Grant Comes East - Civil War 02 (44 page)

"The maneuvering between European powers was never part of my intent. All I want to do is finish this war."

The rain swept across the field, driving the two back into the tent From the pavilion they could hear shouts, laughter, some cries of distress.

"The conversation with Rabbi Rothenberg," Lee said, lowering his head. "I've dwelt on it ever since."

"I have, too."

"Did you broach the subject to the president?"

"Yes, I did. Twice now. He has categorically refused to even consider it. He says that we are on the edge of a final victory. To make such a concession now would actually be a sign of weakness, according to him. He even suggested that some states might even secede from the Confederacy if we attempted it."

Lee sighed. That thought had of course occurred to him. What an absurdity, but then again, what was to prevent it? After all, once the Union was broken, the precedent had been set. Yes, perhaps several of the states, so dependent were they on the slave economy, just might do that One final suicidal gesture.

"All my arguments failed, even the foreign policy advantage with England, which I pushed the hardest. He is confident the war will be resolved by October, and even if we did what the rabbi said, it would be six months or more before it would begin to impact the British government, while on the other hand Napoleon can pretty well do as he pleases, whenever he wants."

Lee put his hands behind his back and gazed out at the storm now lashing the open fields, gusts of wind causing the tent to billow and flutter.

"I've been ordered by the president to allow owners to repossess escaped slaves hiding here in Maryland."

"I know."

"Slave owners here may also lease their slaves to the Confederacy and send them south."

"And what will you do?" Judah asked. "You know what will happen; free blacks by the hundreds, maybe thousands, will be kidnapped in all the confusion."

Lee shook his head.

"I keep thinking of the logic of what Rabbi Rothenberg said. I will confess I find it difficult to imagine the black man as my social equal. But before God? That is what troubles me. Where would the Savior stand upon this question? That song the Yankees love to sing, 'as He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.' It does have power to it, even if it is nothing but rhetoric."

"And the president's orders?"

Lee said nothing for a moment.

"I'm sworn to obey all orders of my government"

"And will you?"

Lee looked over at Judah.

"Please don't press me. I find the order repugnant. But can I refuse, then expect the unswerving obedience of my own men? For in battle that is what I will need if we are to win."

"You can do so as a moral statement" Judah said. Lee looked at him appraisingly. Then he smiled and said nothing.

"Perhaps we can still resolve this issue by finishing the fight as quickly as possible," Lee finally replied.

"Do you honestly think you can do mat?"

"Mr. Secretary, if I were not confident that I can still win, now there would indeed be a moral question. I would have to tell the president that, and I have not done so. Yes, the odds are steep; their strength is gathering yet again. But on the other side, it is no worse than it was seven weeks ago when we crossed into Pennsylvania. I will have to face two armies. One, our old opponents, the Army of the Potomac. After Union Mills they will be off balance, terribly off balance, and nervous. I can exploit that. The second army? It is an unknown, but then again so are we to them. They are in strange territory as well.

'Tomorrow Wade Hampton will take his brigade north. I need to know more about Grant. We have newspaper reports, but they are unreliable, as you know. The position of their Nineteenth Corps is a crucial piece of information. Which army they are positioned with will indicate much."

"Wouldn't it be easier just to get some spies up there, or scouts? Though I'm no tactician, sir, I'll be the first to admit."

Lee smiled. It was an obvious reference to Davis's daily interference at the staff meetings, urging positioning of regiments, wishing to move them like chess pieces. Davis, as a former brigade commander himself in Mexico, and as secretary of war in the previous administration, did have a good head for things military. He had, in fact, been far less interfering than Lincoln. But in this campaign, sensing that victory was near, he had taken to interfering more.

"Please, sir, your advice is always welcome to me," Lee said.

"I'm uneasy about this raid you are ordering north of the Susquehanna." "Why?"

"The river is still swollen, places to ford are few. Just a thought on my part, sir."

"I want to stir them up. If we can penetrate, get the information I seek, then perhaps push farther, threaten Lancaster, or even Reading, or the outskirts of Philadelphia, it will trigger another panic, possibly renewed riots. I think it is worth the risk."

"Rabbi Rothenberg, with his love of Napoleon, told me that the Army of Northern Virginia is like Napoleon's army in June of 1815." "How is that?"

"Wellington and Blucher's armies. Together they would outnumber us. If you can drive a wedge between them, defeat one, and then turn upon the other, there is still a chance."

Lee smiled and said nothing. The intensity of the storm was at its height, sheets of cold rain lashing down, and he stood by the entrance to the tent, looking off, flashes of lightning arcing the sky.

Philadelphia

August
11, 1863 4:00
p.m.

Cpl
. John Miller stood at attention under the blazing sun. He and the men of his company had been standing thus for the last ten minutes as their white drill sergeant paced up and down the line, delivering a lecture as old as the armies of Caesar, discussing with them their lineage, legitimacy, how "his" army had indeed fallen on hard times if the men before him were now part of it, how the best thing possible would be their complete slaughter on the first volley and other such minor threats.

The sergeant did not really know his audience. Most of the men around John had known nothing but a life of abuse and denial. Most of them were freemen, born in the North or in Baltimore. Nearly all had been laborers, farmhands, dock-workers, mill workers. For John, this session under the sun was a minor annoyance compared to being in Abbott's mill in July, when the hot iron was going through the rollers, sparks flying.

His body was a crosshatching of scars, deep burns, so many in fact that his white lieutenant, seeing him one evening with his shirt off, came up and sympathically asked if his master had whippe
d him. The young man was embar
rassed when John told him about the scars, actually concerned that he might have insulted him by implying he had been a slave. That conversation, talking about his work in the mill, his being foreman to twenty colored workers, his knowledge of writing, even some of the literature he took pleasure in, resulted in the two stripes on his sleeve the next day and an increase in pay, which meant that Sarah and the children, staying with her sister, would no longer be dependent on kin for charity.

"All right, you benighted bastards, let's do it one more time," the sergeant roared.

"Forward march!"

The company line, eighty men formed in two ranks, stepped off, moving like an undulating wave across the parade ground. John, as corporal, on the right of the line, kept looking toward the center, carefully measuring his pace to match the sergeant's.

"Keep watching the center, keep watching the center," he hissed, reaching out to push the man next to him up. The line buckled and wavered, keeping some semblance of formation.

The sergeant, now marching backward, kept up a steady cadence count; most all the men had finally mastered that, the steady tramp of left, right, left, right

"Company, by the right wheel, march!"

John instantly stopped in place, the man behind him almost banging into him as he took one more step.

The line started to turn, again wavering, one man tripping in the front rank, stumbling, breaking up the center.

"Move it, double time, double time!"

The line swung, bent like a snake, almost disintegrated.

"Halt!"

"God in heaven above, preserve me," the sergeant cried, taking off his hat and throwing it on the ground. One of the men actually stepped forward to pick it up for him.

"Get back in line there! You're a soldier, not my goddamn servant. If I want my hat picked up, I'll order you!"

John could not help but grin slightly. The sergeant had not even realized he had just complimented them. He had called them soldiers, not servants. The finer nuance was not lost on many of the men, who, even while the sergeant was swearing, had been looking sidelong at each other, a flicker of a smile on more than one face.

If this sergeant wanted to stand them under the sun all day, swear and roar, march them back and forth, that was fine with them. Dawn to dusk in a mill in July—this was like Sunday in comparison.

John knew mat there was far more, however, than simple physical endurance that would be the final issue here. This new regiment had to learn to march, live, and fight as one. Just as in the mill, where a single misstep by one man could kill an entire crew. Something he had seen beyond counting, men turned to cinders by a blast of molten iron, caught in rollers, crushed in presses. Death and hardship were no strangers to him nor to the rest.

His only fear, the fear of all the men standing there beneath the hot August sun, was that it might be over before they were ready. The regiment had only started to form less than two weeks ago. They had come some distance in those two weeks; uniforms had been issued, shoes, which had caused agony for many of the men until the sergeant had shown them how to break in the heavy leather "brogans," as he called them, by first soaking them in hot water and then putting them on, so that the shapeless form molded somewhat to their feet.

They had yet to receive their rifles though, and rumors were sweeping the city and the newspapers that another great battle was brewing. The horror for all of them was that Lee might be defeated and they would not be there to do their part.

The men from Baltimore were imbued with a dream, that they would march in triumph back into their city. And yet he knew as well how much of a dream that might be. In his walk from Baltimore to Port Deposit he had seen the panicked Union troops falling back, running blindly whenever there was a report that rebel cavalry was closing in. He had seen it after finally crossing the river, where to his amazement a church group was helping to provide transport for colored refugees to Wilmington or Philadelphia. What had been the Army of the Potomac was gathering there, and though they were impressive at first sight, it was evident that they were but the survivors of a beaten army.

And then there was the other talk, that Lee just might win yet again, and if so, the war would definitely be over. If that was the case, he wondered if this could even be his country, North or South.

"All right, you bastards. One more time. Company forward march!"

The ragged line stepped off yet again, the hot sun blazing down, passing dozens of similar companies parading back and forth. The steady "left-right" cadences shouted by white sergeants with Irish brogues, thick German accents, Midwestern twangs, and deep New England drawls, echoing across the held.

Near
Gunpowder
Falls,
Maryland,

Fifteen
Miles
North
of Baltimore

August
11,1863 6:00
p.m.

G
eneral Lee rode with Longstreet by his side, staff, including Jed Hotchkiss, and a heavy security patrol of an entire regiment of cavalry spread out before them.

The evening was turning cool, after a warm day of riding. They had set out shortly after- dawn, riding with President Davis for several miles until he had continued on to the west, this time escorted by a full regiment of Stuart's best and a section of light guns. Once the president was out of sight, he had told Pete that they would spend today riding north, to explore the land a bit. They had advanced up the road toward Bel Air, nearly halfway to the Susquehanna, then swung about, heading down toward the Chesapeake, following an open river valley with the ironic name of Gunpowder.

Reining in to rest Traveler, Lee dismounted, loosely holding his old friend's reins, Traveler cropping noisily at the tall, rich grass. Pete dismounted, stretched, and lit a cigar.

"Beautiful evening," Lee said softly.

"That it is, sir."

"We do love these moments. If other parts of our task could forever be put aside, if we could have but this, riding reconnaissance, watching our army on the march, now there would be something to enjoy."

Pete nodded.

"But there is something about the sting of battle," Pete replied, "just before you go in, that is stirring as well, when we are driving them, and the men are shouting to go forward."

"Yes," and though he felt uncomfortable admitting it, that was true for him as well, the vast battle lines deploying out, the thunder of artillery, flags held aloft, the long, long battle lines charging forward, that piercing yell reaching to the heavens. Those were good as well, except for the price that came afterward.

"I'm not given to religious philosophy as you are, sir," Pete said. "But I remember the Norse mythology. Perhaps our Heaven, our Valhalla, will be just that, a warrior's heaven, where we will march and fight forever, and at dusk the dead will rise to feast together, friend and foe, throughout the night until the coming of the next day's battle."

It was a thought Lee did not wish to pursue; he had dwelled too much on philosophy, on moral questions, these last few weeks; to debate now the nature of Heaven would reawaken those other thoughts as well, and he needed to again focus on the now.

"You realize the president expects us to end this within another month," Lee replied, changing the subject.

"I think we can do it," Pete replied forcefully. Pete had stood to one side while Davis had given his final admonition, that with the reinforcements that had just arrived, he expected Washington to be taken.

"We can win," Lee said quietly, shading his eyes to look off to the west. He said, letting go of Traveler's reins, "But not with another attempt on Washington, as the president expects."

Longstreet grinned.

"Glad to hear you say that, sir. Dare I assume that is the purpose of our ride today?" Lee smiled and nodded.

Davis, unknowingly, had at least given him some wiggle room with his closing statement that he expected the Army of Northern Virginia to force Lincoln into capitulation. He cited a pledge, printed in all the Northern newspapers, where Lincoln declared that the city was invulnerable and that he would stay there no matter what happened.

"He cannot run now," Davis said. "Storm the city, capture the scoundrel, and I will be back to deal with him."

He did not exactly say that the city was to be stormed within the next two or three days, though one would have to admit that the president fully expected that outcome.

"I can see the way you've been looking at ground today," Longstreet pressed. "It's like the old days, when we had a chance to look things over before picking our spot"

Lee smiled, his attention diverted by the approach of Taylor and the army cartographer, Jed Hotchkiss.

"Beautiful ground, sir," Jed Hotchkiss announced, a flat board balanced on the pommel of his saddle with a sketchbook pegged to the board. Throughout the day he had been feverishly sketching away, turning out one map after another.

"May I see your work, sir?" Lee asked.

Grinning, Hotchkiss handed the sketch board down.

"Just rough drafts, sir," he said, offering the classic excuse of all artists and writers. "Once back to headquarters I can run off better copies."

Lee took the board, turning slightly to orient himself toward north, Pete coming up by his side.

"We have two good roads coming north out of Baltimore," Lee said, thumbing back to one of the earlier sketches, putting on his reading glasses so he could figure out the finely written details of distances, prominent buildings, and types of terrain.

"The first road toward Bel Air," Lee said, pointing to the map, "the second, the one we are on now, down closer to the bay and parallel to the railroad, which could be used as well for infantry if the weather turns bad."

"North rather than Washington, sir?" Walter asked tentatively. It was unusual for him to venture a question, but Lee did not reproach him. The excuse of their just "going for a ride after seeing the president off" was just that, an obvious excuse after nearly ten hard hours in the saddle, crisscrossing the landscape.

Lee did not reply to Walter's query, instead concentrating on the sketches, turning the pages, pausing occasionally to ask Jed to explain some detail, comparing relative heights between the low-lying ridges.

He could sense the mounting excitement of the other three. The weeks of idleness at Baltimore, though a wonderful chance to relax, reorganize, and refit, seemed out of place for a field army during the height of the campaign season. Battle, of their own choosing, was again in the air.

He reached the last map, the one that sketched this line along the Gunpowder River for nearly ten miles of length. Hotchkiss was obviously tired; he had gone through three horses during the day, covering two miles or more at a gallop for each one Lee had ridden at leisure. He alone knew the full details of why they were riding thus.

Their cavalry escort ringed in a bit closer as the four stood examining the maps, forward pickets a good three or four miles ahead of the main body
...
and not a single Yankee, not even a few scouts, had been seen all day, a clear sign that Sickles was keeping to the north side of the river.

Lee studied the last map intently, the shadows around them lengthening and then disappearing as the sun set, summer twilight settling over them.

"I think it will be here," he finally said.

"Good ground," Pete replied. "We can ring our guns along this side of the stream, force them to cross; this is very good ground."

Lee shook his head.

"No, I think we'll give it to them."

"Sir?"

"A friend of mine, a man Judah took me to share dinner with, made a good analogy of our army's situation. He said we're like Napoleon before Quatre Bras, several days before Waterloo. Napoleon was trying to force a break between the allied army and the Prussian army. As you know, he failed to do so, and the defeat at Waterloo was the result. We're like Napoleon at this moment, but it's not two armies we must force apart, it is three."