“Mr. Baker, allow me to introduce Mr. Ludlow of the State Department.” Even Baker was surprised at his story. Ludlow had mulled over in his mind the identity of the man he had seen go into the alley next to the Petersen Boarding House until he was convinced that it, indeed, was George Sanders. “Sanders and I served in the London consulate in 1852; I was only his secretary at the time. I had heard later he had gone south when the war started.”
Baker had become instantly interested as soon as Sanders name was mentioned. He knew that the man had been working with the Confederate Secret Service and had been advocating a number of extravagant schemes. Ludlow went on to say, “There was one thing you never forgot about after being associated with Sanders. He was almost rabid in his hatred of tyrants and repeatedly called for their assassination.” He reached into his coat and handed Baker a card de visit. “Here is a picture of the man.”
By that evening both Baker and Sharpe’s organization had spilled every possible agent into the streets of Washington with copies of that photo. Some of the copies were still damp so quickly had they been snatched from the development liquid of Sharpe’s photography office.
CHESTERFIELD BRIDGE, VIRGINIA, 2:15 P.M., FRIDAY, MAY 6, 1864
Stuart’s cavalry had disappeared from Sheridan’s front as the advance guard of Hancock’s Army of the Rappahannock reached the North Anna River and began to cross. Sheridan saw what could only be the approaching command group rode up to meet Hancock himself. He found Grant riding with him. Still mounted, they reached across to shake hands, then rode off under the shade of some trees to talk.
Sheridan briefed them on the success of the cavalry battle; Grant was well-pleased. Hancock then said, “As far as I know, Lee is still sitting around Spottsylvania keeping Meade company. We are on his rear.” Then he rose in his stirrups, a big man on a big horse, and slammed a gloved fist into an open palm. “We’ve got ‘em nicked, Sheridan! We’ve got ‘em nicked!”7
Grant was not the demonstrative sort, but he added, his cigar clenched at the side of his mouth, “Seems like that.”
Sheridan knew Grant well by then and realized a definitive statement when he heard it. Hancock, on the other hand, was a new acquaintance. He was not easily impressed by other men, but Hancock was an exception. The man oozed command. It was said of him that if he were to show up on a battlefield dressed like a civilian and gave orders, they would have been instantly obeyed such was his commanding presence. He was as a hard and gifted a fighter as any man who went to war. Three times at Gettysburg he had held the fate of the Union in his hands, and three times he had done exactly the right thing to forestall the enemy.8 Sheridan did notice, however, how pale he looked. His wound in the thigh suffered at Gettysburg had not entirely healed.
The sudden sound of cannon fire to the north turned their heads. It was Lee’s turn to forestall Hancock. He had arrived faster than anyone had expected. Without another word, Hancock turned his horse and galloped back over the bridge. He rode into chaos. His II Corps’ 2nd Division had been struck in column by a howling Confederate attack. He heard the ululating Rebel yell in thousands of voices. Rifle fire exploded from regiment after regiment as they tried to stem the flood. He sent couriers north to hurry Wright’s VI Corps into the fight. At one point Grant’s newly set up headquarters seemed to be right in the path of a Confederate attack. An aide came running up shouting that they had to get the hell out of there. Grant just leaned back in his camp chair and suggested that some artillery be brought up instead. In moments a reserve battery unlimbered right in front of him and blew canister into the face of the attack.
At that moment most of Longstreet’s Corps—almost twenty-five thousand men—were entraining at the Richmond station of the RF&P at 8th and Broad Street for the thirty-mile ride to Hanover Junction. Longstreet had marched them relentlessly from the James Peninsula to get there so fast. The trap that had been set for Lee—caught between two forces—was now being laid for Hancock.
BIDDEFIELD, MAINE, 3:20 P.M., FRIDAY, MAY 6, 1864
Sherman was in a rage for being humbugged by the British. They had given every impression of readying an attack. Instead they had begun to withdraw in such a manner that he was fooled until the very end. He had spat out his cigar and threw his hat on the ground. Then he had unleashed Custer.
His cavalry ate up the ground until they found their way barred by the British cavalry brigade. The 9th Lancers and 11th Hussars stood there like a wall spreading out on either side of the road, one thousand of the finest cavalry in the world.9 The Wolverines of Custer’s 1st Brigade of Michigan regiments, his old command, had a similar opinion of themselves.10 Custer threw his regiments out along either side of the road as well. He did not have time to use his repeaters to blast his way through. It would have to be the old-fashioned way—the saber. Across the field he heard bugles and pulled up his mount to see the British advancing toward him.
He gave the command. Fifteen hundred sabers rasped from their scabbards. The American bugles answered the British, and the Wolverines’ horses stepped off. Both sides trotted forward, keeping their formations until at two hundred yards the trumpets sounded the charge. Sabers went down to point forward as lances dipped at the level, their pennants streaming behind their lance heads. They meet with a crash that sent men and horses to the ground as both sides streamed into each other, turning the fight into hundreds of individual combats. The 9th Lancers introduced the Americans to their special weapon for the first time, cutting right through the 5th Michigan only to be hit by the 1st Michigan, Custer’s reserve. The Americans drew their pistols and introduced the Lancers to Mr. Colt’s invention.
American numbers and repeater firepower began to tell, but still the British would not leave the field. The commander of Custer’s second brigade saw the immediate opportunity and fell upon the British rear. The Hussars and Lancers were trapped and outnumbered by more than three to one, and still they kept fighting as long as arms had strength to swing a saber or thrust a lance. Now numbers and repeaters told. Sherman rode up with his staff to find Custer gloating over his victory with both captured standards in his fist. He ostentatiously threw them at the feet of Sherman’s horse. Sherman rode next to him, leaned over, and said between clenched teeth, “The enemy has escaped, sir.”
Doyle had changed his mind after all. Wolseley’s arguments had sunk in. He had no choice but sacrifice his cavalry to cover his withdrawal.
NORFOLK NAVY YARD, VIRGINIA, 4:11 P.M., FRIDAY, MAY 6, 1864
The four great aeroships hugged the earth, tied down by their great tethers. Their ground crews brought by Farragut’s transports were busy pumping new hydrogen into them. The ordnance teams stood by ready to begin loading the special aerial bombs that had been developed for them. The navy yard seethed with activity as ammunition and coal also brought by Farragut were transferred by an endless stream of contrabands to the ironclads and other warships that had been trapped there. Across the roads alongside the water battery at nearby Fortress Monroe the four submersibles were tied up, their crews also making final preparations.
Out in the bay, Admiral Hope’s ships were equally busy preparing for the battle they knew was coming. Every captain studied the admiral’s orders detailing Captain Cowles suggestions. The attack on Fortress Monroe had been suspended as the floating armored batteries of the Great Armament were strung out in the path of the enemy three deep. Behind them the British ironclads and other warships also positioned themselves. It would be a long night.
The longest night of all was Admiral Hope’s. He had the ghost of the battle of Charleston to haunt whatever sleep he could get. He had read the reports of the battle with a creeping sense of horror at what the big American guns could do. Those damned Dahlgrens. Even their carriages were more efficient. The Royal Navy had tried to buy the guns before the war, but the Americans had refused to sell, no fools they. Every attempt to obtain their dimensions had failed.11 Still, the Royal Navy was not bereft of advantage. Cowles’s tactic was
one, and, of course, Bazalgette’s. Then again he could always rely on the tars, those hearts of oak, whose relentless ferocity and efficiency in battle were legendary. He could also rely on the high gunnery skills of the fleet. No navy in the world could so reliably hit their targets under the most demanding conditions. Then there was the sheer weight of metal his ships would be able to throw at the Americans tomorrow–almost 750 guns aboard his fleet. If all else failed, they could simply try to pound the Americans to pieces.
THE LINCOLN REDOUBT, DUBLIN, 11:15 P.M., FRIDAY, MAY 6, 1864
The sentries peering into the night at the British positions felt it first as a tremor, then the earth heaved under them sending them into the eternal night. The mine driven under the Lincoln Redoubt by the sappers of the Royal Engineers lifted a fifty-foot section of the earthen wall a hundred feet into the air along with men and Gatlings. It all fell to earth with a shuddering thud. Then only dust hung in the dark. Rockets now shot into the sky to hang flares as the assault parties rushed forward.
Those men in the redoubt not killed or wounded in the blast were too stunned to react quickly before the storming party of the 86th Foot was among them stabbing with the bayonet. The 86th had suffered terribly from the American repeater fire at Tallaght and asked to be allowed to get even by leading the storming of the redoubt. Raised in Protestant County Down in Ulster it had over the years recruited many Catholic recruits. If ever there was regiment that was an amalgam of the green and orange, it was the 86th, and it had remained steadfastly loyal, priding itself that not a single man deserted. The dead and wounded of Tallaght had sealed the regiment’s loyalty with their blood.
Maj. Henry Stewart Jerome raced over the rubble as the first man into the redoubt, followed by Sgt. James, who caught up with him. They paused only long enough to exchange grins. Both had won the VC in the Indian Mutiny, and much was expected of them. The night, lit only by fires of burning buildings, was their ally, for it shortened the distance between men, ideal for the bayonet. And the bayonet took precious few prisoners that night. The regiment lived up to its nickname of the Stickies.
As they broke out of the redoubt and into the city, they halted to let the big men of the 2nd Coldstream Guards rush by. Byrne muttered in his brogue, “It’s about time those pretty boys got into a fight.”
The explosion had caught Meagher glass in hand in his rooms at Dublin Castle. He darted from his chair so suddenly that he knocked over the table, sending he bottle to shatter on the floor. He shouted, “Sergeant Major!” strapped on his sword and rushed none too steady down the broad stairs. In the castle’s vast courtyard all was confusion. No one knew what had happened except now every British gun was pounding the defenses. Meagher looked to the glow in the west where the redoubt was. His head had cleared instantly. He gathered what men he could and headed for the redoubt.
BEFORE BIDDEFORD, MAINE, 5:00 P.M., FRIDAY, MAY 6, 1864
Sherman was still so mad he could have bit right through a ten penny nail. Doyle had got his army back across the Saco and immediately deployed his troops north and south along the river to prevent a crossing. They had been just in time to drive XI Corps advance guard back to the south bank in a sharp fight. Custer was smart enough to keep his distance from Sherman. He ostentatiously wore his left arm in a sling, the gift of a lancer. He had the way to his tent lined with captured lances to drive home the point of his destruction of a superb regiment, but Sherman’s reproof stung his pride of a man who had so completely “sought the bubble of reputation in the cannon’s mouth.”
Despite Sherman’s displeasure, he invited Custer to his mess that evening for a dinner hosting surviving captured enemy officers. Custer arrived, his yellow locks brushed to luster that only fine blond hair could achieve and dressed in a fresh uniform. Sherman made a point of noting how badly outnumbered the British cavalry had been and that their self-sacrifice in ensuring the successful escape of their army was worthy of Lord Tennyson’s most sublime efforts. One of the officers tactfully commented that their army had not escaped, merely had withdrawn to advantage. Sherman laughed because he realized the joke was on him. His smile fell off his face when he glanced at Custer.
Custer did not brood. His mind was elsewhere. That elsewhere was with his scouts along the Saco River searching for a ford. He would redeem himself if he died doing it.
He was luckier than he knew. His scouts were led by the country people to a half-dozen hidden fords known only locally and not apparent to a visitor or an occupier. They were back by midnight, and a half hour later Custer brazenly woke Sherman up to tell him of his plan.
THE RP&F RAILROAD STATION, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, 7:15 P.M., FRIDAY, MAY 6, 1864
All the way down in Virginia James Longstreet was also spitting nails. Chaos at the railroad station and nearby yards had brought the movement of his corps to the pace of a snail with consumption. He had driven his corps to the utmost of the men’s endurance to get them to the Richmond station on time only to find that the trains that should have been waiting had been sent off in every direction early that morning. The manager of the RF&P claimed to have only heard about the requirement shortly before Longstreet’s men had begun to arrive, and truth to tell, the War Department had been grievously tardy in formally notifying him.
That cut no ice with Longstreet, who paced the platform in greater distress than Sorrel had ever seen him in before. Compounding his disquiet was the loss of two brigades on the march to Richmond by pursuers from the Peninsula. One brigade had been shattered; the other was holding the road. Every once in a while one big gauntleted fist pounded into the open palm of the other hand. His thick long beard shook with anger as he watched his men in their thousands, already tired, simply waiting in ranks for the trains that should have been there—waiting, waiting, waiting when they should already have ridden the thirty miles to south of Hanover Junction and gone into battle. Instead, hundreds were asleep on the dirt of the streets or on the plank sidewalks.
Lee was up there on the line somewhere, Longstreet knew, with the enemy before and behind him. It would not be the first time that it was Longstreet who was the only one able to come to Lee’s rescue. The way he had fallen on the Yankee flank at Second Manassas two years ago when the army was on the point of being overwhelmed had shattered the enemy and sent him flying. And at Wilderness, his corps double-timed onto the field just as Lee’s flank was about to collapse, staggered Hancock’s advancing corps, and threw it back in defeat.
At last a single train crept into the station. Then it just stood there. No one moved forward to water the iron beast’s boilers and fill its cab with coal and wood. Neither did the stevedores move to unload whatever was in the cars. The wagons just stood there, still. Longstreet watched in disbelief as nothing happened. Sorrel was already giving orders, and two regiments hustled up from the street to tear open the car doors. The cars were filled with firewood, barrels of tar, and scrap iron picked up in Danville on the Virginia-North Carolina border. It took another hour to unload them before the 5th and 15th Virginia Cavalry could begin to board. The train finally chugged, or rather wheezed, its way north out of the station. Its engine was one of the worn-out original Confederate machines. The new British engine had been changed in Danville and was now nearing the South Carolina border. The old engine gave out barely ten miles north of Richmond. The cavalry detrained and took to the road. Such were the efforts of Samuel Ruth and Crazy Bet Van Lew.
THE CHESTERFIELD BRIDGE, VIRGINIA, 10:01 P.M., FRIDAY, MAY 6, 1864
Lee’s attack on Hancock had melted away in the storm of fire from the Yankees’ repeaters. Even men who had transformed the phrase “Southern Valor” into a given on every battlefield could not withstand a ten-to-one firepower disadvantage. Lee’s losses had been horrific. Only the onset of night saved what was left.
Couriers from the nearest telegraph stations told him that Longstreet’s corps had arrived in Richmond in the early afternoon. He had expected the vanguard of First Corps to arrive on the fie
ld to fall upon Hancock’s rear by late afternoon, but nothing happened. Meade could not stay fooled for long and must even now be forced to march after him. No soldier in North America was more resourceful than Lee and more optimistic that no situation was truly hopeless, but now darkness had fallen on a battlefield where he had been stopped cold by an obdurate enemy to his front while a relentless enemy closed upon his rear. The difficulties seemed insurmountable. Everything hung on Longstreet’s arrival.
He was right about Meade. The Army of the Potomac had moved within three hours of Lee’s departure, alerted by the scouts of the BMI. Ninety thousand men in blue filled the roads southeast of Spotsylvania determined to be in on the kill.
While Lee weighed his odds, Grant paced the Chesterfield Bridge to the consternation of the sentries. He too was weighing the odds. Lee had hit Hancock like a sledgehammer that afternoon, but the new Army of the Rappahannock was veteran to the core and had held. His solitude was interrupted by the hooves of Sheridan’s horse as it clattered onto the bridge right up to him. The little Irishman bounced off his horse and handed the reins to an aide who led the animal away. The two were alone in the shadows at the center of the bridge. “Longstreet’s coming up from Richmond. We had a message from the Van Lew woman.”
“When?”
“Thirty minutes ago, one of her colored men came into the lines. His horse fell dead from the ride.”
“How do we know it’s from her?”
Sheridan turned and shouted, “Cline!” Sharpe’s chief of scouts walked over from Sheridan’s escort, and Sheridan raised Grant’s concern. “Yes, he’s for real, General. I saw him at Van Lew’s truck farm.”
Bayonets, Balloons & Ironclads: Britain and France Take Sides With the South Page 40