A few feet away, the driver was leaning against the side of his wagon. “Driver, what’s your name?”
“Fred.”
“Well, Fred, you did marvelously. We’re sorry we yelled at you, but this has all been so overwhelming.”
“Been pretty much that way for me too. I’ve got a wife and two kids to worry about as well as these boys. Army’s supposed to pay me but I’ll bet you I won’t see much of that money.”
They took up a quick collection and gave several dollars to Fred. He swore that he would go back up to the battlefield and collect some more wounded as soon as his horses were strong enough. That was good enough for the women.
Cassie had one question. “Tell me, did you see anything of the Sixth Indiana Mounted Infantry?”
Fred immediately understood that they were looking for loved ones. “Sorry, ladies, but I didn’t see hide nor hair of anything like the Sixth Indiana. Of course banners and stuff have been shot away or lost so I could have been standing right among them and didn’t know it. Don’t worry, ladies, there were a lot of men killed and wounded this night, but a whole lot more didn’t even get scratched.”
Yes, Cassie thought, we must always hope for the best, while we prepare for the worst.
★ CHAPTER 16 ★
Lincoln gazed down at the unconscious body of General Meade. “I thought someone said he was recovering?”
The doctor shrugged. He was exhausted, but not fazed by the fact that he was talking to the President. “A little while back he seemed to be coming out of it. His eyes opened and it looked like he was trying to talk. But then they simply closed again and he went back to sleep. It’s called a coma.”
“I know what it’s called, Doctor,” Lincoln said testily. “But does he recover or does he spend the rest of his life sleeping away any memories of yesterday’s battle?”
“Sir, there are those who believe that’s exactly what happens. Just as you and I feel refreshed after a good night’s sleep, it may be that going into a coma is the way the mind repairs itself.”
Lincoln nodded, “Sounds plausible. But aren’t there times when the mind doesn’t fix itself and the mind’s owner is mad for the rest of his life?”
“There are indeed. Back home there is a man who fell into a coma after some fighting in the Mexican War twenty years ago. He just sits in his rocking chair and stares at nothing. His family feeds and clothes him and sometimes the neighborhood kids come by to see the crazy old man, but everyone has given up any hope for his recovery.”
Lincoln thanked the doctor and dismissed him. He waved an exhausted Halleck over. “You did fine work last night, General. I don’t know if Lee was chasing Meade or not, likely not, but you got things under control and I’m convinced we would have handled him if he had tried to attack.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“The army’s yours now, General Halleck. If you want it. You know that, don’t you?”
Halleck sagged visibly. “Yes, sir. I realized that the moment General Meade collapsed. He won’t be back, at least he won’t be able to command the Army of the Potomac ever again. But . . .”
“But what?”
It took a moment for Halleck to collect himself. “Mr. President . . . I have seen things that before this war, I could not have imagined. I have seen good, strong men, men I admired, men who came up in my command, utterly broken. I have seen our army transformed into little more than a howling, craven mob. I have seen plans that could not have failed torn asunder and tossed to the four winds. And I have seen these things repeatedly.”
Lincoln said nothing. He had seen all this too.
“I used to think I knew something about war, sir. But now . . . I doubt that I know anything at all.”
“I see.” Lincoln measured his words. “That would leave us with but one alternative.”
“I know.”
“Do you feel yourself capable of working with General Grant?”
Halleck drew himself up. “I will do my best. Grant is . . .” He thought better of going on. “What choice do we have?”
Lincoln allowed himself to relax. “Very well, then. We’ll send for Grant.”
“As soon as possible,” Halleck whispered.
Colonel Corey Wade, CSA, pirouetted in his long coat and laughed, albeit a trifle nervously. He was alive and a lot of other people weren’t. And if his coat was any indication, he should have been dead a half-dozen times over.
“See. That’s one more, boys, and that makes nine bullet holes in this fine piece of material. I had it made special for me by the finest tailor in Nashville. Cost me a small fortune but it’s been worth it since each bullet hole represents someone shooting at me and hitting the coat instead.”
The other officers gathered around the roaring fire laughed and cheered. Colonel Wade was clearly a very lucky man, and everyone would rather be lucky than smart . . . or brave.
Wade and the others were only a little bit drunk, which was understandable. They had just finished chasing a part of Meade’s army back to Maryland. They were proud and confident that they could handle anything the Union could throw at them even if they were a little bit worse for wear. It was just too damn bad that Jeb Stuart wasn’t there to see it. Fortunately, Wade Hampton had proven to be up to the task. While he lacked the flair of Stuart, he was a fine general.
“Anybody care to guess when the North will get decent cavalry? I know they’ve improved but they are a long ways away from being as good as we are. Ain’t I right, boys?”
The men of Wade’s Tennessee Volunteers stood and cheered. “And we got Pleasonton, too, didn’t we?”
“Damn near,” said Wade. “We either killed his ass or wounded him pretty badly. The Yankees are going to have to find someone else to lead their cavalry and do it real soon.”
“Colonel, what do you think of the rumor that Meade’s done and got himself crazy?” asked Mayfield.
Wade stifled a belch. “Well, I think he had to have been a little bit crazy in the first place to even think of fighting Bobby Lee and us.”
That brought on more cheers and a call for more of the homemade whisky they’d been drinking. Wade pulled a bottle from a saddlebag. “This has got to be the last one, boys. Tomorrow we’ve got to be ready in case the Yankees decide to see if we want to come out and play again.”
A chorus of jeers greeted this pronouncement, but the men passed the bottle, finished it, and broke up to go to their blankets or, in the case of a lucky few, their tents and cots. Wade, of course, had his private tent. He wasn’t surprised when there was a light tap on the piece of wood he used as a knocker.
“Come on in, Sergeant Blandon. Sit down and tell me what’s on your evil mind. You haven’t been robbing corpses again, have you?” As usual, he felt a mixture of irritation and affectionate contempt at the sight of that beefy, unshaven face. Blandon was quite the toast of the regiment since he’d ambushed that Union courier the other day. Granted, he should have returned to Wade immediately, instead of riding directly to Lee’s headquarters, but as he’d said, he’d wanted to get those orders to Bobby Lee as soon as possible.
“No sir. Never have and never will. Only thing I’ve been doing is acting like a banker for the boys. They have no idea what a Lincoln greenback is worth so I’ve been buying and selling the things.”
“For a profit, I presume.”
“Absolutely, sir. But what I’m here for is to ask for another chance to do some good for the South. I’ll admit I was damn lucky when I took down that courier with all those orders, and I think I can do better the next time.” he glanced slyly at Wade. “What I want is a pass so I can go into Washington and snoop around. Who knows what I might dig up?”
It seemed that every other word out of Blandon’s mouth was “courier.” Wade wished he’d shut up about it. According to Blandon, he’d pretty much won the battle of Manchester all on his lonesome, even though he hadn’t quite made it to the battlefield himself. James Longstreet had welcomed him like a long-lost son. He—
along with General Lee’s entire staff—been overwhelmed by the intelligence that Blandon had brought in. Wade wished he’d shut up about it.
“Do you have any idea how insane that sounds, Blandon? You would have to pretend to desert, then you would have to try to blend in with a northern army while you are speaking with a southern accent. And then what the hell do you think you would find that the army would find important? Some days I would like to see your ass hanging from a gallows tree, but I will not send someone out on a suicide mission. Your request is denied, and I just wonder if you didn’t want me to deny it so you could tell everyone you tried but I wouldn’t let you be a hero.”
“Sir, I would never do any such thing and I’m almost insulted.”
“And I almost care, Sergeant. Now get the hell out of here and let me get some sleep. And don’t bother to salute. I’m too tired to lift my arm.”
Hadrian was dismayed. When the mighty Union Army had sortied against the Rebels, he had pictured it in all its majesty. Regiment upon regiment; long lines of cannon; thousands of supply wagons. How, he wondered, could anyone, any other army, stand up to the might that he had seen, if only a small part, heading north toward Pennsylvania? The war was as good as over. He and his followers could begin to think of ways they could exist and maybe even thrive in a peaceful world.
But then the North had gotten itself whipped. Nobody said as much, but it was as plain as the nose on your face. The soldiers were returning in ambulances, not on their own two feet. As he’d done many times before, he got his people hidden and away from vengeful white deserters. He’d picked up enough comments to know that the soldiers lamented the fact that they really didn’t have a leader, a commander, a warrior. He’d heard the soldiers bawling that this or that general didn’t want to fight, which was something inconceivable to him.
As far Hadrian was concerned, when you were faced with something that had to be done, you went and did it. That was how it had been when he’d brought these people up north. He’d known it had to come the very first time he’d heard some whites carrying on about Mr. Lincoln’s Proclamation. Then, a few weeks later, he’d heard the overseers talking about how Judge Fenton was planning to send his slaves down to his sister’s plantation in Carolina, an area Hadrian had never seen and had no desire to, and well, that had made the decision for him.
That very night, he’d gotten them all up and moving. No plans, no long discussions—and no chance for any shifty nigger to turn them over to the whites for a reward, either. They had tied up the overseers and left them in their cabins. Some of the men wanted to work them over, but Hadrian put a stop to it—Freddie and Clem had not been bad as far as crackers went.
They had loaded up the wagons, taken the mules and horses, said a short prayer, and set out immediately. Slipping past Lynchburg by the old farm roads they knew well, keeping the Pole Star always ahead of them. By dawn they were thirty miles to the north, well out of the range of the local slave patrols.
By the end of the week they had reached the river, with no trouble at all beyond one skirmish with a group of what might have been Home Guard, or a patrol, or just random white trash who had been surprised to learn that the colored could shoot back. Losing two men had been enough for them.
That original sixty-odd had grown to over two hundred by then, all bondsmen who had heard of Lincoln’s great Proclamation and were eager to set foot on free soil for the first time in their lives. Freeing two hundred slaves was a good job of work, one that pleased Hadrian as much as he ever got. He thought he had a thing or two he could tell those Union generals about how to get something done. Not that they’d ever pay attention to a colored man.
He had about decided to say his goodbyes to this section of America. All he wanted was to take his new tribe into an area where they would have enough food and water and safety. It didn’t have to be ripe and fertile land, either. With hard work and good planning, he was confident that he could make even a barren-looking land prosper. And he wouldn’t mind doing it with a young woman named Mariah. He smiled as he remembered the two of them with their legs wrapped around each other. She was one hell of a woman.
But first the damn Union soldiers had to defeat the southerners. Then he could take his people out west or even up north into a land called Canada where he’d heard that they were kindly towards black people, a lot more kindly than the Americans.
But what could he do to affect his own fate and that of the others? Sitting by and letting others fight and die for him was against his nature. He had to fight. There had to be something he could do, but what?
Charles Rutherford of the Provost Marshal’s office had the uncomfortable feeling that someone was staring at him, and that the person was in the front window of the first-floor apartment that was his destination and target.
Even though it was a clammy and soggy day, it was good to be out on the streets looking for criminals and traitors instead of dealing with the mountain of paperwork that was piled on his desk. There hadn’t been much action lately. Even the rumors had dried up and his usual informers had nothing to say. He bullied and threatened them, but to no avail. At least there was the opportunity to solve the crimes that had him standing in the rain and which had stuck in his craw for a long time.
Rutherford considered himself a good detective, so it annoyed him that he hadn’t been able to solve the problem of who had leaked information about the two money trains. Granted, there hadn’t been any further attacks, but they could always begin again. He was confident that he had scared away the perpetrators by his presence in the Treasury. But he knew they could always regain their courage and come back. Or try something else.
But then he had caught a lucky break. An informant had told him of a southern agent, name of Jessup. While Jessup himself had slipped away, either to Richmond or to the devil, he had left behind a number of interesting documents in his room. Among them was a pile of romantic notes addressed to “John” from “Annette C.” It hadn’t taken Rutherford long to put it all together, particularly after reading the final note, which detailed Annette C’s doubts over the entire scheme.
Annette C. lived in the apartment he was facing. Her last name was Cosgrove and she was a low-level clerk. It was ironic, he thought. They had spent so much time looking for someone higher up when the villain was a lowly clerk with no authority of her own. She was so innocuous that he didn’t even recall what she looked like. She was just the short of shadow person who could get away with murder because nobody noticed her.
He took a deep breath and walked across the street to the apartment door. He was just about to knock when a voice said, “Come in out of the rain, Mr. Rutherford. It’s unlocked. I saw you standing there across the street.”
Rutherford was pleased that his instincts had been correct. He pushed open the door and walked into a darkened room. An older woman he now dimly recognized was seated in an overstuffed chair directly in front of him. A shawl was draped over her lap.
A glance revealed no one else in the room. There were a lot of pictures on the walls, knickknacks and statuettes on every flat surface.
“Would you like some tea, Agent Rutherford?”
“No thank you.”
“Then please have a seat. We have a lot to talk about.”
Rutherford sat in another overstuffed chair that creaked when he lowered himself onto it. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could see that she looked haggard. Her eyes were wild and her hair was unkempt.
He glanced again at the walls. All the pictures seemed to depict historical themes—men in togas, Renaissance getups of doublets and tights, and the like. His eyes widened as he realized that they appeared to all feature the same person—a handsome young man with dark curly hair who struck Rutherford as somehow familiar.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out he envelope containing the final note. Slipping the sheet out, he unfolded it and handed it to her. “Did you write that note?”
Cosgrove examined it for only
a moment before letting it fall into her lap and gazing off into some remote distance.
“Why did you do it, Mrs. Cosgrove?”
“It’s Miss Cosgrove, if you don’t mind. I never married. You may call me Annette if you wish. And as to why I did it, that should be obvious. I tried to help my country, the Confederate States of America, free itself from the rapacious claws of Abraham Lincoln and his Republican Party. All men should be free and that includes the South. When I found out that I had such important information, I made contacts and you know all the rest, I’m sure. I failed at everything and now so many are dead. Do you know that I see the dead every night? I’m afraid to go to bed, perchance to dream, because those dreams will show me the dead who died at my hand.”
“I’m not too sure I understand.” A cheap statuette stood on a settee to his right. It looked like the same person as in all the drawings on the walls. It suddenly occurred to him who it was: a theater person, an actor. Damned if he could remember the name, though. Edwin? Julian?
“The first attempt at robbing the money train was partly successful. A few people might have been bruised, but nobody was killed. You must understand that I never meant to kill anybody. I guess I’m naïve. I thought it was a big game. He misled me, really. John did. He let me think of it that way.”
John, he thought. That must be the name. But he was still drawing a blank on the rest.
“. . . then there was a battle during the second attempt and how many died? Hundreds, and I see them every night. All those poor young boys. They stand by my bed like ghoulish characters from A Christmas Carol and they won’t go away. They are all broken and bloody and they blame me.”
A glance to his left showed even more pictures of the same man, of John. By God—there were dozens of them. Drawings, paintings . . . even a daguerreotype.
She’s mad, he thought. Utterly and completely mad. She might be a traitor, but he had no desire to put her in jail. “Do you have friends or relatives in the South?”
The Day After Gettysburg Page 23