Confederate wizards of the saddle /

by Bennett H. Young

In this retreat and escape across the river, somebody had to be last, and that somebody must take not only the chances of capture, but also the risks of annihilation.

Upon Captain George Gordon, with one hundred and twenty Missourians, this burden was laid. He had been marching and fighting and starving for more than half a month. Shelby had told his men that, as the rearguard, they must all stand together and if need be, fall, and that he did not under any circumstances intend to allow his artillery to be destroyed or captured. Upon Captain George Gordon was laid the duty of holding the last outpost, and with his men constitute the forlorn hope in defense of this little army in its passage of the St. Francis River.

The artillery had been saved. The rearguard, mounted, was not yet over. The sun was just rising when the raft made its last trip and landed the last caisson on the southern bank of the stream. With the sun came the Federal pursuers. They had not believed the Confederates would be able in the night to cross the St. Francis, and so they slept and waited, feeling assured that on the morrow capture would be easy. The Federal sharp-shooters came pressing through the heavy timber. They opened a severe fire, and the thud of a minie ball, ploughing its way through the body of some member of the faithful little rearguard, served notice that trouble was abroad in the land. The pressure grew stronger and stronger. Only a hundred and twenty men in gray were on the north side. All others were safely over the unfordable stream. Federal cavalry riding in hot pursuit could be seen galloping down the highway, and between them and the raging river was only a small column of brave riders clad in gray. The Confederates safely on the south bank looked across the water and grieved at the fate of the one hundred and twenty comrades who stood and held the pursuers at bay until all the others were safely over. Their courage and their generosity appealed to the better instincts of the courageous soldiers. Some offered to swim back and help and rescue the gallant remnant who still remained on the north bank. Sharp-shooters climbed the high trees on the south bank. Some found cozy places on the hills close to the stream, and with deadly aim warned the intruders to caution and reserve.

The water was too deep and the currents too swift to attempt with saddles and bridles and guns to swim the weary beasts over, encumbered as they must be, either in carrying or pulling their riders. There were only three alternatives for these rearguardsmen. One was to surrender; one was to swim, with the chance that more than half would be drowned; and the other was to ride up the stream and seek a more favorable locality for passing the river.

The Federal cavalry were in close and fierce pursuit. Twice this gallant band attempted, when a shallower spot had been found, to cross, but the Federals, angered by the escape of the main army, felt that they were bound to take this rearguard, and so they pressed in upon them with much vigor and determination, resolving to capture them at all hazards.

At last a better swimming place was found, and the rearguard, resolving to die or drown rather than submit to capture, forced their horses into the water. A fusillade of shots was directed at them as they swam across, and the bullets came quick and fast. These spattered the water in the faces of the receding Confederates, and here and there a fatal shot took effect and the lifeless body of a Confederate floated a little way on the surface and then sank in the current. Only a few were killed or wounded. More than nine-tenths of these brave fighters reached the opposite bank.

Shaking the water from their soaked garments, the sharp-shooters turned and fired upon their pursuers, and with steady and accurate aim avenged the death and wounds of those who had suffered in this retreat.

Shelby and Colonel Gordon and Carter were the last men to cross the bridge. Unsightly, tottering, shaky, the bridge had served its purpose. It was not much of a bridge, but it had saved four thousand men and their equipment. Fastened with cables on the south side, when Shelby and Carter stepped upon the shore, a ready knife was drawn by one of his followers, the moorings were cut and the faithful bridge, no longer required, was turned loose down the stream. As it floated out upon the rapid currents, the Federals on the opposite side, in rage and disappointment, opened a fusillade across the water, but a few well-directed shots from the cannon drove them to cover, and Marmaduke, Shelby and Carter and their followers, saved now from pursuit, took up their journey to Jacksonport, sixty miles away. They had no need now to hasten, there was no foe to disturb, alarm and harass them. For four days they waded and rode through muddy, slimy swamps. The experience in these sloughs was horrible in the extreme.

The troopers, willing to rest their faithful steeds, dismounted and walked by their sides. Three times a day they were permitted to graze upon the rich herbage that lined the roads to Jacksonport. Separated along different highways, both men and horses were treated with the greatest consideration and given easy journeys to the camp at Jacksonport, where the wounded might mend, where the horses with scalded backs might recuperate and permit their scars to be covered, and the men might burnish their arms, repair their trappings, wash their soiled garments, and be ready for some other expedition at their country’s call.

For four days they had something to face worse than enemies. They were compelled to wade and ride through the muddy, slimy swamps south of the St. Francis. These sloughs, generating miasma in every particle that composed their horrible mixture, rendered these ninety-six hours excruciatingly trying. There was no escape from the slightly elevated roads that had been cut through these forests and swamps. Only a small portion of the cavalry and artillery could pass along these roads until they became practically impassable. The cannons were mired and the horses were tramping in mud and slush above their knees. With the gait of a snail, Marmaduke’s men walked and rode amidst these dreadful surroundings. Had they not been brave men, they would have preferred to have laid down and died rather than to have endured the horrors of this march. A common suffering made them generous and helpful to each other. Food was scarce for man, and there was practically none for the beasts, and all pulled and labored through these quagmires. Longing for the sight of higher ground, praying to escape from these hateful and depressing surroundings, the terribleness of the conditions prevented the men from dismounting to help their wasted and emaciated beasts. Here and there in the mud and slush, the poor brutes, unable to move further, laid down in the water and mud, and neither coaxing nor lashing could induce them to rise. They preferred death to further torment on this God-forsaken road, and all along the path through these swamps, the beholder would constantly see horses either dying under fatigue or so burdened as to be unwilling to rise. They simply died rather than take another step forward. The constant riding by day and by night, the meagre supply of food, the perils in conflict, the tremendous fatigue, the long, long journey, all tried out their souls and their patience, but the worst and hardest of all was the ninety-six hours consumed in covering the horrible roads through these dismal swamps and gloomy bayous.