Grant Comes East - Civil War 02 (52 page)

He surveyed his line. The battle front was more than half a mile across. Troops had been detached to the flanks to cover fords, burn any bridges, and keep an eye on the flanking force. Already he could sense that their main effort was shifting southward, an obvious move to try and cut him off from running back toward the Susquehanna.

Like hell. It was time Grierson and this upstart army from the West were taught a lesson on how Confederate cavalry in the East could fight and knock some of the overbearing confidence out of them. He would dig in here, along the river, and let them come. By evening, the first North Carolina heading toward Reading should be back, hitting them in the flank. He would hold right here and let them try and take this position, then, when the timing was right, mount up and counter
-
charge, driving them back toward Harrisburg.

Lee had sent him across the river to gather intelligence and sow panic. That mission had yet to be accomplished. By tomorrow he'd have Grierson bloodied and on the run. If this was to be the opening fight between the Army of Northern Virginia and this Grant and his so-called Army of the Susquehanna, it damn well better be a Confederate victory, no matter what the cost

Havre
de
Grace,
Maryland

August
18,1863 3:30
p.m.

The
army, his army, was on the march. He had picked a spot atop the river bluff, sitting astride his charger, the road from the ferry dock weaving up from the river's edge. The river itself was swarming with activity, dozens of ships moving back and forth, the huge ferries of the railroad, each one capable of moving a thousand men, an entire battery of guns, or a hundred troopers and their mounts. Dozens of smaller boats, some of them side-wheel or stem-wheel steamers, others barges pushed by steam tugs, were pushing across as well, again loaded with troops. One of the two big railroad ferries was bringing over twenty or more supply wagons with their teams of mules.

So far it was all going without a hitch. A few horses had panicked and gone into the river, one man was reported dead drunk and falling off a boat loaded down with pack and rifle.

Engineering troops from New York were already hard at work, throwing down split logs to corduroy the road up from the docks, and a thousand contraband laborers were working beside them, many of them having worked on the riverboats and ferries repairing docks damaged by rebel raiders the month before after the mad retreat from Baltimore.

A serpentine column of men were coming up the slope, boys of his old Second Division, Humphrey's men, Brewster's brigade, New Yorkers!

He nodded to the bandmaster standing by his side. The officer was well decked out in full dress uniform, huge bearskin cap, the afternoon sun glinting off all his gold braid. The bandmaster saluted with his staff, turned, and held it aloft, announcing the song.

After the initial wave of a brigade had swept across and secured the heights, he had made certain that a band was ferried across, in fact every band from his old Third Corps, a couple of hundred men in total, along with dozens of drummers.

Morale was a precious thing and music was part of it. Commissary wagons had come over as well, loaded down with thousands of loaves of fresh-baked bread and hundreds of smoked hams, and were parked just beyond the rise.

Just before the head of the brigade reached the top of the crest, the bandmaster, timing things perfectly, held his silver staff aloft and brought it down emphatically. A ruffle from fifty massed drums sounded, a long roll that set corkscrews down the back of any soldier who heard it. The long roll continued, the beat of the charge, and it rolled on and on, joined by the steady beat of bass drums.

The head of the advancing column looked up. Massed to the fore were the flags of the brigade commander and all the regiments, officers at the fore. Brewster, arm still in a sling from Union Mills, grinned, clumsily drew his sword, and saluted Dan, who returned the salute.

Again the staff went up, drum major twirling it over his head and bringing it back down. An eerie moment of silence, and then he raised the staff yet again.

The drums sounded as one, the thrump, thrump, thrump of a marching beat, a flourish at the end. The massed brass sounded a flourish and then opened with the resounding chords one of the favorite marching songs of the Army of the Potomac, a song that they had once sung with fervor advancing up the Peninsula. Now, after such a long and bitter year, they were hearing it again, on this bright, sunlit afternoon that promised them a dream of glory.

Yes,
we'll
rally
round
the
flag,
boys, Rally
once
again,

Shouting
the
Battle
Cry
of
Freedom!

The effect he wished,
which he knew it would create,
worked its magic. The men of
that column looked up, a thrill
going through them. At least
for this moment all was forgot
ten, all fear of what was to
come was washed away, and in an
instant, thousands of voices
picked up the song, shouting it
to the heavens, unmindful of al
l the cynicism of the past, all
shattered hopes, all the sad gr
aves and missing faces in their
ranks

The
Union
forever!

Hurrah
boys
hurrah!

Down
with
the
traitor,
up
with
the
star!

Some could not even sing the words, they shouted them out, more than one with tears in their eyes, as if the dream of a long-lost love had suddenly appeared before them, that a land of promise was still before them, and in the end, this time, yes this time, it would indeed be their day.

As the column marched past, he stood in his stirrups, caught in the moment, fully mindful of the sketch artist from
Harper's
Weekly,
Winslow Homer, who stood behind him, working furiously with charcoal to capture the moment, the photographer from Brady's by his side, hidden beneath his black curtain, as he struggled to focus his camera.

The wagons laded with fresh bread were by the side of the road, quartermaster soldiers pulling out the loaves and cut slabs of smoked ham, handing them out to the passing ranks, one to each line of four, and even the most hardened cynic, who might not be roused by the song, could at least respond to this largesse of a grateful republic.

And we '11 fill the vacant ranks

Of our brothers gone before,

Shouting the Battle Cry of Freedom!

Cheer echoed onto cheer, caps were off, rifles held aloft, battle-scarred flags fluttering in the afternoon breeze.

The column pressed on, heading south, heading back into the war.

Dan Sickles turned to his staff. "My God," he gasped, "this time we will win!"

Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania

August
18,1863 5:00
p.m.

H
e's done what?"

Grant came to his feet, his camp chair falling over behind him. Ely Parker held the telegram and Grant snatched it, scanning the few lines, a relay of a message from a reporter with the
New
York
Tribune,
that Sick
les's army was across the Susquehanna and moving south.

"I've already sent a query back," Ely replied. "The telegraph lines started buzzing with it just minutes ago. I'll see what more I can find."

Grant turned and slammed his fist on the table. General Ord, who had been sitting quietly with him, waiting for dispatches as to the running fight unfolding with Hampton forty miles to the southeast shook his head.

"Always said that son of a bitch would go off half-cocked the moment he had the chance."

Grant said nothing, struggling to rein in his temper. It had been a tense day. The raid by Hampton had severed communications down along the Susquehanna. That was to be expected; he was surprised Lee had not tried something like this before now, but the sudden dropping of the lines out of Perryville just after midnight had baffled him. He had assumed that some rebel sympathizers, working in concert with Hampton, had been the culprits, and it had been a bit unnerving. Though he assumed Lee would not try an all-out assault on Washington, nothing in war was ever assured and he had silently fretted ever since Ely had awakened him with the news just before dawn.

Now he knew. Damn it, he knew.

"I bet he cut the lines himself," Ord said, as if reading Grant's mind. "Get across and halfway to Baltimore before you can even hope to call him back. Then what are you going to do?"

General Logan came into the tent and Grant was aware that out in the headquarters compound there was a real stir, men running back and forth, shouting comments about Sickles.

Ord took the coffeepot off the small stove and poured himself a drink, looking over at Grant "Well, is it true, sir?"

"I'm not sure yet. Only a newspaper report. But yes, I think it's true. He knows I can't reach him, not with Hampton cutting up and the lines down."

Ely came back into the tent, holding several more telegrams, and handed them to Grant.

All were the same. Reports from the Associated Press, one from the
Philadelphia
Inquirer,
complete to a brief description of bands playing and flags flying as the Third Corps set off just after dawn, the rest of the army set to follow.

It was true.
Damn
it!

He tossed the telegrams on the table for Ord and McPherson to read and stepped out of the tent. At the sight of him the dozens of officers milling about froze. The look on his face stopped all of them in their tracks.

"I think we have better things to do than run about like a bunch of old housewives chasing a headless chicken."

No one spoke, but within seconds the area around his tent was a ghost town. He struck a match on the tent post and puffed a cigar to life.

Grant had studied the maps till they were burned into his memory; he knew what would unfold. First it was dependent on Lee far more than anything Sickles did. If, as Grant assumed, the attack on Washington was nothing more than a feint to try and draw one or both of them out before they were fully ready, Lee had indeed succeeded. If Washington was still his main goal, which Grant had doubted all along, Lee would still have two days to do his worst. He would trade Baltimore for Washington; the taking and securing of that town would be too much for Sickles to resist, and that would delay his advance even longer.

But no, Lee wanted to destroy the Union armies, not to cut his own army's guts out trying to take a city. It was exactly how he would do it
.
It was the mistake that McClellan and all the others had never fully grasped. It was always Lee; Richmond was secondary and would fall once Lee was removed. If McClellan had gone into the Peninsula with that in mind and acted aggressively, all of this would be moot now.

Lee wanted the Army of the Potomac, and now Sickles was heading straight at him.

There was now, as well, a darker thought. Had Sickles acted alone, or had someone goaded him? Surely it wasn't Lincoln. Grant found that impossible to accept
.
They had given each other their word and lived to it.

Stanton?

But why?

Why risk all now, when in another three weeks everything would be in place, and with a united front he could have advanced, combined with the garrison in Washington outnumbering Lee at more than two, perhaps even three to one with rifles in the held.

There was no sense in wasting thought on it now. All of that was now out the window. He would have to start afresh as of this moment.

Regardless of its leadership, Grant had no doubt that the Army of the Potomac was a hard-fighting lot All the rivalry between East and West aside, they were men that could sustain ten, fifteen thousand casualties in a day, something that he had seen only at Shiloh, and then turn around and do it again. Approximately forty-five thousand men. If given good ground and an open fight, one that Sickles did not bungle, they just might make a damn good accounting of themselves. But only if Sickles did not bungle.

Of course he'd send the order out to recall. There was a chance he could reach Sickles before nightfall, and under pain of relieving him from command pull him back from this folly. But he knew in his heart that that would be an exercise in futility. The man was too crafty. Grant knew that no general was entirely above playing the game at times, making sure a dispatch was lost or a telegraph line cut yet again.

No, he would have to recast all on the assumption that Lee and Sickles would meet, maybe as early as tomorrow afternoon, definitely within two days.

He stepped back into the tent.

"Ely, write up a telegram of recall."

"Send it on the open wire?"

Grant hesitated.

No, he couldn't do that. It'd be in every paper in the country within two hours, revealing dissension in the ranks, confusion, and could even trigger a panic. If Stanton had directly ordered Sickles to advance, especially based upon information of which Grant was not aware, perhaps if Lee had indeed attacked and Grant sent a recall, it would bring into the open a confrontation that Lincoln would have to address on the spot If Washington was on the verge of falling and he ordered Sickles back, it could be a disaster, even though he knew the chance was remote.

He shook his head.

"No, Ely. No telegram. A sealed dispatch. You are to take it personally. I will draw it up."

"Are you going to fire him?" Ord asked.

Grant looked over at his old friend, who should have known better than to ask. Ord said nothing and just shook his head.

"General Ord, let's get this fracas with Hampton wrapped up. I want you to see to it; I don't have time now." Ord nodded, saluted, and left, McPherson following. He sat down and began to draft the dispatch, knowing it was already a useless exercise. And in his mind, he began to contemplate how he, and the army gathered around him, would respond as well.

Near
Claysville,
Maryland

August
18,1863 7:00
p.m.

Ge
neral Lee looked to the west, to where the sky beginning to shift to gold and scarlet Already the days were turning shorter and, he realized, in another month the first touch of autumn would be in the air.

The afternoon heat was beginning to abate, the first cool breeze of twilight wafting along the road, which was packed solid with troops as far as the eye could see.

The men marched now with grim purpose. Orders had been given. They finally knew what they were doing, and he could sense that many of them were relieved. They had come down this same road only days before, for some the fourth time now that they had passed up and down it over the last month. In the march south, many had dreaded the thought that they were marching to a frontal assault on some of the heaviest fortifications in the world. He had not been able to share with them his thoughts and plans, that the march had been nothing more than a maneuver, a feint, to bring out the Army of the Potomac. Their efforts, their exhaustion, their marching under the hot sun of August had achieved for him that goal.

The wiser of them had undoubtedly figured it out long ago, and those not so wise would now boast that they had known from the start And now they were marching again, forewarned that this pace would continue through the night. Fifty minutes of march and ten minutes of break, hour after hour, with two hours' rest just before dawn, then back on the road yet again.

He thought for a moment of Jackson. This was the type of maneuver that Jackson relished and that a year ago was a forte that only he could claim. But in the last seven weeks that spirit had moved into the rest of the ranks, even to Old Pete, who at this moment was at the fore of the column a dozen miles up the road. His corps had been farthest back from Washington, placed there in anticipation of this moment. They were to spring forward, prevent Sickles from gaining Baltimore and the potential fallback position of the harbor, where the Union navy could support him. Then they were to pin him in place, then hold him till Hood came up on his right flank and Beauregard was properly deployed to spring the trap.

He knew Longstreet would see it through, a march to add another laurel like the one gained in the march from Gettysburg to Union Mills.

The road ahead drifted down into a darkly shaded hollow cut by a shallow, meandering stream. He drifted from the side of the road, the troops pressing on, passing over a rough bridge that had been built during the agonizing mud march of the month before. The stream was again a meandering trickle, thick, high grass and weeds bordering its banks.

The air in the hollow was damp, cool. Fireflies weaved and danced above the meadow grass. He let Traveler edge into the stream, loosening his reins, his old companion drinking deeply.

Alongside him, in the shadows, the bridge rumbled with the passage of troops, the closely packed column moving at a relentless pace, few of the men recognizing him.

This river of strength flowed by him, tens of thousands of his boys, his men, this flower of the South, these victors of so many hard-fought battles. And tomorrow they would go in again; none needed to be told of that

He watched them in silence, and suddenly there were tears in his eyes. The tears came unbidden, surprising, as if waiting in the damp coolness of the stream to embrace and overwhelm him.

How
many
will
I
lose
tomorrow?
How
many
more
must die?
He caught a glimpse of a young drummer boy, silhouetted, exhausted, slumped over, riding on the pommel of an officer's horse, the officer with his arms around the boy to keep him from falling off. A man with rifle slung over his shoulder, banjo in his hands, was trying to pick out a tune. He passed on. Several men were momentarily illuminated by the flash of a match, someone lighting a pipe, then shadows again. Boys, young men, old men, rifles on shoulders, slung inverted, held by barrels in clenched hands. All were leaning forward slightly, blanket rolls and backpacks chafing shoulders. As always, the steady clanging rhythm of tin cups banging on canteens; a muffled curse as one soldier suddenly hopped about while trying to keep pace, his friends laughing when they realized he had picked up a splinter from the wooden bridge while marching barefoot.

Voices, hundreds of voices, filled the night, mingling together, overlapping, rising and falling, snatches of conversation as they approached the bridge, then disappearing as they marched over it and beyond
...

"Gonna be a real fight tomorrow and you'll see 'em run
...
tell you I'm worried; her last letter said the baby was

due and I ain't heard a word in eight weeks Did you see

his face when Jimmie threw down them three aces?... It's been four months since I even kissed a girl and it's driving me just crazy.... Ma said they buried Pa next to my little sister.... Next war, I'm joining the navy I tell you...."

And thus it continued as they passed.

He took off his hat.

"Oh, merciful God," he whispered. "Guide me with Thy infinite love and mercy. Help me to do what is right. Help me to lead these men yet again. If battle comes tomorrow, I beg Thee to let it be swift and to bring this war to an end. Please, dear God, guide all those who fall into Thy infinite and eternal love. Comfort those who shall lose their loved ones. Guide me as well as Your humble servant to fulfill Your judgment and let the scourge of war soon pass from this land.

"Amen."

Traveler was done drinking; his head was raised, looking back at him, and Lee felt a flood of warmth for his old friend. It seemed as if the horse knew that his companion was praying, and waiting patiently for him to finish. He patted the horse lightly on the neck, whispering a few words of affection. He heard someone cough, and, a bit self-conscious, Lee looked over his shoulder and saw by the edge of the river his staff, all of them with hats off, many with heads still lowered.