Shattered Nation

by Jeffrey Brooks

  “Well?” Lincoln asked. “What did he say?”

  “Grant tells me that there are only half a dozen Indiana regiments serving with the Army of the Potomac in Virginia. The vast bulk of Indiana units are serving with Sherman in Georgia. While those men fighting in Virginia can be easily furloughed, those fighting under Sherman’s command are needed at the front.”

  “In other words, rather than an additional ten thousand voters who would likely favor us at the polls, we might expect a thousand or so?”

  “Yes, Mr. President,” Stanton replied, glumly. “I apologize for being the bearer of so much bad news today.”

  “Not your fault,” the President said simply. The idea of furloughing Indiana troops in order to impact the election in that state had been worth a shot, but it was only one of a multitude of political tricks whirling about in Lincoln’s mind.

  Among other things, Lincoln was considering having the military governors of the recovered areas of Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Florida quickly form loyal governments in those otherwise rebellious states, which would be controlled by the Republican Party and whose electoral votes could be counted in his column on Election Day. He had already issued a proclamation declaring martial law throughout the states of Kentucky and Missouri in order to combat Southern guerrillas and, if he so choose, he would be able to turn a blind eye to any use of military force by his officers to promote his candidacy in November. Those were just a few of the aces he was shoving up his sleeves for when he needed them.

  Lincoln had been a politician too long to expect that his Democratic opponents were not going to indulge in some clever political chicanery of their own. If his correspondents in New York City telling the truth, Democrats with deep pockets and connections on Wall Street were buying up all the gold they could get their hands on, their aim being to drive up the price of gold so much that it would depress the value of United States currency. The voters, so the instigators of this plan expected, would blame the resulting inflation on President Lincoln and therefore be more inclined to vote against him on Election Day.

  He chuckled softly. In an ideal world, of course, such schemes would have no part in political discourse. Unfortunately, as Lincoln was painfully aware, the world in which he lived was far from ideal.

  *****

  August 1, Afternoon

  Thomas looked sullenly around at Camp Oglethorpe, which would be his home for the foreseeable future. He nearly gave in to despair. A stockade enclosed a few acres of ground, in which several wooden huts had been constructed. All looked flimsy and likely to fall apart at the first rain. Although a few tall trees near the center of the stockade provided a small amount of shade, the heat was so intense that they might as well have been inside an oven. The humidity made it all the worse.

  Within the camp, large numbers of Union officers milled about like chickens in a coop. Camp Oglethorpe, near the town of Macon in central Georgia, had been designated as the main prison camp for captured Union officers since the near approach of the Army of the Potomac to Richmond had forced the rebel authorities to close the infamous Libby Prison a few months before. Within the small acreage of the camp, some four thousand officers were being held.

  He was being escorted by Confederate Captain George Gibbs, who was the commandant of the prison camp. Thomas had taken an instant dislike to him.

  “This will be your cabin,” Gibbs said. “You will share it with seven other officers.”

  Thomas looked inside. “This space would be insufficient for four men! How do you expect eight men to sleep in such a small space!”

  Gibbs shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out, Thomas. Not my problem.”

  Thomas growled in anger, but there was nothing he could do. Over the past week, he had been forced to endure humiliation after humiliation from young Georgia militiamen barely old enough to have pimples on their faces. Thomas felt nearly broken, but could not admit defeat just yet.

  The train ride from Atlanta to Macon had been miserable. The rails themselves had clearly been in bad need of repair, for the trip had been so full of jolts and near-derailments that the nerves of many of the officers in the boxcars had been all but shattered. It stood in stark contrast to the comparatively smooth and easy journeys they had all enjoyed on Northern railroads. There had been next to no ventilation in the boxcars and the men had suffered brutally in the stifling heat.

  The train on which Thomas had traveled had frequently been pushed to the sidings. Trying to see what he could through tiny cracks between the boards, he had observed several trains traveling north on the tracks toward Atlanta from Macon. One of them had been carrying a battery of artillery. The idea that the rebel army defending Atlanta was being strengthened made Thomas furious and also increased his feeling of powerlessness.

  By the time the train carrying Thomas had arrived in Macon, two of the prisoners in it had died, one lieutenant and one captain. According to the Southern doctor who had quickly examined their bodies, both had died of dehydration. Although the doctor himself had seemed conscientious about his work, the rebel soldiers standing nearby had made mocking comments about the two dead men as they had carted their bodies away for burial. The other prisoners had looked on, helpless.

  They had been held in a barn for a few days, with the rebels saying that they could not enter the camp itself until they had been properly processed. With undisguised schadenfreude, the guards explained that they were experiencing delays on account of the sheer numbers of Union officers that had been taken prisoner at Peachtree Creek. It had not been until that very morning that Thomas and his companions had finally been herded into the stockade of Camp Oglethorpe. Considering the stories of how smallpox and cholera swept through the camp with grim regularity, many wondered if they would ever get out alive.

  Gibbs unenthusiastically told them other necessary details about the camp, including where they were to draw their rations. He warned them against going too close to the stockade, as the militiamen serving as guards had orders to shoot men who came too close. After a few minutes, he took his leave. Thomas was pleased to see the man go, as he had been insufferably arrogant.

  Thomas was soon swarmed by other prisoners, all asking for details about how he had been captured. Many had been captured during the previous year, including several who had fallen into rebel hands at Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Chickamauga. These men were particularly desperate for news of the war, especially concerning the fates of friends and relatives who were also in uniform.

  “George!” a familiar voice called.

  Thomas turned to see General Truman Seymour. For the first time in many days, a smile crossed his face. When Thomas had been a cavalry and artillery instructor at West Point during the early 1850s, Seymour had been a professor of drawing. Thomas quickly recalled many nights of good conversation over good wine at the Seymour household. According to the newspaper accounts Thomas had read, Seymour had been taken prisoner by Lee’s men during the Battle of the Wilderness, three months earlier.

  “They got you, too, did they?” Seymour said, mixing bitterness with a good natured attempt at humor.

  “Afraid so. Not just me, but practically my whole army.” He spent the next few minutes describing the debacle at Peachtree Creek.

  “Dear God,” Seymour said when Thomas finished.

  Thomas shook his head. “I am ashamed, I don’t mind saying.”

  “Don’t be so glum,” Seymour said. “Even good generals lose battles. When I commanded our forces in eastern Florida, the rebels beat me badly at the Battle of Olustee. I lost nearly a quarter of my army and we had to run helter-skelter back to Jacksonville with our tails between their legs.”

  “I heard,” Thomas said. “But Peachtree Creek was a defeat of such magnitude that the outcome of the war may turn on it. The South has always looked on me as a traitor and now the North will look on me as a fool.”

  “No,” Seymour said firmly. “Your friends know better. In any case, we have
more important things to worry about.”

  “Like what?”

  Seymour grinned. “Like getting out of this damn place.”

  *****

  August 2, Morning

  Manton Marble had expected the trip to be a waste of time and had not really wanted to go. However, the telegram he had received was so intriguing, and the conversation thus far was so revealing, that even the endless hours on the train to Cincinnati now seemed well worth it.

  “So, you’re saying he’s really crazy? Not just as an exaggeration, but genuinely insane?”

  Across the table in the middle of the hotel room, nursing a larger-than-average glass of whiskey, General Joseph Hooker nodded sternly. “No doubt about it. I think Sherman is genuinely out of his mind. It would be better for him to be incarcerated at Bedlam than for him to remain in command of our armies in the West. The man’s mental state is such that he is not fit to lead a company of infantry, let alone three entire armies.”

  Marble was already imagining the headlines the New York World could run with the information Hooker was passing on to him. Certainly, people would say that Hooker was obviously not an objective and reliable source, but the people who bought his newspapers wouldn’t care and it would further solidify the opposition to the Lincoln administration.

  He let out an exasperated sharp breath. “So, Lincoln literally chose a madman for the second most important military position in the country?”

  “That’s about the size of it, Mr. Marble,” Hooker replied.

  “I remember reading the stories about his mental instability back in late 1861. I believe it was a newspaper of this very city, the Cincinnati Commercial, which used the word ‘insane` to describe him. I reserved judgment then, but I am listening with great attention to what you are saying. Please go on.”

  Hooker took a sip of whiskey before he spoke. “The man talks to himself, all the time. His staffers are embarrassed by it when a high-ranking subordinate overhears it. He babbles on and on, endlessly, usually making no sense. Even his written orders often seem utterly incoherent.”

  “How did the campaign progress at all, then?”

  “By fits and starts. More by luck than anything else. We could have crushed Johnston’s entire army at Snake Creek Gap, in the very first days of the campaign, had Sherman’s mental incompetence not gotten in the way of things. And it was his insanity that led us into the trap at Peachtree Creek. The man’s crazy, sure as hell.”

  As Hooker continued to describe additional episodes demonstrating Sherman’s insanity, Marble jotted down notes on a small pad. He hadn’t asked Hooker’s permission to do so when the conversation had begun, but the general had raised no objection. And since Hooker had been the one to initiate the meeting, it was obvious that he wanted the views he was expressing to find their way into the press. The New York World was certainly the best-positioned paper to do so.

  “Who can corroborate this?”

  Hooker shrugged. “The only general in the West who had a mind of his own was General Thomas, who I imagine is now in some godforsaken prison camp. All the others owe their positions to Grant and Sherman. I doubt any of them would be willing to say anything critical about Sherman publicly, as it would cost them their positions.”

  “I’ve heard people say that the officers of the Army of the Tennessee, the ones who served under Grant and Sherman at Shiloh and Vicksburg, have basically taken over the whole army. That the men of the Army of the Cumberland have essentially been sidelined.”

  “It’s true,” Hooker said with conviction. “Look how Sherman was promoted over both Thomas and myself to command the combined Western armies, despite the fact that we both outrank him. It’s really shocking, when you think about it. Completely unjustified and unfair.”

  Marble jotted all this down, thinking about what great copy it was going to make. The Lincoln administration had long been under fire for its management of the war effort. The massive casualties of Grant’s operations in Virginia, combined with the disastrous defeat of Sherman at Peachtree Creek, had raised these voices to a fever pitch. Once the New York World ran the exclusive story about Sherman being genuinely insane, the political pillars shoring up the administration would be one step closer to crumbling.

  “Tell me, General Hooker. What caused our defeat at Peachtree Creek?”

  “Sherman got careless and overconfident. As usual, he had the Army of the Cumberland doing his dirty work by advancing on Atlanta from the north, while his beloved Army of the Tennessee was gallivanting off to the east of the city, much too far away to come to our support when the rebels attacked.”

  Marble jotted this down. It seemed inappropriate to question Hooker on his own handling of the troops, as that didn’t fit into the narrative Marble was already envisioning.

  “Do you think that Sherman’s mental instability contributed to the defeat?”

  “Oh, absolutely. As far as I can tell, it was the main cause of the disaster.”

  Marble nodded and kept writing. Without asking, he poured Hooker another glass of whiskey.

  The interview, Marble soon learned, had only just begun. Hooker was a typical blowhard and he went on for quite some time. The more whiskey Marble poured for him, the more animated the general became. Juicy bits of information concerning Sherman’s lack of mental stability, Grant’s favoritism and pandering, Lincoln’s utter mismanagement, and a whole host of other subjects flew from Hooker’s mouth in a torrent of words.

  “What is your opinion on the current presidential election?” Marble asked at one point.

  “Lincoln and McClellan can both go to the devil, for all I care. My horse could manage the war effort better than Lincoln. As for McClellan, the less said about him, the better. I could have won the war at the Battle of Antietam single-handedly if McClellan hadn’t been such a blundering idiot.”

  Eventually, after nearly three hours of conversation, Hooker was virtually asleep in his chair. Leaving him there, Marble got up and quietly left the room. In his notebooks, he was sure, was enough journalistic ammunition to inflict a devastating blow against Lincoln’s chances for reelection.

  *****

  August 3, Morning

  “You can’t be sure that it was him,” Collett said, trying to sound reassuring.

  McFadden, sitting on the edge of his cot, shook his head forcefully. “I saw his face. I heard his voice. It was Cheeky Joe, no doubt.”

  “I was there, too, you know,” Collett said. “It was dark and confusing. There was lots of noise, men shouting and fires burning. The man you saw was fifty yards away at least, moving away from the light of the fires. Honestly, Lieutenant, you might have been mistaken.”

  McFadden wanted to believe his commander was right. With Collett having seen him temporarily lose control on the banks of the Chattahoochee, McFadden had decided to tell him the whole story. Having already told Annie, it was somehow easier to tell a second person. Moreover, there was a new level of trust between him and Collett, now that they were both officers.

  Was it possible that Collett was right and that he had honestly been mistaken? Could the man he had seen in the pontoon boat have been someone other than Cheeky Joe? Collett was correct when he said that the scene had been dark, noisy and confusing. Could his memories of that nightmarish day in the desert have been twisted by the torment he had endured? Could he honestly trust his own senses?

  But his face had been unmistakable. Although it had been years since he had seen Cheeky Joe, his face had been so deeply burned into McFadden’s mind that he was sure he could not have forgotten it. No, he was certain that the man he had seen on the river was the same man who had brutally tortured him and his brother before killing his brother and leaving him for dead. While his rational mind might have its doubts, another part of his mind had never been more certain of anything.

  “I don’t suppose you might put it out of your mind for the time being?” Collett suggested. “We have an inspection tomorrow, you know. I’m going t
o need your companies looking their best, because I’d rather be sent to the Yankee prison at Point Lookout than leave General Cleburne disappointed.”

  McFadden forced a smile. “Of course, sir.”

  “You’ll give me your report on the engagement on the bank of the river when you get a chance?”

  “I should have it finished by the end of the day, sir.”

  “No need to rush. Take it easy for the rest of the day, James. The last few weeks have been a chaotic time for you, what with your promotion, all the hubbub about capturing Thomas, all the stuff with your lady friend. Maybe you just need to rest.”

  “I’m all right, sir.”

  “Well, consider it an order. Take a rest. Write another letter to Miss Turnbow. Read more in that book her father lent you about the Russian fellow.”

  “Kosciuszko was Polish, sir.”

  Collett held his hands up helplessly. He could not have told a Pole from an Indian. Without another word, he turned and left the tent, leaving McFadden alone.

  McFadden turned and lay down on the cot, his hands already fumbling for the Kosciuszko biography. He had begun reading it just before the Battle of Peachtree Creek and, rather to his surprise, had found it very interesting. Perhaps if he could lose himself in the pages of the book, he could push Cheeky Joe, or whoever the man on the river had been, out of his mind.

  Poring over his father’s library as a young man, McFadden had read Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans over and over again, imagining countless adventures with Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and other great men of the ancient world. He had also read his father’s biographies of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and several books on the heroes of the American Revolution. These men had been the heroes of his boyhood, riding alongside him in his dreams.