by Ralph Peters
“Surely, Colonel. But I have to shift you. You’re propped up on my knapsack.”
As the two of them fussed, an orderly in a blood-mottled coat approached. He bore a wretched gift.
“Colonel Oates? This here’s your arm. Doc Hudson said to ask you what you want done with it.”
Staring at the ravaged limb, Oates seethed. “I don’t give a good goddamn. Ain’t no service to me.”
But Jimmy Morris said, “Let me bury it, Colonel. He can help. We’ll bury it right the other side of this tree, won’t take us long.”
“Won’t make me feel better,” Oates grumbled, rich with spite.
“Make me feel better, though,” Jimmy insisted.
Oates looked away.
Ten p.m.
City Point
“Got yourself whipped again, Genr’l?” Grant’s manservant asked.
Grant smiled gently. “Took some whipping, did some whipping.”
Brushing Grant’s worn jacket, Bill went on, “I declare, times I think you been whipped more often than black folks sold downriver. That Genr’l Lee, he sure your cross to bear.”
“And I suspect I’m his. Hand me some cigars.”
“The good cigars? Or the really good cigars?”
“I figure I’ll smoke what you haven’t smoked up yourself.”
Out on the river, the whistles and horns were unceasing. The damage from the blast had been made good in days. Grant heard familiar voices in the new dark, too low to be deciphered. Camp talk, not staff talk. He could tell that much by the tone.
After fussing with multiple locks, a chest, and a litter of boxes, Bill brought him a fistful of stogies.
“Miss Julia, when she come, bound to object. You smokes so many.”
“I won’t smoke as much when she’s here. Won’t need to.”
But Bill wasn’t done with the evening’s commentary. “That Genr’l Lee now. I bet he cuss you all the day and night.”
“Then you guess wrong. General Lee disdains immodest language.”
“Meaning he don’t cuss?”
“Never. Or so I’m told.”
“Well, that makes two born deacons, you and him.” Bill set down his brush and brightened, playing his role as long agreed between them. “Maybe that there the problem, why you comes short of Richmond all the time. Maybe you the wrong man for the job, maybe turn Genr’l Rawlins loose on the feller. Or that devil-man Sheridan. Cuss him right to death, have him all crying, ‘Please, Genr’l Grant, I surrenders. Jus’ make him stop that bad-talk.’”
“Sheridan’s quite fond of you, you know. He thinks you’re quite the philosopher.”
Bill tut-tutted. “That little fellow mostly fond of hisself.”
Grant laughed. “You don’t get to be a general by doing yourself down.”
By the light of a lamp struck by suicidal moths, Bill looked at him doubtfully. “Miss Julia always say how you do yourself down something terrible. Wonder how you ever got where you got to.”
“I’m slower about some things than my wife prefers.”
“Scare me right to death, that woman do.”
“Her bark’s worse than her bite.”
“Well, I don’t care for neither. I jus’ stays on her good side.” Bill scowled, features maroon and hands deep brown in the lamplight.
Grant let the conversation drop, although he enjoyed his bantering with Bill. Many a day, it was his only pleasure.
Well, this day had not gone as well as he’d hoped, or as badly as it might have. The longed-for breakthrough had evaporated, but the range of prisoners taken made it clear that Lee had rushed every man he could up from Petersburg. And that made it all worthwhile.
That day, he’d written to Lincoln, Washburne, Halleck, Sherman, and Sheridan, reassuring each on one point or another. But the most important message had been to George Meade, directing him to ready Warren’s Fifth Corps for a raid on the Weldon Railroad west of Petersburg, one of the last two rail links left to Lee. With Lee’s army concentrated north of the James, something might be accomplished to the west. Tear up some track, at least.
Yes, there had been disappointments. There would be more. If there was one thing Ulysses S. Grant understood, it was disappointment. But he had learned this one thing: how to wage war. What he needed to do was to keep his grip on Lee’s throat while Sherman and Sheridan cut the South to ribbons.
That was what he needed to do, and Grant intended to do it.
PART
III
THE RAILROAD
EIGHT
Eight a.m., August 19, 1864
Globe Tavern
“Mackerel?”
The regiment’s commissary sergeant tossed another box of fish from the wagon. Rain slapped down. Shoes sank into the mud.
“You’re issuing salted mackerel? Now?” Lieutenant Brown asked, bewildered at this fresh stupidity. Every time a man thought he’d seen the worst of the army’s ways, he got himself surprised again.
“You get what I get. I don’t like it none, neither.” The sergeant hefted another crate, its top splintered off by his helper. “Come and get it, boys.”
“Mackerel’s only right,” Sergeant Eckert allowed. “Been all but swimming these two days.”
The men were disgusted and Brown was sour, but the distribution continued. The drenched soldiers slogged past, taking their rations. Few men liked the mackerel even when there was time to soak it and draw off some salt. Here, in the pelting rain and porridge of mud, when the Rebs might pop out of the gloom for spite, it was all but beyond the powers of Man to prepare the dry-packed fish and force it down.
Nothing to be done. Brown trailed his grumbling company back to the stretch of mud it had been allotted, amid the sodden remnants of the regiment. Across a field, a stripped rail bed ran past an abandoned building, its old paint yellow as jaundice. The open tract surrounding the ruin looked to be a square mile, fringed with woodlands and the usual undergrowth. The open plain was busy with artillerymen building embrasures for their guns, bogged ambulances and supply wagons, clots of bedraggled soldiers, mounted couriers splashing mud, and, as always, officers interfering with everyone’s doings.
Under First Sergeant Losch’s supervision, the company’s veterans built cooking fires, working smoky miracles, while new men scavenged more wet wood, gleaning scraps passed over by previous tenants.
“Viel Rauch,” Losch snorted, “doch keine Flammen. Gib Platz und schau mal, Jungs.”
Yes, Brown agreed sourly, plenty of smoke, no fire. Well, maybe the rain would keep the Rebs away. But probably not. Didn’t take a general to figure out that the Johnnies wouldn’t take kindly to having their railroad snatched. Fifth Corps had grabbed the line the day before, just went out and took it and squatted down on it. Now the Ninth Corps had to lend a hand to back the claim. In weather that put a man in mind of Noah. Wasn’t a fellow in the company who wasn’t wet all through, and some were sickening. As for Brown himself, his thighs were raw on the inside, red as butchered beef, and his manly parts were annoyed.
“Can’t cook this up nohow,” Adam Burket complained. He stood up, grinned, and tossed a slab of mackerel into a puddle. “See if that gets rid of the damned salt.”
Brown was about to call Burket to order. The men had to eat, to get something down their gullets, exhausted and hungry as every one of them was. But before he could act, a half dozen others tossed their fish into the brown water, too. Then everyone did. Laughing.
“Like fishing, only backwards,” Billy Tyson said.
Brown had to let it go.
Sergeant Hill stepped close. “I don’t like this, Lieutenant.”
“Me, either, Henry,” Brown agreed. “Salt-fish. Now, of all times.”
“Not the fish,” his old comrade corrected him. Hill gestured across the field to the line of trees.
Ten a.m., August 19
Headquarters of Lieutenant General A. P. Hill
At the first taste of the coffee, Beauregard made a
face that deplored the decline of civilization. “We need a major victory over the Yankees,” he declared. “Replenish our coffee holdings.”
“Trifle weak,” Hill admitted.
Boots squeaking, Beauregard walked to a map spread over a table. Rain smacked the roof of the house.
“Show me again.”
The muffled commotion of staff work continued around them, though Beauregard was sure all ears were open. Gaunt and somber, Hill traced a finger over the heavy paper. “The ravine begins a few yards from Mahone’s headquarters. Deep enough to hide a goodly force and wide enough for regimental columns. If something of a jungle. Runs behind the right flank of their Fifth Corps, just where they’ve left us a gap. Nigh on perfect.”
“Warren hasn’t been reinforced?” Beauregard asked skeptically. “You’re certain?”
“Not that we’ve seen.”
“Hard to see much in this weather. Common sense…”
“Had my scouts out. All night long and this morning. Didn’t spot any movement.” Hill tapped a finger east of the captive rail line, near the old tavern. “Mahone knows that ground. Better than any other man in this army. Surveyed every inch of it, back in his railroad days. And he doesn’t mind telling you.”
Beauregard smiled at the thought of Billy Mahone. Queer little fellow. A few degrees short of a gentleman, by Louisiana standards. Hellcat fighter, though.
“He knows that ravine, he used it before,” Hill continued. “Back in June, when we gave Hancock a thrashing. Yankees still have no idea it’s there, haven’t figured it out. Not a picket near it.”
Despite a heavy greasing, Beauregard’s boots had not kept out the wet, and his stockings bunched. Dreadful weather, dreadful times. And that wretched excuse for coffee … a man did miss New Orleans.
Yankees were drinking coffee down there now.
“And then, cher Général?” Beauregard asked.
“Mahone strikes their flank with three brigades. He’ll want more, of course, but—”
“There are no more,” Beauregard finished the sentence.
“Soon as he hears the firing kick up from Mahone, Heth advances his division, right down the railroad line, straight for Globe Tavern. Heth hits them in front, once Mahone’s called their attention to the rear. We catch them in a vise.”
“If Mahone’s successful.” Beauregard rubbed a hand over his forehead. “I do wish we could’ve pushed them off the line yesterday. Before they entrenched.”
“We tried.”
“I know.”
“Couldn’t muster the force, sir. Not in time. Did what we could.”
Beauregard nodded. “Mahone’s composition?”
“Virginia brigade from his own division, all he’s got left. Rest are still loaned out north of the James. I’m giving him Colquitt and Clingman from Hoke, best I can do.” Hill took a turn at smiling. Powell Hill’s smiles always looked pained. Beauregard assumed it had to do with the Virginian’s private affliction, the rotten fruit of a youthful indiscretion.
“Little Billy kicked,” Hill went on. “Insisting men fight best under their own generals, men they know. He thinks Bob Hoke should lead the flank attack. Given that two of the brigades going in are his.”
“Doesn’t sound like Mahone. Billy likes a scrap.”
Hill shook his head. “I never can predict what that man will come up with before a fight. Once he’s in it, though…”
“Well, I want Mahone in command. So that’s settled.” Beauregard crossed his arms in front of his chest, his carefully studied posture of contemplation. “How rich do you think he really is, Powell? Pastry cook he keeps makes the finest gateaux this side of the Quarter.” He shook his head. “And that cow…”
“Rich enough, I’d wager. All those railroad men are Croesus incarnate.”
Beauregard smiled again, with a tinge of rue. “Wish I’d invested in railroad shares myself. Rather than land, which has the unpleasant habit of just sitting there. Je regrette…” He waved away the past with considered elegance.
“Wish I’d had the money to invest,” Hill said. “When’s General Lee expected back?”
“Uncertain. Hancock’s still rumbling up there. And President Davis has been … difficult. Regarding the safety of Richmond.” He sighed. “Now this. Lose the Weldon and we only have the South Side. Hard to supply this army with one railway.”
Beauregard caught a hint of condescension in his tone and arrested it promptly. Powell Hill was one of those impossibly proud Virginians, sensitive to the mere ghost of a slight. Not that any Virginian ever proved humble, in Beauregard’s view. Pride was a powerful sentiment that had to be wrapped in grace—a quality only Lee and some few from the Old Dominion possessed. Came naturally to well-bred Louisianans, of course.
“But you know all that, Hill,” Beauregard concluded. “Tell Mahone and Heth to go ahead.” He paused, tightening his eyes, his voice, his heart. “Teach the Yankees a lesson they’re apt to remember.”
Eleven a.m.
Globe Tavern
Sitting astride his horse in the steady rain, Major General Gouverneur K. Warren cataloged his frustrations with his superiors. He’d taken the railroad the day before. Marched out in the rain and took it, succeeding where the army had failed in June. The Confederates had tried, immediately, to retake it. And he’d driven them off. They’d try again today, even harder, and he’d see that they failed again. He knew what he was doing.
But did anyone else know what they were doing? Grant, Meade, even Humphreys—the latter rather a disappointment at times—had to be led to see sense. Ordered to raid the railroad and tear up the tracks, Warren had seized a solid position astride the line and promptly begun the work of destruction with all of his engineer’s diligence. Days of rain had soaked the ties, making them hard to burn, but he’d managed that, too, then heated the rails and bent them. Meade, cranky and sneezing, had finally seen that a mere raid counted for little. The railroad had to be held.
Despite early scolds that the Fifth Corps would have to go it alone, Meade had belatedly promised more support. At Humph’s urging, Warren suspected. He remembered Humphreys as a stern but benevolent captain helping a striving lieutenant make his way in the peacetime Army. Now the situation was reversed. Humphreys might be taught a thing or two.…
Grant had come around as well, only to make a muck of things in his uniquely benighted way. Meade, at least, had the discipline and mind of an engineer to balance his outbursts. But Grant? The fellow understood no more of tactics than a child. His order to push out toward the Rebel lines as far as possible and defend those forward positions put half Warren’s men in a woodland so thick with brush they could barely move, while the other half were exposed for all to see.
Had Warren had his way, he believed he could have made his position impregnable. The lines of fire from the tavern across that open tract were perfect for Wainwright’s guns. But too many of the troops had been forced to occupy ground the artillery couldn’t support. And Wainwright could hardly roll his guns into the undergrowth.
A rivulet of water found its way between Warren’s hat brim and his rain cape.
Nor did he think much of the promised reinforcements. Burnside was gone, good riddance, but Parke had yet to prove himself in his stead. And the Ninth Corps was still the Ninth Corps, no one’s notion of reliability, appearing on the field in bits and pieces. Warren had chosen to hold the new arrivals in reserve, rather than send them up to relieve his own troops, weary as his splendid fellows were. Couldn’t have the Ninth Corps breaking at some critical moment. His Fifth Corps would have to see to any real fighting.
He was surprised at the Rebs’ tardiness. He’d expected them to attack early in the morning.
Perhaps the rain had addled their plans, as well? Lord knew, the Ninth Corps was barely straggling in, mud-caked and griping, with White’s division nowhere to be seen.
At least Ledlie was gone. Ledlie and Burnside both. Had it been left to him, though, Warren would ha
ve swept out even more officers.
He turned to his aide and brother-in-law, Wash Roebling. If not a military man by profession, the major at least was a fellow engineer from a bridge-building family, with handsome prospects should he survive the war. Warren’s sister, Emily, had been well served by the match, although the romance had rather startled Warren. But he’d married his own beloved Emily, his Baltimore belle, on the eve of Gettysburg. Gain an Emily, lose an Emily. Fair enough, he supposed.
“Roebling, I’m uneasy about the right. I’m not convinced Crawford understands where I want that skirmish line. He can be a bit thick.” Crawford, a Pennsylvanian, had been a surgeon in the prewar Army, which Warren hardly viewed as a recommendation.
“I’ve seen to it myself,” Roebling said. “His skirmish line’s tied in with the rest of the army.”
“It’s not enough to be ‘tied in.’ Crawford has to get the geometry right, or that flank’s an open door.”
“It’s been explained to him, sir.”
Warren shook his head. “I’d countermarch a Ninth Corps division over to the flank, if I thought one trustworthy. I do not like that gap, Roebling. And Meade’s no help. Or Humphreys.…” He felt sweat pooling under his rubber cape. “Damnable rain … I hope the men are keeping their cartridges dry.”
“I’m sure they’re trying, sir.”
“Well, off with you. Press the rest of the Ninth Corps to stop dawdling and come up. They’re better than nothing. Find White, wherever he’s lolling, and give him a push.”
Roebling saluted and clopped off, going slowly at first to avoid flinging mud. Warren decided to ride to his left to visit Charlie Griffin, the one subordinate he largely trusted. Griffin had been charged with refusing the corps’ left flank with his division, in case the Confederates tried a deep envelopment. Charlie was an old soldier and something of a bear, but a positive Turk in a fight.
Making his way along, with his corps flag and national colors sodden rags, Warren marked the wretched look of his reinforcements again: The Ninth Corps seemed composed more of mud than of men. Of course, the roads were difficult, the wet earth of Virginia all but bottomless, but the more a man looked like a soldier, the more the fellow felt like one.