Never Call Retreat - Civil War 03 (8 page)

"At least ten miles south of Carlisle, a route that could take them toward Hanover. Also, Custer was screening that movement."

"Any indication which corps it was?"

"Nothing on any of that, sir. They are keeping up a solid screen."

Good move on Grant's part the first day out,
Lee
thought.
Blinds us and now moves in a shadow land to the north and west.

As they spoke they slowly walked into the hotel lobby in which Longstreet had set up. Jed Hotchkiss, the army cartographer who had ridden ahead with Longstreet, was there to greet them. A table was set up covered with maps, and Lee walked over to it, with Longstreet by his side.

"Well, Major Hotchkiss," Lee said, "I see you've-been busy again."

"Same maps as before, sir, but I thought you might want to get a look at them."

Longstreet leaned over the table, pointing toward York and then Carlisle.

"Sir," Hotchkiss began, "we know that they have a screen of cavalry, at least two divisions' worth, spread in an arc from York westward, over to here at Heidlersburg, about twenty miles north of Gettysburg. It was from Heidlersburg that our last report came in, and that outpost is now withdrawing to Hanover."

"I'll want General Stuart to start moving out
a screen to
morrow, probing, across this entire front."

As he spoke he drew a line with his finger from Gettysburg eastward to the Susquehanna River.

"Tomorrow, sir?" Pete asked.

"Yes, I know," Lee replied slowly, and as he spoke he sat down, reached into his breast pocket to take out a pair of spectacles and put them on.

"Walter, my compliments to General Stuart, and please convey that order to him. Tell him I only want him to send out those regiments that he feels are relatively fresh. I fear our new rival has the jump on us on that issue. I suspect many of Grant's troopers have mounts well shod and rested, and the boys astride them as good in the saddle as our boys are. If there is to be a tangle in the next few days, I want our boys on good mounts, otherwise they'll be run down."

He was silent for a moment, staring again at the map.

By rights he should give Stuart at least a week to refit. The reshodding of one mount would only take a matter of minutes, but ten thousand? Every blacksmith and farrier in Baltimore would be busy for days with that task. Then there were the horses for the artillery, quartermaster corps, and medical corps to be tended to as well before this army could march on a campaign of maneuver that also might span a hundred miles or more in a matter of days.

I
need a week,
he thought,
but if I wait, that will give Grant a week to do as he pleases. "For want of a nail a horseshoe was lost, for want of a horseshoe..."

"Give the cavalry precedence in reshoeing the horses and drawing provisions. They have to move first or we will be blind.

"We need two things, General Longstreet," Lee said, adjusting his spectacles as he gazed at the maps, "time to rest and time to analyze what General Grant is about to do."

He forced a smile, accepting a cup of tea from Walter, who had fetched it from the kitchen in the hotel. He blew on the china rim before taking a sip.

"Don't worry, though, gentleman. We've faced others like this before. Remember Pope coming from the West with all his boasts?"

The staff chuckled.

"Headquarters in his saddle," Taylor laughed softly, and those gathered round Lee grinned with how that inane comment had been quickly turned into a meaning other than what Pope intended.

Lee looked over at Jed Hotchkiss and from him to Walter Taylor and the staff that was beginning to come in through the door.

"Gentlemen, two favors. First, Walter, would you be so kind as to ask the owner of this establishment if I might make my headquarters here? It is convenient and directly across the street from the telegraphy station. Also, Walter, I need you to see to the placement of the men as they file in. I want them to come in and find fresh rations. There's still plenty of beef and store goods in this town. Coffee, lots of coffee, tobacco, and fresh beef mean more now than three months of back pay. The men are to have tomorrow in camp, no drills, plenty of time to rest and for church services." "I'll see to it at once, sir."

"The second thing, gentlemen. If General Longstreet and I might have some time alone."

Nothing more needed to be said. Within seconds the room was emptied except for Pete and himself. A minute later Walter came back in, offering him a key to a room on the second floor with the compliments of the owner, who said he was honored by Lee's presence. After whispering that a guard was being posted around the hotel, he withdrew.

Pete was sitting across from him, exhaustion graying his features. It had been a hard march for him, too, he could see that.

Longstreet stirred, took out a cigar, and looked over at Lee, who nodded his approval before Pete lit up.

"I think we need to have a talk, General Longstreet." "I do, too, sir." "Why so?"

"Things have changed, a lot of things." Pete fell silent.

"Go on, General, I need you to speak freely. As I told you at Gettysburg, you are my right arm. I need to hear your opinions. Your insights gave us victory in the past; I am counting on you to help give us victory again."

Pete sighed, blew out a cloud of blue smoke, and leaned forward, looking Lee in the eyes.

"Sir, they just don't stop. I thought, after Union Mills, that would force Lincoln to give in. Certainly his abolitionist friends would stand by him, but the blow we gave them that day, I thought it was the beginning of the end."

"So did I, General," Lee said wistfully.

"We did it again at Gunpowder River. In some ways that victory was even more complete than Union Mills. It finished the Army of the Potomac, once and for all."

Longstreet sat back, shaking his head.

"I don't know anymore. I just don't know. I just thought

that finally they would stop coming, but here they come again."

"You knew Grant. I mean before the war." "Yes, sir."

'Tell me something about him."

"Well, sir, when I knew him, to be honest it was all rather tragic. He was a year behind me at the Point, graduating in forty-three. I knew him there as an honest sort. Didn't like to gamble, drink. A bit reserved. Curious, actually, since he didn't like the army all that much and would voice that in private. Even admitted he went to the Point simply because it was a free education. He planned to do his service afterward, then get out. The one thing he did enjoy was horsemanship. Underneath that gruff exterior there is actually a rather sensitive soul, though most would find that impossible to believe."

"This tragic side you mentioned."

"The word was he took to drink out of loneliness and despair when separated from his wife. He was, sir, a gentleman and many of the men stationed out in California after the war
...
well, sir, you know what I mean when it came to women out there and such. Grant wasn't one of them, and the loneliness drove him half crazy."

"That's why he left the army?"

"I think so. Also, killing just sickened him."

"As it should all of us, General Longstreet. Yet everyone says he is relentless, cold-blooded," Lee finally ventured, uncomfortable with his own thoughts.

"He is indeed that At least I'm told that. I've never seen him in combat before. But from the word in the ranks he was absolutely fearless in Mexico. He doesn't lose his nerve under pressure the way many do, that is for certain."

"And yet, after leaving the army, he did not make much of himself."

Longstreet chuckled softly.

"No, sir, he did not. Failed at most everything he did. But let me put the shoe on the other foot. How many officers do we know who were all great guns in peacetime and then failed miserably when the bullets really did begin to whine about them?" Lee smiled sadly.

"More than any of us would like to admit, especially of old comrades."

"I think Grant is suited to this new kind of war that so many talk about."

"How so?"

"He doesn't stop. He just doesn't stop. Take Shiloh, for example, or his winter campaign around Vicksburg. Takes a reversal, what most anyone else would call a defeat, he wakes up the next morning as if yesterday didn't exist, and then pushes again."

"Like you, General Longstreet."

"Yes, sir, including me, but the difference is, he can draw on reserves we can only dream of. He understands that. Back in George Washington's time, an army fought a battle, it took weeks to resupply it, months to replace the men. Grant understands how different it all is now with trains, steamboats, factories. Fight a battle, he snaps a finger, brings up five million more rounds of ammunition, ten thousand more men, and pitches in again."

Both were silent for a moment.

"He is relentless once fixed on an objective. Though sensitive to the point of illness at the sight of blood, he can stand back and let it flow. Shiloh is an example we should look at carefully, sir. He turned it into a grinding match that finally broke Beauregard."

"Yet in many ways that battle was inconclusive."

"Inconclusive only because he did not have the authority to follow up. Halleck stepped in. I dare say, if Grant had been given full authority then, he would've pushed Beauregard clear to the Gulf of Mexico and not just to Corinth."

"Halleck. Sadly, those days are over," Lee said quietly, taking a sip of his tea.

"Precisely, sir."

"What do you think that portends?"

"That Lincoln has not yet lost his nerve, not by a long shot. In a way, he's sacked perhaps two of our best friends. Halleck, as you know, was always by the book. Stanton tended to work at cross-purposes to the administration in Washington."

Longstreet slapped the table with his fist and shook his head.

"Sorry, sir. I forgot to tell you. Lincoln did indeed sack Stanton yesterday." Lee said nothing.

"Sorry. Word was out on the wires late yesterday. We have some boys who've tapped into the line from Washington that they've run across land to the Chesapeake. Stanton is out."

"Replaced by?"

"Elihu Washburne. Congressman from Illinois. The man who nominated Lincoln at the Republican convention. Perhaps more importantly he was Grant's congressman and apparently a close friend of his."

"That is news," Lee said quietly. "That means Grant has the full support of the administration. Carte blanche from now on."

"Sir, you just asked me to speak freely." "Yes, I did."

"I think it's time for us to get back across the Potomac."

"Why so?" Lee asked.

"There is nothing more to accomplish here."

"I would disagree, General Longstreet. We hold Baltimore, we still threaten Washington, we have supplies to see us clean through the spring if need be."

"Sir, may I present my case?" Longstreet asked.

"Of course, General. I need to hear what you have to say, though it does surprise me, your thought of conceding this ground without a fight, when I believe we could finally settle the issue here once and for all."

"Sir, we've destroyed the Army of the Potomac, a stated goal of our mission back in June. We've brought Maryland into the Confederacy. I think, at this point, a strategic withdrawal into northern Virginia would be prudent.

"We do a methodical and orderly withdrawal out of Baltimore now, and Grant just swings on empty air when he comes in. We also take apart the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad as we pull back, take down every bridge, burn all the rolling stock left behind, tear apart the switching yards, burn the roundhouses, and take the heavy tools and machinery.

"If we pull out now, starting tomorrow, we can take with us every locomotive in this town, tear up track to take as well, even haul some of the machinery out of the factories as we go. Escort all that as we leave, and it would be a bonanza for our railroads in the South."

Lee did not respond.

Longstreet, warming to his position, pressed forward. "Sir, you might recall all the equipment that Jackson snatched from the Baltimore and Ohio back at the start of the war. It was brilliant and gave our side locomotives we desperately needed."

Lee smiled at the memory of how, in the early days of the struggle, Jackson had pulled off a wonderful hoodwinking of the Baltimore and Ohio, convincing them that they could only run trains in convoys at certain times, but he would not interfere with their operations in Maryland. Then, when the moment was right, he had raided across the river, blocked the track, and trapped an entire convoy of locomotives, supplies, and rolling stock. The equipment had been taken into Virginia and proved essential in keeping the Southern cause alive.

"Sir. If we take all their locomotives and rolling stock, then tear everything else apart, it would cripple their logistical support for months. It'd give us a lot of breathing room once out of Maryland with nothing but the wreckage of railroads behind us. Grant's offensive would grind to a halt."

"You know I don't like wanton destruction," Lee replied. "And remember, Maryland is now on our side. We cannot abandon it so lightly, or engage in such destruction in a state that is now part of our Confederacy.

"And what of our president's orders to hold Baltimore?" Lee asked. 'To hold Maryland?"

Longstreet said nothing for a moment.

"Sir, you asked for my opinion, which means relating to the military situation, not a response to what the civilian government told us to do."

"Why the caution now, General Longstreet?"

"The cost, sir. Our total casualties have been well over sixty thousand since May. We've lost over a dozen generals, scores of regimental commanders. Some of our finest divisions have been fought to a mere shell. Pickett, Pender, Anderson, Johnson, Heth are all down to a fraction of their original strength.

"Withdraw across the Potomac, hold the fords—and in another eight weeks the campaign season will be over till spring. That will give time for the wounded to heal, to reorganize, bring regiments back up to strength. Our boys will understand it, sir. In fact, they'll welcome it."

"And yet that gives Grant time as well," Lee said. "We believe he has four corps with him at this very moment. Wait till spring and it might be six or seven corps."

"Sir, though it's not our realm, I think Secretary Benjamin would agree with me as well. It would give time for Europe to react to your victories, perhaps bring France into the picture, with luck maybe even England, too. This war is, ultimately, one in which we achieve a political victory. Either Lincoln is impeached or is voted out of office. All we need do now is hold on till one or the other happens. Lincoln is undoubtedly pushing Grant to fight. Let us not give him that opportunity, and then see what happens."

Lee said nothing, letting his gaze drop to the maps on the table.

He had originally sought Pete's advice simply to examine the moment, what needed to be done the next few days, but instead his "right arm" had opened a far broader examination: a fundamental decision of what was to come not just tomorrow but in the weeks ahead.

"I cannot withdraw," Lee said, staring at the map.

"Because of President Davis?"