prisoners, captured twenty towns, and demoralized the Union forces between Nashville and Louisville. By the time the Union forces were strong enough to launch any type of effective assault against the guerrillas, the Raiders and the Marauders were heading back to Chattanooga, to receive accolades for a job well done.
* * *
Matthew and Ian MacCallister, now both officers in the Union cavalry, were on the march toward Tennessee. Jorge and Tomas Nunez were part of Hood’s cavalry, and they were on their way from Texas to Tennessee, as part of an advance unit. Sam Montgomery, Jr., and Jamie’s son-in-law, Pat MacKensie, were part of a cavalry unit from Ohio. And Swede and Hannah’s boy, Igemar, was part of an infantry unit coming in from Iowa.
Tennessee was about to come under full siege, with members of the MacCallister family caught up right in the middle of it . . . some in the Blue, some in the Gray.
* * *
General Bragg finally came up with a plan of action. But it was a plan that no one, on either side of the conflict, expected. Bragg was to march north through Kentucky, securing that state for the South, and then take Louisville and Cincinnati. The news of that quickly spread, and the citizens of both cities went into a panic. Which was exactly what General Bragg wanted.
Meanwhile, Jamie and his Marauders, Morgan and his Raiders, and Nathan Bedford Forrest were still busy raising hell with the Union’s supply lines and railroads. But this time they concentrated on Yankee forces in Tennessee. Their objective was twofold: by constantly harassing the Yankees, the commanding general of the Union army in Tennessee could not advance his troops to Chattanooga . . . he was too busy dealing with the Confederate guerrillas.
Jamie came up with a plan, and it was met with approval and smiles.
Launch a sneak attack against the Federal garrison at Louisville.
* * *
The commanding general of the Union forces around Louisville put out a call for civilian volunteers to aid his forces, in the form of a militia; his regular troops were mostly green recruits, as yet not battle tested. They were about to be, in a limited way.
In small groups, Jamie and his Marauders had left Tennessee, riding north through Kentucky, heading for Louisville. Thanks to the hundreds of Southern sympathizers along their preplanned route through the state, the Marauders were able to get supplies and be warned of any Yankee patrols that might be in the area. They also had places to stable and rest their horses, sleep, and have a hot meal they didn’t have to cook.
Far in the back of Jamie’s mind, another raid was still just a tiny seed; but it was growing, and just the idea of it amused Jamie. But he spoke to no one about it. He would let the idea nurture for a time—for the more he thought about it, the better he liked it.
While Jamie was moving his men toward Louisville, and Forrest and Morgan were raiding south as a diversion for Jamie, Lee handed the Federals a smashing defeat in Virginia when McClellan tried to take Richmond in a campaign that would be known as the Seven Days’ Battle.
Up to now the war had been going decidedly in the Union’s favor; now it had become more like a seesaw. The Federals would attack and be victorious; then the Rebels would attack and take back the ground. In the nation’s capital there was much grumbling and finger pointing and placing of blame. Generals on both sides (but mainly in the Union army) were losing their jobs and being demoted and promoted, and transferred and shifted around from post to post. In many instances, after only a few weeks, or at best, a few months, many of them would be returned to their original commands. It was difficult to keep up with just who was commanding what army and where.
To make matters worse, as they always had and always would, the Congress of the United States stayed busy running their mouths, constantly attempting to direct the war while sitting on their penguin asses in Washington . . . that much would never change.
In mid-August, 1862, Jamie and his Marauders began massing just a few miles outside of Louisville and only a mile from a garrison of very green Union troops. They would not be green after this night, for the ground was about to be stained red with their blood.
My darling Jamie,
As I take pen in hand this lovely afternoon in our valley, my thoughts are of you and the boys—all the boys from this valley who have chosen to follow their hearts in this terrible conflict.
I pray this letter and all the others I have written will find you well. It is lonely here without you, but I am staying busy. Sarah, Hannah, Maria, and our girls and other women of the village all get together at someone’s home for a couple of hours each day, to have coffee, and to sew and talk and give each other comfort. So many of our young men have left. I pray that all will return.
By reading the newspapers I know that you are now a colonel and the leader of a guerrilla band called the Marauders. Was that name of your choosing? The newspapers we receive all make you out to be some sort of monster. I have to laugh at some of the reports concerning your daring-do. Perhaps I should write some of these newspapers and tell them of the time you forgot to tighten your cinch strap and fell off your horse right into a watering trough. Remember that incident? The children were so delighted they pestered me for a month to allow them to deliberately distract you so they could loosen the cinch strap and see you do it again. Naturally, I refused . . .
Jamie chuckled at the memory. For exactly one month after he landed in the horse trough, his saddle went under his horse’s belly again, and he got dumped out on the ground. It would be just like Kate to do that.
The crops look good and the livestock are all fat and healthy. I go out to the pasture every day to feed Horse his daily apple or bit of sugar and to stroke his muzzle. He misses you, too. I can tell . . .
If anyone else had tried to pet Horse or hand feed him, the aging mean-eyed monster would have taken their hand off at the elbow. But with Kate, he was as gentle as a kitten.
I keep a daily diary of events taking place in our twin valleys so you will have lots of reading to do when you return home. And I know you will come back to me. While you are in the midst of life-taking, here, new life is being born. We have a number of new babies, for before the boys left, they wanted to be sure they would leave something behind for their wives to remember them by. They certainly did. You are a grandfather—again.
Caroline had twin boys, Joleen had a girl, and Megan delivered twin girls. One thing about it, my darling, the world will never run out of MacCallisters or their kin.
I miss you so very much. Take great care and come back to me.
Love, Kate