Never Call Retreat - Civil War 03 (22 page)

"George, how are you?"

He felt a hand slip into his.

"Phil?"

"It's me, George." "Think I'm dying, Phil." Phil hesitated. "You are, George."

A blanket had been placed across George's legs. He looked down and saw part of a leg sticking out at an impossible angle, other leg gone nearly at the hip.
So damn stupid, killed by an exploding train.

"How are you, sir?"

It was hard to see.

"Who is it?"

"Corporal Tyler, sir. You said I'd make lieutenant if I blew up the bridge."

"I did, didn't I. What are you doing here, Tyler?"

"He's my prisoner, George," Phil said. "A brave man. Figure he saved my life. I'll see he gets taken care of, and will sign a statement of your promoting him if you wish."

George smiled, no longer able to speak.

"Hell of a fight, George. You certainly put a twist into us. You always wanted glory," Phil said, his voice suddenly choking. "Well, you got it, my friend."

But he was already slipping away, to visions of other places, and, of course, of glory.

General Hancock, sir."

Lincoln stood up from behind his desk and came to the door to greet the general, who leaned shakily

on a cane while trying to offer a salute.

Lincoln reached out, took him by the arm, and led him over to the sofa in his office. Hancock smiled, moving slowly, and sat down.

His features were pale. He was obviously in pain and had lost weight, a bit of a grayish hue to his complexion. At first look, Lincoln regretted the decision to order him down here. It was clearly evident the man had come straight from his bed in Philadelphia to be here.

"Your wound, sir?" Lincoln asked. "How is it?"

"Mr. President, if you are asking if it prevents me from doing my duty, then the answer is, I am doing fine."

Lincoln smiled at that reply, his first doubt receding a bit.

"Personally though, sir, and forgive the language, it hurts like hell."

"I can imagine," the president responded sympathetically. Curiosity got the better of him. "Is it true they pulled a ten-penny nail out of you?"

Winfield smiled weakly.

"Have it as a keepsake back home. That and a few other things pulled out of me, but the wound is healing, sir."

Lincoln looked down at the man's lap and noticed a bulge where a pad and bandage were wrapped around Hancock's upper thigh underneath his trousers. The wound was most likely still open and not yet properly healed.

"Either the rebs are getting short of standard canister ammunition or the nail came from the saddle," Hancock said.

"General, forgive me, but I must be blunt with you, sir," Lincoln replied, leaning over and gently patting Hancock on the knee. "Do you feel fit to take field command?"

"Yes, sir. Of course, sir."

Lincoln looked straight into his eyes.

"How will you ride a horse, sir?"

Hancock hesitated.

"Well, sir, old Dick Ewell used a carriage. Both Grant and Lee did, too, after taking bad spills from their mounts. If that is the only constraint regarding your concerns, please dismiss them, sir. I want a command, and if given it, I will command." Hancock's voice deepened as he said "will."

He paused for a few seconds, looking off, past Lincoln.

"Especially after what they did to my boys of the Second Corps. I owe it to them to do everything possible to make sure our cause succeeds."

There was a cold edge to his voice. This man carried an anger, a bitterness, for what had happened to a command that all knew he loved.

Hancock looked back at Lincoln.

"Sir, at Union Mills, my corps was destroyed in a futile charge. I could have accepted that, even those who died, God rest them"—his voice came near to breaking—"could have accepted that if we had won. Sir, we could have won. I could see it just before I got hit. If all of Sixth Corps and Third Corps had gone in after my boys, we'd have taken that ridge and shattered Lee."

Hancock lowered his head, saying no more, as if lost in a nightmare.

Lincoln still wasn't sure, though, as he watched Hancock. The man could barely walk, even though he sensed his soul was afire to get back.

"Sir, it's been nearly eight weeks since I was wounded,"

Hancock whispered. "I survived it, I'm healing. I have to get back into this fight."

"The pain, though?"

"Yes, sir, there's some."

"Are you taking anything for that?" Lincoln asked, again being blunt.

"I did, sir. Morphine. I remember hearing how Jackson once said he didn't drink because he found he liked it too much."

Hancock chuckled softly.

"Well, sir, it was the same for me. I stopped it a month ago, right after the doctor finally probed and found the nail, draining the wound. No, sir, no concern there. My mind is clear, and I want back into this fight."

There was a knock at the door and Lincoln turned, a bit surprised. He had just come back to the White House, arriving in a shuttered carriage from the Naval Yard. The carriage had to force its way through a huge crowd gathered at the gate, and when he got out, the reaction was mixed: some cheered, others openly booed.

When he heard that Hancock was already at the White House, waiting to see him, he had left word they were not to be interrupted. After spending a few brief minutes with Mary and Tad, he had come to his office and asked for Hancock to be escorted in.

The door opened, it was Elihu Washburne, and Lincoln relaxed.

"Mr. President, thank God you are back."

"Just returned an hour ago," Lincoln said, standing up. "I was going to come over to your office immediately, but our good General Hancock was waiting to see me."

Hancock, as if to show his strength, stood up smoothly, a slight grimace wrinkling his face as he came to attention and saluted Elihu, who came over and shook the general's hand.

"You are well, sir?" Elihu asked.

Hancock chuckled softly. "The president and I were just discussing that, sir. Well enough to command is the right answer, I think."

"How were things with Grant?" Elihu asked, looking over at Lincoln.

- "Splendid," and he briefly described his journey there, what he had observed, and his return.

"Not so good here," Elihu said after listening patiently.

"How so?"

"Stanton for one. It will come out in the papers this evening that he is calling for Congress to reconvene and begin impeachment proceedings. Says that his removal was illegal. He's already filed charges about my orders not to let him into his old office, claims we've illegally seized personal property of his."

Elihu shook his head.

"I fired Halleck from his staff position, a couple of dozen others. All of them are howling for blood, and the papers are picking it up. They're arguing I have no authority to do so since I've yet to be officially confirmed by Congress as secretary of war."

"To be expected," Lincoln said. "I can stand the heat if you can, Elihu. You did what I hoped you would do."

"There's worse, sir."

"Go on."

"There are rumors floating that one or two others in the cabinet might side with Stanton, saying that you have lost the war and repeatedly exceeded your constitutional authority. Your authorizing me to act with the authority of the secretary of war without proper confirmation by Congress being an example."

"Who?"

Elihu looked over at Hancock.

"Gentlemen, if you wish me to withdraw." Hancock said. Lincoln shook his head.

"What Secretary Washburne is now talking about, General, will take weeks before anything happens," Lincoln said coldly. "Long before the Congress can do anything, the war will have been decided. That is why your being here is so important. We need your help to ensure the war is decided in our favor."

He walked away from the two for a moment, then turned back.

"Weeks before they can crawl out and do anything. Let them howl. Let them try and fiddle while Rome burns. I don't care, I tell you." His voice was filled with a cold anger. "My concern is of the moment, here, now, what we can do within the next two weeks before those howlers have any chance to act."

"Still, sir, eventually it will happen, and they'll come for your blood," Elihu said.

"I don't care now," Lincoln snapped angrily. "Let them impeach me. If we win, I don't care what comes next. I'll have done my job as I believe the Founding Fathers would have wanted it done.

"And if we lose"—he sighed deeply—"it won't matter."

He lowered his head, and his two companions were silent.

Lincoln walked over to a map pegged to the wall, motioning for the two to follow him.

He studied it intently for a moment, then turned to Hancock and smiled.

"General Hancock. You are my man. You are to take command of the garrison of Washington. I am relieving Heintzelman today. He's a good officer but not up to what General Grant and I want done. We both agreed that you, sir, were the man to see it through."

"Sir?" There was obviously a tone of disappointment in Hancock's voice.

"Is anything wrong?"

"A garrison command, sir. I hoped I'd be returning to the field."

Lincoln smiled.

Near Boonesborough, Maryland

August 25 Noon

G
eneral Burnside, why are these men resting?" Grant snapped, riding up to where Burnside and his staff were gathered against the side of a church in the center of town. Several were sipping tin cups of coffee, others standing about as enlisted men worked a cooking fire, frying up some fresh cuts of pork, the slaughtered animal hanging from a nearby tree.

Burnside
, obviously flustered by this sudden appearance of the commanding general, came to attention.

Grant glared down at him, breathing hard, his mount snorting and blowing. More of his staff were coming up behind him.

"Sir, it is noonday. I thought I could get better marching out of them this afternoon if they were fed a good meal."

"Did you not receive the dispatch from General McPherson?" Grant asked sharply. "I most certainly did, and it requested that you press forward with all possible speed."

"Sir, I am indeed doing that,"
Burnside
said quietly, "but you can only ask so much of men's legs when their stomachs are empty."

"How far ahead is McPherson?"

"Sir, I'm not sure."

Grant lowered his head, an obscenity about to break out of him. He held back, drawing his mount closer to Burnside.

"The front man in your column should have been ten feet behind the last man with McPherson. Now you tell me you don't know how far ahead he is?"

"Sir, an hour or so ago I could see them cresting over those mountains," and
Burnside
pointed toward the South Mountain range.

"Then by heaven's, man, I expect to see your men cresting those same mountains and catching up! I'm going ahead to join McPherson. I expect you up to Frederick with all possible speed. Do I make myself clear?" "Yes, sir," Burnside said icily.

Grant jerked the reins of his mount, turned back on to the National Road, and was quickly up to a gallop, heading east.

Burnside and his staff watched him ride off.

"Westerners," one of his men sighed. "Wait until he comes face-to-face with Bobbie Lee and the men are exhausted."

As Grant reached the east side of the village, he saw thousands of the colored troops, in the fields on either side, building fires, rifles stacked, backpacks off, the men milling about. It'd take a half hour or more, Grant knew, to get these men formed up, out on the road, and marching again.

Uttering a whispered curse and a frustrated "What does Burnside think he is doing?" he pressed on.

Monocacy J
unction 12:50 P.M.

“G
eneral Lee, thank heavens, we were worried sick about you!" Jeb Stuart rode up to Lee's side, saluted, and then reached over in an uncharacteristic gesture and took his hand.

"I'm just fine, General Stuart."

"We heard about the wreck of your train. First reports were that you were trapped in it."

"Foolishness," Lee said, even as he thought of the fireman's scalded and mangled body. "I'm just fine."

Lee looked away from Jeb for a moment to take in the scene of destruction. The depot was burning, the water tower, punctured by a shell, was trickling water. Behind him the bridge was burning, teams of troopers were working around the edge of the fires, trying to beat them out with blankets, a few buckets of water hauled up from the river, shovelfuls of dirt.

One entire side of the bridge was completely destroyed. The smoldering remnants of two locomotives and what appeared to be a passenger car now lay in the river. The north side of the bridge was still tenuously holding together, a few stringers connecting the piers, but all planking and track gone.

Lee turned to Jed Hotchkiss.

"That's the bridge we needed?"

"Yes, sir?"

"No other crossings for rail?" "No, sir." Lee sighed.

"How long do you think it will take to get a track laid back across it?" Jed shook his head.

"Not my department, sir. We don't have the railroad men the way the Yankees do. But it looks like the stringers are still intact on one side. Put three, four hundred men on it, and maybe in a day or two we can have it back for at least one side with lighdy loaded trains."

Lee looked back at Jeb.

"Situation here?"

"We took out most of Custer's Brigade. Sir, he put up a darn good fight. That's him over there."

Lee looked to where a small knot of captured Union soldiers sat around a blanket-covered body, a lone Confederate officer sitting among them. As he looked at them, the Confederate officer stood up and saluted, most of the Yankees standing and doing the same.

"That's Captain Duvall, sir," Stuart whispered. "He and Custer were close friends back at the Point. Duvall was the one who sent the warnings from Taneytown and first tried to hold this side of the river. I think he should get a regiment, sir. He's ready for it, and he's earned it."