1862

by Robert Conroy

  Thus, they had become raiders. Intuitively adopting the way of the forest Indians, they scouted out small farms and attacked suddenly in the dark of night and in overwhelming strength. Of necessity, killing occurred, and it bothered Hannibal. He was not against killing as such, but the more who were killed the more likely it was that a major Confederate force would be sent to hunt them down and kill them like mad dogs. As they moved, he sometimes wondered if there wasn't a regiment of cavalry over the next hill just waiting for them. He kept his doubts to himself. His real nightmare was that shrieking riders would overwhelm them during the night just as they overwhelmed the farms. So far, they'd been both smart and lucky. He could be smart for a long time, but how long would his luck last?

  Again of necessity, they had adopted the stark policy of leaving no survivors from the raids and of hiding the dead in the woods. Maybe they were found and maybe they weren't. Hannibal didn't know.

  A woman's scream and a groan of agony interrupted his thoughts. Hannibal gathered his rifle and headed to the source. “Damn it,” he snarled.

  One of the newly freed slaves was fucking a woman. Two others held her arms down and her legs apart while the new man-Reginald, a house slave from Alabama-lay on top of her with his sweaty buttocks pounding furiously.

  Hannibal kicked Reginald in the side. For a second, Reginald gave no notice, then he grunted and rolled off the naked woman. Hannibal realized in dismay that she was white. She was in her mid-thirties, skinny, and pinch-faced, as were so many in the hills. Her face was bloodied and her eyes spoke pure hatred as she looked from person to person in the dark-skinned group standing above her.

  “You fool,” snarled Hannibal. “We've got no time for this shit.” Reginald laughed. “Always time for fucking.”

  “Kill her,” said Hannibal.

  “Shit, Hannibal, she throwed herself at me. Came at me naked and all that. She wanted it bad and I gave it to her.” He gestured at the two men who'd been assisting in the rape. “Me and my brothers only wanted what she wanted.”

  Hannibal paused. This sounded suspiciously like what Bessie had done with the catchers some weeks past. Had the same trick just been played on him?

  They had attacked a small homestead. He thought everyone was in the house when it had been stormed, but now he wondered. “Where'd the woman come from?”

  Reginald pointed towards the barn. “Over there.”

  Hannibal leaned over the naked and violated woman. “Was you alone?”

  She managed a harsh laugh through split and bloodied lips. “Go to hell, nigger.”

  Hannibal was puzzled. He had no idea why the woman and someone else might have been in the barn in the middle of the night. But then he had a thought. There had been a man in the house, presumably this woman's husband, and he'd been so stinking drunk he'd never even quivered when Buck chopped into his head with an ax. If the man had been an ugly drunk who liked to beat his people, maybe the woman and someone else had gone to the barn while the fool slept himself sober. Maybe, too, the woman had been fucking some other man while her husband slept it off.

  A quick check of the barn showed two sets of blankets and two places where people had been sleeping. There were bonnets and scarves that told him both were female. Somewhere out in the woods was a survivor, and she was running for help as fast as she could.

  Hannibal seethed with anger. He'd been flummoxed by some cracker farmers wife. Worse, one of his men had been thinking with his pecker and not with his brain. The barn should have been checked out right away. The naked woman could have waited. Hannibal pulled out his bowie knife and rammed it into Reginald's stomach. He thrust the blade upward under the rib cage and into the man's heart. Reginald gasped in surprise and fell backward. No loss, thought Hannibal.

  In an instant, Reginald's two brothers were on him, howling their rage. Hannibal's knife slashed one, opening his stomach and dropping him with a scream as his entrails started to tumble out, but the second bore him to the ground, where they wrestled. Hannibal slashed at his assailant, but the other man just howled some more and kept clawing at him. Desperation made his attacker strong, and Hannibal wondered if he'd be able to take him. Then the man stiffened and went slack. Hannibal rolled him off and let him plop lifelessly down onto the ground. Buck's ax was buried in the back of his skull.

  “Took you long enough,” snapped Hannibal. Buck only laughed.

  Hannibal lurched to his feet and looked around. The skinny white woman was gone. “Where's the woman?”

  “She run away whiles you was fighting,” said another ex-slave.

  “Goddamn,” Hannibal muttered. It had never occurred to the fool to try and stop her. Now he had two women survivors on the loose.

  “We should chase her down,” said Buck.

  Think. Hannibal looked at the woods surrounding the clearing. They were dark and there was no sign of motion, no sign of a skinny white woman running for her life. That meant she had either gotten so far they weren't going to find her, or she had gone to ground in a hidey-hole she knew existed on her own property. His gut told him she had gone to ground.

  Think. To be recaptured was to die slowly and horribly. He already had one woman with a good head start and another one hiding somewhere nearby. He would never catch the first one and it would take both time and effort to find the second. If he took too much time looking for the second woman, the first would be on her way back with white men soldiers.

  “No,” Hannibal said. “We get out of here. We gonna move as fast as we can.”

  He watched as his band gathered their gear and their loot. After all was said and done, it was pitifully small. They would have to raid again to find some food. Now, though, he knew that they would be chased. Not only had they killed white people, but that asshole Reginald had raped one. And that woman with the hatred in her eyes was the one he feared more than anything. She had seen him and heard his name.

  Now he knew the real fear that he would never again see his sweet Abigail and their son.

  Chapter Twelve

  The State Department of the United States was located on Fifteenth and Pennsylvania, a short walk from the White House. Made of red brick and only three stories tall, it was totally dwarfed by the U.S. Treasury Building, which was both adjacent and overwhelming in size.

  To Henri D'Estaing, the difference between the two buildings, Treasury and State, was symbolic of the problems inherent with the United States. The United States of America, now the truncated Union, was far more interested in money than in matters between nations. In short, the United States was a nation of shopkeepers and had no soul, and she would never have one until she realized that it was necessary to exist with other nations. Indeed, existence with other nations was far more important than the making of money. It was, in his opinion, what had made France great and would once again. France understood nations and, under Napoleon III, was well on her way to a degree of primacy that she hadn't had in generations.

  As he entered the smallish State Department Building, he smiled as he recalled Valerie's comment that it more resembled a college classroom building than a place where a great nation's foreign policy was developed. How perceptive she was, he thought proudly.

  He found Secretary of State Seward's office and presented himself to Seward^’ s assistant. While he waited, he seated himself and wondered just why he had been summoned. Again, it was so untypical of a great power. There was no earthly reason for the secretary of state of any nation to ask to see a mere commercial attache, even one from the great nation that was France. Although he was curious. Henri had no great urge to have his curiosity quickly satisfied. Seward was an angry, bristly sort of man who, in Henri's opinion, was totally miscast as a diplomat. Subtlety was a diplomat's stock in trade, and Seward could be as subtle as a bludgeon.

  Henri was escorted into Seward's office. “Be seated,” said Seward. He neither rose nor offered his hand. What is the matter now? Henri D'Estaing wondered as he tried to ignore the slight. “I'v
e asked you here for two reasons,” Seward said. “The first is that I wish you to take a message back to France telling your emperor that his troops must leave Mexico immediately.”

  “Shouldn't you be telling this to the ambassador, sir?” Henri asked in astonishment. “I am only the commercial attache.”

  “You are, sir, what is here in Washington at the moment. The ambassador is away, and, besides, I wish this handled informally. I do not want diplomatic notes or diplomatic niceties cluttering up or delaying what needs to be done. Just go to France and tell the third Napoleon that the United States is angry that his troops remain in Mexico. Also tell him that the last thing the United States will tolerate is an Austrian emperor trying to run Mexico. France's presence in Mexico is a violation of the Monroe Doctrine and not to be countenanced.”

  “But, sir, the presence of a king or emperor in Mexico City would provide stability for a nation that is torn by warfare and is totally bankrupt. Don't you agree that the stability it would bring would be for the good?”

  “No.”

  Henri tried another tack. “Sir, I believe it is what the people of Mexico want.”

  Seward laughed harshly. “Don't insult me with that fatuous argument. If the Mexican people wanted French help they wouldn't be fighting French soldiers, now would they? And even if they did want French help, you're missing the point. The United States doesn't want French soldiers in Mexico, and there shall be no further discussion of the topic. Tell your damned emperor to get them the hell out of Mexico.”

  Henri D'Estaing was sweating. He was way out of his depth in this conversation. “And if my government rejects your unofficial entreaty?”

  “Then both your third Napoleon and whoever is placed on the Mexican throne will regret it. So will your army, for that matter.” Henri paled. This was too much. “Are you threatening war?”

  Seward glared angrily. “A war is what you already have. Mexicans are killing your soldiers and your soldiers are killing Mexicans, or haven't you noticed? What I am threatening is to make it more miserable for France than it already is. If your government does not see the light, then the industrial might of the United States will be used to support those loyal Mexicans who are fighting the French. We will provide the Mexican people with the arms, ammunition, and the training necessary to chase you people back across the Atlantic.”

  D'Estaing understood perfectly. The long border from California to Confederate Texas was wide open to the shipment of war goods to the Mexicans, and the monstrous industrial might of the United States had more than enough capacity to do exactly what Seward threatened.

  “May I discuss this with my ambassador?” Henri asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Sir, you said there was a second reason for involving me? May I ask what it was?”

  “Simple. I want you out of the United States. You think we're all totally stupid here and not aware that you've been bribing congressmen to support France. I've got a number of them willing to testify to that in a hearing that would be embarrassing to both you and France. You would have to be expelled, and that would result in one of those ridiculous tit for tats where we throw you out, and your government throws one of our people out of our embassy in Paris. No: you just go back to France and stay there like a good boy.”

  Henri D'Estaing reeled. Like a good boy? He was being chastised as if he were a child. Yet, like a child, he was helpless. He had diplomatic immunity and was safe from real prosecution, but both he and France could be horribly embarrassed if his actions were made public.

  “How long do I have?” he asked plaintively.

  Seward shrugged. “Take a couple of weeks, but no more.” The meeting was over. Henri departed Seward's office and was ushered out into the sunlight. He staggered as if he had been punched and several passersby stared at him, wondering if he was ill or drunk. He gathered himself. He would talk to Valerie. She would know what to do.

  But then it occurred to him that everything was going to be all right. He would be out of this pigsty of a provincial burg and back in Paris, the city of enchantment. Better, he had a message intended for the ears of Napoleon III alone. However unsatisfactory the message might be, he would be able to speak directly to his emperor. He would also be able to couch the message in words that would be favorable to himself and show Napoleon that Seward was little more than a barbarian. Valerie would be surprised but not displeased.

  For Lord Palmerston, the Royal Navy's attack on New York had been as much of a surprise as it had been for the Americans. On hearing of it, he had wondered whether he would have forbidden it had he been forewarned. But he had not been, nor had he expected to be. Even with the miracle of the transatlantic cable, he could not permit himself to manage the military campaign he had put in the hands of his admirals and generals. Nor did he expect them to have informed him of everything. Other than wasting his time by involving him needlessly in the minutiae of campaigning, there was the danger of the loss of security.

  On the good side, the overwhelming victory at New York had wiped away much of the stain of the defeat at the hands of theMonitor and the resultant sinking of theGorgon andAsp. Newspaper headlines had been gleeful, and articles had gone so far as to speculate that theMonitor herself had been sunk, although there was no confirmation of that. On reflection, Palmerston and his military advisers deemed it unlikely.

  What was to be regretted was that the attack seemed to have galvanized the Union and may have caused them to discover Canada.

  Intelligence from the United States came from several sources and usually very slowly. There were spies and British sympathizers, but they had to first find the information and then somehow get it to Canada. While there were a few pro-British sources in Washington, there were damned few out in the field where it counted. Sources in Washington had picked up on the rumor that a Union army would invade Canada, but there was no real information as to when, where, and in what strength.

  Newspaper reports from Ohio and Indiana reached Canada many days after they were published, if they made it at all, and what generally got to Canada was fragmentary. What they did report, however, confirmed the fact that the Union was up to something and that Canada was the target.

  General Ulysses Grant, the victor at Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, and, most recently, the bloodbath at Shiloh, had been moving his army northward. Just how large his army was and where it was headed was not known. Estimates indicated that Grant's army numbered at least thirty thousand men, which made it a serious threat to Canada.

  “A report from the city of Cleveland says that trainloads of Union soldiers are arriving,” said Foreign Secretary Lord Russell. Palmerston was puzzled. He had never heard of Cleveland. “Where and what might that be?”

  “Cleveland is a small city in the state of Ohio on the shore of Lake Erie. It is a new town founded around eighteen hundred and is named after a surveyor named Cleveland, although he may have spelled it differently. It has recently become an industrial city of some note with a specialty in making locomotives.”

  “Enchanting,” said Palmerston while Russell grinned, “and thank you for the tour. All I really need to know is whether an American army can depart from this Cleveland to Canada.”

  “Possible, but not likely,” Russell answered, still smiling. There was a map on the wall that would have told the prime minister precisely that had he bothered to look. “While it is directly across Lake Erie from Canada, there are no landing points, and such an endeavor would require both substantial shipping and a naval presence to protect it, even from the handful of ships we have on the lake. No, I am assured that Cleveland is simply a waypoint on a greater journey.”

  “Then to where?”

  “I have had discussions with our generals and they are of the opinion that Grant will move towards Buffalo and, from there, across the Niagara peninsula, and then move northerly towards Toronto. With his rear covered, he would then be able to move along the St. Lawrence and towards the ocean, which would impe
ril Ottawa and Montreal.”

  “And our generals feel that this is what Grant will do?”

  “Nobody knows with certainty, Prime Minister, what someone will do until they do it. However, they feel that this course of action fits Grant's persona.” It was Palmerston's turn to laugh. “We know enough about him to discern his persona? A few months ago we weren't aware he even existed.”

  Lord Russell had the nagging feeling that Great Britain might have always been better off if they hadn't heard of Ulysses Grant, but said nothing. Why add to his friend the prime ministers problems?

  “From what little we do know of him,” Russell said, “he is a street fighter who goes for the jugular. There will be nothing fancy about his efforts.”

  “And he is a drunk, isn't he?” Palmerston added hopefully.

  “There is that rumor.”

  “Then what have our generals decided?”

  “Lord Cardigan already has about ten thousand men facing the United States at the Niagara peninsula. These troops are well fortified and dug in. They will be reinforced from the bulk of the army in Canada, which is currently at Toronto. It will shift westward and south to meet a threat from American Niagara and Buffalo. Not surprisingly, Cardigan has already asked for more troops. He has about twenty thousand regulars and an almost equal number of Canadian militia, which he says are totally useless.”

  Palmerston walked to the large map on the wall and examined it. He quickly found Cleveland and dismissed it as anything more than what his generals said. It would be a place through which Grant's army would pass, and not launch itself at Canada.

  It seemed apparent that any American attack would indeed be up the Niagara peninsula. It made no sense for the Americans to go farther eastward and toward the ocean while remaining on the south side of the St. Lawrence. British warships were present in sufficient strength to prevent any attack from that quarter. Thus, Grant and his army had to go through the Niagara peninsula.