Valley of the Shadow: A Novel (7 page)

Gordon never found leading much of a challenge. Following was another matter, though.

Well, he hoped that Early was shaping up a plan, since they wouldn’t be able to hold the city long, even if they took it. Have to destroy the military stores, of course, and put the right government buildings to the torch. The Navy Yard, certainly. That was part and parcel of war. Perhaps the Treasury, too. But the President’s House? The Capitol? Gordon recoiled at the thought of such destruction.

Yes, he had seen the ruins of the Virginia Military Institute. And Governor Letcher’s house had been burned to the foundation, his family prevented from rescuing heirlooms or even saving essentials. There would be no forgetting. But giving in to the impulse to retaliate was the opposite of strategy. And the South needed a strategy that weighed the possibility of defeat, with all its consequences. Vengeance was a very dangerous tincture, best administered in measured drops.

If they reached the streets of Washington, they would have to restrain the soldiers on pain of death. It was natural for the South to hate the North, given the years of Yankee depredations, but woe unto the South if the North learned hatred. Burn Washington, then lose the war, and only the nigger would profit.

The sun seemed hot enough to ignite fires. Still, Gordon felt they were lagging on the march. But he could do nothing, not with Breckinridge present.

He chafed, but smiled.

Adjusting his rump in the saddle, he asked, “Well now, Mr. Vice President … we do get to Washington, what would
you
like to do in that fair Thebes on the Potomac?”

“Take a bath,” Breckinridge said.

July 8, 4:00 p.m.

The western approach to Frederick

Why didn’t they come on? Wallace asked himself. They already had the numbers. What were they waiting for?

He steadied his sweat-glossed horse and scanned the horizon.

Days of little sleep had told on his nerves, and all morning it had seemed as though the Confederates were preparing to attack. Yet their probes had rarely risen above the skirmish level, and in the afternoon the Rebs had gone quiet. From moment to moment, he had waited for their guns to open, for gray ranks to swarm forward. But the attack never came, only odd encounters, as when a stray detachment of Reb cavalry somehow got into the streets of Frederick and collided with two squadrons of Clendenin’s troopers. Back for a parley with the city’s mayor, Wallace had nearly been caught up in the clash—which had kicked up so much dust the riders fought blind, lost souls in a maelstrom. In short order, the graybacks had found it politic to withdraw the way they’d come, disappearing after giving the town fathers a fright.

The mayor and his coterie had begged him not to give up the city to the Confederates, citing their loyalty to the Union and pleading that Frederick had already suffered, due to repeated Rebel visitations. Having witnessed the poverty of the South, Wallace barely refrained from chiding the men. If the war had harmed Frederick City, the wounds were invisible. Prosperity was evident on every side. Nor would he promise what he couldn’t deliver.

“I’ll do my best.” Those were his only words, carefully chosen. He knew he could not protect the city much longer. The real fight would come on the river, three miles south.

Military stores were being evacuated from the yards, and what could not be rescued would be destroyed. As for the convalescent soldiers in Frederick’s hospitals, not all could be removed … but the Confederates were not beasts.

He was proud of what he had managed to bring off. The little battle the day before had been splendid. Not only had Clendenin fought with art, but the Potomac Home Brigade had been unexpectedly stalwart, as had the strays and artillerymen he’d sent forward.

Now he had a veteran regiment in the line, those Vermonters, men with faces so darkened by campaigning that they might have been mistaken for U.S. Colored Troops. And regiments kept appearing down at the junction. Every hour that passed was an hour won.

Tomorrow would bring the reckoning, though. It could not be otherwise. Scouts had reported enormous clouds of dust just west of the ridges, clouds that betokened divisions on the march.

Nickering, his horse stepped back, then calmed again. Wallace patted the animal’s neck, taking its smell on his hand. The heat was monstrous. The Vermonters had set the example by stripping to their shirts, and the recruits had aped them. Wallace didn’t mind. But he felt that he had to remain in uniform himself, another of the pretensions rank required.

He remembered how, in his innocent years, he had written extravagant scenes of battle between Cortez and Montezuma The actions he had described seemed ludicrous now, impossible in their chivalry and glamour. He had captured neither the swift, brute shock of combat nor the grinding dullness that surrounded it. Even Mexico had taught him little, compared to this grim war that crimsoned a continent.

Captain Woodhull reappeared, returning from the Frederick telegraph station. He did not seem pleased with the world.

“Bad news, Max?”

“Yes, sir. I mean, yes and no.” The young man’s face was a Niagara of sweat. “Two more regiments arrived down at the junction. Makes five total, the whole brigade. With another brigade set to follow, maybe tonight, Mr. Garrett says. Colonel Ross wants to know if you’d like any more men sent up here.”

“No. No more. If we can bluff the Rebs until dusk, I mean to pull everyone back across the river.”

“The mayor—”

“The mayor’s a fool. Good Lord, does he really believe we could hold an army at arm’s length? Here? In the open? Does he want a fight in his streets?” Wallace shook his head. “If Early rides in quietly in the morning, the people of Frederick will fare a good deal better than they would under a bombardment.” Bunching a sodden handkerchief, he wiped sweat from his eyes. “What’s the bad news?”

“Telegraph operator ran away. The one in Frederick, not at the junction. I found the message from Colonel Ross on his desk.”

Wallace hooked his lips. “Wise man, I suppose.” He gestured back toward the townspeople with their carriages and parasols who, in defiance of his repeated orders, had clustered behind his lines to see a battle. “Wiser than those fools. Max, you try one more time to reason with them. If I go back there again, I’ll lose my temper.”

General Tyler steered his mount toward Wallace, but did not hurry the animal. Erastus Tyler had been put out to pasture, too, condemned to rot in Baltimore’s defenses, but the man had handled his little force magnificently the past evening and had been ready to stand his ground today.

All of them had done handsomely: Tyler, Clendenin … and Captain Alexander, with his pop guns. The fellow looked like a college professor, but handled artillery like a young Napoleon. All these men whom Washington had cast aside or consigned to the rear …

Would anyone think well of
him
when this was over? There had been so many setbacks in his life. So many failures, in truth. His father had turned him from home while still half a boy—not out of cruelty, but to teach the prodigal son a needed lesson. Having left many a school and quarreled with many a master, he had found himself copying legal texts to survive, earning his soup by piecework. Of course, the lawyer who took him in had been a family friend … but his father’s firmness had been a required tonic. Still, he had failed in his first, halfhearted reading of the law and gone off to Mexico. That had been the dawn of his serious life. Upon returning home, he had passed the bar, wed, and even prospered. But the greatest humiliation had been yet to come: his scapegoating after Shiloh, the sort of shame a man never quite lived down.

Tyler reined in. His mouth gaped.

“What I wouldn’t give for a good iced punch,” he said. “Whole bowl of it.” He lifted his hat, revealing a bald pate above his woolly beard. “Think they really mean to come this way, sir? They haven’t been showing much spunk.”

Wallace had begun to have his own doubts as the afternoon dragged on. Had the Rebs been laughing at him all the while, fixing him in place while they marched to Washington on a southerly route? Should he have let those veteran regiments continue to Point of Rocks? Had he failed again?

“They’re coming,” Wallace said, determined to be right. “They’re coming right over that ridge.”

Rather than look Tyler in the eye, he snapped open his telescope.

And there they were! Marching down three separate mountain roads, five miles away at most, endless columns surrounded by halos of dust.

“Look for yourselves,” he told the men beside him.

July 8, 9:00 p.m.

Early’s headquarters, Catoctin Pass

The tent did a fine job of trapping the day’s heat. Kept the dust off a man somewhat, but there was little more to recommend it. Did serve for a hint of privacy, but Early much preferred to borrow a house, when a house could be had. His quartermaster had picked out a site on the mountainside, though, hoping to snare a breeze. Hope hadn’t come to much.

By a lantern’s light, Early stared at Brigadier General Bradley Johnson. “Understand what it says there?”

The cavalryman looked up from reading the order. “Yes, sir. I understand.”

“Make all the noise you can. Burn bridges, army stores, anything touching the government. Make ’em believe the armies of Hell are headed their way and Baltimore’s doomed as Sodom.” He cackled, disdaining the sound of his own laugh, then sharpened his tone again. “Just leave the civilians alone, I’ll have no wantonness. You know this country, these here are your own people. Don’t go acting the fool.”

“Point Lookout?”

Early grimaced. “You read the order. You get down there and free those boys … if practicable. No damned foolishness, though. South don’t need any more dead heroes, category’s filled.”

Johnson nodded. Early had chastised the cavalryman for his dawdling before Frederick, only to have Johnson hurl back in his face Early’s admonition not to become decisively engaged or to do anything to suggest that their goal was Washington. Early lost his temper, couldn’t help himself. Few things enraged him as much as a cavalryman in the right.

Well, let Johnson and his band of thieves go roving. The sight of the mangy fellow was enough to set a man to missing Jeb Stuart, for all that fool’s shenanigans. Early would never have backed the fellow’s recent promotion to brigadier general, but Johnson had been a Breckinridge man in politics before the war, and the old ties remained.

Days were when Early feared politics alone would be enough to ruin the South, no need of Yankees. He’d had his fill of politics at that damned Richmond convention, but the filth of it all had followed him into the war. When peace came, he didn’t intend to run for any damned office.

“Don’t tarry, Johnson,” Early said. “Go on, see to your men. I’ll square things with Ransom.”

Johnson saluted and went out. Immediately, Sandie Pendleton entered the tent.

“God almighty,” Early said of Johnson. “Fool would sweet-talk a hoor he’d already paid for.” He sighed at the world’s inexhaustible frustrations. “Got ’em all rounded up, do you?”

“Yes, sir. General Gordon just rode in.”

Early snorted. “Gordon.”

Made him want a chaw. But there was too much talking to be done. Army full of lawyers, talk everything to death.

Pendleton held the tent’s flap open and Early crabbed through. Outside, the skin-gripping air was mean, but cooler than in the tent. The quartering party had pitched it with the sides rolled up for ventilation, but Early had made them drop the canvas again. Didn’t intend to sleep in the damned thing, just needed some privacy. Always said he didn’t mind shitting in front of a thousand men, but preferred to think in private.

Well, there they were. Scattered about the near-dead fire that no man wished to approach in the lingering heat. The last, small flames gave an orange cast to men’s faces, lighting them from below, creating devils. The air sparked with fireflies.

“All right, then,” Early said. “Sandie’s got your orders written down all nice and pretty, but I want you to hear the gist of things from me.” He scanned the shadowed faces, pausing briefly, against his will, at Gordon’s. Bugger always looked so damned superior, cock of the walk. The sight of Gordon made him gum a chaw that wasn’t there.

“Ramseur’s Division leads in the morning, stepping off at dawn.” Early faced the young general, who had removed his hat. It was too dark to make out much, but Early sensed the prematurely receding hairline and earnest eyes. “Any damned militia lurking ’twixt here and Frederick, you clear them out fast, Dod. And don’t stop, hear? Pass your lead brigade through town on the Baltimore road, as if that’s where we’re all headed. Make a demonstration, set them to quivering. But your following brigades will turn south for Monocacy Junction and seize the crossing. Fast.”

“What if they put up a fight on the Baltimore road, sir?” Ramseur asked. “Shall I engage? How far out should I push?”

“They dig in their heels east of town, it’ll be by the bridge. Only sensible place. No, don’t engage. Not seriously. Just keep ’em occupied, amuse ’em. I want those peckerwoods thinking on Baltimore burning, but I’d as soon have them run off and sow panic as meet their Maker.” Early grunted. “Make a little show of giving chase, they do run off. Mile beyond the river should be enough. But I don’t want your boys drawn into a shit-flinging contest, no point in it. General Rodes will relieve your brigade on the Baltimore road, he’s next in the order of march. He can take care of any proper fighting needs to be done, he’ll have some time. Upon relief, the brigade will rejoin your division.”

He turned to Rodes. “General, your division will cover this army’s left tomorrow. Any Yankees still fussing after Ramseur’s boys been relieved, you help ’em meet Jesus. Seize the Baltimore bridge, if it don’t look to cost you. Yanks get spooked and pull off, you cross the river, demonstrate toward Baltimore with a few regiments, and turn your division south.”

Early nodded at everybody and nobody, squinting to read their postures in the dark. These all were men who had seen the worst of war: There was no dread.