Valley of the Shadow: A Novel

by Ralph Peters

  Days were when Early feared politics alone would be enough to ruin the South, no need of Yankees. He’d had his fill of politics at that damned Richmond convention, but the filth of it all had followed him into the war. When peace came, he didn’t intend to run for any damned office.

  “Don’t tarry, Johnson,” Early said. “Go on, see to your men. I’ll square things with Ransom.”

  Johnson saluted and went out. Immediately, Sandie Pendleton entered the tent.

  “God almighty,” Early said of Johnson. “Fool would sweet-talk a hoor he’d already paid for.” He sighed at the world’s inexhaustible frustrations. “Got ’em all rounded up, do you?”

  “Yes, sir. General Gordon just rode in.”

  Early snorted. “Gordon.”

  Made him want a chaw. But there was too much talking to be done. Army full of lawyers, talk everything to death.

  Pendleton held the tent’s flap open and Early crabbed through. Outside, the skin-gripping air was mean, but cooler than in the tent. The quartering party had pitched it with the sides rolled up for ventilation, but Early had made them drop the canvas again. Didn’t intend to sleep in the damned thing, just needed some privacy. Always said he didn’t mind shitting in front of a thousand men, but preferred to think in private.

  Well, there they were. Scattered about the near-dead fire that no man wished to approach in the lingering heat. The last, small flames gave an orange cast to men’s faces, lighting them from below, creating devils. The air sparked with fireflies.

  “All right, then,” Early said. “Sandie’s got your orders written down all nice and pretty, but I want you to hear the gist of things from me.” He scanned the shadowed faces, pausing briefly, against his will, at Gordon’s. Bugger always looked so damned superior, cock of the walk. The sight of Gordon made him gum a chaw that wasn’t there.

  “Ramseur’s Division leads in the morning, stepping off at dawn.” Early faced the young general, who had removed his hat. It was too dark to make out much, but Early sensed the prematurely receding hairline and earnest eyes. “Any damned militia lurking ’twixt here and Frederick, you clear them out fast, Dod. And don’t stop, hear? Pass your lead brigade through town on the Baltimore road, as if that’s where we’re all headed. Make a demonstration, set them to quivering. But your following brigades will turn south for Monocacy Junction and seize the crossing. Fast.”

  “What if they put up a fight on the Baltimore road, sir?” Ramseur asked. “Shall I engage? How far out should I push?”

  “They dig in their heels east of town, it’ll be by the bridge. Only sensible place. No, don’t engage. Not seriously. Just keep ’em occupied, amuse ’em. I want those peckerwoods thinking on Baltimore burning, but I’d as soon have them run off and sow panic as meet their Maker.” Early grunted. “Make a little show of giving chase, they do run off. Mile beyond the river should be enough. But I don’t want your boys drawn into a shit-flinging contest, no point in it. General Rodes will relieve your brigade on the Baltimore road, he’s next in the order of march. He can take care of any proper fighting needs to be done, he’ll have some time. Upon relief, the brigade will rejoin your division.”

  He turned to Rodes. “General, your division will cover this army’s left tomorrow. Any Yankees still fussing after Ramseur’s boys been relieved, you help ’em meet Jesus. Seize the Baltimore bridge, if it don’t look to cost you. Yanks get spooked and pull off, you cross the river, demonstrate toward Baltimore with a few regiments, and turn your division south.”

  Early nodded at everybody and nobody, squinting to read their postures in the dark. These all were men who had seen the worst of war: There was no dread.

  “Ramseur here will lead the march on Washington,” Early stressed, “a city I expect to set eyes on in forty-eight hours.” He glanced at Gordon, hoping to see disappointment, but Gordon’s features—what he could read of them—remained superior, aloof. Pale scar on his cheek a badge of pride. Why men thought Gordon affable, Early never could figure.

  Returning his attention to Ramseur, Early added, “Dod, you just make sure the telegraph wires are cut before you turn south. Then you move fast on that junction, hear? Grab the road bridge and railroad bridge, both of them, and keep right on going. Any resistance down that way, smash it quick. Your boys can brush away home guards and militia.”

  “If they’re home guards and militia,” Gordon put in.

  Early turned on him, almost relieved to have the excuse. “Expecting the Army of the Potomac, General Gordon? Have I been inattentive? Did Useless Sumbitch Grant and Granny Meade sneak up on us? While I was at my Bible?” Exasperated despite himself, he turned to his chief of staff. “Sandie?”

  Pendleton, a young man of pleasing manners, stepped forward and smiled at Gordon—with none of the malice Early knew his own smiles held in spades.

  “General Gordon, we have had reports of veteran cavalry in the area. In limited numbers. That’s to be expected, you’ll agree. But a citizen of Frederick—whose sympathies lean in the proper direction—made his way to our headquarters to report there’s no one in Frederick but home guards. Hundred-day men and the like.”

  “And when did this good citizen pay us a visit?” Gordon asked.

  “Yesterday.”

  “Yesterday,” Gordon repeated.

  “Yesterday evening, to be precise. General Gordon, we have had no reports, no indications, of a significant Union force anywhere in our path. The Federals … do seem embarrassed.”

  “And even if they’ve rounded up a herd of goddamned Regulars, Ramseur can handle them.” Early turned to Breckinridge, who seemed disinclined to enter the exchange. “Or does General Gordon have information he hasn’t yet shared with us? Maybe Sherman evacuated Georgia? To hurry up north and catch us by the tail?”

  Breckinridge said nothing, but looked toward Gordon.

  “I have no information,” Gordon said, “but sooner or later the Yankees—”

  “Are going to burn in Hell,” Early said. Pulling back on his temper’s reins, he addressed Ramseur again, although he had meant to be finished with the business. “Whatever’s down along that river, you finish ’em off quick, and then you get along down that Washington road. We wouldn’t want to disappoint General Gordon.” His voice had ranged higher in pitch than he wished it. It always did when someone got his goat. He knew it, could predict it, but never could do one goddamned thing about it.

  Mastering himself as best he could, Early shifted toward Breckinridge. “Your divisions will halt this side of the river. Until the others have passed. You will position General Gordon’s Division on the right side of the highway to Washington, where General Gordon can observe the army’s progress across the Monocacy and resume the march when ordered.”

  Early knew he had just created more bad blood. He had not planned it that way, but Gordon had a genius for setting him off.

  There was one last matter to which to attend.

  “General McCausland? Where’s McCausland?”

  “Here, sir,” the cavalryman said. “Just standing off from what’s left of that fire.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Early said. “I have observed that cavalrymen tend to withdraw when things get hot. McCausland, you and your mule-jockeys cover the right. Minus Johnson. He’s setting off to cover himself in glory. Substantial amount of horseshit, anyway.” Early grunted pleasurably at the latter thought. “Uncover any fords not on Jed’s maps. Then get on down to Urbana, push right along. Clear the road for Ramseur’s boys—I’ll have no excuses—and screen the march. No reason you couldn’t reach Silver Spring come nightfall.”

  The darkness had fallen heavily and the fire had faded to coals. His generals had become mere forms, highlighted by the occasional glint of a button or a belt buckle.

  “Questions?”

  Ramseur’s voice crossed the darkness. “Where will I find you, sir? If I need to report?”

  Early smiled. “I mean to take my breakfast in Frederick, gentlemen. I have w
eighty matters to discuss with the local authorities … who I am convinced desire to make a substantial contribution to the Confederate States of America.” He cackled again. “Under threat of seeing their fair city put to the torch.”

  * * *

  After Early retreated into his tent, Gordon sought out Pendleton.

  “Sandie … for God’s sake…”

  “He doesn’t mean it, sir. He has no mind to burn Frederick. But the moneybags in Frederick won’t know that.”

  The fireflies blinked like skirmishers. Gordon believed he could actually smell the heat.

  “And Washington?”

  Pendleton hesitated. Gordon could just discern the chief of staff’s features, not well enough to read them.

  “He doesn’t say,” Pendleton confided. “But I hardly think—”

  “Sandie, Jackson made you. And you helped make Jackson. You know we’ve been dawdling along. Oh, the marches themselves are hard enough, I’ll admit that under duress. But they haven’t been direct, they haven’t gone anywhere. We’ve been fiddling around with no-account Yankee detachments and minor supply depots, splitting off in every direction and tearing up rails we could just as well rip up later. And now we’re behind, by my reckoning. Sooner or later, even the dumbest Yankee in Washington is going to get some inkling of what we’re up to.”

  Infinitely frustrated, weary, and crusted with sweat, Gordon continued: “And what on earth is he thinking, Sandie? He and I have our differences, but we’re not enemies. We’re both on the same side in this blasted war, last time I caught up on the Richmond papers.”

  Pendleton stood stock-still, a barely breathing outline in the darkness. Gordon knew that the young man was wise far beyond his years, an expert judge of his fellow man, and skilled at measuring just how much to say. But he and Gordon had been in agreement many a time over the months, even when the chief of staff declined to support Gordon’s position publicly. Pendleton had not survived Jackson, Ewell, and now Early by offering strong opinions. The boy had physical courage, more than a surfeit. Uncanny judgment, too. But speaking up just wasn’t in his blood.

  Voice low as a regicide’s, Pendleton said, “Lynchburg, the business in the Valley … now this … this raid or invasion, or whatever one may call it … it’s his first independent command, his first truly independent command. And he’s done pretty well, up until now. But with every success, the possibility of failure…” Pendleton shook his head, slowly, a dark shape in dark air. “Consider the responsibility, the weight he’s feeling. We’re all Lee could spare—and the truth is Lee really couldn’t spare us, either. General Early loses this army, and he’s the man who lost the Confederacy, that’s how he looks on things. On top of all that, he’s measuring himself against Jackson, he can’t help it. He’s just—”

  “Jackson would’ve been in Washington by now.”

  “You don’t see all the orders he receives from General Lee. Some … border on the fantastic.”

  “Sandie, every hour we waste we’ll pay for in blood. Or failure.” Gordon folded his arms. “Or both.”

  “He smells Washington now, he’s got the scent. He wants to get on with things.” Again, Pendleton hesitated before speaking further. “You really shouldn’t badger him, sir. It doesn’t help.”

  “We should’ve been across that river yesterday. If he only would’ve—” Gordon caught himself sounding like a spoiled child, if not a bully. There was much in what Pendleton had said, he’d known it all before the boy spoke one word. But so much went back to that lost day in the Wilderness, the missed opportunity …

  Gordon softened his voice and his stance, serving up a portion of geniality, however thin the crust.

  “I do ride on ahead of my horse sometimes,” he said with a smile meant to be felt, if not quite seen. “Sandie … if there’s any way I can help the man … genuinely help him…”

  Weighing his words again, Pendleton said, “I’m sure you’ll get your chance, sir.”

  July 9, 1:00 a.m.

  Monocacy Junction

  Weariness pinned him to the floor, but Wallace couldn’t sleep. When tired, he slipped too readily into pessimism. And he was morbidly tired.

  Two additional regiments had arrived from the Baltimore docks, with claims that the rest of their division was on the way from Virginia. Nonetheless, he felt less confident than he had before the first veterans appeared, asking himself yet again if he was being vainglorious, demanding that men die in a hopeless fight. Was this about redeeming his reputation, even as he lied to himself that the battle’s outcome must ruin him? Was all this born of the romance of novels, a child’s dream of a gallant forlorn hope? Played out at the expense of other men’s lives? The visions that kept him from sleep conjured slaughter and panic, fleeing men and disaster. Nor did the vermin haunting the blanket that served as a mattress soothe him.

  Was this what theologians meant by the dark night of the soul?

  Or did he just need sleep?

  The withdrawal from Frederick had gone smoothly, untroubled by the Rebs. The townspeople had been furious, though, cursing him and the troops they had recently cheered. Wallace consoled himself by recalling the cries of “Go ahead! Run for Baltimore!” That was precisely what he wanted people to tell the graybacks when they arrived, that he had withdrawn his small force toward Baltimore, his little ruse. And then he would be waiting for Early when the Rebs strolled down the Washington road.

  Even that slight surprise might help, buying an extra hour.

  He turned from one side to the other, feeling uneven planks through the blanket’s nap. Another creature scurried along his calf, making him jerk and slap at himself. The heat’s embrace was smothering.

  As sleep teased Wallace, Ross stumbled in. He looked a sorry wreck, but had insisted on keeping his post.

  “Sir?” His voice rasped. “General Ricketts is here, he’s just behind me.”

  Wallace sat up and fumbled to a knee. “My coat.”

  Before he could dress, Ricketts entered. The division commander wasn’t especially tall, but broad enough to give the door frame a fright. By candlelight, the man had an Irish look of the hardest sort.

  Wallace held out his hand. The other man slapped his own hand against it, gripping firmly but quickly letting go.

  “General Wallace? Jim Ricketts. I hear Early’s on the loose.”

  “He’ll be in Frederick by morning. Three miles from here.” Wallace thought for a moment, rubbed an eye. “He could be there now.”

  “I suppose I’m in it, then. What’s Early’s strength?” There was absolutely no nonsense in the division commander’s voice. “Railroad fellow made it sound like the Mongol Horde was upon us.”

  “Reports claim twenty to thirty thousand, so I figure fifteen to twenty.”

  Ricketts nodded. “Sounds right. What exactly do you intend to do?”

  “Fight.”

  “Here?”

  “Here.”

  “How many men do you have? Of your own?”

  “Twenty-five hundred, a few hundred of them veterans. You?”

  “Five thousand. Total. When my last regiments arrive. And that’s counting every cook.” Ricketts shook his head. “Don’t care for the odds. Good position?”

  “The best defensive line between Frederick and Washington. You’ll see it, come first light. Meanwhile, Colonel Ross can guide any more troops who come in, he knows the ground.”

  “And your objective? In making a stand?”

  Wallace fought a yawn and lost, but there was no point apologizing. “Three things: First, I want to know for sure whether Early’s on his way to Washington, or if he’s headed for Baltimore, after all. That drives every subsequent decision. Second, I want to push aside the curtain and find out how many men he’s really got. I mean, good Lord, he’s marched all the way from Lynchburg, and no one’s certain what his force consists of.” Wallace tried to shake off the weariness gripping him, to speak cogently, urgently. “Third, if his objective is Wash
ington, I want to hold him up as long as possible, give Grant time to transfer a corps or two and save the city.”

  Ricketts stared straight into his eyes. The fellow was cold as an iron bar in January. He considered Wallace’s words, then asked, “You have a plan? That includes my men?”

  Wallace nodded, escaping his weariness in a burst of enthusiasm. “And excellent ground, truly splendid! Since your men began coming in, I’ve shifted my green troops to the right, to cover the fords to the north and the bridge on the Baltimore road. It’s a great deal of ground, but the terrain’s steep this side of the river, and there aren’t many fords up there. I’m gambling that Early’s not going up that way.”

  Struggling to keep his own eyes steady, he met Ricketts’ gaze again. “Your men will concentrate here, as my left wing. There’s a covered bridge on the Washington road—you could see it from the porch, if we had some moonlight—and an open-deck rail bridge off to its right. Early intends to cross right here, I’m convinced of it.”

  He raised his hands in excitement, as if about to grip Ricketts by the coat. “There’s good ground to anchor the left of your position, I think you’ll like it. Open fields, but higher than the north bank, you’ll have the advantage.” A nervous smile overtook his features and he realized his hands were shaking. “You’ll see it all at first light, I’ll show you everything. I believe we can give them a time of it, General Ricketts. We’ll give them a time.…”

  “I have no guns,” Ricketts said with a first, faint hint of emotion. “I was ordered to leave my artillery at Petersburg. I’m a damned artilleryman, and I don’t have a single battery.” He shook his head, becoming human at last. “Don’t have one ambulance, either. Or my field surgeries. I have to believe we were meant to fill up the Washington forts. Before things came undone.” He glanced down at the planks and looked up again. “What kind of artillery do you have?”