The Damned of Petersburg

by Ralph Peters

  “Eight to ten thousand on the march. Maybe more. All swinging around our left. And they’re not working parties. Ambulance trains trailing them, supply wagons … they’re coming out to fight.”

  “If Hancock needs help…”

  “Could release two of Mott’s brigades back to Hancock, I could make up the numbers. And we could pull a Ninth Corps division from Globe Tavern. Warren’s got all he needs.”

  Meade nodded heavily. “Get out the orders early. Wait until Win asks, before you send anybody, though. He’s been touchy. Don’t want him to think we mistrust his judgment.”

  “He’s tired,” Humphreys said. “That mess north of the James. Second Corps needs a rest, George.”

  “Finish with the Weldon. Then they can rest.”

  “Might’ve been better to use another corps.”

  Meade’s expression disbelieved that. “I trust Hancock.”

  “Win’s not at his best, George. He’s ailing. And look at Barlow…”

  “Let’s hope the medicos do their job this time.” Meade’s face tightened, thoughtful. “Remarkable officer, Barlow. For someone who never saw West Point.”

  Humphreys smiled, despite himself. “Your toady Lyman would set you straight on that point. Seems Harvard’s the only institution of higher learning that counts for a monkey’s fart.”

  “You’re too hard on Teddy,” Meade told him.

  “Little coddler looks at me like I should be shining his shoes.”

  It was Meade’s turn to smile. “Well, your credit’s as good in Philadelphia as Teddy’s is in Boston.”

  “I can’t even bear the way those people talk.”

  Meade’s expression grew milder, almost unguarded. “You know, Humph, I’ve always wondered about something. You … why West Point, not old Penn? And why did you stay in?”

  “I could ask the same of you.”

  “No, it’s different. My family had name. But no money. Lost it, that Spanish business, my father. So West Point was about it. But you … how far back does your family go? Almost sounds like they beat Willy Penn down the gangplank. And you’re a wealthy man.”

  It was an unusually personal query from Meade, very un-Philadelphian. Humphreys ascribed it to the late hour, to their mutual exhaustion. But he answered.

  “Didn’t want to sit on the exchange, a third-rate Girard. Afternoons at the club, gout by forty, cow of a wife for company.” He grunted at the horrors he’d evaded. “Wanted to do something. Make my own way, I suppose.” He shrugged. “You know how it is, George, Army life. Like being an opium eater or a drunkard. Before you know it, you just can’t give it up.” He looked down at the floor, back through the years. “Been angry as the devil many a day, but I never regretted putting on this uniform.”

  In the background, the telegraph clicked: No sleep yet.

  Before turning back to business, Humphreys said, “I suppose you’re either an Army man, or you’re not. Simple as that.”

  Two a.m., August 25

  Mahone’s headquarters, Petersburg

  He dreamed of home, of his mother. His father was absent, the reason unclear. It was home, but not home. Bright summer. Hot. Mahone was grown, yet his mother was still young. They were on the river, hiding, fleeing. His mother sat pale and terrified in the boat. Nat Turner and his ruffians were after them, hunting them in particular. The river shone in the sunlight, golden and red as blood. At a bend, the banks were lined with uniformed Negroes: Nat Turner’s men, hundreds, thousands, impossible. There was no way to get past them. They slipped into the water like alligators, coming for them. His father had left him and his mother, taking the others away, that was why he wasn’t there. Leaving him to defend his mother against gaping black maws, uniforms, rifles …

  He woke amid bedclothes poisoned by his sweat.

  TEN

  Nine a.m., August 25

  Reams Station

  Hancock limped toward the old frame church and the dismounting cavalryman. Miles followed, along with Gibbon, his fellow division commander, and Walker, Hancock’s adjutant. Charlie Morgan was off, fists balled, stalking the quartermaster. Around the gathering of officers, Miles’ soldiers worked to improve the defenses, sweating in the face-slap morning sun. Glad to watch others at work, the men of Gibbon’s division lolled, waiting for orders to march out and take their turn at wrecking the railroad.

  Brigadier General David McMurtrie Gregg handed off his horse. Face powdered with dust above a sweat-matted beard, he looked as though he hadn’t slept an hour since the war began.

  “No Reb infantry,” Gregg reported, bloodshot eyes on Hancock. “Pushed two miles out, bit more. Just Hampton’s pickets, up to their usual mischief. Rode off when they saw we were in force.”

  Miles sensed Hancock’s relief.

  “Good,” the corps commander said. “That’s good.”

  “He’s still out there, though. Hampton. At least one mounted division, maybe two. He’ll be prickly again today.” Gregg smacked his hat against his thigh. Dust bloomed. “They don’t want us crossing Rowanty Creek, they’ve made that clear enough. Spear thinks Hampton means to push up that bridge road, badger our work parties.”

  “I’m not concerned about Hampton. Just hold him at a distance,” Hancock said. “I’ll send you a brigade, if he gets ambitious.” Hancock’s expression tightened and he rubbed his close-shaven jaw. “Humphreys was all but certain we’d face infantry. The reports…”

  “Probably extending their lines,” Gibbon put in. “Making sure Warren can’t flank them. The Weldon’s gone, and they know it. Hampton’s just ornery.”

  Hancock nodded. “Makes more sense than risking a fight this far out. Lee has to shield the Boydton Plank Road now. And the South Side. That’s the game.” Considering, he turned again to Gibbon: “Still … a bit of caution, John. Keep half your division under arms while you’re out there.”

  “Everything else as planned?”

  “As planned. Rip up all the track you can. Just keep an eye out. Wade Hampton would love to pull off a stunt.” Hancock smiled his first smile of the day, perhaps of the month. “Such as scooping up a division commander and putting him on display in downtown Richmond.”

  The corps commander turned to Miles. “You look like something wants to come out of one end or the other.”

  “Rebs may just be late, sir,” Miles suggested. “Hard march for their infantry, if they’re looping around to come at us from the west.” He scratched a mosquito bite on the back of his neck, a new plague atop his sunburn. “They attacked Warren late at Globe Tavern.”

  Hancock began to shake his head and stopped himself. “Well, we’re not going to let our guard down.” He considered his subordinates. “Are we, gentlemen? But the sooner we finish taking up that track, the sooner we can leave this shithole behind.” His face had a lemon-suck look. “I won’t mind going, myself.”

  “Men won’t, either,” Gibbon told him.

  “All right, then. Every man to his duty. Walker, see if that damned telegraph’s up. General Gregg, you keep Hampton amused.”

  “It’s a vendetta now,” the cavalry officer said. “Horses are tiring, though.” He touched two fingers to the brim of his hat and turned to his mount.

  Gibbon marched off, hard-faced and cold as ever, shouting orders. His division staff rushed to overtake him. Walker headed toward the staff tents and an adjutant’s endless concerns. Miles was about to step off himself when Hancock halted him by the lift of an eyebrow.

  “You can ease up on the men. Since Gregg found nothing.” Quickly, Hancock added, “I don’t mean stop work entirely, of course. Christ Jesus, aren’t these earthworks wretched? Just moderate the pace, don’t work them to death.” The big man’s lips curled, wrestling his mustache. “I’d hoped to rest your men today, Morgan’s been at me like Lucifer with a pitchfork.”

  “I’d like to strengthen the picket line, though. Bad enough that the guns can’t support it properly, given those trees. If Reb infantry do turn up�
�”

  “Damned trees,” Hancock spit. “Can’t very well cut down a whole damned forest, not with everything else I’m asked to do.” He looked away, to the west. “Well, be grateful for the fields we’ve got. We’ve been worse off. Damned Wilderness, for one place.”

  The major general bent his swelling torso and rubbed his thigh. Miles doubted that Hancock knew he was doing it. Discipline and reserve were breaking down. Even among generals.

  “Go ahead, Miles,” Hancock finished up. “Run the skirmish line however you wish, it’s your division now. But spare the men where you can.” He took off his hat and sopped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief. Hancock looked older than his years, much older than he had the year before.

  They parted. Hancock to take the weight off his bad leg, Miles suspected. As for himself, he felt uneasy, unsure if it was his sense that the Rebs would come, after all, or concern that he might falter in command.

  Hancock was right, of course. The men shouldn’t be driven beyond reason. He’d criticized Barlow for that very thing. But the entrenchments wanted more improving than a full day’s work—a day of relentless labor—could achieve. They couldn’t let up just yet.

  That smaller grove to the north wanted slashing, for one thing. The trees edged too close to the berm, there were no good lines of fire. The higher sections of parapet needed proper firing steps, and railroad ties might be put to use as head logs, though they’d need shoring. Not least, every rifle pit needed improvement.

  He decided to work the men another hour or two before letting anyone rest. The temperature wasn’t all that bad, not really. They could go until it got hotter, soldiers didn’t melt.

  Abruptly, he stopped. Amid the tumult of men at labor and Gibbon’s mob preparing to march down the rail line.

  “Barlow,” he said.

  It was grotesque. Frank wasn’t even dead, but his ghost had possessed him. He’d been acting, thinking and sounding just like Barlow. Just the morning before, he’d pleaded with Morgan to give his soldiers a respite. Now he was driving them as hard as Frank would have done.

  Was it just the difference between commanding a brigade and a division, between looking after soldiers and looking off toward a broader horizon? Had Frank’s apparent selfishness, his seeming cruelty, been something else entirely? Had Frank been … right?

  A soldier shoveled dirt against Miles’ boot.

  Ten thirty a.m.

  Malone’s bridge

  “Call that handsome, I do,” Lu Davis said proudly.

  “Fair start,” Hampton replied.

  They watched from the south side of the creek as the dismounted men of the 9th Virginia chased the last Yankee cavalrymen from the brick kiln. The bluecoats ran off on foot, more than a few throwing down their repeating rifles.

  The Virginians hallooed after the scattering Federals, as if they were mounted again and hunting foxes.

  “All right, Lu,” Hampton told the colonel, “hold up about here. Until I have a better sense of things.”

  “We could drive the rest of them, sir.”

  “Don’t doubt it. But hold up. Go rope your boys in.”

  Davis rode off, a touch disappointed but schooled to crisp obedience.

  The grand attack on Hancock and his corps had not come off. Not yet. The last Hampton had heard from A. P. Hill, who was ailing again, was that he’d needed to rest the infantry, who’d taken longer to march down from Petersburg than expected. They were still miles short of Reams Station.

  So Hampton had taken action on his own, making good use of the extra time. He hoped to lure as many Yankees southward, away from Hancock’s position, as he could before Hill got Heth and Wilcox into line to strike the earthworks. Divide and conquer, Hampton told himself. Worked against many an enemy, not just those wearing uniforms.

  Rifle fire pocked again to the east. His son galloped in.

  As Preston drew up, Hampton spoke first: “Better have something important to tell me, Lieutenant. Important enough for you to risk spoiling that horse.”

  “Yes, sir.” Preston. Breathless, eager, vivid. “Just like you reckoned. Yankee infantry, at least two brigades, coming down the Halifax Road at the double-quick.”

  “That your mathematics? Or Colonel Cheek’s?”

  “The colonel’s, sir.”

  “Then you should have reported it that way.”

  He was being too severe, he knew. But he feared softness on a battlefield. Softness killed. And he feared paternal leniency. His sons had to be above reproach, like Caesar’s wife.

  Seeing the wound in Preston’s eyes—his dead wife’s eyes—Hampton added:

  “Good work, Lieutenant. Now walk that horse and water him in the creek.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Thanks be to the Lord and poor old Hancock. Sending his men out at the double-quick, in this heat. They’d be blown before they got into the fight.

  His horse tapped one foot, then another. As if impatient for battle.

  Hampton reached for his map bag and searched its innards for paper and a pencil. Before he began to write, he signaled that he needed two couriers.

  Off toward the railroad, the skirmishing grew bolder.

  Tearing off the first note, he told one rider, “Take this to General Barringer. Tell him there’s no need for a reply, unless he’s being pressed.”

  The courier, a man with a hawk’s face and a Patriarch’s beard, gee-upped his horse without the use of spurs: a poor man who’d never worn such before he put on a uniform. But the cracker rode like a demon, light on a horse’s back.

  Next, Hampton wrote to A. P. Hill, reporting the situation and promising to draw the Yankees southward for as long and as far as he could. Meanwhile, he’d threaten Hancock’s communications back to the Jerusalem Plank Road and the Union rear. He’d keep Hancock worried, keep him looking south and east—while Hill advanced his men from the west and north. As politely as he could, he encouraged Hill to attack as soon as possible.

  To the east, his horse artillery went into action.

  Twelve thirty p.m.

  Reams Station

  “Charlie,” Hancock said to his chief of staff, “I’d like to punch that sonofabitch in the face.”

  “I don’t know, sir,” Charlie Morgan said, grinning near unto insolence with that rough, reassuring face, “I hear Hampton’s a big one. Might not turn out jolly.”

  Hancock stopped amid the broad commotion, with heavy skirmishing on two sides of the earthworks.

  “You don’t think that I could whip Wade Hampton? In a fair fight?”

  “Not from what I hear.”

  Hancock couldn’t quite murder his smile. “Hell of a chief of staff you are. Where’s your goddamned loyalty?”

  “My job’s to keep you out of trouble, sir. Which can be a challenge. I’m doing my best.”

  “Dog-fuck job of it this morning.”

  “I return the compliment, General.”

  A mad burst of hoofbeats announced that another detachment of cavalry was pounding in from the west, along the Station Road. Running like rabbits.

  “Judging by their indelicate haste,” Morgan said, “I suspect there may be more than a handful of Johnnies headed this way.”

  “Last of Gibbon’s men back in?” Hancock asked.

  “All but Smyth. The guns are in. Have to give Hampton credit.…”

  “Bastard almost pulled it off. Damned near.”

  “Cavalry’s good for something. Ours, I mean. Did find Hill.”

  “Late in the game.”

  “Not too late, though,” Morgan said.

  Leg paining him badly, the old wound oozing again, Hancock said, “Closer than I like. See to the left return, would you? How the digging’s coming?” He didn’t add that he preferred not to walk one unneeded step.

  Hadn’t it been sweet, though? Back when he was whole and hearty, all but worshipped as “Hancock the Superb”? He’d enjoyed the adulation, wasn’t ashamed to admit it. And now? Who
had he become? “Hancock the Lame”?

  He longed for one more smashing victory. He knew he couldn’t command much longer, his body wouldn’t support it. But he wanted to win one more time, to go out with his plumage still intact. Maybe even with the colors brightened.

  He’d done poorly that morning, though. He saw it all too clearly. Hampton had toyed with him like a saloon gambler tormenting a bumpkin. Had the cavalry not blundered into Hill’s men at last …

  Well, he’d managed to recall Gibbon and put the defense back together. The Rebs would have a time of it. As poor as the position was, the Rebs would have to charge earthworks. And that rarely turned out well for the attacker.

  “Hancock the Disappointing”? he thought with a rueful smile. Until embarrassingly recently, he’d entertained the notion that he, not George McClellan, might be the Democratic Party’s nominee in the election, the man to replace Lincoln. But McClellan it would be, after the convention.

  His thigh felt as though the bone would snap in two. His fat leg. Not long before, he’d been the very specimen of an officer, physically splendid. Now there were times, at night, when he wept with pain, unwilling and unable to take remedies, refusing to turn to drink. His valet, an Englishman of remarkable skill and spectacular cowardice, recommended laudanum. Which, of course, was out of the question.

  Nelson Miles came up to report. And Charlie Morgan strutted back at an angle, already finished inspecting the left return, no waster of time. Hancock longed to be as spry as his chief of staff again. Or Miles, with his loping, stride-a-league limbs.

  “Well, Miles?”

  “Retook the outposts. Won’t be long, though. Before they come on in strength. They’re massing out there.”

  “Goddamn those trees. I’m minded to ride out and have a look myself.”

  “Best not,” Morgan said, stepping up to the huddle in time to overhear.

  Annoyed with himself, his memory, his leg, Hancock had to ask, “Did I … I did order the surgery moved? Didn’t I?”

  “Yes, sir. To the church.”

  “Good.” He caught the look that passed between Morgan and Miles.