by John Jakes
Still reluctant to rejoin von Helm in the hut, Charles trudged back to the horse shelters, to be sure Sport was properly blanketed and standing on the planks instead of the soggy ground. He rubbed his hand slowly over the gray’s warm neck. He felt terrible, sorrowful and angry at the same time.
Well, that was the soldier’s portion after almost any engagement. No one could explain why the reaction was so common, but experience had taught him that it was. To see Gus Barclay might pull him out of it. Even as the wish welled up, he reminded himself that it wasn’t a wise one. War was no time for liaisons, except the sort he had had with Stuart’s Honorary Aide-de-Camp.
About one variety of love he had no reservations. He flung his arm around the gray head of the animal who had saved his life and pulled it close. Sport nipped his other wrist, which was rubbing the gelding’s muzzle. But the nip was careful, inflicting no pain. Nothing mattered then except that affection. One thing sure: he and this incredible horse must survive the strange slippage, impossible to understand but equally impossible to miss, that seemed to be taking place in his life.
The report went roaring away through the woodlands. The paper target pinned to the tree snapped in the pale afternoon light, hit dead center.
Charles levered the trigger guard downward, springing the spent cartridge from the breech. Lever up, cock the piece manually, fire. Lever down, up, cock, fire. Half a dozen men lounged about, watching. With each round, their jaws fell a little lower. Ab Woolner pulled at his crotch to loosen his underwear, muttering, “Sweet God.”
Thickening smoke drifted upward. Calbraith Butler had been counting by tapping his silver-mounted riding whip against his leg. As the sound of the final round faded, the bottom part of the target fell away and fluttered to earth. Butler looked at Charles.
“I make it seven rounds in approximately thirteen seconds.”
A couple of the watchers picked up the spent copper cartridges for souvenirs. Charles butted the piece on the cracked toe of his boot and nodded glumly. The heat of the blued barrel seeped through his gauntlet.
It was the scout who spoke for all of them: “Let’s hope them Yanks don’t get too many rifles like that. They could load ’em on Monday and shoot at us the rest of the week.”
Charles trudged back to his hut, where he laid the repeater in the gun rack. Von Helm was absent—all to the good, given the renewed gloom that followed the test. Charles stored the two remaining tubes in his field trunk, recalling Cousin Cooper’s warnings about the North’s industrial superiority. Wasn’t this new rifle more evidence of that superiority? Why the hell had no one listened?
Or was he the man out of step? The negative thinker? The cynic who couldn’t subscribe to the belief that was widespread in the army—the absolute certainty that nerve and spirit would prevail over numbers and better weapons? That might be true occasionally. But every time?
He lit a vile cigar bought from the sutler at three times the fair price. Hanged if he knew who was right, the skeptic who haunted his head or all his braggy troopers who discovered great omens in week-old Yankee newspapers. Because McClellan had failed to move, certain Republicans were already calling for his replacement.
Encouraging rumors reached the camp from Norfolk, too. Some awesome new dreadnought was nearly off the ways. This Virginia was a rebuilt Union vessel, Merrimack, which the Yanks had tried to scuttle when they abandoned the navy yard. She had been raised and refitted with a sheathing of plate; an ironclad, they were calling her. Men spoke as if she might end the war by firing one or two salvos. The skeptic in Charles’s head looked askance.
Next day’s delivery of the mail brought a pleasing surprise, a package posted in Fredericksburg late in November. Inside it Charles found a small leather-bound book: An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope. On the flyleaf she had written:
To Captain Charles Main
= = At the Front—=
Christmas, 1861
She had signed herself A. Barclay and tucked in a separate card that read: I am very sorry I missed your visit and hope you will return soon. He could see her vividly in the lines and loops of her graceful hand.
Many soldiers carried small Testaments in their coats or shirt pockets. That gave Charles an idea. He scrounged a piece of soft leather and with his sewing kit fashioned a small bag with a drawstring. He added a longer thong to slip over his head and put the little volume in the bag. He carried it beneath his shirt against the flat of his chest. It felt good there.
The gift buoyed him for several days, even given the presence of von Helm. The Dutchman bustled in and out of the hut with barely a word, though he seldom lost that demented glint in his eye. One evening, when Charles had a stomach complaint and didn’t feel like attending a performance of Box and Cox being presented by some camp thespians, his first sergeant unexpectedly called on him.
“What brings you here, Reynolds?”
“Sir, it’s just—” the man blushed—“I feel it’s my duty to speak to you.”
“Go ahead.”
“It’s Lieutenant Wanderly and Private Cramm, sir. Those two are spending a lot of their own money at the sutler’s, treating the other boys. They’re, uh, campaigning.”
“For what?”
The sergeant answered first with a huge gulp. “For Lieutenant von Helm.”
Tired, his middle hurting, Charles was cross. “I still don’t understand. Goddamn it, man, say it plainly.”
Peterkin Reynolds gave him a miserable look. “They want to elect him captain, sir.”
An hour later, von Helm returned, trailing fumes of bourbon. “Missed a fine show this evening. Those actors—” His brown eyes grew vacant, then surprised, as he perceived the condition of the hut. “What’s happened here? Where are my things?”
“I had them moved.” Charles lay in his bunk, speaking around the smoldering cigar stub jammed between his teeth. “To the hut of your campaign manager.”
“My—?” Von Helm blinked. “Oh.” Somehow, Charles’s eyes didn’t intimidate him; perhaps he was too drunk. His mouth tucked up at the corners as if pulled on puppet strings. “Very well. Good evening, Captain.” He left.
Charles yanked the cigar from his mouth and indulged in a string of oaths whose fervor concealed his sense of tired defeat. He was still in his twenties and felt twice that. He stood for a while, feeling the book in the pouch under his shirt. At least the battle lines were clear now. Captain Main against the posturing schemer from Charleston.
He remembered something, went outside, and pulled and pried until the small sign came loose. He threw it into the fireplace and watched the flames slowly consume Gentlemen’s Rest. The words might be appropriate to some other army, but they no longer fit this one.
50
STANLEY KNOCKED AND ENTERED the secretary’s office in a state of nerves. He was sure he had been accused and would be demoted or dismissed.
He was astonished to find the boss in a sunny mood, stepping around the office inspecting boxes and barrels packed with personal files and mementos. Cameron’s cheeks had a pink sheen, left by a fresh shave; he smelled of lavender water. His desk was bare, which was unprecedented.
“Stanley, my boy, sit down. I’m clearing out in a hurry, but I wanted a chat with you before I leave.” He waved the younger man to a seat while he took his regular place behind the desk.
Trembling, Stanley lowered his heavy body to the chair. “I was shocked when I heard the news of your resignation last Saturday, sir.”
Cameron put the tips of his thumbs together and touched his index fingers above them, creating a triangle through which he peered at his visitor. “Even in this building, it can be Simon again—or Boss. I’m not particular. The one thing that won’t fit any more is Mr. Secretary.”
“That’s a tragic loss for the war effort, sir.”
The lame remarks brought a tight smile to Cameron’s mouth. He snickered. “Oh, yes, any number of contract holders will say so. But a loyal fellow goes where his superiors
think he can do best. Russia’s a mighty long way from home, but I’ll tell you the truth, Stanley—I won’t miss the hurly-burly and backbiting of this town.”
A lie, Stanley thought; the boss had bitten with the best. But all the departmental irregularities had finally forced Lincoln to act, although Cameron was allowed the face-saving fiction that becoming United States minister to Russia was a promotion.
“I imagine you’ll get along with the new man,” Cameron continued in a relaxed way. “He won’t be as loose as I’ve been. He’s a champion of the colored people”—Cameron’s brief fling as an apostle of abolition had been forgotten by virtually everyone, including himself—“and pretty hard on those who don’t come up to expectations. Now you take me—I was more inclined to overlook a mistake or a slight.” The smile hardened ever so little. “Or an act of will. Yes, sir, you’ll have to toe the mark for the next occupant of this office.”
Stanley gnawed his bottom lip. “Sir, I’m in the dark. I don’t even know the name of the new secretary.”
“Oh, you don’t?” Up flew the white brows. “I thought Senator Wade would have confided in you. If he didn’t, I spose you’ll just have to wait for the public announcement.”
And there he left it, while Stanley twisted on the hook Cameron had snagged into him. Surprisingly, the older man laughed before he went on.
“I don’t blame you too much, Stanley. I’d have done the same thing in your position. You turned out to be an apt pupil. Learned how to apply each and every lesson I taught you. ’Course, now I look back and reflect that maybe I taught you one too many.”
The smile spread, infected with a jolly malice. “Well, my lad, let me give you one final bit of advice before we shake hands and part. Sell as many pieces of footwear as you can, for as much as you can, for as long as you can. And save the money. You’ll need it, because in this town someone is always waiting. Someone who wants to sell you out. Someone who will sell you out.”
Stanley felt he might have a heart seizure. Cameron sprang around the desk, clasped Stanley’s hand so hard it hurt, then said, “You must excuse me now,” and turned his back. Stanley left him rummaging cheerfully among the packed ruins of his empire.
The next night, George came home with news for Constance. “It’s Stanton.”
“But he’s a Democrat!”
“He’s also a zealot who can please the radicals. Those who favor him call him a patriot. If you’re on the other side, the descriptions include dogmatic and devious. They say he’s willing to gain his ends by any means. And likely to use the suspension of habeas corpus—I mean use it widely. I wouldn’t want to be a dissenting newspaper editor or an advocate of a soft peace and come to Mr. Stanton’s attention. He may be Lincoln’s appointee, but he’s the creature of Wade and that crowd.” A bemused smile softened his severity. “Did you know Stanton once tried a case involving McCormick’s reaper, and Lincoln went along as a junior counsel? Stanton snubbed him as a bumpkin. Incredible how people change. This lunatic world, too—”
“Not you and I,” she said, kissing him gently.
General McClellan recovered from his severe case of typhoid but remained the victim of another disease, for which all but his fiercest partisans excoriated him. Lincoln called the malady the slows. Under increasing internal and external pressures, the President issued Special War Order Number 1 on the last day of January. The order commanded the general-in-chief to get the Army of the Potomac moving toward Manassas by February 22, no later.
The February issue of the Atlantic printed new verses for “John Brown’s Body” written by Mrs. Howe; George and his wife and son sang the stirring “Battle Hymn” while Patricia played. The song fit the new, more aggressive mood of the capital. The figure of Stanton, small and fierce, was being widely seen at all hours in the buildings on President’s Park. George observed him several times in the Ordnance Department but had no reason to speak with him.
From the Western theater came a burst of news so glorious it produced mobs and drunken jubilation outside the newspaper offices, where long sheets summarizing the latest telegraphic dispatches hung. A combined river and land offensive had brought the surrender of Fort Henry, a key rebel bastion on the Tennessee, just below the Kentucky border.
Ten days later, Fort Donelson, on the Cumberland, fell. Both victories were theoretically the work of the departmental commander, General Halleck. But the man given the hero’s wreath by the correspondents was an Academy graduate who had been out of George’s thoughts a long time. As a West Point first classman, Sam Grant had once taken Orry’s part when Elkanah Bent was deviling him.
Sam Grant. Astonishing. He and George had drunk together in cantinas after the Mexico City campaign. A likable officer and brave enough. But a soldier without the stamp of brilliance that was now on Tom Jackson, for example. The last George had heard, Grant had failed in the army out West and resigned because of problems with drinking.
Now here he was, just promoted from brigadier to major general of volunteers and nicknamed “Unconditional Surrender” because, when answering a request for terms from Donelson’s commander, he said he would accept nothing less. I propose to move immediately upon your works, he wrote Buckner—and then he did it, breaking the Confederacy’s hold on western Kentucky, western Tennessee, and the upper Mississippi. The South reeled, the North rejoiced, and Grant’s name became known to every schoolboy whose parents read a paper.
Offsetting this, bad rumors continued to seep from the Executive Mansion. The President suffered from depression so profound some said it bordered on insanity. He roamed sleeplessly at night or lay motionless for hours, to rise and tell of queer prophetic dreams. The Washington gossip chefs, whom Constance said must be nearly as many as the uniformed men in town, had a variety of tidbits to offer, something for every political or emotional palate. Lincoln was going mad on behalf of the Union. Mary Lincoln, who acknowledged a lot of rebel relatives in Kentucky and the Confederate Army, was a spy. Twelve-year-old Willie Lincoln was fighting typhoid. That turned out to be true; the boy died two days before McClellan was to take Manassas.
McClellan did not; the army stayed put. And Lincoln did not show up at any of the official observances of Washington’s birthday, although the armies on both sides celebrated the holiday, as was the custom before the war.
Billy paid a surprise visit one night. The brothers fell to exchanging complaints over whiskey before supper.
Billy: “What the devil’s wrong with Mac? He was supposed to save the Union—week before last, wasn’t it?”
George: “How should I know what’s wrong? I’m nothing but a glorified clerk. All I hear is street talk. You should know more than I; he’s your commander.”
“He’s your classmate.”
“What a sarcasm. You sound like a Republican.”
“Staunch.”
“Well,” George said, “all I hear is this. Little Mac outnumbers the enemy two or three to one, yet he keeps asking for postponements and reinforcements. Otherwise, he says, he can’t be certain of success—which, he then repeats in the next breath, is guaranteed once he does move. God knows what goes on inside his head. Tell me about your new men.”
“They’ve had nearly seven weeks of training, but of course good work in training is no yardstick of performance in a fight. Last week the battalion built a big floating raft on the canal—the next best thing to a pontoon bridge, which we’ve yet to try. The President came down to watch. He did his best to show interest in the work, but looked worn out. Positively ancient. He—”
Both looked up as Constance came in, pale.
“There’s an orderly from your battalion at the door.”
Billy rushed from the room. George paced, trying to overhear the muted voices. His brother returned, settling his cap on his head. “We’re ordered to camp to prepare for departure on the cars.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know.”
They embraced hastily. “Take ca
re of yourself, Billy.”
“I will. Maybe Mac’s finally moving.”
And out Billy went into the dark.
51
CHARLES KNEW IT MEANT trouble when Calbraith Butler summoned him after tattoo and he found the colonel as well as the major waiting.
“Please sit if you wish, Charles,” Hampton said after Charles presented himself formally. He found Hampton’s sober tone ominous.
“No, thank you, sir.”
Hampton continued. “I rode here because I wanted to speak to you personally. I am faced with a thorny situation in Major Butler’s command.”
Butler said, “Sir, I prefer the word nasty.”
Hampton sighed. “I’ll not deny the rightness of that.”
Charles marveled at how fit the colonel looked in a winter that was ruining the health of much younger men. He noticed the colonel’s sword—slimmer, not the one he usually wore. Could it be the one Joe Johnston had given him in token of friendship—and until the rank of brigadier could be offered in fact?
“There is no point wasting words, Charles. Major Butler is in receipt of a petition from members of your troop. They request a new election of officers.”
His cheeks numbed suddenly. Once aware of the electioneering, he had tried to monitor it discreetly. Von Helm wanted the captaincy and had promised Julius Wanderly a promotion if he got it. Peterkin Reynolds remained deferential to Charles but had grown less friendly. Was he to be raised to second lieutenant?
“Signed by how many men, sir?” Charles asked.
Embarrassed, Butler said, “Over half the troop.”
“God above.” Charles managed a laugh. “I knew I wasn’t well liked, but that downright makes me sound like a Yankee. I had no idea—”
“You are an exceptionally good officer—” Hampton began.
“I agree,” Butler said.