Grant Comes East - Civil War 02 Read online

  He could already see the vague outlines of the fortifications, an unnatural straight line, horizontal, cut like a razor's edge a quarter mile away. Gradually it came into clearer view as he reached the forward skirmish line. Most of the men were dismounted, carbines raised, the troopers looking anxiously toward Lee at his approach.

  "Sir, would you please dismount?" the captain asked. "They've got plenty of ammunition over there and they like using it."

  As if to lend weight to the argument, there was a flash of light from a gun emplacement, followed a couple of seconds later by the whoosh of a shell passing overhead, to detonate a hundred yards behind them.

  Lee nodded but did not get off Traveler, who barely flinched as another shell streaked past

  The young captain positioned his mount between Lee and the fort

  Lee smiled.

  "Captain, you are blocking my view." The captain looked to Stuart who nodded, and the captain moved.

  "Sir, if they realize who we are, it means they'll shift troops here," Stuart said.

  Lee said nothing, but he knew Stuart was right and, dismounting, he moved down into a shallow ravine, walked up a few dozen paces, and uncased his field glasses.

  Stuart and Hood were quickly by his side.

  He scanned the fort It was a significant work, a dozen gun embrasures, what looked to be thirty-pounders, perhaps heavier. He caught glimpses of troops along the parapet, Union soldiers curious, looking over the earthen wall in his direction.

  A dull thump echoed and he saw the sparks of a mortar shell lazily rising up, trailing smoke, fuse sputtering. It climbed, seemed to hover nearly overhead, then came plummeting down, striking a hundred yards behind him in a splash of mud, the fuse smothered and going out.

  Hotchkiss knelt down by his side.

  "Fort Stevens. It always has at least one battery of heavy guns, we're told thirty-pounders, rifled. Also a battery of eight-inch mortars as you can see. Garrisoned also with a regiment of infantry. You can't see them in this mist but the forts to either flank are within easy gunnery range, enfilading the approaches with at least one hundred-pound Parrott gun in each. Anyone attempting to cross this field will be hit by guns from at least three fortifications."

  Lee nodded, stood up looking to the flanks, but the mist concealed the positions.

  "The military road just behind the fortifications links all positions and is well maintained, macadamized in parts or corduroyed. They can easily shift significant reinforcements in and move them back and forth to counter any move. I would assume they are doing so now and will bring up additional troops from the center of the city."

  Lee focused his field glasses back on Stevens, ignoring another mortar round as it struck fifty yards to the front, this one detonating with a flash just before striking the ground.

  "Good gunners," Hood muttered, "cut the fuse right."

  "Might I suggest we move," Jeb said, "they've bracketed you, sir."

  That caught him. It wasn't "us," it was "you "

  He nodded without comment, cased his field glasses, and walked into the hollow. Seconds later a third round whistled in, striking and detonating within yards of where they had been standing.

  He looked over at Jeb and smiled.

  "Excellent recommendation, General," Lee said.

  "They've been firing away since last night, sir. They're garrison troops but well practiced, at least in gunnery." After mounting up they rode a few hundred yards farther on and, crossing the main road, the group reined in again. Lee raised his field glasses once more, scanning the fort, which was half-concealed in the fog.

  Ramparts stood at least ten to fifteen feet high, a dry moat, most likely a muddy swamp now with all this rain, six lines of abatis, sharpened stakes ringing the position like a deadly necklace, earthworks running outward, connecting the position to the next fort to the east, a low blockhouse of logs and rough-hewn barriers blocking the road. It was formidable!

  A rifle ball hummed dangerously close and then another. One of his escorts cursed and clutched his arm.

  "They might have some sharpshooters over there armed with Whitworth rifles," Hotchkiss said. "Sir, I think we should pull back to safety."

  Lee reluctantly agreed, and turning Traveler he regained the road and cantered back into the mists. A parting shot from one of the thirty-pounders shrieked overhead.

  Near the stream where troopers still labored to build a bridge over the swollen creek, he stopped, Jeb pointing the way to a tarpaulin spread taut in a stand of chestnut trees, a table and chairs beneath.

  Dismounting, the group gathered around the table. Hotchkiss reached into his oversized haversack and pulled out a map on rough sketch paper, folding it out on the table.

  "I drew this up last night," Hotchkiss said, "after talking to some of Stuart's men and interviewing some locals who claim to be on our side.

  "This is Fort Stevens, which you just saw," he said as he traced out the necklace of fortifications that were like beads on a chain embracing the city.

  "Are there any weak points at all?" Lee asked.

  Even as he spoke and looked at the map, the moment struck him as strange, tragic. This was once his home. He remembered a Washington without fortifications, lush meadows and fields surrounding the city, blistering in the summer but delightful in autumn and early spring.

  Hotchkiss shook his head.

  "They've covered every approach. Trees and brush cut back in places for nearly two miles to give clear fields of fire and deny concealment. The Virginia side is even worse."

  Lee said nothing. He knew Arlington had been turned into a fortified camp. The approach to Alexandria, where the main military railroad yard was located, was an impossible position to storm.

  "It has to be here," Lee said softly. "We must stay in Maryland; to cross back over the river and attempt it from the Virginia side is impossible, if for no other reason than the Potomac cannot be forded."

  "It will be the same here or over toward Blandensburg or down along the river. The fortifications will be the same."

  He looked over at Hood, who was silent, staring at the map.

  "General Hood, do you think you can take that fort?" Hood looked up at him. "When, sir?" "By tomorrow."

  There was a moment of silence.

  "Sir, I'm strung out along twenty miles of road, my men are exhausted. Pettigrew is in the lead, I could have him up by late in the day, but it won't be until midday tomorrow that I can have all my divisions ready. If it should rain again today, sir, I can't even promise that. You saw the roads."

  Lee had sympathy for Hood on this. He had indeed seen the roads, the thorough job that the Union forces had done destroying bridges and mill dams from here halfway back to Westminster.

  He thought back to just before Gettysburg, the sense of hesitation in his army in spite of their high spirits, the sense that he was not fully in control. Was that setting in again now that the euphoria of victory was wearing thin because of exhaustion and the unrelenting rains? Am I pushing too hard now, should I wait?

  He stood gazing at the map of the fortifications.

  This is the only chance we will ever have, he realized. We must take it now. I must push the army yet again.

  "It has to be here," Lee said. 'To try and maneuver now would be fruitless. They have the interior lines and maintained roads; wherever we shift, they will be in front of us. That and every hour of delay will play to their advantage."

  He looked over at Stuart, who nodded.

  "We've had half a dozen civilians get through the lines during the night," Stuart announced. "Reinforcements are starting to arrive in Washington from as far away as Charleston. Their newspapers are reporting that as well. The garrison is most likely at twenty-five thousand now; before the week is out, it could be forty thousand or more."

  "Then we have to do it now," Lee replied, "Every hour of delay only strengthens them."

  "I can't hope to have any artillery support for at least two days," Hood sa
id, his voice pitched low. "They're stuck in the mud from here clear back to Westminster."

  "General Hood, the artillery we have will do little if anything against those fortifications."

  "So we are to go in without artillery support, sir?"

  "Yes, General, without artillery."

  "Sir. Respectfully, sir, you know I'm not one to shy away from a fight," and he fell silent, head half-lowered.

  Lee looked at him. I need dissent, I need to listen. It was listening to Longstreet, the first night at Gettysburg, that had set victory in motion.

  "Go on, General Hood, please speak freely, sir."

  "Thank you, General. Sir, I have a bad feeling about this one.

  Hood looked over to Stuart as if seeking support. Lee followed his gaze and could see Stuart lower his eyes. He was troubled as well.

  "Why this bad feeling, General Hood?" Lee asked, his voice pitched softly, almost deferential.

  "Sir, we won the most glorious victory of the war little more than two weeks ago, but it came at a terrible price. Pettigrew, who will lead off the assault here, took nearly fifty percent casualties. My other divisions, on average, still are down by twenty percent or more."

  "Reinforcements are promised," Lee offered and instantly regretted the statement. It sounded like an attempt at justification. Hood was talking about tomorrow, not what Davis had promised and what most likely would not arrive for weeks.

  "Go on, General," Lee said.

  "Though well fed these last six weeks, the men are exhausted; many are ill from the weather and the heat. If I go in tomorrow, sir, at best I can muster twenty thousand rifles."

  "I am aware of that, sir. The question is, with those twenty thousand, can you take those works?" He pointed back toward the city.

  Hood looked around at those gathered, the staff standing deferentially in the background. No general ever wanted to admit that he could not do the task assigned. He took a deep breath.

  "I can take the works, sir."

  "Good. I will leave the details to you, General. Fort Stevens will be the center of the attack; I need this road to move up our following units. General Longstreet's men will push into the city once you have cleared the way."

  The look in Hood's eyes made him pause. Yet again it was rivalry, the sensitivity of who would claim what. He offered a smile.

  "General, when we take the White House, you will be at my side."

  "It's not that, sir." "What then?"

  "Sir, I will have no command left to march into Washington." "Sir?"

  "Just that, General Lee. I have twenty thousand infantry fit for duty in my divisions. I will lose half of them taking that fort and clearing the way for General Longstreet. The men will be charging straight into thirty-pounders loaded with canister; they throw nearly the same weight as all the guns we faced atop Cemetery Hill two weeks ago. There are some hundred-pounders on that line; a single load of canister from one of those guns can drop half a regiment."

  Lee lowered his head, the memory of that debacle still haunting him.

  "General Longstreet, sir, has barely twenty thousand under arms as well and, sir, once the outer ring cracks, we might have to fight Washington street by street, clear down to the Naval Yard. I must ask, sir, after that, then what?"

  All were silent. Lee looked from one to the other and knew that General Hood had asked the most fundamental question of all. The answer had seemed easy enough two weeks ago; the objective was to destroy the Army of the Potomac, to take it off the field. They had achieved that... but still the war continued.

  If we take Washington, then what? For over a year he had fought under the assumption that if indeed Washington fell, the war was over, but now he wondered. The thought of capturing Lincoln, of having Lincoln and Davis then meet, like Napoleon and the czar at Tilsit, to talk and to sign a peace, was that realistic? He rubbed his eyes, picked up a tin cup of coffee someone had set by his side, and sipped from it, gazing at the map, but his mind was elsewhere.

  I must keep this army intact. That is what Hood is driving at. If we take Washington but bleed ourselves out, if we have only twenty thousand infantry left, the victory will be a Pyrrhic one. We would be driven from the city and lose Maryland within the month. I must now spend this army wisely. It is all that we have and we cannot form another the way the Union is most likely creating a new one at this very moment.

  "General Hood, you were right to ask that, to remind me," Lee said softly, setting down the cup of coffee.

  "Our objective is to win this war before autumn. We cannot sustain ourselves at this pace much longer. We must try, however, for Washington. This is the best chance we will ever have to take it"

  Hood sighed, then slowly nodded in agreement.

  "President Davis will be here within the week. If we can take Washington and present it to him, it will be the fulfillment of the campaign we started a year ago before the gates of Richmond. It will demonstrate to our people, to the North, and to the world that we are a viable nation."

  He was silent for a brief moment, then continued.

  "But we cannot bleed ourselves to death while doing it"

  "Then we attack and pay the price?" Hood asked.

  Lee stepped away from the table and walked out from under the awning and back toward the road. The men laboring on the makeshift bridge were still hard at work, struggling to drag the second tree trunk into place. He walked slowly up the slope. The fog was breaking up, swirling coils burning away in the morning heat. The dim outline of Fort Stevens was visible as he reached the top of the low rise.

  The ground ahead was clear cut, trees removed; the fields that had once been orderly, planted with corn or wheat, were now weed choked, barren, offering no cover. He could imagine his lines going forward across those fields, the guns of the forts tearing gaping holes into the ranks, the charge hitting the abatis, men tangled up, stopping to cut their way through, stumbling into the moat thick with mud and slime. Even the greenest of troops behind those fortifications would turn it into nothing more than murder, the finest infantry in the world mowed down in a stinking moat by garrison soldiers in spotless uniforms.

  He shook his head. Hood was right. His men were too precious for this. Yet he had to do it. If he did not, that in itself would be a victory for the North. Davis would not understand, though that was not his concern at this instant. He had to conceive a victory here, a victory that justified the blood shed at Gettysburg and Union Mills.

  He studied the field intently, the open ground free of obstacles, the unfinished dome of the Capitol most likely visible once the fog lifted. It would be lit up with gaslight at night, a beacon, a dream so tantalizingly close, and just beyond that, Arlington and home. How many nights did I sit on the porch, the boys playing in the front yard—not yet soldiers, one of them a prisoner—the lights of the White House just across the river.

  He stood there and the plan formed at last.

  Looking back over his shoulder he saw Hood and Stuart waiting expectantly, the others standing behind them.

  He forced a smile.

  "We go in at night, gentlemen. That is how we will take it. At night." He smiled as he gave the order.

  "At night, with surprise, we'll be into their works before they know it."

  Hood and Stuart smiled and, turning, they left him, already giving orders, leaving him alone with his thoughts and dreams

  July 17 1863 7.30pm.

  Gazing out the window of the train as it raced across the broad, open countryside of Ohio, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant found his attention wandering for a moment He tried to ignore the pounding intensity of the migraine headache that had bedeviled him since last night. But of course nothing would work except for that oblivion from a bottle, which he most definitely could not indulge.

  As the train took a gentle curve, heading southeast, long shadows of the cars, cast by the setting sun, reached out across the open fields. The land was rich, the last of the winter wheat being harvested, fields of corn mor
e than waist-high, weeds and honeysuckle engulfing the split-rail fences that bordered the railroad. The train raced past a barn; a farmer and his two boys driving cows in for the evening milking paused, looked up, took off their hats, and waved.

  Thoughts drifted back to his own boyhood as he absently rubbed his temples, to the hardscrabble farm not far from here, and his desire to escape its labors, a desire that had taken him to West Point, an institution that glorified a business that would sicken many a butcher. The army had been, at first an escape, then a burden so intense he had left it Only this war had brought him back into uniform. And now he was in command.

  For a moment his mind wandered across the empty years, the war in Mexico, the bitter loneliness of California. He impatiently pushed those thoughts aside. A danger to think of that now; self-pity compounded by the headaches was an almost certain first step back to the bottle, and now was not the time, though the temptation was always there.

  "What are you thinking, Sam?"

  Grant turned and offered a faint smile.

  "Nothing much, Elihu, just drifting."

  Congressman Elihu Washburne smiled and said nothing.

  He was a good friend. Grant knew that It was through Elihu that he had received his first commission in this war, from a man who was one of the mentors behind the president's rise to power.

  Like him, Elihu had come from a farm, up in the bitter cold of Maine. But unlike the Grants, the Washburnes seemed destined from the start for greatness. Five brothers, all of them now in positions of power and influence. One was a general commanding a corps under Sherman, another a captain in the navy, another the governor of Maine.

  He envied Elihu for his relaxed, easy air, his nonchalant movement through the halls of power, his urbane manner. He was dressed casually—jacket off, wine-colored vest unbuttoned, linen shirt spotless. Elihu was the type that no matter what the situation would always look and smell clean. And yet he was not a dandy. He had visited Grant during the exhausting winter campaign of the previous year and exclaimed more than once that the rigors of the field were a tonic. He could sit up to dawn with the staff, mount then spend an entire day visiting units, shaking hands, and like any politician, when he came across constituents, make the most of it, passing out cigars and canvassing for votes with vigor.