The Damned of Petersburg

by Ralph Peters

  Yes, a soldier had to do his duty. But Barlow’s sense of duty was all awry. Duty demanded that a man be capable or give way to others. Frank might feel obliged to carry on, but Miles smelled pride and vainglory.

  What had Hancock been thinking? It was common knowledge that Hancock wanted Barlow to take the corps when he couldn’t bear the field any longer himself. But surely Hancock had to see Barlow’s condition? Frank needed a rest. It was hardly the time to expand his responsibilities.

  But Hancock was ill, too.

  Perhaps Hancock had hoped to distract Barlow from his sorrow. If so, a great many men would pay the price.

  Nelson Miles was grateful that his own worst complaints were insect bites and sunburn, the latter the price of fair skin and the red in his brown hair.

  Barlow’s staff disappeared into a copse.

  Grown bitter, Miles consoled himself that if Barlow proved unfit to command, he’d no longer hear that haughty voice calling him “Nellie.” He hated the nickname. And Frank knew he hated it. Which only encouraged him to use it.

  Barlow was that sort of fellow, smirking with that snaggletooth, forever needling those he meant to befriend. On the few occasions another officer had tried to call Miles “Nellie,” he’d brought the man up short. But Barlow existed in a world of Barlow.

  And still, Miles reminded himself, Barlow had raised him up. The boy who’d clerked in a Boston crockery shop, devouring books on war and dreaming of glory, was now a general officer, with his twenty-fifth birthday less than a week behind him. And his rise had been due to Frank’s tutelage and favor. Barlow had been the most ferocious officer in the army, a model of martial conduct for Miles to emulate. He’d been a brilliant teacher—far better than the quaint French colonel Miles had paid to teach him to drill back home—but class was at an end. Barlow wasn’t just a danger to the enemy now.

  Nelson Miles dreaded the hours ahead.

  Eleven a.m.

  New Market Heights

  Oates said: “Isn’t a question of whether we can hold. We can. Question is why the devil they don’t attack in any force.”

  “I confess myself mystified,” General Gregg said. Gregg had declared for Texas, but Oates still heard Alabama in his voice. “Given all their to-do.”

  In the dawn, the river below had been clogged with boats, steaming and whistling and coming about to disgorge tiny creatures in blue, the confusion even more pronounced when viewed through a set of field glasses.

  Colonel Perry, who had the brigade, offered his opinion: “Well, if they were aiming at some sort of surprise, it didn’t take. Knew they were coming last evening. Heard artillery crossing those bridges all night. Put down all the straw you want and burlap up the wheels, you can’t keep an army quiet.”

  Lowering his glasses, Gregg said, “Can’t accuse them of moving with alacrity, that’s the truth. Heat’s on our side. Yankees just aren’t used to it.”

  Oates fought down the impulse to say, “This heat ain’t on nobody’s side.” His men were completely exposed in their trenches and rifle pits, with only one poor tree in the regiment’s stretch—the tree under which the three officers loitered.

  His men had been ordered forward from Camp Holly the morning before. This was the second day they’d been left sweltering.

  Waving a hand at the churned-up earth around them, Gregg said, “Yankee gunboats do throw a mighty shell.” He looked at Oates. “Many casualties?”

  “One dead. This morning. Had a lieutenant buried alive, but we got him out. A few wounded. Mostly, you can see the puff and take shelter.”

  “Colonel Lowther expressed a bit more concern,” Colonel Perry noted.

  And Oates wanted to answer, “Well, Lowther’s a goddamned coward, a regiment-stealing, good-for-nothing sonofabitch.” But he only said, “He’s got his opinion. I’m more concerned about the Yankees in front of me.”

  “But you’re confident you can hold?” Gregg asked again. His doubt was almost an insult.

  Oates nodded. Heat or no heat, his men were primed to kill.

  “Looks to me like they’re shifting to our left,” Perry said. “That column back a ways there, by the Slash.”

  “Their reinforcements been marching that way for hours,” Oates explained. “But those blue-bellies down the hill aren’t going anywhere. Plenty to go around.”

  “I make it at least a full corps,” Gregg judged.

  “More like two,” Oates corrected him. Generals tried his patience.

  “Grant does have a hankering after Richmond,” Perry said. “Petersburg’s the country cousin, Richmond’s the belle of the ball.”

  A boat down on the river released a cloud of steam from a boiler. A soldier yelled, “Look out!”

  The visiting officers threw themselves into the nearest pit, with the general landing indecorously on the colonel. A few other soldiers, caught unawares, leapt for cover, too. But most went about their business.

  Oates just stood there. Furious. Hadn’t been nothing but a puff of steam. And the soldier who’d cried out had known it, too. Having himself some fun with the high-up officers. Oates meant to see about that.

  “Y’all can get up, gentlemen,” he told his superiors. “Looks like the Yankees were aiming at somebody else.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Colonel Perry spit. “Jesus Christ.”

  The man couldn’t stand on his leg. He eased himself back against the side of the hole.

  “Ankle,” Perry said. Raising a knee chestward and clutching said part.

  Oates jumped into the hole and took the ankle in both hands.

  “Christ, Oates!”

  “Nothing broken,” Oates told him. “Sprain, most like.”

  Perry tested the foot again. And grimaced. “Not even sure I’ll be able to ride.”

  Oates truly did mean to have a reckoning with the play-the-fool soldier who’d called out the false warning. He’d find the man. One way or another. And there wouldn’t be any more watermelons.

  Captain Wiggenton sprang up from the main trench. “Here they come!” he shouted back to Oates.

  “About time,” General Gregg said. “Perry, I reckon we’d best get you out of here.” With staff men rushing forward to help, the colonel soon had more assistance than any man required.

  Oates gave an easy salute. “By your leave, gentlemen. Matters I need to tend to.”

  He was eager beyond common sense. First serious scrap since he’d taken the 48th Alabama. And with his old 15th on the right flank and the 4th Alabama—what remained of it—posted to his left, he meant to show what a difference a leader could make.

  Let the Yankees come on. He’d give them a taste of salt and a dose of pepper.

  But little came of the Federal probe. The blue-bellies gained a few rifle pits, then gave them up again. The only mortal loss Oates suffered was a fellow who went into fits and died of heat sickness.

  What the devil were all those Yankees up to?

  Noon

  Bailey’s Creek

  “Lynch,” Barlow told the colonel standing before him, “dust away those skirmishers. On the quick. Take those fortifications beyond the creek. Before they can reinforce.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lynch said. “I’ve got the New York Heavies in the lead. I just need to get them some water and—”

  “You can get them water after they’ve taken that line.”

  Lynch looked worn, sleepless, stained, and sweat-caked. But they all were. It was everything Barlow could do to keep himself upright on his two pins, what with the dizzies ambushing him every few minutes. And his feet itched so horribly that he wanted to strip off his boots and scratch himself bloody. The last time he’d had his boots off, his skin had looked leprous.

  “General Barlow,” the colonel tried again, “I’ve already lost one man in five, and that’s just a rough count. The heat—”

  “We all feel the heat, Lynch. You’ll lose more men if the Rebs fill in those trenches.”

  “I just—”

 
; “We’re not debating, Colonel. I gave you an order.” He pointed. “Send the Heavies straight down through that cornfield, get across the creek, and take those earthworks. No delays, no deviations. Don’t waste time.” Barlow inspected the man a final time. Lynch looked played out. But he’d have to play on. They all did. “Go on.”

  The colonel slumped away, shaking his head.

  Barlow wanted to tell the man, “Damn it, I don’t like it, either.” But they’d fallen seven hours behind the plan, which was in shreds. As for the heat, if he could bear it, so could the dregs he commanded.

  He just had to keep his mind clear. He had to show well today.

  Charlie Morgan materialized. Riding a nag a peddler would have scorned.

  Barlow smirked. “Where’s your show horse, Morgan?” Hancock’s chief of staff owned a coveted mount.

  Morgan’s face soured. “Damned heat. Not just hard on the men. Horses, too.”

  “Well, Cassandra … what doth thou foretell?”

  “Hancock wants to know the reason why nothing’s been undertaken. He’s counting on you to punch through.”

  “For a start, my lead brigade’s just coming up. Win may not have noticed, but we had some minor problems on the river. Or were you all napping?”

  “Christ, Frank. I was hammering on those blasted docks all night. Literally. Hammer and nails, up to my stones in mud.”

  “Roaring success there. Bravo.”

  Morgan looked as though he wanted to throw a punch. Barlow’s mood was no less foul.

  Controlling himself, Morgan asked, “What shall I tell Hancock? He’s just trying to pull this circus together, you know.”

  Barlow pointed to the right front, where Lynch’s skirmishers stepped out from a tree line.

  “Tell him I’m attacking.”

  Twelve fifteen p.m.

  Long Bridge Road

  As Miles rode past, a medical orderly struggled to pry apart the jaws of a man the heat had felled. Miles had lingered near the column’s rear to herd the men, but hundreds had dropped away without a shot fired. Now the march had stalled again, leaving the troops to roast in open fields. Not yet loaded, rifles scalded hands. And the troops ahead had drunk the farm wells dry. Miles’ own canteen had been empty for hours.

  The only good news he’d had was that the regiments from the grounded ship had landed. Now they’d have another ordeal to face.

  He’d only won Barlow’s favor, he knew, because he was nearly as savage in battle himself. But he wasn’t sure any soldiers on earth could give a good account of themselves in such a state of exhaustion, in such heat. And Frank did seem half-mad.

  Rifle fire crackled ahead, perhaps a mile distant. It wasn’t coming from Tenth Corps, either. Second Corps was in it, his own men.

  He spurred his horse to a gallop, adding more dust to the misery of the march and hoping the animal wouldn’t collapse too soon.

  Twelve thirty p.m.

  Bailey’s Creek

  Major George Hogg, commanding the 2nd New York Heavy Artillery, had never expected to find himself leading infantry attacks. Fond of mathematics, he’d signed up for the artillery and had spent his first years of service comfortably billeted in Washington’s defenses.

  Now here he was, with Jim Lynch telling him, only half in jest, “You can face the Johnnies, or you can face Barlow.”

  All of them had been shocked when, a few months before, they had been reassigned as infantry to make good the losses Grant had suffered in his first go at Lee. But after their initial dismay—that sense of having been cheated by heaven and earth—most of the soldiers he led had fought with a will, eager to prove themselves. And to his even greater surprise, Hogg had discovered the thrill of leading men.

  If he wasn’t the finest officer of infantry in the army, he was proud of not having done too terribly badly.

  This was a bad day, though. A very bad day. None of the officers’ horses had caught up with them and all had marched afoot, every man equally worn by heat and thirst. When he’d given the order to form for an attack, he had been almost surprised to be obeyed. Every man in the regiment was exhausted to dropping, with one in three peeled away during the march. He had been even more surprised when he’d ordered them to advance and the men had obeyed him.

  Now it was one lone regiment—if a large one—sent to seize earthworks over a half mile distant.

  No enemy fire met them as they progressed down the slope, colors centered on a rutted farm trail. But men dropped nonetheless. Hoarse officers and sergeants croaked commands, maintaining alignment. The heat seemed truly unbearable.

  A man in the ranks cried, “Jaysus,” his plaint worthy of a martyr.

  Hundreds of footfalls crushed dry grass and weeds.

  Still no firing.

  The corn ahead looked stunted, the surrounding landscape parched, its greenery tiring too soon toward autumn.

  One shot, then a few. Off to the right. Hogg guessed it was friendly skirmishers, not his own flankers. The firing tapered off.

  Shooting at spooks in the heat.…

  Going to be hard to maintain ranks in that corn. Wouldn’t be surprised if some of the men grabbed the chance to hang back.

  No matter. Just keep going. The heat burned through his uniform, hot irons pressing the cloth.

  “Officers!” he croaked, gone dry. “Straighten your ranks, keep your intervals.”

  They entered the corn with a rasping, crashing sound. The ears, which should have been ripe, were browning off.

  High season for corn back home in New York State. Hogg suspected there wasn’t a man in the regiment who wouldn’t have preferred to be back there today.

  No matter. They had their work.

  A cattle stampede through a canebrake could not have made more noise than they did in the corn. Any Rebs this side of Richmond had to hear them.

  Still no firing, though.

  A cross-trail cut through the cornfield. His diminished lines emerged briefly into the open before renewing their battle with the stalks. There were fewer men now.

  Hogg paused to stand on tiptoes for a moment and thought that he spotted movement up the far slope, above the trees, in the Reb fortifications. Or it could have been the heat playing tricks.

  Still at least a third of a mile to go.

  Amid the thrashing and bashing, a mounted orderly found him.

  “General Barlow says you’ve gone too far left. Your orders are to go straight for the entrenchments. Before they reinforce.”

  “I am going straight for their works. Unless there are positions I can’t see.”

  He took off his hat, wiped the sweat from his eyes, and covered his scalp again.

  “General Barlow says you’re too far left,” the man repeated.

  As swiftly as he could, he called the commands he hoped would correct the trajectory of the attack, shifting to the right, more to the north. What Barlow wanted, he got.

  Ranks disordered, his men broke free of the corn.

  Reb sharpshooters opened up from the left.

  Two men dropped.

  Hogg could hardly see for the sweat in his eyes. Wiping them made it worse.

  “Keep moving! Keep moving!”

  A grove ahead, in the low ground, curled out to hug their flanks. As the regiment neared the trees, their crowns concealed the ridge, the object of the attack. It was all dead reckoning for the next stretch. Hogg wished someone had shown him his way on a map.

  On the left, some of his men had paused to return fire at the Reb skirmishers.

  A lieutenant collapsed. Shot, or stunned by the heat.

  Another rider found Hogg. The horseman bent himself low as bullets sought him. His face was as red as raw meat.

  “If you keep on this line of march,” the messenger told him, “you’re going to be enfiladed from the right. The Rebs have rifle pits all along there, over in those trees.”

  “I’ve been ordered to move to the right.”

  The orderly leaned down in
the saddle as bullets snapped through the air.

  “I wouldn’t know about that, sir. I’m just telling you there’s Rebs there on your right.”

  “You have orders for me?”

  “Just that.”

  Not the best of days.…

  Before he could overtake his advancing lines—shrunken by half or more—Johnnies did open up from the right as well. Hidden in a band of trees, they could only be detected by their rifle flames.

  Struggling to be heard, Hogg called, “By battalion … right oblique … colors, guide on the right…”

  The only thing he could do now was to clear out the Rebs from those woods. Couldn’t advance and leave them behind on his flank.

  Rasping out a succession of orders, he sent his rightmost companies into the trees. Men fell bleeding. Voices growled. Shots punched.

  He turned back to his left and found the men had halted in the open. Unaccountably. Opening a gap of a hundred yards. Before he reached them, artillery shells crashed down among the companies, issuing from a battery masked from view.

  “Get them into the trees!” he called to the officers. “Over there!” He needed his men together. One isolated regiment. Stranded without support in the heart of Dixie.

  If Barlow had some magical gift of sight, where was the artillery support?

  As his men moved, raggedly, into a right-wheel maneuver to join their comrades, a heavy volley hit them in the back.

  What the hell was going on? The Rebs were everywhere. Whose idea had it been to send his men out alone?

  Some of the soldiers caught in the field broke ranks and ran for the trees to join their comrades.

  Hogg was surprised any man had the strength to run.

  More artillery opened up, pounding the open field and splashing dirt. The last ranks dissolved amid the bursting shells.

  Hogg gave up and followed them into the trees.

  Dead Rebs lay in the thickets. It didn’t appear that his men had deigned to take prisoners, with no man in sound mind or balanced temper. His own dead lay amid several blue-clad wounded. Those untouched by the scrap knelt and gagged on dust, or shivered with the unholy sweat of heatstroke, or simply panted like dogs run near to death. A few officers stood about, but everyone else lay sprawled or sat there slumped. And every face that turned toward him delivered the same message: “Don’t ask me to do no more, I can’t go on.”