"The first road toward Bel Air," Lee said, pointing to the map, "the second, the one we are on now, down closer to the bay and parallel to the railroad, which could be used as well for infantry if the weather turns bad."
"North rather than Washington, sir?" Walter asked tentatively. It was unusual for him to venture a question, but Lee did not reproach him. The excuse of their just "going for a ride after seeing the president off" was just that, an obvious excuse after nearly ten hard hours in the saddle, crisscrossing the landscape.
Lee did not reply to Walter's query, instead concentrating on the sketches, turning the pages, pausing occasionally to ask Jed to explain some detail, comparing relative heights between the low-lying ridges.
He could sense the mounting excitement of the other three. The weeks of idleness at Baltimore, though a wonderful chance to relax, reorganize, and refit, seemed out of place for a field army during the height of the campaign season. Battle, of their own choosing, was again in the air.
He reached the last map, the one that sketched this line along the Gunpowder River for nearly ten miles of length. Hotchkiss was obviously tired; he had gone through three horses during the day, covering two miles or more at a gallop for each one Lee had ridden at leisure. He alone knew the full details of why they were riding thus.
Their cavalry escort ringed in a bit closer as the four stood examining the maps, forward pickets a good three or four miles ahead of the main body… and not a single Yankee, not even a few scouts, had been seen all day, a clear sign that Sickles was keeping to the north side of the river.
Lee studied the last map intently, the shadows around them lengthening and then disappearing as the sun set, summer twilight settling over them.
"I think it will be here," he finally said.
"Good ground," Pete replied. "We can ring our guns along this side of the stream, force them to cross; this is very good ground."
Lee shook his head.
"No, I think we'll give it to them."
"Sir?"
"A friend of mine, a man Judah took me to share dinner with, made a good analogy of our army's situation. He said we're like Napoleon before Quatre Bras, several days before Waterloo. Napoleon was trying to force a break between the allied army and the Prussian army. As you know, he failed to do so, and the defeat at Waterloo was the result. We're like Napoleon at this moment, but it's not two armies we must force apart, it is three."
The Plan to bring out Sickles
"We do have the advantage of being in the middle. Pete offered, "Washington garrison to the south, Sickles to the — northeast, Grant to the north."
"And if they should all squeeze at once, we have a problem. No, we must lure one of the three out, defeat it without question, then turn on the second force and defeat that in turn. Once two of the three are destroyed, the third will be broken morally and then we finish it up. I think we can do that, but it will require audacity."
"We never lacked that," Pete said with a grin.
"If we offer battle to Sickles but then dig in here, on the south side of this stream, I think even he will hold. He talks big, but he also has the memory of Union Mills fresh on his mind. He will stop, probe, try to flank us, and in the interim I would suspect Grant will either order him to retire or come down upon our flank and rear and we will be forced to withdraw."
He smiled, pointing at the ground around them.
"No, I want Sickles alone, I want him overly confident, I want him advancing rapidly. If I give him this ground-after a fight, mind you, but not a real fight, just a demonstration- 1 think he will come on with a vengeance, thinking we are on the run, and then we jump him. Conceding this ground at the start will embolden him to push on toward Baltimore and then we spring our trap several miles to the rear."
Pete grinned.
"Fine, sir, now how do we get him here?"
"We set him off half-cocked. Tomorrow afternoon the army will leave Baltimore and advance on Washington with all proper fanfare. I want it done publicly. Let the rumors fly. We don't press the men, however; we save their strength. How we arrange the marching order will be crucial. I want Hood on the left, Beauregard on the right, and you acting as a reserve in the rear, but instantly ready to turn around.
"Leave your strongest division here in Baltimore as a garrison."
"That would be Pickett and, as usual, he'll chafe."
"Let him. No one is to know of this plan other than the four of us here. I want no lost orders like we had at Sharpsburg. We can tell the others when the time comes."
"Thank you for the confidence, sir," Longstreet replied.
"Pete, I have to tell someone, in case anything happens to me."
"Just mind the heat, sir," Walter interjected protectively.
"Thank you, Walter, and remember, no written orders regarding this place here. I want all to appear as though we are marching on Washington with the full intent of storming it within three days."
"Yes, sir."
"We engage in front of Washington, make all appearances of preparing to attack. Now, if by some rare chance the opportunity does arise to take the city, we will venture it, but I don't see that happening, at least not without a bloody cost. Our threat, however, will trigger yet another panic in that city and in the North."
"But Grant did not even budge last time," Longstreet said, "and we've seen the reports about his statements, along with our observations near Harrisburg of his army building there rather than shipping it all to Washington."
"Sickles is the one," Lee said emphatically, "he is the one I'm playing this game to. We know the divisions between Grant and Sickles. It's the same as it was with Pope and McClellan at Second Manassas. We threaten Washington and I am all but certain that Sickles will find an excuse to bring his army, ill prepared, across the Susquehanna. At the very least he'll see the chance to grab back Baltimore, but I suspect that ultimately he will seek to strike us in the rear, at least he will think he is striking us in the rear."
Lee smiled, turning to walk back over to Traveler's side, gently rubbing his old friend's forehead.
"Once we know he is across the river, we move, countermarching back, and when I say move, we will do it with utmost speed, the same way you marched to Westminster, General Longstreet Here is the place we drive for, especially after Sickles has gained it
"We'll work out the details tonight. I think we'll camp near here, gentlemen, I'd enjoy a night away from the city."
Walter nodded and rode off, calling for the cavalry to circle in and to find a tent.
"We play this for Dan Sickles," Lee said, still smiling. "Bring him down here and let him think he is winning, then close in like a vice, taking him on the flank when the time comes. It will call for careful coordination, Pete. Stuart will observe, skirmish, and offer some delay, acting as if he is trying to buy time, thus causing Sickles to press harder. We then send Pickett up to delay, but not too much, a different kind of fight for him, but it's time he proved himself at it. Then, when the moment is right and all our forces have marched back up from Washington, we hit Sickles with a concentrated attack and finish him."
"Grant and the Washington garrison?"
"That's one of the reasons I'm sending Wade Hampton across the river between the two armies. Yes, I want to know exactly where the Nineteenth Corps is before we start this fight If they do move with Sickles, we might have a bigger fight than anticipated. But the broader plan is for Wade to disrupt communications between those two armies and sow panic, perhaps even to lead Grant to think I'm preparing to cross the river farther up. I want Sickles cut off as much as possible from Grant to give him the latitude to move without being restrained. As for the Washington garrison, they will stay stuck behind their fortifications, as always. They are not a factor in this. Ultimately it will first be Sickles, and then Grant, but a Grant weakened when a third or more of those people north of the river cross over and then just disappear."
"Sir, a concern," Hotchkiss interjected.
> "Go on."
"The main body of our army countermarching back up from Washington will have to march nearly three miles for every mile that Sickles makes."
"It will have to be done. We cannot allow Sickles to actually get into Baltimore. Once there, he'd be behind the fortifications and our chance to catch him in the open will be lost If we beat him south of Baltimore, yet again he could fall back to Baltimore and dig in. No, we must fight him here, on this ground."
'That will be one tall order, sir, when it comes to the distance our men must cover before going into a fight," Hotchkiss pressed.
"Then we march through the night and into the next day," Lee said quietly, looking over at Pete.
"General Longstreet, do you think you have another Union Mills in you?"
Longstreet grinned.
Chapter Sixteen
In Front of Washington, D.C.
August 14,1863 7:30 a.m.
“I they're coming, I tell you!" Sergeant Hazner wearily looked up at the excited young private and fixed him with a cool gaze.
"So what if they are?" he growled, shifting a wad of tobacco in his cheek and spitting.
"It means we'll finally take that damn city," the boy answered enthusiastically.
He pointed south, where, on the horizon, the unfinished dome of the Capitol was in clear view.
The others around the campfire were reacting in mixed ways to this tidbit of information, which a young headquarters cook had brought to them.
Rumors had been rampant for more than a week that something was about to happen. Ever since the bulk of the Army of Northern Virginia had marched off, what was left of Pettigrew's and Perrin's old divisions-now combined under the command of General Scales-had hovered at the edge of Washington. It had taken time to sort the battered regiments out, reorganize them into four effective brigades, and there had been much grumbling and arguing when a number of old glorious regiments had been disbanded, the men placed into other units from their home states. They had been allowed to keep their flags, but it had been a tough blow to many, for in this army, like all others in this war, regimental identity was a powerful force.
Even after the reorganization, the division was a light one, not much more than five thousand men under arms. Although lightly wounded men had been coming back into the ranks, there was still the daily toll from disease and from the incessant skirmishing along the fortification lines. Scales had taken to his job of "demonstrating" with a will, moving his men back and forth between the Seventh Street road and the Bladensburg road, probing, making feints at night, detailing experienced riflemen to harass the Union forces. The Yankees had refused to budge from their fortifications, a response that had become a source of derision with wags sneaking out at night and putting up signs made out of bed-sheets, taunting the Yankees to come out and fight. But then again, none of them could blame the defenders of Washington; they were behind heavy fortifications, well fed and housed, and if they had advanced, Scales's division and his two brigades of cavalry would have of course pulled back on the double. Their job was simply to shadow and harass, not seek an engagement where they would be outnumbered six or seven to one.
Morale in the new division was down for more reasons than simply the recombination of units. They had taken a brutal pounding in the campaign from Gettysburg to Union Mills, and finally the debacle in front of Fort Stevens. The graveyard established back behind the lines on the Seventh Street road now had over a thousand crosses and more were being added daily. In the last two weeks some of the Yankees apparently had been issued heavy Sharps rifles, others the deadly, hexagonal-bore Whitworths, which could kill at a thousand yards. More than one incautious Confederate was dead, with a hole drilled into his head when he peeked up over a ditch. One poor soul, hunkered down next to Hazner, died when he had kicked up a nest of yellow jackets, stood up shouting, jumping, and dancing about as he tried to knock off the stinging insects, and seconds later collapsed back into the ditch, a bullet through his chest. That had set up a howl of protests, since it seemed so damn unfair, but then how were the Yankees to know that the poor boy was getting stung and that was why he was dancing around?
The men with Scales had also missed out on the glory of taking Baltimore. Rumors came back of the feasting, the girls, the easy duty, and though the tales were most likely exaggerated, at least the men hoped they were, still it set them to grumbling against the high command for leaving them out here all alone, missing all the fun.
And now it seemed the Army of Northern Virginia was coming back to gather its lost souls back into the fold.
There was a commotion on the road back toward the cemetery, and Hazner casually stood up to take a look. Men were coming out from their encampments under the trees to watch the approach, and those who had been gathered around the campfire with Hazner went off, with the excited young private leading the way.
Though curious, Hazner waited a minute or two, feigning disinterest That of course was part of his job, never to let the men see him getting excited. Finally he could bear it no longer, and he casually made his way up the slope and into the crowd.
Around the bend of the road he saw a team of mules, a long train of them, over twenty at least, straining at their load. Strapped to a heavy wagon behind them was a monstrous gun-from the looks of it, a heavy, eight-inch Columbiad. Behind the first gun was another team of ten mules pulling its carriage, which was resting atop a second wagon, and then yet more mules pulling limber chests, most likely filled with ammunition.
"It took 'em a week to get them down here," the private said proudly, behaving like so many who were the first to announce news, acting as if they were somehow the agents of the event.
"There's six of 'em, six big monsters to knock a hole right through Fort Stevens," the private continued. "Mortars as well, some thirty-pounders; a regular show it's gonna be."
Hazner spat and walked away.
A regular show all right It meant that there would be another throw of the dice, another attack, this one most likely as bloody as the last. And their target would be stronger than last time as well. The fortifications had been all but impossible last time. Now that the defenders of Washington were literally staring the Confederate army right in the face, the Yankees had set to work with a will to make their positions even stronger. Night after night, when the wind was right, you could hear them digging out there, each morning revealing more abatis, deeper ditching, higher walls, and reserve lines going up behind the main one.
Hazner went back to his camp, which was all but empty, looking out through the trees toward the distant dome of the Capitol.
Didn't Lee see this? Surely he understood it. If there was a chance to take this city, it was in the days right after Union Mills and even then the chance was slim. In fact it had turned out to be no chance at all. Now an attack on these reinforced fortifications could be nothing but a suicidal gesture.
He leaned against a tree, studying the Capitol dome, the distant line of fortifications. Up at the front line, a half mile away, there were occasional puffs of smoke, the distant crack of a rifle. A mortar round arched up, sputtered, and plummeted down, exploding without effect. He heard a derisive hoot. It was almost a game, though every day a dozen or so soldiers paid the ultimate price for that game. But overall, nothing was happening. Nothing had happened here for the last three weeks.
Surely Lee would not throw them against those now-impregnable fortifications in yet another frontal assault. The Columbiads might excite the fervor of amateurs, but against heavy fortifications they would have little if any effect. Nothing more than a lot of flash and noise.
Though the generals might not realize it, after two years of war there was many a sergeant or corporal who knew how to read a map, could surmise much from little, and figure out what the bigwigs were thinking far better than the reporters, the armchair generals back home, and even some of the generals themselves.
"Hazner."
He looked up and smiled. It was Colonel
Brown coming up to join him.
Brown had figured out long ago what had happened at Fort Stevens, how Hazner had knocked him cold with a single blow and dragged him from the line. The colonel still had an arm in a sling from that fight, the wound healing slowly. The only comment he had ever made on that terrible day was an offhand "Hazner, at times you are one hell of a headache," a tacit acknowledgment and no more that Hazner's direct action had undoubtedly saved his life.
"Lot of hoopla down on the road," Brown ventured.
"Yes, sir, the heavy-siege train is here."
'Took long enough."
Hazner chuckled. A cavalryman had joined the regimental mess for dinner one night and regaled them with stories about the serpent-like crawl of the heavy guns, the need to rebuild bridges so they could pass, the endless delays, all this effort to drag half a dozen guns only thirty miles to the front line.
"Think we'll attack?" Hazner asked.
Brown smiled and shook his head.
"Sergeant, perhaps I should ask what you think."
"Sir, you're the colonel; I'm just a sergeant"
"You have as much sense of all this as I do, Sergeant; please educate me as to your opinion."
"Well, sir," Hazner began expansively, inwardly delighted at the deference Brown now showed him, "there's only eight rows now of abatis to go through, a ditch half a dozen feet deeper than it was before, fortress walls half a dozen feet higher, and maybe fifteen thousand more Yankees behind it. Do you honestly think, sir, that General Lee will go straight in again?"
Brown smiled.
"The Yankees could have moved those guns in a couple of days," Brown said, thinking of the power of the Union railroads and steamships.
"That's the Yankees, not us."
Brown shook his head.
"Damn war, thought it would be over by now." "We all thought that, sir," Hazner said absently, chewing and spitting a stream of tobacco juice.
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