Eric Flint - 1812 - The Rivers of War

Pakenham wondered what he might have chosen to do, in Thornton's place. He didn't wonder more than a moment, though. The very same thing. Err on the side of aggressiveness, if err you must.

"A splendid regimental commander," he pronounced. "I'll see him knighted, so help me God."

Jackson was back at his window, studying the battle through his glass. Once the British column moved past the naval battery they'd overrun, he lowered the glass and shook his head.

"I will be good goddamned," he stated, lapsing into blasphemy. "The niggers held. The only ones that did except the regulars, goddamn all Kentuckians."

He swiveled his head and glared at his aides. "What's the name of Driscol's chief sergeant over there? The black one, I'm talking about-black as the ace of spades. The fellow he brought with him from Washington."

The aides glanced at each other. Reid cleared his throat. "Not sure, sir. 'Ball,' I think."

The glare was joined by a grin that was, if anything, more ferocious still. "Well, he's Lieutenant Ball now. Army regulations be damned, along with the whole state of Kentucky."

Jackson turned back to the open window, leaned out of it, and shook the eyeglass in the direction of New Orleans. "Take that, you trembling bastards! Take that, you craven curs! Rot on your stinking plantations, you treacherous cowards!"

He continued in that enthusiastic vein for a time, becoming more vulgar and profane as he went. Andrew Jackson, in a mood for cursing, was extraordinarily good at it.

When Houston saw the oncoming British column, he skidded to a halt. "Hold up!" he shouted. "Form a line!"

Fortunately, the sailors from Patterson's unit were veterans, so they had the three-pounders in line quickly enough to give the rest of Houston's regiment an anchor point. The three-pounders were positioned directly across the narrow dirt road that led up the riverbank. Houston placed his Baltimore dragoons on either side, and extended the Capitol volunteers in a line stretching toward the nearby swamp.

There was no time to make breastworks, of course. The British weren't more than three hundred yards away by now. But Sam was sure that, firing in a line against a narrow column, his men would at least be able to hold the British for a few minutes.

That left Major Ridge and his two hundred Cherokees.

"Can you get through that cypress?" Sam asked.

Ridge glanced at the swamp. "It'll take a bit of time."

"Sure. I'll give you the time. You get in there and hit them on the flank." He peered into the distance. "There's not more than two hundred yards between the river and the swamp, where I'll stop them."

Ridge left immediately, fading swiftly into the underbrush with his Cherokees in tow. John Ross went with them, without waiting to hear what Sam wanted him to do.

Sam was a little surprised by that. John was normally punctilious about military protocol, even if his own status in the U.S. Army was somewhat anomalous. But, clearly, the young Cherokee captain had decided his identity here was with his own nation.

So be it. Houston wouldn't really have known what to do with him anyway. The situation was about as clear and simple as it could get: the American regiment would start firing on the British once they got within a hundred yards, and keep shooting until it was all over.

"We'll stand here, boys!" he shouted. Belatedly, he remembered his sword. A moment later, he had it waving about. "We'll win here or we'll die here, but whatever else, we shall not retreat! "

The regiment sent up a cheer. A bit too wavering a cheer, to Sam's mind.

"D'you hear me, blast it! We'll stand and win, or stand and die!"

His mind raced through the Iliad, then raced back again to the beginning. Yes, that verse would do nicely.

"Since great Achilles and Atrides strove,

Such was the sov'reign doom, and such the will of Jove!"

Most of the veterans from the Capitol burst into laughter.

"I'm getting a little predictable," Sam muttered.

But…

Being predictable, he decided, was probably a good quality for a military commander. To his men, at least, if not the enemy. And besides, that laughter from the veterans seemed to have braced the morale of the rest even more than the preceding cheer.

He wondered why that should be so, other than the general quirkiness of the human soul. But he didn't wonder for long. The British were coming fast, now. They'd be breaking into a full run any moment. The oncoming rows of bayonets made them seem not so much like an army, but a single beast. A great huge snake, making its strike.

"All right, boys, let's kill that snake!" They were in range now, Sam decided. Certainly for the three-pounders. "Let 'em have it!"

The cannons went off before he finished the sentence. Grapeshot shattered the front lines of the column.

"Let 'em have it, I say!"

The first musket volley was fairly done, if somewhat ragged. But the men shot straight enough, the most of them. And if their ensuing fire was ragged, it didn't slack off. They had the inevitable advantage that a line always has, firing on a column. There wasn't much coming in the way of return fire, to rattle his inexperienced troops.

And-though Sam didn't know it-those first volleys decapitated the snake.

Colonel Thornton's shoulder was shattered by a grapeshot. The blow spun him around. Reeling but still on his feet, his face pale with shock, he stared at Gubbins.

"Keep the men-"

Whatever Thornton's last command might have been went unspoken. A musket ball penetrated the back of his head and blew out his left eye.

Gubbins wiped the gore off his face. "Forward, damn you! Forward,

He choked, clutching his throat, torn by a musket ball. Blood spewed out instead of words. Another musket ball struck him in the ribs, spinning him sidewise; then another passed through his jaw, smashing out most of his teeth along the way.

Gubbins collapsed. On a dirt road by the Mississippi River, he bled to death.

"You're in command, sir!" cried the pale-faced young lieutenant of the Eighty-fifth. "Colonel Thornton and Colonel Gubbins have both fallen."

Captain James Money of the Royal Navy stared at the head of the column, some fifty yards or so in front of his own marines. The column was bunched up, now. No longer a column as much as a ragged lot of men trying to form an impromptu line, with no officers and a narrow front to boot. The charge had stumbled to a halt. Bayonets wouldn't do it here, clearly enough.

Money looked back at the rest of the column.

"Right. No help for it, then. We've got to form a line and fight it out. Lieutenant, I want-"

A musket ball struck his left shoulder and drove him to his knees. Turning his head, his mouth open, Money saw a wave of wild savages pouring out of the cypress swamp. The Indians had begun their charge with a volley, apparently, as soon as they emerged from the trees.

A volley of sorts, at least. Money's mind was too dazed to remember exactly what he'd heard. All he could do was watch as the savages slammed into his unprepared men. They fired again, once-no volley there; just each savage as he would, those who had muskets-and then began killing with war clubs and spears.

Captain Money detested this idiot war in the gulf. The terrain and climate were the worst he'd ever encountered. Nothing that happened in the next half a minute caused him to reconsider his opinion. Certainly not the war club that shattered his skull.

"Back! Back to the woods!" Major Ridge's voice, like Driscol's, was eminently capable of carrying across a raging battlefield. "Get back now!"

For a wonder, the warriors obeyed him. That alone, John Ross knew, as he plunged back into the cypress along with the others, was enough to make clear Ridge's status. Cherokee warriors weren't terribly prone to discipline. Ferocity, yes. Obedience in the face of commands He actually chuckled, once he reached the dark safety of the trees.