Forrest's men were over the rampart and inside the fort, and God only knew how the Federals were going to throw them out.
Nathan Bedford Forrest raised a polished brass spyglass to his eye to get a closer look at the fight for Fort Pillow. Distance fell away. As with everything else, he paid a price: the image was upside down. He was used to that, and it didn't faze him. The fringes of unnatural red and blue around the edges of things bothered him more.
“Lousy cheap thing,” he muttered. He'd had better telescopes, ones where the fringes weren't nearly so bad. But almost three years of constant travel left them water over the dam. He shrugged. This one, borrowed from a Confederate patriot in Jackson, showed.. enough.
He watched his men go down into the Yankees' foolish, useless ditch and then, only minutes later, scramble out on the far side. He watched his sharpshooters pick off two or three Federals who leaned across the earthwork or crawled out onto it so they could shoot down at the troopers in the ditch. He chuckled a little as he watched; in the spyglass's inverted image, the soldiers on top of the rampart looked as if they were about to fall off the edge of the world.
A moment later, he chuckled again, grimly. The homemade Yankees and runaway slaves inside Fort Pillow weren't really ready to fight, even if they thought they were. They could have made things much nastier for his men if they were bright enough to light the fuses on some shrapnel rounds and toss them over the rampart and down into the crowded ditch. The troopers trapped in there wouldn't have enjoyed that at all.
But neither Major Booth nor any of his officers had the brains to do it. The Federals didn't have long to think of such things, and now, with his own men into place right outside the rampart, it was too late. War didn't give you second chances.
Even across close to a quarter of a mile, the volley the Confederates fired into Fort Pillow sounded like a thunderclap. It must have hit the defenders the same way. Bedford Forrest was sure of that, even if he couldn't see into the fort. That wasn't the sorry spyglass's fault. Several hundred rifle muskets and pistols going off at once didn't just make a thunderclap. They also made the cloud from which it might have sprung. His troopers vanished into that cloud as they swarmed over the rampart and into the fort.
More shots rang out, these spaced far enough apart to be heard individually, not just as part of a greater roar. Through the gunfire, Rebel yells and other cries and the screams of wounded men rang out. “If we get in, them bluebellies is dead meat,” said a soldier near the general, pausing for a moment as he reloaded.
“That's about the size of it, Reuben.” Forrest nodded. “And I'll tell you something else, too-we're going to get in.”
“Well, hell, yes.” Reuben had no doubt in his mind.
Neither did Bedford Forrest, not really. He made hand-washing motions, feeling like Pontius Pilate again. Well too bad, he thought. If the Federals didn't have the brains to quit when he gave them the chance, weren't they asking to get crucified? He nodded again. They were, and his troopers would give them what they asked for.
“Come on, men! We can do it!” Major Bradford shouted. He heard other officers and sergeants in blue yelling the same thing. He really believed it. They'd fought so well for so long. Bad luck Major Booth stopped a bullet, but even so…
He never would have dreamt the niggers up from Memphis could fight the way they did. Were they as brave as white men? He still didn't know if he wanted to go that far-he was a Tennessee man himself, after all, even if he did fight for the Union-but they stood by their guns, they fired over the rampart, and they didn't run. What more could you ask?
“We can do it!” he yelled again.
Then the Confederates crouched down on the far side of the earth-work rose up like Lazarus and fired a volley that smacked into his men like an uppercut from a prizefighter. As soon as he saw soldiers — black and white — reel away from the rampart, some wounded or slain, others simply terrified, he knew how dreadful the danger was.
“Get back to the earthwork!” he shouted. “We have to keep them out!” He ran forward and shoved at a trooper from the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry, a man he knew well. “Get back, Jojo!”
Jojo wasn't inclined to listen. He wasn't inclined to remember military discipline, either. “Get stuffed, Bill,” he said, and pushed past his commandant. He hardly seemed to know where he was going anywhere to get away from the howling, yowling Confederates swarming up and over the rampart.
Bradford could have shot him in the back. A man deserting his post, a man disobeying his superior in combat… Nobody would say a word about it, even if anyone from the garrison was lucky enough to be in a position to write reports about what happened here today. Bradford didn't fire. Maybe Jojo would come to his senses in a little while and start fighting again. A dead man wouldn't, not till the Day of Resurrection.
And besides, Major William Bradford knew too painfully well how close to cutting and running he was himself.
Try as he would, he couldn't make himself go right up to the rampart and battle it out with the Confederates hand to hand. He did shoot at one of them who jumped down into Fort Pillow and ran at him with rifle musket clutched by the barrel and swung up over his head. He aimed for the Reb's midsection, but hit him in the left shoulder. His Army Colt pulled up and to the right when he fired.
With a howl of pain, the trooper reeled away. He dropped the rifle musket with which he would have clubbed Bradford to clutch at himself. Bright blood welled out between his fingers. Then a colored soldier hit him in the side of the head with the butt of his Springfield. The blow wasn't sporting, but it was damned effective. The Confederate swayed like a tall tree almost cut through, then fell at full length in the mud. Bradford half expected someone to yell, Timmmber!
Another Confederate shot the Negro. He too crumpled, both hands flying to his belly. The best he could hope for was a quick death. Belly wounds almost always killed, if not from the force of the bullet itself then from the fever that followed punctured bowels.
Bradford fired at the soldier in butternut. Even at point-blank range, he missed. A moment later, another black man tackled the trooper. They rolled on the ground, punching and kicking and kneeing and biting in a spasm of hatred and fury.
“Come on! Keep fighting them! As long as they don't get in, we can whip them!” That voice, so like his own, made Bradford's head whip around. His brother Theodorick was still very much in the fight. Theo had a pistol in one hand and one of his blue wigwag flags in the other. He fired at a Reb. The man went down.
“That's the fucker who was signaling the gunboat!” shouted another Confederate-a major. “Nail the lousy son of a bitch!”
Half a dozen of Bedford Forrest's troopers fired at Theodorick Bradford at the same time. At least three bullets struck home-in the chest, in the belly, in the leg.
“Theo!” Bill Bradford cried. He shot at one of the Confederates. The pistol ball caught the Reb just above the bridge of the nose. The man went down without a word, dead before he finished falling.
But Captain Theodorick Bradford was also down, feebly thrashing in the mud. For once careless of his own safety, Bill Bradford knelt beside his brother. “Hurts,” Theo choked out. Blood bubbled from his nose and ran from the corner of his mouth. “Hurts bad.”
“It'll be all right, Theo,” Bradford said, knowing too well it wouldn't.
His brother tried to answer, but only blood poured from his mouth. His eyes rolled up in his head. His chest heaved once, twice, as he fought for air. Then it was still. Bill Bradford smelled a harsh stink. Theo's bowels had let go. It was over.
For those few seconds, no one tried to murder Bradford as he bent over his brother's body. That wouldn't, couldn't, last. No matter what Bradford wanted to do for Theodorick, he had to stay alive or he'd never get the chance. He scrambled to his feet and fired again. The Colt clicked on an empty chamber. He threw it down, snatched up the one Theo had dropped, and fought on.
IX
Matt Ward hadn't thought much of the Federals garrisoning Fort Pillow. Half renegade Tennesseans, half
