a slow, laborious slaughter --3/3/25
Today's selection-- from A Brutal Reckoning by Peter Cozzens. A fight breaks out in Old Hickory’s camp.
“Late winter rains beat a steady tattoo on the fabric of Old Hickory’s marquee. Inside, Jackson lay prostrated by a severe cold. He passed the gray days dictating letters to his aides, grumbling at the medical staff who poulticed his throbbing shoulder, and stumbling outdoors to relieve his loose bowels in the waterlogged latrines of Fort Strother. Despite his misery, Jackson maintained a rosy manner that bordered on the obsequious in correspondence with his commanding officer, General Pickney. ‘ I feel much indebted to you for your instructions, and view of my future operations,’ he gushed in a March 4 missive. ‘They are judicious, well calculated to ensure safety and success, and shall be kept in view. Be assured, General, it will always afford me pleasure to receive any instructions from you; your wisdom and experience would under any circumstances give them great weight.
“Private John Woods also felt miserable. Standing guard on a cold, dreary late February morning without a blanket or breakfast to warm him played hard on the seventeen-year-old West Tennessee volunteer. Below the legal age, he was under no obligation to render military service. Nevertheless, he had left the farm of his ‘respectable’ family in early January 1814 to volunteer, enlisting in the same company in which his elder brother served. It was Wood’s misfortune to belong to the rabble that General Roberts had recruited in December 1813 and that had decamped when Jackson refused to grant the men a discharge. Although his comrades accepted Jackson’s subsequent proffer of a parole and returned to Fort Strother (Woods had joined the unit after their pardon), the men remained in bad odor with the commanding general.
“Hungry and shivering, Woods obtained the permission of the officer of the guard to return briefly to his squad tent to get his blanket and a quick breakfast. While he ate, the officer of the day happened by. Taking umbrage at the trash littering the ground outside the tent, he demanded the occupants immediately police the area. All obliged except Woods, who kept eating. The officer cursed Woods and ordered him to join his companions. Between forkfuls of food the youngster snarled that he was on guard duty, with permission to leave his post briefly. The officer peremptorily ordered him back to his post. Woods refused. Words passed between them. When the officer directed a soldier to arrest his tentmate, Woods primed his musket and swore he would shoot the first man who tried to seize him.
“A standoff ensued. It lasted long enough for someone to alert Jackson that a mutineer had leveled his musket at the officer of the day. ‘ Which is the dammed rascal?’ barked Old Hickory as he emerged from his marquee. ‘Shoot him! Shoot him! Blow ten balls through the dammed villain’s body.’
“By the time Jackson reached the squad tent, Wood’s comrades had persuaded him to surrender his musket and himself. Jackson ordered him placed in irons and whisked off to the camp of the recently arrived Thirty-Ninth U.S. Infantry, to be held in close confinement pending a court-martial.”
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