A Victorian Gent (The Making of a Man Series, Book 1)

by Andrew Wareham

  Traffic continued through the night and a full colonel came up to Dick at dawn.

  “You boys go on back now, Captain. We got a brigade on the defences now. You done well, sir! What’s your name, Captain?”

  “Burke, sir.”

  The colonel looked keenly at him, recognising the name and the Kansas regiment.

  “That’s a Sharps on your shoulder, ain’t it? You’re the man we read of last year? That Sharps Kid?”

  “I am, sir.”

  “Well, I’ll be! I thought they was maybe telling fairy tales, sir, but I see now they was not! I would surely admire to shake your hand, sir!”

  They marched out, swaggering as a cheer was raised for them. They might not have done very much, but they had not run away, or not so far as most, leastwise.

  There were empty ammunition wagons returning from the batteries and room was made for them. The fifty or so from the battalion reached their original camp and found nearly three hundred of the men in the newly set tents, the bulk of them not knowing whether to cheer them in or weep in shame that they had run.

  Lieutenant Cutler was the senior man present; he displayed a broken arm in a sling and a flesh wound across his chest as evidence that he had been carried off the field.

  “We had word you was alive, sir. They sent a staff man to tell us that you was holding the line against the whole Reb army. We got to parade for the General next week, sir.”

  “McDowell?”

  “No, sir. General McClellan has the command now.”

  They had all heard of McClellan – ‘Little Mac’, the ‘Young Napoleon’, the ‘Soldiers’ General’ – and welcomed the change.

  Less welcome, but predicted by most, was the news that in response to the disaster the President had decreed that the ninety day enlistments must now last for three years – their country needed its brave boys.

  Dick found himself temporarily in command of the half of a battalion that was left; he had no idea what to do.

  “We need rations, Mr Schafer, first thing.”

  “Got ‘em, sir. The kitchens and the commissary men stayed behind, of course, and they all came back here when the army ran. Same for the doctors. They set up an aid post for the day, then they shifted back this far. The really bad wounded they took back to Washington, first off, but they say there ain’t no proper hospitals there because they’s just too many needing help. So they set their tents up here – and we got a graveyard starting up on the hillside behind us.”

  “Have we got any count of who got back and who got lost and who’s dead for sure?”

  “The company sergeants, those who was left, wrote their lists out, sir. Got them here.”

  They put the sheets together, compared them with the original figures.

  “Three hundred and thirty men fit for duty. From nigh on to six hundred, sir. Worse than Waterloo, man for man.”

  “Seventy known to be dead, including damn nearly every officer; showed guts that – proper thing for an officer! Wounded and not expected ever to stand in line again – missing an arm or leg; blinded; chest and belly shot – another ninety. Many of them will die, I should expect. Thirty carrying bullet holes that should heal clean – walking wounded who will return to duty, all of them in camp here. Leaves eighty or so as ‘missing’.”

  “Some taken prisoner, sir; some dead and not yet named; some running and ain’t stopped yet, probably never will.”

  “Deserters – what are we to do about them?”

  “Post their names for the Provosts, if we can get certain evidence that they was seen whole and runnin’. Other than that, sir, ‘Missing in Action’ – men who’ve been hit by a shell and blown to bits or have been shot and fallen out of sight into the creek or bushes somewhere.”

  Dick was unwilling to condemn any man for running away from the bloody shambles of that particular battle. Deserters were likely to be shot, he understood; not by him!

  “Has every man got a rifle?”

  “Lieutenant Cutler been busy, sir. He took a pair of wagons out the day after the battle, along the road, scavengin’; he couldn’t barely sit up on the wagon bench, they say sir. We got Enfield rifles for every man and the better part of four hundred Springfields besides. On top of that he must have picked up a thousand pouches of powder and ball and a great pile of knapsacks and crossbelts and heavy coats and different sorts of hats. Not so many of bayonets – reckon most of the men wanted to keep something to hand. A few of revolvers, but they don’t generally weigh so heavy. Most men kept their rations and water bottles as well.”

  “So, we have ended up better equipped than when we started. Better get Cutler made up, if we can. You as well, Schafer. God knows what we do for other officers. Have to make sergeants up, mostly, I suppose. I don’t know that I can do that – who can? Is it the Governor’s regiment still, or does the Department in Washington have the power?”

  Schafer did not know but suggested that if they made the men that day then McClellan would probably have better things to do than argue when he came to congratulate them.

  By nightfall they had two officers to each company and both Cutler and Schafer were sporting captain’s bars. Corporals had been made up to sergeants and the men had identified replacements themselves. They had patched up missing uniforms with more or less similar items discarded by other regiments and expected to make a smart turn out for the general.

  An aide came trotting in just before ten o’clock and informed them that the general was a quarter of an hour behind him; they learned that this was McClellan’s invariable habit – he liked the men to be in place to give him a shout as he arrived.

  The moustachioed little man on the tall charger arrived and was cheered in, to his undisguised delight – he so loved to be loved.

  He dismounted and inspected the parade, was much impressed by the efforts the men had made for him. He was a good soldier in many ways and noticed that every man had a rifle and campaign equipment and that the battalion, although down to half of its size, was set up to fight again.

  He made a brief speech, told the men that they would, eventually, attack and defeat the Confederacy, but not until they were ready. They had seen what could go wrong in battle – now they would train and make up their numbers until they could do the job thoroughly and well. He would not throw their lives away, that he promised them.

  They cheered him again, for the urge for glory seemed to have deserted them for the while.

  McClellan called the battalion officers to him in the mess tent.

  “Captain Burke, is it not? I am honoured, sir, to meet you! It may well be, sir, that your actions saved the army from a far greater defeat than actually occurred. You are, I understand, the senior surviving officer in the regiment? As such I shall recognise all of the necessary promotions you have made, sir. You, yourself, sir, are made major in recognition of your valorous acts. I believe, however, that you have little of infantry service in your background.”

  “None, would be more correct, general. I have done what I can, sir, but I do not have the knowledge a field officer must need in his battalion.”

  “Well said, sir! You are an example to us all. I shall post a lieutenant-colonel and a major to the battalion. I wish to offer you a place on my staff, sir.”

  “I would be truly honoured, sir.”

  “The honour will be mine, Major Burke.”

  There was much to be said for a staff officer’s life.

  Sleeping in a hotel room in Washington rather than a tent in a field; eating well-cooked dinners at a dining-table set with white napery; stirring out of bed to a cup of coffee presented by a skilled waiter; donning a clean uniform supplied by an experienced batman – Dick appreciated the return to the life of the privileged.

  His days were moderately busy at first. McClellan valued the presence of an English gentleman at his side: welcoming visitors and courteously enquiring their business; dealing with minor queries; running messages to senior officers and politicians;
generally acting the role of the aide, which the bulk of American officers were unfamiliar with. The company was entertaining as well. There was a French prince on the staff, performing no particular function but lending a sense of Napoleonic style to what could otherwise have been a vulgar sort of brawl; various other bodies were present from Boston Brahmin clans and such other old families as existed in the Eastern states.

  It occurred to Dick that he was more a courtier than a soldier, that McClellan was increasingly the emperor-in-waiting, readying himself to replace Lincoln after the inevitable failure of his Presidency. First military briefings encouraged this opinion.

  McClellan called his staff together early in the Fall to discuss the military situation. It was rapidly made clear to them that ‘discussion’ meant that the General spoke and they agreed.

  “Gentlemen! We have achieved our first aim. Washington is safe. The Army of the Potomac is holding, eighty thousand strong against a Confederate force twice as great, or more. The forts around the capital city are partially complete – nearly five hundred heavy cannon emplaced behind thick dirt walls. Masonry will, in the nature of things, take time.”

  There was a round of restrained applause – the building of the forts had been a remarkable engineering achievement on McClellan’s part, the planning his alone.

  “It is clear, gentlemen, that the Southern forces are far greater than was first assumed – their manpower far outstrips the initial estimates! Intelligence reports tell us of a certain five hundred thousand men under arms! At least two hundred thousand stand directly opposite to us! The Shenandoah Valley teems with Rebel horse, foot and guns while they also maintain a great army in the West. We must build our strength, equip our artillery, above all, train our men. There must be no precipitate action! We shall attack, one day, when we are truly ready. Despite the idiocy of our political masters and the rantings of the Great Gorilla – by whom I refer to Ape Lincoln…”

  McClellan basked in the laughter this sally drew, raised his arms for silence.

  “Despite, I say, the public demands of ignorant backwoods lawyers, we shall protect and preserve our Union, as is our job, and ours alone.”

  Dick joined in the cheers that followed, expressed his admiration in careful words when it came to his turn, kept his distaste well hidden. He did not like political demagoguery, he found.

  He made his way next morning to the British Embassy, wandered casually and openly inside, having let it be known that he was going to discover whether any correspondence had been sent to him in their care.

  A young secretary greeted him with raised eyebrow – a major was too senior to be carrying a routine despatch, far too junior to be entrusted with an important diplomatic communication.

  “Good morning, sir. My name is Burke, Richard Burke, originally of Dorset. I had been travelling in Kansas when this business started and was brought into it by my local acquaintance. I am now a member of General McClellan’s staff. I had wondered whether there might be any letters from home, sir.”

  The young man had been appointed to the Washington embassy because of his family connections but possessed an amount of native wit; he begged Dick to take a seat while he made enquiry. Once out of public view he made his way to the office of the military attaché, briefly told him of the visitor.

  “Burke? Got him down in the files as a hanger-on of McClellan’s. Made a name at Bull Run – mainly because he didn’t run! Englishman, you say? That I did not know… Beg the gentleman to wait a few minutes, if you would be so good. Better not bring him inside… I shall take him out to join me in a spot of luncheon, I think. Always worth having a pair of ears on the staff, you know, especially of the only general the Americans have got.”

  “Fanshawe-Paine, Major Burke! Captain, Foot-Guards, you know.”

  Fanshawe-Paine waited for the response, wondering whether this man Burke would be aware that in England a Guards captain was equivalent of a major in lesser regiments.

  “Guards, sir? I believe you may take precedence over me, particularly inasmuch that my commission is by its very nature temporary!”

  They agreed on that point.

  “Tell me, sir. Did you ever meet with a Major Curtis-Manvers? He appeared some few weeks ago in Kansas City carrying a commission from General Winfield Scott and announced himself as second in my then regiment. He remained some two days before finding Southern company more congenial. He informed us that he too was an officer in your Brigade.”

  “He was, I know, Major Burke; I came across mention of him earlier in the year. He was but a lieutenant, and that for rather a short time and some ten years ago. I believe he was discovered in rather unsavoury activities in the company of some foreign gentlemen at the time of the Crimea. Apparently he was under some pressure to supply information about troop numbers, or some such thing, to one of his companions in amusement. He was young and weak, it was decided, and he was permitted to withdraw from Her Majesty’s service. What happened to him then, I do not know – he was no longer one of us; he probably left the country. He appeared in Washington for a short while before travelling west, and then, you tell me, south. He did attend at the embassy once, and was given very short shrift – we had no use for his services!”

  “Neither had we, sir, though I have some wish to meet him again as I have some unfinished business with the gentleman.”

  “Borrowed money in that short a time, did he?”

  “He was personally offensive and then chose to run rather than meet me. No doubt I shall come across him one fine day, if not in America, then elsewhere.”

  Fanshawe-Paine was aware of the code as it applied in the West, knew that Dick was stating his desire to kill the man. He could not wholly disapprove but preferred not to comment, asked instead whether Dick had any special reason for making his number with the embassy.

  “I am just a little concerned, sir, that as an Englishman on General McClellan’s staff I could be compromised if political affairs supervened.”

  “Ah… I had heard whispers than a military coup was not wholly out of the question, Major Burke.”

  “The General has the unquestioning support of the Army of the Potomac, I believe. Was he to announce that the good of the Union demanded his action then there would be few to say him nay.”

  “In such case, the presence of an English gentleman on his staff might prove an embarrassment inasmuch that it might imply a degree of official support. The government’s position is, and seems set to remain, one of neutrality. The whole of the British army would be inadequate to intervene in this war, sir. Particularly as at least one half of our troops are committed in India and China. Add to that, there is the slavery question, which outweighs any feelings of sympathy that the aristocracy may have for the South. Was General McClellan to make peace with the South then Her Majesty’s government would not wish to express its support for him, as he is known as an anti-abolitionist. It is the case that in the industrial north of England especially volunteers are being recruited to fight for the Union, and funds and medical supplies are being raised, and Whitehall is making no attempt to intervene in this activity.”

  “I should therefore withdraw from the staff at an early stage, you would advise, sir?”

  “I cannot give you any advice, Major Burke.”

  “Of course, sir, but I trust you will note that I have no wish at all to set myself at odds with my country’s interest. Should any indication be given me that I am, de trop shall we say, then I shall immediately remove myself.”

  The lawyer was surprised to see Miss Parsons, assured her that she could have sent her instructions in writing.

  “The loss of your respected brother has distressed and shocked us all, ma’am. I much regret it. The governor himself spoke at his interment. He died a single man and you are sole beneficiary under his will, of course, and have full ownership of all of the Eastern activities as well as the hotel and landholdings in Kansas and Missouri.”

  “I had not been aware of landh
oldings, Mr Heron.”

  “Substantial acreages, ma’am, by purchase, all with good and full title, in the east of Kansas and the west of Missouri, within a day or two of each other. Mostly farming land, ma’am – wheat fields in essence. Income earning places, all of them rented out to good Christian families.”

  She was aware of the significance of the last words – no slaves, no freed black holders.

  “I imagine that land prices are low as a result of the war, Mr Heron.”

  “Rock-bottom, ma’am! I would advise you not to sell until this conflict is over – which may well be a long while yet, it seems. You are aware of the three year enlistments, ma’am?”

  She had not kept up with the newspapers while travelling, was told of the defeat at Bull Run and its aftermath.

  “Were our own boys much involved, do you know, sir?”

  “Very much so, ma’am. We have no names as yet, but have reason to fear that very many of our bravest have paid the price. We have read that our regiment was among the first onto the field and one of the very last off. We are told that our boys held the Bull Run itself and stopped the Southerners there.”

  She might be entirely on her own, she realised – Captain Burke might have fallen as well.

  “Then I must not sell the farms, it would seem. What of rentals? How are they to be collected?”

  “At harvest time, ma’am, when the grain is sold and payment is received. A percentage of the income, share-cropping rather than a fixed sum in dollars. The price of wheat will not fall in wartime, ma’am. There will be fewer men to work the land, the harvests will be lower as a result, the income higher for those who get a crop to market.”

  “Payment to be made how?”

  “Through the bank, ma’am, all to continue as currently is, I suspect. You will wish to engage in some discussion there.”