Confederate wizards of the saddle /

by Bennett H. Young

Up and up the mountain side came the men clad in blue; above them the weary Southrons, long without food, either for man or beast, were waiting their onslaught. The Confederates had largely the best of the position, and they improved it to the fullest. It soon dawned upon the Federals that, instead of having undertaken an easy task, they had assumed a most arduous work, and that their progress would be resisted with great skill, unyielding tenacity and dauntless persistence.

A sense of danger and strategic instinct had brought General Hardee and General Cleburne to aid, by their counsel and their presence, in the defense of this valuable position. Intently and eagerly they watched the Kentucky cavalry and Arkansas infantry face the superior forces, but it was not their presence that made the fighting spirit of these Confederates rise to the highest plane—it was the fact that they knew they were holding a stronghold of importance and that General Johnston, over at Dalton, was expecting and believing that they would beat back the foe.

Again and again the infantry assaulted the Confederate line, but each time they were driven off with loss. When probably the struggle was more than half over, the ammunition began to grow scarce in the cartridge boxes of the Confederates; in a spirit of more dare-deviltry than intention to do any great damage to their foe, some of the Kentuckians began to hurl stones down the mountain side into the midst of the Federals. It took a few minutes to catch the import of this new style of warfare, but as the great stones began to rush down steep declivities, gathering impelling forces from every foot of descent, tearing the tops of trees and breaking limbs and cutting down saplings, the men on the hill began to take in the effectiveness of these improvised engines of war. It is true, they had no catapults, like the Romans of old, with which to fling them far down the mountain, but they had strong arms, guided by brave and fearless hearts. They caught, with soldierly impulse and sagacity, the effectiveness of this new plan of defence, and stone after stone was seized and sent crashing below, until along the whole line went up the shout, “Throw down the rocks, throw down the rocks,” and a great hail of stones began to fly from the heights and sides of the eminence into and through the ranks of the ascending Federal legions.

General Geary, under whose immediate order the assault was made, in his report, said, “Hand to hand encounters took place, and stones as well as bullets became elements in the combat.”

For a little while, the Federals thought that these stones were cast down by accident, that some soldier by a misstep had turned them loose. But quicker and faster and fiercer fell the stone storm, and with terror they realized that their enemies above them were turning loose these strange emissaries of death, and their souls and hearts were shadowed with a touch of panic at this new method of defending the pass, adopted by their enterprising foes.

With diminishing ammunition, but yet without decreasing courage, the fierce and unequal contest was maintained. Those who had no cartridges threw down the stones. Those who had cartridges sent bullets below to stop the advance of the brave and adventurous assailants.

In a little while, the gloom of night began to brood over the baleful scenes around Dug Creek Gap. As darkness finally set in, the stone-throwing cavalry and infantry heard the rebel yell creeping up the southern mountain side. In their rear, closer and closer, the inspiring voices sounded. They wondered from whence the gladdening sound came, and who were these assailants, from whose vigorous lungs, were speeding messages of help and cheer, and bidding them still longer defy their foes. They heard the tramp of horses, the rush of horsemen, and the cry of battle. And, in a little while, up from the mountain on the southern slope emerged Granbury’s Texan Infantry. These men were born horsemen. They had all their lives ridden across the prairies of Texas, and they were at home in the saddle.

Under orders from General Cleburne and General Hardee, the infantry had been rushed forward to carry encouragement and bring succor to these valiant Kentuckians and Arkansans who, with such superb courage and unlimited patience, were defending the Gap with unfaltering vigor.

As the Texans at double-quick speeded to the scene of the conflict, at the foot of the slope they saw, in charge of the horse holders, the steeds of the cavalry, who had dismounted to go forward on the mountain height to battle. With a wild whoop, the astonished horse holders were commanded to turn their bridles loose, and upon the steeds, waiting now through the long day for their riders to come, at once sprung these sturdy, brave and resolute Texans. Mounted in the saddle once more, they felt war’s delirium and seemed to catch the spirit of the chainless winds that swept across the prairies of their state, and shouting and yelling they galloped forward at a breakneck speed to the succor of their hard-pressed comrades on the mountain top.

For a little while, the dismounted cavalry could not understand the changed situation. They looked upon the animals and knew they were theirs, but they had strange riders, the saddles were filled with soldiers they had never seen before, whose names they could not call, whose regiment they could not distinguish. But the Texans had come for war and, quickly dismounting, they turned over the steeds of the Kentucky men to their rightful but tired owners, and took position in the battle line in Dug Gap to defend its now renowned and blood-stained heights. They had come to succor and to relieve these Kentucky and Arkansas soldiers, who for twenty-four hours had known neither rest nor food. They had come to tell them to go down the mountain side, and in sleep recuperate their wasted and tired energies, while they watched and defended the place now made illustrious by their valor. Granbury’s Texan Brigade came ready to share all the danger of the place and hour, but the assaults were over and the victory had been won ere they had in such startling fashion appeared on the scene. In the darkness of the night, the men who so splendidly and so patiently had stood throughout the day against great odds, to save the destruction of the left flank of General Johnston’s army, marched down into the plain below. They had fought a great fight with the help of their Texas allies. They had set a splendid example of noblest endurance and heroic gallantry. They had given the first notice to General Sherman that the way he was to march would be a path of blood, and that if he won, it would be at a tremendous sacrifice of his best and bravest troops, and that in facing the oft-defeated, but not dejected, Army of the Tennessee, he was to encounter men worthy of any cause and whose defense of their homes and firesides would dot the mountains and valleys of northern Georgia with many thousands of Federal graves, and if he did reach Atlanta, it would only be when his losses would equal even those his soldiers had witnessed at Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Perryville, Chickamauga and other fields upon which already fearful sacrifices had been the price of victory. It was a success that declared that the Army of the Tennessee had lost none of its courage and that in the coming seventy days more than sixty thousand Union men, in death or with wounds, should fall by the way, on the road to Atlanta.