ordered his supper of pork chops, eggs, fried potatoes, and a beer.
“What I don’t understand is why we don’t just take us an army into Washington and demand that the Yankees get out of the South and let us alone,” Abner continued.
“Yeah,” Johnny Parker said. “What do you think about that, Duke?”
If Johnny’s question had been an inferred invitation for Duke to join them, he let the invitation slide by, remaining, instead, at his own table, halfway across the barroom floor.
“I don’t even think about things like that,” Duke called back. “I’m leaving all that up to folks that are a lot smarter than I am.”
“They can’t be all that damned smart,” Billy Swan said. “If they were, we wouldn’t be fighting this war in the first place.”
“Not fight the war?” Abner replied. “What do you mean, not fight the war? Are you telling me we should just sit back and let the Yankees walk all over us?”
“No Yankee has walked all over me,” Billy replied.
“The way I look at it, if a damn Yankee walks over one Southerner, he walks over every Southerner. Right, Duke?”
Duke held up his hands. “Like I said, Abner, leave me out of it. I don’t have any opinions.”
Duke had shared with no one his experiences at Wilson Creek.
For a while after the battle at Wilson Creek, there was little to suggest that the war would ever amount to anything more than a series of such skirmishes. For the most part, both sides seemed willing to take a “wait and see” attitude. Under such conditions, there was little need to increase the size of the army. The closest any of the young men of Bexar County got to the war, was to read the latest reports in the newspapers.
In answer to the call from the governor of Texas and the President of the Confederate States of America, Bexar County raised a regiment. It was commanded not by Garrison Cason as everyone had predicted, but by Colonel Nelson Culpepper, a career soldier who had resigned from the United States Army shortly after the war began.
At the last moment James almost had a change of heart. Despite his protestations against the war, he was nearly caught up in the sweep and pageantry of the thing. Bands played, and flags and pennants snapped in the breeze as the “Bexar County Fusiliers” formed ranks in the town plaza. Pretty girls and weeping mothers stood along the edge of the street, waving silken handkerchiefs at their brave men, already heroes even though they had yet to hear a shot fired in anger. Beneath the tunics of more than one soldier was the pressed flower given to him at the going away cotillion held the night before. In some cases, more than one soldier carried flowers given to them by the same girl. In other cases, some of the soldiers were carrying the flowers of more than one girl.
The farewell speeches had been given and the men were drawn up in parade formation, ready for the order to move out. Colonel Culpepper, the most splendid-looking man of all in his gray-and-gold uniform, was the only one mounted, sitting importantly on a prancing white charger. Holding a flashing saber up in the morning sunlight, he gave the command that moved the regiment out.
“Bexar Fusiliers!” he shouted, calling out the preparatory command.
“Battalion!”
“Company!”
The supplementary commands echoed up and down the long formation.
“Forward!”
Again, the supplementary commands echoed from the battalion and company commanders. “Forward!”
“March!” Colonel Culpepper finished with the command of execution.
The drums began the marching cadence as the regiment moved out. Their departure was met with cheers and applause, sprinkled here and there with last-minute good-byes as families called out to their loved ones by name.
“
“
“
“Now, Tommy, don’t you go an’ kill all them Yankees. You save some of ’em for us,” Syl teased, and Tommy the young soldier flushed in embarrassment.
“Yeah, we don’t want you gettin’ all the glory for yourself,” Carl added.
“Quiet in the ranks,” one of the officers ordered.
Within ten more minutes, the regiment could no longer be seen, though it could still be heard. The rhythmic beat and roll of distant drums and the measured cadence of shuffling feet lingered over Military Plaza.
Every able-bodied cowboy employed by Long Shadow had marched out with the regiment, leaving the ranch without any hands to run the place. Despite that, James continued to feel a twinge of regret for not having gone himself, though the twinge wasn’t strong enough to make him change his mind. He crossed the plaza, considered going into a cantina, but chose the saloon instead.
Chapter Five
Colonel Nelson Culpepper and his eager but as yet untested Bexar County Fusiliers reached Corinth, Mississippi, on the fourth of April. The Texans were but a small part of a growing Confederate army just south of the Mississippi-Tennessee border. Arriving almost simultaneously with the Bexar County Fusiliers was General Braxton Bragg and his ten thousand battle-proved veterans. In addition, the governors of several Confederate states had answered Johnston’s call to provide more men, so that the army grew to an even greater size. The commanding general of all the Confederate forces in the field at Corinth was General Albert Sidney Johnston.
Just across the border, in Tennessee, the Union army, under General Ulysses Grant, was also collecting troops for what was shaping up to be the biggest battle of the war thus far.
Giving his men permission to rest in place, Colonel Culpepper reported to General Johnston.
“Colonel Culpepper, I am pleased to see you,” General Johnston said, greeting the colonel. “You wouldn’t have any information on the whereabouts of General Price, would you?”
“No, sir, I’m afraid I don’t,” Culpepper replied. “We came here directly from San Antonio, Texas.”
Johnston stroked his cheek and nodded. “Yes, and you are very welcome. I just hoped that, by chance encounter, you might have some news. The addition of General Price and his Missourians would ensure us victory here.”
“General, don’t overlook the fact that these men are Texans,” Colonel Culpepper said, loudly enough for his men to hear and respond with a cheer. “I think we will more than compensate for any Missourians that don’t show.”
Johnston smiled, then nodded. “I’m sure they will,” he said.
“Where do you want us, General?”
“You will be under my direct command,” Johnston said.
“Thank you, sir. I consider that an honor.”
“Do you have an aide, Colonel?”
“I don’t have an aide, sir, but I do have an orderly. Private Abner Murback.”
“Is he a good man?”
“Yes, sir, he is a very good man.”
“If you wouldn’t mind, I wonder if you would attach him to me temporarily,” Johnston said. “My aide has taken ill and returned to Jackson yesterday.”
