A Rainbow of Blood: The Union in Peril an Alternate History

by Peter G. Tsouras

  At the same time, he had raced to replicate the BMI in each of the other field armies of the Union. Unfortunately, the new intelligence staff of Rosecrans's Army of the Cumberland was not able to identify the arrival of Longstreet's First Corps, which had been sent by Lee to reinforce Bragg's Army of Tennessee, even though Sharpe was able to inform them that the reinforcement was on the way. The result had been the Union disaster at Chickamauga, the retreat of the Army of the Cumberland to a wasting siege at Chattanooga, which Grant was trying with meager forces to relieve.

  THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C., 8:09 PM, OCTOBER 15, 1863

  John Nicolay, the president's secretary, was a tired man. The president had been keeping late hours ever since the British attack, and Nicolay had been his faithful shadow. He brightened when he saw George Sharpe enter. Lincoln had come to rely on him, and the president's small but devoted staff appreciated anyone who could lighten his load.

  "The president is expecting you, General. Stoeckl and Seward were with him until just now. Alliance business." Although there had been intense speculation in the press and the public assumption of a RussoAmerican alliance, nothing had been announced by either government. Nicolay knew Sharpe was fully privy to negotiations. "The president said to go right in, but I'd wait a few minutes. Mrs. Lincoln just beat you in, and from the sound of it-"

  The door slammed open and out stormed Mary Todd Lincoln. She was a small, stout woman, a contrast to her tall, gangly husband, which brought to everyone's mind Jack Spratt and wife. Now her small mouth was pursed so tight as to almost disappear into her round face. Her dark eyes flashed. She stormed past Nicolay and Sharpe without a word. Then a voice from inside the president's study said, "Is Sharpe out there? Send him in."

  Sharpe glided in quietly. Lincoln was sitting with his feet on his desk. He was wearing worn slippers, and his socks were darned. Sharpe was used to Lincoln's informality. He looked more tired than Nicolay. He said, "I've distressed Mrs. Lincoln again, Sharpe. Missed supperagain, I'm afraid."

  Part of Sharpe's talent was a natural empathy. It was a talent that made him a master interrogator as well. "Our duty is hard on the ladies, sir. My own wife wants to join me here, but I have insisted she stay in Kingston. I tell her she would see almost as much of me there as if she were here.

  Lincoln sighed, "I'm afraid the ladies will have to put up with a lot more." He got up and motioned Sharpe over to one of the chairs around the fireplace, where a ruby bed of coals warmed the room from the fall's early chill.

  "Seward and I were just ironing out the last details of the treaty. I expect you know all about them."

  "Yes, sir."

  "That's why I hired you," Lincoln said. "The treaty is an absolute necessity at this time. That reminds me of two boys out in Illinois who took a short cut across an orchard. When they were in the middle of the field, they saw a vicious dog bounding toward them. One of the boys was sly enough to climb a tree, but the other ran around the tree, with the dog following. He kept running until, by making smaller circles than it was possible for his pursuer to make, he gained upon the dog sufficiently to grasp his tail. Held on to the tail with a desperate grip until nearly exhausted, then he called to the boy up the tree to come down and help.

  "'What for?' said the boy.

  "'I want you to help me let this dog go."'23

  He smiled and went on. "That's just it, Sharpe. We need Russia to help us let go of the British and French that are chasing us around the tree. And they need us to crop to help England's ambitions. If they didn't seize this opportunity, they knew they would never get another chance."

  "Necessity, sir- the iron law of necessity."

  "Yes, but what of the consequences down the road, Sharpe?" He picked up a copy of the New York Herald. "Now the Herald is not our friend, and for that reason bears reading. Listen to this:

  If Russia equally resents and punishes the interference of Europe in the affairs of Poland, she may he mistress of the Old World, as we shall he of the New, and then perhaps in a hundred years hence, these two immense Powers may meet upon the Pacific Ocean and, differing upon some question of the possession of Australia or New Zealand, may enter upon that Titanic contest which will forever decide the destinies of mankind.24

  Australia and New Zealand -nonsense, but the prophecy in general may have something in it."

  He got up and poked at the fire. "Now, so far, so good. Seward's got his ears open all over Europe. Finally, the expense of all those embassies might show a profit. I told him to share everything with you. How's it going?"

  "Secretary Seward has been extremely cooperative, sir. Of course, he expects it to be a two-way street, so we have set up a small committee. That also includes Secretary Welles's Navy Department, too. I have determined that the motto of the Bureau will he'We Share Intelligence'!"

  "Good luck there. People tend to get mighty protective of their little hen yards. But the reason I wanted to see you was to tell you that I think the Rooshans will bear watching, too, and to suggest that you might want to pick up the slack over in Europe. The State Department people are fine at sifting all the gossip of Europe, but they don't know much about fighting. The exception was Tom Dudley, our consul in Liverpool. If it hadn't been for him, we wouldn't have a clear picture of how the Confederates were building their commerce-raiders -with the conniv ance of the British government. Do you think you might have work for him over there?"

  "I'm way ahead of you, sir. We are planning to stand up a European office. I was going to send over Jim McPhail. But he could use someone like Dudley to direct operations against the British Isles. The problem right now is getting there. The British blockade is tightening, and with Mexico in French hands, we don't have a friendly neutral through which to pass our people and communications. It's going to make the alliance communications damned difficult, as well."

  Lincoln looked at him over his reading spectacles. He had chosen Sharpe because the man had the knack of solving the very problems he identified. He said, "I think, sir, our Irish friends just might he the key that unlocks this door. It is said of them that they are welcome in every country but their own. I think we can make use of that misfortune."25

  THE WINTER PALACE, ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA, 3:15 Ann, OCTOBER 16, 1863

  The awestruck naval courier bowed himself out of the presence of the czar of all the Russias, Alexander II. He had ridden at a gallop from the large Russian naval base at Kronstadt, just outside the capital, to bring news that Russian forces had fought a battle in the Upper Bay of New York with the hated British.

  Alexander Nikolayevich was forty-five years old and in his prime. He had inherited the Crimean War from his late father Nicholas I in 1855 and spent the first year of his reign unable to stave off a humiliating defeat at the hands of the British and French. An ardent reformer, he had freed the serfs from their landlords, abolished the death penalty, and initiated a score of reforms to bring Russia out of its backwardness.

  Yet in one vital respect, Alexander was a man captivated by an ancient dream woven into his soul: Constantinople-the once "Godguarded city" and the mystical root of Russia's Orthodox Christian civilization. The niece of the last Byzantine emperor had married Ivan III and from that union had been born the idea of the Third Rome. After Constantinople inherited the mantle of Rome and then fell to the vile Turk, Moscow took up the legacy as the mother of Orthodoxy. Moscow was the Third Rome, and there would be no other. No Westerner could understand the determination of every Russian to plant the cross once again on the dome of the Hagia Sophia, Justinian's great cathedral.

  Alexander read the dispatch for the third time. Then he solemnly raised his right hand to his forehead, thumb and first two fingers joined and the remaining two fingers folded onto the palm, crossed himself in the Orthodox fashion from right to left, and fell to his knees before his astonished servants and family hastily roused from their beds.26 Tears welled in his eyes. Raising his arms he exclaimed, "Slava Bogu!" - glory to God!27


  VERMILLIONVILLE, LOUISIANA, 1:20 PM OCTOBER 21, 1863

  "Here they come!" the Union signalman shouted from his makeshift perch in a tree. For Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks's Army of the Gulf, used to the drabness of dark blue or butternut and gray, the sight of the advancing French was more than memorable; it was the ultimate martial fashion statement. The Confederate division on their left went hardly noticed.

  On they came in a rapid, ordered advance across the open ground that stretched out before the Union positions. The quickening sound of their drums ran before them as their tricolor standards topped with their imperial eagles waved overhead. Squadrons of cavalry swarmed ahead of the infantry to drive in the Union cavalry pickets. These were the Chasseurs d'Afrique, bitterly named by the Mexicans, and the Los Carcinceros Azul (The Blue Butchers) for their ferocity and their light blue jackets above stylish baggy red trousers. Raised in North Africa from French colonists to subdue the Muslim populations, they had come by their ferocity honestly. One of their regimental colors bore the Legion d'Honneur for the capture of Mexican colors earlier that year. In reserve were squadrons of the Chasseurs a Cheval in brown tunics and Hussars in green with their lambskin hushys. Most impressive of all were the lancers in sky blue jackets and red trousers with Polish helmets and white and red pennants whipping from their lances.'

  Behind them came the infantry, with the lignards, or regular infantry, of the 7th, 51st, 62nd, 81st, and 95th Regiments de Ligne in their new yellow-piped, dark blue tunics ending just below the belt and derisively described by critics as a masterpiece of les stupidites du mode. Fashionably dressed or not, the men wearing them were hard-bitten, long-service veterans, many of whom had fought in North Africa, the Crimea, Italy, and Mexico. Their dark blue tunics flared at the shoulders with red-fringed epaulets; blue kepis were covered with white covers and sun guards. Their baggy red trousers - les pantaloons rouge - and white gaiters had become the mark of the French infantry since 1829. With them were the exotic 1st, 2nd, and 3rd regiments of Zouaves, one of the numerous French units of l'Armee d'Afrique developed in the colonializaton of North Africa and clothed on exotic, native models. Instead of the kepi, they wore a blue-tasseled, red fez, a short and open blue jacket with red piping, and an extremely baggy version of the pantaloons rouge, a la Zouave. They were the only regiments in the French Army allowed to grow full beards, of which they took luxurious advantage. The Zouave regiments had seen considerable action in Napoleon III's numerous wars and had acquired an elite reputation. The 2nd Regiment, "The Jackals of Oran," had been the first to adorn its colors with the Legion d'Honneur for capturing an Austrian color at Magenta in Italy. In the same war, the 3rd Regiment had been famously referred to as the furia francese by their Piedmontese allies.2

  A fourth Zouave regiment was formed for the recreated Imperial Guard of the emperor. To fill the new Guard regiment, the other Zouave regiments had been cherry-picked during the Crimean War for their best men. The new regiment had baptized itself in blood by storming the Malakoff Fort, where half of them died for their first victory. At Magenta in 1859, they shattered the Austrians, winning ten crosses of the Legion d'Honneur. They were distinguished from the other line Zouave regiments by the yellow piping of their jackets and the red-, white-, and blue-striped soft fez.3 The Emperor had hinted broadly to the French Army commander, Maj. Gen. Francois Achille Bazaine, that they not be stinted of glory. The Zouaves of the Guard would not be denied.

  Rounding out the French force were four battalions of skilled light infantry, Chasseurs a Pied, in dark blue tunics and light blue trousers, spread out as skirmishers ahead of the line regiments.

  Napoleon III tread heavily on the glories of his incomparable uncle, the first and, many would say, the only Napoleon. One of these was to reissue the colors of the armies in a grand ceremony on the Champ de Mars in 1851. The chief change was to add the imperial eagles to the tricolor. By 1860 this was an 18 cm, cast-aluminum eagle topping a dark blue staff. The front of the color bore the words, "L'Empereur Napoleon III an ... Regiment," and on the rear the regiment's battle honors.4

  The French colonial experience in North Africa had done more than influence the fashion of the French Army. Its harsh arena had developed deadly light cavalry. That experience also had found a perfect home for another French experiment, La Legion Etrangere (the Foreign Legion). Founded in 1831 as a way to rid France of foreign social undesirables, it was stationed in Algeria. Now the entire legion, a single regiment, took its place in the French line, distinguished by their white trousers. Major General Bazaine had served with this band of cutthroats and thieves, and though he appreciated their fighting skills, he had no illusions about their nature. They were the greatest source of desertion in the French Army in Mexico, and Bazaine stated matter-of-factly, "I shall have some of them shot.... It is quite clear that a good many of them enrolled in the corps to get a free trip, but it shall cost them dearly if they are caught."5

  Napoleon III had another colonial rum lot to send to Mexico in a battalion of the Infanterie Legere d'Afrique (African Light Infantry) made up of military convicts who had served their sentences but had time left in their enlistments. Naturally, they had been sent to North Africa, where any tendency to mischief would be less noticeable than in France. It would be even less noticeable in Mexico.

  Still another colonial experiment was the battalion of the Tirailleurs Algeriens (Algerian Rifles). These were native North African Berbers and Arabs who were commonly called Turcos for their brutal fighting ability.' Another African contingent was a battalion of Sudanese slave soldiers, the oddest of the units sent to Mexico. Napoleon III had pressured the ruler of Egypt for black African troops, whom the French rightly believed would be more resistant to the yellow fever that was felling French troops attempting to keep open lines of communication called the Fever Road, from Mexico City through the coastal tierra caliente (hot land) to Vera Cruz. Napoleon had asked for a regiment of Sudanese; the pasha coughed up a battalion. Muslim slavers had sold them to the Egyptian government, which followed an ancient Muslim custom of training African slaves as soldiers. To the terror of the Mexicans, they quickly proved their worth.7 Marching out of Galveston in their sky-blue Zouave-type uniforms, they had excited the hard stares of the Texans and the immense curiosity of their slaves.

  ONE MILE WEST OF VERMILLIONVILLE, LOUISIANA, 2:10 PM, OCTOBER 21, 1863

  A long-range shot from a distant Union battery hit and bounced along the bare ground straight toward Walker's Texas Division. Every eye could see it from the moment its strike sent the dirt flying. Its second bounce took it straight into the cavalcade of French officers riding in front of the Texans. The shot tore off the legs of the lead rider's horse and then drove through the ranks of the infantry.

  The stricken horse screamed in agony as it writhed on the ground, its forelegs gushing stumps. Its rider, Major General Bazaine, had leaped off with the quickness of a cat, pulled his pistol, and put his horse out of its misery. In an instant he was surrounded by his anxious aides and Confederate escorts. He laughed, "Le bal commence, messieurs!" and waved them off to walk over to the Texans whose ranks had dressed around the gory gauge left by the ball. He had been running a practiced eye over the ranks of these men when the shot struck.

  If ever there was judge of fighting men, it was Bazaine. He had left school to enlist as a private in the French Army in North Africa and had fought in every war in which the tricolor had waved, covering himself with glory, honors, and wounds. His feats in the Crimea had earned him France's highest honor, as well as the ultimate praise from France's ancient enemy when the British had awarded him the Order of the Bath. He had been largely responsible for the destruction of the Mexican Army at Puebla at the end of May and had led the first French troops into Mexico City. The men of the Foreign Legion held an especially dear place in his esteem for he had fought and bled often with them. These Texans reminded him of them, though they were obviously cleaner and undoubtedly more virtuous. Their ranks had barely
stirred when the shot plowed through them, dealing death in a spray of blood.

  Bazaine inquired after the wounded and congratulated the regimental commander on the fine appearance of his men. By appearance he did not mean their ragged butternut and gray but their lean and hungry look, their gleaming rifles, and their discipline under fire. He said loud enough to be overheard, "Les brave gens, les brave gens!"(The brave fellows, the brave fellows!) as another horse was led up to him. He knew the compliment would leap the language barrier, as it always did. It had come as a surprise to him how many Confederates, especially from Louisiana, spoke French well.

  As they rode off, he turned to the Confederate brigadier general who served as his escort and liaison. "Well, I think, Your Highness, that these men shall give the Yankees a hard time today." At the age of thirtyone, Camille Armand Jules Marie Prince de Polignac cut a magnificent figure in his uniform of Confederate gray. The Frenchman had traveled to the Southern states just before the madness of secession had intoxicated them and had offered his services to the young Confederate Army. His service in the French Army had made him a valuable commodity, and his talent had justified his rise to general officer rank and command of a brigade under Lt. Gen. Richard Taylor in the Western Louisiana District.'