“Yes, sir?” Walter Goodman was not only brave-no one who wasn't brave served under Forrest for long-but had a pretty good head on his shoulders. “What can I do for you, sir?”
“Take a flag of truce and ride up toward the fort,” Forrest answered. That drew Chalmers's notice, too; Forrest thought it might. He went on, “Captain Anderson here has written out a call for the Federals to surrender. Will you take it to them?” He held out the paper.
“Of course, sir,” Goodman said.
“Good.” Forrest nodded to himself; again, he'd phrased the order as a request, but that didn't make it any less an order. “Round up a couple of more officers as you go forward, if you care to-that'll give you a proper-looking truce party.”
“I'll take care of it.” Captain Goodman read the surrender demand. He looked up with a frown on his face. “Ask you a question, sir?”
“What is it?” Forrest said. “Something not clear?”
“You say the garrison's entitled to be treated as prisoners of war,”
Goodman replied. “Does that include the niggers, too? The Federals are bound to ask, and they've got a hell of a lot of coons in there.”
Forrest grimaced unhappily. What to do about Negroes in blue uniforms had bedeviled the Confederacy since the U.S.A. started arming them. The usual practice, codified by a law out of Richmond, was to return runaway slaves-who formed the bulk of the colored troops-to their owners. Here, though… “Yes, dammit, we'll treat the niggers as prisoners of war — if they give up now. I want that fort, and I want it before the Yankees can bring reinforcements up the river.” He glanced over to General Chalmers. Chalmers didn't look happy about it, either, but he nodded.
Walter Goodman looked sorry he'd asked. “All right, sir,” he said, “but a lot of the men won't like it.” He wasn't wrong. If anything, ordinary Confederate troopers hated the idea of colored soldiers worse than their officers did.
But challenging, or even seeming to challenge, Nathan Bedford Forrest was the wrong thing to do. Bristling, the general commanding snapped, “If I say we'll take nigger prisoners as long as the Federals give up now, then we damn well will. Have you got that, Captain?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” Captain Goodman said hastily.
“All right, then.” Forrest's temper cooled as quickly as it rose. “Go on forward and see what this Major Booth has to say for himself.”
“If he has any sense, he'll quit now, while he's still able to,” Brigadier General Chalmers said. “We can storm the place if he's stubborn. “
“Looks that way to me, too,” Forrest agreed.
Captain Goodman shouted for a white cloth he could make into a flag of truce. When he had one, he started up toward Fort Pillow. Forrest sent Captain Anderson back down to the Mississippi.
“Well,” he said, as firing began to fade with men on both sides spying the white flag, “now we see what happens next.”
“Look, sir!” an excited trooper from the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry called to Mack Leaming. “The Rebs are sending up a truce flag.”
“So they are.” Lieutenant Leaming didn't sound as happy as the private did. Forrest used flags of truce all the time. He was known to take advantage of them, too, if he saw the chance to do it.
For the moment, though, the rattle of musketry from both sides faded. Major Bradford called out a command to his brother: “For God's sake, Theo, let the New Era know we've got a cease-fire!”
“Yes, sir!” Theodorick Bradford waved the wigwag flags as if suddenly stricken with St. Vitus' dance. A few minutes earlier, gunfire would have drowned his voice and his younger brother's. Now they rang clearly, the loudest things on the suddenly quiet field.
“Leaming!” Bill Bradford shouted. “Are you there, Leaming?” The commandant couldn't have been standing more than twenty feet away from Leaming, but his back was turned so he could call to his signals officer. “I'm here, sir,” the adjutant replied.
Bradford turned. “Well, so you are,” he said with a sheepish smile. Pointing out toward the approaching Confederate truce party, he went on, “I want you to go find out what the enemy has in mind.”
“Yes, sir.” Leaming couldn't help blurting, “By myself, sir?” Major Bradford started to nod, but then checked himself. “Well, maybe not,” he allowed. “We don't want Forrest to reckon we can only spare the one man, do we now?”
“That's what 1 meant, sir,” Leaming said gratefully. And it was.. part of what he meant, anyhow. Going out there alone to face Forrest's fearsome fighters, even under flag of truce, also struck him as too much like sticking his head in the lion's mouth. If he didn't have to admit that out loud, he didn't want to.
“Fair enough,” Major Bradford said. “Take Captain Young with you, then. He's a sharp fellow, and solid as a rock. And”-he looked around and nodded toward the first other officer he saw-”take Lieutenant van Horn with you, too, and a few mounted men for swank.”
“Yes, sir.” Leaming nodded, too. He liked that a lot better. Easier to stay brave when you weren't trying to do it all by yourself. And bringing along Second Lieutenant Dan van Horn was a downright good idea. He came from the Sixth U.S. Heavy Artillery (Colored), and could report directly to his fellow officers-those of them left alive-about what went on.
Van Horn was a young man, younger than Mack Leaming. He still looked excited about the fighting, which was more than Leaming could say. John Young didn't, but he wasn't a man who would rattle easily, either-Bradford was right about that. As for the troopers… Leaming picked the first four men he saw and told them to get up on horseback.
Less than five minutes later, he and his companions, carrying their own flag of truce, went down from Fort Pillow toward the Confederates, who waited on the ground that sloped up toward the fort from the end of the battered rows of barracks buildings nearer the Mississippi. All the Rebs were mounted; Leaming, Young, and van Horn moved forward on foot.
“Good morning, gentlemen.” Polite as a cat, the C.S. officer holding the white flag saluted his U.S. opposite numbers. “I am Captain Walter Goodman, General Chalmers's adjutant general. Accompanying me are Captain Tom Henderson, commanding our scouts, and Lieutenant Frank Rogers.” He didn't bother naming the enlisted men with his party.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Captain Goodman.” Leaming saluted, too. The formal courtesies of war went on even while men did their best to murder one another. So did life in generaclass="underline" only a few feet away, a robin hopped over the muddy ground, now and then pausing to pull up a worm. Leaming introduced himself, continuing, “I have the honor to be post adjutant. With me are Captain John Young, our provost marshal, and Lieutenant Dan van Horn.” Captain Goodman hadn't said what Lieutenant Rogers did; Lieutenant Leaming didn't mention that Lieutenant van Horn led colored troops. He also didn't name the troopers from the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry who'd come forward with him.
Goodman held out a folded sheet of paper. “Please take this to your commander, Lieutenant. It is General Forrest's demand for the surrender of the fort. “
“I will convey it to him, sir,” Leaming said. “May I read it first, so I can clear up with you any questions he is likely to have?”
“By all means.” Captain Goodman nodded and gestured. “Be my guest. “
Leaming unfolded the paper. From everything he'd heard, Bedford Forrest was not an educated man. By the smooth, flowing script he saw, he doubted the Confederate commander had written this note himself. But it held Forrest's fierce, arrogant tone all the same. “I do have a question,” Leaming said when he finished reading it.
“Ask, sir, ask.” Walter Goodman was the soul of politeness. He might have been trying to sell Leaming a phaeton or a surrey, not trying to talk him into going into captivity.