Valley of the Shadow: A Novel (18 page)

Neither man offered encouragement. Ramseur looked away.

“Get everybody up, let ’em rest a spell,” Early said, voice milder, tired. “Hit ’em hard in the morning, go right through ’em.”

“We should go in now,” Gordon said stubbornly. “Men who can skirmish can fight. Well enough to break those lines. There’s nothing to those Yankees. And their gunnery’s abysmal, those troops are dregs.”

“Like the ones on the Monocacy?” Early paused to spit. The tobacco juice might have been a stream of venom. “God almighty, even if we went right over the walls of that there fort, what then? We haven’t got the men present to make good any gains.” He shook his head with finality. “It can wait for morning, morning’s time enough.” The commanding general called up one of his small, trust-no-man smiles. “Glory enough for everybody. Even you.”

As a last resort, Gordon looked toward Sandie Pendleton, who sat his horse some yards off. But the chief of staff’s face remained studiedly blank. And Breckinridge, who might have seen sense, was off rounding up the strays from his own division.

“The men would do it,” Gordon said, but resignation had already entered his voice. “If we ordered an attack, they’d take that city.”

“And hold it? With what?” Early’s voice grew anger-tinged again. “Take these worn-out sonsofbitches into that damned fleshpot, and I’ll be damned if we ever round ’em up again.” His face, his voice, mixed spite and exasperation. “Tomorrow morning, we’re going to march down those streets like a proper army. A
proud
army.” Of a sudden, he softened and nudged his horse toward Gordon. “Lord, John Gordon … we’ve come all this way now. Did any man here really think we’d get this far?” Early straightened his back as best he could, sweeping his paw toward the dome that shone but a few miles distant. “Look at that. Just
look
at that.”

Rodes spoke up at last. With a tentative smile. “Does appear we took them by surprise. Hard to believe, I swear.”

Sandie Pendleton, alert and watchful as ever, said, “What’s that?” The chief of staff pointed toward the city, down the road behind the fort and the rifle pits.

Clouds of brown dust rose from the city’s thoroughfares, swelling and approaching as the exhausted generals watched.

“Sonofabitch,” Early said.

July 11, 5:00 p.m.

The War Department, Washington, D.C.

Sitting behind his perfectly ordered desk, Major General Henry Halleck was not displeased by developments. It appeared that disaster had been averted, with two Sixth Corps divisions disembarking at the docks, their rush to fill out the city’s defenses hindered only by Lincoln’s childlike foolery as the president stood stoop-shouldered on the wharf, delaying the troops to repeat his bumpkin’s joke, “You have to be quick, if you want to catch Early.”

Lincoln was just one more of Halleck’s burdens.

No blame could be attached to Henry Halleck, that was the thing. Even if the veterans forced-marching up to Fort Stevens failed to block the Confederate advance,
he
could not be blamed. All of the mistakes had been made by others; he had issued no orders that might leave him culpable. No, only the others were at fault. Grant, of course. Halleck sometimes feared that the greatest mistake of his life had been allowing the man to continue serving in uniform after Shiloh. Now that ungrateful nobody had gotten far too big for his unwashed britches. Grant had assured them all that Early’s corps had not left the Petersburg lines. Halleck could hardly have been expected to know what the general in chief had mistaken.

And when Secretary of War Stanton had approached him with the warning dispatches from the railroad man Garrett—another self-important creature meddling in the war—Grant had assured them again that the danger was a chimera. If any blame there was, it lay at Grant’s feet.

Outside of his office, officers and clerks hastened about, packing documents for an evacuation. Halleck believed that the danger had already passed, that the city would
not
fall, but he let the men continue their frantic efforts. He meant to be prepared, no matter what happened. And it wouldn’t hurt those do-nothings to sweat a bit.

Yes, matters appeared to be in hand. And if they weren’t, it would not be his fault. Should the Rebels surprise them all a final time and enter the city, the fault would lie with the absurd local command arrangements Stanton had permitted. Augur, McCook, and Meigs would be the generals to cashier. And Wright, commanding the Sixth Corps … obviously, it would be his fault now, if Early and his rabble torched the Capitol. Any court-martial-convening authority would grasp immediately that Henry Halleck’s hands had been tied by the willful mistakes and incompetence of others.

He heard cannon in the distance, but the fires were desultory. Really, nothing to worry about, he shouldn’t think. Not now. Grant had gotten reinforcements into the city, their arrival timed to the hour, if not the minute. All would be well.

If Lincoln did not interfere, of course. The man was a marauding donkey.

Halleck often had felt himself slighted, despite his august position as the Army’s chief of staff. He had been called from the battlefield to oversee the infernally muddled bureaucracy, but knew himself to be the man who should command the armies in the field—rather than see authority dropped in the laps of men who didn’t even begin to know their Jomini, to say nothing of de Saxe. And a bit more Vauban would not have harmed the likes of Monty Meigs, when it came down to it.

Could Meigs read French? Halleck doubted it. Probably forgot every word after leaving West Point. The truth was that there wasn’t a single first-rate mind in the entire Army, other than his own, and he’d come to wear his nickname, “Old Brains,” with pride—even if mediocrities spoke the words in malice, just as they made fun of his protuberant eyes. All of his life he’d been mocked by jealous inferiors.

Beyond the walls, the city had grown raucous as the reinforcements arrived. The evening before, grim dread had possessed the mob. Now it noised its beery, squalid pleasure at its rescue. The people were unworthy of their government.

In time, Halleck had come to see how vital his purpose was here, in this treacherous city. The orders Grant issued to far-flung commands had to be put right before they were passed along, and Stanton’s enthusiasms needed tempering by someone else’s good sense—to say nothing of the president’s madcap notions. No, his place was here, after all. If he would not find battlefield glory, he would know, nonetheless, that
he
had done more to save the Union than any vainglorious popinjay with a pistol.

And there were consolations. The crisis had afforded him the overdue chance to kill Lew Wallace’s military career, once and for all. Wallace had suffered a catastrophic defeat—viewed by objective military standards—throwing away the few troops interposed between Early and the Washington defenses. Properly interpreted, the reports of the battle made it clear that Wallace had committed an unbroken series of follies, compiling a spotless record of incompetence. Now his force was scattered throughout creation, Baltimore was exposed, and a veteran Sixth Corps division had been savaged, thanks to his nonsense. Nor did Henry Halleck subscribe to the view raised by that ass Dana that Wallace had delayed Early for a critical span. Defeat was defeat, and Wallace had been defeated.

Yes, Wallace. Halleck could almost smack his lips in his pleasure at the man’s downfall. He had been unable to prevent Wallace’s appointment to the Middle Department post, but now his every objection had been vindicated.

Wallace would have his lesson ground into his face. Two years before, the upstart had possessed the temerity to criticize
him,
Henry Halleck, before a huddle of officers awaiting a Tennessee riverboat. Of course, the remarks had been reported back to him, resulting in Wallace’s first dismissal from active service: Shiloh might have been forgiven, but not such disrespect.

It had filled Halleck with delight when, the afternoon before, he had convinced Stanton to sign the order replacing Wallace with Ord in command of the Middle Department—while leaving Wallace in place, powerless, at Ord’s beck and call. Prolonged public humiliation was better than an outright dismissal from service—although that, too, would come.

Judged by his telegram sent in response, Wallace had been stunned—wonderfully so.

Let the man burn in shame. Let him rue each breath.

Those slanders uttered on the Tennessee could go on Wallace’s gravestone.

The assistant adjutant general rapped on Halleck’s open door. Permitted to enter, he reported that an additional corps of reinforcements had been confirmed as on its way to Washington.

“Shall I tell the men to stop packing up the records?” Townsend asked.

“Not yet,” Halleck responded, smiling coldly.

July 11, 9:00 p.m.

Silver Spring Mansion

Sandie Pendleton sat on a wine-red couch whose intricate woodwork spoke of the China trade. It was a rich man’s possession, firm but welcoming, and Pendleton felt a tremor of guilt at gracing it with the rump of his filthy uniform. Certainly, his beloved would not have approved: Her outward gaiety masked great care in household matters.

He did not join the others in draining the choice bottles from the cellar, but sat at a carefully judged remove from the table where the generals laughed in a fog of tobacco smoke, illumined by painted oil lamps and silver candelabra. He knew he was but a higher form of servant to these men, but he did not resent it. The role had dignity, meaning. He wrote the orders and saw them copied, sent them off, and waited for the results. He could speak with Early’s authority to officers his senior—but did so carefully, in a gentleman’s tone, of course. When others slept, he worked. When others drank, as on this torrid night, he remained alert, declining even the offer of a Havana. And he watched.

Holding out his unaccustomed smoke, Early told the gathering, “I can tolerate a fine cigar, but damn me if I don’t start thinking of Grant every time I put a match to one. I hear the bugger smokes a box a day.”

“Blair always had a nose for good tobacco,” Breckinridge reminisced. “A nose for Havanas, and a palate for wine.” He held up his glass. “Many a fine evening, many a time, I was a guest between these walls, you know.”

“And now you’re a guest again,” Early said, chasing the words with his high-pitched chuckle. “Pick yourself out a feather bed. Hah.” He rubbed his belly like a child. “Mighty fine ham, too. Old Blair keeps a proper smokehouse.” He turned to an orderly. “We clean his pantry out of them sardines?”

Pendleton had observed Gordon pocketing two tins. Presents for his wife, he suspected—so many goods had grown rare in the South. Gordon did not offer them up, but smiled like a big cat.

Breckinridge smiled, too, staring into the shadows. Pendleton assumed that the man’s thoughts had wandered to those last years of peace, to his troubled years as vice president of the now sundered nation, to friends torn away.

Nor was Pendleton the only one present thinking along such a path. General Rodes cocked a lopsided smile, long mustaches bristling. “My suggestion, gentlemen, is that we make up a fine imperial litter from one of these chairs … and have the men carry General Breckinridge into the Capitol in the morning. Right up to the vice president’s seat. And justice be done!”

“Here, here!” Ramseur seconded.

Even Early managed a smile. “Have to ask for volunteers, though. I won’t order any man to carry a politician on his shoulders. No, sir. We’re already carrying enough of those bastards on our backs.” He grinned at Breckinridge. “Present company excluded, of course.”

Breckinridge’s smile remained small and wistful. “It’s an odd thing, you know … seeing that dome today, completed.…” He lifted an eyebrow, pondering, and turned his head gravely from one side to the other. “Think of that, gentlemen … to finish such a project in the midst of a war, to have such resources at hand … we didn’t think of such things in ’61. Did we?”

“I’ve got half a mind to
un
finish it,” Early declared. He took a graceless slug of wine and grimaced. “You fine gents can purr over this Frenchified concoction, but I’ll take Virginia whiskey, given my druthers.”

Gordon, who had spoken little, held his glass before a candelabra, admiring the ruby and purple shades of the wine. “I’d say old Blair has a taste for the
finest
things.” He glanced around at his comrades. “
And
the money to pay for them, evidently.” He turned to the serving orderly. “Any more of this down there? The Lafite?”

“Cases of it,” Breckinridge answered for the man. “It’s the elder Blair’s favorite.” His lips parted gently. “He always said it was Thomas Jefferson’s favorite, and that Jefferson knew his wines.” He turned toward Gordon, who was caught in mid-drink. “I recall one splendid evening—absolutely splendid—when Francis dismissed the servants and poured our wine himself. I remember it vividly, vividly. He’d brought up a special vintage—1818, I think it was—and told us it was the finest year Lafite had ever bottled. The man was almost in poetical raptures.” He grinned, but his mood seemed fragile. “I couldn’t tell the difference myself, I lacked an education in such matters. But we all had a splendid time, absolutely splendid. Good, old Francis…”

The former vice president lost his smile and turned back toward Early. Pendleton noticed the man’s fingers twining around the long stem of his glass, as nervous as a recruit before his first battle. “General Early … I would take it as a personal kindness, were we to spare this house. The burning of Governor Letcher’s home was unfor—”

“Already told you I would, didn’t I? Made ’em put the furniture back myself, worthless camp followers. Shoot ’em for low thieves, if we didn’t need help with the wounded.” Early grinned. His teeth had been fouled forever by tobacco. “Don’t intend to spare his cellar, though. Spoils of war, fair game. But no more speechifyng about Jean Lafitte or whoever brewed this up. Or I’ll strike the match myself.”