Death Piled Hard: A Tale of the Confederate Secret Services

by W. Patrick Lang

  Tied to the post, Comfort looked like any other Southern soldier. Someone had found him some clothing so that he would not have to die in the enemy's uniform.

  Father Sheeran, the brigade Catholic chaplain, stood beside him.

  "I fergiv' yuh all," Cain Comfort cried out from the stake. "Yer ony doin' yer duty, all uv yuh. You too, Sergeant Harris. Yer a good man. I wish I'd known yuh!"

  Harris walked down the line of the firing party, passing behind them, whispering a few words to each.

  "In the heart, in the head, in the heart..."

  Having finished his walk, he took his station at the right of the firing squad.

  The priest moved away.

  "Shoot straight boys! Don't let him hurt!" Harris said. He looked up, into the eyes of Balthazar who nodded slightly.

  "God bless our country!" called out the man at the stake. "God bless the Confederate States! God bless Louisiana!"

  "Present!

  Aim!

  Fire!"

  The volley crashed on the wintry air, the smoke billowing and rolling.

  Comfort sagged, collapsing in on himself, hanging in his bonds.

  Harris drew his revolver, and walked to the stake. He looked closely at the body, and felt for a pulse in the side of the throat. Thumbing back the hammer of his pistol, he fired the grace shot into the brain.

  Among the Union troops, a mounted group of senior officers watched. Shivering from the cold, Major General George Gordon Meade, turned his horse to ride back along the turnpike, back to a building he had passed, where he could get out of the rain.

  That night, the Army of the Potomac began to withdraw from the south bank of the Rapidan. They crossed on their excellent pontoon bridges, departing unmolested from the presence of this enemy from whom they had yet to seize a victory.

  The Confederates stood to arms in the freezing rain and sleet. In the morning their patrols followed the Yankees' trail of abandoned equipment and broken down animals, followed it all the way to the river bank. That afternoon the Rebel infantry left their trenches and started back down the roads to the west, back to their winter camps.

  After this withdrawal, Lincoln decided to bring Ulysses Grant east to take command.

  Chapter 11

  Snowballs

  - 3 December – (The Office of Colonel Lafayette Baker)

  “When will Grant arrive,” Baker asked. He had one hand in his curly black beard for the purpose of scratching his neck. This “tic” was familiar to all those who knew him well. It showed up whenever he was ill at ease and feeling threatened by unexpected events. His impassive face and well controlled body rarely betrayed his feelings in other ways. Just now, he was uneasy because of the sudden and unexpected arrival of Edwin Stanton in his Pennsylvania Avenue offices.

  “Damned if I know,” Stanton said. “The matter is out of my hands. The president and that group of young men around him are all afire to have Grant take over the Army as soon as possible. I wanted to give Meade another chance, maybe even bring back Hooker, but Lincoln just ignored me, just ignored me…”

  The clatter of traffic in the street beneath the windows obscured some of Stanton’s words. Baker leaned toward the Secretary of War, knowing that it would be dangerous to miss the import of whatever it was that Stanton had come to say. It must be something that Stanton did not want overheard. Otherwise, he could have summoned Baker to 17th Street. The two offices were only a mile apart.

  Watching Stanton closely, Baker estimated the level of his rage. The red face and throbbing temple vein told him much. From long association he knew that Stanton’s internal “temperature” had brought him close to an explosion. “So, Grant is going to take command of the Army of the Potomac?” Baker asked.

  “No! God damn it! He is going to be Commanding General of the whole US Army. They are going to renew the title of Lieutenant General for him. He will be the first to hold that rank since Washington. I tried to tell the president that this is not a good idea, that he will have the idea that he really is in charge of the Army, that…” His voice trailed off.

  “What about Halleck? What about Meade?” Baker whispered. What about me? He thought.

  “I don’t know about Meade. Grant wrote to me to ask to that Halleck

  stay on as some sort of Chief of Staff to ‘look after the Army’s business in Washington.’ The message was clear. I am to stay out of his business. This wretched drunk has the audacity to tell me that I should stay out of his business!”

  Ah.

  Baker glanced away from the darkened face. His offices were very simple. Austere would not be too strong a word. The white walls were without adornment. He and Stanton sat in straight backed chairs around a cheap table, something a soldier had bought for him in a local store. “He wins battles,” was all he could find to say.

  “Yes! Yes! That is what I am told every time I try to raise some point about the rashness of these steps. He wins battles.”

  A sly smile crept over Baker’s regular features. “He hasn’t met Robert Lee yet.” A thought came to him. “Did he know him… before?” The wartime volunteers like Baker often seemed almost furtive in asking about the ties that still bound the officers of the old Regular Army to each other.

  “Not that I know of,” Stanton said. “A drunken failure of a captain would hardly have known Lee either professionally or socially.” He clearly relished the thought.

  “Was there something else, Mr. Secretary?” Surely Stanton had not come to visit just to complain of Lincoln’s fickle nature.

  “No. Yes. There is this man, Devereux…”

  Baker’s predatory instincts now held him in suspense waiting for some sign that he might yet capture his lost prey. He said nothing, waiting for a cue.

  “You are still watching him and his family?”

  “Yes, and mighty expensive it is. Why is he of renewed interest?”

  Stanton blinked and shifted in his chair. ‘I am not convinced of his loyalty. There is something about him, something… unrepentant. He has an attitude of unspoken superiority.”

  “I see.”

  Yes. I see. He makes you feel like a buffoon and a fool. Well, he makes most people feel that way.

  “You did appoint him to a position in your offices…”

  Stanton looked trapped. “A mistake. Many people recommended the appointment. I thought it was a good idea, but now I see that his influence grows constantly. His friends at the French and British embassies sponsor him.”

  “Assistant Secretary Davenport in your offices explained to me in this room that Devereux was your instrument in feeding the French what you wanted them to hear.”

  “Yes. Yes, but I am not sure that I am using him and not the other way around… He now has virtually unrestricted access to the president. Lincoln sends for him to discuss all kinds of matters concerning the rebels.”

  “What would you have me do?”

  “Watch him. Watch everyone connected to him. Perhaps you should bring back that major from Kentucky, the one who accused him before.”

  “He is dead. He was killed by the mob in New York during the riots in July.”

  Stanton was silent at the news. “What about the one armed captain who was his helper?”

  “Ford? He went back to the artillery, to Hunt’s staff. Someone told me recently that he was brevetted to major after Gettysburg.”

  “I will have him brought back,” Stanton said.

  “He will not be pleased. He does not like the work.”

  My God, I do not want that man back here.

  “I do not much like him. He is a regular officer. You know how difficult they can be.”

  “That is your problem. I will have him made a lieutenant colonel of volunteers, no, a colonel. That will make him Devereux’s equal in rank. Yes. That is what I will do.” Stanton seemed satisfied with the thought, and having decided what to do about Claude Devereux, he rose and left the room without another word.

  - 15 December (In Ca
mp Near Orange, Virginia)

  It snowed hard the night of the fourteenth. Big, white flakes came floating down in the windless darkness. A new moon did not bestow enough light to see well, but if you left your hut to stand alone in the forest, you could feel the snow in your eyebrows and on your cheeks. You could smell the smoke from the chimneys, and hear the gentle sound of the flakes landing all around. You knew from the sound that it would snow all night, and that there would be deep, heavy, new snow in the morning.

  Dawn brought with it the still, shimmering brightness that makes a winter's day seem full of new promise. It was the kind of day which gives men back their childhood for a time.

  The snowball battle began about ten A.M. in a skirmish between some Alabama men and a wood cutting party from Coppens' Zouaves. The Louisianans had worked hard since breakfast with two man cross-cut saws, dropping trees for their division's saw-mill. The rasp of the saws and the ribald French songs of the detail could be heard across the surrounding fields. Men stood outside their huts to listen. They scratched and spat while making comments on the singing.

  It was probably the obsessive nattiness of the Zouaves that set off the attack, the grey baggy pants and the embroidered red vests. Perhaps that was it, or perhaps it was nothing in particular. Maybe they just happened to be there, looking the other way while they worked, and not seeing the stealthy advance through the trees.

  The opening fusillade of snowballs smeared white across the red vests. More than one Zouave combed snow from long hair with his fingers. The trunks of oaks and pines suddenly bore snowy circles. Coppens' men reacted with the ferocity that was their pride. The gaudy red and grey figures chased the brown men back through the woods into the meadow from which they had come.

  The spectacle of the “Tigers” in hot pursuit drew the attention of all. Men laughed, clapped hands to thighs and yelled encouragement to the Alabamians who had made the attack. No one liked the Zouaves much. Their finery and rough behavior with the country people were irritating to many. This was an opportunity to pay them back.

  The raiding party's friends came rushing across the open ground. The snow was calf deep. The Alabamians ran awkwardly, unused to this strange impediment. Nearing the "enemy," they scooped up handfuls of snow to pack into ammunition. In "line of battle", they laid down a withering fire which drove the Zouaves back to the wood line. Seeing the “enemy,” in retreat the Alabama men ran on through the trees and out into the sunshine beyond. In the open, they looked around, realizing that they had pursued the Zouaves into the very heart of Harry Hays' division camp. The attack lost speed. A run became a walk. The walk slowed to a stop. Then, they began to back away, turning toward their own huts.

  Across Hays' division, drums began to beat the long roll. Over their shoulders the retreating men saw company streets fill as officers formed their units.

  All the rest of the day, the fight raged through the woods and fields around the camps. Three times the heavy masses of men from the Deep South drove the Stonewall Division's Virginians and Hays’ Pelicans before them, drove them back through the camps, driving with the force of their numbers the men who had followed Old Jack when all who knew him had thought him mad.

  About three o'clock, Brigadier General Jim Walker arrived up to take charge of the Stonewall Division. He stood in the snow laughing and talking with Leroy Stafford and the other senior officers on the scene. Balthazar stood beside him listening to the discussion of tactics with a broad smile. He was a chaos of snow from head to foot, and resembled a snowball more than anything else. They all looked like that, all the hundreds and hundreds of soldiers.

  A jug appeared and passed around the circle of officers.

  Behind them, Smoot had the battalion in line, a central piece in the defensive position holding off an attack during the staff conference.

  "Yer not gonna' thrink all that?" an Irish voice questioned from Balthazar's ranks.

  "Shut up ye scut!" roared O'Brien from his post. "The gentlemen will have yer need for liquid sustenance in mind, I'm sure."

  Walker sent them the jug.

  "Major Balthazar, perhaps you could advise us at this critical moment?" Walker said across the six feet between them.

  Balthazar looked pleased, scuffed a foot in the snow, and peered around the group of officers to see if they were watching.

  Their friendly faces reassured.

  He looked in the snow for a stick, found one the right length, and after breaking off a few twigs, knelt to draw on the white surface.

  ----------------------------------------------------------------Roars of triumph shook the trees, as the opponents of the Stonewall Division watched in puzzlement, and not a little disappointment as nearly half their "enemies" threw up hands in disgust and simply walked away, turning their backs on the fight, passing quickly from the scene, striding over a fold in the meadow to disappear from view.

  Coppens' Zouave Battalion remained in the center of the now shrunken line of the Stonewall Brigade. Upon their colorful heads a thousand snow balls fell. The Zouaves stood their ground manfully, backed by all the weight of "fire" available to the Virginians on either side of them, but it was not to be. The effect of numbers made itself felt and soon the center of Walker's line began to bow inward as the Zouaves were pressed back. The Virginians moved back to straighten the line, and a howl of victory swept the ranks of the men of the Deep South as they pressed forward.

  " Sauve qui peut!" cried someone. There was an instant's hesitation, and then the Zouaves turned and ran, carrying with them the inner flanks of the units to either side. Walker's "line of battle" disintegrated in a flash as men sought escape from the humiliation of capture. They fled along the way that their friends had gone, over the rise in the ground, headed for the distant shelter of the trees.

  The foemen followed, pausing only to manufacture new stocks of ammunition. Every few yards they halted momentarily to rain down a barrage on the backs of the defeated.

  They chased Walker's soldiers at least three hundred yards, and were beginning to think of giving it up when they saw Jim Walker himself come to a dead stop in the middle of the fleeing mob, holding his walking stick up high over his head, waving it back and forth and yelling, "Rally, Boys! Rally!"

  The refugees turned to form their sodden ranks. They stooped to scoop up snow, piling up missiles at their feet.

  Their pursuers came to a ragged halt, confused by the suddenness of the change. They looked to their leaders for some indication of what should be done.

  A cheer rose over the wood lot to their right. Out of the trees, shoulder to shoulder, marched Stafford's Pelicans, each man cradling an armful of snow balls. At the left, extending their line was Balthazar's battalion.

  "Brigaade, Halt!" roared Brigadier General Stafford from his place in front of the advance. "At my command!"

  A thousand arms cocked back.

  "Fire!"

  Arrows darkened the sky at Agincourt. Snow balls did the same this day.

  "Fire at will!" Stafford commanded. He was laughing and out of breath from dodging the dozens of balls thrown at him from the other side.

  The Georgians and Alabamians tried to re-form facing in both directions.

  They were halfway through this intricate maneuver when Balthazar judged the moment to be just right and yelled "Charge!" He ran right at the "enemy" line, dropping his ammunition as he went.

  The battalion surged ahead, sweeping forward behind him like a pack of dogs. They covered the thirty odd yards in an instant.

  Balthazar hit the line like the old Rugby boy he was. He shouldered men to either side, driving through, and out the other side. Brushing aside staff officers who sought to shield their chief, he tackled a tall, mustachioed man who had clearly been the directing force on the other side.

  They rolled over and over in the snow, pelting each other, and stuffing the cold whiteness down collars and up shirts.

  "All right! I yield!" the victim of this attack said at last.
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  They climbed to their feet, helped up by the cheering mob of soldiers.

  Major General Robert Rodes brushed snow off his sleeves and stuffed his shirt back into his trousers. "My God, Balthazar, I had no idea you were so upset about that Poker game...” He was grinning.

  Balthazar smiled back. He had come to admire and like this man, so young for his rank, so upright and unpretentious.

  Rodes reached into an inner pocket of his coat, retrieving some papers. "General Early gave me these last night. He had to go away, and knew you and Smoot are coming for dinner today." He looked up, and around, searching. "Smoot!" he called. "Come over here!"

  Smoot saluted as he reported.

  Rodes' hand came up to return the greeting. He looked odd with the snow still caking his long, blond mustaches. Opening one of the papers, he said, “Isaac, this is your commission in the Confederate States Army. Congratulations, Lieutenant!"

  Smoot shook hands all around, and then read the paper. He looked up. "This must be a mistake."

  "Why?" Balthazar asked.

  "This is a commission in the Regular Army. I'm just in this for the war. There are commissions for the others as well...”

  They both looked quizzically at Rodes.

  He shrugged. "Yes. Cooper and Lee like what you've made of these men. They aim to keep it. It has no state identity so they have decided to add it to the small list of regular units." He looked at another paper. "It will be... Here it is. 2nd Infantry Battalion, Confederate States Army, but I suspect it will always be Balthazar's Battalion."

  "Why this?" Smoot demanded holding up his commission.

  "Regular troops are commanded by regular officers," Balthazar answered for Rodes. "Always." His face flushed red beneath the tan. He seemed distracted by something off on the horizon. Taking out a red bandanna, he blew his nose loudly.

  "Yes," the general said looking at the Frenchman. "And as you've guessed, you are appointed a lieutenant colonel as well." He smiled. "Congratulations, Colonel," he said, holding out a hand.

  Balthazar hesitated only a second before taking it. There were two pieces of paper in the envelope. The second was a certificate of naturalization.