“Drop the curtain, come back, and sit next to me,” Lincoln said quietly.
James did as ordered.
“Now tell me everything you observed.”
The conversation went on for more than an hour: from first meeting Garland White and the men of the 28th at Arlington, observing them marching in to join the army before Petersburg, their enthusiastic and tireless weeks of training under the most relentless abuse; how at the end a veteran like Malady said it would be an honor to go in with them and die doing so. And from there to the final debacle and the madness within the crater.
It was a long talk, James emptying the silver coffee pot so often that he felt somewhat jittery by the end of it, heart racing.
“As for the overall battle itself, what did you see?”
As he spoke, James had opened his haversack and laid out the drawings, deliberately holding several back. The soundness of the initial plan for the tunnel and the soundness of Burnside’s tactical and operational plan he went over in detail.
“If ever an opportunity for a war-ending battle was thrown away it was there, sir. It was thrown away on the morning the wrong load of explosives and fuses were delivered. If the original ten tons that Burnside had requested had been delivered, it would have torn a gap half again as big in the enemy line.”
“And this report from Meade’s staff that said it would have created vertical walls useless to our men?”
“That is precisely it,” James retorted, voice a bit heated. “If the walls had been vertical and forty feet deep rather than as they were, would all those thousands of men have jumped in? Would they?”
Lincoln looked at him.
“Even without orders they would have fanned out to either flank to secure trenches that could have been used, creating a rupture in the enemy line a quarter mile wide, as Burnside had first planned, rather than a damn pit for thousands to just jump into and hide. I can’t blame the veterans for doing that, after all they had been through…”
He paused.
“Especially after Cold Harbor and the bloody prior assaults, I can’t blame them for wanting to go to ground, thinking that just seizing the next trench line was all they had to do. But, sir, just taking the trenches to either flank for a quarter mile, that alone would have placed Blandford Church Hill within easy artillery range and rendered the Jerusalem Plank Road all but useless. But that was not the final goal. It shows, nevertheless, the relentless series of mistakes and miscalculations,” he hesitated again, “or outright willful obstruction of a plan that should have worked.”
“And those final moments in the crater?” Lincoln asked, “when the black troops were sent in anyhow?”
“They went in like veterans; they did as much as was humanly possible. But by then, the Rebels had had four hours to draw a cordon and seal the perimeter off. It was futile, and they were slaughtered for no purpose.”
Lincoln coughed a bit nervously.
“Is it true there were calls for no prisoners on both sides, and that in some cases our white troops murdered black troops within the crater?”
James could only nod.
Lincoln said nothing in reply, just leaned over, hands clasped, and wearily shook his head.
“You’re holding something back,” Lincoln finally said, motioning to one side of the table where James kept several drawings folded over.
“I’m not sure now, sir.”
“Please, let me see them.”
That was what he wanted to hear, and yet he questioned whether he should burden this man with even more. Then again, after all he had seen and endured, he wanted someone else to share this burden.
He pushed them over, and Lincoln opened the first one.
“Merciful God,” he whispered.
“I call that one the Depths of Hell,” James whispered. “I went out with the stretcher bearers when a truce was finally called, thirty-six hours after the fighting ended.”
He spat out the last words angrily. Thirty-six hours, when Burnside had wanted a truce that first evening, when hundreds still could have been saved, and the suffering of thousands of others alleviated … on both sides.
“That is what the crater looked like thirty-six hours after the battle, when General Meade finally allowed a truce so we could remove our wounded, the few that were left, and the dead.”
Lincoln studied the drawing and then put it down, folding it over as if unable to bear gazing at it for another second.
The President finally motioned to the second drawing and opened it.
It was of Garland White cradling the wounded man pulled out of the crater, leg gone, stump swollen, Garland pressing a Bible into the wounded man’s hands … but it was his eyes that James felt he had captured: hollow, wide-eyed, as if staring off into some distant void. Behind him, a line of dead was waiting to be borne away.
“I call that one the Hundred Yard Stare, sir.”
“Why that?”
“It was only a hundred yards back to the safety of our lines, but for some, it was an eternity away. That man is a sergeant major I befriended; Garland White, a man of God, as much a minister as he is a damn good sergeant. His courage left me awed, but his compassion impressed me even more.
“I should add,” and James was afraid his voice would break, “that a few minutes later a cry went up from the bottom of that hell pit that a wounded Rebel had been found still alive, and without hesitation Garland slid back down into that hole, stinking of death, to help. War is cruelty unimaginable, but it can also show a near Christ-like compassion, and Garland White is one of those men.”
James looked over sharply at Lincoln.
“Sir, he deserved better; he deserves better, this country owes him that.”
Lincoln could only nod.
And, finally, the third one. It was two sketches on a single sheet of paper. To the left was a portrait of a young black soldier from the waist up, a dozen canteens strapped around his neck and shoulders, his face dripping with perspiration, eyes shut, and one could almost feel the paper trembling with the fear. Under it was printed “I ain’t no coward, sir.” The second was the boy lying dead at the lip of the crater, surrounded by a dozen or so others, all burdened down with canteens. It was titled The Sacrifice for a Drop of Water.
“I didn’t see that myself, sir. One of the men, the coal miners with the 48th, described it to me, but valor like that was common that day. Apparently a watering party tried to break back to our lines to get water for the wounded. Of the twenty or so who set back out, maybe three or four made it back. Not one man would have condemned them if at that moment they had said they had done enough and stayed within the safety of our lines. Not a man would have condemned them. But all they could speak of was their comrades, their brothers, who needed water, and nearly all the rest died trying to get back to them.
“And, I say,” and now his voice did choke, “may God damn to Hell any who ever dares to say they were cowards.”
“Strong words, James, which I don’t like hearing.”
“Sorry, sir.”
He lowered his head.
“So what do you think I should do?” Lincoln asked after several long minutes of silence, broken only by James’s ragged breathing.
James looked over at him and stared straight into his eyes.
“Refuse to accept the court of inquiry. Demand a renewed investigation and make sure these papers,” he pointed at the documents piled on the table, “are all entered into the record. Ensure that all the regimental commanders of the Fourth Division are given the chance to testify and be witnesses to the gallant behavior of their men.”
He fell silent, Lincoln not replying.
“I will tell you one officer that you can count on for the truth, and that is Brigadier General William Bartlett. He lost a leg two years ago and then returned to service. He went in on the assault and commanded one of the brigades in the first division that went in.”
“He was taken prisoner though? Is that why he did not te
stify?”
“Yes, because he refused to leave his men, and he couldn’t move after his artificial leg was blown off. Think of that, sir: He lost a leg in the opening months of the war and then is taken prisoner because his leg, made of cork, is blown off in yet another battle.”
James looked off, his own eyes filled with that “hundred yard stare,” and shook his head.
“Surely an exchange could be arranged?” James asked, voice trembling. “For heaven’s sake, why keep him a prisoner now?”
Lincoln nodded.
“We got a report that he is not doing well, having fallen ill, and that an exchange is being arranged even now. I promise to see to it personally. Rest assured, I will see to it personally.”
“Put him on the stand, then. He’ll tell the truth of it all.”
Lincoln sighed and again there was silence. At last he stood up and went over to his desk. He picked up several newspapers and then returned to sit by James’s side, passing the papers over.
“Look at the headlines of all of these…”
James did as requested, the bold type proclaiming: “Atlanta Is Ours!”; “Victory for Our Arms!”; “Sherman Triumphant!”; “End of War Now in Sight!”
Underneath were lurid details of the Rebels fleeing in panic, the city in flames, Atlanta, of course, fired by them before they ran, and the major rail junction of the South taken at last after a brutal campaign of over four months. The newspapers pronounced that the end of the war might be reached in weeks, and a pro-Republican paper already declared that this victory ensured the election of Lincoln and the utter rout of McClellan’s party in the November elections.
Lincoln sat back on the sofa, stretching out his long legs, pant legs riding up to reveal his socks, which had slipped down around his bony ankles.
“Sherman succeeded where Meade failed,” Lincoln finally said.
“Sir?”
“You can still hear the crowd out there, can’t you?”
Lincoln fell silent and indeed James could hear their cheers, their chanting, snatches of songs, and now and then an occasional firework being lit off, bursting over the park in multicolored hues visible beyond the curtain.
“After word of Cold Harbor began to leak out, if I had gone out into that same park, I think they might have lynched me,” he said with a cynical shake of his head. “Now they call for four more years, but has anything really changed?”
“Sir?”
“There will be a lot more suffering and dying before this tragedy is at an end, the worst of it perhaps still ahead. I pray never again, in centuries to come, that anything shall ever drive our country to such madness. If this suffering now is so seared into our souls that we recoil from ever repeating it, perhaps then it is worth the sacrifice of this generation to ensure that those who follow us make not the same mistake.”
He gestured to the drawings.
“What are you saying, sir?” James asked.
There was a long moment of silence, of Lincoln just staring off. He sighed, forced a smile, and looked back at James.
“I will do nothing.”
“Sir?”
And he could not keep the anger out of his voice.
“After all that? After such a chance thrown away?”
Lincoln nodded and leaned forward again, to his characteristic gesture of legs splayed wide, hands clasped.
“I’ve been thinking much of biblical verse of late,” he said softly. “‘Of woe unto thee that cometh with the sword,’ and that perhaps each drop of blood drawn with a lash must somehow now be repaid with that sword.
“Perhaps in the end, it is all part of a greater plan. I can draw but two conclusions out of what you have shown me.”
“And that is, sir?”
“I could take the political one and that will sound the more cynical of me, but yes, James, I must think politically. Let me take all of what you have shown me, go out to that jubilant crowd this evening—that crowd which sees an end to the war ahead now that Sherman has won such a victory at Atlanta. Let me then hold these documents up and demand another investigation into this tragedy. And what do you think would happen?”
James sighed and just nodded abjectly.
“Nothing, at best. At worst, it will give the opposition ammunition to negate Sherman’s victory, divert opinion, drive more wedges, demand hearings, and yet more hearings, which will not change one iota the tragedy that you saw and endured.
“And perhaps even destroy what it was that these men died for, even if at this moment it seems like an act of futility.”
James could not speak.
Lincoln put a hand on his shoulder.
“You know what I wish I could do, but, my friend, I cannot.”
Lincoln sighed, his grasp on James’s shoulder tightening.
“I must see this war through to a successful conclusion, no matter what the cost. Too much has been sacrificed already. You were at Antietam; you saw the price paid and know as well as I do that it could have been ended that day. But McClellan lost his nerve; one man lost his nerve, while an entire army, in spite of their battering, was coiled to spring forward. The same at Gettysburg and now the same here.”
He pointed to the drawings.
“And I find of late, I think of another side to it all.”
“Which is what, sir?”
“Perhaps this must be endured, endured to such depths of sorrow that it is both atonement and a memory for generations yet to come. That in the end this war did not end by, as the soldiers call it, a coup de main or a ‘forlorn hope.’ Perhaps it means … what I suspect Sherman will do with torch in hand and Sheridan in the Valley—which he is preparing to do even now. And God forgive me if that is indeed something which will transpire, which I could somehow avoid. For, if that is the case, I shall surely answer for it. Perhaps, as to the cost of such a bloody conflict, not won easily by some sleight of hand, we need to frighten ourselves to forever change us. I do not want it ever to be whispered a generation later by some that they had been ‘deceived into defeat,’ and therefore teach their sons to try it again.
“No stab in the back, no ‘next time we can do it.’ I want both sides to finally lay down their arms and know that it will forever stand as the greatest tragedy in our history and now good men must strive together to ensure that it never happens again.
“Perhaps that is why this happened.”
Though he did not fully agree, having felt and literally smelled and tasted the horror of it all, James could not offer a reply.
“But what of the men of the Fourth? It is a lie being told about them. Don’t they deserve better?”
“Yes, they do,” Lincoln sighed. “But I know no answer for the here and now. Perhaps, when the fighting stops and the hatred cools, all will see the folly of it. Two hundred thousand like them now serve and they at least, as Frederick Douglass has said, have shown to the world their right of citizenship and no one will ever dare to take it away from them.
“We all wish for change; I will be the first to admit that, but a short time past, I was willing to compromise their rights, their very souls, with a promise that slavery could continue so long as the Union stayed together. War brings changes that are unexpected, and that happened in my heart as well.
“We can never go back to what we were, ever again, but as for the future? You’re telling me that some of these gallant men were shot in the back by their own comrades. That is as fearful as anything endured in the heat of battle. I pray that on the day the killing stops, we all look at each other and then ask God for forgiveness for all we have done.
“That is a shallow promise, James, but history, as we know, takes time; change takes time. It took more than four score years for us to come to the conclusion that when the Founders declared that all men are created equal, they did indeed mean all men.”
He sighed again, and his voice was choked.
“I pray it takes less, far less time before we realize that, before God, we are all equal, t
hat all should see that divine spark in the eyes of every man and honor them for that. If that comes to pass, please forgive me from quoting something I already said…”
He gestured to the drawing on the table.
“Then these dead shall not have died in vain.”
He slowly stood, head bowed, and James rose.
“What’s next for you, James?” Lincoln asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“Back to the front?”
“I don’t know. I want to say no, but I know it will finally draw me back until it is done. But for us, after this, I don’t know how else I can serve you.”
“I understand. But if you think you can, just bring that card to the gate as you always have.”
James nodded.
He started for the door.
“Your drawings, James?”
James smiled and shook his head.
“Sir, there’s not a one of them my publisher would ever touch. Could you keep them, store them away some place? Maybe someday, if you see they are saved, someone will see them and understand the truth rather than the lies.”
“You have my promise, James.”
James stepped back and extended his hand.
“See you after the war ends, sir?”
“Yes, James, after the war I am certain we will meet again.”
When the door closed, Abraham Lincoln picked up the drawings, sifting through them one by one. Alone, he allowed himself a luxury rarely seen by others—he wept.
Carefully, he bundled them up, putting them back into the waxed covering, along with the documents he knew would never be seen, at least while this war continued. He tied the shredded cord back in place, rose, and opened the door into Hay’s office.
“I want these properly set aside in the archive.”
“Sir?”
“You heard me.”
“As your papers, sir?”
He hesitated.
“No, just general notes to be opened after I am gone.”
The Battle of the Crater: A Novel Page 35