The Battle of the Crater: A Novel (44 page)

“And even if that were true, what will you want of me in exchange?”

Vincent laughed softly.

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“The outcome is obvious, isn’t it? Ledlie will be drummed out and good riddance to him.”

“Why did General Burnside ever place his trust in such a man to start with?” James asked. “I was in the crater and saw General Bartlett. By God, if that man had been in command of the division and properly briefed I daresay we could have still won the day. I met him as his brigade was going in, and he was in a fury; he had no idea whatsoever what his orders were, other than a vague notion to seize the crater.

“Burnside should have briefed him.”

“Lord knows I love that rather strange man,” Vincent sighed, taking the bottle back from James. “I’ve been with Burnside since New Bern. At times he’s a bloody genius: New Bern, Knoxville, his original plan for this fight … but at other times…”

He sighed.

“He seems to become someone else. His mind becomes hesitating, slow, unable to make a decision, as if a fog has wrapped around his brain. You know, they said the same was true of Grant before he was weaned from the bottle, and of McClellan it was definitely true. I was with Burnside at Antietam and all of us were driven half crazy with his obsession to take that one damn bridge when, in fact, the entire creek could have been forded by waves of infantry and have turned Lee’s flank by midday.

“But any who serve with that man will tell you this: that he is loyal to those who serve him. And maybe that is his curse. More than one of us tried to tell him Ledlie and even Ferrero were poor choices for division command, but he would just give that strange chuckle and say, ‘Let ’em prove themselves first and then we shall see.’”

Vincent sighed.

“And he shall be destroyed and hanged.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, I keep hearing talk about hangings. We don’t hang generals anymore,” James said.

Vincent laughed.

“Rank does have its privileges, though in this case I think it will be more humane. Word is that a strong suggestion will be made that he agree to go home on personal leave. He will go back to Rhode Island, and then when enough time has passed and public attention focused elsewhere, he will be quietly told his services are no longer needed and that a resignation would be appreciated.

“Ledlie, maybe Ferrero, will be drummed out. There’s no way in hell they can be let off without at least that,” and Vincent’s words were now bitter.

“And Meade?”

“Nothing. Of course nothing, though I daresay that henceforth he won’t be able to sneeze without Grant standing over his shoulder with a handkerchief ready.”

“But why, damn it?”

“Because we are losing this war,” Vincent snapped. “Yes, things look promising with Sherman, but the election is only three months off. Unless someone pulls a miracle, and at this point it looks like it will have to be Sherman, Lincoln will lose and the opposition will end the conflict and all this sacrifice will be for naught. Drumming out Meade will only shake public confidence still more. Hanging Burnside and his division commanders with the blame will shift attention from where it belongs.”

“And the men of the Fourth, what of them?” James asked bitterly. “I went in with them.”

“I know.”

“I saw their valor and by God above, if they had led the attack, we would be celebrating the end of the war in Richmond this day. We were so close, so damn close…”

His voice trailed off and he realized he had drunk too much and was on the point of tears of rage and frustration.

“I know,” Vincent said softly. “And Burnside knows your feelings on that as well. Reilly, there were a couple of our staff watching you and how you handled their story. Burnside knows how you feel.”

Reilly said nothing, a bit shamed that here he had thought himself so clever and yet these men had figured it all out.

“They will take the blame,” Vincent sighed. “You saw the
New York Herald
. All the papers are trumpeting now that ‘the darkies panicked,’ that the battle was going apace until the ‘colored division was pushed in and triggered a general rout.’”

“Damn whoever wrote that.”

“It is now the convenient excuse. This was not a defeat of General Meade and the glorious Army of the Potomac, which, by God, really is a glorious army. Instead it was a defeat of outsiders, of our old Ninth Corps, wanderers from one front to the other, from Vicksburg and Louisiana to North Carolina and Tennessee and now here. Orphans, called in to fill out the ranks for awhile but never really belonging. And now the same is true of the colored. They weren’t really ‘one of us,’ so who could expect anything different?”

“We could have expected so much more and seen so much more if they had been given their fair chance.”

Vincent nodded, taking the bottle back from James.

“Take the papers and share them with that friend of yours. Maybe someday history will tell the truth.”

“And you? What of you?”

“Oh, I’m one of the fallen,” Vincent replied. “I’ve been in this war for three years and maybe I’ve seen enough. I’ll go into exile with Burnside. Maybe it’s time I go home, too…”

He looked down at the papers on the table, as if struggling for control.

“Maybe someday I’ll feel that I did something right for my country after all.”

He looked up at James, tears in his eyes.

“That’s all I ever really wanted to do, Mr. Reilly: to serve my country. And giving these papers to you…”

His voice trailed off.

“Please just tell the truth to someone.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

WASHINGTON, D.C.
SEPTEMBER 3, 1864

“M
erciful heavens,
J
ames, how are you?”

“Doing fairly, sir,” he lied, as he stepped into the President’s office. He had not slept in more than three days, and it had been weeks since he had shaved, let alone bathed or even changed his clothes. Ground into his trousers, duster jacket, broken-down slouch cap, and every pore of his body was the accumulation of two months of Virginia clay and sand and the stench of battle and trenches.

A more rational voice in his head had whispered that, before coming here, he should have gone straight to the Willard, ordered the best room in the house with the new-fangled plumbing—which included a tub that could actually be filled straight from a tap with hot water and an indoor toilet that flushed—and had someone sent down to the Brooks store with orders for a complete new set of clothes.

But, he decided, the hell with that; he’d do it later and charge the bill to
Harper’s
. If they hollered, they could take it out of their payment for his sketches. That is, if they accepted any … and if they didn’t, the hell with them, too.

Lincoln looked at him appraisingly and James felt a slight embarrassment—coming to the White House like this, as if he had put on some sort of costume. Another part of him, however, no longer cared. Let this man, his old friend and benefactor, the man who commanded all the armies of the Republic, see what battlefield reality looked and smelled like.

“Sit down, son,” Lincoln said softly, gesturing to a sofa of green velvet.

James hesitated; it looked far too clean.

“Oh, don’t worry. Mary picked it out and personally, I think the thing is an overdone gewgaw. Mess it up all you wish, it’ll be an excuse to get rid of it.”

That simple gesture and comment disarmed him a bit, deflating some of the anger that had begun to smolder as he came up the walkway. He had reacted to the neatly trimmed guards blocking his way and a captain wrinkling his nose as if confronted by a beggar. He had wanted to ask the man if he had ever seen an actual Reb coming straight at him with bayonet leveled or if he had held a dying comrade—but he already knew the answer. The captain had gazed suspiciously at the precious pass he always kept concealed in his wallet, signed by Lincoln, to admit this bearer to his presence whenever and wherever presented.

The captain had made him stand outside in the evening drizzle for twenty minutes before returning, obviously a bit surprised by the order to escort him straight to the President’s private office on the second floor.

“Coffee?” Lincoln asked as he came into the room, grabbing hold of James’s hand as he guided him to the sofa.

“Yes, sir, thank you.”

Lincoln pulled open the door to Hay’s office and called for a fresh pot. Before Lincoln could close it, James walked over to stand by Lincoln and saw a clerk, crutches set to the side of his desk, left pant leg empty below the knee.

The resemblance was there.

“Mr. Vincent?” James asked.

A bit startled, the clerk looked up at him, gaze shifting from Lincoln and then to Hay, and he nodded.

“Your brother, Captain Vincent, sends his regards, though I’ve not seen him in a couple of weeks.”

The clerk said nothing for a moment.

“He went back to Rhode Island with General Burnside,” the clerk finally replied, “and from there back to our parents’ home in Lafayette, Indiana.”

“He’s safely out of the war then, that’s good.”

Lincoln looked at the clerk and confusedly back to James.

“Mr. Vincent, there,” James said, “is actually a rather good spy, sir.”

Lincoln started to bristle and James shook his head.

“No, sir; no, don’t blame him. He was curious about me and as the saying goes, ‘tipped off ’ his brother on Burnside’s staff that I might be more than just an artist. My compliments to him. It might actually have helped me … and you, sir.”

There was an awkward moment until a colored servant came in, bearing a silver tray with a steaming pot of coffee, two delicate china cups, and silver bowls for cream and sugar. The servant edged his way into the office and set his burden down.

It was obvious that Vincent was nervous over the encounter, and James finally went over and shook his hand.

“You did the right thing, both as a man working for the President and for a brother in service to General Burnside. In the end it actually helped me with my own duties.”

He looked back to Lincoln, who finally nodded an approval, and he followed the President back into his office, the tall gaunt man forcefully closing the door.

“Don’t blame him; that was rude of me to bring him out like that. I guess I’m just tired.”

“Frankly, James, you look like a cat that’s been dragged through a gutter and then chewed on a bit for good measure.”

James tried to smile, rubbing what was becoming a red beard flecked with streaks of gray and then looking down at his stained, grime-encrusted trousers—some of the stains from the blood of comrades.

“Face of war,” James finally whispered.

“You wanted me to see you like this, didn’t you?”

James suddenly felt embarrassed.

“I went to Antietam a couple of weeks after the fight there. I saw thousands of boys like you; smelled it, too, not just them but the graves washed out by the rains.” Lincoln looked off. “You didn’t need to try and show me something as though I am not already aware of it.”

As he spoke the President played the proper host and poured a cup of coffee, motioned to the cream and sugar, which James refused, and handed the cup over. He was grateful for the hot brew; it was real coffee, damn good coffee, and he took a sip.

At that instant there was a brilliant flash of light outside the window, a split second later a window-shaking boom. Startled, James crouched down, as if ready to dive to the floor, dropping the cup and breaking it.

Another boom and then another and another …

Lincoln put a soothing hand on his shoulder.

“I should have thought of that and warned you. You must have heard the news by now, confirmed today that General Sherman has occupied Atlanta. The siege is over, an enormous victory won. A hundred-gun salute, along with fireworks, has been ordered for tonight in Lafayette Park.”

Embarrassed, James looked down at the fine china, lying in fragments, the coffee soaking into the carpet.

Lincoln stood up, went to the door, cracked it open, and a moment later the servant returned bearing towels and another cup. James looked at the man closely. He was elderly, perhaps in his sixties, his white hair offsetting dark ebony features, which lent him a certain dignity.

“Sorry to trouble you with this, Quincy,” Lincoln offered.

“Oh, no trouble at all, Mr. President, no trouble at all.”

He was down on his knees, spreading out the towels, soaking up the coffee, and scrubbing hard. He glanced up at James and made eye contact, and then started to lower his eyes.

“Quincy, is it?” James asked.

A bit startled, the man looked at him and just nodded.

He thought of Garland, a few short years ago. That man, of such courage and dignity, would have been performing the same task at the Washington home of Senator Toombs, mopping up the spilled drink of a guest who was a bit too rattled, or more likely, a bit too drunk, and he would have done so with eyes averted.

“I’m sorry to have caused you trouble, Quincy,” James offered.

“Oh, it’s no trouble at all, sir.”

“Quincy, do you have any sons?”

“Sir?”

“Do you have any sons?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where are they?”

“Why, in the army, of course,” and there was a note of pride, but he could sense something else.

“Which regiments?”

“Both with the 32nd USCT.”

“So they were in the battle at Petersburg a month ago?”

“Yes, sir,” and the old man paused.

“Have you heard from them?”

Quincy hesitated.

“My oldest, yes. He got through fine, but my youngest…” and his voice trailed off.

James looked up at the President, who emphatically shook his head not to pursue the conversation further.

“I was with them in that fight,” James said, ignoring Lincoln’s warning. “I have never seen men go forward so gallantly.”

“Perhaps, Lord willing, he is simply a prisoner and all will still be well,” Lincoln whispered.

James knew it was most likely a lie, remembering the crater at night, the torches and the bodies being mined out to be thrown into unmarked graves behind Rebel lines.