by John Jakes
“I know. I have an appointment with the general-in-chief in the morning.”
“Halleck? The master paper-shuffler? I didn’t know you were acquainted with Old Brains.”
“I’ve met him twice socially. He’s an Academy man—”
“Class of ’39. Four years after mine. West Point takes care of its own—is that what you’re counting on?”
“It is,” George said. “I’ve learned a little something about the way this town operates, Herman.”
Henry Halleck, who allowed George ten minutes on his schedule, seemed a man of hemispheres: rounded shoulders, convex forehead, bulging eyes. He was more scholar than soldier—some years ago he had translated a work by Jomini—but an able, if pedestrian, administrator.
From the window where he stood in his familiar posture, hands locked behind his spotless, neatly buttoned uniform, he said: “When I noted your name on the appointment calendar, I called for your record, Major. It’s exemplary. You are definite about wanting to leave the Ordnance Department?”
“Yes, General. I need to feel more useful. Desk duty has palled.”
“I suspect you mean Ripley has palled,” Halleck said with a rare show of humor. “He really is your superior, you know. You ought to apply to him for a transfer.”
Understanding what he risked, George nevertheless shook his head. “With all respect, sir, I can’t do that. General Ripley would almost certainly deny my request. Whereas if I could have your leave to go directly to the adjutant general—”
“No, that isn’t permissible.”
George knew he had lost. But Halleck kept speaking. “I do understand and sympathize with your predicament, however. I know you came to Washington at Cameron’s behest, persuaded only by a strong sense of patriotic duty. I applaud your desire to get more directly into the thick of things. If you’re to pull it off, it must be done properly.”
Retrieving George from despair with those words, he leaned his great balding head forward till it seemed to float before the junior officer. Lowering his voice, as every good Washingtonian did when arranging some little scheme or favor, Halleck went on.
“Forward your request for a transfer to the adjutant general through channels—being sure to send a copy to General Ripley. Meantime, I shall speak on your behalf—unofficially, you understand. If we are successful, be prepared to do battle with Mr. Secretary Stanton.” He extended his hand. “I wish you luck.”
George had already prepared the paper to which Halleck referred. He sent them up the line immediately, and received the secretarial summons much sooner than he expected.
The War Department building to which George reported at half past two on Monday had a distinct air of gloom. Meade had dallied; Lee had gotten clean away; the Conscription Act was precipitating more incidents of street violence in New York City. The President was said to have plunged from a period of intensive activity and hope into another of his depressions.
“You wish to work for Haupt? My dear Major,” Stanton said sourly, “do you know he has never officially accepted the rank of brigadier after receiving the promotion last September? Who can tell how long he’ll remain in charge of the military railroads?”
In the voice of the bearded, Buddha-like man, George heard dislike and a warning. “Nevertheless, sir,” he said, “I’m anxious for the transfer. I came to Ordnance at Secretary Cameron’s request, and I’ve tried to carry out my duties faithfully, even though I’ve never felt fully qualified or very useful. I want to serve in some capacity more directly related to the conduct of the war.”
Stanton fingered the earpiece of his spectacles; a trick of the light rendered the lenses opaque. Perhaps he knew how to hold his head to achieve the disquieting effect.
“Would it change your mind if I told you General Ripley may shortly retire?” An insincere smile. “The general is, after all sixty-nine years of age.”
And has he crossed you once too often? “No, sir, that would have no bearing on my request.”
“Let me be frank with you, Major Hazard. Since you came in here, I have detected a measure of hostility in your voice—No please, spare me the denials.” George reddened; he hadn’t realized his feelings were so evident. “Your determination to leave is clear from the manner in which you negotiated for the transfer, General Halleck spoke to me personally over the weekend.” Stanton removed his spectacles. “I have a feeling you don’t like this entire department. Am I correct?”
“Sir—” Better to say nothing, get out and be done. He knew it yet his nature and his conscience wouldn’t settle for that. “With due respect, Mr. Secretary—yes, you are. I am not in accord with some of the policies of the War Department.”
Coolly correct, Stanton put on his glasses again. “May I request that you be more specific, sir?”
“There is the Eamon Randolph matter—”
Stanton overrode him with a loud, “I know nothing about that.”
“As I understand it, the man was beaten by members of your Detective Bureau, solely for criticizing policies of this administration—which I thought was every citizen’s right.”
“Not in time of war.” Stanton’s pursed smile grew cold. He leaned forward, and the light-play turned his lenses to glittering disks again. “May I add, Major, that if you had ever entertained hopes of a permanent career in the military, you would have dashed them by what you just said. You have overstepped.”
“I’m sorry,” George said, though he wasn’t. “The matter’s been on my conscience, and it’s widely known that Lafayette Baker works for you.”
Still the smile, deadly and sly. “Search every item of official correspondence—every scrap of paper in the waste bins of this department, my dear Major—you will find not one scintilla of evidence to support that statement. Now be so kind as to leave this office. I shall be happy to approve your request—you and that madman Haupt are cut from the same bolt.”
“Sir—”
Stanton pounded the desk. “Get out.”
George heard the door open behind him. Someone rushed in.
“Your brother is just leaving,” the secretary said. George turned and saw Stanley hovering, pasty with alarm. “Kindly see that he does it with all due speed.”
Stanley grabbed George’s sleeve. “Come on.”
“Stanley”—George’s voice went down half an octave—“I knocked you down once a long time ago. Take your hand off or I’ll do it again.”
Blinking, his face oozing sweat, Stanley obeyed. What an ass I am, thought George. An opinionated, loud-mouthed ass. Yet it had given him a sense of pride and relief to say his little piece—which was not quite finished.
“If this government has to win the war by beating or imprisoning every dissident who utters the slightest criticism, God pity us. We deserve to fail.”
Gently, so gently, Stanton riffled the underside of his beard. But he was livid. “Major Hazard,” he said, “I suggest you remove yourself unless you wish to be court-martialed for sedition.”
When the office door was closed, Stanley whispered, “Do you realize who you insulted?”
“Someone who deserves it.”
“But do you appreciate how this can harm your career?”
“My so-called career’s a farce. They can throw me out of the army tomorrow. I’ll cheerfully go back to Lehigh Station and cast cannon.”
“You could at least think of me, George—”
“I do,” he retorted, still angry. “I hope Stanton roasts you for having a seditious relative. Then you can go to Massachusetts and sell military bootees—to both sides, as I understand it.”
“You damned, lying—” Stanley began, trying at the same time to hit George with a wild swing. But Stanley was weak and poorly coordinated. George had only to raise his left hand to block his brother’s forearm and push his fist away. He jammed his hat on his head and marched out of the building.
He hurried to Haupt’s office, found him gone, and left a note.
Spoke wit
h Secretary S. & ruined my army career. Plan to get drunk to celebrate. Transfer looks certain. G.H.
86
THE WORK TRAIN OF two flatcars chugged southwest toward Manassas. The day had grown gray and heavy with the odor of rain.
Pine branches beside the track reached out to brush Billy’s face. He sat on the side of one of the cars, legs dangling, carbine resting beside him. Under his shirt was a small copybook, in which he was currently keeping his journal. His dusty trousers partially concealed the legend US.M.R. NO. 19 painted in white on the edge of the car.
Against the shuttling rhythm of the slow-moving train, he thought of a number of things: Brett, whom he longed to sleep with for just one night; Lije, whose death seemed such a waste; the disturbing telegraphic news from New York, which they had heard just before pulling out. The city was braced for demonstrations and perhaps widespread rioting when the first names were drawn for the draft.
The engineers had taken part in the Gettysburg campaign, but scarcely in a capacity worth mentioning. They had built the usual Potomac pontoon bridges, then languished on their rumps as part of the headquarters contingent while the main army engaged. Now they were back here in Virginia, and Billy and six enlisted men had been dispatched down the Orange & Alexandria to survey a new spur line proposed near the Bull Run trestle. Guerrillas had recently destroyed the trestle for the sixth or seventh time.
A blond corporal lying on his back hummed “All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight.” Another took up the melody with a small mouth organ, his elbow resting on the lacquered case containing two transits. A third man rested his legs on the folded tripod.
Smoke flowed over the relaxed soldiers riding in the open. Soot and cinders peppered them, but that was the worst of it until the shots exploded. The first rang the locomotive’s bell. A volley followed.
“Where the hell are they?” the blond corporal yelled, flopping onto his belly and grabbing his carbine. Billy likewise flattened himself. He heard the enemy before he saw them. They spurred into sight from behind the caboose, eight raggy men with long beards and wiry mounts. Four rode on each side of the train.
Although the train was in territory controlled by the Union, that control was nominal. Right now they were traveling through what was boastfully called Mosby’s Confederacy. Were these some of the Gray Ghost’s men, Billy wondered, flinging up his carbine. He fired and missed.
A ball tore into the edge of the flatcar where his legs had dangled moments before. A long splintery scar horizontally bisected the letters U.S.M.R. The ragtag attackers whooped and wailed their rebel yells, passing the caboose.
“Stay low, Johnson,” Billy shouted as the blond soldier foolishly jumped up, braced his legs, and tried to aim while the flatcar swayed. The rider leading the others on Billy’s side, a stick-thin man wearing a fusty black suit, bent to avoid a branch, then fired his revolver and blew Johnson off the other side of the car.
Billy went to one knee, hoping to steady himself that way. The fireman had clambered onto the tender. Holding on with one hand, he leaned out and fired a Colt with the other. Billy felt the train lurch as the engineer opened the throttle. A private picked off a guerrilla on the opposite side, which put an end to the grinning and whooping of the partisans.
The train gained speed. The sky darkened; rain began to patter the flatcar. The guerrillas came up to flank the car on which the engineers were riding. Billy pivoted to shoot toward the far side when something fastened on his arm, dragging him.
Dizzy with fright, he went spinning and tumbling off the car, pulled by the dark-suited man, who had ridden close enough to reach him. Billy struck the shoulder of the roadbed, gasping, the wind knocked out of him. In a daze, he watched the lantern and white numerals on the caboose shrinking.
Billy’s carbine lay beside the near rail. Two of the partisans cantered up the center of the right of way. The retreating train slowed, the engineer worried about the men who had fallen off. The partisans fired several volleys at the train, which speeded up again.
On hands and knees, Billy reached for the carbine. “Touch that an’ I’ll kill you,” said a cheerful voice. He raised his head, saw the frail, black-suited man. A huge dragoon pistol filled his right hand.
“We got two, countin’ the captain here,” Black Suit shouted, controlling his pawing horse. “Is that there one alive?”
“Naw, he’s gone,” someone called from back along the line. Billy grimaced; Johnson had been anticipating news of the birth of his second child in Albany at any moment.
In the pattering rain, the guerrillas plinked a few a78t rounds at the train, now no larger than a toy. How dark the morning had become, Billy thought, ringed by men on horseback.
“Gone for sure?” Black Suit asked the man riding up with Johnson’s body. The blond volunteer lay over the neck of the horse, head and legs hanging down.
“Deader’n a pickaninny’s brain.”
“Any val’bles?”
“We can pry the gold out of his teeth, but that’s about it.”
“Hell,” said Black Suit. “This ’pears to be the only real prize we got. Stand up, Yank. Gimme your name an’ unit, so we can do a proper job fillin’ out the burial papers.”
Billy couldn’t believe the man meant it. He couldn’t believe this had happened—the swift attack, the accidental capture. But then, that was the lesson of war you so often forgot. The bullet that missed you—or killed you—did so by chance.
Rain dampening his hair, Billy stood at the side of the right of way, wondering if these men were who he feared they were. “Name an’ unit,” Black Suit repeated, testily now.
“Captain William Hazard. Battalion of Engineers, Army of the Potomac. Who are you?”
Snickers, amused whispers, then a bull voice: “He’s smack in the middle of Fairfax County an’ he’s gotta ask who we are.”
Ugly and fat, the deep-voiced man rode around where Billy could see him. “Major John S. Mosby’s Partisan Rangers, duly authorized for independent action by the ’Federate Congress. That’s who we are, you piece of Yankee shit.” He swiped at Billy’s head with the butt of his shotgun.
Angered, Billy grabbed for the butt. Black Suit reached down and yanked his hair. Billy yelped and let go. He smelled the unwashed men and took notice of their unclean clothes, pieces of cast-off uniforms—and he knew they weren’t lying to him. John Mosby had scouted for Stuart for a time but had lately established himself as a guerrilla commander. He came and went by night, ripping up track, burning supply depots, sniping at pickets—all the more feared because he and his small band were seldom seen. Gray ghosts.
Who did not operate by the regular rules of war, Billy remembered with a heavy feeling in his middle. Black Suit gave him another hard shake by the hair and cocked his pistol.
“Hands on your head, boy.”
“What?”
“I said lay both hands on top of your head. I want to make this quick.”
“Make what quick?”
Jeering laughter. One of those laughing loudest said, “He’s real dumb, ain’t he?”
“Why, your military execution, Captain Hazard, sir,” Black Suit said, with the thick juice of sarcasm in every word. “Now if that’s all right with you, mebbe you’ll ’low me to get on with the matter and be away to other, more pressing duties.”
Disbelieving, Billy stared at the dark figure on horseback. The pines moaned, the wind raced through the boiling dark sky. Why didn’t the train come back for him? They must have thought him slain, like Johnson—
“Hands on top of your head!” Black Suit said. “And turn away from me so’s I can see your back.”
“Under—” Billy struggled to keep his voice from cracking “—under the articles of War, I have the right to be treated as a prisoner and—”
“For Christ’s sake, get done with it,” another man said, and Billy knew it was all over. Well, all right, he thought. All I can do is take my leave without breaking down in front of them.
Billy laid his left palm on his wet hair, his right on top of it. He was ashamed of closing his eyes, but he thought it would be easier to bear it that way. The summer shower pattered in the pines and then, along the track to the north he heard another sound above the snort of horses, the jingle of metal, the creak of harness. A sound he couldn’t identify—as if it mattered one damn bit.
Black Suit saluted him with the dragoon pistol. “So long, Captain Engineer. Sir.”
“Oh, that’s rich. You’re a fuckin’ sketch.” Bull Voice laughed as Billy tightened inside, waiting for the bullet.
At that same moment, a middle-aged man with a bald head and a face that still possessed a certain cherubic aspect, stormed a breastwork. Those storming it with him, howling for blood, were not soldiers, but civilians; about a third were women.
Instead of shoulder and side arms, they attacked with bottles, bricks, sticks, furniture legs looted from wealthy homes, and in the case of the bald man, a wide black belt he had removed from pants of a volunteer fireman knocked unconscious by another rioter. Using the belt like a flail, Salem Jones had already opened the face of one of Mayor Opdyke’s policemen with the big brass buckle.
Black smoke rolled over the rooftops of Manhattan. The streets were a silvery sea of glass. The breastwork—overturned carts, hacks, and wagons—stretched across Broadway from curb to curb just below Forty-third Street. Broadway, like most of the main arteries in this city of eight hundred thousand, had been contested since midmorning and held by the rioters since shortly after noon. On Third Avenue, no street-railway cars were moving anywhere from Park Row to One Hundred and Third. Cannon had been placed around City Hall and Police Headquarters on Mulberry. The mob storming the breastwork had just come from torching the Colored Orphan Asylum on Fifth Avenue, where the self-appointed leaders had decided to evacuate the children only moments before lighting the fires.
Salem Jones was not the first to clamber over the wagons to attack a dozen outnumbered police, but neither was he the last. The police scattered and ran. Jones threw a brick, which struck one of the officers in the back of the head. After the man fell, Jones scrambled out from behind a cartwheel that had briefly shielded him. He snatched the policeman’s thick locust stick from his limp hand. He hadn’t owned a good truncheon since his days as an overseer at Mont Royal. He felt whole again.