And There I’ll Be a Soldier Read online

  AND THERE I’LL

  BE A SOLDIER

  A Western Story

  AND THERE I’LL

  BE A SOLDIER

  A Western Story

  JOHNNY D. BOGGS

  Copyright © 2012 by Johnny D. Boggs

  Cover design by Alenka Vdovič Linaschke

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Library E-book ISBN: 978-1-4708-6145-2

  Trade E-book ISBN: 978-1-4708-6146-9

  CIP data for this book is available

  from the Library of Congress

  Blackstone Publishing

  31 Mistletoe Rd.

  Ashland, OR 97520

  www.BlackstonePublishing.com

  For Mark McGee

  Foreword

  My ancestors fought on both sides of the Civil War, a fact my deeply Southern relatives never bragged about when I was a kid. Come to think of it, many still don’t own up to that “Yankee” bit of family lore. Maybe that’s why I started out with the idea of writing a novel told from Northern and Southern viewpoints about the Battle of Shiloh, which, of course, is no stranger to novelists (Will Henry, G. Clifton Wisler, and Shelby Foote, for example). Yet when a research trip brought me to Corinth, Mississippi, I decided to include the Second Corinth battle in this narrative, as well. Shiloh is Shiloh, with countless historians analyzing it, while Corinth is often overlooked. Corinth also was a direct contrast to Shiloh; Shiloh was fought in fields and woods, while Corinth took place in a town.

  Walking around Corinth, a wonderful town with well-preserved history, I was struck with the need to add a third voice to the mix, that of a noncombatant Southern citizen. After all, the war certainly affected civilians and not just soldiers. Thus, Grace Dehner was born. Grace Dehner, Texian Ryan McCalla, and Missourian Caleb Cole are products of my imagination, but many other figures in this novel did fight for the North and South, and many of those died or carried the scars earned at Shiloh and Corinth in 1862.

  Chapter One

  August 6, 1861

  Putnam County, Missouri

  He stood ankle-deep in pig dung, slogging through a pen filled with squealing Durocs and snorting Poland Chinas. Even with his rubber boots and thick gloves, he knew he’d stink for the rest of the week since one of those ill-tempered big red hogs had charged and knocked him onto his hindquarters. Probably would carry the stench the rest of his life. So when Jimmy Crawford came riding up the road, Caleb welcomed the chance to climb out of the muck and sit on the top rail, maybe catch a breeze in the sweltering heat but at the least escape the stink for a while.

  “What you doing?” Jimmy called out after reining to a stop. In lieu of a saddle, the lanky teen sat on a worn woolen blanket, and instead of a bridle he used a horsehair-hitched hackamore.

  “What’s it look like?” Caleb Cole shook his head.

  Jimmy shot a worried glance at the house. “Your pa around?”

  Caleb shook his head. “He went off this morning to Bryant Station to haggle with Mister Metzger.” Haggle, Caleb thought with disgust, over another big red Duroc. As if we don’t have enough already.

  “Bessy? Your ma?”

  He didn’t bother to answer. “Why aren’t you working at the sawmill?”

  Jimmy Crawford sat up straighter, blue eyes straining first toward the cabin and then across the Cole farm. He wore duck trousers, a sweat-stained blue shirt, and no hat. He wiped sweat off his brow, and lowered his voice.

  “Ezra Meachem says some Rebs are recruiting and drilling at Unionville.”

  The mule snorted.

  “Your pa’s been preaching Abolition and the Union forever since you moved here,” Caleb reminded his friend and neighbor.

  “I know that.” Another quick look to make sure nobody could overhear him, which irked Caleb. These hogs, sows, and piglets wouldn’t tell anyone what Jimmy Crawford had planned. “But I figured it couldn’t hurt to go watch them. Be fun and downright interesting. Thought you might like to tag along with me and see for yourself.”

  Now it was Caleb’s turn to look at the house. Smoke wafted from the cook shack’s chimney, chickens pecked the ground in front of the porch, but he couldn’t see his mother or sister. He looked down the path that led to the Putnam County Pike and scanned the rolling prairie. That would be just like his father, to come home right now. Although he saw nobody, at length Caleb sighed.

  “I can’t go.”

  “You got something better to do today?” Jimmy grinned, and pointed his jaw at the sea of red, black, and black and white swine crowding the pen.

  Caleb dropped to the ground, but kept his left hand on the top rail. Like it would anchor him to his chores.

  “Ezra said they were drilling right on the courthouse lawn,” Jimmy said.

  “That takes gumption.” Putnam County was spitting distance from the Iowa border, and residents had changed the name of the county seat to Unionville from Harmony a few years back. Maybe the Rebels wanted to rub Secession in everybody’s face.

  Jimmy’s head bobbed. “Yeah, but Ezra up and joined the Southern cause. Says so did Parker Pruitt and a couple other boys he didn’t know.”

  Caleb lifted his left hand from the fence, using the bottom cedar rail to scrape mud and manure off his boots. “You planning on joining?”

  A rough laugh caused Jimmy to lean back on the mule. When he straightened, he said: “Are you joshing me, Caleb? My pa would skin me alive if I turned Secesh. I just figured it sure had to be funner than sawing logs. Or slopping hogs.” He prodded on. “Bet we could even stop at Whit’s mercantile for some sassafras tea after watching the Rebs.” Looking at the clear blue sky, Jimmy added thoughtfully: “I imagine Maryanne’s working there today.”

  Caleb had taken a couple steps away from the pen. His lips parted, and he wet them with his tongue. Then his head shook. “I’m not fit to see Maryanne. Or anybody in Unionville.”

  Jimmy countered. “You can wash off at the creek. Clothes will be dry by the time you walk to Unionville.”

  By then Caleb already knew that he was going. He stood six-foot-one and weighed better than one hundred ninety pounds. Too big for a whipping from his father, and his mother wouldn’t mind. Bessy would give him grief, but, no matter what he did, she’d find some excuse to needle him. Besides, he reasoned, his parents and sister would like to hear his report. Most likely Pa would be perturbed that he hadn’t gotten to see a Rebel militia in Unionville rather than just another red stud hog in Bryant Station.

  Likewise, Jimmy Crawford knew that Caleb would tag along. Smiling, he lifted the hackamore and clucked his tongue, heading the mule back toward the pike. Caleb dropped to the dirt, pulled off his rubber boots, shucked his gloves, tugged off his socks, and, barefoot, followed his friend. With his long stride, it took him little time to catch up.

  * * * * *

  A lot of people lived in Putnam County, Caleb Cole always thought, but, then, he had never been out of Putnam County. There were tons of farmers, something like eighteen sawmills, and more pigs than trees, and Parker Pruitt’s family ran one of three flour mills in the county. Yet for all those people living in the county—right around nine thousand, his father had told him that spring—Unionville never struck Caleb as much of a town.

  You would expect the rarity of a traitorous militia drilling and recruiting right dab in the middle of town would have drawn a crowd, yet, even around the square, Unionville was q
uiet. Of course, it was Tuesday afternoon, and a blistering one at that. Besides, Caleb reasoned, it was Unionville. It was always quiet.

  Jimmy Crawford had no trouble finding a place to tether his mule in front of Whit Corneilison’s mercantile.

  Only two or three years old, the red-brick courthouse anchored the square. It was two stories, but the upper story was vacant. Typical for Unionville.

  The town had no newspaper. Caleb’s father often said Unionville had no need of a newspaper, not with the combined mouths of the Meachem family.

  Ezra Meachem had been right. On the square, between the elm trees, Caleb saw a flag popping in the wind. Three large stripes, two red ones sandwiching a white one, and a blue square in the upper left corner with one white star circled by ten more. About twenty or so soldiers, dressed in everything from butternut to duck to wool to one moth-eaten uniform of a dragoon, marched across the grass as some black-bearded gent in a wide-brimmed straw hat sang out orders and a barefoot kid wearing mismatched brogans tapped a drum.

  “Let’s slake our thirst with some tea!” Jimmy called out, hooking a thumb toward the Corneilison store.

  That was just like Jimmy Crawford. Work up a sweat and talk so much about the Rebs in Unionville, then chicken out at the last minute. If they went into Mr. Whit’s store—especially if Maryanne were there—they might miss the whole show.

  “No,” Caleb said. “Let’s watch the Secesh.” Besides, Caleb didn’t have money to spend on sassafras tea.

  He crossed the street, not knowing if Jimmy Crawford would follow him or not, and found a shady spot underneath one of the thick elms.

  The Rebs had stopped, and the straw-hat leader stepped in front of the line and said: “Let’s show these Yanks the way real Missouri fightin’ boys soldier. Let’s teach ’em the School of the Soldier. Eyes right! Left and front!”

  Caleb looked around. Show these Yanks. What Yanks? The only person watching the parade was Caleb. Typical Unionville. Maybe everybody in town was scared.

  “No, no, no. That’s not the way. Listen … ‘Heels on the same line, as near each other as the conformation of the main will permit … The feet turned out equally, and forming with each other something less than a right angle …’”

  Straw Hat spoke in a dull monotone. Caleb stifled a laugh and shook his head. The Rebel leader was reading from a book.

  “‘The knees straight without stiffness …’”

  “What are they doing?”

  Jimmy Crawford had joined him.

  Caleb glanced at his friend, who, apparently, had decided that tea and Maryanne could wait.

  “I don’t know,” Caleb answered honestly.

  “Lordy, they don’t even have any muskets.”

  Caleb pointed. “Sure they do. See them stacked in that circle. They’re just practicing without their long guns.”

  “Practicing what?”

  “How to stand in a line, near as I can tell.”

  “‘The palm of the hand turned a little to the front, the little finger behind the seam of the pantaloons …’”

  Jimmy shrugged. “I thought for sure they’d have a cannon.”

  “They only have one horse.”

  “One horse? Ezra said they came up all the way from Chariton County.”

  Caleb shrugged. He had heard of the Chariton River, but not any Chariton County. It could be as far away as Washington City or as close as Iowa for all he knew.

  “Soldier, what in thunder’s name are you doing?”

  Straw Hat gripped the hilt of his saber and strode toward a red-headed boy who was sitting at the end of the line, rubbing his right foot with both hands.

  “This is the ‘School of the Soldier,’ boy!” Straw Hat bellowed. “You don’t sit down.”

  “But my feet hurt, Gen’ral.”

  “I’ll chop off your feet if you don’t stand up and get back into formation!”

  “But, Gen’ral!”

  “I’m not a general, boy, but a duly elected captain. Now stand up!” He unsheathed the saber, and the soldier quickly shot to his feet, bumped into the nearest Reb, and sent him tumbling into the grass.

  Caleb shook his head and, with a grin, faced Jimmy Crawford. “Well, we’ve found Parker Pruitt.”

  Jimmy chortled. “Don’t reckon this war’ll last very long.”

  “That’s certain sure.”

  When the line of soldiers had reassembled into something like a formation, Straw Hat barked out a command to march. The drum began again, and Straw Hat resumed his grunts. They marched right past Jimmy and Caleb, and Caleb felt intense pleasure about how red Parker Pruitt’s face got as he limped along, a few rods behind the rest of the Secessionist parade.

  “You want some tea?” Jimmy asked.

  “Nah.”

  “My treat.”

  No, you’ll just put it on your father’s bill. But his throat felt parched, and it was a long walk back to the farm, so his head bobbed.

  “I’ll fetch us a couple of bottles,” Jimmy said. “You stay here and watch. Let me know if that general chops off Parker’s feet.”

  “He’s not a general!” Caleb called out to Jimmy’s back as the gangling boy sprinted back toward the store. “He’s a captain.”

  Caleb watched his friend bound up the steps and through the open doors to the mercantile. Little sneak. He’d probably spend the rest of the day inside, sipping tea and conversing with Maryanne Corneilison, and forgetting all about Caleb Cole.

  The wind picked up, and the flag popped. Caleb looked up, and tilted his head. He hadn’t noticed before, but red letters were stenciled onto the center white stripe: equality and union.

  That made him chuckle, and he said to himself: “That’s a good joke.”

  “What’s so funny about our flag, boy?”

  Startled, Caleb took two steps backward and swallowed. Straw Hat stood in front of him, flanked by Parker Pruitt and three lean, bearded men with tobacco pushing against their cheeks.

  “Answer me, boy,” Straw Hat repeated. “What amuses you about the flag of the Keytesville Methodist Rangers?”

  “No offense intended, Captain.” Caleb chose his words carefully. “It’s just that the word ‘Union’ on your flag struck me as peculiar. Since you want to dissolve the Union.”

  One of the bigger men spit brown juice between Caleb’s bare feet. “What about the other word, boy. ‘Equality’? That amuse you, too?”

  It had, but Caleb shook his head.

  “Mister Pruitt, here,” said another tobacco chewer, “says you’re a black Republican.”

  “That’s not true,” Caleb stammered. And it wasn’t. He had often wondered what it would be like to have slaves tend to those pigs all the time. He’d sure smell a lot better. He said: “I’m not old enough to vote.”

  “But you’re old enough to make a choice, lad.” Straw Hat had changed his tone. “Mister Pruitt enlisted in our regiment yesterday. We will free Missouri from Yankee tyrants and Abolitionist scoundrels.”

  Caleb looked back at the mercantile, hoping to find Jimmy Crawford, but, by thunder, now the door was shut.

  Straw Hat kept talking: “We return to Keytesville tomorrow and await our orders from General Sterling Price.”

  He had never heard of Keytesville or Sterling Price.

  “Mister Pruitt says you are a good fighter.”

  Caleb thought: He ought to know. I’ve whipped him five times. He said: “Parker’s a good fighter himself.” That was a lie. “And a real good shot.” That wasn’t.

  “Mister Pruitt shall have ample opportunity to prove that as we drive the Yankees out of our great state. We came to Unionville all the way from Keytesville … nigh one hundred miles … to increase the ranks for Southern liberty.”

  “And because we don’t like the name of your town,” the third toba
cco chewer said, and spat. The others chuckled.

  “The pay is ten dollars a month and the glory of the Confederate cause,” Straw Hat said. “The Methodist ladies of Keytesville are, at this very moment, sewing gray blouses and green pantaloons for our guards. You must provide your own musket.”

  “I don’t own one.” Whenever he went hunting, he always had to borrow his father’s, and that was an ancient flintlock that his Grandpa Pinnix had used back in Ohio.

  “That’s all right, boy,” said one of the tobacco chewers, “you can take one off a dead Yank.”

  Straw Hat pulled off the gauntlet, and extended his right hand. “I am Captain Benedict Crane, son, and I offer you my hand in the name of the Confederacy and offer you a chance for glory in the most glorious cause.”

  “Or you can go back to your pigs, pig farmer,” Parker Pruitt said with a snigger.

  “What say you, Mister Cole?”

  Now Caleb’s throat felt really dry. He wiped his sweaty palms on the sides of his britches, and shook his head. “Captain Crane, I just came to watch the show.”

  “There will be better shows, Mister Crane, when we engage the enemy.”

  “I’m not so inclined for that.”

  “He’s yellow,” Parker Pruitt said.

  Caleb’s fingers balled into fists, and he almost took a step toward Pruitt. “I’m no coward, Parker, and you know that.”

  “Then what are you?” Captain Crane asked.

  The flag fluttered. Behind him, Jimmy Crawford’s mule brayed.

  “Caleb.”

  His fingers unclenched, and he turned, face flushing, catching Captain Crane sweep the straw hat from his head, and bow.

  “Maryanne!” Caleb said. “What in tarnation are you doing here?”

  “I brought you a bottle of sassafras tea.” She held it out, and the Rebels sniggered.

  One of them said: “We can give you something stronger than that, boy, if you’ve got enough sand in your belly.”