by Ralph Peters
“You want them to do their part? That it? For the ‘dignity of the Negro’? And everything else I keep reading about in newspapers that want me to turn left today and right tomorrow, then go forward and back at once?”
“Wasn’t thinking nothing so high up, now. Not my place. Just chewing on how the Rebs couldn’t even see them boys for all the dark and rain. Be just about invisible. Not like all those poor white fellers. No, suh, the U.S. Colored Troops would be behind those Rebels even before they was in front of them. Scare the drawers off ’em, too.”
Grant considered the man before him. “Really troubles you? That I haven’t sent them in? Somebody has to guard the trains, that’s honest work.”
Bill frumped his chin. “Not my place to be troubled. Just thinking about those bone-weary white men up there, all moony-pale and shiny, getting theyselves killed…”
“Not sure they’re all that shiny at the moment.” Grant sighed. Picturing things he did not want to imagine. “Bill, it’s politics. War is nothing but politics played for keeps. The abolitionists up north, they want the Negro in uniform. And I have no objection to that. But while those high-and-mighty thinkers and editors and ‘consciences of the nation’ are willing to accept any number of white corpses and cripples, they’d howl if General Ferrero’s division suffered the kind of casualties, say, Barlow’s or Griffin’s have. In the South, the Negro’s a slave. In New England, he’s a pet.”
“Wasn’t pettin’ going on last summer in that New York City.”
“That was the Irish. The only power they have is in their fists.”
“Power ’nough.”
“To Boston society, you’re a cause. To the Irish, you’re competition.”
“Don’t mind my astin’ it, Genr’l, you afraid coloreds can’t be got to fight?”
Grant weighed his answer. “They’re still green. One step at a time, Bill. Let them get a sense of things.”
“Maybe they got them a sense of things already. Maybe they got them a powerful sense of things. ’Course, it’s none of old Bill’s business, but I ’spect they didn’t volunteer to be no house niggers on display for high-toned visitors. They might not fight like the veteran man, but you give those black boys a chance…”
Fort Pillow, Grant thought. Fort Wagner. The hatred.
“Bill, I’m not sure white men want black men fighting beside them.”
“Then maybe things ain’t got bad enough.”
Grant’s lips twisted until they settled between a smile and a grimace. “Oh, they’re bad enough. Marse Robert’s a tough nut.” His eyes met those of his servant. “What do you think of Lee, Bill? And don’t give me any of that ‘not my place to say’ nonsense. Tell me what you make of Robert E. Lee. That’s an order.”
Bill let profound thought—largely feigned, Grant suspected—play over his face for a carefully judged period. Then he said, “Well, now … that man … he tougher than a one-eyed, grizzly old tomcat, and just as mean.”
Grant laughed. “I suspect he’d be complimented by that. Although it may not be precisely the image he has of himself.” His expression tightened slightly. “If he’s a one-eyed old tomcat, what am I?”
Again, Bill displayed a counterfeit of thought. Grant knew the man had anticipated the second question before answering the first and had the answer ready. But Bill was a proud thespian by nature and needed to act his play at his own pace.
“Well, now … I s’pose you’re a one-eared old tom. That’s what I s’pose.”
Grant thought about that for a time, then laughed out loud. “Meaning that I might see more than Lee, but don’t hear so well. Or”—Grant smiled—“that I don’t always listen.”
“Oh, now,” Bill told him, “that was just my way of saying. Old Bill just meant as you got two good eyes in your head. And Mr. Lee, he can’t see what’s looking him straight in the face.”
Midnight
Spotsylvania Court House
It wasn’t so bad. Corporal John Doudle had dreaded capture above all things. The whispered name “Andersonville” had made him shake like a child affrighted by spooks. And now, sitting in the mud, surrounded by those captured at his side, hungry, robbed, and pelted by more rain, he almost felt relieved that the wait was over. A man was an awfully funny thing, he decided.
The Rebs had stolen their money, rings, watches, belts, anything that seemed of the slightest value. Then they cursed the captives for not bearing food, for leaving behind their haversacks when they attacked.
Cackling, one Johnny had assured them, “You’ll larn how a empty belly feels.”
He had heard that Confederates could be decent sorts, accepting that a captured man faced misfortune enough. But good behavior was just one more made-up story. The Rebs who had driven him and his fellow prisoners to the rear had threatened to beat or even kill them every few steps. The captives were cursed aplenty, in language that seemed, at times, almost a foreign tongue. But the tone always made the meanings clear enough. The worst of their guards looked barely human, men left to the wilds, savage-eyed. One starved-looking Johnny had been such a paragon of filth that the lice in his hair were visible from a rifle length away.
Now Doudle sat, wet through, in the midst of hundreds of captives, some wounded and others sick, all of them wretched. Nearest him were the members of Company C who had surrendered at his side, the dumber of the two John Eckerts—moaning now and then like a wounded ox—Dave Raudenbush Raudenbusch and Eli Berger, Bill Haines and Billy Guertler, a few others. It had been a black day for Schuylkill Haven, but, as Doudle had pointed out to them all, at least they were alive.
“Still alive,” Gerry Kerrigan corrected him.
Hunched shadows bearing arms, the guards teased their charges with tales of prison camps, of scurvy, death from the trots, swamp fever, hunger, and human flesh devoured, of madness.
“Y’all want to free the niggers? Let’s see if them niggers free you.”
Around Doudle, more than one fellow captive wept.
Doudle had borne enough. Instead of fear, he felt a burst of courage. Blessed with a church choir tenor, he sang out as loud as he could. First, he gave the Rebs a verse of “The Battle Cry of Freedom,” expecting at least a few other men to join in. No one did, which only angered him further. He pierced the rain with a threat to “Hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree…”
Unable to spot the source, guards tore through the mass of prisoners, wielding their rifle butts and demanding to know who was singing, threatening to kill the offender and everyone near him.
“John, shut your mouth,” Eli Berger hissed. “Before you make things worse.”
The other Company C boys shared the sentiment.
May 13, nine thirty a.m.
Barlow’s headquarters
“Still the valedictorian, I see,” Lyman said by way of greeting.
Barlow looked up from the field desk set out in the open air. “Whatever are you talking about?”
“Your success yesterday. You’re the toast of the town. Or of army headquarters, anyway.”
Barlow leaned back in his chair. Fugitive sun paled his face. “My success? Good Lord, Lyman. We bought a worthless patch of ground. At the price of a thousand men for every acre. And the best men, not the shirkers.” Appearing at least a decade older than his twenty-nine years, he added, “My success. It was nothing but a damned fluke. They’d withdrawn their guns, we had impossible luck. And we still made a mess of it.”
“Really, Barlow … this isn’t like you at all.”
“That’s the second time you’ve told me that in two days.” He yawned. “Christ, I’m tired.”
Lyman reached inside his tunic. Tailored by Huntington’s, it was in tatters now. “Here. You’ll want these.” He held out Barlow’s wallet and the wrapped picture of his wife.
Nodding a perfunctory thanks, Barlow took the items.
The headquarters crackled around them, but the air between the two former classmates was dead. Lyman felt compelled t
o lift Barlow’s spirits.
“You’ve been recommended for promotion to major general, you know.”
Barlow laughed a single hard note, a human gunshot. “And I’ll damned well take it, should it go through. I’ll grab it.” He looked up sharply, meeting Lyman’s eyes. “That’s the thing of it, Teddy. I’ll take the promotion. We’ll have champagne, you and I, something decent. We’ll invite Chandler and the rest. I’ll be terribly vain about it all, proud as a slut with new garters. Of course, I shan’t let it show too much. Wouldn’t do for a Harvard man to reveal too great an appetite for accolades. Let others praise Caesar. I’ll quietly accept it as my due.” He stood up, one tall man looking down slightly on another. “You know who I was thinking about? Just this morning? Your cousin, little Bob Shaw.”
“Cousin by marriage,” Lyman said. “Twice, though.”
“Poor Bob.” Barlow’s mouth twisted into a shape a man who didn’t know him might take for a smile. “I tutored him, you know. Old blood or not, he wasn’t the brightest fellow. And his mother, that witch. Bullied me into trying to teach him enough to squeeze into Harvard. And you know why I agreed? Because the formidable Mrs. Shaw could have ruined my mother with a single word. So I tried to convince Bob that two plus two actually makes four more often than not. Fool’s errand.” He snorted. “Rather like yesterday.”
“He didn’t graduate,” Lyman said. “There was talk.”
Barlow raised a shoulder, dismissive. “There was no scandal, that’s nonsense. Bob didn’t have the substance for a scandal. He just gave up, quit. When he could have got through by simply hanging on. Come now, Teddy. Would Harvard fail a Shaw? He could’ve been a drooling moron deep in the opium trade and the magi would’ve let him have a degree.” He shook his head. “He was so weak. That’s the thing, Teddy. Beyond the social armor, he was so weak. His mother—”
“I know the story, Frank.”
“His mother,” Barlow resumed, “killed him. The last thing Bob wanted was command of a regiment of darkies. But Mother insisted. Cared more for her abolitionist principles than for her flesh-and-blood son. And he didn’t dare disappoint her a second time. The poor bastard’s sense of duty wasn’t to the Union or the darkies, but to her. Bob was no more meant to command a regiment than you are. No. Let me be fair. You’d make a far better regimental colonel. The combination of stupidity and a misplaced sense of duty never ends well.”
It was Lyman’s turn to don a complex smile, to mutter a laugh. “You know what he wrote me? When I was still abroad, wondering what to do?”
“And he was still alive, presumably?”
“I asked him about the most useful way I might serve.” Lyman felt the cut of his smile deepen. “He suggested I apply for a post as chaplain to his regiment—the old regiment—if I felt absolutely compelled to wear a uniform.” He dropped his eyes away from Barlow’s. “I was insulted, of course. You, at least, could see me as a staff man.”
Barlow’s concern grew genuine. “Teddy, did you so resent me? Coming top of the class?”
“Rather. But I didn’t really try until my final year, you know.”
“I remember your commencement speech. That dig at the abolitionists. And here we are.”
A sour memory puckered Lyman’s face. “My family viewed the Republican sort as busybodies. Troublemakers. And their predecessors were hardly better. Silk-stocking Democrats to a man, it’s simply who we were. Solidly for the Union, of course. But uninterested in glorifying the Negro.” He waved off a fly. “Frankly, Mrs. Shaw was an embarrassment, the sort who belonged in Concord with the enthusiasts.” He sighed. “I’ve come around, of course. To a degree. Slavery does seem impossible. And now…” He glanced southward, toward the enemy. “We can’t go back.” Quickly, he added, “Our society will go on, that’s beyond question. Sounder values.”
Barlow laughed so loudly that everyone in the grove stopped work and turned to look. “Spoken like the true heir, Teddy. How far back does your family go? Since they first begged corn from the Indians? Seven generations?”
“Eight, actually. You know, I shall never so much as whisper it back home, but I do agree. Bob was the one among us who shouldn’t have been a soldier.”
“Wrong. He just shouldn’t have been made a colonel. Captain in charge of a company would’ve been about right. He could’ve brought that off. God, Teddy, how many of the old boys are dead, the old crowd?”
“Ten, I think.”
“Your fellow Porcs?”
“Three.”
Barlow ran a palm over his scalp. “Glad you came back? From your European sojourn? In time to see all this? Ever wish you would’ve stayed in Europe?”
“I stayed too long as it was. I should’ve come back sooner, of course. My duty. But Mimi, the child…”
Barlow waved that away. “You needn’t make excuses. Not to me, for God’s sake. But you didn’t answer my question. Do you ever wish you’d stayed in Europe? And avoided this … this idiocy? Tell me the truth, Teddy.”
“I think not. Really, Barlow, you’re not the only one who takes an interest, you know. In war, I mean. Scientifically speaking, it’s a remarkable phenomenon. One should be afraid … but, somehow, it’s so cussed fascinating.…”
“More than starfish?”
“Different. I mean, one does learn a great deal about oneself. In Europe … in Brussels, to be specific … I had the most dreadful nightmares. Wild imaginings about the war, insufferable dreams. I was afraid, I daresay. Of war as I painted it to myself.”
“And now you aren’t?”
“Oh, I’d rather not be shot at. But … isn’t it odd how war can be such a combination of the spectacular and the utterly mundane? At the same time?”
“Teddy … I’d like you to do something for me. For yourself, actually. Do you have to go back to headquarters immediately? Can someone else hold Meade’s hand for a few more minutes?”
“I could fudge it a bit. What—”
Barlow tossed a paw toward the salient. The low ridge was just visible. The rain had faded at dawn, but the mud it left had prevented a renewed offensive and more clouds rolled toward them from the west. Wreckage steamed in the heat.
“Ride over there, Teddy. To the first line of entrenchments. It’s perfectly safe. Lee’s retired to a much stronger line a half mile back. Leaving us the proud possessors of a charnel house made of mud pies. Do have a look, you’ll find it awfully interesting. From the scientific perspective.”
“Actually, I’d been planning to inspect the ground,” Lyman said, “so I can describe it to General Meade. That’s why I rode over. And I wanted to return your things, of course.” Lyman squared his hat upon his head. “Don’t suppose you’d care to come along? For old times’ sake?”
Barlow’s eyes were stones.
“I had a good look,” he said.
Ten a.m.
The Bloody Angle
The Union dead were horrible. The Confederate dead were worse. Inside the trenches, bodies had piled up five or six deep, as corpses might have been heaped in medieval plague pits. Here and there, a wounded man strained with his last strength to work his way out from under the crush of the dead. Fingers curled. A foot twitched. The faces that remained whole had the look of the terrified dead in paintings of the damned by German masters, but none of those artists, not Cranach or even Grünewald, had dared twist limbs so madly or reveal the truth of what lurked beneath the human canvas of skin. Open mouths and open eyes stared heavenward, caught in agony. When a wounded man moaned from the depths of the filth and flesh, it was as though one of the dead had spoken.
Rain clouds darkened the earth anew.
Busy with the blue-clad dead and clearing the last few wounded of their own, the troops on burial detail ignored the Rebel wounded and simply shoveled mud over the trenches. The Union dead got shallow but private graves, with markers splintered from ammunition boxes.
A few yards off, a soldier raised a shovel high and swung its edge down fiercely
. Thrice. Lyman chose not to inquire.
All over the field, officers hunted fallen comrades amid the disfigured and dismembered corpses, with many a man reduced to shreds of meat, unidentifiable. More than a few soldiers wandered about, eyes dead to the world through which they stumbled. Bedlam mad, a sergeant stood amid a slew of bodies and preached to anyone who would hear, shouting imprecations at earth and sky. He went ignored: Language had lost all power to dismay.
Beyond the trench line, the dead of both armies reached into the shattered grove, literally as far as the eye could see.
A vision stopped Lyman. Perfectly composed, the face of a Botticelli youth lay turned to the heavens, eyes closed as in prayer, the handsome features framed by golden locks.
There was nothing below the neck but a cutlet of shoulder.
Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Lyman III, of Brookline, heir to a splendid fortune and related safely to the Eliots, Parkmans, Shaws, and a half dozen other unassailable families, had been keeping a diary in fine detail, determined to leave an objective—indeed, a scientific—record of the war. But he did not think he would write down what he saw here. Decency took precedence over integrity. He could not present such a world as this to his wife or infant daughter.
As he rode back to resume his regular duties, Lyman thought it unfortunate that men could not regenerate limbs like starfish.
PART
IV
MARCHING TO HELL
TWENTY-ONE
May 23, early afternoon
Ellington House, on the North Anna River
Lee considered the buttermilk. He had been ill again, and no morsel had sparked his appetite for days. Then his host, Parson Fox, reappeared on the porch. Deserted by his servants, the good man delivered an offering of bread and buttermilk. Almost the shade of Mary’s beloved yellow roses at Arlington House, the beverage tempted Lee.
He told himself that those people—pawing toward the redoubt across the river—would not attempt to force a crossing for hours, if at all. Surely, their reverses at Spotsylvania had dimmed their ardor for headlong adventures. He judged it likeliest that the activity was but a demonstration to veil a movement on Hanover Junction from the east. His son’s cavalry reported few Federals to the west, above Jericho Mill, not even sufficient numbers for a feint. So the left flank was secure, and if the right was still in question, Lee had reason to feel confident. His army had concentrated handsomely, while Grant and Meade were extended along the roads north of the river, according to Hampton’s scouts. He had time to prepare to repel a crossing, once the Federals revealed their true line of advance. A few moments might be spared for needed refreshment.