The Damned of Petersburg

by Ralph Peters

  “Couldn’t rightly say. Came over the country.”

  It had been a fool’s question, given the courier’s path. He had to quell his surprise, to think clearly now.

  “Matt, you get along fast. Doesn’t matter if the Yankees see your boys going. Just get them mounted and riding, we’ve got to keep Hancock off the White Oak Road.”

  Hancock had advanced faster than Hampton thought possible.

  “Surely,” the brigadier general agreed. “Just have to get there.”

  “That trail we came down this morning. Take that.”

  “If it’s still open.…”

  “Chance it. Swing behind Hancock like he swung behind us.” Hampton growled low in the throat. “Get them going, Matt. Off the roads, if you have to. Just get them across White Oak Road, as near to your old camp as possible. And hold those sonsofbitches.”

  A cavalryman to the bone, Butler jumped to it and Hampton turned back to the courier. The lad looked downright starved, but he’d done good service. Hampton wished he could recall the boy’s name.

  “Good work,” he said. “Most important message I’ll hear all day. Think you could make your way back to General Dearing?”

  “Can’t rightly say, sir. Try, though.”

  “Good. Try. Tell him I’m on my way to White Oak Road. He’s to join me, as soon as General Heth releases him.”

  The rain began to sting.

  “Reckon he won’t,” the courier said. “Genr’l Heth has him holding that bridge by the mill, on the Burgess place. Ain’t nobody else there to take things up.”

  Dickinson. That was his name.

  “Well, you’ve done us a worthy service, Dickinson. Just pass on my message to General Dearing. And tell him I wish him luck.”

  The courier nodded and gave a salute that would not pass on parade, but the boy’s eyes glowed.

  Butler’s men scrambled off the line, dashing through muck and mire toward their horses. Hampton felt they’d already taken too long, though no men could have moved faster. The plan he’d hammered out with Harry Heth to cover the flank was disintegrating.

  Gripping his temper, he forced himself to remember that things on a battlefield often looked worse than they were. Even the weather clouded a man’s judgment. A leader had to be steady, that above all.

  If Mahone came up in time … they could still give Hancock a thumping. But Little Billy would have a long march to make from the Petersburg lines, given how far west the Yankee blow had landed. Hampton believed he could hold for a time, for some hours, if he could get his men across White Oak Road. He just wasn’t going to hold where he’d thought he would.

  And it sounded like Hancock might be exposing his flank.

  Already riding at a trot, heading for the path that would lead to another path that might lead this lean brigade to another stand, he waved up his eldest son.

  “Major, ride down to Rooney Lee—to General Lee—and tell him the plan’s changed. Hancock’s on the Plank Road, just shy of White Oak. And probably not very shy. General Lee’s to come up the Plank Road, straight up from the southwest, and press the Yankee rear. He’s not to become inextricably engaged, not yet. He’s just to keep them busy. More orders will follow.”

  “Yes, sir. Anything else, sir?”

  Features as firm as a quarry face again, Hampton responded, “When you get back, you keep an eye on Preston. No more of his foolishness.”

  Noon

  Confederate lines, Petersburg

  Sergeant Johnny Sale hated marching wet. Wet and cold. Temperature would have been somewhere about pleasant, but for the rain coming back to ambush a man, turning trouser wool to a rawness and everything else clinging. Worked through what remained of his shoes, too.

  But marching they were, a ragged, disgruntled bunch, the 12th Virginia, ready to go at the Yankees with their teeth. With any teeth hadn’t been lost to them. Time was when they’d been teased as the “Kid Glove Boys,” Mahone’s entire Virginia Brigade mocked for its tidy dress and general prettiness. Not now, that was sure.

  Not three hundred men marching in the 12th, and that many nigh on a miracle, with the lurking sickness and all the dead, those invalided out and the wretches—good men once—who’d slipped off in the night from a picket line. Marching on roads down which they could go blindly, by feel of foot, so many times had they been rushed into battle, quick-marched back and forth until they knew this torn stretch of Virginia as well as any farmer knew his home fields, as well as varmints knew the reach of their burrows.

  Today, the roads gripped, pulling on a man’s knees and straining his calves. Marching hard they were, bruise-footed, with the officers pained of face and worry-ridden, their gallantry much thinned. Marching on a rain-spanked day that wouldn’t behave no better. With the Yankees making an uproar off to the west, still a mean march away, and his job as a sergeant—a sergeant promised a lieutenancy, if this Confederacy could ever make up its mind about one thing—his job was to hurry along these men who couldn’t be hurried beyond the grit they already were showing, whose meager flesh couldn’t move their enclosed bones to greater speed, who just couldn’t go any faster, and he had to tell them constantly to git along, that the blue-bellies were eager to say hello, maybe every man and every louse on that man’s scalp remembering better days, times before this death-rich year, this man-breaker, crush-heart time, and Grant grim over there beyond the pickets, Grant whipped and whipped again and just not quitting. How could that be?

  Be all that so, and so it was, Johnny Sale wasn’t given to overpondering things he could not bear upon, reluctant to poke much at thoughts beyond the next spoon of beans, for such deep ruminations led to doubt, which led Man into temptation. No, a soldier did his duty, best he could, and hoped somebody wiser was thinking out some sense to the blood and blisters, the friendships torn by death, the cripplings … don’t think too much on those matters, either, for it did not pay no more than lying with strumpets, which just left a man sour, if not worse.

  Sergeant Johnny Sale sought to be a good man, upright in war as in peace, sorry for much he had done, but always and ever set on doing better.

  Didn’t even think about living or dying anymore, that didn’t pay, either. The Lord was his shepherd, that was enough. And he was one mean sheep.

  “Hurry up now,” he called to the men in his fold. “Yankees be gone before we get a lick in.”

  “Fine with me,” a bent-back soldier told him.

  Noon

  White Oak Road

  Hampton outdistanced Butler’s column and crossed a final field, trailed by the few companions and color-bearers who’d matched his pace.

  He could see them ahead, the Yankee skirmishers: Their wet blue coats and caps looked black in the murk.

  Correcting his path slightly, he spurred his horse again, making straight for the road, judging where Butler’s men might defend before the Yankees could close. His horse leapt a ditch smoothly and splashed its hooves in the virgin mud of the lane.

  Hampton turned toward the enemy and drew his pistol.

  “Mounted skirmish line,” he ordered. “Form up, spread out.”

  His meager band made a line across the road and into the fields, sodden flags held high and pistols cocked. Pure bluff.

  Instead of coming on, the Union skirmishers paused to study the new development. Then they took aim and fired. Rounds ripped past, no one buckled. The range was too long.

  “They’re unsettled,” Hampton said. He stayed his horse. “Steady now, everybody.”

  Several of the Yankees moved forward again, but cautiously. He listened for the hoof-thump of Butler’s lead brigade, but heard nothing for the nearer sounds of cannon to the east, the firecracker snap of rifle volleys, and the patter of rain. Hancock was pressing Dearing up on the Burgess farm, pushing for the bridge. Couldn’t be clearer.

  Looking toward the skirmishers, Captain Aldie said, “We could charge ’em, give ’em a scare.”

  “I’d as soon not,” Hamp
ton told him. It wasn’t a day for bravado, but for hard fighting. He did want Butler to bust out of those trees, though. Problem was that his nags were already blown, far from desirable horseflesh for the cavalry.

  The South Hampton loved had come down a ways. Wasn’t at bottom, though. Hancock would see.

  At last, the head of Butler’s column emerged from the woodland trail. When Butler reckoned out the situation, he ordered a bugler to announce their arrival, wet lips on wet brass, the call slovenly but effective.

  The Yankee skirmish line halted.

  Butler waved his men to a gallop, creating a storm of mud. Hampton hoped the guns had fared well on the trail, they were going to be needed.

  As Butler’s riders approached the road, Matt shouted orders and Hampton added his voice, the two of them working as one, as canny about each other’s thoughts as two spiritualists at a table-rapping.

  The horsemen fanned out by regiment, stretching their left to a pond to the north and southward across the field. In minutes, Butler’s men were throwing up barricades, ingenious at finding materials where civilians would have been stumped.

  A few hundred yards to the southeast, a blue column hastened to reinforce the Yankee skirmish line.

  It was going to be a long, hard afternoon awaiting Mahone.

  Twelve thirty p.m.

  Boydton Plank Road

  As Hancock issued the order to Mott to move his division up onto White Oak Road, a cavalcade appeared behind his trail brigade.

  “Better hold off,” Hancock told the division commander. “See what the hell they want. Just get de Trobriand placed. Then come back.”

  His leg scourged him doubly. He almost felt like pounding his thigh with his fists, to beat out the pus and hammer the pain to death.

  Preceded by outriders, Grant and Meade came cantering side by side, trailed by more flags than a Fourth of July celebration in Philadelphia. Behind the banners, enough well-mounted cavalrymen followed to be put to good use, had they not been retained to serve as palace guards. Their uniforms were mud-clotted now, to the delight of troopers less fortunate.

  Well, Grant and Meade would find things well in hand, with Egan on his way to the mill bridge and Mott prepared to lunge for the South Side Rail Road if that damned prig Warren provided support.

  A magnificent horseman, Grant led the way. Meade had a good seat, too, but carefully let Grant keep a half length’s lead.

  Touching the brim of his hat, Hancock said, “Generals.”

  “How goes the day, Win?” Grant asked. He was smiling. Grant always seemed to smile after a hard ride, no matter the state of all else.

  “Bully, Sam. Caught ’em with their drawers around their ankles.” He turned toward Meade. “That division from Warren? Where the devil is it? Can he send two? Or bring up his whole corps, let Parke hold the line?”

  “Just came up from Fifth Corps,” Grant answered for Meade. “Crawford’s been getting his bunch under way.”

  “He’s to move up Hatcher’s Run and secure your flank,” Meade added. “Reach out for him with your right.”

  “That’s a jungle down there. He’ll be crawling, that’s no route to take.” Hancock stopped to choose his words carefully, struggling to master his outrage—Crawford should have been on the move hours back and marching up Dabney’s Mill Road right behind Mott. He said, “I could use the support right now, George. I just ordered Mott up White Oak Road, all they have holding there’s cavalry. But I need solid support, if I’m to advance. All Warren has to do is cover my flanks.”

  Stern as ever on a field of battle, Meade told him, “That has to wait. For now, you’ll hold right here.” He nodded toward the sound of Egan’s sparring. “Gain the Hatcher’s Run crossing, then assume a defensive position, don’t let them surprise you. And wait for orders.”

  Hancock wanted to rip open living creatures with his bare hands. They’d gotten behind the Rebs, broken through, done what they’d been trying to do for months. And now he was supposed to stop and hold? Here? Just short of the prize? Here? Where he made no damned difference?

  Grant eased his big horse closer. “You’ve had a good day, Win. Don’t want to stretch things too far. We’ll see what Warren can do, what can be done.”

  Hancock understood: They’d all failed for so long that success surprised them. And Grant feared a debacle before the election. More than he wanted a victory. They’d all gotten cold feet.

  He wanted to curse them down, smack them into the mud. Not least, Warren, with his chronic affliction, the slows. And Parke was worthless. Nobody wanted to fight.

  “Choose a good defensive position,” Meade repeated. “They’ll come at you, no doubt.”

  No doubt. And he’d just wait for it. It made him want to rip off his shoulder straps and throw them down.

  “How’s the leg today?” Grant asked.

  “No trouble at all,” Hancock told him.

  One thirty p.m.

  White Oak Road

  Hampton couldn’t fathom it. Hancock had just stopped. His skirmishers kept probing, but there didn’t seem to be any force behind them. Even the ongoing fight up toward the crossing sounded dutiful, not impassioned.

  Well, he hoped it would stay that way. Until Rooney Lee, who was dawdling, came up and added his weight. He’d sent another messenger to Dearing and one to Heth, asking them to keep the pressure on Hancock up by the bridge, to make it seem the struggle of prime importance. Mahone was on his way, that much was confirmed, but it would be hours until he got into place. Meanwhile, for the plan to work, the rest of them needed to entertain Hancock, to keep him looking north, northwest, and southwest … while Mahone worked his way across country, across those damways over Hatcher’s Creek, to hit Hancock from the east, striking from the tanglewood well off the prized roads, appearing where a major attack seemed impossible.

  And when Mahone struck, whenever that might be, they’d all come down on Hancock from every side. And finish him.

  The sky spit another gust of rain, a cloud clearing its throat.

  Three p.m.

  Boydton Plank Road

  Brigadier General Count Régis Denis de Keredern de Trobriand, husband of a New York banking heiress and citizen of the United States by choice since the war’s first days, stomped through the mud to spare his weary horse. Horses were splendid animals, but not intelligent, and a good master had to judge the care they needed. He had grown fond of the beasts on his father’s estate, after the Revolution of 1830 drove the aging baron from the French army and let him concentrate his substantial energies on his land, his racing stock, his son, a succession of quarrelsome mistresses, and his wife. De Trobriand had learned discretion in boyhood.

  Then he had been indiscreet in a tête-à-tête with Hancock. Standing on a point of honor, he’d offended his superior, and Hancock was a man who nursed a grudge. Now all de Trobriand could do was to carry out his duties flawlessly, send love poems home to Mary and teasing letters to his eldest daughter, and wait for Hancock to relinquish command.

  The tristesse of it was that he admired Hancock: The man was a soldier. It had been a relief when the Third Corps was dissolved and he had come under Win Hancock’s command. Sickles had been a trial, and not just at Gettysburg. The politician had swilled without taste; seduced without grace; and fought with a certain valor but no skill. Inelegant on a horse, Sickles had been no better in a drawing room than in the saddle. And he held his cigars the wrong way. Hancock was better on every count, though prouder than any Frenchman de Trobriand knew.

  “No,” de Trobriand told the colonel before him. “It must be just so. Mud excuses nothing. Rain is the soldier’s friend, if he’s a good soldier.” Preferring explanations to bluff orders, he added, “They will come from there, you see. It is the natural axis. We must refuse the line so. Am I understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” the well-meaning colonel told him. “Je comprends.”

  “Ah, but when you speak French to me, it makes me sad, cher Colonel. The
accent…”

  De Trobriand knew his subordinates found him amusing. And he was glad to amuse them, as long as they fought like demons. And they did.

  He led from the front, and they followed. Simple.

  The American soldier, he was a special case. You could not command, “Do this!” and expect it done. No, the American wished to know why such a step should be taken. And once he knew, he usually performed well. The American was a creature of great curiosity, while the European kept to his own business. Beginning the war with the Garde Lafayette, whose ranks were thick with Frenchmen, it had taken de Trobriand time to grasp the peculiarities of the native-born troops. But once he did, he found them rather marvelous.

  The rain stopped, leaving his soldiers soaked and cold—as was de Trobriand. He would not drape a rain cape over his shoulders if his men had none. The day, which had begun handsomely, inched toward disappointment. The corps had stopped. Instead of pressing on with élan, Hancock had ordered Egan’s division into a minor action, while Mott’s division had been carved up like a game pie, with McAllister’s brigade sent to bolster Egan, Pierce scattered on the right flank and poking the woodlands, and de Trobriand’s own brigade held back to cover the western approaches.

  Among his father’s endless stock of homilies, one had been, “A man must know when a love affair is over, as a soldier must recognize when an attack is spent.” But what of an attack left to decay? A lesson de Trobriand had drawn himself was that the moment an advance paused, it started to fail.

  To his father’s chagrin, de Trobriand had not chosen la vie militaire. But in 1861, in a new land, military life had chosen him, drawing him from a comfortable editorship. Of course, had cher Papa been alive still, he would have been more appalled at the happiness of his son’s marriage than he had been disappointed by his son’s earlier disinterest in uniforms: For his class, a passionate marriage was an embarrassment. Romance was for affairs, lust for kept women or the maison close. Wives were to be selected on merits, like horses.