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

by Peter G. Tsouras

  The building was in an uproar after a half dozen projectiles had fallen through the roof, setting fires and terrifying the staff. There was no one then at the entrance to greet the president. Keckley followed Lincoln up the stairs with the bodyguard. Lincoln traced the wailing to the family breakfast room and found Mary cringing in the corner, clutching twelve-year-old Tad. A haze of smoke filled the air. The silver and china had been thrown about the room, and the table had a gashed, splintered furrow across it. The shard of shell had struck the small stove that was used to warm the room from the early chill and torn it open, spilling coals across the carpet and onto the drapes, which were now on fire. Lincoln took it all in at a glance and pulled the heavy velvet curtains down off their rods. He threw a chair through a window, smashing glass and frame, used the curtain rod as pole to pick up the blazing curtains, and threw the blazing bundle out. Keckley stamped out the burning carpet. Behind them, the bodyguard had slowed his walk up the stairs as he deliberately pulled his pistol from his holster.

  Amazingly, no one barred his way. The servants and staff and the few soldiers were busy fighting the fires that had started in half a dozen places. Screams and shouts seemed to fade from the bodyguard's consciousness as he reached the top of the stairs, so fixed was he on his purpose. Smoke wafted out of the breakfast room. Mary's wails had turned to sobs, soothed by her husband's voice and strong arms around her.

  Big Jim Smoke walked into the room and saw the family in the corner. The president had put Mary on a settee and was kneeling in front of her while Tad was holding one of her hands. Smoke walked over and raised the pistol slowly to point at the back of Lincoln's head. Big Jim was not the man to recite some heroic Latin or Greek twaddle at a time like this. He was just a killer. If anything, he grunted softly, determined and cool. He was good at this. In fact, it was his only talent.

  Tad saw him pointing the gun and jumped up. Smoke caught the movement out the corner of his eye and flinched as he fired.

  Lincoln collapsed onto his wife. The boy shouted, "Pa!" Wide-eyed, Mary stared over her fallen husband at the snarling beast with the smok ing pistol. She threw her arms around Lincoln's bloody head, trying uselessly to protect him.

  Smoke stepped forward to shoot again. Tad flew at him screaming and grabbed his gun arm. The big man simply threw the boy off to fly across the floor. Then he raised the pistol again as Mary, paralyzed by terror, just shook her head, silently mouthing, "No, no," as she clutched her husband closer.

  Wilmoth ran into the chaos of the White House and grabbed a servant. "Where's the president?" The woman pointed upstairs. The sound of the first shot echoed from above. Wilmoth took the stairs three at a time. He heard a boy's scream of rage and followed it. He was in time to see Smoke hurl Tad across the room and raise his pistol again. Wilmoth threw himself feet first into the back of Smoke's knees. Smoke fell backward and landed hard, dropping the gun. Wilmoth rolled over and leaped to his feet. Smoke recovered just as fast and went for his pistol. The young man jumped on him, and they rolled over the floor, the smoking carpet, and the shattered breakfast plates. Wilmoth was agile, but Smoke had a hundred pounds of muscle on him. Gradually, he pinned the younger man and grabbed for the barrel of his pistol with his one free hand. He hit Wilmoth across the face and drew back his arm for another blow 3

  A hand gripped his arm with iron strength. Smoke looked up in total surprise as Lincoln whipped him up and off the dazed lieutenant. Smoke had never been handled like this. Blood ran down Lincoln's face from the graze on the side of his head. His eyes were black coals and his jaw set like a vise. His grip squeezed the pistol from Smoke's hand. His other hand balled to a fist that staggered Smoke with a blow to the face. Smoke careened back against the wall. He shook his head to recover his wits. Then he shouted, pulled a knife, and charged.

  The same powerful grip seized his wrist once more as the other hand punched Smoke again in the face. But Smoke shook it off and lowered his head to match strength with strength. Lincoln topped him by a head, but Smoke was heavier and built like a bull. He twisted his wrist to break free of Lincoln's hold. It never occurred to him that he was grappling with a man who had been one of the finest wrestlers in Illinois in his youth. And that youth had built strength like a steel cable in the man. Lincoln threw a leg behind Smoke's knee and pushed. They both crashed to the floor with Lincoln on top. Lincoln grabbed Smoke's head in both hands and slammed it into the floor repeatedly. The big man's eyes flashed terror, and his arms flailed as his hands clutched wildly at his tormentor. Lincoln kept pounding Smoke's head into the floor even after the light had winked out of his eyes, and a thick pool of blood ran dark over the floor.4

  WASHINGTON NAVY YARD, 8:30 AM, OCTOBER 28, 1863

  It was a crestfallen Zeppelin who waved good luck as Lowe and Cushing ascended over the Navy Yard. There was room only for two men and the munitions, and Lowe needed Cushing's knowledge of fuses more than Zeppelin's enthusiasm. Lowe was thankful that the winds had continued to the southeast and floated him directly over the Eastern Branch.

  They had barely made it aloft when three British ships, Greyhound, Racer, and Spiteful, began to pound it out with the Dahlgren battery defending the Yard. British shells found rich targets in the Yard's huge dry docks and foundries. Soon the immense wooden shell of the dry dock was on fire, as was the Yard commander's white wooden quarters. Looking down, Lowe saw a cannonball shatter one of his gas generators, spewing iron filings and acid. The residual hydrogen flamed. Several of his ground crew littered the ground around the wreckage. The rest stuck to their positions around the huge winches that tethered the balloons to the ground. The Yard's scratch gun crews threw themselves into action, and the smoke of their guns drifted over the river.

  The British ships had landed Royal Marines and armed sailors south of the Yard, who were marching up to take it from the rear. On Lowe's other balloon that had already been floating over the Yard, the telegrapher had been kept continually clattering away with his dots and dashes. The electrical impulses ran down the wire to the Yard's telegraph and straight into the Yard commander's hand. The messages had told him already that only three British ships were coming up the Eastern Branch. They outgunned his battery, but his Dahlgrens carried bigger punches. It was still anybody's fight.

  He had no idea that Lowe was about to deliver a few aerial punches to the defense of the Yard. He was more concerned with the British land ing force, which the message estimated at four hundred men. He turned to the Marine captain at his side and showed him the message. "Off with you now, Captain. You know what to do."5

  Lowe thought he knew what he was to do, too - drop the shells on the British ships. Simple enough, but he had not thought through the even simpler requirement to light the shells before they were dropped. As they were ascending over the smoke-hazed river, he suddenly remembered that he never carried anything combustible on a hydrogenfilled balloon for obvious reasons. It was a far more dramatic end than he contemplated. That left the grenades, which did not need to have a flame applied. But 5-pound grenades would be flea bites to the Royal Navy.

  The lieutenant laughed and pulled a box of matches from his pocket and rattled it. "Not to worry, Professor. We are set."

  "But there's a chance the flame will ignite the hydrogen in the balloon."

  "I take a chance every time I go to sea, and you take one every time you go up in one of these. Besides, we're up here already," Cushing said as he peered down, a grin lighting his face. He pointed down at a British sloop directly below them. "What a lovely target she is, too."

  He bent down and opened the first box. He pulled off the lead safety cover and exposed the powder. Then he carefully unscrewed the fuse, taking care not to spill the powder. He then pulled the lead safety plug off the bottom of the fuse and very carefully screwed the fuse back into the shell.

  "Now, it should be ready to go." Cushing squatted in the basket holding the shell. Lowe huddled over him and struck a match, his teeth clenched, waiting for a
trace of escaping hydrogen to ignite and flare off the balloon. "Touch it here." The lieutenant indicated the powder. The flame caused it to sizzle and flare. The lieutenant immediately rose, lifting the 72-pound shell with the power of his legs, and heaved it over the side.

  They both peered down to see it fall, leaving a trail of sparks. It fell toward the ship, but the ship had a mind of its own and steamed on. The shell fell just astern. The water did not drench the fuse before the fire reached the powder charge; the river heaved up to the stern of the ship from the explosion.

  "Damn!" Cushing shouted and threw his hat down to spiral through the air. He broke open another box and prepared the fuse. Lowe huddled over him to light the powder. He could see the lieutenant's lips moving. Down went the shell toward the next ship in line that steamed up to join the fight. The black, smoking orb struck right amidship. It bounced across the deck and down an open hatch. Lowe and the lieutenant held their breaths. They didn't see it bowling over two powder monkeys as it bounced down the ladder into the bowels of the ship. The lieutenant cursed again and began to tear open the third box.

  They didn't see the explosion. It was confined below decks and killed or wounded fifteen men. The captain would have been happy for that if it would have spared him what came next. The exploding shell ignited the powder charges dropped by the powder monkeys, and the flames shot down, catching one boy after another with his load of powder until it reached the copper-lined powder room. The lieutenant had just dropped the third shell when they saw the ship lurch up out of the water as a geyser of flame shot up through her decks. Racer's boilers exploded next. Her back broke, and the two ends floated away, burning furiously.

  Lowe and Cushing shouted and threw themselves into each other's arms and barely refrained from jumping up and down on the basket's wicker floor.'

  LINLITHGO MILLS, NEW YORK, 9:26 AM, OCTOBER 28, 1863

  Slocum saw Hooker's white horse galloping down the road toward him. He groaned to himself. He had advanced barely a mile since the aide had reached him. He was moving at the regular march pace, which was evident to anyone, even a galloping general.

  Hooker did not return Slocum's salute. His fair complexion had flushed bright red, and rage played across his face. He stood up in his stirrups and leaned forward. "Explain yourself, General!"

  "I was bringing my corps up in good order, General."

  "Good order be damned! Did you not hear the sound of the guns only a few miles to your front?"

  "It was not clearly a battle. I heard little-"

  "By God, sir, I heard your hearing failed at Gettysburg, too!"

  Slocum 's hatred for Hooker flared and got the better of his normally passive nature. "I'll not be insulted by a whore-chaser and drunkard. You dare call me coward after you lost your nerve at Chancellorsville? Remember, I was on that field, and you were nowhere near Gettysburg."

  Slocum's escort and staff were transfixed by the drama at the head of the column, which had now stopped even its desultory advance. The sound of the guns was becoming louder by the minute as the generals cursed each other.

  It did not last long. Hooker shut down the invective by relieving Slocum and telling him to quit the Army immediately. He turned to the corps chief of staff and announced that he himself would command XII Corps. His orders came out in a torrent, and the aides raced down the column to pass them on. Within minutes, the column began to move. It had all happened too fast for the men down the column to know why Slocum was riding past them to the rear.7

  When Hooker was satisfied that the corps' two divisions were moving out smartly, he rode back to the fighting with the corps staff. He turned to the chief of staff and smiled. "You know, Colonel, I used to be a pretty good corps commander. Let's see if I still have the touch."

  At the same time, Lord Paulet and his staff were riding through Claverack with the Brigade of Guards in column following. The rest of his force had swept on ahead on either side of the town. It was there that the messenger reached him with the news that the railroad to Albany had been cut, and that enemy cavalry was on his rear. One of Lieutenant Colonel Denison's scouts also reported seeing a column of British and Canadian prisoners, estimated to be 800 men, being hurried south by American cavalry.8 He had expected his second division of three brigades, another 7,800 men, to add to the 12,000 he had on the field.9 He was a good enough soldier to know that his plans had been thrown seriously awry. He could no longer depend on the arrival of his second division. Wolseley was quick to also point out, "My lord, the enemy cavalry continues to conduct a skilled delay that draws us forward into the dark. We need information before we advance farther."

  "Why, Wolseley, information? Look ahead of you, man. There is the enemy. What more information do I need? But you will have noticed how well the American cavalry has kept our smaller cavalry force at bay. I do not think there is much more the Royal Guides can do now. I will commend Denison, of course. He has kept me fully informed of the enemy's position, strength, and movement."

  "But, my lord, it is precisely the strength and ability of the enemy cavalry that will blind us to any surprises."

  Paulet waved him off. He took another look and said, "I think it is time the mountain stopped moving toward Mohammed. Let him come to us, as the story says."

  Paulet was right. Hooker was advancing swiftly with nine thousand men of XII Corps to relieve Kilpatrick's three thousand cavalrymen. It did not take long for Paulet to study them in detail from a church steeple in Claverack, dark blue columns breaking out into line and heading in a directly toward Hudson. If Hooker pushed the British flank away from the river port, Paulet would lose his base and have to retreat overland toward Albany on foot. He took a moment to watch them move and observed, "Gentlemen, they are a ragged lot."

  Wolseley's single eye saw more than Paulet's two. "Yes, my lord, not particularly neat. They would be disqualified on that ground alone on maneuver at Aldershot. But we are not at Aldershot. And do notice, my lord, how swiftly they cover ground." 10

  LONG BRIDGE GUARDPOST, WASHINGTON, D.C., 9:32 AM, OCTOBER 28, 1863

  It was a scared body of men guarding the Washington end of the Long Bridge -four guns and fifty infantry, all intent on the battle raging across the river. The last thing they expected was the keening shriek of the Rebel yell coming at them from the rear. They turned to see a wave of men in butternut and brown coming at them with the bayonet. Scarcely a shot was fired as they threw down their weapons. Colonel Cooke strode among the guns as his Tar Heels tore away the barrier thrown across the bridge's end. "Hurry, boys, hurry! General Lee is expecting us." In minutes, he was leading three of his four regiments across the bridge. He left the fourth behind to hold the approaches.

  The battle for Fort Runyon on the Virginia side was reaching its climax as Cooke's thousand men were double-timing across the Long Bridge through the shadows of the overhead trestle beams. The capture of Fort Berry early that morning had allowed Lee, the master military engineer, to pick apart the intricate and layered forts and connecting para pets with a speed the defenders never thought possible. He had been helped by the transfer of so many of the garrison's infantry to reinforce Hooker and Sedgwick and repel the British in New York and Maine. Now only one fort barred his access to the Long Bridge and his way into Washington.

  Fort Runyon was located astride the important junction of the Washington-Alexandria and Columbia turnpikes, a half mile south of the Long Bridge. It was the largest fort in the defenses of the capital, covered 12 acres and had a perimeter of 1,484 yards manned by a garrison of 2,100 and 21 guns. It was Washington's final defense, and it was putting up a tough fight. Every assault had been repelled, despite a continuous pounding by Lee's artillery. Even the heavier guns dragged from fallen forts were not able to silence the garrison. The explosion of the Arsenal had sent everyone's spirits soaring earlier, and the next assault had gone in with renewed enthusiasm. Unfortunately, the garrison's spirit had not been diminished by the cataclysmic display. And hanging h
atefully in the air behind the fort was one of those balloons that telegraphed the assembly for every assault.

  A mile south of Runyon, Lee was pacing back and forth on the parapet of Fort Scott as he watched the survivors of the last assault fall back. His staff noticed he was showing something more than his taste for a good fight-nervousness that had never been there before. He found his nearest aide and said, "Go to General Stuart and ask him where General Meade and his army are. I must know."

  Scarcely had the man galloped off when a voice from the fort's observation tower yelled down. "General Lee! General Lee!" Everyone looked up, and Lee took off his hat to show where he was. The Confederate signalman in the tower was pointing northeast. "General Lee, there's a column coming across the bridge right fast. It's ours!"11

  CLAVERACK CREEK, NEW YORK, 10:15 AM, OCTOBER 28, 1863

  Hooker threw his first division, commanded by Brig. Gen. John W. Geary, against Paulet's right in the half mile of open ground between the Becraft Hills south of Hudson and the orchards that straddled the creek. Paulet had posted his Niagara Brigade here with one Canadian battalion in the orchard. Horse artillery galloped up to unlimber and send their shells across the creek. Then came the wave of infantry. Hooker rode up to the bank with his staff to watch the attack go in and wave the men on with his hat. The men marched on in grim silence. They hardly cheered anymore. They had seen too much. But that same experience had made them veteran infantry. They knew their business, and cheering was for amateurs. But here was Hooker, his blond hair shining in the sun, astride his white charger, and they were impressed. Hooker noted a special eagerness in the five New York regiments of Col. David Ireland's brigade.