How Few Remain (44 page)

“I have never tasted a better reason for declaring sanctity unconstitutional,” Lincoln answered.

“You are the funniest man,” Juliette Hamilton exclaimed. “Why is it that everyone makes you out to be so somber and serious?”

“Part of it is that no one has ever told my face it has the right to be amused,” Lincoln said, “and the other part is that I commonly speak of serious things, even if not always in a serious manner.”

“If you mix some honey with the physic, the dose goes down easier,” Juliette said.

“That’s so,” Lincoln said, “and with your kind permission I’ll borrow the notion in a speech one day.” Seeing how astonished Mrs. Hamilton looked, he added, “I am glad to employ any figure that strikes me as both true and well said, and in all my days I have never yet heard a better answer to give to the occasional person who complains of what he calls my unsuitable levity.”

Gabe Hamilton had just come into the house when someone pounded on the front door. “Who the devil’s that?” he said. The pounding went on. His scowl got darker. “Whoever it is, maybe I ought to have a revolver in my hand when I open the door.”

“I think that would be most unwise,” Lincoln said hastily.

He followed Hamilton up the entranceway to the door. When his host angrily threw it open, he was not surprised to find a squad of blue-coated U.S. soldiers outside. A young lieutenant began, “Is Abraham Lincoln—?” and then caught sight of him. “Mr. Lincoln, you are to come with me at once.”

“Why should he?” Gabe Hamilton demanded, before Lincoln could speak.

“By order of the military governor, General Pope, he is under arrest,” the lieutenant answered. The soldiers behind him aimed their rifles at Lincoln.

“I’ll come quietly,” he said. “You may lower those, lest someone be injured by mischance.” He walked out of the house, leaving Hamilton staring after him.

* * *

The portly, gray-bearded man in the tweed sack suit, four-in-hand tie, and derby did not at first glance seem to belong in an army headquarters full of bustling young men in uniform. General Thomas Jackson would have been just as well pleased—far better pleased—had his visitor chosen to remain in Richmond.

“I am glad to welcome you to Louisville, Mr. President,” he said, and prayed his stern God would forgive the lie.

“Thank you, General,” James Longstreet said. “One of the things I found during the War of Secession was that military reports, however detailed, often conveyed a distorted view of an action. I also learned that newspaper reports seldom conveyed anything but a distorted view.”

“There, Your Excellency, we agree completely,” Jackson said. “If you believe what the reporters write, we have by now slain the entire population of the United States in this engagement, men, women, and children alike. It is a sanguinary fight, sir, but not so sanguinary as that.”

“I had not thought it would be.” Longstreet’s voice held a rumble of amusement. “I came here to see what sort of fight it
is
, having acquired a fairly good notion of the sorts of fight it is
not.”

“It is, as you requested and required, a defensive fight, Mr. President.” Jackson’s voice had a rumble in it, too: a rumble of discontent. “Being thus constrained, I have endeavored to cause the United States the maximum of harm while yielding to them the minimum of ground.”

“That is precisely why I set you in charge here, General,” Longstreet said with a courtly dip of his head. “Precisely. And you have most handsomely done as I hoped you would. Papers in the United States are no less given to distortion and exaggeration than our own. Many of them quite vehemently assert you are indeed intent on slaughtering every damnyankee in creation.”

“If General Willcox will continue funneling the Yankees into Louisville, I may in fact accomplish that,” Jackson replied. “It will, however, take me some little while.”

Longstreet laughed and slapped him on the back. From under his eyebrows, Jackson shot the president of the Confederate States a suspicious look. Longstreet restraining him, Longstreet arguing with him, Longstreet undercutting him—he’d grown used to those since his former fellow corps commander was inaugurated. Longstreet enthusiastic about what he did—that was so unusual, he didn’t know how to react to it.

Military formality gave him a framework in which to respond, just as it gave him a framework for his entire life. He said, “Will you come with me, Your Excellency? You can examine the map, which will give you a good notion of where we are now and what I hope to do in the near future.”

“Thank you. I shall take you up on that—it will do for the time being. Later, I intend to go up to the front, to see for myself this new sort of warfare you are inventing here.”

Jackson stared. No one had ever questioned James Longstreet’s courage. Jackson had found plenty of fault with Longstreet’s common sense over the years, but never for a reason like this. “Mr. President, I beg you to reconsider,” he said. “One lucky sharpshooter, one shell landing at the wrong spot—”

“Would you not be just as well pleased, General?” Longstreet said. “Were I to fall, I have no doubt my plan for manumission, which you have made it unmistakably clear you oppose, would fall with me.”

Jackson looked down at his scuffed, oversized boots. Usually, he was the one who spoke with relentless frankness. After coughing a couple of times, he said, “Of one thing you have convinced me, Your Excellency: that no one in the Confederate States but yourself can hope to guide us through the intricacies of our relations with our allies in this time of crisis.”

“I think you do Vice President Lamar a disservice, for he has more experience dealing with the Europeans than I do myself.”

“He has not your deviousness,” Jackson declared.

Longstreet smiled at that. “Flattery will get you nowhere,” he said roguishly. “To the maps, and then on to the front.” His smile got wider as he took in Jackson’s expression. “I assure you, General, I am not indispensable to the cause. So long as you continue to make Louisville and the Ohio run red with Yankee blood, our success is assured.”

“We bleed, too,” Jackson said as he led the president toward the tent where he devised his strategy and whence he sent orders to his commanders at the battle line.

Longstreet pointed to the telegraphic operators who sat ready to tap out any commands the general-in-chief might give them. “A good notion,” he said. “It saves you the time involved in sending a messenger to the signals tent, and minutes in such matters can be critical.”

“Exactly so,” Jackson said. He pointed to the big map of
Louisville. “As you see, Mr. President, forces of the United States unfortunately have, despite our best efforts to repel them, gained a stretch of ground several miles long and varying in depth from a few hundred yards to nearly a mile. I console myself by noting the price they have paid for the acquisition.”

“How well have they fought?” Longstreet asked.

“As we saw in the last war, they have courage to match our own,” Jackson replied. “They also have numbers on their side, and their artillery is both strong and well handled. Having said so much, I have exhausted the military virtues they display. General Willcox’s notion of strategy seems to be to send men forward and ram them headlong into the—”

“Into the stone wall of your defense?” Longstreet interrupted, his voice sly.

Jackson went on as if the president had not spoken: “—into the positions we have prepared to repel them. One thing this battle has proved once and for all, Your Excellency, is the primacy of the defensive when soldiers in field works are provided with repeating rifles.”

“So we had surmised, based on our own maneuvers and the recent Franco-Prussian and Russo-Turkish Wars,” Longstreet said. “Encouraging to know our pundits were in this instance correct.”

“Encouraging? I would not say so, Mr. President,” Jackson answered. “The advantages accruing to the defensive make a war of maneuver far more difficult than it was in our previous conflict with the United States.”

“But, General, we do not seek to invade and conquer the United States. They seek to invade and conquer us,” the president of the Confederate States said gently. “I profess myself to be in favor of that which makes their work harder and ours easier.”

“Hmm,” Jackson said. “There is some truth in what you say.” Longstreet showed a perspective broader than his own. From the viewpoint of the Confederacy as a whole, the ability to conduct a strong, punishing defense was vital. From the viewpoint of a general with the inclination to attack, the ability of the enemy to conduct a strong, punishing defense was constipating.

“Of course there is.” In his own way, Longstreet had a certainty to match Jackson’s. Jackson’s sprang from faith in the Lord, Longstreet’s, the general judged, from faith in himself. The Confederate president went on, “Now that I have seen the outline of our position in Louisville, I will see the position itself.”

He looked as if he expected Jackson to argue with him. He looked as if he expected to enjoy overruling his general-in-chief. Saluting, Jackson replied, “Yes, sir. I look forward to accompanying you.”

“What?” Longstreet emphatically shook his head. “I cannot permit that, General. You are—”

“Indispensable, Your Excellency?” Jackson presumed to break in on his commander-in-chief. “I think not. The arguments applying to you and Mr. Lamar apply with equal force to me and General Alexander.”

“You are insubordinate, General,” Longstreet snapped. Jackson inclined his head, as at a compliment. Longstreet glowered at him, then started to laugh. “Very well—let it be as you say.”

Jackson put E. Porter Alexander in overall command until he should return, then, Longstreet at his side, rode down into Louisville, toward the sound of the guns. He went toward that sound as toward a lover. His wife knew of and forgave him his infidelity, one of the many reasons he loved her.

Even well behind the fighting line, shellfire and flames had taken their toll on Louisville’s houses and offices and warehouses and manufactories. Some were burnt-out skeletons of their former selves, while others had had pieces bitten out of them, as if caught in the grip of monstrous jaws. The air smelled of stale smoke and gunpowder, with the sick-sweet fetor of death under them.

Longstreet drew in a long breath. His mouth tightened. “I have not smelled that smell since the War of Secession, but it never escapes the mind, does it?”

“No, sir.” Jackson had his head cocked to one side, savoring the sounds of battle at close range. For the moment, the artillery was fairly quiet. After some consideration, though, he said, “I do not believe I ever heard such a terrific volume of musketry on any field during the War of Secession. Put that together with the increased power of the guns, and no wonder an attack crumples before it is well begun.”

“Yes,” Longstreet said abstractedly. A couple of ambulances rattled past them toward the rear. “I have not heard the cries and groans of wounded men since the War of Secession, either, but those likewise remain in memory yet green.”

Soldiers coming back from the front, even the unwounded, looked like casualties of war: tattered uniforms, filthy faces, their
eyes more full of the horror they had seen than of the debris-strewn paths down which they walked. Soldiers going forward, especially those who had been in the line before, advanced steadily, but without the slightest trace of eagerness. They knew what awaited them.

With every block now, the wreckage of what had been a splendid city grew worse. After a while, a corporal held up a hand. “Nobody on horseback past here,” he declared, and then looked foolishly astonished at whom he had presumed to halt.

“Corporal, you are doing your duty,” Jackson said. He and Longstreet dismounted and went forward on foot, soon moving from one trench to another along zigzags dug into the ground to minimize the damage from any one shellburst and to keep any advancing Yankees who gained one end of a trench from laying down a deadly fire along its entire length. Some of the trench wall was shored up with bricks and timbers from shattered buildings.

Slaves in coarse cotton labored to strengthen the defenses further. Jackson made a point of looking at them, of speaking with them, of urging them on. Longstreet made a point of taking no notice of Jackson.

Up above the trench, on bare ground, a sharpshooter with a long brass telescope mounted on his Tredegar crouched in the military equivalent of a hunter’s blind: rubbish cunningly arranged to conceal him from view from the front and sides while he searched for targets behind the U.S. line. Jackson wondered how many snipers he’d passed without noticing them. He also wondered how many similar sharpshooters in Yankee blue were peering south, looking for unwary Confederates.

In the front-line trenches, the soldiers started to raise a cheer for their general-in-chief and president. Officers in butternut frantically shushed them, lest the damnyankees, getting wind of the arrivals, send a torrent of shells down on Jackson and Longstreet.

The president walked along, examining the trench and pausing now and then to chat with the soldiers defending it. Jackson followed. After a couple of hundred yards, Longstreet turned to him and asked, “Is it possible that the U.S. Army of the Ohio may bring in enough in the way of guns and men to drive us out of Louisville?”

“Yes, Mr. President, much as it pains me to say so, that is possible,” Jackson answered. “They would pay a fearsome price, but it is possible.”

“Having taken Louisville at such a price, could they then rapidly overrun the rest of Kentucky?” Longstreet inquired. Jackson laughed out loud, which made the president smile. But he had another question: “Are the Yankees as aware of these facts as we are ourselves?”

“I hardly see how it could be otherwise,” Jackson said. “Why do you ask?”

“To see if your conclusions march with mine,” Longstreet said, which, to the general’s annoyance, was not an answer at all.

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