Death Piled Hard: A Tale of the Confederate Secret Services

by W. Patrick Lang

  “Your surgeon? Is that who took Smoot’s hand off? Never mind. Explain later. Go back to your bivouac. Your wagons and packs are still there. Get some rest. The Old Man thinks that Grant will start to move around our right again once he recovers from this… Another army is trying to seize Richmond from the south, from Petersburg. God knows what will happen there… Get some rest.”

  Chapter 21

  Flat Creek

  - 12 May Sixty Miles Away, South of Richmond

  The cavalry raid rode northwest, two thousand three hundred men, three thousand horses, four regiments in all. A dark faced, brooding man led them in a country of cavernous woods and imposing silences, a place full of red clay roads, deep forests, and staring farmers. Through these forests ran two railroads. They stretched away to the south and southwest, fragile vessels of steel through which food, ammunition, and hope flowed to the capital of a dying country.

  The raid rode into the forest to break the railroads.

  The regiments carried the standards of Pennsylvania, New York and the District of Columbia. The Pennsylvanians and New Yorkers were veteran volunteer cavalry of the line, weathered and blooded in the long years already past.

  The “1st District of Columbia Cavalry Regiment” was different. Only rarely had they fought anyone able to fight back. Bar room brawls, and midnight arrests in the Irish slums of the city of Washington had been their portion until now, a strange regiment. The men were almost all New Englanders, the majority was from Maine. Lafayette Baker, their colonel, had recruited them there. He was also “Chief of the National Detective Bureau,” the counterintelligence office of the War Department. Baker found it useful to have nine hundred cavalrymen consecrated to the work of compelling acceptance of his will, and that of Secretary Stanton.

  Nothing in Washington could remain hidden very long from Baker and his friends. The search for traitors and spies extended throughout the government. Stanton wanted to know what was said in the Senate cloakroom, in the chambers of the Justices of the Supreme Court and in the headquarters of the general-in-chief. The plan of campaign devised by Grant had been easy to obtain. The immense power enjoyed by Baker seemed eternal to ambitious but fundamentally unimaginative young officers of the army staffs. Flattery and a hint of future favors insured cooperation.

  Baker was in the room on the occasion when Grant explained his conception of the spring campaign to the Secretary of War. In Stanton's pocket was a much handled copy of the document from which Grant read. A week's possession of this information had allowed the secretary to closely critique the scheme to his face even as the commander of all the armies of the United States presented it. Gratitude was not an emotion that Stanton often felt impelled to act on, but in this instance he found the time to ask if there might be some matter in which Lafayette Baker required assistance.

  The colonel's response was to volunteer his regiment for the envisioned amphibious landing south of Richmond. This operation would complement Grant's drive straight south from the Rapidan River.

  This request had brought the 1st D.C. Cavalry to Bermuda Hundred on the James River. The officers of the regiment debated their chief's motivation in offering them up. In the end, majority opinion held that it was largely a matter of wounded pride. The sneers and condescension of cavalry officers who let it be known that "kicking in doors" was not quite the same thing as facing Jeb Stuart had finally proven to be more than he could endure.

  There was also the influence of that irritating colonel from Stanton's personal staff, the one who smiled when he noticed that you were looking at him. His personal and public mockery of the regiment had a crescendo in the weeks before they were sent to the front...

  Colonel Baker usually did not find the time to command his men in person. His many duties prevented this. A younger brother led them to Bermuda Hundred.

  This collection of untried Maine woodsmen had the very best of weapons, the Henry lever action repeating carbine. Troopers of the other regiments in Kautz' Division often came to the bivouac just to see these arms.

  General Kautz himself, the dark presence commanding the raiding force, had doubts about Baker's men. Their high bred horses, unfaded uniforms and Washington society officers all troubled him, but the fierce talk at their camp fires was the most unsettling. He told Major Baker that the horses were too fat, that the heat would kill many. He told him that any horses which broke down on the march would be shot immediately to keep them out of enemy hands. Baker was shocked, instinctively leaning forward to rub the neck of his mount, a pretty Thoroughbred mare.

  "The rebels don't kill off their animals the way we do," said Kautz. "They can't afford to do it. We are going through the horse and mule population faster than they can be bred. We're bringing them in from Canada now you know. Is she yours?" he said referring to the mare.

  "Yes." Baker still had his hand on the animal's neck.

  "Leave her with our trains. She'll never stand the march. Draw a troop horse, something heavy in the chest, and big in the ass, and don't make it a friend! We leave at four tomorrow morning."

  By nine A.M., the long column of his division had moved up behind the infantry entrenchments which defined the northern perimeter of the Federal lodgment in the Bermuda Hundred peninsula. They halted while barbed wire obstacles and chevaux de frise were removed from the roadway. The long lines of dusty, snuffling horses shifted from foot to foot, swatting flies with their tails, and seeking the most comfortable stance in which to carry their burdens. Finally the obstacles were cleared, and with a creak and jingle of horse furniture the march resumed.

  Infantry filled the trenches to either side of the road. They watched in silence as the horsemen passed.

  Kautz' men stared back, superior beings mounted on steeds of fire, passing into a world of adventure unknown to plodding dullards content to sit in holes in the ground.

  "They're gonna' kick your ass!" someone yelled from the trenches to the right of the road. "Say hello to my brother, captain," cried another. "He's in Libby Prison!" "That's right," said a third. "You won't have far to walk when they bag the lot of you!"

  A sergeant of the Third New York Cavalry held up a gauntleted hand, middle finger extended, as he rode through the lines.

  Gales of laughter swept the infantry, rolling and resounding from the surrounding trees.

  A mile down the road the advance reached the site of Terry's battle on the 10th. The smell of decaying men hung over the scene. Bloated, dismembered carcasses littered the way. The horses sniffed fearfully, shying away from the bodies. Soldiers averted their eyes, not wishing to confront their fate.

  In preparation for their passage into the enemy's country a brigade of riflemen had moved forward to create space into which Kautz could advance. To their front the horsemen heard scattered shots, and the odd, high pitched noises that the rebels made in battle.

  The road angled off to one side drifting toward the left end of the unseen firing line ahead. The shooting trailed off. Silence fell in the forest. Acrid, dirty white smoke drifted in the trees, rising toward the tops of the loblolly pines, swirling wraithlike in the crowns. The column marched on in a strained, unnatural hush. The buzz of insect life in the brush began to fuse in men's heads with the resinous odor of the trees themselves.

  A volley exploded in the woods to the right rear. What must have been Confederate rifle fire answered. "We're beyond Weitzel's left flank," Kautz remarked to the officer riding beside him.

  The other man stood in his stirrups to see farther through the trees. A slim, and elegant figure, he rose ramrod straight to peer through the forest. The bay gelding held between his thighs waited calmly for a signal from above, as contented with his master as Americans were sometimes uneasy with him. The unease had to do with his strangeness. Major Marco Aurelio Farinelli wore about him an indefinable quality marking him as European. There was something subtly different in his behavior and dress, in the way he arranged the load of field supplies that he and his mount carried. H
is horsemanship itself had something about it of the riding academy. In moments of impatience with the inevitable waiting of army life, Farinelli had been known to teach army remounts the "Spanish Step". His fanaticism in the drudgery of stable call was legendary. These things collectively spoke of a different world, a place apart from this army of amateur volunteers. Perhaps it was just the newfangled field glasses always hung on his chest.

  A crackle of musketry erupted at the head of the column. Bullets whirred through the leaves and branches in the underbrush beside the road. Connected clumps of leaves drifted to the earth.

  General Kautz' charger shied from the sound. He gripped the beast with his knees, pulling the animal's head around to face the erratic firing down the road. The shooting died away.

  A lieutenant thundered back along the column, galloping his horse through the pines. "Reb cavalry vedettes, sir!" the pink cheeked, bright-eyed officer reported, saluting the while. "Maybe five men. They're gone now. Colonel Spear sends his compliments, intends to press on!"

  Kautz nodded his assent. "Tell him to do that. Young man!" His voice rose to stop the galloper, already pulling his horse away.

  "Sir?"

  "It may be that you do not like the way the world looks, but that horse does. If you go through the thickets at that speed, one of you is going to lose an eye."

  The lieutenant flushed red, saluted again, and turning, jumped the horse across a small, muddy ditch onto a low bank covered with honeysuckle. The big animal scrambled with its feet among the vines and finding them drove forward through a screen of creeper.

  Kautz listened to the sound of the courier receding in the forest. A growing anger disfigured his bearded features.

  "He is very young, Generale, and he goes more slow."

  Kautz listened for a minute, then glanced at the smiling, mustachioed, olive face.

  "Hmmm. It appears to be so. Marco, I'd like you to go hold Spear's hand. He's as jumpy as a rabbit. I don't want him to fight any body of troops big enough to slow us down. We go straight for the railroad at Coalfield Station, understand?"

  "Yes! The Colonel Spear is a trifle too eager to make his argument before San Pietro. I will hold his hands." The professional soldier touched the gelding in the flanks with his heels.

  The animal leapt forward at once, its gait an eccentric combination of some of the features of both the trot and the canter. In some unique way it appeared to have all four feet off the ground at times. Major Farinelli bestrode this strangely gaited creature as though he were the centaur of old.

  As Kautz watched them go, a smile peeked through the foliage of his black beard.

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------From his seat in the boxcar's door Bill White watched the forest slide past. The rich green of the trees made a wall divided haphazardly by the brown trunks. Birds flew in and out of the green. A cardinal flashed red almost to the open door of the car, banking away at the last moment, his mate close behind in her desire not to be left. The little bird's sharp cry carried over the engine's rumble and the metal ring of the wheels and rails.

  Bill's legs hung out the door, his hands gripping the edge of the floor to either side of his knees. Straw padded the floor. The cool of a May evening flowed around him. Above the train sounds, the hoof noise of the teams vibrated the rough planks beneath him. The voices of the soldiers and drivers hummed in the growing gloom of the car.

  A rifleman of the 30th Virginia sat beside him. The man's silhouette could just be seen as the swaying of the train caused him to lean in and out of the doorway.

  Corse's Brigade had rolled north for days, north from Weldon, Kinston and other North Carolina railheads. No one seemed to know much about where they were going, not even the officers. A sergeant told Bill that he had heard Colonel Herbert say something about a Yankee army south of Richmond. That did not seem possible. Yankee armies lived north of the Rappahannock, many miles north of the Confederate capital. They periodically tried to march south from that river in the direction of the city. McClellan tried to go around by sea in '62, but he had always stayed east of Richmond, and north of the James. If Federal troops had come to this side of James River, then something strange and new had happened.

  The engine's whistle blew shrilly in the dusk. Iron wheels clanked against track. They slowed, rumbling and rocking to a stop. The forest sounds grew stronger. Steam whhshed from the engine.

  They arrived.

  Bill and the man from the 30th hopped down from their seats, picking

  their way across the darkening ground to the wood line. They stood side by side, face to the woods. Bill unbuttoned himself, urinating into the gathering night.

  An audible sigh escaped the soldier. "Much longer and I'd a pissed myself, for sure!"

  Bill only half heard. The smell of the damp grasses and trees mingled in his head with the acrid odor of their water. He listened to the night in the trees. Behind them more and more men climbed down from the train.

  An officer strode through the ballast alongside the rails. "Get 'em off, everybody off! 17th after the caboose! There's a road crossing there. 30th, leave the wagons and teams on the cars! We're gonna clear the track in front. Move! Let's go!"

  "You know where we are, Bill?" the soldier asked.

  He shook his head, genuinely puzzled.

  "Mills! Where the hell are you, Mills?" a voice demanded in the dark. "Sing out, so's we can find you!"

  "All right! All right! I'm comin'." Mills’ nearly unseen figure brushed by. Having passed, Sam Mills stopped and turning, laid a hand on Bill's arm. "You take care, you hear! You still owe me money from that last round of poker." A squeeze and he was gone.

  At the end of the train someone was lighting fl a m b e a u x, spreading the flame from one brand to another. The light began to walk along the side of the train toward his position. A bearded face coalesced beneath the shade of a broad brimmed hat, the chin illuminated by the fire. One fist held the torch aloft.

  Bill could see the blond hairs on the back of the hand. "Captain Green5, I'm right here," Bill offered from the shadow of the woodline.

  "A h, Good!

  They faced each other in the smoky, wavering light.

  "Get the drivers together, and start unloading. I'll send you help as soon

  as I find "G" Company. I believe it's their turn." He turned away, toward the front of the train. "Begging your pardon, Captain," Bill said to his back. I do think it is "H" Company's turn".

  The officer came back to stand before the lead teamster of the regiment. "You think so? The Gypsies?" He thought for a minute. "Ah, I remember

  5 The regimental quartermaster. now. “G” loaded at Petersburg. I need more sleep. Thank you, Bill. I'll go get them. They are back two or three cars."

  "Sir, before you go, two things. May I ask what we are doing"?

  Green took off the hat. His bald head shone sweaty in the light. He wiped his forehead with a doubtful looking cloth normally stored in the crown of the hat. "Why?"

  Bill stood his ground. "I just want to know."

  The supply officer thought about that for a few seconds. He put his hat back on.

  Bill could no longer see the eyes.

  Green spoke. "I don't know how I would run this lash-up without you... The 30th is going to defend some big bridge up in front of the train. We are going back down the line a couple of miles where there are smaller bridges. They're ours. Yankee cavalry is coming. What was the second thing?"

  "For loading and unloading, generally, I'd rather have some men from the brigade pioneer company."

  Green thought about that. The pioneer company was a black construction gang under command of a white engineer officer. "Why?"

  "It's easier for me to organize the work than having to use the soldiers. I can't tell them what to do."

  The man with the torch thought about how many things he had to do to get the regiment's trains moving. He sighed and then spoke slowly and carefully, wanting t
o avoid hurting this man's feelings. "Bill," he said. "Most of the men in the 17th will do what you ask them to do as long as you ask them polite, and you're always polite. Hell, the way they know you, from home and all. Herbert and Corse would skin them alive… But I accept your point. I accept it. I'll talk to Major Taliaferro6 the first chance. But for now, it's the Gypsies."

  "Yes, sir."

  Green walked away into the night.

  "Hoss! Snake! Jim! Over here!" Bill yelled, calling the drivers to him.

  "We here, honey," a soft voice answered from nearby. "We all here."

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------

  The raid struck the railroad ten miles southwest of Richmond. Vedettes of the 3rd New York Cavalry Regiment crossed the tracks on both sides of

  6 The brigade quartermaster.

  Coalfield Station at 11:00 P.M. in a driving rain. In spite of the weather, the city made a golden glow beyond the invisible horizon. The telegraph operator was looking out a dirty, rain streaked window and thought he saw something moving down the right of way, believed it had been a mounted man. He was nearly certain he had seen this apparition in the flash of the lightning all about. He stood staring through the glass. The flickering light hid more than it revealed. He looked back at his desk. His telegrapher's key lay there. The wires trailed across the dark surface. He rubbed his face, pulling at the ends of the long moustaches. The railroad's general offices in the city had a poor opinion of employees who thought they saw Yankee raiders in the night.

  A horse whickered somewhere in the rain.

  Three strides took him to his seat.

  The line was dead.

  "Open the door!" a voice said firmly from outside.

  "Who are you?" he asked.

  "Don't fool around! We’re gonna fire the station!" An orange glow

  appeared in the window, small at first, but growing steadily. He emerged from the doorway, hands held high to stand among the dripping, rubber clad figures and steaming horses.