Devil's Dream - Madison Smartt Bell [21]
“Hello, Parson,” he said, turning the whites of his eyes on them. “Ye’d best git to prayen now that ye’re here—ain’t nothen but Godamighty can save that fort.”
THEY DIDN’T STAY LONG to pray or to watch, but the fort did survive, by the hardest, despite the loss of its one long gun. At closer range the smaller pieces cut up the ironclads handily and set them adrift away downriver. But Grant’s reinforcements were still closing in overland.
That night it snowed, and at first light, diffused by a hovering fog from the river, the Confederates led by General Pillow attacked the Federals below the little town of Dover, downriver from the fort, hoping to open a line of retreat along the road to Nashville. Henri rode between Kelley and Strange, shaking from the cold he could not get used to, following Forrest as the cavalry rode in advance of Pillow’s left. They made their first charge through a fog so thick they could not see the Federals till they were in hand’s reach. An hour later the sun was blazing back from the strips of snow that had not been stained crimson and Forrest was raving mad because he could not get permission to charge the retreating Federals again and run them clean off the battlefield. With his breath steaming from the chill, every curse he uttered was haloed in smoke.
He led his cavalry to the right, sweeping outside the entrenchments manned by General Buckner’s troops, and cheered himself up a little by capturing a Federal battery of six guns, killing most of the men and horses that served it. Moving further to the right, he came upon General Pillow under fire of another battery at the head of a ravine.
“If you must charge something,” Pillow said, “Charge that.” Forrest said nothing, but put his head down, directing his riders with a sweep of his arm. Henri swung in after him, outdistancing Kelley and Strange—but that was his horse’s idea, not his. The ravine was steep and choked with buck bushes, a few pinkish berries clinging to the scrub. Horseshoes shivered the ice and slipped on the frozen mud beneath it. At the head of the ravine the cannon thundered and Forrest’s men screamed back at them. In the general uproar Henri couldn’t even hear what sound was pouring out of his own raw open throat and he didn’t know if he was screaming in anger or fear. To his right Captain May of the Rangers toppled, dragging his mount to a halt with his dead body trailing from one stirrup, and just behind that, Jeffrey Forrest’s horse reared up and fell over backward on the steep grade, rolling over the rider. Forrest looked back for half a second, just long enough to see his youngest brother sit up coughing painfully but anyway still breathing. Two minié balls tore through the sleeves of his coat, and Henri saw more bullets striking the forequarters of his horse, like fat raindrops plopping into a pond, but Forrest, impossibly, did not stop, and so none of those still in the saddle behind him stopped either. In the next moment they had ridden right over the cannon and the Federals who weren’t killed were running away.
“By God we done it!” Forrest yelled, turning back to Henri, who was the first man behind him now. His black beard jutted, his face was on fire with pleasure. “Come on boys, let’s go find’m!”
As he dug in his spurs, his horse went down on its front knees, spurting little fountains of blood from seven