On Secret Service (25 page)

The clouds of glory that trailed George Brinton McClellan for months blew away in a storm of fighting at the gates of Richmond. The storm lasted seven days. It saved the city, ended the Peninsula campaign, and blotted McClellan's reputation, for which he blamed others.

After engagements at Oak Grove and Mechanicsville, a major battle at Gaines' Mill on June 27 produced a costly Confederate victory. News walkers, soldiers who roamed the camps like living newspapers, told what little they knew as night came down. Artillery boomed fitfully in the distance. Near midnight, Allan Pinkerton called his anxious operatives together over the mess tables at White House. Lon saw an eerie resemblance to John Brown as Pinkerton addressed them.

“Today the rebs whipped us at an unknown cost of many thousands. We lose battles because our force is too small. General McClellan places responsibility squarely on the President and his clique, and will so inform Mr. Lincoln by letter. Starting tomorrow, this base will be abandoned. We move down to Harrison's Landing on the James. The general will forgo the assault on Richmond to save his Army, and when he does save it, as he will, it will be no thanks to anyone in Washington. Only the cabal, not the Confederacy, can defeat the nation's finest soldier.”

Men hardly dared look up, so wild and terrible was the accusation. Pinkerton's burning eye swept the tent as if to discover anyone who would dispute him. The most skeptical face was Zach's. He stood behind Lon, arms folded, luckily in shadow where the lantern's dim glow didn't reach.

When Pinkerton walked out, there was a communal sigh. Next morning the first long wagon train moved south over rain-rutted roads, followed by a lowing herd of Army beef.

With Savage Station, Frayser's Farm, and Malvern Hill on the first of July, the seven days ended. Richmond was redeemed, though casualty estimates pouring across the Pinkerton desks suggested that Lee had won the city's reprieve at a cost of something like a quarter of his Army.

The Army of the Potomac celebrated Independence Day behind secure fortifications at Harrison's Landing. Bands played, artillery saluted the holiday, and McClellan issued another proclamation, commending the Army for performing nobly. There was no mention of victory. Even so, the troops were heartened. Sledge was in fine spirits next day, when he found Lon washing socks and drawers in a tub of grimy water already used by a dozen others. Both men gamely tried to ignore the screams and the grind of saws amputating limbs in nearby hospital tents.

“I hear Lincoln's coming down tomorrow,” Sledge began.

“I'm sure it isn't to see me.”

The unexpected sourness made Sledge frown. He wore what he'd worn for weeks, a loose white shirt with a patched elbow Lon had mended for him, but he'd spruced up by tying his black string tie in a bow and combing his hair with water. Lon commented on his neatness.

“Just saw the boss. He said Richmond will stand a while longer, so we're starting over.”

“Meaning what?”

“He's sending me in to spy on fortifications.”

Lon's reaction was disappointment, and envy. “Dangerous duty, Sledge.”

“Sure, but we've sat on our bums long enough.”

Lon twisted his underwear to wring water into the tub. Sledge chewed his gold-plated toothpick. “He wants to send two men. I asked for you.”

Lon laid the wet garment aside and wiped his bare chest with his palm. It got rid of some sweat but didn't cool him. The summer heat was fierce, the sky unclouded, the sun pitiless. Steam rose from the muddy ground. Lon's nose and shoulders were red and ready to blister.

“What did the boss say to that?”

“He said all right. Can't say he was kicking up his heels, though. What did you do, spit in his face?”

“I imagine he thinks so. I questioned the figures we developed for the general these past months. I didn't believe them.”

“Guess old Stanton didn't either. Not my burden,” Sledge said with one of those shrugs that amounted to the entire Greenglass philosophy.

“When do we go?”

“After things settle down. A week or two. Are you game?”

“Of course.” After months of dull duty relieved only by the excitement of the balloon flight, Lon couldn't wait.

“What about Zach?”

“I expect he should go back to Willard's. He won't be happy.”

“Who the hell's really happy in this camp? We failed, bub. Davis and Lee sit in Richmond thumbing their noses, Little Mac's in the shit house, and if the boss can't hang on, he'll sink with him. We're better off behind enemy lines.”

Given the risks, Lon doubted it, but he didn't argue. Sledge went off whistling. Lon picked up his laundry and trudged toward his tent, wincing as another victim of the saws screamed.

He was depressed at the thought of McClellan dragging Pinkerton down. The boss had failings, as they all did, but Lon still admired him, not only for his hatred of slavery, but because he stood by his men. For months he'd fought the War Department over the issue of pay. Stanton's bureaucrats claimed they couldn't honor Pinkerton's payroll vouchers because each consisted of a total sum due, with no explanation. The department wanted a list of operatives. Pinkerton consistently refused on grounds that it could endanger his agents, should some clerk with reb sympathies get hold of such a list. During Lon's time in Washington he'd met a captain who had witnessed an argument between Pinkerton and a loud-mouthed European at the War Department, a man named Siegel. The boss was so exercised and vehement, the captain expected him to attack Siegel or have a seizure.

Pinkerton lost the battle. The department continued to send a portion of the payroll, never the whole amount. And it was always late. How could one man deal with so many responsibilities without buckling?

Pinkerton's problems raised other questions for Lon. What if the boss fell along with his patron? Could Lon switch his loyalty and work for Lafayette Baker? Could his need to do anything he could to hasten a victory overcome his loathing for the man who had imprisoned Margaret Miller?

The image of Baker's face dissolved to another, grimly erotic. Margaret lay naked in the marriage bed. Lon's spirits slumped. General McClellan wasn't the only one suffering defeat this summer.

 

Lincoln didn't rid himself of McClellan, but instead called him back to rebuild the Army of the Potomac for the defense of Washington. The President did it despite another discourteous letter the general sent from Harrison's Landing. The grapevine said Little Mac not only lectured Lincoln on strategy, but also on politics, especially the slavery issue. He said it should play no part in military decisions.

Washington ordered McClellan to abandon the Peninsula and move the Army to Aqua Landing and Alexandria. He protested but he obeyed. To command the new field Army, the Army of Virginia, Lincoln summoned General John Pope, the hero of Island No. 10 in the Western theater. The capital received Pope with the same optimistic fanfare McClellan had enjoyed when he came to town.

 

Hanna impatiently awaited her chance to go back to the battlefield. Margaret was suddenly, mysteriously gone from the Old Capitol, leaving a letter that Hanna read with amazement.

The letter closed with a wish for Hanna's happiness and safety, and a promise of mended friendship
when the clouds rise and the skies clear again
.

Nowhere in the letter did Margaret say that as a newly married woman, she was happy.

 

The retreat from the Peninsula began in August. After days of waiting, Lon and Sledge prepared for their mission. George Bangs gave each of them a closely written list of passwords and countersigns and instructed them on contacting the one agent of the Richmond spy ring whose name they were permitted to know. Siegfried Retz, a recent immigrant and opponent of slavery, ran a butcher shop.

“You won't get to him immediately,” Bangs said. “If events proceed typically, you'll be locked up until you're deemed ready to be put in a work brigade. At worst, you'll be handed a uniform and sent to the front lines, but the later it is in the year, the less likely that becomes. Should it happen, you'll simply desert again.”

“Oh, sure, easy,” Sledge said, rolling his eyes.

They chose new names. Lon was Private Albion Rogers, Sledge was Private Sam Snowdon. They outfitted themselves with blue kersey trousers, belts with brass buckles, and dark blue sack coats on which they pinned red cloth badges, diamond-shaped. Phil Kearny had introduced corps badges during the campaign and the idea had caught on.

On the night they left, Pinkerton sought them out and shook hands with both of them. He had no reproaches for Lon. It gratified him.

They made their way toward Richmond through the shell-blasted countryside, keeping away from main roads. A cool wave of northern air brought the first whisper of autumn. They saw only three Confederate patrols the first day and easily avoided them. By late on the second day they came within hearing of the city's church bells. Then, on a dirt track snaking through the forest, bad luck showed up in the form of three armed Confederates who suddenly rose in front of them, having marched up the inside of a shell crater. Irregulars, Lon judged; two of them were no more than fourteen. He and Sledge raised their hands without being told.

The bearded leader had the look of a backwoods cretin. Half his front teeth were missing. He wore an old felt hat pierced by bullet holes and a comic-opera uniform: emerald green coat, baggy mauve trousers. In his red sash he carried a bowie knife and an oversized .45-caliber Allen pepperbox. He mocked them with his salute.

“Colonel Jeffa Mars, Henrico County Defenders. Where abouts you boys headed?”

Sledge groveled appropriately by kneading his forage cap in his hands. “To Richmond, we hope. Had a bellyful of fighting for the wrong side.”

Colonel Mars looked them up and down. “What's your names?”

“Private Sam Snowdon, Heintzelman's Third Corps, First Division.” Sledge touched the red diamond badge.

“Private Albion Rogers, same,” Lon said. “Let me reach under my shirt, I'll show you something to prove we mean what we say.”

“Go ahead, but slow.”

Lon unbuttoned his sack coat and produced the Brady photograph. “Here we are, both of us. Had this taken in Washington City. I'd never have signed up except for my girl back home in Albany, New York. She wouldn't go to the hayloft with me unless I said I'd serve. I did, and she did.”

Colonel Mars busily scratched his genitals. “Well, sir, that's a hell of a price to pay for a little piece of cunny. Old cock's got a way of knocking good sense out of a man, don't he? Say hello to Captain Seamus Tipper and Captain Bellephon Forney, two of the bravest lads ever fought for Southern rights.” Captains Tipper and Forney were malnourished adolescents equipped with rusty trade muskets that could have been thirty years old.

“We're gettin' a lot of you bluecoats lately,” Mars said. “If you two boys want to serve the side of the righteous, if you truly hate niggers and all who bow down to kiss their asses, then I say welcome. If on the other hand you're lying about it, if you're yella cowards or spies or anything like that, we got hangmen who can always handle one more.”

The self-appointed colonel might be a backwoods ignoramus, but he had a certain deadly shrewdness. The cool air of early evening was suddenly chilling. The late-summer sun cast long shadows. Through the treetops Lon saw a vee of water-birds winging south. He wished they might fly away as easily.

Colonel Mars vigorously massaged his crotch again. “'Fore we march off to town, let's see what you got in your pockets. Turn 'em out.”

Nothing to do but obey; like Sledge, Lon was unarmed. He'd stored his pocket Colt and other personal effects in a small box that Zach had promised to carry back to Washington. Sledge showed the only item he was carrying besides tobacco, his gold-plated toothpick. Colonel Mars's eyes popped.

“Say, let's see that thing.” Visibly upset, Sledge laid the toothpick in Mars's filthy palm. Mars held it up so it caught the sun. He raised it to his lips, licked it lovingly. “Gold, is it? Mighty good.” Captains Tipper and Forney sniggered and elbowed each other. “Think I'll just hang onto this.” Mars slipped it in his coat pocket.