Stoneballs was stone-faced, but inwardly felt as if he had been kicked in the gut. He composed himself. “Thank you, sergeant. The family who owns this land was kind enough to bring us some vittles. There’s a few pieces of fried chicken and green beans left in the kettle over there. You can bring your patrol over for a bite if you haven’t had anything to eat today.”
“Much obliged, General! None of our men back there have had anything to eat since yesterday.” He looked up at the pouring rain and laughed. “Had plenty to drink though!”
Stoneballs laughed too. If the rest of his command had this man’s good humor then they still had plenty of fight left in them.
“You and your men get some food in your bellies, sergeant. Then get some rest. You’ve had a hard day’s ride.”
Stoneballs looked back over the swollen Sangamon, still on the rise. He saw it lapping around the top of the lower north bank. He decided that he should not try to backtrack across the dozens of miles to Confederate Union lines. He calculated that the rising water combined with Grant’s control of the railroads would make his odds of success too low.
Stoneballs searched the four corners of the horizon for any sign of a break in the clouds. He saw nothing in any direction except steamy fog from the warm rain rising up to mingle with the low overcast. His gaze went down to the horizon in front of him. Motion on the railroad tracks ahead of him drew his attention. He looked again. It appeared that a railcar was approaching slowly. The car stopped at a distance that the obscuring mist barely allowed his vision to penetrate. It appeared that a mule team was unhitched and led away. Jackson called it out to the attention of his sergeants and told him to get his men into firing positions with their guns loaded.
Before the sergeants could carry out the order, a storm of fire erupted from the railcar. Jackson watched the horses and mules grazing inside his lines go down. They’re trying to strand us here by shooting down our mounts!
Jackson shouted out: “Get those horses into the woods! Get some fire on that rail car! And get those mountain guns assembled!”
18
Sangamon River, four miles northeast of Springfield, October 4, 1861
An hour earlier, Colonel of Volunteers John Barrie had watched the storm of fire from his railcar take down the Confederates’ mounts and send the men scurrying for cover. He had twenty-six men in the car. His six best marksmen were posted up front, able to pump out continuous fire from the rifles that the twenty men behind them reloaded and passed up to them. The roof over the car kept the men and their weapons dry. This is the perfect way to patrol a railroad. Yankee ingenuity at work!
The Confederates weren’t doing any shooting at the moment. They’d tried to capture the railroad car three times and each time they’d taken casualties that had driven them back.
The first time they’d tried a mounted attack only to have their horses shot out from under them by Barrie’s fast-firing men before they could close the distance sufficiently to return fire. Then they had tried a dismounted rush by men spread out in skirmish lines. They might have succeeded if the pouring rain hadn’t slowed their loading their rifles and mounting the percussion caps. Barrie’s men, sitting high and dry in the car had shot them down like partridges. The few Confederates who did manage to get close to the car got stuck in hand-to-hand fighting with the rest of Barrie’s men who had walked the tracks behind the car.
On their third attempt the Confederates had tried to bring up their battery of mountain howitzers drawn by mules. Again, Barrie’s men had stopped them in their tracks at two hundred yards by shooting down the mules. The Confederates had unlimbered the cannons and opened fire on the railcar from that distance, but they seemed to only have brought canister rounds with them. The short-barreled cannon flung the canister out in a ring pattern that wasn’t dense enough at the center to make hits on the end-on car. Barrie’s men had driven the gunners off after one volley, leaving the unmanned cannons stuck out there in the mud behind a pile of dead mules.
Barrie stretched out and went to sleep on the railcar floor during the lull following this latest attack. He had been asleep about forty minutes when his sergeant announced that General Grant had arrived.
Barrie got up and saluted Grant, who was shedding water off his white rubber raincoat like a duck.
“My compliments on your ingenuity in defending this railroad,” said Grant. “I believe you’re fighting the same cavalry reconnaissance battalion that chased my patrol off this morning. They probably got run clear back to Bloomington.”
One of the men at the front of the car shouted, “Come see what the Confederates are up too now!” Grant and Barrie walked forward to see. The man who had called them pointed toward the unlimbered guns and dead mules left over from the last Confederate attack. A dozen or so Confederates seemed to be at work on the dead mules. They appeared to be cutting the legs off the mules with axes and bayonets.
One of the men started to draw a bead on the Confederates.
“Let it go, sergeant,” said Barrie. “If those Confederates are hungry enough to eat raw mule legs, then let’s let them eat their dinner in peace.”
Grant laughed. “That’s the sporting thing to do. I owe them one anyway. Yesterday outside Urbana I was caught in the open riding alone without an escort within fifty yards of the Confederate lines. They could have shot me off my horse if they’d wanted to, but they held their fire. Guess they didn’t think it was a sporting affair to shoot a lone officer caught out in the open with no means of defending himself. So, yes, let’s do let them enjoy their dinner in peace. They’re bound to choke on those mule legs faster than we could shoot them!”
Barrie and Grant returned to the center of the car.
“I congratulate you and General Smith for extending your lines sufficiently to cover the gaps left by my withdrawal of Prentiss and Curtis divisions,” said Grant. “I used them to plug the gap in our line north of Urbana. Curtis stopped the Confederate attack from the front while Prentiss hit them in the flank. You deserve your share of credit. Your men have kept up enough fire to fool the Confederates into believing the line in front of Springfield is still fully manned. They won’t be able to get across that line to help their friends who are stuck in the mud and taking a beating.”
In the background Barrie heard his men joking about those poor Confederates eating their “mule feast” in the rain.
CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSHH! — BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The front of the railcar disintegrated, showering Barrie and Grant with wood splinters, pieces of iron, and rounds of what appeared to be bolts of solid shot. The men who had been lounging around the car or were watching the Confederates from the front went flying. Barrie was dropped by a piece of iron rail dislodged from the front of the car. He opened his eyes in time to see another volley of solid shot careening around inside the car, cutting down more of the men as they ricocheted around the interior.
He was just getting to his feet when the car exploded again, knocking him flat on his back in the center isle. Grant fell over him. Barrie raised his head enough to see that only five of his men were still manning their positions with their weapons at the ready. The CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSHH! — BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! of another salvo echoed, and all five of those men went down.
Where did the Confederates get that solid shot? His attention became fixed on one of the bolt-like solid shots that had came to rest a few feet away after clanging around the car and dropping his men. No, it can’t be! They’re shooting mule legs at us! It was true. The “solid shot” were mule hoofs with the mule shoes still on them. Some of the hoofs had shattered, dislodging the iron shoes while showering the interior with deadly hoof splinters.