But he made no protest. Perhaps it was, to such men.
As soon as he caught sight of the American line—much more substantial, this one, ranging across hundreds of yards of front—Thornton paused just long enough to assess the thing. The American left, anchored on the river, would naturally be the strong point. There’d be some regulars there, manning the battery. Musketeers and a handful of light ordnance were spread across the middle. There would be the weakest point, but he didn’t want to charge with batteries firing on him from the two flanks. Even if he broke through, his casualties would be severe.
He studied the solid-looking fieldworks to the left of the field. That was where the new freedmen battalion was positioned. For a moment, he was tempted to turn the charge to head directly for them. As a rule, a unit like that would break easily. But . . .
He was mindful of the possibility that the Capitol veterans might be there. Probably were, in fact, now that he finally got a good look at their fieldworks. Someone with determination and authority was in charge there. Remembering the carnage in Washington, he decided that a direct assault would be too risky.
“Right,” he said to his aides. They clustered about him while the men took a moment to rest. “We’ll avoid the American right, and make our drive along the river. That new unit looks to be solid—but with as little training as they’ve received, they’ll be like lost lambs once the line gives way. If we can break the American line at the river, the entire line will come apart. The freedmen and militia won’t retreat for the good and simple reason that they don’t know how. They’ll run like rabbits, and we’ll hunt them like hounds.”
He waited just long enough to see if any of his lieutenants had any doubts they wanted to express. As he expected, none did.
“Right, then. Nothing fancy.” He raised his voice so it could be heard by the men at the head of the column. “It’ll be a column charge with bayonets, lads! We’ll do or die!”
A cheer went up. A very good one, Thornton thought.
He drew his sword, held it high, and took his place near the head of the column.
“To victory!”
“Damnation,” Driscol growled, seeing the British angling toward the other end of the line. He’d been expecting them to attack him at once, and had prepared accordingly.
But Ball was already giving the order to replace the grape with round shot. At the range the British column was keeping, all the way across the field, grapeshot would be a hit-or-miss affair.
Ball’s method for switching rounds was simple and sanguine. The entire battery fired the grapeshot that was already loaded, and then started reloading with round shot. “Hit-or-miss,” after all, isn’t the same as “miss.”
If the freedmen battalion was poorly trained with muskets, they knew how to deal with heavy ordnance. Very soon, they were ready to fire again.
“Rake ’em, boys!” Charles Ball yelled. “Rake the bastards!”
Again, the battery erupted, all but the one six-pounder that was too far out of position on the right. It was as neat and sweet a volley as any Driscol had ever seen.
Grazing shots, too, the most of them. Ball had veterans aiming the guns. The cannonballs hit the ground in front of the column, and skipped into the mass of men at waist level. The effect wasn’t as devastating as it would have been if the cannonballs had struck stony ground, scattering splinters of rock to accompany the balls themselves. But not even the soggy ground along the banks of the Mississippi could keep those balls from caroming into the British column with deadly force.
One ball missed entirely, from what Driscol could tell through the cloud of gunsmoke. But the rest hit the enemy column like mauls wielded by a giant.
The only thing that kept the casualties from being worse was that Driscol had only a few guns and was firing on the British column from an angle across the field. “Enfilade fire,” as it was called, was usually devastating against a line, because the shot could strike so many men. But it was much less effective against a column that was no more than a few men wide. If Driscol’s guns had been firing head on, a single ball might have slain and maimed a dozen British soldiers. As it was, Driscol saw one of the balls—must have been from the twelve-pounder—pick up four men and hurl their broken and shredded bodies into the river.
Ross could feel his face tighten. Two volleys, fired like thunderclaps. Even from the distance, there was no mistaking the thing.
That’ll be Driscol, he thought. The man like a stone.
Near its head, Thornton ignored the havoc being wreaked on the center of the column. He’d known his men would take casualties from the other American battery while they charged the one by the river. At the moment, he was far more concerned about the damage he was taking from straight ahead. The battery they were charging was doing quite well itself.
Grapeshot killed two men in what was now the front rank. Thornton simply leaped over their bodies. The battery on the American left was within fifty yards. Thornton knew how terrifying a mass of bayonets would be, coming at the run. That battery would break, so help him God.
“Forward!” he cried. He was no longer waving the sword. Now, he had it gripped for the killing stroke.
“Rake ’em, boys, rake ’em!”
Ball was doing a splendid troll imitation himself, so Driscol let him be. The one time he started to move forward to assist, John Rogers held him back with a hand on the shoulder.
“Just stay here, Patrick.” The Rogers brothers had no use at all for military protocol. “He’s doing fine, and if you get crushed by a cannon recoil scurrying around like a fussy hen, me and James will never hear the end of it from Tiana.”
Driscol didn’t try to fight off the restraining hand. John’s words were true enough. The first bit, at least. The idea that Patrick Driscol would let himself get carelessly behind a cannon being fired was just ridiculous.
“Rake the bastards, you blasted currees! You got no excuse to miss since they ain’t firing back! Any crew misses its shot I’ll cut your ears off and fry ’em up! My voudou queen got one hell of recipe for it, too!”
Granted, Ball’s version involved a lot of unseemly leaping about, but Driscol made allowances. You couldn’t reasonably expect African trolls to have the same customs as northerly ones.
And he was getting the result they needed. Between Ball’s energetic leadership, and the sure confidence of the core of veterans from Barney’s unit, the men of the Iron Battalion were going about their work swiftly and effectively. Even, to all appearances, calmly. The sweat now coating their dark faces and bodies was simply that caused by the heat of the rising sun and the work of firing cannons.
It was everything Driscol could have hoped for. He might lose this day—die this day—but not before gutting the Sassenach.
Stoically, Robert Ross sipped his tea. The sound of the batteries was almost continuous now. But, always, with that regular punctuation. One battery maintaining volley fire while the other simply blazed away as best it could.
Miles away, out of sight, Ross could see it as if he were there. Thornton had done exactly what he would have done—avoid Driscol’s unit and attack the American line across the field. By the river, probably. He’d suffer bad casualties in the doing, of course. But once the hinge was shattered . . .
Yes, it might work.
Undoubtedly would work, if Thornton had enough men. Once the flank gave way, men as inexperienced as the Kentucky militia and the hastily trained freedmen would be lost. Orderly retreat, disciplined regroupment—all that would be completely beyond their grasp. They’d simply break and run, peeled away like rind from a fruit.
“Unless,” he muttered.
Tiana gave him a blank-faced look. In fact, there’d been no expression on her face at all, since the battle began. “Unless what, Robert?”
Ross took a deep breath. “Unless Driscol does what I damn well think he’s going to do, the stubborn Scots-Irish bastard. Simply stand, like a stone. He’ll force Thornton to come at him
.”
There was still no expression on her face. “Stand and die, you mean.”
The British general reminded himself sharply that the man he was speaking of was loved by the girl across the table. Deeply loved, in fact. Of that, he was by now quite certain, even if he often found her Cherokee way of expressing it puzzling.
“Perhaps. You never know, in a battle. Believe it true, Tiana. You simply never know until it’s over.”
When Sam Houston encountered his first Kentuckian, fleeing from the battle he could hear in the distance, he neither shouted nor waved his sword. He wasn’t holding his sword in the first place, having recognized what a dangerous practice that was in a long march so forced it was almost a run. He simply grabbed the man by the scruff of the neck as he raced past, spun him around, and sent him sailing back toward the front lines.
“You so much as look back at me once, and I’ll break your neck! You will fight, so help me!”
The militiaman didn’t look back.
Encouraged by Houston’s example, other men in his regiment used similar methods of persuasion as they encountered more fleeing militiamen. By the time Houston and his men reached Patterson’s battery, they’d rallied perhaps a hundred of the Kentuckians.
“Thank God you’ve arrived!” Patterson cried. “They’re fighting hot and heavy down there! Don’t know how much longer they can hold!”
“Then why are you still here?” Sam snarled.
Patterson gave him an odd look. Confusion, mainly, not anger. Sam stopped, planted his hands on his knees, and took some deep breaths. He needed a rest. And if he did, so did his men.
“My apologies, Commodore.” Sam had spoken unfairly, and he knew it. Sam didn’t doubt Patterson’s courage any more than anyone else did, and he knew Patterson’s chief responsibility was making sure that whatever else happened, the big guns didn’t fall into enemy hands. His battery was positioned directly across the river from the field of Chalmette. If the guns of the battery were seized by the British before Patterson had a chance to spike them, it would take only minutes to shift them upstream far enough to start ravaging the Jackson Line.
His wind back, Sam straightened and peered across the river. The British forces over there were in position to launch an assault, but hadn’t so far made a move to do so. They were waiting, he guessed, to see what happened on the west bank.
Then he looked at Patterson’s battery. “Give me the two three-pounders and enough men to haul and fire them. Even if the enemy seizes them, they won’t do much damage firing across the river. But I can use them downstream.”
Patterson didn’t hesitate. “Yes, certainly.”
Five minutes later, rested, Houston and his regiment were off again. Almost running now, with two three-pounders bouncing along behind.
From the second-floor window of the Macarty house, watching through an eyeglass, Jackson saw the British break the hinge of Morgan’s line of defense by the river. The battery put up a stout fight, but before long it was overwhelmed.
The rest of the line started peeling away, Kentucky militiamen scattering like chaff in the wind.
He swiveled the eyeglass far around, looking north. Yes, there was Houston, coming fast. Thank God.
Swiveled it back. It was hard to tell much, more than a hundred yards past the riverbank. But he could see clouds of gunsmoke, billowing like clockwork.
That’d be Driscol and his freedmen, solid as a rock.
The general lowered the glass and hollered something. None of his lieutenants in the room understood a word. They couldn’t have, anyway, since there really weren’t any words. That had been just a shriek, half glee and half fury.
Still clenching the eyeglass, Jackson turned from the window and stalked from the room. Down the stairs, and out of the house.
He shook the eyeglass toward the southeast. “Come at me, Pakenham! Tarnation, come at me!”
Pakenham was standing next to a tree, near the riverbank. Watching. Softly, steadily, like a metronome, he kept pounding the trunk with the bottom of his fist.
He’d wait before ordering the assault here at Chalmette. He wouldn’t act until he knew what was happening across the river.
He’d wait.
So help him God. The God who ruled battles, and all else. He . . . would . . . wait.
CHAPTER 46
The American lieutenant died at his post, after firing a last round of canister from his twelve-pounder that killed three British soldiers and wounded several more. In their fury, no fewer than four of Thornton’s soldiers bayoneted the man repeatedly after they reached him, practically ripping his body into shreds.
Gasping for breath, Thornton looked down at the corpse. The lieutenant still gripped the smoldering fuse in his hand.
Sometime later, Thornton knew, he’d feel admiration for the man. The unknown lieutenant had just added to the splendid reputation which the little U.S. Navy had gotten in the course of the war. But at the moment, he felt more like stabbing the corpse himself, with his saber. That battery had hammered the Eighty-fifth worse than Thornton had expected.
After a few more breaths, Thornton regained his wind. Amazingly enough, in that last charge, he hadn’t himself suffered as much as a scratch, even though he’d been in the lead much of the way.
But what next?
A round from the battery still firing on the American right killed another British soldier and scattered his squad, right in front of Thornton’s eyes. Damnation! Against all logic and reason, that bloody unit was still in place and still firing its cannons with the same rate and accuracy that had ripped the Eighty-fifth throughout the charge. The rest of the American line had peeled away and raced to the rear, even before the assault overwhelmed the artillerymen on the riverbank. But the other battery hadn’t so much as flinched.
So much for logic and reason. As often, applied to military affairs, they’d proved to be treacherous beasts.
Quickly, Thornton considered his options. None of them were good.
“Shall we charge them, sir?” asked Lieutenant Colonel Gubbins, Thornton’s immediate subordinate, nodding toward the American battery a few hundred yards away.
Thornton thought about it—quickly, because the battery was continuing to fire on them. Now that the Eighty-fifth had reached the redoubt on the riverbank, the men were somewhat sheltered. But not enough, and certainly not against fire that accurate.
Standard procedure would have been to silence the battery before pressing onward. No commander wanted to leave an enemy bastion threatening his rear. But Thornton decided to risk it. He had to take the main American battery, farther to the north, with its big cannons. And he had to do it quickly.
“No, we’ll keep pressing on. However good that new American unit has proven to be, I don’t think its commander will risk a sortie against our troops on the open field. And if he does, we’ll turn and crush him.”
Gubbins scanned the area, then nodded. “Soon enough, too, we’ll be out of their range. Out of sight, for that matter, once the column moves a few hundred yards off.”
Thornton saw that Gubbins was right, and his grim expression lightened considerably.
The American commander had established his line at a place where the cypress swamps were fairly distant—exactly the opposite of what Jackson had done across the river. Just a few hundred yards north, the swamps closed in again, leaving an open area not more than two or three hundred yards wide between the cypress and the waterway. Once the British column reached that narrow neck, they’d be out of sight of the American battery altogether.
“Do you want to leave a detachment behind, sir?” Gubbins asked.
“Yes. They’ll serve to guide the Forty-third and the West Indians, once they arrive.” Thornton looked over the guns they’d seized from the naval detachment. One twelve-pounder and two six-pounders, neither of which the Americans had found time to spike. For a moment, he was sorely tempted to take the cannons with him. But they wouldn’t be enough to affect w
hatever battle started across the river on Chalmette field; and, in the meantime, the detachment he left behind would need those guns to defend themselves against the American battery that was still in place.
“Leave as small a detachment as we can manage, but not so small that they might be overrun by those bloody bastards over there. Make sure they’ve enough experienced men to handle the guns we leave behind, as well.”
Gubbins moved off. Thornton began organizing his regiment to make a rapid movement out of the shelter of the redoubt. Such as it was.
“Give it to ’em, boys!” hollered Ball. “Any crew slacks off I’ll have their legs in with the rest of the shrimp in Marie’s pot!” Brandishing a cutlass, he glared at the crew of the twelve-pounder. “Don’t you be grinning at me, Corporal Jones! Those long legs of yours’ll fit, too! That voudou queen got the biggest cook pot in New Orleans!”
Ball was demonstrating that his superb performance at the Capitol had been no fluke. He had as much of a knack for handling novice recruits as he did the veterans he’d had with him in Washington.
Better still, Driscol knew, the men themselves were blooded now—and in the best possible manner. Bloodlessly, for them. They’d been able to prove to themselves that they could inflict damage on an enemy before that enemy could attack them directly. When and if the British came at them, they’d have confidence that fighting back would make a difference, even in the face of a terrifying bayonet charge.
When, he thought, correcting himself. There’d be no “if” involved.
True enough, from what he could tell the British commander was getting ready to push onward, leaving Driscol and his battalion behind. But it was obvious that they’d faced only a portion of the British forces, thus far, not more than a regiment. There had to be more coming.