Grant Comes East - Civil War 02 (13 page)

"Morning, Jim."

"A cup of coffee, sir? I have a fresh pot brewing in the kitchen. Maybe a scrambled egg and some fresh ham?" "No, thank you, Jim. Just want to go outside for a walk." He stepped past J"
11
-"Ah, Mr. President?"

Surprised, he turned back. Jim was standing there, nervous, waiting, a look almost of mortification on his face over this breach of White House protocol.

"Go on, Jim. What is it?"

"Sir. Well, me—I mean the others here and me—we were wondering."

"About what, Jim?"

"If the rebs take the city, sir. What should we do?" "They won't, Jim."

"I know that, sir. But we've been hearing that the rebs are rounding up colored folk, sending them down south to be sold back to slavery."

He had heard the reports as well, there was no sense in lying about it.

"Yes, Jim, I have heard the same thing."

Jim looked at him expectantly and for an instant he felt an infinite weariness. Here was yet someone else looking for reassurance and he felt as if the well was empty. He looked down at the floor.

"Sir. We here, the colored men who work here that is. We want to fight"

Lincoln looked back up and into the man's eyes.

"What do you mean, Jim?"

"Just that, sir. Myself, Williams, Old Bob, the other men. We plan to fight if they come." "Jim, how old are you?"

"Nearly sixty, as near as I can reckon. No one ever told me for sure when I was born. My mother said she worked for Mr. Jefferson when I was born. I started working here the year the British burned it down. Helped to plaster the new walls, covering over the scorched ones."

Lincoln could not help but smile, awed at this bit of history living with him. He had never taken notice of Jim, who had quietly served him for two years and never once had he taken the time to talk to him, to find out more of who he was, and all that he had seen. The realization made him uncomfortable and he wondered, if Jim were white, would that conversation have come, the way it usually did, for he loved talking with working people, finding out their stories, driven in part by the instinct of a politician who through such conversations won the votes, one at a time, but also out of his genuine love for and curiosity about common men.

Jim was well-spoken, articulate, his English perhaps even better than his own, which was still mocked by effete Easterners.

"So you've worked here for nearly fifty years?"

"Yes, sir. Every president since Mr. Madison. When my eldest boy, Washington Madison Quincy Bartlett, was born, President John Quincy Adams even gave him an engraved silver cup for his baptism. We still have that."

"Where is your oldest?"

"Up north. He went to join a colored regiment forming up in Pennsylvania. He's the sergeant major. His son, my grandson, joined up as well."

He said the words proudly.

"Any other children?"

"No, sir," and he shook his head sadly. "My second eldest died of the cholera. My two girls both died as well, one of the typhoid, the other, well the other, my youngest, just died."

He fell silent Lincoln sensed there was an even more tragic story about the you
ngest but he did not press it I’
m sorry.

"You know that burden, sir. I'll never forget the night your youngest died. We wept with you, sir, and Missus Lincoln. We loved that little boy, too." 'Thank you, Jim."

He lowered his head to hide his own emotions, and the dark.memories of Mary wandering the White House, night after night, shrieking as he sat alone, horrified at the thought of his baby being placed in the cold ground, unable to comfort her, to stop her wild hysterias, so paralyzed was he by his own grief, came flooding back.

"Our children are together now with the Lord," Jim said softly.

A bit surprised, Lincoln looked back up and saw tears in the man's eyes. The comment struck him hard and he was filled with a profound question. Did white and black children play together in Heaven? Did they mingle freely, no longer servant and master? Inferior and superior? What would Christ say of that question?

"Thank you, Jim, I'll take comfort in that tonight."

"I will, too, Mr. President. In fact I think it and pray about it most every night"

Lincoln was silent uncomfortable, not sure what to say next.

"About us fighting, sir," Jim said, pressing back to the original issue. "Yes?"

"Do we have your permission, sir? Some of the soldiers out front said they'd loan us guns if it came to that"

"Jim, if you are caught with a weapon and not in uniform, you'll be hung on the spot."

Jim shook his head.

"Sir, we'd all rather be killed here, or hung here, than be sold into slavery."

And then he smiled and looked straight into Lincoln's eyes.

"Besides, sir. It'd make a great illustration in the papers, a dozen dead colored hanging from the balconies of the White House. It'd show the world what this war is really about"

Startled, Lincoln could not reply. Grim as the thought was, he knew that Jim was right

"Let us pray it does not come to that," was all he could offer.

"With you here, sir, I don't think it will. But if it does, sir, we want to fight"

He looked at the man carefully, wondering for an instant if it was the old flattery coming through now. But he could see it wasn't, it was genuine.

"We here, sir, we all know you'll hold the course to the end, no matter what. If it comes to it, sir, we want you to leave and continue the fight elsewhere. My son would want that and I do, too."

The president reached out and put his hand on Jim's shoulder. Unlike so many of the colored, Jim did not lower his eyes, or involuntarily shrink from his touch. He continued to look straight at him.

He wanted to say that he would stand and fight beside him and have his gaunt figure added to the illustration, but did not That was melodrama, posturing, as far too many did. What this man said had come straight from his heart, without artful reflection and seeking of some heroic end as if he were on the stage. It came as a tonic, a deep and profound reminder not just of his responsibilities, but of how he must continue to face those responsibilities to the end. That was his duty now, to not flinch, to not give back a single inch until it was done.

"You have my permission, Jim. I am honored to give it to you, and God be with you this day."

He squeezed the man's shoulder, nodded, and then turned to walk out Jim, again the servant followed him, offering his top hat and shawl from the coat rack by the door, which Lincoln took without comment Jim opened the door and the two guards outside, who had been wearily leaning on their rifles, snapped to attention.

He looked around. A scattering of men were milling about, ghostlike in the mist and in the hissing glare of gas lamps that cast dull, golden circles around the porch of the White House and out onto
the street A captain started to
come toward him and he gestured with his hand for the officer to remain at ease.

He started to turn away from the door, to walk around the grounds, the captain softly hissing a command, calling on a detail to "escort the president," and then he heard it, a dull thump, like someone was beating on a carpet away off in the mists.

The captain froze in place, turning, cocking his head. Another thump, then another

and another, until it merged into a steady, continual rumble.

Men who had been sitting on the lawn were up on their feet, looking about A murmur of voices arose, tent flaps opened, men sticking their heads out

The rumble continued, growing, echoing.

He stood silent, hat in hand, shawl draped over his shoulders.

It had begun.

In
Front
of
Fort
Stevens

July
18,1863 4:45
a.m

In the predawn light Sergeant Major Hazner saw
them
coming back. One or two at first, then dozens, and now hundreds. Most were wounded, cradling shattered arms, dragging a broken leg, or staggering, bent over, clutching a stomach wound, which all knew was inevitably the beginning of the end.

Moving up to the starting position occupied by Petti-grew's division before they went in, the men of the Fourteenth South Carolina, along with the other regiments of Scales's brigade, had deployed into a shallow defile, cut at the bottom by a flooded stream, and there they had waited for more than an hour. All was confusion, the last mile of the advance through brush, an orchard, a farmer's woodlot. At least a third of the men in the regiment had disappeared in the advance, to be replaced by men from several other regiments. He had simply pushed them into formation with his own companies. They could fight now and sort it out later; he promised them that the colonel would give them affidavits confirming that they had not deserted or dodged the battle. Some of the men were strays from Pettigrew, and as they saw their comrades coming back, more than one expressed outright relief that they had become lost during the advance to the final line before going in.

The roar of battle ahead was continuous. When the first shots had been fired, a wild, hysterical cry went up, the rebel
yell, but gradually that had been replaced by the more disciplined, almost mechanical "huzzah" of the Union troops.

Colonel Brown was gone, called forward to an officers' meeting, and, now alone, Hazner paced the line, moving from company to company, offering reassurance to the men, who looked up anxiously, faces pale, as they heard the inferno roaring just ahead.

A panicked lieutenant came staggering back through the lines, blood from a head wound covering the front of his jacket

"Gone, all gone. My God, my men! My men!"

He staggered through the ranks, spreading dismay, no one touching him or offering help, fo
r they were forbidden to do so.

Hazner watched him disappear into the mist and smoke. Young Lieutenant Hurt came up to join him, obviously nervous.

"It looks bad."

"It always does, Lieutenant. Watch a battle from the rear, it always looks like defeat."

"Pettigrew should have broken through by now." "Most likely he has."

Hazner knew it was a lie. Someone would have come back down the road by now, proclaiming victory, the rebel yell echoing through the fog from the battle line. All that could be heard was the continual staccato of musketry, cannon fire, and the whirl of spent canister cracking through the trees overhead, clipped branches raining down.

Mortar shells were coming down at random, detonating in the treetops, some crashing down into the assembled ranks of the division, screams following each explosion. It was obvious that their gunners knew of this defile, assumed it was packed with troops, and knew the range to hit it. Though sporadic, the shelling was unnerving.

"Fourteenth South Carolina!"

He looked back to the front rania and saw the color company standing up, the regimental flag bearer shaking out his colors, holding them aloft Without comment to Hurt, Hazner pushed his way back through the ranks of men still lying on the ground.

Colonel Brown was back, sword drawn. Hazner came up and saluted.

"We're going in, Hazner." "What's the news, sir?"

Brown looked at him appraisingly and then wiped his face. In spite of the morning chill, he was sweating.

"Bad. Pettigrew was repulsed all along the line. Some of the men broke through into the fort, we were almost sent in to expand it, but they were thrown back. Pettigrew is down, they say he's dead. A bad day for North Carolina."

He hesitated.

"Now it's our turn. We'll set it right."

Brown stepped past Hazner and held his sword aloft

"South Carolina! Men of the Fourteenth! Up men, up!"

The regiment came to its feet, officers and sergeants moving through the packed ranks, which were deployed in a solid square, the men of A Company in two ranks forward, followed by B Company, and so on, back to the last line, three hundred men in a small phalanx, fifteen men wide and twenty deep. To either flank were their comrades of the other regiments of Scales's brigade
...
men who had taken every field of battle they had ever advanced across.

"Fourteenth South Carolina! Now is our time! We will advance in column and take that damn Yankee fort. Once we are into it, Washington will be ours and on this day this war will be won. Do you wish history to remember that it was South Carolina that won this day?"

A shout went up from the ranks. Hazner looked around and saw that the hours of silence, of watching, of fear, were swept away. The battle lust was upon them again.

"Parson. Say some words!"

A graying captain, unofficial minister of the regiment, stepped through the ranks and took off his hat, the men following, all lowering their heads, even Hazner.

"Hearken to the word of our Lord. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day..."'