by Ralph Peters
Of course, he couldn’t—and wouldn’t—avoid the couriers reporting the ever-increasing count of cannon and flags taken, of guns and wagons recovered, of prisoners captured. He reveled in those numbers; he’d just had too large a ration of human beings. His usual mood of celebration in the wake of a victory, the urge to be surrounded by good men sharing a bottle, of that he was inexplicably bereaved.
Arms folded across his chest, he lingered before the bonfire, its crackle and flare fueled by empty ammunition crates and the scraps of a wagon splintered by a shell. The fire’s warmth was a fine thing, wonderfully inhuman, and welcome in the stiffening autumn night.
Within the house, a man screamed. Sheridan damned the softhearted fool who’d allowed the surgeons to set themselves up in his headquarters. How on earth was a fellow supposed to think? You had to be hard, harder than the man on the other side.
Had he been damned lucky, though? Was that the truth of the matter? Blessed not to have been present for the debacle in the morning? Would his presence have made a difference, or would he have faltered as the others had? Had he been better placed by fate at Winchester, so he could ride, untainted, to rescue the army after others failed? The newspapermen who’d stayed with the army, the few who hadn’t fled, had already pawed him up, thrilled at the story they had to tell and equally pleased that their absent colleagues had missed it.
They would not merely report his feat, they’d exaggerate it beyond the bounds of the plausible. Not because they admired him, not really, but because they wanted to top each other’s versions.
Just in case, he had treated them to whiskey while he regaled them. Not all of his staff’s papers and maps had been rescued in the morning’s evacuation, but some intelligent orderly saved the liquor. And there, on the field he had reclaimed, he had poured the ginger-colored broth into the scribblers’ cups with his own hand, letting them laud him with praise of his achievement.
Now they were gone, those creatures of ink, in a race to the nearest military telegraph office, with his signed authorization to transmit their stories and grant them priority over routine messages. And his generals, too, had heaped on the congratulations, as if he were Napoleon and Frederick made one, and he had praised his generals in turn, and no more was said about the mistakes of the morning or about flawed dispositions and poor vigilance.
He considered taking a dose of whiskey himself, but preferred not to go inside the house to get it. He could not explain his mood, but felt that any movement from his spot would be for the worse. Flames snapped and the tower of wood fell inward. Sparks leapt into the night like fleeing men, as if the fire had suddenly grown too hot for them. In the distance, far to the south, flurries of shots marked the continuing pursuit.
Cruel, to run men to ground like that. But there was no other way to make an end of things. And the Johnnies had asked for it.
Early was broken this time, broken for good. He had misjudged the man’s resilience, true enough, but this day had a finality none could mistake. Early was finished, and soon enough the Confederacy would be finished, probably after tormenting itself through one last hungry winter.
The fire was mesmerizing, inexplicably pleasing, but the paper assault that followed a battle could be held off no longer. He remained by the fire but reviewed reports, gave authorizations, and signed a dispatch he’d dictated—wouldn’t Grant be pleased? Riders came and went. Forsyth brought him scalding coffee in his bone china mug—Sheridan did not tolerate tin cups—and he cradled it in his hands, taking in the aroma, suddenly aware that he’d wanted just this thing: to be alive on this cold night with a mug of fresh-made coffee. To be alive. And victorious.
“Something to eat, sir?” Forsyth asked.
“This’ll do fine. Not hungry.”
But he knew Forsyth well enough to calculate, almost to the minute, when the aide would reappear with a slice of ham or the like between two cuts of bread.
A cavalcade approached. It didn’t take a bonfire’s light to recognize George Custer.
George dismounted theatrically, with acrobatics worthy of a circus show. Grinning like a damned fool all the while.
“Ain’t it splendid?” Custer called, pulling off his gloves, striding, shaking off the saddle stiffness the way a dog sheds water. “It’s the most complete victory of the entire war! Ain’t it glorious?”
“Yes, George,” Sheridan agreed. “Good work.”
“I feel like dancing and howling at the moon.”
For a moment, Sheridan feared that the younger man would pick him up again. He tensed at the thought.
But Custer just slapped one glove against the other. “Don’t think I lost more than a few dozen men, you should’ve seen it.”
“I saw enough. By the way, Charlie Lowell’s dying. Or dead by now.”
“Oh, bad luck.” Custer sounded as though he’d missed the soup course.
“And Ramseur. Isn’t he a friend of yours?”
“Old Dod? We were at West Point at the same time. What about him?”
“You don’t know?”
Still half grinning, Custer said, “Old Doddie get himself captured? He’ll be hot.…”
“For God’s sake, George. Your own men captured the ambulance he was in. They brought him here, he’s inside.”
“Wounded?”
“Dying.”
Custer considered that. “Hard luck. I’m sorry to hear it.”
They stood before the fire, each waiting for the other to speak first. At last, Sheridan asked, “Don’t you think you should see him? He’s still conscious. At least, he was when I looked in on him. Not feeling much pain, I don’t think. But the surgeons agree he won’t live through the night. Don’t you want to say good-bye to him, George?”
Fidgeting like a child during a sermon, Custer said, “I suppose I should. I mean, I don’t want to crowd in on him, add to his burden.”
“Merritt sat with him. As long as he could.”
“Wesley’s good at that sort of business. Ain’t he?”
“George…”
“Oh, well. Poor Dod. Better have a look, I suppose. Buck him up.”
“Christ, George. Don’t try to ‘buck him up.’ I understand his wife’s just had a baby. He’s never seen it, doesn’t know if it’s a son or daughter. And, for God’s sake, don’t go bragging about your victory.”
Wounded, Custer said, “I don’t think I brag.” He looked up dolefully. “Do you, Phil?”
Good Christ. “I think he’ll be glad to see you, George. You’re the very breath of life. Now go on in.”
Reluctant but obedient, Custer jingled up the stairs to the busy house. Sheridan thought: After the war, we’ll have to keep the bugger in the Army. Wouldn’t be fair to turn him loose on the citizenry.
Alone and staring into the fire again, into the blaze that celebrated his triumph, Sheridan felt possessed by a wordless sorrow.
That ended when Forsyth brought him some beef on a biscuit.
11:00 p.m.
Cedar Creek
Gordon could not judge how long he’d lain unconscious or how far he’d fallen. He tested each limb, each finger, and explored his throbbing skull. Hardly felt ready to lead off the cotillion, but he seemed to be intact within his skin.
Ached like the devil, though. When he rose, his head swam through muddied-up air. His eyes struggled. Leaving him a touch dizzy.
Tore hell out of his uniform. New one, too. Still, just standing up whole counted as a miracle.
The second miracle was that his horse stood nearby, nosing in the grass, another unlikely survivor.
Gordon listened. The firing, what there was of it, had moved off. Nearby, though, up on the high ground, hooves pounded. And there were shouts. Cavalry. Searching.
He petted his mount, making low and soothing sounds, cooing to a baby. Carefully, gently, he traced the animal’s limbs.
The horse seemed fine, a wonder. But even if they could have climbed back up that bank, riding off across Yankee-owne
d ground seemed a tad ill-considered.
Where there was such a drop, though, there had to be a streambed. And streams led to creeks, and creeks led on to rivers. Gordon figured he’d best walk the horse along the ravine until he found a trail far enough removed from the fray and fuss to give him a chance. Failing in that, he could work along to a ford down on the river.
He was glad to be in one piece after that leap, but couldn’t say he’d had the finest luck, not overall. After the glorious morning, Fortuna had turned her wheel, leaving him a victor robbed of his victory and a general without a division. Or even a hat.
Well, hats could be purchased, divisions reassembled. Irate though he was, he knew he should count his blessings. He would bear no blame.
He stumbled along, hushing the horse, determined.
And not just determined to rejoin the army—or what bits and pieces remained of it. He intended to find a way to have himself recalled from the Valley. Early’s reputation was played out, beyond repair. Any man who remained with him would see his own reputation tarnished as well. Early was finished, the Valley was finished. But John Gordon wasn’t done.
Come what might of the war, advantage waited at Robert E. Lee’s side. Lee was the one who’d escape vilification, no matter what happened, and those seen as close to Lee would be judged the stalwarts. The trick now was to become Lee’s man, not Early’s.
With a dried-up streambed’s stones annoying his feet through the soles of his boots—fine boots, but worn thin as slippers—Gordon swore he’d get back to the Petersburg lines, even if it required the Labors of Hercules.
As for Jubal Early, he owed the man nothing.
October 20, 2:00 a.m.
The Valley of the Shenandoah
His feet were in a sorrow. And the scrap of sleep hadn’t helped none. Nor did the sight he saw when he woke up.
The moon had run high. Reckoning that he and the passel of fugitives he’d joined must be near the base of Three Top Mountain, Nichols stepped from the trees into a clearing to fix his bearings. He let the moon tug his eyes on south, and the outline of Three Top—unmistakable even seen from an unexpected slant—just hit him like a fist aimed low in the belly.
Three Top was there, all right. But they weren’t nowheres near the foot of that refuge, nor did they just need to find a ford to scoot through. The mountain had slipped a goodly distance south. Which meant they’d blundered in the earlier dark, men who hadn’t slept for two days and who’d just got a licking, and, fool him, he’d let that lieutenant gather him up and lead him along, since that was what officers were supposed to do.
Gripping himself, just straightening right up, Nichols dashed back into the scrub trees and kicked apart the fire the others were raising.
“What the hell, you crazy sumbitch?”
“Yankees. We got all turned around. We’re in their rear, talk quiet.”
The lieutenant—name of Baskett, how it sounded—said, “That can’t be.”
“Lieutenant, we need to get on. Now. Come daylight, we’ll be taken up.”
Befuddled, the lieutenant just repeated, “That can’t be.”
“Come look out here,” Nichols invited him, heading back to that field of revelation, but cautious this time.
“Can’t be,” the lieutenant said again, brushing off the last grip of his sleep.
“Where y’all from, Lieutenant?” Nichols had begun to add things up and he wasn’t fond of the sum.
“Miss’ippi. Kershaw’s Division.”
Yes, that explained it some. This officer and his maybe eight men all lost as children got into a blackwater swamp, and a hard stroke on him for joining up with them.
“You and your men just been here a speck of days. I hoofed this ground till I’m tired even thinking on it. You look down there, Lieutenant. That outline, that there mountain, right of the moon.”
“I see it.”
“Sir, that’s Three Top. Looks different from up here, but you look close. Remember looking east from Fisher’s Hill? That mountain across the river?”
“Can’t be. That one there’s six miles away.”
“Look close.”
“I’m looking.”
“You seeing?”
“I’m seeing. Oh, Lord Jesus.”
Nichols let it all burn deep. The lieutenant shook his head in the silver light. Getting his first good look at the man, at this officer who had held out a promise of rescue hours back, Nichols realized that if there was a year’s age between them, it wasn’t more than that. Just made him feel sicker, pondering that. As if he’d been fooled by a city feller come out on the train.
“What are we going to do?” the lieutenant asked.
“Reckon we ought to get going, sir. Cover what ground we can. Before the light comes up.”
“I just don’t know how we got so turned around,” the lieutenant said, dropped in a pot of wonder, with embarrassment stirred in. He edged closer to Nichols and lowered his voice again. “Figure you could lead us out of here? I’ll appoint you as our scout, like it’s official.”
“Do the best I can, sir. But we got to go soon, and we got to go on quiet.”
“I’ll see to that.” But he didn’t move. “You think we can make it?” he asked, all of the officer gone out of him now. Church-earnest. Maybe afraid. Afraid, surely.
Nichols was spooked, too. He’d heard the stories about those Yankee prisons. Elmira, worst of all. He knew, heart-deep, that his own kind would never treat prisoners like that.
He also knew—understood in the queer way men did—that he was the leader now, that the lieutenant would inhabit his rank again only when they were safe. If safe they ever were.
“Best get on,” Nichols said. Firmly.
And they went, the men grumbling for a stretch, then too tired to whisper. Nichols’ bare feet had lost some of their toughness, and more than just some, across a summer and autumn of shod going. He winced at the hurt, even felt girl tears come up.
Ain’t going to cry, he told himself, ain’t nothing on this earth can make me cry. But he did not turn around, would not let those trailing him see his face, as he led that little chain of Mississippians, men even farther from their homes than he was. He clutched his rifle, his last possession, in a strangler’s grip, meaning to brace his manhood and steady his innards. But in that cold-handed, Yankee-haunted dark, the tears came anyway.
Walking into the moon, walking south into that white, revealing moon, Nichols gave his word to the Lord above and to all men below that he wasn’t wet of cheek because they’d been whipped again, maybe for good this time, nor because he couldn’t know just what had become of Sergeant Alderman, whether those saber-swinging Yankees had killed or spared him. He didn’t know the come-outs of his other war-kin, either, whether Lem Davis and Dan Frawley, Tom Boyet or Ive Summerlin, or even Elder Woodfin, all righteous men, had escaped the tribulation.
He wasn’t even crying because, for the first time, for the first true can’t-fool-yourself time, he had to ask what would become of them all, of their whole world, if they lost the war. He wasn’t dripping from the tip of his nose and tasting salt because he was scared or homesick, either. Not even because he’d had his fill of fighting and wanted to wake up in a bed and not rise till he was ready. He wasn’t weeping over unmet girls or from dreaming of his still-nameless bride, unsullied and inevitable, nor even because his heart was broken like a buttermilk jug hurled down, no reason to it. Wasn’t even the hurtsome way of the world. It was another, bitter loss entirely:
Them shoes.
EPILOGUE
March 2, 1865
Waynesboro, Virginia
Sleet bit the faces of the twelve hundred men who remained in Early’s Army of the Valley. Arrayed on a ridge just west of the town of Waynesboro, with the Shenandoah curving at their backs, the sick and starving remnants of a once great force stared out through an ugly sky as thousands of Union cavalrymen—not blue, but brown from mud—arrived on the road from Staunton. Men fl
inched, and not just from the ice-needles hunting their eyes.
Their general was determined to make a stand. Long enough to evacuate five guns stranded without limbers or teams and a few last supplies. Perhaps even long enough to discourage Sheridan from crossing the Blue Ridge here, at Rockfish Gap.
Old Jube knew he was outnumbered ten to one, that his own force was barely a fifteenth the size of the columns he had led into Maryland in July. But he held high ground, and for once, the weather seemed helpful. The fields rising to his lines had become mires, promising to stunt a cavalry charge. His numbers might not reach far enough to anchor his flanks on the river, but a man fought with the tools he had at hand. On this day, those tools were not quite a thousand infantrymen, a bare hundred horsemen still riding under Rosser, and one good battery of six ice-sheathed guns.
Fingers froze as shivering men clutched weapons. Too cold and weary to dig entrenchments and brace them in the slop, they waited behind piled fence rails. And they waited.
Against all reason, Early believed he could hold. Because he had to hold. And because he was Jubal Early. Who could not let Sheridan pass by unmolested.
Midafternoon. No rations, hot or cold. Men wet through, rifles slick with water that turned to ice.
More Federal horsemen, grim on the horizon.
Peering at his enemies, fired with the passion of an exemplary hater, and stubborn to death even now, Early could not identify Custer’s division, or Merritt’s trailing behind. Their flags were rolled and sheathed against the sleet, and mud-clotted rubber ponchos hid identities. It didn’t matter. He and his men would fight whoever came at them.
Even as Early received reports of dismounted troopers working around his left, even as he heard the tap-pop of their Spencers, he believed that he could hold that last position.
Even as two thousand horsemen advanced toward his line, with two thousand more behind them, four thousand pairs of shoulders bent by the weather, even then, as he watched their mounts plod forward, smacking up mud and more mud, even then Early believed that he could hold.