How Few Remain (71 page)

He and a couple of U.S. officers—one with his arm in a sling, the other walking with the aid of a crutch—had a first-class car to themselves. One of the Americans produced a bottle. They were both drunk by the time the train left Indiana for Ohio.

They offered to share the whiskey with Schlieffen, and seemed surprised when he said no. Once they’d passed it back and forth a few times, they forgot he was there. That suited him fine till they started to sing. From them on, work got much harder.

He persevered. Minister von Schlözer would need a full report on the Battle of Louisville to send to Bismarck. Schlieffen himself would need an even fuller one to send to the General Staff.

The report did not go so well as he would have liked, and the
music—for lack of a suitably malodorous word—was not the only reason. Parts flowed smoothly; as long as he was talking about matters tactical—the effects of breech-loading rifles and breech-loading artillery on the battlefield—he wrote with confidence. That was part of what the Chancellery and the General Staff had to have. But it was only part.

He sighed. He wished the strategic implications of the Louisville campaign were as easy to grasp as those pertaining to tactics. That breechloaders and improved artillery gave the defensive a great advantage was obvious. So strategists had been sure before the outbreak of the war, and so it proved, perhaps to a degree even greater than they had envisioned.

What remained unclear, while at the same time remaining vitally important, was what, if anything, an army taking the offensive could do to reduce the defenders’ advantages.
Unfortunately
, he wrote,
the U.S. forces did not conduct the campaign in such a way as to make such analysis easy, as they took little notice of the principles of surprise and misdirection. Based on what I observed, I can state with authority that headlong assaults against previously readied positions, even with artillery preparation by no means to be despised, is foredoomed to failure, regardless of the quality of the attacking troops, which was also high
.

He sighed again. Every U.S. campaign he had studied, both here and in the War of Secession, had a ponderous obviousness to it. Like McClellan before him, Willcox seemed to have taken the elephant as his model. If he smashed to pieces everything between him and his goal, he could knock down the tree, reach out with his trunk, and pluck off the sweet fruit.

No U.S. general seemed to have figured out that, if he went around the tree instead of straight at it, the terrain might be easier than that right in front of it, and the fruit might fall of its own accord. The Confederates understood as much, even if their opponents didn’t. Robert E. Lee hadn’t gone straight for Washington, D.C., in 1862. No, he’d moved up into Pennsylvania and forced the USA to respond to his moves in a fluid situation. Lee seemed to have been blessed with an imagination. The only hint of such a feature U.S. commanders displayed was in their fond belief that they
could
batter their way through anything, and that had proved more nearly a madman’s delusion than healthy imagination.

Schlieffen wrestled with his reports till evening, and then after
dark by gaslight. By that time, the American officers had stopped singing. Having drunk themselves into a stupor, they were snoring instead. That racket was, if anything, even worse than the other had been, which Schlieffen hadn’t reckoned possible.

They were monstrously hung over the next morning, an indication to Schlieffen that God did indeed mete out justice in the world. In short order, they put his faith to the test. One of them pulled a new bottle of whiskey from his carpetbag, and they got drunk all over again. This time, Schlieffen was tempted to get drunk with them, if for no other reason than to blot out their raucous voices. Satan sent temptations to be mastered. He mastered this one.

He sent up a hearty prayer of thanksgiving when, late-that second night, the train pulled into Philadelphia. Gloating at the sad state of the two U.S. officers was something less than perfectly Christian. No man, he told himself, was perfect. Gloat he did.

A driver waited to take him back to the sausage manufacturer’s establishment. When the fellow greeted him in German, he automatically replied in English. Then, feeling foolish, he thumped his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Please excuse me,” he said in his native tongue. “Not only have I used nothing but English lately, I am so tired I can hardly put one foot in front of the other.”

“Ich verstehe, Herr Oberst,”
the driver answered reassuringly.
“Bitte, kommen Sie mit mir.”

Schlieffen did come with the driver. He fell asleep in the carriage, and then, once back in a proper bed for the first time since his departure, did as good an imitation of a dead man as was likely to be found this side of the grave. When he awoke, a glance at his pocket watch sent him leaping from that soft, inviting bed in something close to horror: it was nearly eleven.

Kurd von Schlözer waved aside his mortified apologies. “Think nothing of it, Colonel,” the German minister to the United States said. “I understand that a man returning from arduous service on his country’s behalf is entitled to a night in which to recover himself.”

Reminding Schlieffen he had done his duty was the best way to restore him to good humor. “Thank you for your patience with me, Your Excellency,” he said. “Now I have been away from newspapers and the telegraph for two days. Has President Blaine yet answered the new Confederate call for peace?”

Schlözer shook his head, a slow, mournful motion. “He has not said yes; he has not said no. I spoke with him yesterday, urging him—as I have urged him before—to accept these terms before he finds himself forced to accept terms far worse.”

“And what did he say? What could he say?” Schlieffen asked.

“He actually said little,” the German minister replied. “I do not think he believes any longer he can win this war. But I do not think he believes he and his party can afford the embarrassment of admitting they are defeated in a war they began, either.”

“Their coasts are bombarded and sacked. Their lakeside cities are shelled. They are beaten on the border of the provinces whose annexation they are trying to prevent. They are invaded from the north. Their own invasion of the enemy’s territory is one of the bloodiest failures in all the history of war. If this is not defeat, God keep me from it!”

“Colonel, did I think you mistaken, be sure I would say as much,” Schlözer answered.

“What does Blaine say? How does he justify going on with a war he cannot win?” Schlieffen asked.

“He says the United States, because they are still standing, are not beaten,” Kurd von Schlözer said. “How to turn this into anything anyone might recognize as a victory is beyond me. It is also beyond him, although he will not admit as much.”

“What can be done to make him see what is so?” Schlieffen asked. “The only reason he has not had to pay fully for his folly is that the United States are too large to be devoured at a gulp.”

“I understand this, believe me,” Schlözer said. “Blaine understands it, too; he is not altogether a fool. But he reckons that size is an advantage and a reason to keep fighting. And he is so full of hate for Great Britain and for France for aiding his enemies that he has let his hatred cloud his mind and keep him from thinking clearly.”

“Being so large has helped Russia many times,” Schlieffen said. “It is indeed a factor to be reckoned with. But the Russians use it by letting invaders plunge deep into their land, and by fighting them only when and where they choose: thus did Napoleon come to grief, and the Swedes before him. It is our own greatest concern, should we ever have to fight the Russian Empire.”

“But invasion here is no more than a minor issue, and was undertaken only after the United States rejected President Longstreet’s peace offer the first time he made it,” Schlözer said.

“Yes, the Confederates have adopted a strategy of the defensive, which suits what the new weapons can do,” Schlieffen agreed. “Full details will appear in my report. Longstreet is clever, to hold to this strategy even when he could gain more for the moment by abandoning it.”

“Longstreet is clever,” the German minister to the USA repeated. “I have heard—you need not ask where—that some Confederate generals strongly advocate imposing a more punishing peace on the United States, and a large invasion of the USA to force its acceptance. Longstreet resists this proposal, and imposes his policy on government and Army both.”

“This is what the head of a government is supposed to do,” Schlieffen said. “For that matter, Your Excellency, President Blaine has imposed his policy on the government and Army of the United States.”

“So he has, Colonel,” Kurd von Schlözer said. “So he has. The other thing a head of government is supposed to do, however, is choose a wise policy to impose. Both concerns are important, for, if the policy itself is misconceived, it will fail no matter how vigorously it is imposed. Sometimes, in fact, a misconceived policy will fail more spectacularly the more vigorously it is imposed.”

Schlieffen considered that. His main concern was devising policy, not seeing that it was carried out. After a bit of thought, he inclined his head to the German minister to the United States. “Your Excellency, I think you may be right.”

    On one side of Jeb Stuart stood
Señor
Salazar, the
alcalde
of Cananea. He had forgotten his English, and was screaming at the commander of the Department of the Trans-Mississippi in rapid-fire Spanish. At Stuart’s other side stood Geronimo and Chappo. Geronimo was shouting in the Apache language, far too fast for Chappo to hope to translate. Every so often, the old Indian, who understood and spoke Spanish, would break into that language to respond to something Salazar had said.

Surrounded by unintelligible cacophony, Stuart turned to Major Horatio Sellers and said, “Good God—I think I’d sooner deal with camels.” After his wild ride in the direction of Janos and back again, that was a statement of profound distress indeed.

His aide-de-camp nodded. “At least camels don’t form factions, sir. Nice to think there’s something you can say for the brutes.”

Stuart raised a hand. “Gentlemen, please—” he began. Neither the Apaches nor the
alcalde
paid any attention to him. He drew his pistol and fired it into the air. While the report still echoed, he shouted “Shut up, all of you!” at the top of his lungs.

That did the trick, at least for the moment. Into the sudden silence, Major Sellers said, “We’ve been trying to sort out just what the devil happened here since the day you rode out of town, sir. The only thing I can tell you, even now, is that the Indians and the Mexicans would have had a battle of their own if our own boys hadn’t been keeping ’em apart ever since.” He shook his head. “You listen to one story and then you listen to the other story and it’s as though they’re talking about gunpowder and grits—you wouldn’t believe both yarns started from the same place.”

“You try to listen to both stories at the same time and all you get is a headache worse than the one
mescal
gives you,” Stuart said.

Salazar followed that. He nodded. After Chappo translated it for Geronimo, the ghost of a smile appeared on the medicine man’s face—but only the ghost, and only for a moment.

Stuart went on, “The people of Cananea—all the people of Sonora and Chihuahua—are now the subjects of the Confederate States of America. We will protect them from anyone who troubles them in any way.”
Señor
Salazar looked smug. Before he could say anything, though, Stuart continued, “The Apaches are our allies, who have fought alongside us and bled alongside us. We will also protect them from anyone who troubles them in any way.”

“How in blazes we’re going to do both those things at once—” Major Sellers muttered under his breath.

Resolutely, Stuart pretended not to hear that. At the moment, he didn’t know how the Confederate States were going to do both those things at once, either. He did know they would have to do both of them if they were going to administer Chihuahua and Sonora. Feeling rather like King Solomon listening to the two women claiming the same baby, he said, “Let’s see if we can sort this out and keep the peace here. I want to hear these stories one at a time.” Digging in his pocket, he produced a fifty-cent piece, tossed it in the air, and caught it. “It’s tails.
Señor
Salazar, you go first.”

The
alcalde
glared venomously at Geronimo and Chappo. He
was bolder around them than he had been when they and the Confederates first came to Cananea, no doubt because he’d seen that the Confederates would not let the Apaches harm him or his people. “They are animals,” he hissed. “Why should we live at peace with them? They do not know what peace means.”

“You are the ones who break oaths,” Chappo shouted, not waiting for any response from his father.

“One at a time.” Stuart held up his hand again. “No insults from either side. Just tell me what you say happened.
Señor
Salazar, go on.”

“Gracias,”
Salazar said with dignity. “Here, I will tell you the precise truth, so you will know the lies of the
Indios
when you hear them.” Jeb Stuart coughed. The
alcalde
sent him a look almost as venomous as the one he was aiming at the Apaches, but then went on, “These …
Indios”
—he visibly swallowed something harsher—”invaded my village drunk on
mescal
, stole away three of its finest and loveliest virgins, and ravaged them over and over, like the—” He checked himself again. “One is now dead of what they did to her, and the other two have both tried to hang themselves since. Is it any wonder we are outraged?”

“If that’s what happened, no.” Stuart turned to Chappo and Geronimo. “That is a hard charge against you. What have you got to say about it?”

Chappo had been translating the
alcalde’s
remarks for his father. Now, when Geronimo spoke, he did the same for Stuart: “My father says Cananea has never had three virgins in it, not here, not
here
, and not
here
, either.” He pointed in turn to his crotch, his mouth, and his backside.