A Rainbow of Blood: The Union in Peril an Alternate History (43 page)

STOTTVILLE, NEW YORK, 11:30 A.M., OCTOBER 28, 1863

Lt. Col. Otto Heraus sucked in his breath as the 2nd New York "Harris
Light" Cavalry topped the hill overlooking Stottville from the north. It
was rare sight-a burning town in the middle of a raging battle. Laid out
below were the enemy reserve companies and two batteries of guns firing into the town. From the look of it, Meagher was not having things all
his own way. Hooker had detached Heraus's regiment from Kilpatrick's
1st Brigade and given it to Meagher, "To help you on your way, Tom.
I should have had the good sense to keep my cavalry close at Chancellorsville instead of sending them off on that fool's errand halfway to Richmond. They should have been there to secure the roads through that
damned jungle for my infantry."

Meagher had had the good sense to keep them close as well and
not let them prance off into the distance where they would not be at
hand. His last command to Heraus as he rushed off to the fight in the
town was to circle around from the north. "See what mischief you can
do. Use your own judgment, but get into this fight." And the 2nd New
York was capable of no little mischief; they prided themselves for having
kept General Stuart off the army's back at Gettysburg. Recruited from
around Yaphank in Suffolk County, about fifty miles east of New York
City, they were not Upstate men, but they felt the violation of New York
nonetheless.

Heraus drew the regiment, all 347 men, in two lines and descended
at a trot for the row of twelve enemy guns. It would be close work. It
had been a war in which the saber had given way to the pistol and the
carbine. But now it was cold steel time. At three hundred yards, the trot
became a gallop. At one hundred yards, the sabers fell from shoulders
to point as the men leaned forward in their saddles and their horses'
hooves tore up the pasture grass. The British gunners had not noticed the
approaching tide until they were within thirty yards, so intent were they
on serving their guns.

By then it was too late. The New York men rode through them,
hacking and stabbing at the blue-coated gunners who tried to fight them
off with rammers and short swords. They discovered that trying to take
guns away from the Royal Artillery was not a task for the faint of heart.
The gunners had been trained to go after horses' legs with their thick,
short swords, and horse after horse went down as the melee swirled
around the guns and limbers. Heraus's men were switching to their Colt
revolvers, deadly at such close range, dropping the gunners who clustered around their guns.

In the middle of this chaos, a Royal Artillery officer stood his
ground, coolly picking off one cavalryman after another with his revolver. He turned, aimed at Heraus, and fired. The colonel felt the blow
in his shoulder, and his bloody saber dropped from his hands. The officer looked at him and aimed once more. Heraus could only stare. Then
a horseman rode by, and his glinting saber cut the officer from neck to collarbone in a flash. In ten minutes, it was all over. All the gunners were
dead, wounded, prisoner, or fleeing across pasture and field.15

THE LONG BRIDGE, WASHINGTON, D.C., 11:30 AM, OCTOBER 28, 1863

"Mr. President, for the last time, I cannot fight this action and look out
for you at the same time. If I must, sir, I will tie you up like a Christmas
turkey and have you bodily carried away."

"All right, General Sharpe," Lincoln said, enjoying the picture of the
chief executive in that state. "I will not add to your burdens. I will wait
in the hotel over there. The one with all the holes in the side. Maybe the
bar is open."

"And you," Sharpe said, turning to the guard detail, "Stay as close
as ticks." His glare got them scurrying across the street, urging the bemused president along. There was a method to Lincoln's agreeableness.
When he bent his head to enter the upstairs bedroom, he said, "Hello,
boys, don't let me bother you," to the coffee mill gun crew. They rushed
to upright a chair for him and dragged the bodies of the dead cavalrymen out into the hallway. Someone showed up from the kitchen with
coffee. Lincoln pulled the chair up to the hole in the wall, as good a view
of the dense Confederate column coming over the bridge as anyone had
that day. He passed the coffeepot to the men on the gun, who gulped it
down before passing it back to him.

He could clearly see the Confederate officer at the very head of the column on a black horse waving his sword. It would only be minutes now.

CLAVERACK, NEW YORK, 11:35 AM, OCTOBER 28, 1863

The drizzle stopped, and the wind picked up, blowing the smoke off
the field. Now with clear targets again, the artillery on both sides began
throwing metal across the field. As proficient as the American gunners
were, the British Armstrongs that still worked were outshooting them
in both speed and accuracy. The older Canadian muzzle-loaders were
neither, but they were reliable and added to the hail of shot and shell
landing amid the Americans. The Imperial batteries concentrated their
fire first on the American batteries, and when they had silenced or driven
off enough, turned their attention to the infantry. The American infantry
had held their own against their British and Canadian cousins, but the
artillery was like hammers that smashed great holes in their ranks.

Williams twelve regiments averaged barely three hundred and
seventy men apiece, smaller than even the Canadian battalions. It did not
take a lot to deplete one of these units when the fighting was hard, and
it was hard all up and down the line. Lines of bodies marked the firing
lines of both sides across the beaten zone, but neither side had been able
to build up enough infantry firepower to beat down the other anywhere
along the line.

Hooker was everywhere on the field that day, throwing his small
reserves anywhere the line needed to be strengthened. Gnawing on him
was the question, "Where was Meagher?" He had had no word of him.
Only the smoke from the burning town to the north gave even a hint. If
the British had checked him there, it would have been Chancellorsville
all over again. All he could do was fight the fight he was in. So he kept
the regiments of Geary's remaining small brigade ready, commanded
by Col. George A. Cobham, Jr., to relieve any hard-hit unit. One such
was the 13th New Jersey, so badly cut up by the enemy's guns and those
green-clad devils in front of them that it was commanded by the only remaining officer on his feet, 1st Lt. Franklin Murphy, who clutched his left
arm to his breast, nursing a nasty wound to the forearm.16

At this moment, chance threw its sword on the scales. Hooker sent
two messengers galloping away with instructions: one for the 13th New
Jersey to be relieved, the other for Cobham's 29th Pennsylvania to move
right into place. The first was quicker than the second, and Murphy
promptly pulled his men out without thought of whether their replacement was at hand. From the other side, it was as if a gap miraculously
had appeared in the enemy line. Only seconds passed before the command was given, "The Prince of Wales Regiment will advance!" Winnowed almost as badly as the New Jersey regiment opposite, the premier
battalion of the Canadian militia stepped over the bodies of their mates
and across the beaten zone, bayonets leveled. Their colonel took the lead,
shouting, "Come on, the Prince of Wales!" He broke into a run, his cap
on his sword point, and the battalion followed in a scarlet flood. They
jumped over the bodies of the New Jersey men who lay in the battle line
where they had fallen.

Then the Canadians turned on the next American regiment in line
and wrapped around its rear. The 97th Indiana just crumbled. Engaged
in their front and fired on upon from the rear, many surrendered or sim ply fled. When the Canadians charged, the neighboring Rifles advanced
as well. They beat back the opposing 2nd Massachusetts and 3rd Wisconsin. Soon the entire British line was attacking just as the American
line had begun to come apart.

The sight of the advance amid American disarray sent a wave of
elation through Paulet's command group. This was the moment he had
been waiting for. He turned to one of his aides. "Captain Brown, please
inform Sir James that he may send in the Grenadier Guards." Capt. Geoffrey Brown saluted with an elegance and style unusual in a big man.
"Brown," Paulet added, "I wouldn't blame you if you went in with the
Preston and his Dandies. The opportunity of a lifetime, eh?" Brown
spurred his horse to where the Guards were waiting as another aide rode
off to the artillery to concentrate on the Americans remaining in the center. Paulet liked "young Geoff," as he called him. The man had a saucy
way and added a certain style to Paulet's staff. Paulet said to no one in
particular as Brown rode off, "Bears an uncanny resemblance to Harry
Flashman. A bold lot these Flashmans. Lucky, too."17

Hooker was finding being a corps commander harder than he remembered. And where the hell was Meagher? Williams's division was
falling back in disorder with the enemy in close pursuit. Its center was
yawning open, filling with men in rifle green and scarlet. Visions of
Chancellorsville and Jackson's crushing blows loomed up before him.
"Not again, not again," he said under his breath. "No, by God, not
again!" Turning to an aide, he said, "Tell Kilpatrick to flank them and
come in from the rear. I need his cavalry to take pressure off the center.
Be quick, man. Ride!" The young lieutenant dashed off.

Hooker rode up to the three Pennsylvania regiments of Cobham's
brigade, his last reserve on the field. They were small regiments by
this stage of the war, barely one thousand men altogether. They had all
served with Hooker at Chancellorsville; there was many an unforgiving opinion in their ranks that had come grudgingly around as he led
them north. He stood up in his stirrups and took off his wide-brimmed
black hat so that his blond hair was plain for all to see. "Pennsylvania,
it is up to you! Forward!" The brigade stepped off with Hooker trotting
to the front with Cobham beside him. They were advancing through the
path of flight of the breaking regiments to their front. Men raced past in
groups or individually. Many a man clutched a bleeding arm or shoulder or limped on a shot leg; many were helping the wounded off the field. A
remnant, though - the steel core of broken regiments - retired backward,
their faces to the enemy, stopping to fire and then back again to reload
and fire once more.

The last of these men stopped just in front of Hooker to turn once
more and shake his fist at the enemy. The ranks of the Pennsylvania
men pushed past him and into the bullets of the Rifles. Here and there
men pitched forward or tumbled backward. Shells burst among them,
but they kept going, stopping only by regiments to fire and then start
forward again. Men in rifle green now began to fall, adding to the Rifles'
butcher's bill. They stood their ground and returned a steady and accurate fire. It was a rare man among the Rifles who could miss a mark
at that range. The Peacemakers of the 16th Foot came up to join their
firing line. Now it would be, in the Duke of Wellington's words, "a hard
pounding, and we shall see who can pound the hardest." But the attack
of Cobham's Pennsylvanians bought enough time for the regiments that
had fallen back to reorder themselves and return to the fight, especially
the New York men of the 107th and 150th Regiments.

Kilpatrick needed no time to reflect on Hooker's orders. He had
been itching to get back into the fight ever since Hooker had arrived with
XII Corps and ordered his division into reserve. He had already scouted
the enemy flank and practically drooled at the opportunity of falling on
it and driving through their guns and trains. The only thing he had to
worry about was the Canadian cavalry, as few as they were, strung out
on the flank, and a few train guards. They may have been pretty in their
blue with yellow facings and brown hushys, but under Denison's influence they knew how to patrol an open flank. Beyond them, Denison's
Royal Guides had been lurking behind Hooker's army. It was a pair of
them that brought the first word of Kilpatrick's move. Before Kilpatrick
got close enough to put his brigades on line, the Canadian scouts had
brought the word of his advance.

Their ten troops had only been formed into squadrons for the invasion, and they had had barely two weeks to get used to each other, but
they formed up well enough. Their two small squadrons did not even
have four hundred men left after Custer had so roughly handled them
earlier that morning, but they were still game. There was really not much
else they could do except flee, but that was not much on the mind of Lieutenant Colonel Denison, who was now in command. His scouts after
had ridden up to Paulet's command group and made their report. Paulet
chose not to comment on the fact that he had ordered Denison to pull his
men into reserve. He seemed not to have noticed that the Royal Guides
who formed his escort had shrunk to a dozen men. He simply acknowledged his mistake by asking Denison to take charge of the cavalry and
hold up the Americans as long as he could. For a man who believed so
much in the role of cavalry in the dismounted skirmishing role, it was a
superb irony, he told himself, to be leading a good old-fashioned stirrupto-stirrup affair against odds that made the Charge of the Light Brigade
look like fair play.18

Paulet did more than send Denison off to lead a forlorn hope. He
ordered two batteries to turn about and cover the rear and sent world to
the 2nd Montreal Brigade to detach its reserve, the 4th Battalion, Chasseurs Canadien, to face about. To Sir James Lindsay, he sent the order to
turn the Grenadier Guards about as well. The aides had barely galloped
off when a dark tide appeared on the flank-twenty-five hundred cavalrymen in line of regiments approached, their guidons and battle flags
whipping behind them as they trotted forward. Paulet now had done
everything he could. He could only watch Denison's fine steed burn its
way across the field to the Canadian cavalry.