FORT PILLOW

But some of his comrades still had loaded weapons. They shot a couple of white officers, after which the Union charge faltered. “Come on!” Ward said. “There ain't enough of 'em to hold us out, no matter how hard they try!”

He waded into the fight. A white Tennessean in a blue uniform tried to bayonet him. He tried to bayonet the homemade Yankee at the same time. His bayonet punched into the enemy trooper's thigh. The Federal's thrust missed him. The Tennessean who fought for the U.S.A. yowled and sat down hard, trying to hold the wound closed with his fingers. Ward never found out what happened to him, whether he bled to death, whether some other Confederate killed him, or whether he ended up getting taken prisoner.

Ward also stopped worrying about what happened to the Tennessee Tory the instant after he bayoneted him. A great cheer rose from the Confederates, a hardly smaller moan of dismay from the Union troops.

The large U.S. flag that had floated over Fort Pillow since dawn's early light was down. If that didn't mean the fort was falling, nothing ever would.

Sergeant Ben Robinson groaned when the Stars and Stripes came down. That was his flag, not any of the ones the Confederates used: not the Stars and Bars, not the Stainless Banner that replaced it because from a distance it looked too much like the flag it sought to supplant, and not the Confederate battle flag with its blue X on red. If he belonged to the United States, he had a chance to be a man, an American, a person in his own right. If he belonged to the Confederate States, what was he but a slave, a piece of property, a thing? Nothing, nothing at all.

If he wasn't very lucky, he feared he would be a dead man soon. A glance at the sky told him the sun had hardly moved since the Secesh soldiers swarmed over the rampart. He wasn't Joshua, to hold it back in its course. The hand-to-hand fighting inside the earthwork hadn't lasted long-no more than fifteen minutes, twenty at the outside. It only seemed to go on forever.

Well, no matter how it seemed, it wouldn't last much longer. The colored artillerymen and Tennessee troopers inside the fort had done everything flesh and blood could do to hold out Forrest's men, and everything flesh and blood could do wasn't enough. Some people were saying thousands and thousands of Rebs had got into Fort Pillow. Robinson wasn't so sure about that. But he was sure there were more men in butternut and gray than in blue wherever he looked.

“What is we gonna do, Sergeant?” Sandy Cole shouted. He and Robinson and a few other Company D men, Nate Hunter and Charlie Key and Aaron Fentis, formed a little knot of stubborn resistance against the oncoming Confederate tide. Key had served the twelve-pounder; the other two Negroes hadn't. They were riflemen who'd fired over the earthwork at the Confederates. With the gun useless and the earthwork lost, they were all in the same boat. Yes, they were all in that boat, all right, and it was sinking.

“We got to fight,” Robinson answered, bending to pick up a fist-sized rock and throw it at the nearest Rebel. “We don't fight, they kill us fo' sure.”

None of the other colored soldiers could argue with that. Cries of “No quarter!” and “Black flag!” still rang out. Forrest's troopers were murdering Negroes who tried to lay down their arms and surrender. They were also murdering men from the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry who did the same thing. Their blood was up, and they cared about nothing but slaughter.

“Watch yourself, Aaron!” Charlie Key yelled. Aaron Fentis started to turn. He was a squat, broad-shouldered man, strong as an ox but not very fast. He didn't have a chance of knocking away the Confederate bayonet pointed straight at his midriff.

Ben Robinson did. He had a rifle musket of his own now, and swung it at the Reb's piece. The blow caught the weapon squarely and knocked it out of the enemy soldier's hands. Forrest's trooper let out a startled yelp. Aaron Fentis hit the Reb in the head with the butt of his Springfield at the same time as Robinson slammed his rifle-musket butt into the pit of the man's stomach. Down went the Confederate. Somebody stepped on him, shoving his face into the mud. He wouldn't get up soon, if he got up at all.

“We can lick' em!” Sandy Cole shouted.

The small band of Negroes had licked all the Rebs who came at them. If the other men who garrisoned Fort Pillow could have done the same, the Secesh soldiers would be running away with their tails between their legs. And if pigs had wings…

Too many Rebs. That was what it came down to. Now that they were in the fort, the men in blue couldn't drive them out. Robinson knew one reason his little band of soldiers hadn't been badly tested was that they looked and acted tough. Forrest's men were no more eager to risk getting hurt than anybody else with an ounce of brains in his head. They went after people who were hurt or acted afraid. Once all the easy marks were down, they'd deal with the tougher ones.