A Stillness at Appomattox (125 page)

This
call
took
Secretary
Welles
over
to
the
War
Department,
where
to
his
disgust
he
found
that
nobody
knew
anything
about
Early's
army—"its
numbers,
where
it
is,
or
its destination."
He
wrote
in
his
diary
that
an
attack
on
Washington
probably
could
not
be
resisted,
and
he
predicted
that such
an
attack
would
be
made
very
soon.
A
couple
of
days later,
on
a
Sunday,
a
Navy
Department
clerk
hurried
to
Mr. Welles's
office
to
tell
him
that
Southern
troopers
had
already crossed
the
district
line
and
were
prowling
about
in
the
outskirts
of
Georgetown.
Welles
had
a
low
opinion
of
Halleck and
Stanton
anyway,
and
he
wrote
now
that
"on
our
part there
is
neglect,
ignorance,
folly,
imbecility
in
the
last
degree."
⁴

The
War
Department
had
not
been
quite
as
neglectful
as Mr.
Welles
supposed.
At
the
beginning
of
July
Halleck
had warned
Grant
that
Early
was
becoming
a
menace,
and
Rick-etts's
division
of
the
VI
Corps
had
been
sent
up
to
Baltimore
0
There
it
joined
a
scratch
contingent
of
miscellaneous
troops pulled
together
by
General
Lew
Wallace,
the
literary-minded soldier
who
eventually
was
to
write
Ben
Hur
,
and
Wallace took
his
command
over
toward
Frederick,
to
fight
the
Rebels on
the
banks
of
the
Monocacy.
Early's
veterans
outnumbered him
heavily
and
they
pushed
him
aside
without
much
delay, but
the
rest
of
the
VI
Corps
was
embarking
on
transports
at City
Point
to
come
north
and
take
a
hand
in
the
game,
and ocean
steamers
were
coming
up
the
bay
with
veterans
from Emory's
XIX
Corps,
recently
on
duty
in
Louisiana.
The
situation
would
probably
be
all
right
if
Early
would
just
allow a
few
more
days'
grace.

Early
was
no
time-waster,
however.
After
routing
Wallace's
command
he
drove
his
men
on
mercilessly
in
mid-July heat,
and
by
the
morning
of
July
11
his
weary
advance
guard was
coming
south
through
Silver
Spring,
its
skirmishers
creeping
forward
toward
Fort
Stevens,
well
inside
the
district
line on
the
Seventh
Street
Road.
Old
Francis
P.
Blair's
famous country
home
was
occupied
by
Rebel
officers,
who
took
care not
to
damage
the
place
unduly
but
did
help
themselves
to the
contents
of
Mr.
Blair's
excellent
wine
cellar.
Not
far away
there
was
a
house
owned
by
Blair's
son
Montgomery, who
was
Postmaster
General
in
Lincoln's
cabinet,
and
this
house
the
Rebels
burned
to
the
ground,
leading
Blair
to
remark
bitterly
that
nothing
better
could
be
expected
so
long as
"poltroons
and
cowards"
had
control
of
the
United
States War
Department.
⁵

To
beat
off
Early's
advance
Halleck
had
very
few
troops,
but
he
did
have
plenty
of
general
officers.
Among
these
was
dignified
Major
General
Alexander
McD.
McCook,
tempo-
rarily
without
a
command,
and
McCook
was
sent
out
to
Fort
Stevens
and
told
to
assume
charge
of
the
capital's
defenses.
He
had
very
little
to
work
with—a
regiment
of
District
of
Columbia
militia,
some
from
the
Veteran
Reserve

Corps,
a
Maine
battery,
a
few
National
Guard
troops
on
100-day
duty,
and
a
scattering
of
gunners
in
the
different
forts. He
put
these
men
in
the
trenches
and
had
them
begin
shooting
at
Early's
skirmishers.
During
the
morning
the
military hospitals
were
combed
out
and
a
number
of
convalescents, representing
nearly
every
regiment
in
the
Army
of
the
Potomac,
was
brought
out
the
Seventh
Street
Road,
together
with some
more
Reserve
Corps
soldiers
and
odds
and
ends
of
dismounted
cavalry.
Meanwhile
General
Montgomery
C.
Meigs, the
distinguished
quartermaster
general
of
the
army,
had donned
his
field
uniform
and
was
forming
all
of
the
clerks and
detailed
men
of
the
Quartermaster
Corps
into
a
brigade and
was
marching
them
around
to
the
arsenal
to
draw
weapons.
During
the
day
he
went
trooping
out
to
the
scene
of
action
with
some
1,500
of
these
extemporized
soldiers.
At
Mc
Cook's
direction
he
occupied
a
mile
or
more
of
trench
to
the right
of
Fort
Stevens.
⁶

The
forts
and
trenches
were
good,
and
this
assemblage
of soldiers
might
do
well
enough
if
nobody
pushed
very
hard. General
Early—closer
to
the
Capitol
dome
than
any
other armed
Confederate
during
all
of
the
war—was
peering
south from
the
high
ground
a
mile
north
of
Fort
Stevens,
getting ready
to
push
just
as
soon
as
he
could
figure
out
just
what was
ahead
of
him.