During the morning Jem gave rein to his curiosity about Vick’s weapon. He had seen literally dozens of different kinds of guns among the Southern troops—many of them brought their own from their homes and there were a lot of imports—but Vick’s appeared more sophisticated than any he had seen.
“How’d you come by that musket?” asked Jem. “You did say it’s foreign, didn’t you?”
“I suppose Garand was French, though I don’t know,” answered Vick. “It’s the weapon I used when I fought in a different war. It’s .30-caliber.”
Vick handed the gun over and Jem fondled it carefully. What had fascinated him from the first was its smooth, sleek shape, so much more graceful than the rifle muskets the soldiers carried, even more so than his Sharps carbine. Now he admired the quality of the steel in the barrel and mechanism. Where the hammer of his Sharps stuck up was a round gadget Vick called a windage knob.
“Thirty-caliber? The line soldier’s rifle muskets are .58-caliber,” he said. “My Sharps is .52-caliber. You say this has a range of twelve hundred yards?” Four hundred was considered good for the Enfield rifle muskets that were the soldiers’ best weapons. “How hard is it to reload?”
“Does it automatically,” replied Vick. “Eight cartridges in the magazine. All you have to do is keep pulling the trigger. The operating rod gives trouble sometimes and target shooters have had some problem with the barrel riding up in rapid-fire shooting. It suited me, though.”
Automatic reloading. That was hard for Jem to believe, though he knew there’d been a lot of work done toward developing rapid-fire guns and a man named Gatling claimed some success at it. To fire repeatedly without having to reload! If the Confederate command had a source of these for their troops—and maybe Vick’s assignment was in part a test of such a weapon—they’d send the Yankees scooting back North in short order! The problem with the rapid-fire experiments had been inaccuracy, due to recoil and inability to aim as fast as the gun fired. The 1861 rifle musket could hit a knothole at a hundred yards in the hands of a good shot.
Jem itched to fire this piece Vick called a “Garand M-l” but Vick wouldn’t allow that. He said he had no shells with him except the eight in the magazine. Since Vick wasn’t apt to get the chance for more than two or three shots at this Grant, no matter how fast the gun would fire, Jem thought this was being overly cautious. But it was Vick’s musket and Jem didn’t know what plans Vick might have after completing his objective.
The two men strolled leisurely past the barn and along the edge of a thicket, Jem limping slightly on his wounded leg. In the thicket slaves were cutting and raking underbrush, loading into a mule-drawn wagon.
“Of course if we can bag a Yankee general it’s better’n pickin’ off a few riflemen,” said Jem. “But there have to be other Yankee generals in a force that size, to take over if Grant falls.”
“I told you Grant’s the key to Northern victory,” said Vick. “Smith’s the only other general in this force who can fight and he’ll be on the left, west of the fort. When Pillow surprises the Federals with an attack from the fort across Indian Creek through Dover, he’ll roll up the flank of McClernand’s right wing. Only Grant’s return from downriver will rally and reorganize the Union troops and turn defeat into victory for them.”
Jem shook his head.
“You’re predictin’ and prognosticatin’ like Aunt Jessie does sometimes when the ‘sperrit comes on her’ as she calls it, drawin’ lines in the dust with a stick,” he said. “But I reckon you got your orders and I’ll guide you up there. If there’s goin’ to be fightin’ at Fort Donelson I ought to rejoin my outfit there a few days early, anyhow.”
“I’m hoping we can get into the fort through enemy lines after we’ve taken care of Grant,” said Vick. “You don’t have a spare uniform I could wear, do you?”
“Guess one of mine’d fit you well enough, maybe a little tight. I can get Aunt Jessie to let it out if I have to. But why? It won’t help you get a bead on Grant and it’ll just make you a target for Yankee soldiers if they spot you. Them clothes you got on don’t mark you for either side.”
“I won’t put it on until after we’ve gotten Grant and start out for the fort. You want to get into the fort to rejoin your outfit but I want to get in for a different reason. I told you Grant’s one of the keys to this Union victory. Buckner’s the other.”
“General Buckner? At Fort Donelson? You’re not aimin’ to shoot him, are you? I can’t let you do that!”
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary. After smashing McClernand’s position and opening the road to Nashville Pillow’ll pull back into the fort instead of exploiting the breakthrough. Floyd’s in command but Pillow’s going to persuade him to sit there until Grant counterattacks and then Floyd will decide on surrender.”
“Man, you talk like you can read the thinkin’ of all them generals! But that don’t make sense,” protested Jem. “You wreck an enemy’s position and you don’t back off and surrender. You keep goin’ and drive him back on the Tennessee River.”
“Exactly the way Forrest will see it—except he’s not in command.”
“Well, dawg bite it, Mr. Vick, he couldn’t be in command!” protested Vick. “He ain’t nothin’ but a colonel!”
“Too bad he’s not a general yet,” said Vick. “He will be, and one of the famous ones. At Donelson he’ll end up taking his cavalry out of there and riding right through the Union lines to freedom when Floyd and Pillow skip out by boat and leave Buckner to surrender to Grant. I want to pose as a messenger from General Johnston at Bowling Green and fake a message to Floyd putting Buckner in command. Buckner’s the junior of the three generals but he’s a good enough officer to attack, get around behind the Federal lines and crush them, especially if I can make sure Grant’s out of it.”
Jem stared at him. Why such a deception? If the High Command wanted Buckner in command, why not just issue the orders openly? Or was this in-service politics, Johnston refusing to ditch Floyd and Pillow, and President Davis’s staff in Montgomery choosing this way of getting around him? The different states retained such autonomy in the Confederacy that such was possible.
“You expect to get away with that?” demanded Jem. “I don’t know any of these generals but…”
“I’m counting on you to be with me,” said Vick. “You’re a member of Forrest’s outfit, they know you and if I go into the fort with you they won’t doubt my claim to be a messenger from Johnston.”
“I don’t know if I’ll go along with you on somethin’ like that,” said Jem. “But I’m willin’ to take a chance on shootin’ Grant if he does show up on that road north.”
Jem wrestled in his own mind with the problem of Harry Vick the rest of that day. The man’s claim to foreknowledge of Grant’s movements and subsequent importance to the Yankee cause was simply preposterous. What concerned Jem was how the Confederate high command could have learned enough of Yankee strategy for Vick—if he was legitimate and not just a crazy man—to predict its troop disposition around Fort Donelson. He felt he was being foolish, embarking on a snipe hunt, but it was true the Yankees were likely to move on Fort Donelson right away after capturing Fort Henry. If the chances of Vick’s information being right were anywhere close to even filling an inside straight it was worth the trouble of accompanying him up the road.
That afternoon Jem took Vick with him down the road to Lucas Westford’s farm to pick up a pattern for Pru from Mrs. Westford, since he’d be leaving Five Oaks in the morning. Also he wanted to see how well Vick handled himself on a horse, and was pleased that Vick did so quite passably. Some of these civilian agents were city folk who didn’t ride horseback too well.