From across the field, the French and Texans heard the Union bugle call signaling the advance at a trot. The entire Union division was quickly in motion. The French commander waited to let his horses save their strength for the last command when they would burst forward in a gallop. Let the Americans tire their horses. He would wait. After all, he was a veteran of a dozen European and North African battlefields, and he knew cavalry. When the Americans had closed half the distance between them, he gave his own order and the serried, colorful French lines flowed forward, the drabber Texans on their right flank. At the last moment, the French bugle call for the charge at the gallop sounded, and the French squadrons seemed to leap forward as sabers and lances dropped to the attack. The French were in their element, their national spirit embodied in the wild assault of mounted chivalry, the white arm of the French Army. A shout of "Urraaaah!" ripped from them seconds before five thousand horsemen crashed into each other.
In the center, Washburn was overwhelmed by the unfolding disaster, swept away by the flood of fugitives from his disintegrating front. It was then that the Zouave Regiment of the Guard swept forward in a blaze of color-big, bearded men advancing in impeccable order until Moreau bellowed across their front, "En avant, mes enfants! En avant!" With a shout, they charged. Behind them, Bazaine ordered a general advance. Moreau led his Zouaves against that part of the line held by the Iowa and Wisconsin regiments of one of Washburn's stoutest brigades, commanded by Col. Charles L. Harris, the last steady unit as the rest wavered.
The farmers of the 11th Wisconsin were veterans to the core, hammered into a special toughness under Grant in the Vicksburg Campaign, the same mettle as the three Iowa regiments in line with them. Their front was already littered with the fallen, but they responded with precision to the command to fire. A sheet of flame spit from the line, and the charging Zouaves went down by the hundreds. Their entire colors party was swept away as the eagle fell to the ground. Miraculously, Moreau was untouched, despite riding at the head of his regiment. He would find eight bullet holes in his uniform and cap that night. He looked back to see a guardsmen snatch up the fallen colors and rush forward. The impetus of the charge had not been broken as his Zouaves jumped over the bodies of the dead and wounded. Still, they dropped as the Americans were firing at will. The eagle went down again, and again it was retrieved to lead the crest of the attack, and for a third time it fell and rose again. Moreau found himself rolling in the dirt, his horse dead, and himself bleeding from wound in the thigh. He staggered to his feet and faced forward.
Bazaine's staff was exclaiming their admiration for the charge of the Guard Zouaves, but their general saw the American line stiffening by the example of Harris's brigade. "Messieurs, it will not do for the Emperor's Guards to not have their glory. Let us help them." By then, the Zouaves had fallen hack a hundred yards, dragging their colonel and colors with them. French artillery rolled up on either flank to pour canister into the Wisconsin and Iowa men. They might have stood all day had not the panic on their right finally dissolved their flank brigade as the Prince de Polignac's Texans hammered their way down the line. Harris tried to refuse his right, but the 21st Iowa was swept away by the flood of fugitives. It was then that Moreau, a bandage around his thigh and mounted on a fresh horse, again ordered the pas de charge. The drums beat above the din of battle. Again the Zouaves came on in a rush, and again many fell, but the American fire slackened and then died away as the brigade fell back.
With that, the entire XIII Corps ceased to be a fighting formation, save for the remnant of Harris's brigade, and turned into a mass of fleeing men and vehicles. They did not see the drop of the plateau until it was too late, and the men behind pushed over hundreds of those in front. Caissons, guns, wagons, and ambulances careened over the edge to shatter at the base in a mass of splintered wood and maimed screaming horses. The thousands on foot tumbled over the precipice to leap into the shallow, marshy water of the bayou that fed into Lake La Pointe. Many more fell into the lake itself to drown splashed helplessly about.
Into this chaos, the remnants of Banks's cavalry were slowly pushed toward the lake from the south. The cavalry fight had been the most vicious of all the killing that day, for it was man-to-man fighting at sword or lance length, and a pistol was just as close in that mass of struggling men and animals. Superior French skill with saber and lance were matched with American practice with the revolver, but the unraveling of XIII Corps forced Lee to save what he could. Only parts of the 1st Louisiana (Union loyalists), 2nd Illinois, and 4th Indiana were able to cut their way out of the French encirclement. The rest were driven into the shallows of the lake to add the terror of animals and shouts of men to the miasma hanging over the battlefield.
Thousands were already surrendering. Only the survivors of Harris's Brigade kept any semblance of order as they fought backward, leaving their dead and wounded in their trail. By the time they had been pressed to the edge of the plateau, Harris realized they could go no farther. He ordered his men to throw down their weapons. Moreau rode up to him, the side of his horse soaked with the blood that oozed from his thigh, and saluted with his sword as Harris offered his. Moreau refused and said in French that he could not accept the sword of such a gallant foe. Harris didn't understand a word, but the sentiment was plain enough. He was glad of what little balm he could find.
Bazaine rode into the chaos that has long ceased being a battle as his troops were disarming the dazed Americans. Banks, most dazed of all, was led up to him by the Chasseurs a Pied that had captured him. In that effusion of gracious condescension at which the French excel, he greeted Banks, complimented him on his conduct of the battle, ascribed the fate of the battle to Dame Fortune, and invited him to share his dinner that night.
Barely two hundred yards from this exquisite chivalry, the Sudanese had lost all sense of restraint. They had fought through the toughest part of the battle carried forward in the last charge by the intoxication of their battle cry, "Allah u akbar!" They just found it easier to kill when men threw down their weapons. Possessed already of the African Muslim style of war, they were like beasts. Their French officers had done nothing to restrain them against the Mexicans and now could do nothing with them.
Even with the generals clustered around him, Bazaine could see the carnage. Banks turned white, but before he could speak, Bazaine turned his horse around and spurred into the slaughter, striking left and right with his sword at the Sudanese, crying out, "Quels sauvages!" His staff plunged in after him, and then Zouaves of the Guard rushed in to throw a cordon of bayonets around the Americans. With the Sudanese finally under control, Bazaine rode up to their commander, seized his sword, and snapped it like a stick.
None of this was evident to Franklin, but seeing the ruin of XIII Corps as the Prince de Polignac rolled up its flank, he realized he was on his own. He could passively accept the fate of the rest of the army or save what he could. For this old soldier, there was really no choice at all. He carefully swung back his line to face south, still engaged with Walker's division, probably the supreme tactical achievement of his life. He could not have done it had not his four batteries held the Greyhounds at bay while the infantry wheeled away. The guns literally backed up yard by yard in the technique called "firing by prolonge." Normally to move a gun, it would have to be hitched to a caisson or limber, and its crew would have to mount horses, drive away, then unlimber and set up again. In the face of an advancing enemy, it was fatal. By firing by prolonge, the gun stayed harnessed to its team, which was pointed in the direction of retreat. The harnesses remained taut so that when the gun fired, the recoil took it a few yards to the rear in the direction of the retreat. The crews simply marched back with gun instantly ready to load and fire. It was a fighting retreat that spewed canister into the oncoming enemy so continuously that even the hosts of heaven would have gave pause. And it was the margin that Franklin needed.
His gunners gave it to him, fighting their guns back yard by yard, crewmen and hor
ses dropping from the enemy's rifle fire. Dead horses were cut out of their traces, and the surviving crewmen just kept feeding the guns. The regulars of Batteries F and L of the 1st U.S. Artillery were matched by the volunteers of the 4th Massachusetts and 25th New York Batteries. Even the toughest and most determined Red Leg' was not proof to Texan marksmanship, and one by one the crewmen began to drop as did their horses until there were not enough men to keep the guns firing or horses to pull it off. One after the other, guns were left in the wake of the batteries' fighting retreat. When almost half the guns were lost and three of four battery commanders dead or wounded, Franklin rode up to give the command to pull back to the new line he had established that straddled the main road that led eighteen miles north to Opelousas.
The sacrifice of the gunners had saved XIX Corps. Walker's division was too badly mangled itself to renew the attack against Franklin's new position or hang onto his rear as he retreated. Night fell not a moment too soon for Franklin. There had not been enough daylight left for Bazaine to transfer his cavalry north to cut him off. And so the cloak of darkness wrapped its thick folds about them as Franklin trudged north to safety.
THE HOME OF ASIA BOOTH CLARKE, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA, 1:30 PM, OCTOBER 22, 1863
There was an added pleasure to the rave reviews John Wilkes Booth was receiving for his "blood-and-thunder" performance in The Marble Heart, which was the role most considered his best. It was to relax in the home of his sister Asia. He reclined on her plush red settee with all the languid grace of a leopard on tree branch. Asia knew her little brother with the clarity of all big sisters.
Their father, the great lion of the American stage, the tempestuous Junius Booth, had named him well. Junius Wilkes was probably the most notorious demagogue, folk hero, and scoundrel of eighteenth-century British politics. The London mob cheered him on with "Wilkes and liberty!" for his goading of both king and parliament. His namesake's reputation had not been lost on young Booth who seemed to have acquired the same gift for the dramatic and for fiery stands against authority. Like his namesake, he could go too far. He was vociferous in his Southern sympathies, and it had got him in trouble on more than one occasion. Only a glib tongue and a ton of charm had eased him out it. John was the unusual American who, as an actor, had free passage of the lines to perform North and South.
Asia was half an indulgent mother as well. She was as susceptible to his easy charm and good looks as anyone else. John was easily the handsomest of the family and now a clear rival to his more serious brother, the great tragedian Edwin Booth, whose performance in Macbeth was highly regarded by the critics. John was riding a wave of success achieved far more quickly than his more somber older brother. In fact, Edwin was the subject of his conversation.
"Asia, dear, Adam Badeau said the queerest thing about Edwin in New York this summer." Badeau was an old friend of Edwin's and a journalist. He had come to provide the comforting moral support needed to rouse Edwin from his fits of depression. Badeau had gone off to war and had been badly wounded in an attack on Port Hudson. Edwin had taken him in to nurse him back to health in his own Manhattan home. He and John had carried him upstairs to a bedroom, dressed his wounds, and tended him in shifts. During the draft riots, Badeau had been afraid for the safety of his black body servant, but John had assured him he would personally see to the man's safety.
"He said that it was appalling to witness such melancholy in a man who had so much to live for. Well, you know Edwin. He is Hamlet, but I was worried when Badeau said that Edwin had told him that he had' the feeling that evil is hanging over me, that I can't come to good.' What on earth could he have meant?"
Asia could only shake her head. She knew Edwin as well as John. Then John laughed, and the grimness in it startled his sister. "Imagine me, helping that wounded Yankee with my Rebel sinews. If it weren't for mother, I wouldn't enter Edwin's house. If the North conquers us, it will be by numbers only, not by native grit, not pluck, and not by devotion."
Asia was now thoroughly alarmed by this sudden revelation. "'If the North conquers us?' We are of the North."
John jumped up. "Not I, not l!" he shouted. "So help me Holy God! My soul, life, and possessions are for the South!"2
OFFICE OF THE SECRET SERVICE, WASHINGTON, D.C., 2:47 PM, OCTOBER 22, 1863
Lafayette Baker was a good judge of character, especially had character. It was a useful talent in a man set to catch spies. It was also useful in his thuggish sideline of shaking down anyone he wanted, and the man standing in front of him, hat in hand, seemed just the sort he could use. Baker saw right through the big, bearded man's submissive body language. There was a brute.
Baker tossed aside the letters of recommendation. "I can use you, Miller. And right away. There's an actor over at Ford's Theatre who needs the fear of God and the Union put in him. Talks too damned much about his Rebel sympathies. Did you ever hear of John Booth? Brother of Edwin Booth, son of the great Junius?" Baker saw that he had clearly overestimated the man's acquaintance with culture. "Well, he's vain as a peacock, and a suggestion that his pretty face might no longer be presentable on the stage should get his attention."
Miller grinned, and his canines gleamed. Baker was pleased that he had not been wrong in his appraisal.
He was only half right. The man was a thug of the first order. But he was also a traitor, a Copperhead who had fled ahead of Sherman's rampage through the rebellious Midwest. His name was well known in Indiana, where he had been the murderous enforcer of Copperhead discipline. He was Big Jim Smoke, the man who had brutally killed the government's agent in the midst of the Copperhead conspiracy, the man who had murdered the guards outside Camp Morton in the attempt to liberate the huge Confederate prisoner-of-war camp. He had barely escaped with his life as Hooker's Horse Marines had charged into the camp on the heels of the Copperheads. And he had fled straight to Washington, where his cunning told him he would be safest in the bosom of the tyrant and his chief spy-catcher. He had gone directly from the train to activate his contacts with the Copperhead network in the capital to replenish his cash and acquire the spurious letters of recommendation that had so easily fooled Baker.
Smoke got directions for Ford's Theatre and rushed off to find this John Booth. He did not notice the nondescript black man selling peanuts on the street outside Baker's office, but then few whites paid attention to the omnipresent black population of the capital. The peanut vendor motioned to a boy playing marbles in the dirt. "Jimmy, go tell Massa Sharpe that Mr. Baker's got hisself a new man." He did not have to give any more instructions. The boy had memorized the Smoke's appearance, despite giving every indication of total absorption in his game.
COLT ARMS FACTORY, HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT, 3:02 PM, OCTOBER 21, 1863
Andrew Carnegie saw nothing but potential and opportunities as he toured the huge Colt Arms Factory with its manager, Elisha K. Root. Carnegie had heard the old man had come out of retirement to take over the management of the company when "the Colonel" - Sam Colt - died last year. His age had not relaxed his grip, and it was evident the place ran with precision and efficiency.
Not even thirty years old and with hair as white as snow and cornflower blue eyes, this shrewd Scotsman was already wealthy. He worked by the motto, "The rising man must do something exceptional, and beyond the range of his special department. He must attract attention." The purpose of his visit was the perfect opportunity to attract attention on the national stage in the moment of his adopted nation's greatest peril. Carnegie's talent was not as an industrial expert or manager, but as someone who saw opportunities and sought out the men who could make things happen. He would also be sure to ask Root who his best managers were, the men with initiative and good judgment. Later, he would shamelessly try to hire them away, but that was later. He had no doubt of being able to do so. As one man described him, he "was the most genial of despots, bending men to his will by an unfailing charm. And he would not hesitate to outbid anyone for the talent he wanted."3
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sp; Right now it was the scale of the operation that impressed him. The Colt Arms Factory, covering six and half acres, was the largest weapon manufacturer in the world. Its main building had eight major bays each five hundred feet long by sixty wide.
There were 400 rifling machines, with each barrel being subjected to forty-five separate operations. The rammers experienced nineteen, the hammers twenty-eight, and the stocks five, and there was a grand operating total of 454 distinct procedures within this single gun-making enterprise.'
The drop hammers consuming 900 horsepower via endless leather belts was deafening. Carnegie did not care. Mark Twain would describe it a few years later:
The Colt's revolver manufactory is a Hartford institution. On every floor is a dense wilderness of strange iron machines that stretches away into remote distances and confusing perspectives - a tangled forest of rods, bars, pulleys, wheels, and all the imaginable and unimaginable forms of mechanism.... No two machines are alike, or designed to perform the same office. It must have required more brains to invent all these things than would serve to stock fifty Senates like ours.5
Brains, the native genius, had created the American system of manufacture -interchangeable parts, specialization of skill, and that knack for extracting ever more efficiency from every step and process. Hartford throbbed with such factories, especially the weapon makers, including Chris Spencer, whom Carnegie had brought along to Root's surprise. Spencer's repeating rifle was the single best model in the world and a competitor to the Colt revolving rifle. Carnegie was relieved that Root greeted Spencer cordially. Spencer had worked at Colt and obviously left on good terms. It was clear that Root both liked and respected the young man. A mechanical genius, Spencer had, at the age of fifteen, built a working model of a steam engine from a book. Only a few years ago he had taken to driving to work in a steam-powered automobile of his own invention. But it was as a gun maker that he excelled. At the age of eighty-seven, he would learn to fly an airplane. A future friend of Mark Twain, Spencer was probably the model for his hero in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
A Rainbow of Blood: The Union in Peril an Alternate History Page 11