FORT PILLOW

In spite of himself, Forrest laughed. Say what you would, that Negro had nerve-which only made him need killing more. Ordinary blacks were no great trouble. They did what they were told, the same way ordinary whites did.

An uppity nigger, though… An uppity nigger was trouble. He might as well have smallpox or measles or some other deadly, contagious disease. He could infect others with what he carried. And if he did, he made them dangerous to white men, too.

“We got here just in time, sir,” Captain Anderson said, coming up beside Forrest. Quiet fury filled the aide-de-camp's voice.

“How's that?” Forrest asked.

“Well, sir, the longer we let these niggers think they're soldiers, the longer they have the chance to believe it, the more trouble they'll be in the long run-not just facing us but spreading their nonsense to other coons,” Anderson said. “Better-much better-to nip all that in the bud.”

“I was thinking pretty much the same thing,” Forrest said.

“If we teach those sons of bitches a good lesson, every smoke who puts on a Federal uniform will remember it from here on out,” Anderson said.

“Don't know much about lessons. Don't care much about lessons, neither.” Forrest grimaced, remembering his own brief, irregular schooling. “I just want to get in there, clean this place out, and then go give the damn yankees another boot in the behind somewheres else.”

“A boot in the behind isn't what that one damnfool nigger deserved.” Captain Anderson still seethed. “A minnie up the cornholethat's more like it.”

“He'll get his,” Forrest said. “We can find out who he is and damn well make sure he gets his.”

“Yes, sir.” But Captain Anderson remained discontented. “He's not the only nigger acting that way-he's just the worst.”

“I know, I know.” A shell from the gunboat in the Mississippi crashed down not far from the row of wooden huts the Confederates had captured. The cannon in the fort wouldn't bear on those barracks buildings, but the gunboat kept pestering them. Another shell burst over there. Somebody screamed-a sliver of iron must have struck home. Forrest pointed that way. “Here's something for you to do, Captain. “

“What is it, sir?”

“Find yourself some men who don't look like they're busy doing anything else.” Bedford Forrest's mouth quirked in a wry grin-you could always find plenty of men like that on a battlefield. He pointed west, toward the great river. “Take' em over there. If we have to storm the fort, we'll want to grab the riverbank just as quick as we can. We'll be able to shoot back at that damn gunboat then, and we'll make sure the damnyankees can't land any reinforcements, too.”

“I'll do it,” Anderson said. “Reinforcements are about the only thing that can save that place, aren't they?”

“Nothing's going to save Fort Pillow,” Nathan Bedford Forrest said. “You hear me? Nothing.”

“Here they come again!” Captain Carron shouted. Sure enough, a couple of hours after their first headlong assault on Fort Pillow was beaten back, the Confederates made another push. Sergeant Ben Robinson and his crew served their twelve-pounder like steam-driven mechanical men. They sent one round of shrapnel after another at Bedford Forrest's troopers.

But the Rebs were able to get under the range of the gun, the way Robinson had feared they would. Because of the thick earthwork, the crew couldn't depress the cannon enough to bear on them when they drew near. It was up to the soldiers with Springfields then: the colored artillerymen who didn't have a big gun to serve and the dismounted troopers of the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry.

They had the same trouble the gunners did, though to a lesser degree. Because of the thick parapet protecting Fort Pillow, they couldn't easily fire down on the enemy soldiers coming up the steep ground toward them. If they tried, they exposed themselves to Secesh sharpshooters. The Rebs were good marksmen; they wounded several Federals who tried to pick off their friends.

All the same, Forrest's men had to run a gauntlet to get too far forward for V.S. gunfire to bear on them. Enough of them got hit to make the rest lose heart. Most of them fell back out of easy range, with only a few hanging on down below where the men in the fort had trouble shooting at them.

Seeing Forrest's fierce fighters move away from Fort Pillow made Charlie Key and Sandy Cole and the rest of the blacks in the gun crew jump in the air and click their heels together. “Look at 'em run!” Charlie shouted. “Just look at 'em run! They ain't so god damn tough! “

Confederate minnies still cracked past the gunners. “They ain't quit yet, neither,” Robinson pointed out. If you forgot that-or maybe even if you didn't-you'd stop a bullet with your face.

Charlie was too excited to care. So was Sandy Cole. “So what if they ain't, Ben-uh, Sergeant Ben?” he said. “So what? You ever reckon you'd live to see the day when we had guns an' the buckra was runnin' from us? Feel so good watchin' 'em go, I reckon I done gone to heaven.”