liquor into the wounded man’s mouth, but the brandy just rolled right back out again, unswallowed.
“Try to take some down, General. Please try to take some down.”
“Sir, apply a tourniquet,” Abner suggested.
“A tourniquet?” Harris replied, obviously confused by the term. He shrugged. “I don’t know what a tourniquet is.”
Quickly, Abner removed his belt and wrapped it around the general’s leg, just above the wound. Putting a stick in it, he twisted it down as tightly as he could get it, then he looked into Johnston’s face.
“General! General! Can you hear me?” Abner shouted.
When there was no answer, Abner lifted Johnston’s eyelid with his thumb and looked into his eye, then leaned forward to listen to Johnston’s chest. Finally, with a sigh, he took off the impromptu tourniquet and stood up.
“Is he . . . ?” Governor Harris asked.
“Dead,” Abner replied, answering the unfinished question. He started toward his horse.
“Where are you going?” Harris asked.
Abner mounted. “General Beauregard must be told,” Abner said.
“What are your orders, General?” Abner asked after informing Beauregard that Johnston was dead.
“You are relieved of your duties as an aide de-camp,” Beauregard said. “You may return to your own regiment.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“As soon as you return, inform Colonel Culpepper.”
“Colonel Culpepper is dead, sir.”
“Very well, inform whoever is in command that we will continue our attacks against the Sunken Road. The Yankees are holding there and we must dislodge them.”
“General, we have already launched twelve separate attacks against that road, all without success,” said a colonel with a smoke-blackened face. “And the toll has been terrible,” he added. “Each time we make an attack, we must climb over the bodies of the men who were killed previously.”
“Then we will launch attack number thirteen,” Beuregard insisted. “And this one will not fail. I have ordered artillery support.”
Abner watched as the heavy guns were brought up from other places on the field. One by one the caissons were unlimbered, swung around, then anchored in place. The gun crews went about their business of loading the guns with powder, grape, and canister. Then, at nearly point-blank range, sixty-two guns opened up on the defenders in the Sunken Road. The Hornet’s Nest, as both armies were now calling this place, was enveloped in one huge crashing explosion of grapeshot, shrapnel, shards of shattered rock, and splintered trees.
Finally, the artillery barrage stilled and the Confederates launched their attack, not running and screaming across the field, but marching as if on parade. Abner Murback, who, only two days earlier had been a private, was now commanding one of the companies of the Fusiliers, and he marched in front of his men, his pistol drawn.
For a moment it was quiet, except for the beating of the drums, the jangle of equipment, and the brush of footsteps. It was so quiet that Abner could hear talking in the Yankee lines.
“Here come the Rebs,” someone said.
“My God, ain’t they ever goin’ to quit? We done kilt near as many people as they got in the whole state of Mississippi.”
The Confederates continued their advance. There were no challenging Rebel yells, no cheers, no vitality in their movements. Scattered throughout the first rank were the drums, whose cadence not only kept the men marching as one but relayed the officers’ orders as well. The drummers were young, some as young as twelve, but already their eyes were glazed over with the same hollow stare as those of their older comrades.
Abner led his men down to the creek, then into it. The backwater slough was knee-deep with mud and stagnant standing water, and it slowed the attackers’ advance even more.
“Fire!” the Yankee artillery commander shouted.
In one horrendous volley, more than sixty cannon fired, belching out flame, smoke, and whistling death. The artillery barrage was followed almost immediately by a volley of deadly accurate riflefire. Hundreds of attacking soldiers went down in the withering fire, and the attack was stopped in its tracks. The remaining Confederate soldiers turned and scrambled back out of the water, up the embankment, and into the timberline beyond, leaving their dead and dying behind them.
One of the dead left on the field was Lieutenant Abner Murback of Bexar County, Texas.
Chapter Seven
“Oh, James, no,” James’s mother, Alice, said when he told her of his plans. “I have been so thankful that you didn’t leave with the regiment, so happy that you were going to be here with us. Now you say you want to go off to who knows where and hunt for gold? What about your leg? The doctor told me himself how lucky you were that you didn’t lose that whole leg when you were shot.”
“That was a long time ago, Mom,” James replied. “And you know yourself, I haven’t had the least bit of trouble with it since it healed. Not even so much as a twinge.”
“Still, I don’t know why you would want to go to what seems like half way around the world, just to look for gold. Especially when there is no guarantee that you will even find any. Just answer me why?”
“Why? Mom, do you have any idea how many fortunes were made during the California gold rush?”
“What do you need a fortune for? We have the ranch, and it’s doing very well,” his mother said.
“It’s not just the money,” James replied.
“Well, if it isn’t the money, what is it?”
“It’s, well, I don’t know, I can’t put it into words, but—”
“I think I can put it into words,” James’s father suggested.
“Well, if you can, Garrison Cason, I wish you would explain it,” Alice said. She shook her head. “Because it is certainly beyond me.”
“That’s because you don’t have the blood of a young man coursing through your veins. It was a hard thing James had to do, watching all the young men of the county ride off to go to war and not join them himself, to risk their danger, to share their glory,” Garrison said. “A young man has a natural desire for adventure, and there is nothing more adventurous than a war.”
“My Lord, Garrison, are you saying he should have gone to war?”
“No, I’m not saying that. Certainly, not to this war, anyway. I’m just saying that I can understand his need for adventure. And it just may be that going off to look for gold might satisfy that need.”
“So, you think he should go?”
“If he wants to, yes,” Garrison said. “After all, he’s a man, fully grown. There’s nothing we could do to stop him, anyway. Think of it, Alice. Isn’t this better than going to war?”
Alice sighed in resignation. “Yes, I suppose it is,” she admitted.
“I’m glad you can see it that way, Dad. And, Mom, I hope you understand,” James said.
“Who is going with you?” Garrison asked.
“Well, Bob’s going. Also, Billy Swan, and Duke Faglier.”
“Bob’s a good man, of course. And so is Billy Swan,” Garrison said. “But . . . Duke Faglier? I don’t know anything about him. He’s the fella that works at the livery, isn’t he?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t know as I’ve ever said three words to him.”
“He’s the quiet type, all right. And unlike a lot of fellas his age, he doesn’t talk about himself much. But I’ve known him for nearly half a year now, and he’s a decent sort. He manages to avoid trouble.”
“Afraid of a fight?” Garrison asked.
