The first plan he made was sound, and his first move caught Lee by surprise. He did not advance directly on Lee, as that general expected, but headed southeast, arriving on the Rappahannock River, just across from Fredericksburg. This left Lee out of position, with half his army at Culpepper and the other half under Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley.
For two precious days, the road to Richmond lay wide open to the Federal Army—the first and last time this happened during the Civil War!
Sadly, the pontoon bridges that Burnside had ordered from the War Department did not arrive on time, so the unique chance passed. Burnside’s army waited on the north bank of the Rappahannock, looking across the river to the heights above Fredericksburg as they gradually filled with the infantry and artillery of Lee’s frantically redeployed army.
Burnside had ample heavy artillery to keep the Confederates from securing the line of the south bank, but he failed to use it. His pontoon bridges had to be built under fire, and Union blood was shed by this tragic oversight. On December 11, after three wasted weeks had given Lee time to lodge the Army of Northern Virginia, the situation was hopeless for the Northern troops.
On December 10 a woman crept down to the bank of the Rappahannock and called across to the gray pickets that the Yankees had drawn a large issue of cooked rations—always a sign that action was at hand.
That night a party was given by the officers of a New England regiment in a riverside hut. Some twenty men who had no illusions about the kind of reception they were going to get when they crossed the river met to sing songs and drink whiskey punch. The hut rocked with cheers and the glasses went bottoms up, and later as they marched up to the river, they heard the high soft voice of a contraband camp servant lifted in the song “Jordan Water, Rise over Me.”
The next day, the engineers put the pontoon bridge across the river, but only at a high price. Confederate sharpshooters, taking refuge in the buildings of Fredericksburg, picked them off as easily as if they were shooting squirrels. Burnside finally ordered the town destroyed by artillery, after which he sent infantry across by boat to drive the sharpshooters back.
The fight was rough while it lasted. The Twentieth Massachusetts Regiment lost ninety-seven officers and men in gaining fifty yards. In the end the town was secured, and men remembered afterward that a strange golden dusk lay upon the plain and the surrounding hills, as if a belated Indian summer evening had come bewildered out of peacetime autumn into wartime winter. A newspaper correspondent wrote: “Towering between us and the western sky, which was still showing its faded scarlet lining, was the huge somber pillar of grimy smoke that marked the burning of Fredericksburg. Ascending to a vast height, it bore away northward shaped like a plume bowed in the wind.”
When darkness was complete, Lee ordered Jackson to bring his two nearest divisions to Longstreet’s support. He was pleased, though he could not quite believe that any general would attack him in his present position! He thought of the position of the Union Army and of his own position—the strongest he had ever held in his military career. He called for a light, and when an aide brought a lantern, he studied the map on which he had placed the positions of both armies.
The Confederate Army, seventy-eight thousand men, was in a formidable line on the high ground west of the Fredericksburg plain. The ground was only forty or fifty feet above the plain, but that made it exactly right—high enough to offer an impregnable defensive line, but not high enough to scare the Federals and keep them from attacking. Directly west of the town rose a ridge called Marye’s Heights. To the north, slightly higher hills slanted off to the river. To the south, the high ground pulled farther and father away from the river.
Lee studied the map and thought about the men who would lead: For the Union it would be Major William B. Franklin leading the left wing and General Joe Hooker leading the right wing; for the Confederacy, General Longstreet would defend the left and Stonewall Jackson the right.
Lee smiled, put up his map, and went to bed. The South never had to worry less about a battle than this one, he thought happily.
The next morning Lee and Longstreet stood looking down on the snow-pocked plain where the blue host was massing. The two men made a contrast indeed. Lee was tall and handsome, with a short-clipped iron-gray beard. Beneath the brim of a sand-colored planter’s hat, his quick brown eyes had a youthfulness that disguised the fact that he would be fifty-six years old in one month.
His companion was a burly, shaggy man, six feet tall and of Dutch extraction. Except for Lee himself, no commander in the Confederate Army was more admired and loved by his men. This was based on their knowledge of his concern for their well-being in and out of combat. They called him Old Pete and sometimes the Dutchman.
The two men looked up as the third-ranking member of the army triumvirate came riding up. It was Jackson, but a Jackson quite unlike the Stonewall they were accustomed to. No officer in the army paid less heed to his dress than Stonewall Jackson. But now, gone were the mangy cadet cap and the homespun uniform worn threadbare. Instead he wore a new cap bound with gold braid and had more braid looped on the cuffs and sleeves of a brand-new uniform.
One of the men called out, “Lookee thar, Old Jack will be afraid for his clothes and will not get down to work.”
Jackson got off his horse, muttering that the uniform was “a gift of my friend Stuart,” and asked permission to attack.
Lee smiled, for Jackson seldom asked for anything else. “No, General Jackson. Let those people wear themselves out on our guns.”
Old Pete baited him, saying, “Jackson, don’t all those multitudes of Federals frighten you?”
Jackson glared at Longstreet. “We shall see very soon whether I shall not frighten them!”
Longstreet winked at Lee. “But what are you going to do with all those Yankees, Jackson?”
“Sir, we will give them the bayonet,” Jackson snapped and turned and rode away.
Lee studied the masses of blue soldiers below and said, “I am afraid they will break your line, General.”
Longstreet shook his head. “General, if you put every man now on the other side of the Potomac in that field to approach me over that same line, and give me plenty of ammunition, I will kill them before they reach my line!”
Lee looked down the lines at muskets that bristled from a sunken road that wandered the length of the heights, then studied the heavy artillery aimed at the open plain that the Federals would have to cross.
“I believe you are right, General Longstreet,” he remarked quietly.
One of the blue dots of color that made up the army that Lee looked down on was the coat worn by John Smith.
He had been mustered in only three days earlier. No one had inquired into his ability. He had been issued a musket and uniform and rushed by train along with the other members of the Merton Blue Devils to join Franklin’s division, which was drawn up for battle on the banks of the Rappahannock.
Now as he looked up at the heights bristling with guns, a cold feeling gripped him. The lieutenant of his company, a young man named Robert Little, was staring at those same guns. Little swallowed hard, then said, “Cheer up, men! We won’t have any trouble gettin’ in!”
A burly private glared at the lieutenant and snarled resentfully, “Getting in? Them Rebs want us to get in. It’s getting out that won’t be so easy!”
Colonel Drecker came striding up, his face pale but filled with excitement. “Don’t worry, men!” he called out. “We’ll be going in soon!”
The Merton Blue Devils were held as reserves, however, and all day long they watched as masses of men marched into the fury of battle. When the order to charge came to each of the other regiments, the soldiers would surge forward—but none of them even got close to the wall of fire that belched from the guns of the defenders. Every attack “broke in blood”—failing because the men were too badly shot up to press on—and the Federals fell back, leaving the stretch of open ground thick-strewn with corpses and
writhing men whose cries could be heard above the clatter of musketry.
Sunset did not slow the tempo of the fighting. A fifth major assault on Marye’s Heights had been repulsed, and from behind the sunken wall, the Confederates taunted the warmly clad Federals coming toward them in a tangle-footed huddle, “Come on, Bluebelly! Bring them boots and blankets! Bring ’em hyar!” And they did bring them, up to within fifty yards of the flame-stitched wall. There the forward edge of the charge was frayed and broken, the survivors crawling or running to regain the protection of lower ground.
At three o’clock Colonel Drecker came to say, “All right, men, fix bayonets! We will advance!”
John looked at the man next to him and said grimly, “That’s a foolish order! Not a man of ours has gotten closer than fifty yards to the Rebel lines all day!”
Then the call came, and the Blue Devils moved forward. John kept in rank as they crossed the low ground, and soon men began to fall.
“Come on, men!” Drecker screamed, waving his sword. “Your colonel will lead you!” He plunged forward, heading straight for the sunken road where bodies from five previous charges covered the ground. Shells began to burst in their ranks, blowing men to bits. One man not ten yards in front of Smith fell, his leg all but severed. Three men jumped to pick him up, but Drecker was there, screaming, “Forward! Leave him there!”
By the time they had reached the top of the incline and faced the concentrated fire of the Confederates, half of the regiment had been either killed or wounded. The slaughter continued, but Drecker plunged ahead. He turned and screamed, “Come on! Follow me! We’ll show—!”
A shell removed his head neatly, and his body slowly toppled to the ground.
The brigade stopped at once, but they were pinned down. To go back, Smith saw, was as dangerous as to go on. He threw himself into a shallow depression and dug deeper with his bayonet. Others were doing the same, and when darkness fell, he lay down and waited for morning. He thought about crawling back to his own lines, but sharpshooters were firing at everything that moved. He saw four men cut down as they tried to make it back, and finally he gave up.
He lay there, his legs twitching and his mouth as dry as dust. At last the need for water drove him to crawl five yards to get the canteen of a dead private. He tipped the canteen back and drank thirstily.
Crawling back to his hole, he huddled down, facing the enemy line. For hours he lay there, until he finally drifted off into a fitful slumber. He was awakened abruptly by a sharp pain in his shoulder. At once he came awake, reaching for his musket—but saw that it was held by a ragged Confederate who was grinning at him.
“End of the war for you, Bluebelly,” the Rebel said with a nod. “Now you shuck out of them nice boots and that warm coat. You kin have mine if you want.”
The wolf-lean Confederate held a .44 aimed directly at his heart, so Smith said, “I guess you got the best of the argument, Reb.” He removed his boots and coat, sat down as ordered, then put on the poor bits of leather the soldier had been wearing and slipped into the thin coat. He shivered as he got to his feet, and his captor nodded, “Nice boots you Yankees bring us. I ’preciate it. Now get going!”
As John plodded along toward the enemy lines, he knew the war was over for him. The wind cut through him like a knife, and he was exhausted by the time he’d been quick-marched five miles back of the lines and placed with a large group of captured Federals.
The lieutenant in charge formed them in lines and said, “I don’t reckon you fellers will be killin’ any more Southern boys now, will you?”
“Where’ll we be held?” one of the captives asked.
“Libby Prison.” The lieutenant looked at them with pity. “You’ll be wishing you got killed before you’ve been there long! Now march!”
As Smith slogged along the road, his feet began to freeze. The bits of leather fell off, and soon his raw feet were leaving bloodstains in the mud. The cold seemed to get worse, touching his lungs with a tongue of fire when he inhaled. He reached the point when he could go no farther and was about to fall when the command came to halt.
“You men lie down. In the morning you’ll be fed; then you’ll march to the station. From there you’ll be took to Richmond, to Libby Prison.”
John no longer cared. He took the vile-smelling blanket from a private who was handing them out, wrapped it around himself, and fell to the ground. His last thought before he slipped away was of Grace, and he prayed simply, Lord, let me see her again!
Three days later he was a prisoner in Libby Prison.
He also had pneumonia, which he had developed from being exposed to the icy roads of Virginia and from lying on an open flatcar in freezing weather for two days.
When he was carried into Libby Prison, he was barely conscious enough to feel the rough hands of the soldiers who carried him, but he heard the voice of the doctor well enough when he said, “Another pneumonia case? Well, he’ll die in a week, like the rest of them.”
But the patient was too far gone to care. It didn’t seem to matter very much, so he slipped away, welcomed once again into a stark black hole that closed around him silently.
PART THREE
The Prisoner and the Bride
CHAPTER 17
CAPTAIN CLAY FINDS A MAN
Melora, come and see!”
Melora Yancy looked up from the rough-backed hogs, who were grunting and squealing as she tossed ears of corn into the trough. Her seventeen-year-old sister, Rose, was running toward her, hair flying. The girl didn’t wait to reach Melora but cried out, “It’s Mister Clay, Melora—he’s comin’ in a funny-looking wagon!”
At once Melora tossed the rest of the corn into the pen, then threw the basket aside and ran lightly to meet her sister. Her face had paled slightly, but she said nothing, listening as Rose urged her to hurry. When they came out of the grove, Melora saw at once the closed wagon Clay was driving.
He saw her and lifted his hand in a wave. Melora’s father, Buford Yancy, appeared in the doorway, had his look, then came to stand beside the two girls. Josh, Martha, and Toby were standing back shyly, watching as Clay pulled the wagon to a halt in front of the cabin.
“Hello,” Clay said. He jumped down and tied the team to a slick hitching post. Turning, he faced them, and Melora’s heart skipped a beat, for he was not smiling.
“Is one of the boys kilt, Clay?” Buford asked carefully. He was a tall man with green eyes and was remarkably active for his age.
“No!” Clay said quickly. “Bob took a bullet in his leg, but it’s not bad.”
Melora released her breath. With brothers in the Confederate Army, all of their family lived under a shadow of constant dread. “Bring him inside, Clay,” she said. “Rose, go fix a bed for him.”
Clay stepped to the back of the ambulance, saying, “He did fine, Buford, real fine!” Opening the canvas flap, he found eighteen-year-old Bob Yancy propping himself up, and he gave him a hand. “Easy there,” he cautioned.
Bob blinked owlishly in the bright noon sunlight, then grinned sheepishly at his father. “Didn’t duck fast like you told me to, Pa,” he said cheerfully. He put his leg down, and the pain drew a grimace from him.
Clay nodded at Buford. “Get his other side. That leg’s pretty tender.”
The two men picked young Yancy up, ignoring his protests that he wasn’t a baby. They carried him inside and put him on a cot beside a window; then as the two women hustled around fixing a quick meal, Clay sat back and let the wounded man tell his story. Clay deliberately kept his eyes off Melora, though only with an effort. He was intensely aware of her presence, and when she came to put a plate of stew and glass of milk before him, he looked up at her, saying, “You’re looking well.”
Melora nodded but studied his face. “You look tired.”
“He ort to be!” Bob Yancy spoke up. He was enjoying being the center of attention. The younger children had drawn as close to him as possible, their eyes wide with worshipful adoration. Bo
b waved a chicken leg and grinned. “Ain’t none of you noticed nothing about him?”
Only then did Melora notice the bars on Clay’s shoulders. “Why, Clay—!” she exclaimed. “You’re a captain!”
Clay shrugged disdainfully. “It’s just a brevet promotion,” he said.
“Whut’s thet, Clay?” Buford demanded.
“It means he does the job of a captain but only draws a lieutenant’s pay,” Bob said, grinning. Then he gave Clay a look of admiration. “When them Yankees came boiling across the river right at us, we got caught with one shoe off,” he explained. “Captain Simon of G Company, he went down at the first volley, and Major Franklin, he hollered, ‘Clay, you’re promoted to captain!’”
“Well, when Captain Simon was wounded, Colonel Benton promoted me to take his place. Wasn’t very smart of the colonel,” Clay broke in. “Some of the other men have more seniority.”
“Aw, everybody in the regiment knows you’re the best soldier in the bunch, Clay—I mean, Captain Rocklin!” Bob ate his meal and made light of his own wound. He talked with animation, and the rest of the family—including his father—listened intently.
Clay got up and helped Melora with the dishes, then said, “I’d better feed and water the horses.”
“I’ll help you.” Melora took off her apron, and the two went outside. Clay unhitched the horses and took them to the corral, saying, “We’ll let them roll a little after they eat.” He fed them from a sack of grain he’d brought, then turned them out. He turned to her, smiled, and said, “Let’s go look at your pigs.”
She smiled, too, for he always teased her about the hogs the Yancys were raising. He slanted a grin at her. “I’ll bet you’ve got some favorites, haven’t you?”
“Now don’t scold me, Mister Clay!” she retorted, laughing, and led him to the hog pen, pointing out the different animals’ beauty. Actually it had been Clay who had persuaded Buford to raise corn and feed out hogs instead of raising cotton. “We can’t eat cotton, Buford,” he’d said bluntly. “It won’t be worth a dollar a bale next year, with the blockade cutting us off from England—but bacon will be sky high!”
Appomattox Saga Omnibus 2: Three Books In One (Appomatox Saga) Page 52