Talons of Eagles Read online

  * * *

  During breakfast, Captain Woodville explained the secret smile.

  “I’ve been what? ” Jamie blurted.

  “You’ve been commissioned a major in the Army of the Confederacy, sir,” Cort said.

  “By whose orders?”

  “General Lee, Major. You are to assume command immediately of two companies of Confederate guerrillas and commence harassing the enemy, sir.”

  “The rider I heard last night.”

  “Yes, sir. General Lee telegraphed all his commanding officers that could be handily reached by wire, seeking their opinion on your commission, and I am proud to say the returning word was unanimously in favor.”

  “Well, I’ll just be damned!” Jamie blurted, then cut his eyes to Anne. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Woodville.”

  She laughed and poured them all fresh coffee. “No need to apologize, Major MacCallister. I’m very happy for you.”

  “General Lee predicted that three days from now, when I am to ride with you to a staging area about thirty miles from here, volunteers would be lined up fifty deep and an acre across to join you, Major,” Cort said.

  “I never commanded men before.”

  Cort smiled. “You just thought you weren’t commanding them, Major. But they were following you.”

  Anne almost blurted out that she could certainly testify to the accuracy of that. She bit back the words just in the nick of time.

  That would have really shocked her husband right down to the soles of his polished cavalryman’s boots.

  * * *

  Since they were to be guerrillas, Jamie was adamant about uniforms: there were to be no military uniforms worn in his unit.

  “Then you run the risk of being shot as spies,” Lee pointed out.

  “Not as long as we stay in our own territory,” Jamie countered. “Although the Yankees might not see it quite that way,” he added with a smile.

  Lee and his other generals agreed—Johnston had been unable to attend. He was meeting with President Davis.

  Jamie was stunned at the size of the contingent that had volunteered to ride with his command. Hundreds of men had arrived at the staging area in hopes of being chosen to ride with MacCallister’s Marauders—that name not of Jamie’s choosing, but of Cort’s.

  Jamie stepped in front of the group and shouted, “I want men who can ride like the wind, shoot like Davy Crockett—and remember this: I fought beside Davy for days at the Alamo—and who possess the courage to charge the gates of hell at my command!”4

  The entire group of men stepped forward.

  Lee shook his head, smiled sadly and murmured, “Brave lads all.”

  Jamie had read over the records of the officers who had volunteered and chose Captain Jim Sparks from Texas as commanding officer of First Company, and Captain Pierre Dupree of Louisiana as commanding officer of Second Company. As his command sergeant major, he chose an Alabama man, a career soldier who had left the Federal forces after years of brave and loyal service, and many commendations, to fight for his homeland: Louie Huske.

  “Make out a list of the men you want,” Jamie told his two captains and his sergeant major. “They’ve got to be men who can get along with each other, and men who will stand. When you’ve done all that, we’ll go over the lists together, interview the men, and choose together.”

  Each company would be comprised of one hundred and three men and officers. They would carry only light rations, depending for the most part on the good will and generosity of the people of the South for food. Each man would carry four pistols, two on their person and two on special-made saddle holsters, one left and right, butt facing to the rear. Each man would carry one Sharps .54 caliber carbine. Cort tried to persuade Jamie to add sabers to the list of weapons, but Jamie stood his ground against them. He would equip each Marauder with a long-bladed Bowie knife. The officers could carry sabers if they chose to do so—and they all did—but the rest of Jamie’s men would carry Bowie knives.

  Before any further men were chosen, Jamie personally selected the horses. He would have preferred the tough mountain horses that he knew and loved, but mustangs were impossible to find in Virginia. The horses he chose were not the prettiest of the lot, but they were tough and strong. He chose no animal that he knew had been raised on grain, for grain was something that was going to be hard to come by. The color of the horses was also very important, for he wanted no horse that would stand out, day or night.

  Lee and J. E. B. Stuart watched Jamie closely that first day and part of the second. By then, they knew they could not have picked a better man to command the guerrillas. Jamie MacCallister had proven himself in battle dozens of times over the years, and he had the unwavering loyalty and respect of the men.

  Lee and Stuart summoned Jamie to a meeting at the close of his second day at the staging area.

  “Jamie,” Lee opened the meeting, held in a tent set off in a meadow, away from any unfriendly ears and eyes—and Lee knew they were about. “The Army of the Shenandoah is ready. General Johnston has just over ten thousand men, trained and ready to fight.” He moved his finger along a map spread out on a table. “They’re here.” His finger left that position and moved along another line. “Up here and over here, under the command of General Robert Patterson, are the Union forces, some twenty thousand of them. Patterson is a fine man, but he is too old and much too timid for a field command. General Winfield Scott made a blunder by appointing him to command the Union forces now preparing to advance on Harper’s Ferry. Scott will soon discover his mistake, but it will be too late.

  “Begin training your Marauders hard, Major, for I am going to thrust you all into the lion’s mouth very soon. You and your Marauders are going to cross the river and begin harassing actions against Patterson’s green and unproven troops. I want you to convince Patterson that he has many more men attacking him than he does in truth. Buy us some time, Major. For God’s sake and the sake of the Confederacy, buy us some time.”

  “I’ll do my best, sir.”

  “I know you will. Here is the reason for your daring actions: General Irvin McDowell is training thousands of troops to add to Patterson’s force. General Beauregard’s troops will be shifted over here to add to our forces. It is going to be a great battle, Major. One that we can win if we play our cards close to the vest. Johnston is going to let Patterson think he has him on the run. As Patterson advances, Johnston is going to retreat from Harper’s Ferry, pulling the Yankees deeper into the trap. The Yankees may or may not fall for the trap—I suspect they will sense something is wrong and quickly turn around and head back across the Potomac. If that is the case, we put another plan into action.”

  Jamie studied the map for several long moments, his frontiersman’s mind working hard.

  “If you have anything on your mind, Major,” Stuart said, “for God’s sake, share it.”

  “What does intelligence say about McDowell’s force over here on this flank?” Jamie asked.

  “Many of them green troops or old, inactive veterans, poorly trained and poorly equipped. They are short on supplies and short on weapons and ammunition.”

  “And the major offensive is scheduled to begin . . . when?”

  “As near as our spies can pinpoint it, the date will be July 8th. We’ll be ready by that time. McDowell’s troops will not be ready.”

  J.E.B. Stuart said, “We will, in all probability, be facing the largest army ever assembled in North America. Probably more than thirty-five thousand men.”

  Jamie’s finger drew a circle around another area. “This place here, what’s this called?”

  Stuart looked at the map. “Bull Run.”

  5

  Jamie began pushing his men hard. What he had to do was knock all sense of fair play out of them and then start from the ground up retraining them in guerrilla warfare. To a man they knew that Jamie MacCallister had been raised by Shawnee Indians, and was a master at what was called dirty fighting. To Jamie’s mind, that was
nonsense; there was no such thing as a fair fight. There was a winner and there was a loser, and that was all. In war, you killed the enemy, and that was that. You did it as humanely as possible, but a soldier kills. Period.

  His two companies were chosen, and he had personally handpicked fifty men to stand in reserve, for only a fool did not expect casualties.

  Jamie adopted little of the established cavalry tactics. Other people could fight gentleman’s wars. Despite all the talk of how he was to disrupt supply lines and create confusion among the enemy, Jamie knew he and his men had really but one function: to kill as many of the enemy as possible.

  Jamie had no way of knowing how many men had left the twin valleys back home to join up with either the Blue or the Gray, but he suspected many of the young men had made up their minds and were now in training with their chosen side.

  Jamie had written Kate, telling her that he was now a major in the Confederate army, but not telling her exactly what he was doing. His guerrillas were to remain a secret for as long as possible. He knew that would not be for very long, for once his men began raiding in full operation, the cat would soon be out of the bag.

  Jamie had put aside his buckskins and now dressed like his men, in civilian clothing that he had to have made for him. But he still wore his moccasins and high leggin’s. The horse he had chosen for himself was a monster. A mean-eyed, dark, sand-colored brute whose owner had been threatening to shoot when Jamie arrived at the farm.

  “Sell him?” the man almost shouted the words. “Hell, yes, I’ll sell him. I can’t ride him. Nobody can ride the bastard. You can’t keep him in a stall; he kicks it all to pieces. He’ll sneak up on you and bite the crap out of you. I got him in a trade and it was a sorry day that I did. My mares are scared to death of him. He ain’t good for nothin’.”

  The man looked at Jamie. “Say, you’d be Jamie MacCallister! Major MacCallister! Take him, Major. He’s yours. God bless you, sir.”

  “What’s his name?” Jamie asked.

  “That’s a horse straight out of hell, Major. Man I got him from named him Satan!”

  Captain Jim Sparks took one look at Satan and asked, “You got a death wish, Major?”

  Within a week, Satan was eating out of Jamie’s hand and following him around like a trained dog.

  In the first real test of armies, the Rebels soundly defeated the Federals at a place called Big Bethel in early June. President Lincoln became exasperated and ordered General Scott to launch a campaign against the Confederate forces in Northern Virginia. Scott and McDowell worked out a plan, and the date of the assault was to be July 8. Confederate spies learned of this and got the information to Johnston and Lee. Lee sent an aide to Jamie with this terse message: Ride. Attack. God speed.

  Within the hour, Jamie and his Marauders were riding toward the north. Jamie broke his command up into small groups so as not to arouse suspicion among the Federal spies who seemed to be everywhere, just as Confederate spies were all over Washington and near any Federal troop encampment.

  Jamie’s aide was a young Virginia lad not yet out of his teen years. Private Benjamin Pardee. He had picked Ben for several reasons: Ben was small and light in weight, and could ride like the wind. And the young man’s parents were dead, his only close relative a sister living down near the Virginia/Tennessee border. Jamie had a suspicion that before this war was over, there would be damn few original members of the Marauders left. He had thought at first to select only single men, but as it turned out, about half of his men were married.

  Jamie’s Marauders began gathering in four places just south of the Potomac River. Across the river, clearly visible to the naked eye, were the camp fires of the Federals. Although President Davis and General Lee had forbid General P. G. T. Beauregard from taking any type of offensive action against the Yankees, that order did not apply to MacCallister’s Marauders; they were militarily designated as guerrillas and therefore could attack any Federal position they chose.

  On this night, the Marauders would not attack in force. Jamie had other plans. Captain Sparks was an experienced Indian fighter with years of fighting Comanches and Apaches behind him, and so was Lieutenant Casten. Jamie chose nine other men with experience fighting Indians, and at full dark, they left their horses on the south side of the river and rowed across the river, using boats that had been hidden in the brush the day before. Jamie and his men were armed only with pistols and knifes and packets of explosives.

  The green troops of General McDowell were about to experience the terror of sneak attack by men who had learned it firsthand from the greatest guerrilla fighters the world has ever known: the Indians.

  Sparks and Casten marveled at the ability of Jamie to blend in with his surroundings and move as silently as a ghost, in spite of the man’s large size. Many times during night training Jamie had slipped up to experienced men and tapped them on the shoulder. Startled one man so badly he soiled his underwear—it would be a long time before he lived that down.

  Jamie took Casten and three enlisted men and circled the camp to his left, while Sparks took the remainder and went to his right. Sparks knew what to do, for this had been researched several times, using information supplied to Jamie from Confederate spies.

  Jamie placed his black powder charges gently, choosing his spots with care. One smaller charge went between two senior officers’ tents. Another huge charge was planted behind the rough-built powder house. The men with Jamie and Sparks planted small charges around artillery pieces; when that was done, they backed off just inside good pistol range and waited for Jamie’s signal.

  Jamie could have killed several of the sentries, but elected to spare them . . . for this night. Once the war began in earnest, he would not be so generous.

  Neither Jamie, Sparks, nor any of the other men could cut the fuses for the charges until they were actually on the site. So all breathed a silent prayer to the gods of war that they were allowing themselves plenty of time to get clear before the charges blew.

  Mostly it was the skill of the men with Jamie, but some of their success had to be placed on the shoulders of the green troops guarding the encampment. The Marauders did their work, lit the fuses, and slipped away to lie belly down in good pistol range of the camp without being detected.

  When the several hundred pounds of explosives blew, it must have sounded like the end of the world to those green troops in the camp. Four senior officers were killed instantly by the charge that Jamie had planted between the tents, and several more were badly wounded. When the block house went up it leveled everything within a five-hundred-foot radius. The charges under the artillery pieces went off, and for some inexplicable reason known only to God and the inexperienced artillery crews, the cannons were fully charged and ready to fire. Sparks from the exploding charges ignited the powder in the fire holes, and the cannons began going off. Since many had the wheels blown off them, the balls went ripping off at ground level, doing terrible damage to tents, wagons, and people.

  The men of MacCallister’s Marauders all let out fearsome screams in the violence-shattered night and let their pistols bang into the running, milling, confused mass of Federal troops.

  When their pistols were empty, they headed for the river and the boats. They did not attempt to row, just lay flat on the bottom and let the current move them along downriver until the gloom of the cloudy night had swallowed them.

  They left behind them several hundred dead and wounded, a camp in shambles and confusion, and morale considerably lowered. Jamie and his Marauders made it back to their horses on the south side of the river and were quickly gone into the night.

  * * *

  Many Northern newspapers put out special editions with huge headlines, denouncing the assault as a COWARDLY ACT, a VICIOUS SNEAK ATTACK, and THUGS ATTACK SLEEPING UNION CAMP.

  “Somebody forgot to tell those editors that war is hell,” Jamie said, although the credit for that remark would be attributed to someone else.

  Then strategi
sts in the Confederate camp decided it would be a good thing to let just a bit of news leak out about MacCallister’s Marauders and the actual number of men who had attacked the Union encampment.

  It was said that General Winfield Scott went into a rage upon hearing that only ten or so men were responsible for the terrible damage that was wreaked upon McDowell’s camp along the Potomac. Most Northern newspapers called the number false. Several Union generals loudly proclaimed that no ten ’hound dog Southerners’ could inflict that much damage on a Northern church choir, much less upon an armed camp. One of those generals was Thomas Thornbury, a pompous, lard-butt loudmouth who commanded a Pennsylvania home guard. Thornbury, who came from a very wealthy Philadelphia family, had commanded his small militia for years, and his rank was self-imposed. He had never experienced actual combat, but he did make good copy for the newspapers because he always had something outrageous to say. This time, Thornbury was quoted as saying, “If those yellow-bellied Southern riffraff ever come to Pennsylvania, I’ll personally kick their ignorant butts back across the Mason-Dixon line.”

  Jamie read with interest the remarks of General Thornbury. Then he sat in his tent for a time, deep in thought, a smile occasionally playing around his mouth. Without telling anyone what he had planned, Jamie met with Captains Sparks and Dupree, and in twos and threes, Marauders began quietly saddling up and riding out. Jamie took scissors and cut his long hair short, dyed what remained black, and laid out his good dark suit.

  When Lee was asked by one of his aides what MacCallister was up to, Lee was reported to have replied, “I don’t know and I don’t want to know.”

  Jamie left Satan and rode out of camp on a horse that had been deemed unfit as a cavalry mount—he would turn it loose once he got past enemy lines and to a train depot—and headed north. His handpicked men were already well on their way, posing as drummers, wandering itinerant laborers, and so forth. Jamie figured if he could successfully pull this off, he and his men would really tweak the noses of the Yankees.