1862 (46 page)

The battle was strangely silent. Shouts and screams could sometimes be heard, but there was very little gunfire. This was a brawl fought horse to horse and sabre to sabre. Once pistols and carbines were emptied there was little opportunity to reload. Units from both sides were intermingled, which meant there was no artillery or infantry support, as fire from either would kill as many of their own side as of the other.

A group of several hundred Union horsemen disengaged, formed, and charged back into the melee, which swallowed them in a cloud of dust. “How long has this been going on?” Knollys asked. He’d lost track of the time.

“About an hour” was Kraeger’s quick response. He held a pocket watch in his hand. The Prussian considered himself a true professional in a land of rank amateurs, but even he seemed taken aback by the awesome and awful pageantry unfolding below.

Knollys could only stare at the spectacle and hope he wasn’t gaping like some of the others were. There was something inherently indecent about watching other men die. The scene below was something out of the Middle Ages, except he couldn’t recall any battles that had been so totally cavalry like this one, which was taking place on the outskirts of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Slowly, agonizingly, it appeared that the rebel cavalry was pushing the Union horsemen back. The rebels were the better horsemen after all, but there were so damned many Union cavalry. Then, after what might have been an eternity, bugles sounded, and the blue-clad horsemen pulled back. At least he thought they wore blue. As covered with dust and dirt as they were, their uniforms were indistinguishable from the rebels’, and Knollys wondered just how many had been hacked down by friends. It would not have been the first time. As the two armies became covered by identical layers of dirt, there had been a number of incidents where men from the same side had fired on and killed each other.

The two armies separated and the Union cavalry withdrew. There was no pursuit from their Southern enemies. The rebel horsemen were too exhausted. The Confederates might have been the better riders, but the Union cavalry had also been quite good and more numerous, and had been surprisingly well led. One more Confederate advantage was evaporating as the mounted Union forces gained experience.

Kraeger moved his horse by Knollys. “My take on it is that Pleasanton was the Union commander who led Hampton into the trap.”

“Who was overall Union commander? Could you tell?”

“I think I saw Sheridan. He wears a strange little flat hat and I’m pretty certain I saw it.”

That coincided with what Knollys had observed. It helped to have an independent and uninfluenced confirmation.

Kraeger jabbed Knollys’s arm. “Look. They’re taking Hampton off the field. If he isn’t dead, he’s been seriously hurt.”

Several riders were helping keep a man upright in the saddle as they rode towards the rear. Knollys focused his telescope and saw that Hampton’s left shoulder was bloody and that Hampton was barely conscious. He wasn’t a doctor and no one would attempt a diagnosis from a distance, but the wound did appear significant. If so, the loss of Stuart’s second in command at this critical point in time was a serious blow.

Knollys then swung his telescope over the battlefield that was now empty of combatants. It was blanketed with dead and dying men and horses. The field, now beaten smooth by thousands of hooves, looked like a carpet with a particularly horrible pattern woven into it. There were no good ways to die in war. but to be slashed by a sabre and then trampled by horses struck Knollys as a particularly bad one. He tried to estimate the number of dead who covered the ground, but gave up. Even allowing that the majority were Union casualties, Jeb Stuart had suffered badly for his victory. Lee had described Stuart as being the rebel army’s eyes. Only now, with the loss of Hampton and so many other men, it looked like one of the eyes had been gouged out.

“Ach, this day’s over,” said Kraeger, “and another rebel victory. But could they afford it?”

Good question, thought Knollys. Kraeger was an observer and allowed to let his mind wander, but Knollys was a part of the invading army and would share his thoughts with his own kind.

“By the way, Knollys, can you share any food to eat?” Kraeger mispronounced food as foot, which made the Englishman smile. “We have plenty of fodder for the horses, but not much rations left.” the German went on. “Like you. we had hoped to take sustenance from the countryside.”

Here, Knollys had to tell the truth. “None I can spare, I’m afraid. Sorry.”

Kraeger nodded and rode off, leaving Knollys to his thoughts, which, thanks to the Prussian, had switched from today’s battle to thoughts of filling his stomach.

Knollys had hired a former Confederate soldier who’d been discharged because of wounds to find food and fodder, and cook for him. As Kraeger had noted, there was plenty of fodder since a horse could eat almost any grass and make do, but there was damned little in the way of food for people to eat. As yet, the rebels had not captured anything substantial in the way of a Union supply depot, and the Union soldiers were carrying off civilian supplies and burning what they could not carry. What small stores had been taken had not been enough to replace what more than a hundred thousand men ate three times a day. Thus, the rations they had carried north with them were all that was feeding Lee’s army, and they had almost run out. It was not a good sign.

Ammunition reserves were also seriously depleted. While no major battle had yet been fought, there had been a score of minor ones like the cavalry brawl fought today. Again, without captured Union stores, the ammunition brought with them was the ammunition they would live and die with. Grant had proven too damned smart in that he had placed his depots well to the rear and in friendly territory. Knollys wondered just how much the loss of the ammunition supplies sunk by the Union Monitor at Hampton Roads would cost. Dearly, he felt.

He would write to Rosemarie and tell her of his problems. Mail service to and from the South was inconsistent at best thanks to Union patrols that operated in their rear, but messages still sometimes got through. She was an astonishingly pragmatic woman, which was one of the reasons he realized he cared for her. He owed it to her to tell her the truth about Lees campaign. The depressing fact was that, unless Lee performed some magic, or Grant did something incredibly stupid, the combined Anglo-Confederate armies would have to withdraw.

Sadly, he did not think Grant was stupid.

Colored pins and pieces of paper were attached to the large map of Pennsylvania on the wall of a small room on the ground floor of the White House. They represented the sum knowledge of the War Department as to the movements of the armies seeking each other in Pennsylvania.

The pins purported to show the latest news, but they were often wildly inaccurate. The Union forces were shown where they had been several hours earlier, and where they had been when someone remembered to report the information to Washington. Still, those pins and papers that showed Grant were far more accurate than those that represented Lee. These were estimates made by scouts and civilian informers, and might not be accurate. For instance, did one symbol identified on the map as being Stonewall Jackson actually represent his whole corps or just part? Or was the whole report wrong? Or even a falsehood planted by the rebels? As he stared at the map. Nathan allowed that he was glad he wasn’t Grant and didn’t have to deal with the possibility of an error that could prove catastrophic.

Yet some basic truths could be gleaned from the pattern of pins. They showed that Lee’s army had crossed the Potomac north and west of Washington, and then marched north while Grant’s armies shadowed it and stayed between it and the large cities that were Lee’s apparent goal.

So far the strategy had worked. The Confederates had marched over a great deal of ground but had not taken anyplace of consequence. It did not appear that Lee was in the mood for a prolonged siege of any target, and General Scott was of the opinion that the Confederate general didn’t have the resources to conduct such a siege.

Earlier in the day. Scott had given a particularly pedantic lecture in which he compared Lee to Hannibal and Grant to the Roman general Fabius, who had confronted the Carthaginian in a war well before the time of Christ. According to Scott, Fabius had rightly ascertained that Hannibal had no siege train and, therefore, would not attack cities. Thus, Hannibal was permitted to roam the countryside while pinprick battles weakened him and set the stage for his final defeat.

In history, Fabius had been castigated by wealthy Romans for letting Hannibal burn and pillage for years. Similarly, the population of Pennsylvania saw no grand strategy from Grant, only burned farms and ruined crops. Pennsylvania’s Governor Andrew Curtin had called for Grant to be replaced by someone who would fight Lee and stop him. So far, Lincoln had shown faith in Grant.

Scott had reminded the president that, in Hannibal’s day, Fabius had been replaced by a more aggressive general who had promptly been defeated. Is that what Lincoln wanted? Lincoln had assured Scott that it was not what he wanted, and that Grant’s position was safe. With an impish twinkle in his eye, Lincoln then asked Scott if it was true that General Scott knew so much about Fabius because he had served with him?

Nathan recalled Scott’s astonished reaction with a grin. Even the dour Halleck had cracked a smile.

“Everything to your liking, Nathan?” General Scott had entered the room quietly.

“Not as long as Lee is to our north, General.”

“Are you saying you doubt Grant?”

“No.” Nathan sighed. “I only wish it was over with. There is something frustrating about avoiding battle, even though I know that Grant is wearing Lee down. It’s almost like a Chinese torture.”

“Which one is that, Nathan? The Chinese have so many tortures and they are all so marvelous,” Scott said with a smile. He had just come from another private conference with Lincoln.

“Sir, I’m thinking of the one where they incur a thousand small cuts on a victim’s body. Taken individually, not one is dangerous or even particularly painful. Cumulatively, they will drive a man mad and eventually kill him.”

“And this is what Grant is doing?”

“Certainly.” Nathan replied. ’There have been a score of small battles, and a hundred skirmishes. Lee is bleeding from each one and using up supplies he can’t replace. Perhaps a better analogy would be a Mexican bullfight, where the mighty animal is weakened by small spears and then finally dispatched by the matador’s sword. Soon Lee will weaken if he hasn’t begun to already. He has lost men, ammunition, and supplies. Soon he will turn and then retreat south.”

Scott checked a clock on the wall. It’s late and I’m tired. We need to get home. I need sleep and you should be with your lovely Rebecca. But tell me. What do you think Lee will do when he begins to retreat?”

Nathan pushed thoughts of Rebecca out of his mind. “That’s the troubling part. I don’t know what he will do. But I don’t think he’ll go peaceably back to the South. I think he’ll be like that pain-maddened bull confronted by the matador. I think Lee will be more dangerous to us than at anytime in this campaign.”

   Fort Stephens was one of two score forts that ringed the city of Washington. It consisted of thick, low earthen walls that were pierced by gun ports housing the largest cannon available. As they were not intended to be moved, the guns could be the largest built by the foundries of the North.

The fort was a squat and malevolent scar on what had been an otherwise pleasant land. The trees that had stood before it had been chopped down to provide a clear field of fire for Stephens’s defenders. The same was true for all the other fortifications that protected Washington. Trees that had stood for decades had been reduced to kindling.

Between the forts were lines of trenches, rifle pits, and emplacements for individual guns. Fields of fire overlapped each other, and the trenches were wide enough to handle two ranks of massed infantry. The effect was to reinforce the notion that Washington was the most heavily fortified city on the face of the earth. Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, was deemed a close second.

Washington was also the largest prison.

Abraham Lincoln stood behind one of the giant cannon and looked north into Maryland. In the distance, he imagined that he could see Pennsylvania. Once these had been friendly lands, but now they were occupied by Lee’s Confederates. Only temporarily, he had been assured, but the fact remained that they were held by the enemy. The president of the United States was a prisoner in Washington.

Oh, he could flee to Baltimore or Philadelphia like so many members of Congress had, but he felt it was his duty to remain in his nation’s capital. He had been castigated for skulking into Washington prior to his inauguration, and had vowed never to take part in a similar travesty. No, his duty was in Washington.

Lincoln climbed onto the earthen parapet and looked around. Like lemmings, several of his entourage accompanied him, along with a handful of grinning soldiers from the garrison. As always, Lincoln wore a dark suit and a top hat that made him look seven feet tall instead of six foot four.

“He looks worried,” Nathan said to John Hay. They had declined to climb onto the parapet.

“Wouldn’t you be?” Hay replied wryly. “He is surrounded by his enemies, both figuratively and nearly literally.”

Access to Washington from the rest of the Union was only by one Baltimore & Ohio rail line and a bad dirt road, the Bladensburg Pike. Both ran from Baltimore and it was feared they could be cut at any time. Nathan recalled travelling the Bladensburg road so many months before.

Two of Mr. Lowe’s three observation balloons soared thousands of feet into the air, where observers confirmed the obvious—no Confederate army was in the vicinity. To further confirm this and to assist the balloons on those days when weather kept them grounded, numerous patrols were undertaken by the army.