His friend’s words stung him nonetheless. He had given so much for this war and to have it shoved in his face made him angry. “Go to hell, Jeb. I bled. I lost. Just like you.” He pointed a finger. “And I get no respect from high command. I could lead the corps just as good as you.”
Pierce gulped and Fitz’s brows narrowed, but Hampton didn’t care what the man thought. His words were true.
“Yet you don’t.”
“I don’t, but I am still a servant of this nation first. I go where I am needed. Not where I want.”
Air expelled from Jeb’s nose. Then he closed his eyes for a moment and nodded, followed by a heavy sigh. “Wade, I’m sorry. I spoke falsely. You see. It’s Flora.” His eyes squinted. “You understand? I haven’t run afoul of you?”
Hampton gave him a terse nod. “No, sir. You have not. This war is taking a toll on all of us. Has made us act in ways that aren’t natural for our bond.”
“Then you appreciate why I must go?”
“I do. Very much. I might not agree with it, but I understand it.”
“Very well. I bid you farewell, good General. Fitz.” Fitz Lee took a few steps closer to Stuart. His long black beard pointed near the center of his chest.
“Sir?”
“I want you hounding Sheridan everywhere he goes. Depart immediately.”
Hampton cut in. “Jeb. Let me help.”
Stuart nodded to Fitz. “Go. Yes, Wade?”
The men locked eyes. Stuart’s held so much pain that Hampton knew he must attempt to alleviate his friend’s suffering.
“I have a captain. You may know him. Marshall Payne. He has a talent for this kind of work. Let me send him. He’ll track them down.” He admired the young man despite their sparring of late. Stuart had a gravitas that most men would only dream about, like a Julius Caesar in modern form. If he could assist him, he would. Both their honors were at stake. If he would not help a friend in need, who was he?
Stuart shook his head in disbelief. “I stand corrected in your shadow. You are a giant in more ways than one, Wade Hampton. More honor resides in your little finger than in the rest of us.” Stuart lifted his chin, becoming composed and dignified like a warrior poet of ages past. Then he smiled. “Are you sure that you aren’t a Virginian in exile?”
Hampton grinned and placed a hand over his heart. “I am not only a servant to this nation and to my brothers but always a South Carolinian thru and thru. First to secede.”
“And a true friend.” Stuart bowed deeply. He walked forward and stretched his arms around Hampton.
The gesture was both uncommon and abnormal for the men. Gradually, Hampton embraced his commanding officer with a pat on the back. “We’ll get her back.”
“I know we will.” Stuart released him. “I’m taking Gordon’s Brigade, and Fitz Lee’s Division will depart soon. More than enough to handle that cheeky Little Phil and his band of rigid horsemen.”
They shared a laugh at their opponent.
“I will gather Payne’s men and send them on their way.”
“Very good, General.”
The men saluted one another, and Stuart said, “I will see you soon.” And he stormed from the church.
Hampton glanced back at the cross. “Watch over her. For all our sakes.”
***
It took him less than thirty minutes to find Captain Payne and his company of Red Shirts. Every Iron Scout he had with him in his command trailed him, along with one of his aides. Men rested in the bivouac eating whatever they’d stolen from the Yankees the day prior, but maybe even more important was the out-of-saddle rest they were getting now. Many slept on the ground, their caps and hats blocking out the morning light.
The captain gave him a subtle wave as he approached. “Gave them Yanks a fine go of it yesterday, didn’t we, sir?”
“We did.”
Payne sat around a modest campfire with a cluster of his men. Most had their jackets hanging; a few held them over the fire as they roasted fleas and lice from their clothes. A few slept beneath a nearby tree.
His men were all first-rate specimens, well-bred soldiers. All looked strong despite the lack of supplies. All looked athletic, no deformity, and those that had been wounded bore their scars with pride.
“I must speak to you now, Captain.”
Payne leisurely rose and walked over, swiping long brown curls behind his ears. His saber wavered as he strolled to his commander. A smile took his lips, not touching his fierce eyes. “How can I help you, General? Gentleman.” He nodded at the Iron Scouts.
“Good day, Captain,” Dan Tanner said. He was the handsomest scout of all of Hampton’s men. With his fine clothes, trimmed beard, and petite features, he blended in with men far above his station. His brother, George, tipped his broad farmer’s hat, and Hampton suspected that while they said they were brothers, either their father or mother were not the same.
George had a plain forgettable face and a wide nose. The rest of his face was engulfed in a brown beard that hung off his chin.
The last of Hampton’s Iron Scouts spit on the ground.
“I don’t believe I know you?” Payne said.
“Name’s William Scott,” he said and spit again. He was a feral-looking mountain man and seemingly despised the well-fed and fancy-clothed Red Shirts.
“Charming fellow you have in your employ, sir,” Payne said with a grin.
Hampton didn’t have time for all these things, these niceties. He needed to make sure they won this war, but instead, he found himself politicizing between the men, stroking egos and putting out fires.
“I need you to take a platoon of your men and my Iron Scouts and track down a woman.”
Payne’s eyes lit up with intrigue. Hampton could almost read his mind. Oh, the noble general has himself some lustful urges he needs satisfying.
“I do say the plot thickens, General.”
Hampton ignored his curious gaze. “It does. You are to head south.”
“South? The enemy is the other way.”
“Yes, to Beaver Dam Station.”
“If you desire a quality horizontal refreshment or two, General, I know of some nice clean, fancy girls that can cure your every ailment.” His eyes settled on Scott’s. “Not something the rank and file can get their grimy paws on.”
Scott tongued his front lip and spit on the ground again.
“I do not need any horizontal refreshments, Captain. This woman is the wife of a general.”
Raising a hand in defense, Payne smiled. “No need to say any more, but surely this mission is better left to your scouts.”
“Enough, Captain.”
Payne tightened up before the general’s anger. Hampton pressed his horse closer to his man. He let him off the leash on occasion when the war called for it, but not in the presence of others. “You would do well to know that the woman you seek is Flora Stuart, the general’s wife.” He eyed the men in the camp around him. “Only take men you can trust to keep their mouths shut.”
Payne nodded his head in understanding. “I would say this is a bold endeavor we undertake on your behalf.”
Hampton leaned down and hissed. “She is missing.”
“I do declare. This is most disturbing news. Bloody red Indians?”
“No. We think they’re bandits. Possibly Yankees, perhaps escapees. I do not know, but whoever and whatever those men are, they are to be dealt with using extreme violence. This does not go unpunished. Do you understand?”
“I do.” Payne’s smile almost unnerved Hampton.
“You are off your leash. Conduct your mission as you see fit, but you get that woman back and in one piece. Do you understand that?”
“I do.”
“Then make haste.”
Payne grinned. “We shall not tarry.” He faced his men. “Red Shirts! Gather on me.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Afternoon, May 9, 1864
Near Hanover Junction, Virginia
Wolf’s r
aiders avoided Beaver Dam and the chaos of the rebels there clearing the tracks and attempting to corral escaped prisoners. Instead, his small band rode hard for Hanover Junction to the east. There they would cross the North Anna River and make a wide berth near Spotsylvania then for Sheridan’s last known location. After that, he’d hand over Flora to Sheridan and see what Stuart did.
Assumedly, this would draw Stuart into a hasty attack to liberate her or send in his own men to whisk her away in the night. As long as it kept Wolf out of a jail cell, he could live with that. He tried to keep his mind focused as they rode. The most important thing was reaching Union lines again.
They made quick work of five miles, and Wolf brought them to a walk with a loud, “Take ‘er down now, boys.”
The soft clops of hooves over the dirt road echoed in the air. Cottony gray clouds crowded the sky above them. It was hard to tell if it meant rain or not, but it did mean some well-appreciated reprieve from the sun.
He glanced over at Flora, who hadn’t balked at the difficult pace he’d set almost immediately. She appeared unfazed by the ride, displaying herself as an excellent horsewoman. She kept her face forward and her chin high as if their very smell offended her.
“Are you okay, ma’am?”
She stared ahead, not daring to even peep at him. “Do you even care?”
“I do.” He supposed he did in his own right. Her safety was paramount to him not getting hung by her prominent father or her vengeful husband.
She snorted in response.
“I do not wish any harm to befall you.”
“Fancy way of showing that, snatching me from my family’s home.”
“It’s all a means to an end, ma’am. Just business.”
“Your business is one with the devil then.”
He didn’t know how to respond to that. He didn’t feel particularly devilish. He also didn’t feel like hanging or going back to prison either. But her concerns were a woman’s worries, and he wouldn’t expect her to understand the warlike reasons of men.
They rode in silence for a while, but Wolf couldn’t hold his tongue. “Why would you betray your true nation and your father’s love?”
“Don’t all women betray their father’s love by taking the love of another?”
He had difficulty comprehending her words. To him, they sounded like some high-minded philosophical retort, probably disrespectful. “What I mean is, why did you marry Stuart, wrong side and all?”
Her brown eyes regarded him from the side like she was whipping a stubborn mule. “Why does anyone marry? For love, of course. Clearly not a venture for all men.” The last words were a barb aimed at Wolf.
He narrowed his eyes at his clothes. His black jacket was not fine by any means, but it wasn’t of poor construction. Truthfully, he probably could have used a bath and brush, but then again, he was a soldier in the middle of a war. “I am not married.”
“Don’t ask me how I can tell, but one could start with the smell.”
Grinding his teeth, he tried to piece together a retort, but her tongue was like a whip cracking the air.
“Or your hair is tangled and in need of a cut.” Before he could respond, she continued. “And your mouth isn’t fit for a saloon let alone to be wagged in front of a proper lady. Not even good enough for one of your camp women.” She regarded him for a moment before continuing. “Probably don’t have a dime to your rotten name.”
Hogan and Roberts chuckled nearby. Wolf gave them a nasty glare, and they closed their mouths.
“I got more than a few dimes.” He’d saved almost thirty dollars since he started, money that had been taken when he’d been captured. Now that he thought about it, he really didn’t have anything to his name. “Someday I’ll find a nice girl. One that don’t care much about money.”
“Exactly my point. Girls. Girls. You, Lieutenant, will only ever be with girls because you are about as civilized as a man raised by wolves.”
This brought a few smiles from his men, and Wolf grinned as well. “Well, as a matter of fact, ma’am. I was raised by Wolfes.”
“Did you not go to grammar school?” she said sounding out the next phrase. “Wolves.”
“My name is Wolf, ma’am.”
She closed her mouth; he’d caught her in a verbal trap of his own. “A fitting name for a savage man.”
He dug into his pack and pulled out a piece of hardtack. Breaking it in half, he handed her a part of it.
She took it in her hands, and a general air of disgust surrounded her.
He shoved the tack into his back molars and gnawed on the sheet-metal-like cracker. The trick with hardtack was to dunk it in coffee or soften it in some stew before you attempted eating it. Since Wolf had neither, he sucked the edge before trying to crush the “bread.”
“My tooth!” she complained.
“You have to soften it, ma’am.”
She held the hardtack, staring at it with vengeful eyes. “How do you eat the stuff?”
“You get hungry enough, it’ll be enough. And the army will make your belly growl mighty fierce.”
“Glad I’m not in the army.”
“At the next stop you can dunk it in some coffee.”
She attempted to embrace an angry air, but responded with a short, “Thanks.” Then after a moment she spoke again, only softer. “When we met there wasn’t this divide.”
“Met?”
“When Jeb and I met, the nation was still whole.” She raised her hands and flung them outward. “There wasn’t this mess.”
“My life would have been much different without this war,” he said.
“Mine as well,” she muttered.
She thought he meant about how much better, but what she didn’t know was that this war, despite all the pain and suffering, presented him with purpose. He would be no better than a beggar on the street without the war.
In fact, he could have been already dead and not a soul, save his family, would care. It made him think of his father, Bernard, back home in Grand Rapids, hunched over in his furniture shop carving wood. He wondered if his father still thought of his only son in the wilderness of Virginia fighting a war that neither of them were native too.
It was a war to cure a wound that had been festering in the background of a young nation since its inception. The unanswered questions of equality and power had brought men armed to the field of battle ready to shed blood on this claimed soil. In this war, some men gained, and all men suffered.
“Do you still speak with him?” he asked.
“Who?” she snapped.
“Your father.”
She adjusted her reins under her uncomfortableness. “No. He hasn’t even seen our youngest yet.”
“That must be difficult. I haven’t seen my family in over a year.”
She softly shook her head at him. “My father fights against my husband in a war that will never end. The two men whom I love the most in this world are trying to kill each other. Difficult is an understatement. Every day I wonder which note I will receive from the front, my father or my husband slain in the service of their nation.”
“Meant no disrespect.”
Her demeanor hardened again, any rapport or common ground he’d built up slipping away like quicksand. “Ha, coming from my kidnapper. Disrespect. I will tell you something right now. I look forward to the day my husband catches and hangs you.” She twisted in her saddle haranguing the men. “Hangs all of you. My heart will leap with joy as I gaze fondly upon your corpses with all the respect a dog is owed.”
Nelson snorted like a bull, but the rest of the riders ignored her. Wolf didn’t antagonize her any further. “You call out to anyone, I’ll gag you,” he added as a reminder. Last thing he wanted was her shouting out to the nearest rebels the first chance she got.
She humphed in response but held her tongue.
Hogan pushed his horse near Wolf’s other side. “You really have a way with the ladies, Yellabelly.”
“Bah
. I only try to ease her captivity,” he said loudly.
She didn’t bite but kept her eyes forward.
His voice lowered. “We will not keep her after the deed is done.”
“I suspect we won’t.” Hogan dropped his voice. “Can’t say I’d want to keep her.” He finished with a mischievous grin for Wolf.
“Stuart can have her!”
***
Hanover Junction was a critical intersection of two railroads, the Virginia Central Railroad and the Fredericksburg-Richmond Railroad. It acted as a junction between the east and west running line and the north and south line.
None of the prewar railroads were built with war as a concern. The South didn’t have the supply or manufacturing capability to do more than just maintain what was already in place. What was in place was a mishmash of railroads built by different business ventures with only their own profits in mind. Infrastructure that over the course of the war crumbled without replacement parts and inadequate repairs.
The tracks were different sizes. In some towns, different railroads had built their own lines to avoid having to use a rival railroad’s tracks. This had caused all sorts of issues in the infrastructure-deficient South, and Hanover Junction with their crossing lines was critical to the Southern war effort and by proxy, a crucial target for Northern disruption.
The east-west running tracks brought in food and supplies from the Shenandoah. The north-south line gave Southern troops the mobility to travel north to fight.
A station sat near the crisscrossing tracks. The depot was painted red like a barn. Wood planking lined the sides, and with the current campaign going on, rebels crawled all over the depot.
Wolf’s men took position in a nearby forest, scouting the junction for navigation. He dismounted with his men for a more concealed view of the station.
“More graybacks on them tracks than Robert’s hat,” Adams said. He gave Roberts a wicked grin.
“I burned ‘em off,” Roberts said. He took his hat off, inspecting it for the crawling critters. “I can’t help that they keep breedin’.”
Adams nudged Nelson. “If only his mother hadn’t bred him.”
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