by Ralph Peters
Sandie Pendleton, alert and watchful as ever, said, “What’s that?” The chief of staff pointed toward the city, down the road behind the fort and the rifle pits.
Clouds of brown dust rose from the city’s thoroughfares, swelling and approaching as the exhausted generals watched.
“Sonofabitch,” Early said.
July 11, 5:00 p.m.
The War Department, Washington, D.C.
Sitting behind his perfectly ordered desk, Major General Henry Halleck was not displeased by developments. It appeared that disaster had been averted, with two Sixth Corps divisions disembarking at the docks, their rush to fill out the city’s defenses hindered only by Lincoln’s childlike foolery as the president stood stoop-shouldered on the wharf, delaying the troops to repeat his bumpkin’s joke, “You have to be quick, if you want to catch Early.”
Lincoln was just one more of Halleck’s burdens.
No blame could be attached to Henry Halleck, that was the thing. Even if the veterans forced-marching up to Fort Stevens failed to block the Confederate advance, he could not be blamed. All of the mistakes had been made by others; he had issued no orders that might leave him culpable. No, only the others were at fault. Grant, of course. Halleck sometimes feared that the greatest mistake of his life had been allowing the man to continue serving in uniform after Shiloh. Now that ungrateful nobody had gotten far too big for his unwashed britches. Grant had assured them all that Early’s corps had not left the Petersburg lines. Halleck could hardly have been expected to know what the general in chief had mistaken.
And when Secretary of War Stanton had approached him with the warning dispatches from the railroad man Garrett—another self-important creature meddling in the war—Grant had assured them again that the danger was a chimera. If any blame there was, it lay at Grant’s feet.
Outside of his office, officers and clerks hastened about, packing documents for an evacuation. Halleck believed that the danger had already passed, that the city would not fall, but he let the men continue their frantic efforts. He meant to be prepared, no matter what happened. And it wouldn’t hurt those do-nothings to sweat a bit.
Yes, matters appeared to be in hand. And if they weren’t, it would not be his fault. Should the Rebels surprise them all a final time and enter the city, the fault would lie with the absurd local command arrangements Stanton had permitted. Augur, McCook, and Meigs would be the generals to cashier. And Wright, commanding the Sixth Corps … obviously, it would be his fault now, if Early and his rabble torched the Capitol. Any court-martial-convening authority would grasp immediately that Henry Halleck’s hands had been tied by the willful mistakes and incompetence of others.
He heard cannon in the distance, but the fires were desultory. Really, nothing to worry about, he shouldn’t think. Not now. Grant had gotten reinforcements into the city, their arrival timed to the hour, if not the minute. All would be well.
If Lincoln did not interfere, of course. The man was a marauding donkey.
Halleck often had felt himself slighted, despite his august position as the Army’s chief of staff. He had been called from the battlefield to oversee the infernally muddled bureaucracy, but knew himself to be the man who should command the armies in the field—rather than see authority dropped in the laps of men who didn’t even begin to know their Jomini, to say nothing of de Saxe. And a bit more Vauban would not have harmed the likes of Monty Meigs, when it came down to it.
Could Meigs read French? Halleck doubted it. Probably forgot every word after leaving West Point. The truth was that there wasn’t a single first-rate mind in the entire Army, other than his own, and he’d come to wear his nickname, “Old Brains,” with pride—even if mediocrities spoke the words in malice, just as they made fun of his protuberant eyes. All of his life he’d been mocked by jealous inferiors.
Beyond the walls, the city had grown raucous as the reinforcements arrived. The evening before, grim dread had possessed the mob. Now it noised its beery, squalid pleasure at its rescue. The people were unworthy of their government.
In time, Halleck had come to see how vital his purpose was here, in this treacherous city. The orders Grant issued to far-flung commands had to be put right before they were passed along, and Stanton’s enthusiasms needed tempering by someone else’s good sense—to say nothing of the president’s madcap notions. No, his place was here, after all. If he would not find battlefield glory, he would know, nonetheless, that he had done more to save the Union than any vainglorious popinjay with a pistol.
And there were consolations. The crisis had afforded him the overdue chance to kill Lew Wallace’s military career, once and for all. Wallace had suffered a catastrophic defeat—viewed by objective military standards—throwing away the few troops interposed between Early and the Washington defenses. Properly interpreted, the reports of the battle made it clear that Wallace had committed an unbroken series of follies, compiling a spotless record of incompetence. Now his force was scattered throughout creation, Baltimore was exposed, and a veteran Sixth Corps division had been savaged, thanks to his nonsense. Nor did Henry Halleck subscribe to the view raised by that ass Dana that Wallace had delayed Early for a critical span. Defeat was defeat, and Wallace had been defeated.
Yes, Wallace. Halleck could almost smack his lips in his pleasure at the man’s downfall. He had been unable to prevent Wallace’s appointment to the Middle Department post, but now his every objection had been vindicated.
Wallace would have his lesson ground into his face. Two years before, the upstart had possessed the temerity to criticize him, Henry Halleck, before a huddle of officers awaiting a Tennessee riverboat. Of course, the remarks had been reported back to him, resulting in Wallace’s first dismissal from active service: Shiloh might have been forgiven, but not such disrespect.
It had filled Halleck with delight when, the afternoon before, he had convinced Stanton to sign the order replacing Wallace with Ord in command of the Middle Department—while leaving Wallace in place, powerless, at Ord’s beck and call. Prolonged public humiliation was better than an outright dismissal from service—although that, too, would come.
Judged by his telegram sent in response, Wallace had been stunned—wonderfully so.
Let the man burn in shame. Let him rue each breath.
Those slanders uttered on the Tennessee could go on Wallace’s gravestone.
The assistant adjutant general rapped on Halleck’s open door. Permitted to enter, he reported that an additional corps of reinforcements had been confirmed as on its way to Washington.
“Shall I tell the men to stop packing up the records?” Townsend asked.
“Not yet,” Halleck responded, smiling coldly.
July 11, 9:00 p.m.
Silver Spring Mansion
Sandie Pendleton sat on a wine-red couch whose intricate woodwork spoke of the China trade. It was a rich man’s possession, firm but welcoming, and Pendleton felt a tremor of guilt at gracing it with the rump of his filthy uniform. Certainly, his beloved would not have approved: Her outward gaiety masked great care in household matters.
He did not join the others in draining the choice bottles from the cellar, but sat at a carefully judged remove from the table where the generals laughed in a fog of tobacco smoke, illumined by painted oil lamps and silver candelabra. He knew he was but a higher form of servant to these men, but he did not resent it. The role had dignity, meaning. He wrote the orders and saw them copied, sent them off, and waited for the results. He could speak with Early’s authority to officers his senior—but did so carefully, in a gentleman’s tone, of course. When others slept, he worked. When others drank, as on this torrid night, he remained alert, declining even the offer of a Havana. And he watched.
Holding out his unaccustomed smoke, Early told the gathering, “I can tolerate a fine cigar, but damn me if I don’t start thinking of Grant every time I put a match to one. I hear the bugger smokes a box a day.”
“Blair always had a nose for good t
obacco,” Breckinridge reminisced. “A nose for Havanas, and a palate for wine.” He held up his glass. “Many a fine evening, many a time, I was a guest between these walls, you know.”
“And now you’re a guest again,” Early said, chasing the words with his high-pitched chuckle. “Pick yourself out a feather bed. Hah.” He rubbed his belly like a child. “Mighty fine ham, too. Old Blair keeps a proper smokehouse.” He turned to an orderly. “We clean his pantry out of them sardines?”
Pendleton had observed Gordon pocketing two tins. Presents for his wife, he suspected—so many goods had grown rare in the South. Gordon did not offer them up, but smiled like a big cat.
Breckinridge smiled, too, staring into the shadows. Pendleton assumed that the man’s thoughts had wandered to those last years of peace, to his troubled years as vice president of the now sundered nation, to friends torn away.
Nor was Pendleton the only one present thinking along such a path. General Rodes cocked a lopsided smile, long mustaches bristling. “My suggestion, gentlemen, is that we make up a fine imperial litter from one of these chairs … and have the men carry General Breckinridge into the Capitol in the morning. Right up to the vice president’s seat. And justice be done!”
“Here, here!” Ramseur seconded.
Even Early managed a smile. “Have to ask for volunteers, though. I won’t order any man to carry a politician on his shoulders. No, sir. We’re already carrying enough of those bastards on our backs.” He grinned at Breckinridge. “Present company excluded, of course.”
Breckinridge’s smile remained small and wistful. “It’s an odd thing, you know … seeing that dome today, completed.…” He lifted an eyebrow, pondering, and turned his head gravely from one side to the other. “Think of that, gentlemen … to finish such a project in the midst of a war, to have such resources at hand … we didn’t think of such things in ’61. Did we?”
“I’ve got half a mind to unfinish it,” Early declared. He took a graceless slug of wine and grimaced. “You fine gents can purr over this Frenchified concoction, but I’ll take Virginia whiskey, given my druthers.”
Gordon, who had spoken little, held his glass before a candelabra, admiring the ruby and purple shades of the wine. “I’d say old Blair has a taste for the finest things.” He glanced around at his comrades. “And the money to pay for them, evidently.” He turned to the serving orderly. “Any more of this down there? The Lafite?”
“Cases of it,” Breckinridge answered for the man. “It’s the elder Blair’s favorite.” His lips parted gently. “He always said it was Thomas Jefferson’s favorite, and that Jefferson knew his wines.” He turned toward Gordon, who was caught in mid-drink. “I recall one splendid evening—absolutely splendid—when Francis dismissed the servants and poured our wine himself. I remember it vividly, vividly. He’d brought up a special vintage—1818, I think it was—and told us it was the finest year Lafite had ever bottled. The man was almost in poetical raptures.” He grinned, but his mood seemed fragile. “I couldn’t tell the difference myself, I lacked an education in such matters. But we all had a splendid time, absolutely splendid. Good, old Francis…”
The former vice president lost his smile and turned back toward Early. Pendleton noticed the man’s fingers twining around the long stem of his glass, as nervous as a recruit before his first battle. “General Early … I would take it as a personal kindness, were we to spare this house. The burning of Governor Letcher’s home was unfor—”
“Already told you I would, didn’t I? Made ’em put the furniture back myself, worthless camp followers. Shoot ’em for low thieves, if we didn’t need help with the wounded.” Early grinned. His teeth had been fouled forever by tobacco. “Don’t intend to spare his cellar, though. Spoils of war, fair game. But no more speechifyng about Jean Lafitte or whoever brewed this up. Or I’ll strike the match myself.”
Breckinridge attempted to smile along. “I don’t believe Mr. Blair would begrudge us this calming beverage. On such a night. He’s a gentleman of infinite hospitality.”
Early leaned in over the table, almost toppling a wine bottle. “I’ll tell you this, though. I will not take any pains with that other house, his son’s. What will be, shall be. The man’s the damned postmaster general of the scoundrel government making war on all of us.” He smiled grimly. “Francis Preston Blair can provide hospitality for the generals. Let his son’s four walls provide for the infantry.”
Breckinridge nodded, but the gesture had no meaning. It was as if he had not heard a word of Early’s tirade. “Really, the dinners here were magnificent. White-shouldered women in Worth gowns … bejeweled … so fine, so very fine.…”
“Tompkins,” Early said, “you go on down and bring us up another armful of bottles of this slop. It does drink easy, I’ll credit the Frenchies with that much.”
Pendleton missed a stretch of conversation after that. Breckinridge’s vision of women … of white shoulders … had summoned his wife to mind, the frustrated joys and the startling disappointments. He had expected prompt bliss from his marriage, in those rare days and nights stolen from the war, assuming that satisfaction was ordained, inevitable. Even Jackson, prickly as a hedgehog, had taken ease in his beloved’s company. Or look at Gordon: When Gordon and his wife appeared together, they fairly shone. It was as if they completed each other, growing radiant in one another’s company, their happiness a paradise, a refuge. Even the public affection they displayed barely remained within the bounds of decorum, one caress short of scandal. John and Fanny Gordon were … happy.
Pendleton told himself patience was in order. Events had transpired too swiftly, due to the war. His wife was young and his rare visits after their broken honeymoon all had been too brief, hardly permitting simple familiarity. Yet he could not reason away his wife’s revulsion at marriage’s private aspects, her frozen horror. Her ignorance and dread had been bewildering, leaving him uncertain of what to do. And when he did what men did, hoping the deed would change her, it left Kate weeping and him feeling like a brute.
Still, there would be a child in the coming months. Perhaps she might warm to him afterward?
In the mornings, dressed, she would smile and kiss him, calling him pet names, treating him as she might a favored doll. But midnight made her shudder and withdraw.
He sometimes imagined asking advice of Gordon, who exuded mastery. But Sandie Pendleton knew that he would never discuss his wife with another man.
How it shamed him that his thoughts often strayed to harlots as he embraced his wife.
“Sandie?”
He woke. Glad of the interruption. “Sir?”
“Order go out to Johnson?” Early’s voice had slowed to a faint slur.
“Yes, sir. Over an hour ago.”
Early turned back to the gathering of generals. “Fool Point Lookout business. Called it off. Let Johnson and his men come on back and make themselves useful.”
“Horses are going to be blown,” Rodes said. “Lot of hard riding.”
“Better now than later. I need this army all gathered up. Here.” He turned his bent torso from one side to the other. “You enlisted men, all of you. Clear on out. We need to have us a parley ’twixt the generals.”
None of the orderlies waited for a second command.
“All right,” Early began, “I want your views. What to do, whether to attack. I’ll give you my opinion once I’ve heard everybody out. Y’all talk now.” He smirked. “Gordon, you’re not shy. You start things off.”
A man of flawless posture, whether on horseback or at table, Gordon still managed to straighten another degree. “I fear … our hour has passed, sir. You saw the reinforcements pouring in.”
Early’s smirk tightened. “Go on.”
“In my view, we were just too late. A half day, a day, it hardly matters now.”
“I suppose I should’ve marched the men harder, that your point?”
“No,” Gordon said. “Looking back, I believe that every man here d
id his best.” He held up empty palms. “Fortunes of war.”
“I thought you’d want to climb the walls of that fort yourself, come morning.”
“The heart goes one way, the rational mind another.”
Early shook his head. “Rodes?”
“I’m with John. The men we saw come up, the way they filled in the lines … those were veterans, that easy way they had … no wasted effort.” Rodes smiled, eyes aglow in the candlelight. “I don’t know if anything we might accomplish now would be worth the risk. After all, we’ve pulled Grant’s plan for the summer up right short and raised merry hell. Whipped the Yankees, from Lynchburg to the Monocacy. Campaign’s served its purpose.”
“I’m not sure the whipping was all on one side day before yesterday,” Early told him. His eyes flared and subsided again. “How are you minded, Ramseur?”
“Dogs have had a good run, sir. Every hunt has an end.”
“Mr. Vice President?”
“If those were veterans we saw … Army of the Potomac men … I don’t think the fortifications can be taken. Not without a cost so high it would destroy this army. Leave it weakened to helplessness, anyway. Burning a few—”
Early rose from his chair. A glass broke on the Turkey carpet. “I disagree, gentlemen. We’ve come this far … and I do not intend to just throw up my hands. Not when we’ve come this far.” He patted himself down, as if feeling for his tobacco pouch. “We attack at first light. That’s my decision.” He grunted and turned. “Sandie, call in the orderlies again. I feel the need for another bottle of this captured treasure.”
For the first time since Early had taken command, Pendleton spoke up.
“Sir … perhaps … given the possibility of further Union reinforcements overnight … perhaps the attack might be delayed? Until you’ve had the opportunity to inspect the—”
“Hell and damnation,” Early said, taken aback. “Even Sandie thinks I’m a damned fool now.” He snorted, but with a surprising lack of meanness. “God almighty, you’re right, son, right as a fair wind. Wine just has me going. Only makes sense to have a look in the morning, not play the fool.” He considered the solemn faces of his generals. “But all of you better be set to attack the minute I give the word.”