Confederate wizards of the saddle /

by Bennett H. Young

The Confederates had momentarily recoiled before the first terrific fire so unexpectedly poured into their ranks, but the Federals, in the face of the six-shooters, began to waver. One or the other must yield. The Confederates were pushing the conflict. Waring ordered up two new regiments to halt the advancing tide. The contest was short, but it was vehement. At close range, nothing could equal the six-shooter. The sword and carbine could not stay its murderous effect in the hands of the brave and determined Confederates.

Hand to hand, the conflict went on, but flesh and blood could not withstand such an assault. The Federal line began to yield. Lyon, Rucker, Johnson and Forrest urged their brave men to supreme effort. The tide was still for an instant, but only an instant. The reinforcements of Waring were brushed away, his lines broken. The apparent yielding of the Union cavalry encouraged and emboldened the men of the South, and now they drove forward with increasing energy and ferocity to the death grapple. Ammunition failing, the men used the empty rifles and carbines as clubs. A hand to hand fight cannot last long. Decimation of numbers soon weakens its intensity, but the proximity of men, looking each other in the eye, shouting defiance into the very faces of their foes, proves a tremendous strain upon any soldiers, and such fearful tension weakens enthusiasm and one side or the other begins to consider yielding. Rucker, Lyon, Hall and Johnson of Alabama were terrific fighters; they had caught Forrest’s spirit and they advanced with such vehemence that it was almost impossible for any line to withstand them. The moment Waring’s men began to give way, victory deserted the Federal standards. The piercing of the Union lines, the loss of its initial position, gave the Confederates added impetuosity and intensity in their advance. Nature was adding renewed difficulties to the conflict. The fierce summer sun was almost scalding. Perspiration burst from every pore. Men, under the intense heat, panted for breath. Forrest’s men knew they must win at once or fail in the struggle. Not waiting even to be called, they pressed forward over the bodies of their fallen comrades and enemies. The Southern troopers seemed imbued with an insatiate thirst for the blood of their opponents. They remembered what Forrest had told them to do when the bugle blast brought them out from cover, and bade them press the fighting, and drive the Federals back. Thus, impelled by the necessity of immediate victory, answering the summons of their well-beloved commander, and thrilled by the memory of their past glorious achievements, they became almost a line of demons. They cared nothing for wounds or death; they were bent only on the defeat and destruction of their foes, and for the accomplishment of this were ready to win or fall, as fate should cast the die.

Forrest, within fifteen minutes of the time when the first shot was fired, had sent one of his most trusted staff officers to meet General Tyree H. Bell and bid him “move up fast and fetch all he’s got,” and to this he added a word to his beloved boy artillery man, Captain Morton, to stay not his coming but to bring up his horses at a gallop. Forrest’s keen eye was watching with deepest anxiety to catch some sight of the coming ones, his ears attuned to catch the echo of the cheers of Bell’s men or the rushing tramp of the tired steeds; but nothing was heard of his allies, needed so badly at this crucial moment.

He knew that Sturgis with his infantry would soon be on the ground, and that his tired and powder-grimed men could not withstand this new ordeal, when four thousand fresh infantry would change the alignments and render resistance of their impact impossible. A thousand conflicting emotions filled Forrest’s heart, but Forrest was not to be stayed. “Forward, forward!” he cried to his men. Slowly, then quickly, the Federal cavalry yielded, and then Forrest pressed them back in disorder.

The spirit of resistance was broken. Waring and Winston could not, with all their courage and skill, stay the work of Forrest’s battalions. They rushed from the front, giving to the men in gray complete possession of the coveted battlefield.

General Sturgis, in advance of his panting infantry, had arrived at the scene of the struggle. Message after message of emergency had come to him by swift-riding couriers. His infantry were forced all that nature would allow. These Federal soldiers were weighted down with their accoutrements, and suffering the almost resistless heat of the burning rays of a fierce summer sun and an atmosphere so sultry and humid that human lungs inhaling it were weakened rather than refreshed.

The Federal cavalry were glad to ride away, and, hurrying from such scenes of carnage and woe, disorganized and beaten, they tried to reform behind the upcoming infantry. It was with a profound sense of relief that they gave over the field to the footmen and let them face, in the bushes and jungle, the Confederate cavalrymen, who with such devilish fury had worsted them in the fighting of the past three hours and thinned their ranks by killing and wounding a large percentage of their number.

The Federal cavalry, in this brief struggle, had pushed their magazine guns and carbines to the highest pressure. Their ammunition was gone, and without bayonets they could not halt the Confederate assailants, who behind their six-shooters let no obstacle, even for an instant, stay their progress.

Forrest’s prediction that he would whip the Federal cavalry before the infantry could get up was verified, but unless Bell with his reserves and Morton with his artillery were quickly at hand, his success would avail nothing.

The Federal infantry was quickly put in line, and even Forrest felt for an instant a sense of doubt, as he surveyed his tired followers, and scanned their faces, worn and sharply drawn by the harrowing experiences of the past three hours.