“Really? We won’t take Richmond.”
“Not yet,” Hogan said with a wink.
“George. Skinner,” Wolf said with a nod.
“Pleasure riding with you boys,” Skinner said.
George nodded with red-rimmed eyes yet a flat mouth. He had taken the loss of his friend very hard. Grief filled his eyes. He nodded to Wolf.
“I’m sure we will meet again,” Hogan said. “You know if you ever get tired of this cavalry business, I might have a place for you over at the BMI.”
“I heard they only took yellabellies.”
“Ha. The very best yellabellies.” Hogan stuck out his hand and they shook again. He then turned to mount his horse. “I know we will be seeing each other again.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
“Good luck, Lieutenant. If you can, stay in one piece.”
“You as well.”
Hogan waved as he steered his horse away. The BMI agent and the sharpshooters turned their horses, riding them through the campsites.
“Wily fellow, ain’t he?” Wilhelm said.
“He is peculiar to say the least.” He watched the men weave through the tents and fires until they disappeared.
Wolf wasn’t sure if that was the path for him. The Bureau of Military Information always seemed to have a trick up their sleeves, dealing in the shadowy parts of a war. Perhaps he’d seen enough of this shadow war, always swirling around the rank-and-file conflict like a dangerous mist.
“Come, Lieutenant, let’s pay our respects.”
They gathered the remainders of the unit and they stood impatiently in a somber living line over the mounds of dead friends that now claimed permeant residence in Virginia soil. Dark dismal shadows cloaked the seven earthen mounds like funeral shrouds.
Other voices drifted from nearby campfires, but none were clear. They were only the voices of living men. The leaves rustled beneath the assault of raindrops. The graves containing the dead men were quiet, nothing stirring, and everything was still. Nelson adjusted his feet uncomfortably in the dirt causing it to crunch beneath his boot.
Dan’s cheeks were rosy, and his chest shook as he quietly sobbed. The missing men gnawed at each and every man still standing, even Adams and Nelson.
Wilhelm and Wolf exchanged a glance. Shugart was the unit’s resident holy man and he was dead and gone. Wolf’s voice surprised him, words forming at his lips. They didn’t hold the grace and faith of Shugart, but it was at least something. “These men know the true meaning of sacrifice. They came back for one of their own, knowing full well that safety lay in the other direction.”
Dan continued to sob audibly, sniffling between cries.
“I know that these men will find Heaven. I know their cause, if only to protect their fellow man, was sound, and if God cannot see the nobleness in such actions then surely he knows their hearts better than me. For I saw men of valor and paying for that valor with blood. May they rest in peace.”
A soft chorus of amens came from the short line of troopers.
“I’ve never led better men in battle than these. May God take their souls,” Wilhelm added.
They stood silent.
Adams took his turn. “We didn’t start the war out with you folk.” He eyed Wilhelm who stood emotionless. “But we fought a war with you folk, and we fought well. They will be missed.” He dipped his chin when he was done and nudged Nelson.
The big bear of a man eyed the rest of the unit. “It was a good fight. Sorry.” He clasped his hands in front of him. His brief but kind words surprised Wolf, but he said nothing.
Dan waved a hand in front of him, shaking his head in grief. “No.” The large Polish trooper walked away from the graves.
“You all will not be forgotten,” Wolf said. He stood there for a moment, gazing at the ground.
Northern blood had been spilt, mixing with Southern blood and American soil as one. No one was absolved from it. The war had cut them deep, down to the very bones of their souls.
Stuart had fallen. Flora had suffered and would continue to only live with her husband’s memory. Stuart’s children would remember almost nothing of their dashing father, any moments mere renditions from their mother and family. His death was something his family would all have to live with. It was something that would haunt them for the rest of their lives. No man of flesh and bone to raise them, to teach them to ride, to walk his daughter down the aisle. Nothing more than fleeting memories.
Grant still battered Lee southward. Lee resisted with every bit of his might. They would continue watering the nation’s fair ground with Southern and Northern blood alike. And when it was done, Wolf wouldn’t be surprised if the nation was merely an island surrounded by the blood of those that resided there.
“It’s not finished,” Wolf said.
The men around him nodded. They filtered away from their friends and comrades one by one. Each man stared as if expecting their friends to rise from the dead or jump from the soil in some big hoax, but no dirt stirred in such a cruel jest.
Only Wilhelm stood with him now, minds wrestling between loss and vengeance.
“Do you think Payne still lives?” Wolf said. His voice was flat. He held disdain for the man and wanted revenge, but he was levelheaded. Wilhelm knew of the vendetta and shared Wolf’s hate.
“If he yet lives, we will finish the game.”
His words were twofold for he spoke about his own quest for vengeance as well. His crusade to avenge the death of his son at the hands of Wade Hampton.
Wilhelm’s eyes still burned. It hid behind all the duty and honor and brave soldierly virtues. It was a smoldering fire that could only be quenched upon his or Hampton’s death.
He was a man that Wolf wanted on his side. They were bound by a common cause. His time would come. Wolf didn’t know when, but when it did, neither he nor Wilhelm would hesitate. Their fingers would be quick on triggers, their hands steadfast on swords, their minds cool and calm through the gun smoke, their wits quick so they would deal out death even quicker.
A violin sawed a lonely tune, and a few men picked up a song too faint for Wolf to make out. But the words were sad and beautiful. It was the song that longed for a forgotten time faraway. He took out his furlough papers and tore them to pieces, letting them fall on the graves of the fallen.
Wilhelm silently nodded his head and turned away. He walked back to the campfire and took up his whetting stone. The soft sound of metal sharpening on stone could be heard scraping away before the burning fires of vengeance.
“Your death won’t go unpunished,” Wolf said to Roberts’s grave. No response came from the oblong earthen mound, only silence.
It wasn’t finished for Wolf. Not while Payne still breathed. It wasn’t finished for Wilhelm. He supposed this war would never die in their minds. It just wouldn’t finish. The divide was too great.
Still more blood would be needed to feed the American gods of war. Only when every last drop had been spilt would this nation rest. And he carried on because he still had more to give.
Historical and Personal Note
Thank you for reading the latest installment of the Northern Wolf series. I truly hope you enjoyed reading this novel as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Writing historical fiction is like walking a tightrope between fact and fiction. If you go too far toward history, you can fall into the doldrums of just a history book. If you swing too far toward fiction, you risk becoming too fantastical for your audience. In themselves, these aren’t bad things. I am literally surrounded by history books as I write this, but if you are trying to write historical fiction, they are to be treaded carefully.
The bones of a good story remain the same no matter the genre: plot, characters, conflicts, and theme. But for a historical fiction novel, we need all these things and the history itself. Sometimes they walk hand in hand and the history practically writes the novel. At other times, the author must really massage his tale into the events. In any case,
I think it is important to lay out the facts and fictions to facilitate a better understanding of the story.
The military actions surrounding the Overland or Wilderness Campaign is in fact a very difficult battle to study because of the almost continuous maneuvering by Grant/Meade and Lee. The campaign was spearheaded by the costly and inconclusive Battle of the Wilderness. It was a truly horrible affair where many wounded were burned alive in the fires surrounding the battle, and the Union did the unthinkable. They continued their campaign. This led to an almost ceaseless hit-and-run war between Grant’s huge army as he attempted to out-position Lee and force him into a battle of his choosing.
There are many reasons why Grant’s task was nearly impossible. The terrain, the varying capabilities of his commanders, the vastness of his army, and the expertise of his opponents are only a few of the reasons that this campaign was a struggle for Grant and the Army of the Potomac.
Grant’s army sustained a number of tactical defeats, but ultimately the campaign was considered a strategic success as his goal was to pressure and destroy Lee’s army and not merely sack Richmond. He mostly succeeded in exactly what he’d been sent east to do: grind the Army of Northern Virginia down and expedite the end of the war.
However, his victory was by no means total. Lee had won most of the tactical battles in the campaign and his army was not completely beaten, but much of their campaigning ability had diminished. The war most likely would have ended sooner had Petersburg been taken quickly instead of after a nine-month-long siege. The Overland Campaign marked the beginning of the end for the Southern Cause.
The casualties during the Overland Campaign were staggering and the bloodiest of the war—55,000 for the Union and 33,600 for the Confederacy. Historians tend to disagree on the number of casualties on both sides. But what they don’t disagree on are the percentages of troops lost. While the Union suffered more casualties, it was a smaller percentage of their armies. Reinforcements were sent to replace the dead, so the impact to the Union war effort was less dramatic than it was to the Confederacy. With less manpower and fewer recruitment pools, the Confederacy struggled to replace their losses including those in leadership.
As this campaign was critical to the Union winning the war, along with Lincoln’s 1864 election, there has been much study about the campaign as well as the individual battles that took place throughout it. I found the book The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern by Gordon C. Rhea extremely valuable in making clear my understanding of the battles depicted in this book. I also found Custer and His Wolverines and Gentleman and Soldier: A Biography of Wade Hampton III, both by Edward G. Longacre, instrumental in grasping the men and the conflict they fought in.
I took much more liberty in this novel than in the two previous ones. While many of the main events did happen, some others did not. I wanted the reader to have a fully entertaining and exciting novel, and in order to do so, I had to bend historical fact in a few places and make it truly fiction. Let me break down some of the major liberties that were taken.
Elizabeth Van Lew or “Crazy Bet” was a Union spy and a member of Richmond’s social elite. Her story is incredibly interesting. She feigned mental affliction throughout the war and is widely lauded as one of the best spies of either side. She located and retrieved Dahlgren’s body after it had been taken from its display and buried in a shallow grave. She reburied his remains properly in a secret location, much to Jefferson Davis’s chagrin when he sent for it to be returned North. Dahlgren’s remains were delivered to his family after the war was over.
The relationship between Van Lew and Benjamin Butler was fictional as well, but they did communicate frequently on spy activities. In particular, they discussed the strength of the Confederate capital. It is important to note that Van Lew’s intelligence assessment was largely ignored during Butler’s planned raid. It was again ignored in the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren raid where she estimated a much larger force would be necessary to take Richmond than was sent on either raid. It can be speculated that her estimates were dismissed based on her gender and lack of military experience.
Erasmus Ross was a very real fixture at Libby Prison. Although he never ran the prison, he was a clerk who kept count and tabs on the prisoners. He probably wasn’t as cruel as depicted and embodied traits ascribed to the prison’s commandant Major Thomas Turner, who is sometimes confused with Richard Turner, a cruel jailor who was singled out for investigation after the war. The prisoners never suspected Ross was in fact a Union sympathizer, orchestrating and aiding the escape of Union prisoners and passing intelligence to leadership.
Many of the activities the prisoners participated in while held in Libby Prison were actual things they did to entertain themselves: riddles, chess, the Libby Chronicle(when it operated), debates, trials, even Spanish foreign language instruction by Federico Fernández Cavada, who went on to lead the Cuban fight for independence from Spain during the Ten Years’ War.
We could probably have an endless debate over which prison was the worst, but understand that Libby Prison was one of the worst on either side. In my opinion, it was only overshadowed by Belle Isle and the deadliest prison, Andersonville. There were notoriously bad prisons in the North as well. Camp Douglas in Illinois and Elmira Prison in New York stand out. The only leg up the Northern prisons had on the Southern ones was access to more adequate supplies. An excellent book on the life of the prisoners is Libby Prison Breakout: The Daring Escape from the Notorious Civil War Prison by Joseph Wheelan.
No one was sent on a secret mission to kidnap J. E. B. Stuart’s wife. This was a major liberty taken on my part, but I thought it made for an interesting premise for the Battle of Yellow Tavern. However, she did come close to capture at Beaver Dam which drove Stuart into a panic about her safety. She was staying at the nearby home of Confederate Colonel Edmund Fontaine when the Union went about destroying the rail station there.
Sheridan did set out on May 9, 1864, to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia’s Cavalry Corps as a part of Grant’s Overland Campaign. Scholars are split over the effectiveness of his efforts with most settling on how it would have been much more valuable for him to assist Grant instead of charging off on his own.
Grant did approve of his mission much to the indignation of Meade. It created a rift in Grant’s command structure. The death of J. E. B. Stuart, the Knight of the Golden Spurs, Beau Sabreur, the beloved ostrich-plumed hat wearing and dashing gentleman cavalier haunted the Confederate war efforts for the duration of the conflict.
It was a major morale blow, and he was widely mourned by all, even his adversaries. It threw Lee’s Cavalry Corps out of order for a time as succession was decided. I believe it was an interesting hesitation on Lee’s part to not have a clear successor in such an important role. It seems in part his hesitation was due to the fact his son was a possible replacement since Hampton wasn’t a Virginian, a professional soldier, and was older than most other commanders (the position required a great deal of energy and zeal).
For months Lee had his various individual cavalry division commanders report directly to him when operating apart from one another. This happened until command of the Cavalry Corps was given to Wade Hampton, who led them for the rest of the war with great skill and success despite the waning war effort. Surely giving the Cavalry Corps to Hampton earlier would have greatly aided Lee and freed him up to try and salvage what remained of his war effort. I do not think this would have changed the outcome of the war but would have perhaps lengthened it instead, again this is mere speculation.
The Battle of Yellow Tavern played out much the same way it was described in the novel. Although three of Sheridan’s divisions took part in the raid, Custer’s forces were at the center of most of the battle’s fighting. The battle followed the initial redeployments of Lomax’s Brigade as they were flanked by Devin and Gibbs. The battle lulled as Wickham took his place along a ridge. In the afternoon, Custer was the centerpiece for the battle’s
finale. With support of elements from Wilson’s division on his left and Gibbs’s Brigade on his right, Custer’s Brigade marched forward, focusing on silencing Stuart’s artillery. In the defense of Griffin’s Baltimore Light Artillery, Stuart was mortally wounded as he tried to fill the hole in his line. The command passed to Fitz Lee and the rebels retreated.
Most historians attribute Stuart’s mortal wounding to Private John A. Huff of the 5th Michigan, but it was largely disputed during and after the war who was responsible. I gave Sergeant Ira Roberts the credit, but he is a fictional character.
In reality, Private Huff was a forty-four-year-old former Berdan sharpshooter and was said to have shot Stuart with a .44 caliber pistol anywhere from 30 to over 400 yards away, but considering the weapon, it was probably from closer. There were others who claimed to have fired the shot that killed Stuart: Private Charles Dunn, Sergeant R. M. Bellinger, and even others from different regiments outside the Michigan Brigade. This is unlikely, however, due to the positioning of the regiments during the attack in relation to where Stuart fell. Mystery still clouds the facts today largely because Huff was killed a few weeks later and then Dunn a few weeks after that.
The introduction of the Native American sharpshooters (they were not citizens at the onset of the war) was a fictionalized account of fact. K Company of the 1st Michigan Sharpshooters was almost entirely composed of Anishinabek men made up of Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi tribes from northern Michigan. The Anishinabek made a public declaration against slavery and requested to fight on the Union’s behalf despite public hostility toward arming indigenous peoples for national service. In 1863, losses from the war prompted the government to accept the indigenous peoples into their ranks. K Company served with distinction in Burnside and Parke’s IX Corps during the Overland Campaign and the Siege of Petersburg, including the horrible Battle of the Crater.
George and James were not actual people and are entirely fictional. While there are some extraordinary individuals from this unit, I wanted to have more of a writer’s license with their narrative. If you are interested in learning more of the actual unit, please check out Deadly Aim: The Civil War Story of Michigan's Anishinaabe Sharpshooters by Sally M. Walker, or for a more biographical account of the individuals, read Warriors in Mr. Lincoln’s Army: Native American Soldiers Who Fought in the Civil War by Quita V. Shier.
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