"And I promise you this as well. Soon, far sooner than many ever dreamed of, we shall march forth. This time no one will hold you back, because I will be in the fore as your commander. There shall be no hesitation. No doubting. No stab in the back.
"We will show the world, we will show the North and the South, we will show all those who ever dared to doubt us, that the Army of the Potomac will drive the enemy before it, not just back to Richmond, but clear down to the Gulf of Mexico. And upon your heads shall be crowned the laurels of the final victory!"
He finished his words with a flourish, arms held wide, and the men went wild, hats in the air, the cheering breaking into a steady chant…
"Sickles … Sickles … Sickles!"
He stepped down off the train. Staff officers were waiting for him, including Meade's old chief of staff", Dan Butterfield, who looked at him coldly. Sykes was there as well, as was Howard of the Eleventh Corps, whose gaze was icy. Sedgwick was nowhere to be found. He had already been relieved.
Butterfield pointed the way toward the station. Sickles was glad to see his surviving division commanders waiting for him at the doorway to the station. He paused, looking out over the expanse of the Susquehanna. Ferries for bearing entire trains were docked on the north side, as were tugs, lighters, and barges. Half a dozen small gunboats and ironclads were drawn up in mid-river, pennants fluttering in the stiff evening breeze, the broad expanse of the river covered in whitecaps.
He walked into the station, the other officers crowding in, one of his staff closing the door. Without preamble he turned to Butterfield.
"Your report, sir."
"Which report, sir?" Butterfield replied coolly. "The current status of the Army of the Potomac." Butterfield looked around the room, like a man on the docket.
"Sir. I have the returns and after-action reports from all surviving units," and he pointed to a leather-bound case on the table in the middle of the room.
"In your own words, and briefly."
"The only viable fighting units left are your corps and the Fifth Corps with a strength of less than forty per cent, the Sixth Corps with about the same numbers, and the Eleventh Corps at fifty per cent. It is my advice that the First, Second, and Twelfth Corps be disbanded, the men consolidated into other units.
"We have less than eighty guns that are serviceable; nearly the entire Artillery Reserve was captured. Of cavalry, we still are not sure, but I would say less than forty per cent are effective. Your total strength therefore is at approximately forty thousand men, that is for all three branches under arms.
"As for support services, we have none. Our entire baggage train is gone, medical supplies all but gone, along with every ambulance. Specialized units, such as pontoon trains, engineering, they are gone, too."
Sickles nodded, his gaze cold, unwavering, as he struck a match and puffed a cigar to life.
"Thank you, General Butterfield. I will read your reports tonight. You are relieved from duty, sir."
"General?"
"Just that, You'll have new orders in the morning. Hold yourself available for a briefing with my new chief of staff later this evening. Good day, General Butterfield."
Butterfield looked at him without comment, eyes narrow, features flushed.
"Yes, sir," he finally snapped. Saluting, he turned on his heels and walked out, slamming the door.
Dan looked around the room, his gaze fixing on Howard.
"You, General Howard, are relieved. Thank you for your service. You as well will receive new orders in the morning."
"On whose authority?" Howard replied softly, speaking each word slowly.
"On my orders."
"I understood that General Grant is now the commander of all forces in the field. The decisions regarding who shall command corps must therefore be in his realm."
"I am commander of the Army of the Potomac now. You are under my authority, and by that authority I am relieving you. You have a choice now. You can take that removal with my blessing, thanks, and recommendation for further posting. Or you can choose to fight me. But by God, sir, if you try to defy me, I will destroy you. You failed your men at Chancellorsville and failed them again at Gettysburg. I wouldn't give you a regiment after that, but perhaps the War Department will see it differently."
"How dare you?" Howard's features were flushed, eyes wide, his one hand resting on the table, drawn up in a fist.
"How dare I? Easy. I am now in charge here. That's how I dare. Now we can do this as gentlemen or we can do it another way."
"You, sir, are no gentleman."
"You're damn right I'm not," Sickles roared. "I'm sick to death of all this damned talk about gentlemen while those good soldiers outside die in the mud. To hell with gentlemen, sir, and to hell with you if you don't obey my orders now!"
Howard drew his balled fist up and slammed it on the table.
"You are a reckless amateur. You think you know how to fight Lee. Maybe so, but I truly doubt it. I daresay it was luck more than anything else that got you as far as you have. Luck and politics of the lowest sort. God save this army with you in command."
"You are relieved, General Howard," Dan said coldly, stepping toward Howard so that his old division commanders moved to his side, ready to restrain him.
Howard looked around the room.
"God save us all if this type of base man is the one that we feel can lead us to victory."
Howard stepped past Dan and went to the door. With his hand on the doorknob, he turned and looked back.
"God forgive me for saying this. But with a man such as you, a man who would gun down your wife's lover on the street while he was unarmed? And now you are in command? I think it is time I do retire."
"God damn you!" Sickles roared, turning, fists raised.
Staff gathered around him, holding him back as Howard gazed at him coldly, waiting several seconds as if ready to accept the challenge to a fistfight or a duel. Finally he opened the door and left.
All were in stunned silence as Sickles, breathing hard, was pushed to the far corner of the room by his staff. He struggled for composure. No one in this army had ever dared to fling that at him. In any other position he would have challenged Howard to a duel on the spot, but now he knew he could not. One of his men drew out a flask, and, angrily, he shook his head, returning back to the table. Sykes stood silent, watching him.
"And am I to be sacked, too?" Sykes asked.
"Hell, no," Dan growled. "You, sir, put up one hell of a fight. The type of fight I want to see. By God, if I had been allowed to march to your aid at Taneytown, we'd have finished Lee then and there."
"I'm not sure of that, General Sickles."
"I am. You are a fighting general, like me. I respect you, General Sykes, and forgive me for what had to be done here."
Sykes said nothing and Dan smiled.
"I want this army ready to march within the month," Dan said, "and your corps will play a leading role."
"In a month? I would think it will not be until fall before we can even hope to have things reorganized. Beyond our loss of men, over half our brigade, division, and corps commanders fell in the last fight or were captured. The army is a shambles, sir."
"Not for long," Dan said. "And besides, some of those generals are no real loss as far as I'm concerned. I will fill the vacant slots and then we shall see how they fight."
He drew out a sheaf of papers from the haversack at his side and tossed them on the table.
"On the train ride down here I've been drawing up the reorganization. The First and Second Corps, God bless them, will unfortunately have to be disbanded. The men will be consolidated into my old corps and yours. The men of the Eleventh and Twelfth will be organized around the Sixth Corps. After its streak of hard luck, the Eleventh must be disbanded. We had too many corps in this army anyhow, some barely more than the size of one of Lee's divisions. We were cumbersome, slow to move and act. We'll take that leaf from Bobbie Lee's book and use it. It will be a m
ore effective command structure, fast-acting and — moving. We were cumbersome in weight as well. The loss of the Artillery Reserve was a terrible blow, but we can live with it"
He paused and looked over at Henry Hunt, who stood in the corner of the room.
"I have no complaint against you, Hunt But the artillery reserve is finished. All artillery is to be operational at the corps level with only a small reserve left under my direct command. Do you have any objections?"
Hunt shook his head slowly.
"Sir, I think we should talk about this later."
"I assumed that's how you would feel, Hunt. No insult to you but I feel that General Grant, if he ever arrives and builds an army, will need a good artilleryman to advise him. Would you care to be transferred?"
Hunt was silent for a moment and then wearily lowered his head.
"Yes, sir, if there is no Artillery Reserve I no longer see a role for me here."
"Fine then, Hunt, report to my headquarters in the morning and I'll see what I can do for you."
Glad to be rid of that minor detail, Dan turned back to the rest of the gathering without waiting to hear Hunt's reply.
"We have a lot of work cut out for ourselves, gentlemen. First I want the Army of the Potomac concentrated here. There is to be no siphoning off of units into the command that Grant is supposedly trying to form up at Harrisburg. I repeat, that is final, not one man wearing the corps insignia of our gallant old army is to be taken. As we get the lightly wounded and missing back into our ranks, they will rejoin their old regiments.
"For the morale of the men, even though four of the corps are to be disbanded, they will retain their old corps badges. Regiments are to be consolidated into new regiments from their home states and will retain their colors. I know these men, and those badges and their flags are sources of pride that must be honored by us."
The men gathered around him nodded with approval.
"I want the best damn rations down here now. None of this hardtack and salt pork while we are in camp. I want good, clean field kitchens; I want fresh food; I don't care how we get it, but I want it. The men are to have fresh bread daily, all they can eat, fresh meat on the hoof; by God we have the transportation here with the railroads and rivers, and I want it. Nothing is to be spared.
"One out of every ten men from each regiment is to be granted two weeks' furlough. Three weeks for our regiments from the Midwest. The enlisted men of each regiment will select among themselves who receives these furloughs. For every recruit they bring back from home their company will be given a cash bonus of fifty dollars, the men of the company to spend it as they see fit."
"Where are we going to get that kind of money, sir?" one of the staff asked.
"Don't worry about it. I have friends in the right places. If we bring in five to ten thousand that way, it will be worth it. The new recruits will be men from hometowns standing alongside their neighbors and kin in the next fight, not the riffraff to be found by the draft boards. It will play well with the veterans, who will look after them and teach them the traditions of the Army of the Potomac.
"I want a liquor ration to be given every Saturday night as well. Half a gill of rum or whiskey per man."
"The temperance crowd will scream over that one," someone chuckled.
'To hell with the temperance crowd. These men have been through hell and deserve a touch of liquor. To be certain, it might cause a few problems, but it will bind them to us the stronger.
"I've got more orders as well, regarding sutlers, equipment, outfitting of select regiments with breech-loading rifles, new uniforms, shoes, drill, reviews. We have thirty days to build this army back into a fighting force, and by God we will do it."
No one spoke.
"Fine, then. Staff meeting at eight in the morning."
His tone carried a note of dismissal.
"General Sickles." It was Sykes. "Did you see the latest dispatches from Baltimore?"
"Not since I left Philadelphia just after noon."
"It's reported that Lee is abandoning his position in front of Washington."
"What?"
"Civilian reports only. President Davis is confirmed as being with him. Baltimore and Annapolis are in a panic. It appears that Lee is marching north."
Dan grinned.
"Good! Damn good! My one fear was that he would slink off before we could give him the treatment he deserved."
"Also, General Grant came through here late yesterday and took a courier boat to Washington. There's been no report on him since."
Sickles’s features darkened.
"Who was with him?"
"General Haupt and Congressman Washburne." "Who saw him?"
"Just the guard detail down at the wharf." "Did he ask former'
"No sir, not a word. He got off the train and was on the boat and gone within five minutes." Dan nodded.
With luck, Grant would be ordered to stay in Washington. More than one of his friends would be pulling strings for that even now. If not, it would mean he would return through here. That was worth knowing, and of course Dan would make sure he was unfortunately unavailable when Grant came through. The last thing he needed now was for that man to be interfering in his own plans.
Everything would fall into place in due course, of that he was certain.
Washington, D.C.
July 20,1863 8:00 p.m.
Come in, Elihu," Lincoln said, waving for the congressman to sit down in the seat across from his desk.
Elihu, moving slowly, obviously beaten down with exhaustion, exhaled noisily as he took the seat. Lincoln smiled, stocking feet up on his desk.
"Did you see him off?"
"Yes. Both he and Haupt are on their way. Same courier boat that brought us here."
"And the meeting with Stanton before he left?"
'Tense, to say the least It's obvious Edwin wasn't pleased with how you outmaneuvered him."
Lincoln chuckled softly and shook his head.
"Edwin means well, most of the time. It's just that Grant is not part of his circle. He felt a need to control him."
" 'Means well most of the time'? I do think that Edwin believes he is running the war by himself. He'll try to somehow knock Grant off his tracks."
"One of the advantages of being a city under siege," Lincoln replied. "Communications between us and Harrisburg will be difficult for now. Grant can do as he wishes with my authority behind him."
Lincoln sighed, looking up at the ceiling.
"I would have thought that by now we would all see the situation clearly and bury our differences. In the next eight weeks we will either win this war or lose it Gettysburg and Union Mills focused that clearly for me. The crisis has come. We're like the two farmers who hitched two sets of mules to a wagon pointing in opposite directions and then fell into arguing about it for the rest of the day. We've got to get them all pointed in the same direction, with only one driver on top.
"Grant sees that. In the East he will point everything at Lee, and Haupt will give him the means to do it In the West we stand in place on the Mississippi, just hold what we have for the moment Any thoughts of taking Mobile, Charleston, Texas, and Florida are to be abandoned, the men shipped here. The second big effort will be with Rosecrans on Chattanooga and then Atlanta. Once Sherman has consolidated our hold on Vicksburg, he will join Rosecrans and take command. That will be it No other campaigns this summer and fall. Every available man here, to face Lee and no one else. If we lose some gains elsewhere, that will be in the short run.
"Grant understands this new kind of war, Elihu. It's frightful. War is now a machine, a steam-powered juggernaut God save us, in a way, the old image of war did have its appeal, even though boys wound up dying, often in droves. Grant can guide this juggernaut, pushed by a thousand factories and locomotives. It's ghastly, but if in the end it saves this republic, and perhaps scares everyone so badly that we will never see a war here again, then the sacrifices will be worth it"
Lincol
n sat back, precariously balanced with feet up on the table so that his chair almost tipped over. He pulled a small paring knife out of his pocket, opened it and went to work on his fingernails.
"And yet the political games still play out," he sighed.
"It's always been that way, sir. We're no different from the Romans, the Greeks. Remember Alcibiades? Even though the city-states knew they were collapsing under the weight of their wars, still Athens worked at cross-purposes with itself and squandered its best generals. We're no different"
"I hoped we could be. I believe we can be," Lincoln said softly. "A fair part of the world, at this moment wishes us to fail. They are praying even now for it, because we represent something different. A belief that the common man is the equal of any king, of any despot of any fanatic claiming mat God is behind him. If we fail now, if we let this continent sink into divided nations that ultimately will fight yet again and divide yet again, then the dream of our forefathers will be for naught."
He shook his head and chuckled self-consciously.
"Sorry for the speech, Elihu."
"I rather like them at times, Mr. President. When they come from the heart they remind me of why I first got into politics."
Lincoln chuckled.
"I wonder at times how many out there believe that idealism did drive some of us to this path. To hear our opponents and the press behind them, one would think that we did it simply to grasp for power and money. I'll be hanged, Elihu, but if I wanted that, I'd have stayed in my practice and charged the railroad companies exorbitant fees."
"It's always that way, sir. When they can't fight you on principles, the only recourse is to smear you or to kill you."
Lincoln said nothing for a moment, slowly nodding his head.
"Do you think Grant will measure up to the job?" Lincoln asked.
"Yes, I do believe he will. His record already indicates that As you asked, I observed him closely the last week. There was no puffing up the way so many would have, like McClellan or Hooker. He took his responsibilities calmly, without pomp or fanfare. You saw that touch of his private's uniform. It wasn't posturing; it's just the man is so simple in that sense that he believes that is how he should dress and behave. I like that."
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