by Ralph Peters
“Casualties to the Cavalry Corps?” he asked Torbert. “What was the butcher’s bill?”
“Nine killed, forty-eight wounded,” Torbert said. “And some horses, of course.”
SEVENTEEN
October 17, noon
Fisher’s Hill
“Congratulations!” Clem Evans said as the farmhouse emptied. “Child’s a wonderful thing, a perfect blessing.”
“I do feel blessed,” Ramseur told him. His expression was milder than Evans ever had seen it. “More blessed than any man has a right to feel. And Grimes got his own good news right after mine.” His eyes traveled far. “Whip Phil Sheridan … maybe I can go home. See Nellie, the baby.”
“Boy or girl?”
Ramseur ran a palm over his gone-bald-too-young scalp. “Signal didn’t say. Just that everything went fine, the crisis passed.”
“Well, that’s blessing enough.” Evans paused, revisiting his own happiness. “Will say, though, a little girl’s less trouble. My boy, my Doodie now … he’s a trial to his mama, mischief he gets up to.” A proud, indulgent smile warmed his face. “Love the little devil, man can’t help himself. You’ll see.”
It was a wonderful thing, a thing worth pondering, Evans decided, an outright mercy. The way news of the birth of another man’s child could lift so many hearts amid a war. Friends and comrades did not content themselves with the standard felicities, but showed an honest pleasure, almost delight, in another man’s news—even if the event rekindled their own longing for home, for their own loved ones. Perhaps, Evans thought, it was just the affirmation of life between all the deaths, the promise that a man’s blood would go on, a swaddled, mewling hint of resurrection.
After Early abruptly ended the meeting, Evans had waited to be the last to shake Dod Ramseur’s hand, allowing his fellow generals and their attendant colonels pride of place. He reckoned that humility was as becoming in an officer as in a preacher. Rare, though.
As the last of their fellow commanders escaped the headquarters, leaving the mice and wrecked furniture to hurry back to their empty-bellied troops, the two men lingered, each unwilling to let go of the moment. Sparked with happiness, Ramseur added:
“Speaking of devils, Clem … I hear you gave the boys a blaze of a sermon, downright fiery. Glad to have our ‘fighting parson’ back.”
Evans refreshed his smile, the way a man sometimes had to in the pulpit, when worldly tremors shook the hope of Heaven. Ramseur was a good and sturdy Christian, if no Methodist, but the youthful general’s faith had a darkling tinge. Evans hoped that his Sunday sermon had, indeed, been heartening, but it hadn’t been “fiery,” not in the hellfire sense. As the war turned ever grimmer, his faith shone kindlier. Never had been a hard-gospel man, for that matter.
Evans moved the wrong way and a spear pierced his right side. Those pins. He still suffered breathtaking pains when he stirred himself heedlessly: The surgeons had not been able to extract all the fragments left by the packet of pins that got in that bullet’s way on the Monocacy. But a man could live with pain, he could learn how.
Wistfully, Evans remembered his train trip home, barely able to stand and his stitches oozing—sometimes bleeding—and there on a platform he’d spotted his wife by blessed chance as she waited to board a train headed north to find him. Their encounter amid Georgia’s suffering and confusion had been a little miracle of the Lord’s. He had hugged her tight right there, in front of all, gripping her fiercely, almost wantonly, with his wound shocking him with bolt after bolt of pain. His flesh shrieked, “Let her go!” insistent and heartless, but he would not, could not, do it, utterly unable to release her, clutching her warm and living and loved against him, and Allie clinging in return, making the pain ever worse until hot tears fled from his eyes, and as she felt the wet on her pressed-close cheek, she had said, sweetly bewildered, “Clem! You’re weeping.”
“Best be off, I reckon,” Ramseur said. “Plenty to do before morning.”
“Surely.”
Neither man moved.
“Like to hear a real plan,” Ramseur added, glancing around to be certain Early was gone. “Old Jube’s keeping things close.”
“I suspect we’ll hear this evening.”
“Doesn’t leave much time.”
“Not much.”
Both men had lost their smiles.
“I do miss Sandie Pendleton, that’s the truth,” Ramseur admitted. “Kept the old man as close to even-keeled as anyone could.”
“I’ve prayed for his soul,” Evans said.
General Gordon, on whom Evans had been waiting, broke off a discussion with Jed Hotchkiss. The Georgian left the mapmaker hunting through papers.
“Well, Dod,” Gordon said, voice rich, “you’re shining like the polished shield of Perseus, like the bright helm of Achilles.” When Gordon grinned, the left side of his mouth lagged behind the right, constricted by an old scar. His Antietam wound, Evans knew. “Fatherhood will do that to a man.”
“Feel like I could run barefoot to North Carolina,” Ramseur said, reminded that there was happiness in the world. “I want to see Nellie and the baby so bad.”
“Well, don’t run off just yet,” Gordon told him. “We’re going to need you. Way I’ve been in terrible need of Clem here, while he was home luxuriating.” He settled a hand, briefly, on Ramseur’s shoulder. “And when you do go, Dod, I suggest the train.”
“Do you have any sense of what Early’s thinking?” Ramseur asked. “He called us all in here, then told us round about nothing. Just ‘prepare to attack in the morning.’ That’s hardly…”
“Hardly like to build confidence,” Gordon completed the thought. “Fact is I don’t believe he’s made up his mind. About this attack, how to do it. He’s looking at hitting them on their right, over where the ground gentles out. But that’s too obvious, and he knows it.” He gestured toward the landscape beyond the walls. “And Fisher’s Hill doesn’t bring back the best of memories.” He turned to Evans. “Be glad you weren’t there, Clem.”
“Strength’s back up, though,” Ramseur countered. “With Kershaw back. We’ve got almost as many men as we did before Winchester.”
Gordon nodded and folded his arms, a favorite stance. “Numbers are fine, but I’m not sure about morale. These men need to win. And as for reinforcements, Kershaw’s it. No more men in Lee’s pocket, we have to get this one right. Or the Valley’s gone forever.”
Deprived of his cheer again, Ramseur stared at the floor.
Laying a hand on the younger man’s shoulder, Gordon told him, “Go on back to your men, Dod. Do what you have to do. Then think about your good news, let yourself savor it. Hotchkiss and I are going to have a look at things, see if we can’t devise some martial astonishment.” He turned. “Clem, you’re welcome to come along, I’m minded toward your company. If you feel ready to drag that carcass along.”
“Where?”
“Signal station. Up on Three Top. Tough climb, I’m told. Fair warning.”
Evans caught Gordon glancing at his side.
“Hotchkiss was up there in August,” Gordon continued, “makes it sound like Mount Olympus, only prettier. Claims a man can see the entire world.” He produced a smaller, fiercer smile. “Figure we’ll have a look at Sheridan’s bunch, see if those boys are still sitting on their backsides, gobbling salt pork.” The smile died. “Find out what’s waiting for us, if nothing else.”
October 17, noon
The War Department, Washington, D.C.
“No,” Sheridan said.
He looked in turn at the two men arrayed against him, meeting their glowers with an assurance he had not felt on his last visit to this office. Two months and a string of victories made the difference.
The room smelled of wax and cigar smoke.
“No,” he repeated. “I just don’t see it.”
First, he addressed Halleck, a bug-eyed, blustering man who had saved him from obscurity three years before, a man who’d possessed the skil
l to organize armies, but not the gift for leading them in battle. Now his hour was past, eclipsed by Grant.
“Such extensive fortifications would only tie down my army. And a fortress built to protect Manassas Gap and the railroad line wouldn’t even stop that horse thief Mosby. We must remain mobile, mobility’s the key.”
“Grant’s not mobile,” Halleck said. “He hasn’t moved from Petersburg since June.” Halleck was a man who could not keep spite from his voice on the best of days. And this was not his best day.
“He doesn’t have to be,” Sheridan answered. “That’s my point. Lee’s made a fortress of Petersburg and Richmond. And he’s sacrificed his freedom to maneuver. Lee’s trapped himself, now it’s only a matter of time.”
A far greater menace than Halleck, Secretary Stanton reentered the fray from behind his desk: “There can be no more advances on Washington, Sheridan. Not so much as a feint. Not a one-horse raid.” He sat back, locking his fingers together as if grinding a tiny creature between his palms. Frozen behind spectacles, Stanton’s eyes never faltered in a staring match. “That, I believe, is what General Halleck seeks to communicate, the point of his recommendations. With the election but weeks away”—he freed the invisible animal, waving it off—“I won’t have any embarrassments. Do I speak with sufficient clarity, General Sheridan?”
Gesturing toward a table covered with plans he found ridiculous, Sheridan replied, “Those fortifications couldn’t be finished before the election, anyway.”
He was instantly sorry he’d said it. The observation was so obvious, so embarrassing to the scheme’s proponents, it smacked of insolence.
“We must … we have to consider the period after the election, too,” Halleck spluttered. “The war’s not over, nothing’s guaranteed. The security of Washington…” The man wet the air when he spoke, misting the faces of anyone sitting too near.
“Of course,” Sheridan said as a gesture of appeasement, “your design is the classic solution, General Halleck, classic Vauban. No West Point man could miss it. But with the South nearing collapse … there’s a stronger case for leaving a limited maneuver force in the Valley, just enough men to keep an eye on things, while the Sixth Corps moves to reinforce Grant and bring all this to an end. We have to move against Lee with all we have. We have to move.”
“But you don’t deny the inherent merit of fortifications,” Halleck tried. “History instructs us in their value, you know.”
“Of course not. Fortresses … have their place. It’s only a matter of using our resources as effectively as possible. At this stage in the war.” To soothe his old master further, he added, without a grain of sincerity, “It’s a shame your plan, this fortified line, wasn’t put in place years ago. It would … have made a difference. Earlier.”
He glanced at Stanton and met reptile’s eyes behind glinting spectacles. Stanton understood what he had just done, of course. But the secretary of war was no longer concerned with Halleck, an ally who had failed him.
“Grant,” Stanton said, “believes you should move your army across the Blue Ridge. And take Charlottesville. Then go on to Lynchburg, close the noose around Lee.”
Sheridan saw the trap, but not an easy way out of it. Grant was his protector, the man who had forced his appointment past these two men when they questioned his ability. But Grant didn’t see the difficulties such a move would face with the Valley ruined—if they’d cut off food and fodder for the Rebels, they’d done the same to themselves, and a long supply line over the Blue Ridge or even switched to the east merely invited partisan attacks. He’d need as many men to guard his rear as he had at the front. That wasn’t the mobility he had in mind.
But he wouldn’t criticize Grant before these men. Stanton and Halleck practiced divide-and-conquer. And Sheridan had no intention of being conquered.
“General Grant sees the thing entire, of course. I defer to him,” he lied.
He had no intention of marching across the Blue Ridge in the winter, emulating Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow in reverse. Grant could be persuaded, given time. Sheridan had already determined that when the game reached its final moves, he would be fighting at Grant’s side, not licking his wounds after a march to nowhere or sitting in some useless fortress, waiting for an attack by a phantom army.
“General Halleck?” Stanton said coolly. “My apologies for keeping you from your labors. I’ll see off General Sheridan.”
Dismissed, humiliated, and, apparently, growing accustomed to such treatment, Halleck mumbled farewell.
When the door shut behind the chief of staff, Stanton permitted silence to fill the room, to gather force. Sheridan’s ears fell prey to the suddenly audible noise from the teeming avenue—a thoroughfare even busier and more prosperous than it had been mere months before. Riches bloomed from corpses, at least in the North. Willard’s Hotel, where he’d breakfasted in haste, harbored as many men of business and favor seekers as it did do-nothing officers.
The secretary of war sat unnervingly still, a judge before whom no felon would choose to stand.
Sheridan had to remind himself that he was no felon. On the contrary, he had given Stanton victories.
The secretary introduced a tiny sound, that of fingertips tapping a closed fist.
Sheridan met his stare, refusing to waver.
At last, Stanton spoke: “It’s a splendid thing, I suppose, to see oneself celebrated in all the newspapers.” He separated his hands. “No doubt, it’s a heady feeling, intoxicating.” His viper’s eyes fixed Sheridan. “Of course, you’re too sound a man to succumb to all that. You’re wise enough to know … that today’s hero often proves tomorrow’s fool.”
The slit of Stanton’s mouth shifted in what might have been a smile. “Poor George McClellan, for example. I recall how beloved the fellow was, adored by the men and women of the North. By children, too, for that matter.” He laid a white hand on his desk. “Who worships McClellan now? A handful of traitorous Copperheads, and even they have doubts.” The faint realignment of the lips recurred. “And he dreamed of becoming president? After the press had moved on to more promising men, after ridicule had begun to coil around him? Military men … lose themselves in the labyrinth of politics, a netherworld they find inscrutably foreign. McClellan never had a chance, he hadn’t the subtle mind such matters require. And now? He’s become a horse’s ass, a ruined man. The election hasn’t taken place and he’s already half-forgotten.”
This time, Stanton’s smile was unmistakable. “And what of the soldiers, I ask you? The men on whom he counted, whose hearts he believed he’d won for all eternity? Fickle as spoiled girls. Now that we’re winning the war, they’ll go for Lincoln. Little Mac never understood human nature.” The secretary tilted his head slightly to one side, just as Sheridan had seen rattlesnakes do. “He assumed that adulation doesn’t expire. But the affections of the herd are merely the froth on a pail of milk. The bubbles fade as you watch.”
Peering over his spectacles, Stanton’s eyes glowed from the shadows of his brow. “But you, Sheridan? I look at you … and I see a man of high talent, of eminent suitability for your profession. And, I hope, of commensurate sense.” The not-quite-smile flickered. “The esteem of the public can be destroyed overnight, you understand.”
Stanton sat up straight, changing his posture as he changed the subject. “You’re absolutely convinced that Early’s finished? What about that encounter a few days back?”
“Hardly more than a skirmish.”
“Our forces withdrew, though.”
“Hupp’s Hill has no value to us. Not now. Early was just trying to salvage his pride. What little remains of it.”
Stanton nodded. “I’m also told that your signalmen intercepted a curious message. To the effect that General Longstreet had arrived.”
The secretary’s knowledge startled Sheridan.
“I don’t believe it for an instant,” he told Stanton. “The Rebs would never let the cat out of the bag by waving signal fl
ags in our faces. They’d throw away any chance they had of surprise.” He leaned toward Stanton. “And surprise would be their only chance. No, that signal was nothing but a ruse. Longstreet never came.”
“But to what purpose? This ruse?”
“Early’s afraid, that’s my guess. He’s trying to spook me, deter us from attacking him. He can’t afford another debacle.”
“He followed you down the Valley, though.”
“Matter of pride, all of it’s about their endless pride. Trying to show he’s active, doing something. He won’t last long. There’s not a crumb to eat between my army and Lexington, and I took most of his wagons. He can’t keep his men supplied right now, let alone as the weather worsens.” He met Stanton’s relentless stare again. “Early’s played out.”
“One hopes,” Stanton said. He rose. Again, he almost smiled. “My congratulations once more on your torrent of victories.” He made no move to come from behind the desk and offer a handshake. “I hope I shall never hear the usual calumnies leveled at you—journalists are unforgiving, mind you. Look at George Meade. It’s almost as if someone poisoned the press against him. Of course, you’ll always count me among your supporters, Sheridan.” He canted his head again. “But there’s only so much a single man can do.”
When Sheridan didn’t answer, Stanton added, “I believe you have a special train? Don’t let me keep you, General.”
Sheridan nodded. “I want to get back to my army.”
“You have concerns?”
“No. I’ve just never cared for the Cedar Creek line. I intend to fall back on Winchester. Better ground.” He gave Stanton hard eye for hard eye. “I was summoned to Washington before I could start my movement.”
“Ah, yes. Conflicting demands, the vicissitudes of generalship.” The secretary took up a paper from his desk, as if it suddenly needed his attention.
Sheridan saluted. Stanton chose not to notice.