A Lieutenant at Eighteen Part 23

DECK FINDS HIMSELF IN A TIGHT PLACE

The enemy were utterly demoralized, crazed with terror, devoid of reason and common-sense. The Mississippi, Alabama, and most of the Tennessee regiments of the Southern army were disciplined and steady troops in which such a panic would have been impossible; but there were others even worse than those described by General Schoepf, and the latter were always in the advance during a retreat. It was such as these that formed the rabble seeking to obtain shelter behind the breastworks.

In the mob reason was dethroned, and even common-sense had taken wings; for the fleeing ma.s.s were in more danger from each other than from the fire of the artillery, and whole sections of them were borne down by those pressing forward from the rear, and were crushed by the feet of men and horses.

Deck attempted to resist the flow of the tide towards the works; but he might as well have tried to counteract the great bore of the Amazon.

His sabre was in his hand; but he had not the heart to use it upon the terrified ma.s.s, who had thrown away their muskets and knapsacks on the field, because they impeded their flight. A battery of artillery in retreating had mired one of its guns in one of the soft places in the field, and had abandoned it, as stated by General Crittenden.

With his great strength, a.s.sisted by a few others, Sergeant Knox had striven to open a way for the escape of the platoon to their former position; but they struggled in vain against the crazy and senseless mob. A company or platoon of Confederate cavalry had forced its way into the crowd nearly to the ground occupied by Deck's force, though they had used their sabres to accomplish it. Life had pushed his horse forward in the direction he wished to go; but the mob seized the animal's bridle to save themselves, and, by stress of numbers, had crowded him back.

One of the openings in the breastworks was near the spot; and the rabble in front of the cavalrymen pushed forward, and entered the intrenchments, thus making way for those behind them. But that was not the direction Deck and his command wished to go, and they resisted the mob as long as they could.

"I think we shall have to use our cheese-knives," suggested Life, as they were crowded forward in the pa.s.sage to the fort.

"No, Life! That would be a terrible slaughter of unarmed men, and I will not do it," replied Deck. "I would rather be taken prisoner than murder these helpless and terrified people."

"Threaten them with the pistols if they don't get out of the way," the sergeant proposed. "They are jamming us into the fort."

"You might as well threaten them with the pistols if they don't fly away up into the air, for they can't move," returned the lieutenant.

"This is not a battle; only a struggle for life on the part of the retreating enemy."

Life said no more. The s.p.a.ce between the platoon and the hill from which the infantry had retreated, and which Deck had attempted to flank, was full of men retreating from the grape of the artillery which had now opened upon them, full of struggling forms intent upon reaching the shelter of the breastworks. There was no pa.s.sage there.

"Leftenant, the rest of the squadron is formed near the hill, and they are draggin' in squads of prisoners," said Life Knox.

"Are they using their sabres?" asked Deck.

"No; they have sheathed them, and all they do is to shove 'em in like city policemen."

"Neither the staff-officer nor my father would shoot or cut down unarmed and unresisting men; but perhaps they expect to capture the whole army at a later hour. I can't do what they will not do," added the lieutenant. "But"--

He did not say what he intended, for the cavalry company, which had forced its way into the midst of the crowd, began to drive their horses forward, the rabble behind them pressing on in that direction. The pressure was too great for the Riverlawns to withstand, and they were pushed forward in spite of their best efforts to hold their ground.

"We might as well go with the tide, Life," said Deck hopelessly, as he gave way to the pressure.

"No man can help hisself here," replied the sergeant.

"We may as well make way for this rabble," added the lieutenant. "They will shove each other away from the entrance, and when the coast is clear we will take our chance of getting out of the fort."

Life Knox yielded the point; for, if they were not to cut their way through the crowd, this was absolutely the only thing they could do.

They were pressed forward into the intrenchment. Deck observed as he gave way to the pressure behind him that the soldiers from the field, or near it,--for not a few had not been in the battle,--hastened from the entrance to the works, towards the middle of it; in fact, they were ordered to do so by the guard in charge of the camp, which extended for over a mile across the tongue of land formed by the c.u.mberland and the creek that flowed into it near Robertsport.

Lieutenant Lyon did not follow the example of the fugitives, and there was still nothing but a rabble near the entrance; and the guard, with its officers, were a considerable distance from him, and could give his command no orders. Instead of doing as others did, he led his force to the verge of the great river, down to which the high banks, amounting almost to cliffs, descended at an angle of about forty-five degrees.

The lieutenant could do nothing, but he kept up a tremendous thinking all the time. By this time he was conscious that he had been forced into a tight place. He reined in his steed when he had advanced perhaps the third of a mile across the camp, defended by the breastworks, and gave the order for his men to halt; but it was not spoken with his customary vim, for he was somewhat depressed by the situation.

He was in a Confederate camp, and all his powers of mind were directed towards the means of getting out of it; for it would have broken his heart to hand over his fifty men as prisoners to a Southern officer. He looked at the entrance; but that was as crowded as at any time before, and it was impossible for him to march out that way. Then he looked down the steep and lofty banks of the c.u.mberland. His horses and those of his troopers could swim like fishes; for it had been a part of the drill at Riverlawn to exercise the animals in the water, and they had often crossed Bar Creek with their riders on their backs, and they had even swam them over the Green River, though never in the rapids.

Deck considered a plan for descending the banks to the stream, swimming the horses a mile or two down the river, and then of escaping across the country to the position of the rest of the squadron. He was about to ask Sergeant Knox for his opinion, when the company of Confederate cavalry which had been next to his force outside the works rode over to the side of the camp he had chosen, and halted a few rods from his position.

But this body did not seem to be in a belligerent mood, and did not appear to take much notice of the platoon. Possibly they were ashamed of their conduct on the field; for they had been the first of the enemy's cavalry to arrive at the works, and they must have been among the first to run away. The men did not look like a fair specimen of the cavalry of the other side which the troopers had seen.

"We must get out of this place somehow," said Deck to the orderly sergeant, who had brought up a little behind him.

"I don't believe there is many more outside who want to get into this place," replied Life; "and I reckon the major will be looking this way for us, for he couldn't help seeing that we had been crowded in here."

"I don't see that he can do anything for us, unless he fights the whole force of the enemy outside; and I know they are not all cowards, like some of these fellers what worked harder to get into this fort than they would to git inter the kingdom o' heaven," answered Life.

"I don't look for any help from the rest of the squadron. If we don't get out on our own hook I think we shall have to stay here," replied Deck. "What do you think of escaping by the river? We can easily swim the horses down the stream a mile or two; for there is not much current near the sh.o.r.e, though it is strong in the middle of the river."

The sergeant rode over to the high bank, and looked it over in an apparently careless manner, so as not to attract attention, as far up as the great bend just above Mill Springs. He shook his head significantly as he resumed his former position.

"The swimmin' is all right after you git the hosses inter the water; but you've got to crack the nut afore you kin eat it, Leftenant."

"Is there any difficulty in cracking the nut?" asked Deck.

"I reckon that's whar all the diffikilty comes in. It has rained like Niagery for two days, and it has been doin' not quite so bad all this afternoon. Them banks is as soft as an Injun bannock half baked; and there ain't no foothold for hosses. I wouldn't resk it for two per cent a month," returned Life very decidedly.

Probably the sergeant was correct in his view, though Deck thought still that it was practicable. General Crittenden swam his cavalry over the river in the night, but some of his men and horses were drowned in the attempt. He found the descent of the steep banks a great obstacle to his retreat. But the crowd at the entrance to the intrenchment had diminished considerably, and the lieutenant began to think he could cut his way to it with less peril than he could swim his force in the river, especially as it was beginning to be dark.

Another circ.u.mstance came in the way of the execution of the plan.

Perhaps the company of cavalry near him had noted the examination of the banks of the river by the lieutenant and the sergeant, and may have had a suspicion of what was pa.s.sing through their minds. At least, it soon appeared that the captain of the company had other views in regard to the disposal of the Riverlawns. He had moved his command nearer to the platoon, and stretched it across the camp some little distance.

A little later, a mounted Confederate officer rode to this end of the line. He looked over the Southern company first, and asked to what regiment it belonged. Deck could not hear the reply in full, but only that it was a Tennessee regiment. Then he rode a little farther, and seemed to be somewhat astonished when he saw a force wearing the blue.

"What is that force in the corner, Captain?" he asked of the officer to whom he had spoken before, while he continued to observe the body in blue.

"It is a Yankee platoon of fifty men that we captured a mile or more from the breastwork," replied the Confederate captain; and it could be seen that his men smiled when he gave this reply.

"To what regiment do these troopers belong?"

"I don't know certainly, but I reckon it was a Kentucky regiment."

"How happened you to capture half a company, and not the whole of it?"

"Well, you see, Major, the Kentucky regiment had better horses than our Tennessee regiment, and they worried us a heap. We were retreating, for we had been flanked by a force four times as big as ours, and this regiment pursued us. Our regiment turned on them, and whipped them soundly. My company was fighting this platoon, and we surrounded them, and made them prisoners."

"Was that Kentucky regiment of cavalry full?" asked the major, with a frown on his brow.

"It was, Major, for I counted the ten companies," returned the captain without wincing. "This platoon fought like wildcats; but my men stood up to the work like heroes, as they are; and when we had surrounded them, they could not help themselves, and we drove them before us to the camp."

"I have no doubt that you will be promoted to the rank of brigadier-general for your meritorious service; but my information differs somewhat from yours, for I have learned that the only Kentucky cavalry on the field was four companies of the First, four others being on detached duty on the Millersville Road."

"But you see, Major, my informant may have given me incorrect reports,"

stammered the captain.

"Who was your informant, Captain? You counted the companies of the Kentucky regiment yourself."