Never Call Retreat - Civil War 03 (52 page)

7:00 P.M.

G
rant read the telegram and sighed with relief. Hancock had held. The fight, according to the report, was over in a matter of minutes and Lee was already withdrawing.

Grant looked over at the map Ely had spread on the table.

It had to be Poolesville. That was the only other way out now. Strike for Edwards Ferry or a crossing in between. But moving the bridges over that road would be a nightmare.

"Ely."

"Here, sir."

"Orders to General Sheridan. General advance along the line the hour before the dawn. I suspect General Longstreet will abandon the line here during the night. Orders to Hancock to move the Edwards Ferry garrison up to Poolesville to block that road. Also to bring down the garrisons at Point of Rocks, they are no longer needed there. Sykes to now turn due south."

"Yes, sir."

Grant sat back down in the chair he had occupied most of the day, looking out across the Frederick plains. The air was heavy with the cloying stench of bodies rotting. It would be good to leave this terrible place.

Behind him, an endless train of supplies was coming down the mountain pass, priority now given to medical supplies. The first of the wounded who could be moved were being sent back to Hagerstown and from there to hospitals in Harrisburg.

To the east the sky was beginning to glow and he knew what that meant. He lit a cigar and watched the glow begin to rise, punctuated by distant explosions.

On
the Baltimore and Ohio

A
ll over, goodbye, now blow it to hell!" Pete shouted. Men were running down the tracks, throwing torches into boxcars, tossing in cans of coal oil, loose straw, anything to get them burning. Fires had been lit in several train boilers, steam was up, and the locomotives were now rolling down the tracks, crashing into burning cars, or tumbling off where rails had been severed.

One full ammunition train, a half mile away, went up with a tremendous roar, fireball rising hundreds of feet into the air. He watched it with grim satisfaction. Enough ammunition to keep an entire corps in action for a day, but he would be damned if the Yankees would have it now. And as far as the wreckage to the Baltimore and Ohio— the hell with them
.
If we have lost this war, it was their blame as much as anyone's.
He was in no mood to be forgiving now.

He caught the eye of a colonel, leading a detail of men and an ambulance.

"Ammunition's gone," Pete said. The colonel shook his head.

"Damn sir, I'm down to maybe twenty rounds a man." "Just get your men formed up. We're marching at midnight."

'To where, sir?" Pete smiled sadly.

'To Virginia if we can, but to hell if we must."

CHAPTER TWENTY

The White House

August 30, 1863 1:00 A.M.

H
ow are you, Mr. President," Elihu asked as he came into the office. Lincoln, sitting behind his desk, looked up, offered a weak smile, and set down his pen.

"Just a minute more, Elihu. Why don't you sit down and relax."

Elihu went over to the sofa and collapsed. He had not slept in a day and a half. He felt as if he had been trapped in a small boat, tossed back and forth by waves coming from opposite directions. There would be moments of exultation, followed minutes later by contrary news that plunged all into gloom.

Renewed rioting had broken out in New York when it was reported in the
Times
that Grant had sustained over thirty thousand casualties and was retreating.

The
Tribune
,
in contrast, was reporting victory, but its headlines were ignored and the rioting had swept into city hall, the building torched by the mob.

Sickles was up to his usual destructive behavior, denouncing the removal of Stanton, calling for Lincoln's impeachment, and demanding that both he and Stanton be returned to positions of authority, in order to "save our Republic from a dictator who has led us to the brink of disaster."

The news had fueled protests in Philadelphia and Cleveland and many other cities of the Midwest, particularly those that had provided so many regiments to Grant's army.

Yet the waves would then rush in from the other direction. Sherman had just reported a sharp victory against Bragg about thirty miles north of Atlanta; if he could now beat Bragg in a race to secure Kennesaw Mountain, he'd be in a position to take Atlanta under siege within a matter of days.

Elihu closed his eyes, glad for the momentary respite. He heard Lincoln scratching away with his pen, a sigh, the sound of paper being folded.

"Elihu?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Asleep?"

"Wish I could, sir."

Lincoln was looking over at him. He seemed to have aged another decade within the last few weeks. He had lost weight, his eyes were deep-set, dark circles beneath them, hair unkempt, bony features standing out starkly in the flickering light of the lamp on his desk.

Lincoln stood up, walked over, and sat down in a chair next to Elihu, handing him a sealed envelope.

"I need you to do this for me now."

"What is it, sir?"

"I want you to personally deliver this memo to General Grant."

Elihu took the envelope. "Now, sir?"

"Yes. The railroad line has been restored to Baltimore. I've already sent a message down to the rail yard, and a car is waiting for you. You should be able to get a little sleep on the way up. From there proceed as far as possible west on the B and O, then find Grant and deliver this message. It is absolutely crucial that you do so."

"Yes, sir," Elihu replied wearily.

"Elihu, this is important. Once aboard the train, feel free to open the envelope and read it. You will then see why. Once you have linked up with General Grant, you are to stay with him." Lincoln spoke with a deep sense of urgency and almost foreboding. "Sir?"

"Stay with him until it is decided one way or the other." Elihu nodded.

"It's still not certain, sir," Elihu said. "Hancock repulsed Lee, but he has escaped us before. He still might slip back across the Potomac, and if so, the war will drag on for another year or more."

Lincoln nodded.

"I know that. The country knows that. And I am not sure the country can take another year of this kind of bloodletting without achievement."

He sighed, stood up, and walked over to the window, as Elihu noticed was his habit when thinking. He gazed out over Lafayette Park, the crowd gathered there, the ring of sentries.

"Another year. I don't think I can bear it. Nearly four hundred thousand Americans have died on both sides already. Another year, my God, six hundred thousand, seven hundred thousand?"

He turned away from the window.

"Are our sins so great that we must be punished so? I first asked myself that question after we failed so miserably at Second Bull Run a year ago. Now I feel a redoubled sense of trying to understand what God intends by this terrible agony for our nation."

Elihu could not reply.

"Just do as I've requested," Lincoln finally said. "And let us pray that when we meet again, all shall be well."

5:15 A.M.

T
he army had started moving fifteen minutes ago, the first light of a hazy, fog-shrouded dawn concealing their movement. Grant, staff following, was mounted, heading down toward McCausland's Ford, horses nervous as they gingerly moved around the carpet of dead covering the field. More than one of his men had already vomited from the stench.

He clutched his cigar firmly in his mouth, puffing furiously to block out the smell. The migraine still bedeviled him, and he feared that if he took too deep a breath of the fetid air, he would humiliate himself by vomiting as well.

He kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, unable to bear looking down at the ground. The few glances were out of a nightmare, made worse by the half light, the wisps of fog drifting off the ground
...
men tangled together, his and Lee's, black and white, corpses swollen, both sides mingled together. To his right a circle of lanterns lit up a Confederate hospital area. He did not dare to ride near it, for he knew the sights within, and his courage faltered at the thought of approaching it. Some generals did so after a fight, calmly walking in to visit their men, but that was something beyond him, something that he knew would break his will. As a result, some said he was heartless; few realized just how heartfelt his decision truly was.

To the east, fires continued to glow, a clear sign to him that the rebel army was pulling out, burning the trains and their abandoned supplies.

He reached the ford, and from the far side there was a loud splashing, the escort around Grant nervously raising revolvers.

"Who goes there?" someone shouted.

"Union!"

"Come forward. Union here."

Riders approached, fog swirling around them, and Grant smiled. It was Ben Grierson.

"General, good to see you looking so well," Grant said happily.

"And you, too, sir. Been wandering around out here since midnight trying to find you."

The two saluted, and then Grant leaned over and warmly shook his hand.

"A lot is happening, sir." Grierson said excitedly.

"First off, where are the rebels?" Grant asked.

The mere fact that Grierson had met him here, literally in the middle of the Monocacy, meant that Lee had abandoned his position on the line, a move he had anticipated. But the presence of Grierson confirmed it.

"Sir, we linked up late yesterday with Sykes and the Army of the Potomac just outside of Marysville. I have two brigades of cavalry with me. We mov
ed along the railroad, and shortl
y after midnight we reached the trains."

Grierson pointed back to the glowing horizon.

"Lord, what a mess they made of it. Must be over a hundred wrecked and burning locomotives back there, everything blown to hell. We rounded up a few prisoners. They said they were with Longstreet's Corps, which pulled out during the night. Lee pulled out yesterday with two corps."

Grant nodded. It was what he had assumed. The report of Lee being seen down at Hauling Ferry was now confirmed by this report.

"Go on."

"Must confess I got a bit disoriented around here. Couple of hours ago we followed the tracks to the
river, tried to cross, but some
of your boys on the other side were a bit trigger-happy, and I felt it best to sort of wait things out till dawn.

"About an hour ago, we ran into your skirmishers crossing the river, and they directed me down to this ford. Glad I ran into you."

"As I am glad to see you," Grant replied.

"Longstreet's Corps is in full retreat. Apparently they started evacuating this position around midnight. I have my two brigades dogging them on the two roads leading down to Hauling Ferry."

"What about Sykes?"

"He is over toward Urbana. About six or seven miles southeast of here. Couch's militia is falling in behind him." Grant smiled.

The net was indeed closing in.

"Sir, what happened here?" Grierson asked. "I tell you, coming up these last few miles, I've never seen anything like it before. Hospitals packed with Confederate wounded. Came across thirty or so field pieces, spiked, wheels smashed, abandoned. And good Lord, the smell. What happened?"

The mention of the smell finally got through to Grant.

"Excuse me, gentl
emen," he said softly. "Must relieve myself."

He took his mount to the east side of the Monocacy, the ground held so tenaciously by Lee, then by Ord, and then again by Lee. He hurriedly rode up the embankment and dismounted. He walked over to a small tree, branches stripped clean by the gunfire, grabbed hold of it, leaned over, spitting out his cigar, and vomited.

He stood there for several minutes, gagging, vomiting again, each convulsive breath carrying with it the terrible cloying stench of the dead all around him, men lying in the mud, bodies half floating in the water, ghostlike faces looking up at him as if in reproach.

Tears streamed from his eyes as he struggled to breathe.

"Sir?"

Embarrassed, he looked up. It was Ely, holding a canteen. He nodded his thanks, took the canteen, and swished a mouthful, then got sick again. Ely stood by his side.

"It's alright, sir," Ely whispered. "It's hit all of us. Sir, nothing to be ashamed of. It's hit all of us."

Another mouthful spit out, and then a deep, long drink. For a second he wanted to ask if the water was clean, for if it had come from the river he knew he'd vomit again.

"That's it, sir," Ely said softly. 'Take another. Believe me, sir, all of us understand."

He drank again and fought against the wish that it was pure whiskey, a quart of it.
No, don't think that.

He took another sip, spit it out, and handed the canteen back.

"Thank you, Ely."