FORT PILLOW

“This is our big chance, men!” Major Bradford shouted. “If we hold them out now, they're whipped!” Bradford pointed up to the big U.S. flag floating above the fort. Several minnies had punched holes through the Stars and Stripes, but they still proudly waved. “That flag will never come down! Never, do you hear me?”

Together, white cavalry troopers and colored artillerymen raised a cheer. Bradford seemed over the worst of the jitters that afflicted him earlier in the day. Leaming hoped it wasn't too late. He shrugged. Jitters or not, Bradford had done about as well as any man could after Major Booth fell. His adjutant didn't see what he could have done differently if he didn't intend to surrender.

Oh, things might have gone better. If they had, the Federals would have been able to fire all the barracks buildings, not just those in the first row. Then Forrest's men would have had fewer places from which to shoot at the fort from close range. And, more important still, the Olive Branch and the other steamboats might have been able to land their soldiers. The Confederates were out there in large numbers. Leaming didn't know whether Booth's 1,500 or Bradford's 7,000 was a better guess, but the garrison was badly outnumbered either way. Reinforcements would have helped the U.S. cause.

If Forrest hadn't sent men to the mouths of the ravines below the fort to scare off the steamships… Leaming still thought he shouldn't have got away with doing that under flag of truce, even if it was a truce about which the soldiers aboard the Olive Branch knew nothing. No matter what Leaming thought, it was over and done with now.

“Be ready, boys! We're almost there!” a Confederate bawled.

“At my order!” another Rebel shouted. Both voices carried an officer's authority. Perhaps two heartbeats later, the second one cried, “Now!”

All along the earthen rampart, Bedford Forrest's troopers popped up, rifle muskets and pistols at the ready. Every Federal soldier with a loaded weapon fired at the same time, at point-blank range. Dead and wounded Rebs spun and tumbled back into the ditch. Screams filled the cool air.

But then the Confederates loosed a volley that dwarfed anything the soldiers in blue could give them. Far more enemy soldiers pressed against the outside of the earthwork than there were Union troops to defend it. Not all of Forrest's men pulled trigger-some held back, so they could shoot when they needed to. But even so, the attackers who fired outnumbered the men inside.

Mack Leaming didn't know how many bullets cracked past him in that hellish instant. He also didn't know how they all managed to miss him. Thank you, Lord! ran through his head. Maybe he said it out loud. Maybe he didn't. He never could sort it out afterwards.

He did know that far too many Federals weren't so lucky. All along the earthwork, wounded men reeled back and dead men dropped. The defenders might have taken a sharp right to the chin in a fistfight.

If they went down now, they would never rise again. “Fight!” Leaming shouted. “Fight, God damn you! If we don't fight, we all die!” Maybe if we do fight, we all die anyway, some mad and hopeless fragment of his mind jeered.

The Confederates roared and bellowed and screeched their savage battle cry. Leaming had heard people say it was worth a division in battle. Now he understood what they meant-at close range, the Rebel yell made the hair stand up on the nape of his neck and threatened to turn his blood to water. It made him want to run, even if he didn't.

Forrest's men ran-forward. They scrambled up onto the broad rampart and dashed across it, then leaped down into Fort Pillow. Some of them used the bullets they'd held back before. Others stabbed with bayonets or swung their rifle muskets club-fashion.

Whites and Negroes in blue uniforms met them side by side. They didn't need Leaming or any other officer to tell them they had to hold out that swarm of enemy soldiers if they wanted to go on breathing. The colored artillerymen at the center of the U.S. line might not have had much practice with the bayonet, but that didn't keep them from using it when they had to. They fought with the wild courage of men who had nothing to lose. And so they were-the Confederates howled “No quarter!” and “Black flag!” at the top of their lungs.

No doubt the Negroes would have been wiser not to mock Forrest's troopers during the earlier fight, and especially during the truce. Their jeering came back to haunt them now. But, even at close quarters, they showed discipline and courage beyond anything Lieutenant Leaming expected of them. Whites could do no better-the whites from the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry fighting alongside them were doing no better.

“Hurrah! Hurrah!” Leaming ran at the Confederates, not away from them. Next to the Rebel yell, the Union battle cry seemed flavorless in his mouth, but it was what the Federals had, so he used it.