North and South Trilogy

by John Jakes

  106

  IN HIS BED IN HAREWOOD Convalescent Hospital, Billy wrote:

  Sun., June 5. Weather warm. At night we must all be cocooned in mosquito nets or be devoured. Tulip and redbud trees shade this pavilion in the hottest hours, but nothing can relieve the charnel smell which has hung over the city ever since General G. took the field. The dead are everywhere; beyond counting.

  Can’t get reliable news but am told by orderlies that another great battle is being fought 7-8 mis. from Richmond. Perhaps it will end matters and I can go home to you, my dear wife. If not, will be on my way back to Virginia within a few days—the Minié ball that struck my lower leg passed cleanly through the flesh, doing no permanent damage, though I still walk as awkwardly, for a different reason, as I did on the flight from Richmond.

  I do not want to return to duty, and deem myself no coward for that admission. I will go only because if G. fails at Richmond, the effort must continue till this sanguinary business is ended forever.

  Old Abe is to be renominated in Baltimore next week as the candidate of something called the National Union party, whose sudden invention is apparently meant to demonstrate a common purpose uniting less radical Republicans and pro-Union Democrats. It is by no means certain that L. will win this time. Many are against him, and more join that company each day. One officer here spoke openly and shockingly on the subject last night. He said the nation would be better served if someone were to slay the President. How far into madness must we sink before this ends?

  On the day Lincoln won renomination, joined on the ticket by Governor Johnson of Tennessee, a Democrat, Isabel packed up the twins and left for a long holiday at the house in Newport. Washington had become intolerable. Almost hourly, the trains and steamers carrying the dead rattled over Long Bridge or tied up at the Sixth Street piers. Morticians wandered about with glassy expressions, exhausted from conducting their trade and counting their profits. Eighteen to twenty thousand patients jammed the district’s military hospitals. Wounded walked even in the best districts, and pestilential smells overpowered even the strongest scent.

  Stanley didn’t object to his wife’s departure. It enabled him to visit more freely with a young woman whose acquaintance he had made one night in April when he and some Republican cronies, all rip-roaring drunk, visited the Varieties, the big theater on Ninth Street whose front was bedecked with flags and splashed by the rainbow colors of a transparency wheel revolving in front of a calcium light.

  The audience for the show was almost entirely male. Before the appearance of the sentimental soloists, Chinese contortionists, black-faced comedians, the scantily clad members of the dancing chorus performed a crowd-pleasing routine set to patriotic airs. The prettiness of one of the dancers, a busty girl of twenty or so, unexpectedly prompted Stanley to leap up on the bench, shouting like dozens of sweaty, tobacco-chewing soldiers all around him.

  A ten-cent whiskey in each hand, Stanley riveted his eye on this particular dancer and, afterward, struck up a conversation backstage—not difficult once the young lady took note of his age and expensive clothing and heard him say he was a confidant of Secretary Stanton, Senator Wade, and Congressman Davis among others.

  The last two legislators were much in the news lately. With their Wade-Davis bill, recently passed in the House, they had openly declared war on the President’s moderate program for postwar reconstruction. The bill stipulated that civil government would be restored only after fifty percent of a rebelling state’s white males took a loyalty oath; Lincoln’s plan kept the percentage at ten. Other Wade-Davis provisos were equally harsh, and the President had made it known that he would bury the legislation with a pocket veto if it cleared the Senate.

  Enraged, Wade retaliated by saying publicly, “The authority of Congress is paramount. It must be respected by all—and I do not exclude that hag-ridden creature who haunts the Executive Mansion and daily heaps more disgrace upon his office and his nation.”

  At the reception where Wade first uttered the statement, Stanley clapped and muzzily cried “Hear, hear!” He hadn’t gone so far as to attend the splinter nominating convention in Cleveland, where a Republican faction had named General Frémont its candidate. But he was dedicated to Lincoln’s overthrow, and this was but one of many facts he conveyed to his new light-of-love.

  Miss Jeannie Canary—the last name was something she had adopted to replace the unpronounceable one bestowed by her Levantine father—was impressed by Stanley’s friends almost as much as she was by his unlimited cash supply. On the night after the renomination, she and Stanley lay naked in bed in Miss Canary’s cheap rooms on the island—quarters from which he had pledged to move her soon.

  Pleasantly blurry from bourbon, Stanley rested on his ample stomach, diddling Miss Canary’s dark nipples with his fingertips. She usually smiled continually. But not this evening.

  “Loves, I want to see the illuminations. I want to hear the Marine Band play ‘Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!’”

  “Jeannie”—he spoke as if explaining to a slow child—“the celebrations constitute a slap in the face to my closest friends. How dare I attend?”

  “Oh, that isn’t the reason you’re saying no,” she retorted, flouncing over and showing him her plump rear. Beyond soiled curtains, a fiery line ran upward in the sky, bursting into a shower of silver spangles. Other rockets, green, yellow, blue, followed. In the direction of Georgetown, many balloons were aloft, dangerously illuminated by lanterns in their baskets.

  She poked an index finger into her cheek, as a bad actress might to convey a pensive mood. “The real reason is you don’t want to be seen with me.”

  “You mustn’t take offense at that. I am known in this town. I am also a married man.”

  “Then you’ve got no business being here, have you? So if you won’t take me out, don’t bother to rent a new flat for me. Or come backstage again—ever.”

  Her dark eyes and her pout undid him. He heaved his pale body out of bed, found the bottle, and swigged the last of it. “All right. I suppose we could go for an hour—though I want you to appreciate the risk I’m taking.” He reached for his oversized underdrawers.

  “Oh, loves, I do, I do,” she squealed, scented arms around his neck, breasts mashed flat against his flab. Moments like these somehow canceled Stanley’s awareness of his age and banished every thought of Isabel. At such times, he felt like a young man.

  The sight Miss Canary wanted to see was the Patent Office, above the avenue on F Street. They caught a hack—Stanley never brought his own carriage and driver to the island—and on the way he attempted to explain why he and his friends despised Lincoln. He started with the different plans for reconstruction, descriptions of which confused her and stiffened her smile, a sure sign she was growing cross again. He immediately tried the military approach.

  “The President chose Grant, but Grant’s campaign is virtually at a standstill. Cold Harbor was a disaster, the dimensions of which we are just discovering. The general has lost something like fifty thousand men—nearly half the original force with which he advanced across the Rapidan, and almost the same number as you’ll find in Lee’s entire army. The nation won’t tolerate a butcher’s bill that high—especially with Richmond still not captured.”

  “I’m not exactly sure where Richmond is, loves. Down near North Carolina?”

  Sighing, he patted her hand and gave up. Jeannie Canary was sweet and droll, but her talents, while delicious, were limited. One shouldn’t expect more of actresses, he supposed.

  “I want to get out,” she insisted when the hack stalled in the crowd at the corner of Seventh and F. He tried to persuade her that they shouldn’t, but she opened the door anyway. With a quiver of fear, he followed.

  Fireworks exploded overhead, thunderous. The crowd whistled and cheered the red, white, and blue star bursts. On the front of the Patent Office building, great illuminations had been created—huge transparency portraits of Lincoln and the unknown Johnson and tough-jaw
ed Grant blazed in the night. Miss Canary squealed and clung to his arm, and he watched strangers take notice of them. A shiver chased along his spine. The danger had a certain piquant quality, something like the thrill experienced by a soldier, he felt sure.

  “Good evening, Stanley.”

  Paling, he swung sharply and saw Congressman Henry Davis of Maryland tip his hat, skewer Miss Canary with a glance—she was oblivious—and pass on.

  Oh, my God, oh, my God, was all that passed through Stanley’s head for the next couple of moments. What a fool he was, what an absolute ass. The danger here wasn’t piquant; it was deadly.

  And he was now a casualty.

  Charles wanted to mourn for Beauty Stuart, but no tears would come.

  Instead, he examined memories; shining bits of glass in the great bright window of the Stuart legend, a window fashioned partly by Stuart’s admirers, partly by his detractors, partly by the man himself. At the end, Charles could forgive Stuart’s suspicion and shabby treatment of Hampton early in the war and remember instead how lustily he sang. They said that while he was dying he had asked friends to sing “Rock of Ages” at his bedside.

  As senior brigadier, Hampton stood next in line to command the cavalry. He immediately got a large part of the responsibility, but not the promotion. Charles and Jim Pickles and every other veteran knew why. Lee distrusted Hampton’s age. Was he fit enough to withstand the rigors of the command?

  Charles thought it a ridiculous issue. Hampton had long ago proved himself able to endure hardships, bad weather, long rides, and campaigns that would fell many men who were years younger. Still, those high up seemed determined to test him further. Charles felt bad because he suspected the delay also had something to do with Fitz Lee wanting the promotion for himself.

  Once back from Richmond, Charles had no time away from duty, no chance to visit Gus, though he thought of her often. He had decided that the love affair must be cooled off if not ended completely. The war was helping.

  At the same time, he worried that harm would come to her as ferocious campaigning started in the Wilderness. He knew the Federals had overrun Fredericksburg again and many of the inhabitants had fled. A note from Orry in answer to one of his said Gus and her freedmen weren’t in Richmond or, if they were, they hadn’t come to Orry and Madeline for sanctuary. From that, Charles guessed she was still at the farm. He wanted to find out if she was all right but couldn’t do it.

  Which was better, knowing or not knowing? Jim Pickles received letters from home, and each depressed him for days after it arrived. His mother was bedridden. One doctor suspected she had a cancer and might not last the year.

  “I got to go home,” Jim announced one day.

  “You can’t,” Charles said with authority.

  Jim thought for a while. “I s’pose you’re right.” But he didn’t sound convinced.

  Grant’s army reeled past its own dead at Cold Harbor, apparently intent on investing the strategic rail junction at Petersburg. Phil Sheridan’s cavalry feinted toward Charlottesville; Lee was forced to send Hampton in pursuit. Near Trevilian Station, on the Virginia Central line, Charles briefly saw the curly-haired Yankee, a general now, who had marked him at Brandy Station.

  The Federals were about to make off with wagons, ambulances, and around eight hundred horses. Calbraith Butler’s brigade was fighting elsewhere, so Hampton sent Texas Tom Rosser galloping in. Charles rode with Rosser’s men, and it was then that he spied the boy general, recognizing him first by his scarlet neckerchief. Charles fired one shot, which missed. Custer fired back and rode away. It was doubtful that he recognized Charles, who now resembled a bearded bandit more than a soldier.

  The next afternoon, Charles fought dismounted from behind hastily built earthworks on one side of the Virginia Central tracks. He and Jim were back with Butler’s troopers. Across the tracks, Sheridan’s cavalry formed and advanced on foot while brass instruments dinned “Garryowen.”

  “D’ja ever hear such noise?” Jim shouted, ducking at the whiz of a Minié ball not far above him. He wasn’t referring to the gunfire.

  “Little Phil always orders up plenty of music,” Charles replied, emptying his revolver at the enemy, then crouching down to reload. “They say he does it to drown out the rebel yells.”

  Flinging himself up to the fence rails topping the earthworks, he steadied his revolver with both hands, aimed, and slowly squeezed off two shots. A boy in blue crumpled on the tracks. With a grunt expressing satisfaction, Charles hunted his next target.

  “This here’s got to be the most tuneful war anybody ever fought,” Jim observed. “One thing—it sure ain’t the kind of war I expected.”

  Beyond his gunsight, Charles saw a spectral springtime road where natty gentlemen soldiers trotted their matched bays in smart formation. “It isn’t what anybody expected,” he said, and blew a hole in another youngster’s leg. He found he shot with greater accuracy if he considered the Yanks just so many animated clay targets in a gallery.

  On they came, gamely firing carbines braced against their hips. The last assault took place near sunset. When it was repulsed, Sheridan withdrew his men from battle. They began slipping away toward the North Anna during the night. Charles and the other scouts were in the van of the pursuit. Thus they were the ones who discovered the scene of horror.

  Jim came upon it first, near an abandoned federal campsite. He galloped to find Charles, told him what he had found. Then, before he could lean out far enough, he threw up all over his own shotgun, saddle, and surprised horse.

  Charles rode into the sunny pasture, smelling the slaughter before he saw it. He heard it, too—carrion birds flapping in the weeds, an orchestra of thousands of flies. A couple of minutes later, his mouth set, he turned Sport’s head and trotted the starved-looking gray toward the general’s temporary headquarters.

  Hampton, ever the gentleman, broke that characteristic attitude as he rode bareheaded to the site. The breeze lifted his beard while he stared at the fantastic sculptures of fly-covered horses heaped upon one another.

  “Have you counted?” he whispered.

  “There are so many of them, so close together, it’s hard, General. I figure eighty or ninety, minimum. Jim found as many or more over there near those trees. I searched for wounds—other than those made by the bullets that killed them, I mean—for as long as I could stomach it. I didn’t find any. The Yanks must have decided a horse herd would slow down the retreat.”

  “I’ve shot injured horses but never foundering ones. To kill fine animals wantonly is even worse. It’s a sin.”

  And no sin to chain a nigra? Aloud, his response was, “Yes, sir.”

  “Goddamn them,” Hampton said.

  But as Charles gazed at what men had done and considered what he had become, he felt the general was a mite late with his request. God had already done a pretty good job on most of the population.

  Cold Harbor rattled the windowpanes of Richmond again. At night Orry and Madeline lay with their arms around each other, unable to sleep because of the guns.

  They had heard them earlier, in May, when Butler pushed up the James to within seven miles of the city. They heard them again on the stifling June nights in the wake of Cold Harbor. Now the fighting raged at Petersburg. After four fruitless days of trying to overcome the fortifications on the old Dimmock Line around the town, the Army of the Potomac halted its attack and settled down to besiege Petersburg instead.

  “Lee always said that once the siege starts, we’re finished,” Orry told Madeline. “If they want, the Federals can keep bringing men and supplies through the river base at City Point till the end of the century. We’ll have to capitulate.”

  “A long time ago, Cooper said it was inevitable, didn’t he?”

  “Cooper was right,” he murmured, and kissed her.

  Everywhere, Orry saw signs of the tide flowing the wrong way. Sheridan’s horse had ridden almost to the city’s north edge, and Butler’s infantry had nearly reache
d the southern one. Joe Johnston—Retreating Joe, people called him hatefully—was withdrawing toward Atlanta in response to Sherman’s inexorable advance. Another Union general, Sigel, was loose in the valley.

  Few blockade runners got into Wilmington anymore. The nation’s money supply was rapidly becoming so much worthless paper. Cold Harbor had brought déjà vu—scenes of panic like those of the Peninsula campaign. But this time there was little heart or martial courage to sustain the resistance. The mighty generals had fallen: Orry’s classmate Old Jack; Stuart, the singing cavalier. And the greatest of them all, Marse Bob, couldn’t win.

  One morning after Cold Harbor, Pickett appeared at the War Department. Dull-eyed and wasted, he resembled a walking casualty. He still wore his scented hair in shoulder-length ringlets, but a great many tiny coils of white showed now. Orry felt sorry for George, who was gamely trying to maintain an air of youth and jauntiness when every jot of both had been beaten out of him.

  In the hot, dusty silence, Orry shared his personal discontentments with his friend. In reply, Pickett said, “There will always be a place on my divisional staff should the time come when a field command suits you.” A certain dark undertone in his voice hinted that Orry might think twice about such a decision. Was he remembering the charge at Gettysburg that had failed and aged him in a single day?

  “I find myself wanting something like that lately, George. I haven’t discussed it with Madeline, but I’ll keep the offer in mind. I genuinely appreciate it.”

  Pickett didn’t speak, merely lifted his hand and let it fall. He shambled away through slanting bars of sunshine.

  There had been an official inquiry into the escape of a Union prisoner from Libby, abetted by a Confederate officer no one could identify except to say that he was exceptionally tall and heavily bearded, a description that fit several thousand men still in the army. The military threat to Richmond helped reduce the importance of the escape and, slowly, the inquiry. Orry only hoped Billy Hazard had reached and regained the Union lines without harm.