What was war, anyway? He wanted to cry for the poor people, broken, terrified, fleeing into the cold, rain, and mud, as the Yankee hordes swept down from the north. It was the children, the women, the frightened families, many of them without the comfort of men, that speared his heart with pain.
Nor did it let up.
Wagons clogged the road. Loaded as they were with the treasures of a lifetime, they still couldn’t come close to evacuating the tens of tons of provisions left behind for Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry to burn or destroy before the pursuing Federals could seize them.
Had Butler not been there to see for himself as Confederate troops fought with lawless civilians, he would never have believed such madness could be occurring in an American city.
And then had come the final look over his shoulder as Hardee’s small army marched south on the Murfreesboro Pike. Columns of smoke rose into the sullen sky as warehouses were set fire; steamboats, still under construction, were immolated in their docks; and military stores were put to the torch to deny their use to Buell’s pursuing Federals.
This part of war, Butler hadn’t imagined.
“Your thoughts, Lieutenant?” Colonel Daniel Govan asked. Govan had raised a company of Phillips County men from around Helena, and been promoted to regimental command in the wake of Hindman’s promotion to brigadier general. In the reorganization and integration into the Army of Central Kentucky, the Second Arkansas had been placed in Liddel’s Brigade, Third Division, Hardee’s Corps.
“I was thinking I can’t have seen the things I’ve seen. Was that really Nashville? I mean, that might have been Moscow on the eve of Napoleon’s advance, or perhaps Rome as the barbarian vanguard approached. Not our Nashville.”
He glanced at the line of chained slaves who rested at the side of the road. If the price of secession is the abolition of slavery, let them go. Each and every last one.
Colonel Govan now walked his gelding beside Butler’s sorrel, their pace set by the infantry and overloaded wagons thronging the pike. The column seemed to proceed like some huge antediluvian serpent as it flowed unbroken over hill and field. Here and there exhausted civilians waited off the side of the road, huddled under blankets, cold, shivering, their meager possessions piled around them. When they met Butler’s gaze, it was with hopeless and hollow eyes. They might have been wraiths instead of corporeal beings. Images whose reality faded the moment they were out of sight.
Interspersed among them were more lines of slaves—driven south by mounted overseers who rode with shotguns over their saddle bows. Human wealth, suffering from the cold and lack of food. Many marched shackled and chained, a sight that sent a spear of pain through Butler’s soul.
Is this what I’m fighting for?
With each step, the horses splashed, hooves sucking as they pulled from the mud. The wet creak of leather, the snuffle of tired horses, and occasional shouts carried on the chill air. Butler was assailed by the curious scent of unwashed human mixed with wet wool, mud, manure, and horseflesh; it almost overwhelmed when the breeze changed quarter.
Colonel Govan’s hat, like everything, was soaked from the drizzle, the brim dripping and partially obscuring his bearded face as he peered sidelong at Butler.
“It defies imagination. Americans acting like Vandals?” Butler wondered as he lifted his right hand and made a fist. As he squeezed, water dribbled out of his saturated glove. Then he shifted his reins.
“We saw it, Lieutenant. Sort of like some drunken nightmare.” Govan glanced up at the bruised sky. “Except I haven’t woke up from it yet.”
Just past the stone walls lining the sunken road the country was gray and barren. Winter-bare trees lined the fallow tobacco and cornfields before surrendering to thick stands of forest that blocked the horizon. Occasional cabins and barns were set back from the road, all looking abandoned. Word was that the locals had removed themselves—and most of all their livestock—from any possible depredations by the passing army or the hoard of refugees.
“Seems a damn shame.” Govan’s shoulders slumped beneath his slicker. He claimed he hadn’t been much of a horseman before enlisting, but Butler hadn’t seen any proof of it. The man seemed one with his animal.
“‘Strategic withdrawal,’ that’s what General Johnston called it.” Govan tilted his head and squinted out from under the brim. “I’d rather we stuck it out and fought.”
“Never found much in my reading that implied any dash or élan to ‘strategic withdrawal.’” Butler agreed. “Not even Caesar managed to turn the event into anything stirring. Homer, however, had it easier. Any reversal was always the fault of the gods. Their fated decree. Worked out nice. Leaders never had to take the blame for their mistakes.”
“I don’t think we can fall back on that old saw.” Govan smiled thinly. “God’s supposedly on our side.”
“It was Napoleon’s observation that ‘God is on the side with the most cannon.’”
“Then we’re whipped before we start,” Govan said gloomily.
They rode a while in silence, the patter of rain on Butler’s hat barely audible over the splashing and sucking of mud beneath the horse’s feet. His sorrel mare—called Red during a moment of inspired revelation—shook her head; the fine spray rode back on the breeze to mist Butler’s face.
“You heard that a Union army is heading for Fayetteville? Invading Arkansas?” Govan asked.
“Just that it was headed that way.” Butler shook his head. “My family is there. On the upper White. Benton County.”
“They’ll be all right. My guess, if I know anything about war, which, I got to admit, Lieutenant, I’m starting to question, is that Earl Van Dorn will draw them south close to Fort Smith and crush them from strength.”
Butler ground his teeth, catching himself as Red slipped on the poor footing. “Is that our strategy, Colonel? Like the Russians on the retreat to Moscow? Lead them deep into our territory, and then strike so that
