Chapter 14

The next morning, there was near chaos in the CSA Army camp. They had lost a lot of sergeants, the backbone of a functioning army, and a lot of corporals were pushed into jobs that they were just not ready for. The observers were really impressed with what we had accomplished and asked why we didn’t attack now and annihilate the enemy.

The answer was that most of our people had not yet had a chance to fight, and I wanted them to become bloodied before we lost the opportunity. Therefore, we were going to let the enemy set out on their march south and ambush them with all of our forces. The hunters who had fought last night would be held back as a mobile reserve in case of need, but it was necessary to let every one else who had put in training time have a chance to show what he had learned. Okay, they could understand that, but that was just not the way things were done in Europe with a modern army. I shrugged, and that ended the conversation.

It was practically noon before the enemy was ready to move. The dead were stacked to one side to be processed later and the few wounded were loaded into confiscated wagons and taken to the railroad yard for shipment back to hospitals. A lot of morphine was used, but that was pretty much the extent of the treatment of the wounded. Over half of the wounded men were going to become addicted to morphine before they left the hospitals. We didn’t do things that way, but...

It was already 11:00 AM before the march south began. There was only one road, and it was narrow, so the 200 or so troops were strung out over about 200 yards. We had enough men to handle that easily, so the men were aligned along one side of the road. I wanted to make damned sure that they did not accidentally shoot one of us. We were using whistles to relay commands, and I was at the extreme south end of our line. I was going to blow my whistle to signal for the shooting to begin as soon as the lead element of the column reached even with me. Those would be the officers, and I especially wanted to eliminate all of them as a matter of principle.

I had 15 men with me and four of the observers. That meant 16 guns against 24 of the enemy. Well, actually, it was 15 guns on our side because I figured to be too busy to do much shooting except in the case of a disaster. I blew my whistle in a long and loud signal. Just as I hoped, that caused all of the enemy to jerk to a stop and look around.

Immediately, 15 guns went off and 15 officers and bodyguards dropped dead. As I said, that was what a minie ball did at close range. The other nine enemy were hit by multiple shots, and that was the end of them.

We could hear a few shots being fired by the enemy back up the line of march, but our people were usually firing at stationary targets. We had put in enough time in practice in just this sort of situation that every one of the enemy was dead by the time the third round was fired by our people. The hunters were a little pissed off that all they did was to sit on their horses and smoke cigars. The enemy was completely wiped out in that one short battle. I feared that it was going to give our troops a false sense of superiority, but that victory was so good for morale that I did not dare find fault with anybody or anything.

The observers were totally impressed, both by our tactics and by the S-1. I could see favorable reports already being composed with wishes for S-1s for their men back home. Maybe we would start getting license agreements now.

The next step was the one that no one really liked, but our men went through the heaps of dead men to salvage what was useful for us. We picked up around 200 Enfield rifles that we could convert, a wagon load of powder and two wagon loads of minie balls. The other thing we really wanted were the approximately 200 pairs of boots. All of the men picked up personal souvenirs and all of the cigars that they could find. We piled into our wagons for the trip home to Albany and a victory parade. The celebration lasted a week. No telling how many babies were started that week!

By the end of the week, all of the militia had gone home, leaving behind a large number of fully satisfied women. Almost all of the liquor in town was gone, and I had no plans for it to be replaced. The first big victory deserved such a celebration, but I figured that any more such celebrations would dampen the ardor to fight. Okay, what did I know?

Most of the observers went home, but the men from Britain and Germany stayed around. They were very interested in our training methods, especially of the hunters. I arranged for them to be loaned an S-1 and sent out with hunters to see just what those men did to perfect their art.

Most of the first day was spent wandering around in the backwoods to get an idea of what a hunter faced each day. The second day was spent on serious hunting, and the observers each came back to Albany with either a hog or a deer. No bears were spotted. The observers were fit men who were out only two days, but that was all they could stand. The work was just too much for them. The hunters who had been guiding the observers went back out the next day to remain out until Friday night. The observers admitted defeat and marveled at the strength and stamina of the hunters.

The political situation had calmed down, so the last of the observers headed to Savannah by train to find transportation home. That was the last we saw of those particular men. We were not quite sure what to expect from the state government. Gov. Throckmorton was totally incensed that HIS army had been defeated by a bunch of country bumpkins.

He would not listen to the talk of the superiority of the S-1 over the stock Enfield muzzle-loader. He swore in public to wipe us out as soon as he could raise the money to send 1,000 troops against us. Our consolation was that he probably would not be able to come up with the money this summer, but we would probably hear from him come next spring.

Well, we were happy for any delay, but we also realized that our first easy victory might not be repeated. Oh, by the way, there had been no cannon with that first punitive expedition because they were deemed unnecessary against rabble like us. I figured that argument would disappear the next time, so we had to have some sort of defense against artillery.

I made an executive decision to forget cannon for our side and to go for the S-2, the rifle that could act like a machine gun. I talked to David and some of his men, and I was convinced that if they had an automatic weapon that was fed with an easily replaced magazine, then they could take out any cannon that could be brought against us. Yes, I was convinced because that was what I wanted to hear.

Some months previously, I had taken it upon myself to order the necessary tools and machines so that I could build guns from scratch. The last of the equipment was delivered a month after that defeat of the first expeditionary force, and I jumped into the development of what I was calling the S-2. Many of the parts going into the S-2 were identical to what was used in the S-1, so I had a leg up on the development.

I sketched up the final design and started to work on it right away. Martha got after me because I was spending so much time on the new gun that she felt that I was going to injure my health, both mental and physical. At least, I did not neglect her sexual needs, so we did not have a problem there. As it turned out, Martha became even more supportive of me as I progressed with the S-2.

At last, I had my prototype. Of course, I tested it first and found some details that needed more work, but I decided to hold off and get the opinion of David and his men before I started making changes. They found the same problems that I did, but they were happy with the overall design. The one thing they wanted was a shorter barrel. I had kept the same total barrel length as on the S-1, but that made the S-2 difficult to swing around from horseback. A lot of the use of the S-2 was going to be with one hand, and the balance was wrong for that. The S-2 was also a little too heavy for convenient use, but some of the weight could be shaved off when the other changes were made.