The Damned of Petersburg

by Ralph Peters

  “Good, good. In the trenches. And Willcox, I’ve seen Willcox. Haven’t I?”

  “Yes, sir. He’s moving forward.”

  “Good, excellent.” Burnside turned full face to the aide, who had grown rather unkempt during his trips to the line and back. “We have to make something out of all this, Van Buren. The point of crisis approaches, a man can feel it. And crisis brings opportunity, does it not?”

  The aide didn’t answer.

  Meade, George Meade. Burnside could hardly think about anything else. The fellow had just insulted him unspeakably! And by telegraphic message! And Humphreys, that crude and blasphemous man! Both of them pestered him endlessly. Why wasn’t he doing this? Why hadn’t he done that? As if any of this was easy!

  Somehow, Meade had gotten his hands on a message not intended for his eyes, a message meant for Burnside himself, about conditions up there in the pit. And Meade had accused him—all but accused him—of dissembling in his reports.

  Meade had pressed him, rudely, to seize the next ridge now or take his medicine. Advance, or call it all off.

  And admit failure. Again.

  They wanted him to fail, that was the thing.

  Grant was behind it, of course, the bloody-mindedness. Throw men away, hurl them to their deaths, that was Grant’s way. Worse than Fredericksburg. Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor. And the June assaults right here on the Petersburg line. Massacres, every one. Yet Grant was Lincoln’s pet, while Burnside’s peers spoke of Fredericksburg in snickers.

  Now Grant was rumored to be prowling the lines. No good could come of that. Why couldn’t they leave him alone to fight his battle?

  Nothing going right. Ledlie. Where was the sot? Beastly fellow. Politics, politics. Hadn’t opened the lanes through the defenses, Ledlie had not. Despite a direct order. Bad behavior atop bad luck. And Humphreys, Meade’s henchmen, snarling through the telegraph, never satisfied with any report.

  Ferrero’s men, the Colored Troops, were to be committed, after all. “If necessary.” Leaving it on his shoulders, of course, to decide whether it was necessary.

  Ambrose Burnside knew who would take the blame, if matters worsened. They all conspired against him, every one of them. And he’d tried to be a good fellow, a warm companion, to them all.

  Of course, there was still hope things would turn around. Willcox about to go in. Might make the difference. Sheer weight of numbers.

  Burnside turned to order Van Buren off again, but the poor fellow looked fagged out. He decided the major had earned himself a respite and glanced about for another trusted staff man.

  “Pell? Find General Ferrero. Tell him to prepare the Colored Troops.”

  “Orders have gone out, sir. The brigade commanders have been alerted and we’re searching for General Ferrero. No one knows where he is.”

  That surprised Burnside. It took him a moment to recall giving the order.

  Too much on his mind. Not least, the despicable conduct of George Meade.

  “Then find Ferrero and order him up immediately.”

  First Ledlie playing hide-and-go-seek. Now Ferrero.

  Fighting a headache summoned by the guns, Ambrose Burnside reached into his pocket, felt the telegraphic message he had crumpled in his outrage minutes before, and decided to send George Meade a sharp rebuke. The army commander’s message had been a personal affront, an unspeakable condescension, far beyond the prerogatives of a military superior. The tone was simply ungentlemanly.

  And a gentleman had to comport himself as a gentleman, no matter the circumstances. Burnside could not let the insult pass. The war could wait for the moments it would take to draft a protest.

  Heading toward the field desk that had been positioned for his personal use, Burnside begged again, “Has anyone heard from Ledlie?”

  Six forty a.m.

  Field hospital, 20th Michigan, Union entrenchments

  “You’ll be busy soon enough,” Brigadier General James H. Ledlie told the surgeon. The ongoing cannonade sifted dirt between the planks that formed the bombproof’s ceiling. “Get the saws ready, get the knives out,” Ledlie went on, voice slurred. “Chop ’em all up.”

  Surgeon Orville P. Chubb did his best to ignore the man, general’s star or not. He knew Ledlie by sight, of course, but did not answer to him. And he and his orderlies had to be prepared for casualties to arrive at any time. Their regiment and its parent brigade were formed up to attack.

  “Trouble with you butchers,” Ledlie continued from his bench by the wall, “is that you’re lazy. You take the easy way out. Cut off a man’s arm over a hangnail. Rather than take the time to sew him up.”

  Chubb said nothing. He feared that the general would flush him and his men back out of the dugout, the nearest place to the fighting that was safe enough to serve as a dressing station. A life could be saved by fifty yards, and Chubb had spent his best years saving lives.

  Ledlie’s staff men haunted the entrance, ducking in and out and looking sheepish.

  “Wonder why I’m sitting here?” Ledlie asked the surgeon directly. “You wondering that? Why I’m not out with my men?”

  Chubb shrugged and bent to help an orderly erect a collapsible operating table. The war’s technical advances were a wonder, as were the advances in medical knowledge and care. The great field hospital at City Point would have been unthinkable even one year before.

  “I’m wounded, that’s the problem,” Ledlie declared. He extended his left foreleg like a dance hall girl. “Right here. In the foot. Spent ball. Terrible pain, terrible. I couldn’t possibly lead an attack.”

  “Have a look at it, if you like,” Chubb told him. “See if anything’s broken.”

  Beyond the entrance to the bombproof, men going forward cheered.

  Ledlie smirked. “What do they have to cheer about? What does any man have to cheer about anymore?” He took out a silver flask, attempted to drink, then turned it upside down. “All gone,” he said in a voice almost childlike.

  “Keep the bandages covered, for God’s sake,” Chubb told a new assistant. “You’ve got dirt falling on them.”

  “Malaria, that’s my problem,” the general continued. “Had it for years. Only thing that helps is a proper drink. Chills, fever. You know the symptoms. Leaves a man incapacitated, sitting here shivering. Only whiskey helps.”

  An orderly laid out blades and saws in the order Chubb preferred. The cadaverous young man then covered them with a towel that would not remain unstained.

  “I’ll need more water than that,” the surgeon told another of his helpers.

  “I need a medicinal drink,” the general said.

  Chubb restrained himself.

  “Doctor, prescribe me a drink,” Ledlie said. His voice had acquired a new edge of menace. “I need fortification. So I can stand the pain and rejoin my men.”

  Chubb turned to a subordinate. “Clarke, fish out the rum.”

  “I said ‘whiskey,’” Ledlie reminded him.

  “Rum’s what we’ve got. If you don’t want it…”

  “Rum will do.” The general contorted his face. “Filthy drink, though. ‘Nigger whiskey.’”

  Another general appeared in the low doorway. Much to Chubb’s chagrin.

  “Ah, Ferrero!” Ledlie called. “Our coon-coddling dancing master! Come have a drink, man! Butcher-boy there’s buying.”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Ferrero said. He crossed the dugout and joined Ledlie on his bench.

  “Unbelievable mess out there,” the newcomer said.

  An orderly handed each man a tin cup with a measure of rum, but Chubb withheld the bottle.

  Ledlie touched his cup to Ferrero’s and drank the rum straight down.

  “Not enough,” he complained. “Not enough for my malaria. Damned Jew sutler wouldn’t be that stingy.”

  A sweat-caked officer plunged inside the bombproof, calling, “General Ferrero?”

  Ferrero nodded and said, “Over here, Pell. Why the grand furore?”


  “From General Burnside, sir.” The latest intruder extended a slip of paper. “Orders for your division to attack. Immediately.”

  Ferrero snorted. “Preposterous! My division couldn’t move an inch. Willcox has the covered ways jammed up. Potter’s mob, too. I can’t move an inch, tell that to Burnside.”

  With an expression that tipped into insolence, Pell withdrew.

  “One more drink,” Ledlie announced.

  Seven a.m.

  Company H, 30th United States Colored Troops,

  Sigfried’s brigade, Ferrero’s division

  While his white officers conferred and awaited orders to advance, First Sergeant John H. Offer exhorted his men.

  “Going to be a great fight, this fight. Hear me? Greatest fight we seen yet. And the weight of all this war, it riding your backs. We take Petersburg, then old Richmond next. That be how we whip Lee’s army, them bondage men, Egyptian and the Philistine.”

  Straightening his back and lifting his shoulders, Offer continued, “You know we ready. Show the world the braveness of the colored man. So pray now for a strong heart, a mighty heart, you pray to the Lord. Pray we rise to do our part at last. And every man think of the colored folk still in them chains, you think of your brothers and sisters. And think of all the great generals going to be watching you today, watching the Negro, see if he can fight, if he can hold himself upright like the white man.” The first sergeant nodded and hardened his face. “You listen now, you all be listening close. Any skulkers going to feel my bay-net. Hear?”

  He looked around at the earnest faces, at men he knew full well, from the earnest freedmen, some of whom could read newspapers and talk high-tone, to scooted-off slaves, with their fool expectations of freedom and the beat-in sloth that had to be shaken out of them … if the white man failed, these men would be given the long-delayed chance to prove their worth, after all their tribulations.

  His will be done.

  The first sergeant concluded, “You just remember Fort Pillow! Remember what been done to the colored man by those devil men yonder.” He raised his voice to a pulpit pitch and cried, “Remember Fort Pillow!”

  His men cheered and it had the feel of a hymn-sing rising to thunder. Other Negroes, not his, but who had eased in close to listen, men whose faces shone in the morning light, glistening with the day’s first harvest of sweat, faces in black and maroon, coffee brown and bronze, high yellow and just shy of white … those men cheered, too, echoing his cry of, “Remember Fort Pillow!” and adding: “No quarter!”

  “No prisoners, no prisoners!” men called gleefully.

  Then the white officers reappeared, their faces pale and fixed with looks of destiny.

  THREE

  Seven fifteen a.m., July 30, 1864

  Confederate lines

  “Why don’t they press the attack?” Lee demanded of those who rode beside him. To Lieutenant Colonel Walter Taylor, the old man sounded unnerved. This wasn’t merely another bout of Lee’s peevishness, fed by poor digestion and arthritis. Lee’s senior aide, Taylor had not seen the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia so unsettled since Spotsylvania, on the day Hancock broke the line and word arrived from Richmond that Stuart lay dying.

  Again, today, there was bountiful cause for alarm.

  Battle thrashed on the high ground beyond the ridge that concealed the horsemen. Every man present knew that their re-formed line was barely holding, each moment of survival a marvel, a wonder.

  Hooves clopped, keeping shy of a trot to spare hard-ridden mounts.

  “Why don’t those people come on?” Lee asked again.

  Lee spoke to himself, above all, Taylor knew. The old man would be thinking that if he were in command on the other side, the Yankees would have reached the Petersburg depot an hour back. The Yankees had blown a massive hole in the line, only to fumble about and all but halt. And incompetence—on either side—outraged Robert E. Lee’s professional pride.

  Those opposing him had been his peers, his brothers-in-arms, before the war, and he seemed to feel that his former comrades let him down when they were defeated too easily. That said, Lee sought not just victory, but his foe’s humiliation.

  The Lee that Taylor knew, while admirable and inspiring, was far from the loving father the men supposed. Lee would sacrifice anyone to win. Behind that studied façade of immaculate manners, Lee was the hardest, proudest man Taylor knew.

  Mahone needs to come up fast, Taylor thought, but he did not voice it. Lee’s mood was best left untouched.

  Artillery rounds shrilled overhead as Federal batteries overshot the battlefield. The shells plunged blindly into the city, a further outrage. For hours, every nearby soldier had been thrust into the line to struggle, against fantastic odds, to keep the Yankees out of the Cockade City. Yet all those efforts summed to a meager offering. Only the Federals’ inexplicable fecklessness had delayed catastrophe.

  Lee would be mad at himself, Taylor saw that, too. Irate at his error of sending so many divisions north of the James, falling for what now seemed to have been a ploy.

  Indeed, why didn’t the Yankees come on? The old man’s question haunted every horseman, from Lee himself down to his color-bearer.

  “Perhaps,” Beauregard offered of a sudden, “our colleagues in blue had a limited purpose today. Could be the mine’s effect surprised them, too.” He cooed to his horse. “Spectacular, I must say.”

  Lee shook his head. “I don’t believe it. I cannot believe that.” He turned in the saddle and called back to Taylor, “Where’s Venable? Venable should have returned. Where is the man?”

  “He may have stayed with Mahone, sir. To guide him.”

  Lee was not to be appeased. He snapped, “His purpose isn’t to ‘guide’ General Mahone. His duty is to this staff.”

  Everyone pulled back an invisible inch.

  “Why don’t they press their advantage?” Lee asked again, spurring Traveller lightly.

  Squandering hours, the Federals had done no more than push out a hundred yards or so to either flank of the pit. Yet they had the strength to smash forward, if they summoned the will, and Bushrod Johnson’s men would be overwhelmed. From the ridgetop, a man could tally over a dozen regimental and brigade flags in the ruptured space they’d seized. It was almost as if the Yankees were staging yet another ruse, a thought that pestered Taylor. The Virginia Military Institute had taught him the trick that Marlborough played with his banners at Ramillies.

  He did not dare suggest such a thing to Lee, not when the old man was seething.

  Instead, to cheer up Lee, he said, “The Carolinians have been making it hot for them, General. Came right back to themselves, got down to business. McMaster has—”

  “They can’t hold them,” Lee said sharply. “They’re far too few, should those people show resolve.”

  “Might have just made a shambles of things, our Yankee interlocutors,” General Beauregard tried again. “Been known to happen. If so, tant mieux.”

  “I simply cannot believe that they haven’t come on,” Lee said stubbornly, ignoring his subordinate and old rival. “They have the numbers, they have every advantage.”

  Affecting an easy heart on the worst of days, Beauregard leaned into his pommel, pointing the way ahead with a repertoire smile. “House I mentioned is just up there. Gee family manse. Hardly renowned for elegance, but the view’s superb. Five hundred yards from le place de combat.”

  “Good,” Lee mumbled.

  They turned their horses up the hillside, back toward the riddles of the battle.

  Charlie Venable galloped up, man and beast splashing sweat.

  “At last,” Lee said.

  The party halted.

  Lee called out, “Colonel Venable? Where are Mahone’s brigades?”

  “Following, sir. Quick as the men can march. Had to go roundabout, hide from the Yankees.” Panting, Venable reached for his canteen, then thought better of it. “General Mahone’s leading them personally. Said he couldn’t
just send off those brigades, preferred to take them into the fight himself.”

  Lee almost smiled. “Which brigade’s to the fore?”

  “Virginia Brigade, sir.”

  Lee nodded. “I knew it. I knew Mahone would lead with the Virginians.”

  For a too-brief moment, Lee’s spirits appeared to rise. Then, above them, the crash and crackle of battle swelled again.

  “He’s needed now,” Lee said.

  Seven fifteen a.m.

  50th Pennsylvania

  Brown didn’t like it. Things just lurched and stopped again, with even less sense of a guiding hand than usual. Leaving the covered way and crossing the creek, the brigade had formed ahead of the old defenses, divided into two wings, both facing left of the mayhem around the pit. Preparing to charge, they had fixed bayonets, nerves high. Then they waited uselessly, just standing there in ranks. As men fell dead and wounded, the soldiers were ordered to their knees and finally onto their bellies. They’d waited like that for nigh on an hour now.

  Deployed on the far left flank, the 50th was shielded by the roll of the slope, but the Michiganders over on the brigade’s far right were getting punished. And stray bullets found an occasional Pennsylvanian. One solid shot from a Union gun fell short, tearing a corporal from Company D to pieces.

  They hadn’t slept. The wait seemed endless. Brown’s put-on calm wore thin.

  He couldn’t see the pit anymore, thanks to the roll of the hill, but it sounded like the fight was stuck in one place, not going anywhere.

  What worried Brown directly, though, was that the 46th New York had been put in the front line for the assault, immediately to the right of his own men. Brown didn’t trust the 46th or the captain leading them. Those men were city Germans, recent immigrants, all jabber, sour tobacco, and reluctance. They were different beasts from the Dutchie farmers and sturdy canal boatmen, old stock all, who speckled the ranks of Company C and the 50th. Brown had nothing against Germans as such—not if they’d fight—but he’d seen the 46th New York behave badly too many times.

  Who had put the 46th in the front line? Were any of the damned officers using their brains?