Rifles for Watie

A week later, Jeff’s company packs up and begins “the long battle march from Fort Leavenworth to Springfield, Missouri” (54). Awakened at three in the morning, Jeff lines up with the rest of the volunteers from Kansas, eager to take part in “the real thing” (54). When the company reaches Grand River, they will join General Nathanial Lyon, and “their combined force of a little more than five thousand men was the only Federal command between Rolla and the new state of Kansas, representing the forlorn hopes of all the Union people in that vast area” (54-55). In Springfield, Lyon will lead the men against the 10,000-strong rebel force. If the Union army loses Missouri, the southerners will take “its rich middle portion from which valuable supplies could be had and thousands of men recruited for the rebel cause” (55). Finally, just after dawn, after the cavalry receives orders to mount their horses, the infantry begins to march.

Jeff notes that Pete Millholland, the sloppy new sergeant, has been working to improve himself, “but he was an officer and Jeff didn’t like officers” (56). As the sun rises and the day grows hotter, the marching gets more difficult. To one soldier, who states that he can’t go on, Millholland urges, “Sure you can. […] You can always go farther than you think you can” (57). Jeff silently agrees, having discovered in training that “fatigue is mostly mental” (57). At each rest stop, Millholland grabs Jeff’s heavy pack to momentarily ease the burden. The help embarrasses Jeff, who insists that he doesn’t need it. Millholland glares at him, and Jeff accepts his assistance “in resentful silence” (57). The soldiers get hotter and thirstier, gulping from their canteens despite Millholland’s instructions to drink slowly. Three boys in Jeff’s company ignore this advice and end up in ambulances. Three days into the march, Jeff watches incredulously as the company empties an entire well in only 15 minutes.

Noticing that Noah Babbitt doesn’t seem to be affected by the heat, Jeff asks, “How come you like to walk so well, Noah? Don’t you ever get a hankering to straddle a horse?” (60). Babbitt explains that he prefers to walk, and tells Jeff that he once hiked from Topeka, Kansas to Galveston, Texas—about 1,800 miles—because he “wanted to see the magnolias in bloom” (61). When they reach Grand River, Jeff sees the first Missourians he has ever encountered who aren’t bushwhackers. They join together with 3,000 Missourians and Iowans and continue marching. When an overheated Missourian stumbles and drops his gun, Jeff notices that the boy is even smaller than he is. The boy rejects Jeff’s help, but Jeff shows him how to stay cooler by putting a handful of grass in his cap and wetting it with his canteen. Appreciatively, the boy introduces himself as Jimmy Lear. Lear, who traveled with General Lyon from St. Louis, has already taken part in some small fights.

As the march continues, Jeff begins to itch. At dinner, Lear starts to pick small gray bugs off of Jeff, exclaiming: “You got graybacks” (63), which he identifies for Jeff as lice. Jeff points out that Lear has them too, and Lear shows him how to get two of the insects to fight each other. That evening, Lear and Jimmy wave their clothes over the campfire, shaking free as many insects as possible, but “the soldiers never seemed to be entirely rid of them” (64). Each day, the Union soldiers march 20 to 25 miles, becoming accustomed to the heat and the exercise. At night, they try to camp near rivers and creeks where the men can swim. Jeff writes a letter to his parents, intending to mail it once they reach Springfield. Accompanying the regiment are barbers, who give them men shaves and haircuts, and a 20-piece band, “striding along stoically in the heat, carrying their brass horns on their thick red necks or under their fat muscular arms” (64).

One evening, Jeff goes to talk to Lear, who is shaving with a straight razor. A sergeant approaches, demanding to know Lear’s age. Lear claims that he is 16, but the sergeant accuses him of lying, insisting that he looks like he is 13. The sergeant orders Lear to go with him to see the captain, complaining that the recruiting officer who signed Lear deserves “a court-martial and a dismissal, forfeitin’ all pay and allowances” (65). Lear admits that he’s 14, pleading: “[T]hey won’t kick me out of the army for this, will they?” (65). The sergeant replies, “They otta make ye walk clear back to wherever ye came from” (65-66), and takes the boy away to the captain. Jeff is stunned. 

The next night, the regiment has nearly reached their destination and camps 25 miles from Springfield. Millholland relays the captain’s assertion that “rebels are comin’ up fast from the South. Looks like we’re gonna have a battle all right” (66). Excited, Jeff cleans his rifle in the woods, shooting it into the air in order to clean the breech. A sentry approaches, agitated, and asks Jeff if he had permission to shoot his gun. Confused, Jeff tells him that he was just cleaning it as he did when he was hunting at home. The sentry places Jeff under arrest and delivers him to Captain Clardy. Angrily, Clardy recognizes Jeff and orders him to stand sentry all night. Exhausted from marching all day, Jeff stops by the cooks’ camp to pour a cup of coffee. Sparrow, the cook Jeff met at Leavenworth, calls Jeff drunkenly from his bunk. Sparrow slurs, “Bussey…you’re a fool. […] Nex’ time he gits rough with you… ask him how the widow Spaulding died… back at Os’watomie… an’ where her eight hundert dollars went” (67). Puzzled, Jeff asks him to clarify. Sparrow adds, “Ask him…who bashed her skull in th’ night o’ th’ storm… I saw him slip up to her house…” (67) and falls back to sleep.

Jeff remembers Sparrow’s comment in the kitchen at Leavenworth that he knows something about Captain Clardy, and wonders if Clardy was involved in a murder or if “the cook was babbling from a drunken dream” (67-68). The next morning, after being allowed a couple of hours of sleep, Jeff sees Jimmy Lear, who is learning to be a drummer with the band. Lear is pleased to explain that he doesn’t have to go home. He will “hone the surgical instruments, draw maps, and carry water to the barbers” (68) until he is 16 and can rejoin the army. The following morning, as the regiment marches toward Springfield, Jeff spots a familiar face. David Gardner is digging with a group of laborers. A guard stops Jeff from reuniting with Gardner, ordering him to “move on. […] These is deserters. Cap’n says nobody’s to talk to ‘em” (69). Jeff keeps marching, relieved that his friend wasn’t executed. When Jeff and Gardner returned to Leavenworth, Jeff had explained that Gardner “was returning voluntarily to his outfit” (69), which Millholland had told the court-martial in charge of David’s case, which led to the relative leniency in his punishment.

The town of Springfield is frantic, preparing for battle. Jeff and the other soldiers relax in the shade as the townspeople close their shops and hide their goods, “afraid that if the rebels won, they would ravish the town” (69). They offer food and tobacco to the soldiers, and one merchant’s wife hands Jeff a bag of apples and two pairs of socks. She wishes him luck, adding that he looks too young for war and like he should be with his mother instead, wiping tears from her eyes. Jeff is offended by her negativity. General Lyon arrives and addresses the soldiers from his horse. He tells them, “Men, we’re going to have a battle” (70). Lyon directs the soldiers to wait until they are given the order to shoot and to aim no higher than their knees. He adds, “And don’t get scared. It’s no part of a soldier’s duty to get scared” (70). But Jeff isn’t afraid, he’s excited as “his chance to strike a blow for his new state had come at last” (70). With the order to march, “thousands of feet began to stamp the hard, dusty ground in unison” (70).

Heading into battle, the Union army is not only smaller but low on supplies with no reinforcements. Although “General William J. Hardee with nine thousand more rebels was reported marching to cut off their communications” (71), Lyon chooses to attack rather than retreat. Retreat would likely lead the rebel army to follow them back to St. Louis, while attacking might cause enough damage to prevent them from pursuing the Union army. Lyon plans a surprise attack at dawn after quietly marching 12 miles to the rebel army camp. Lyon’s 3,800 men will attack from the north of the rebel camp and another faction of 1,200 soldiers will assault from the south side. It smells like rain might be forthcoming, which Millholland points out “might cause ‘em to draw in their pickets. If they do, we’ll give ‘em a real surprise” (71). One young soldier wonders what the rebels look like, and a sergeant replies that they have horns on their head and eat babies.

Stationed in the rear, Jeff’s company is under Clardy’s command. Quietly, the soldiers prepare for battle, trading “messages to be delivered to relatives and sweethearts back in Kansas in the event they were killed” (71). One soldier throws a deck of cards he is carrying into the bushes, and Babbitt illuminates that some people are superstitious and believe that, since the church tells them that playing cards is a sin, having cards on one’s person when killed might prevent them from being admitted to heaven. Another soldier calmly gathers the cards and puts them in his pocket. Jeff muses that he’ll probably sell them back to the first soldier if they both survive. Considering that survival isn’t guaranteed, Jeff remembers that the soldiers learned that only a small percentage of men fighting would die and wonders why the mood is so grave, thinking: “War was a lark, an adventure made for men” (73). Babbitt asks Jeff if he is afraid, and Jeff replies, “I’ve been waiting a long time for this night” (73).

Jeff notes that the Kansas Volunteers are poorly dressed compared to their compatriots. Jeff himself is partially in civilian clothing. A cavalryman in a black suit rides by, and Jeff hears another soldier explain that he was married at Leavenworth right before they departed and was wearing his wedding suit. With a sudden “muffled gunshot, followed by a scream of agony” (74), the Union soldiers paused, confused, until Clardy runs past and screams at them to keep marching. Jeff tries to see what is happening, and “for the first time he felt a slight panic” (74). They watch as Clardy and a medic escort a boy with a bandaged hand and a tear-filled face. The boy cries that it was an accident, and Clardy calls him a “liar,” asserting: “You deliberately shot it off so you’d get a discharge” and threatens to have him “court-martialed for cowardice” (74). Another soldier, Jake Lonegan affirms that the captain is probably correct, since it happens frequently that frightened boys decide to shoot their fingers off to get out of fighting. Jeff is shocked to learn this.

Silently, the marching soldiers close in on the rebel camp. Jeff notices Zed Tinney, “a quiet, religious boy” (76) holding his Bible and praying, terrified. Lonegan begins to mock him, and Millholland shuts him down, telling Lonegan that no one was going to be teased for praying. The company on the front line, chosen as skirmishers, reports back that there are no rebel pickets standing guard. It begins to rain lightly, and Jeff is thrilled to begin fighting. If the Union can defeat the Confederate soldiers in this battle, they could win Missouri for the North. Jeff, who is in the second line of advance, wishes desperately that he could be in the first line and have “the honor of hitting the Southerners first” (77). Near dawn, they receive the whispered order to “Fix bayonets,” which means “clamping the long steel knives onto the tips of their musket barrels” (78). Suddenly, they hear cannon fire from the Union soldiers to the south of the camp. The rebels start to fire their guns back, and the battle begins.

After the first line throws itself at the Confederate camp, Jeff cheers, “feeling a wild thrill at the solid charge of the first Union advance” (80). An officer approaches on a horse, and orders Jeff to go to the rear and retrieve the quartermaster, who has been delayed for some reason. Disappointed, Jeff begs the major to send someone else, and the major insists, “Another time you shall have your chance to fight in battle” (81). After the major rides away, Jeff briefly considers disobeying the order, but Millholland urges him to go. Heading to the rear, Jeff walks past Clardy, who screams at him to rejoin the line. Jeff yells back, “I know where the line is. […] I don’t need an old grouch like you to help me find it” (82). Outraged, Clardy points his weapon at Jeff, and Jeff responds by pointing his rifle at Clardy.

Jeff asks Clardy why he is so far from the fight, adding, “Are you looking for some other widow’s eight hundred dollars?” (83). Clardy, shocked, backs off, warning Jeff, “Better keep your mouth shut, boy, if you value your life” (83). Clardy suggests that they can be friends, but Jeff refuses, rejecting any sort of deal or partnership with Clardy. Glowering, Clardy stalks off. Eventually, Jeff finds the quartermaster who was stymied by a broken wagon wheel. Returning with the quartermaster, Jeff hopes to join the battle but discovers that it is already lost. Hundreds of Union soldiers have been shot and Lyon has been killed. Jeff searches for his squad, locating Chadwick, who has been injured, and Millholland. Babbitt tells Jeff that Zed Tinney was shot and killed right away, and that a third of the first line died. Millholland states that they would have won if they hadn’t been so vastly outnumbered. He tells Jeff that Jake Lonegan had tossed his rifle and run away, but that Jimmy Lear had traded his drumsticks for Lonegan’s weapon and joined the charge. Ashamed, Jeff heads back to Springfield with the rest of the men. As they fall asleep, Lear tells Jeff, “I hope I never have to hear another gun go off, long as I lived” (87). Jeff hopes desperately for another battle tomorrow, but “he knew there wouldn’t be. The army was licked” (87).