He might have been, but he wasn't. “General Forrest says, 'I demand the unconditional surrender of this garrison, promising you that you shall be treated as prisoners of war,''' Leaming read. Captain Goodman nodded again. The Federal officer went on, “You will know we have colored troops inside the fort. Does this promise extend to them as well? They too will be treated as prisoners of war, and will not be killed out of hand or re-enslaved?”
“Yes, sir. That is correct. The niggers will be treated as prisoners of war, on the same terms as white men, if you surrender now,” Walter Goodman said. “As it happens, I raised this point myself with both General Forrest and General Chalmers, wanting to make sure no unfortunate misunderstandings arose from it. They both stated very clearly that they will accept the colored soldiers under the terms of this demand.” Goodman leaned toward Leaming. His politesse did not slip, not quite, but he let the hostility below show through. “Bear in mind also, sir, that if you refuse we shall not answer for the safety of any man within Fort Pillow, black or white. Is that plain?”
“It could scarcely be plainer, Captain.” With Captain Young and Lieutenant van Horn beside him, Leaming had to affect a nonchalance he did not feel.
“Very well. Any further questions?” Goodman asked.
“No, sir. I will carry this message to my commanding officer.” Leaming had seen that the demand was addressed to Major Booth. Booth would be reading it from the Pearly Gates, from which place his comments were unlikely to return. But the Confederates didn't need to know command had devolved upon a less experienced man. Leaming did not mention Major Bradford's name. He just turned to his companions and said, “Let's go.”
“I expect Major Booth's answer in short order,” Goodman warned, proving again that he didn't know Booth was dead. “No delay here will be tolerated.”
“I will make that very plain, sir,” Leaming said. Once more, he said not a word about to whom he would make it plain.
His footfalls and those of the two officers with him and the clop of the horses' hooves and jingle of their harness were the only sounds he heard as he walked back up to Fort Pillow. Guns had been thundering and cannon roaring since first light. The silence now felt almost eerie.
Major Bradford waited just inside the gun port from which the truce party had set out. “What do they want?” he called.
“About what you'd expect, sir.” Mack Leaming held out the paper Captain Goodman had handed him. “Here is Forrest's demand.”
Bradford rapidly read through it. When he finished, he asked the same question Leaming had: “What about the colored troops?”
“Sir, they are to be included among the prisoners of war,” Leaming answered. “I raised the point with Captain Goodman, who delivered the note to me. He said both General Chalmers, whom he serves, and General Forrest agreed they will accept the Negroes' surrender.”
“I am not going to decide this all at once,” Bradford said. “Have you got paper and a pencil, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir.” Leaming took the writing tools from his pocket.
“All right, then. Take this down…” Major Bradford hesitated for a moment, perhaps communing with his muse. “To General Forrest, commanding C.S. forces,” he said. Mack Leaming wrote it down. Bradford went on. “Sir-I respectfully ask one hour for consultation with my officers and the officers of the gunboat. In the meantime no preparation to be made on either side.” He hesitated again, then asked, “Do the Confederates know Major Booth is dead?”
“No, sir,” Leaming said. “As you see, their demand is addressed to him. I didn't tell them he'd been hit, and neither did anyone else in the party.”
“Likely just as well. They'll think better of Booth than they will of me. He was a real soldier, and I'm just a lawyer, and a Tennessee Tory to boot,” Bradford said. Lieutenant Leaming found himself nodding; those were the main reasons he hadn't informed the Confederates of Booth's death. Bill Bradford went on, “As long as they don't know, let's keep them in the dark. Sign it, 'Very respectfully, L.F. Booth, Major Commanding.' “
“Yes, sir.” Leaming did as he was asked.
“Good, good. Now-do you have an envelope?” Bradford seemed endlessly worried about tiny procedural details.
“Yes, sir. As a matter of fact, I do.” Leaming took one from the left breast pocket of his tunic. He put Bradford's response into it.
“Good. Good. Seal it up. Seal it up tight,” Major Bradford said. “And, with a little luck, Bedford Forrest'll give us the hour, and we'll have reinforcements in place by the time it's up, and then we really will be able to tell him to go to the Devil.”
“I hope so, sir,” Leaming said. Along with the other members of the truce party, he went out of Fort Pillow toward the waiting Captain Goodman once more.
Major William Bradford's dream of reinforcements was Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest's nightmare. Not long after his ultimatum to the men inside Fort Pillow went forward, that nightmare looked like it was coming true. A trooper from down by the Mississippi came up to Forrest, calling, “General! General Forrest, sir! There's smoke on the river, sir! Looks like a steamboat's coming up!”
Bedford Forrest swore horribly. That was the last thing he wanted to hear. “God damn it to hell and gone!” he shouted, and then, hoping against hope, “Are you sure?”
“Sure as I am that I'm Hank Tibbs,” the cavalryman answered. “Come see for yourself if you don't believe me.”
“I think I'd better,” Forrest said grimly, and rode down toward the broad river. He didn't get there as fast as he would have liked; the steeply sloping ground and the number of felled tree trunks made his horse pick its way along. He needed almost fifteen minutes to come to the eastern bank of the Mississippi and peer downstream toward Memphis.
Hank Tibbs didn't have to worry that anyone would fear he wasn't entitled to his own name. Bedford Forrest did some more profane swearing when he spied the steamer coming up from the south. As he'd feared they would be, its decks were blue with the uniforms of U.S. soldiers.
Just to make things worse, a glance north along the Mississippi showed more smoke, as if another steamboat was on the way with aid and comfort for the Federals in Fort Pillow. How was he supposed to take the place if they could pour men into it from the river?
Forrest looked from Fort Pillow out to the gunboat already floating on the Mississippi. The enemy warship was honoring the truce; it hadn't fired a shot since learning the white flag had gone in. But neither the gunboat nor the men in the fort were making any effort to stop the steamer crammed with troops from approaching. In their place, Forrest probably wouldn't have, either. That didn't make him love them any better.
“Captain Anderson!” he shouted.
“Yes, sir?” His aide-de-camp wasn't far away.
“Get as many men down by the riverbank as you can,” Forrest said. “Pull some of them down from those buildings we took, and use the little force you already gathered together.” He pointed down the river toward the oncoming steamboat. “Let those sons of bitches see they'll have a nasty time of it if they try to let their soldiers off.”
“I'll tend to it, sir.” Anderson saluted and hurried away.
A moment later, Forrest shouted for a runner. When the soldier came up to him, he said, “Get your fanny over to Colonel Barteau in Coal Creek Ravine. Tell him to bring his men out in the open and to take them down by the bank of Coal Creek. I want to make sure the Yankees in that there steamer”-he pointed to the vessel-”can't swing in and land by the creek any more than they can here along the river. Have you got that?”
“Yes, sir,” the runner said. When Forrest raised an eyebrow, the man gave back the instructions with tolerable accuracy. Forrest nodded. The runner trotted off toward the far side of the battlefield.
Men in gray and butternut rushed to make themselves visible on the low ground by the base of the bluff. Some of them came up along the riverbank, others down from the buildings they'd gained when the Federals failed to burn them all. Watching, Forrest nodded again, this time to himself. An officer would have to be crazy to try to land in the face of opposition like that.