The Fateful Lightning (58 page)

He saw Dayton, the young man’s face blackened with soot, the man coughing into a soiled handkerchief. Sherman waited, felt utterly
powerless, as though any authority he had in this place had been taken away by something far greater, far more powerful.

“Sir, General Howard is with the mayor, trying to find homes for the displaced.”

“How many displaced?”

“A reasonable estimate, sir, is close to half the city. There could be casualties, of course, but that is not yet determined. The mayor is asking if we might remain here, to assist in the rescue.”

Sherman kept his stare on an old woman, easing closer to a mound of burned rubble. He seemed to hear Dayton’s words now, turned toward him, said, “Rescue what?”

“I suppose…the city, sir. Not sure just what he meant. They require considerable help here, sir.”

Sherman felt the weight of that, the eyes that would be on him now, Washington certainly, and every city in the South. He saw a man approaching, a pad of paper in the man’s hand. It was Conyngham.

“Dreadful, General. Wouldn’t you say?”

“Put down the paper, Mr. Conyngham. I’ll not be interviewed by you or anyone else, not now.”

Conyngham obeyed, the pad slipping into his coat pocket. “You can’t escape this, General. None of us can, not even me. You will be blamed.”

Sherman looked toward the old woman again. “They will know. These people. We did not destroy their city.”

“Of course you did. Like it or not, this is one more piece of your campaign, your legacy. Whether or not you lit the torch hardly matters. You were here. And now…this.”

“It was the cotton. The damned wind. Maybe a few drunk soldiers, and I’ll find them. We’ll have inquiries. I’ll talk to every damned officer in this place.”

“That might soothe your conscience, General. Won’t give these people much to cheer about. I would suggest you offer them something helpful. Food, certainly.”

Dayton moved closer to him, said, “The mayor asked for guards, sir. To prevent mass theft, I suppose, unauthorized citizens picking up what isn’t gone.”

Conyngham said, “Whatever you do here, it won’t be enough.”

Sherman felt an explosion coming, moved away from the row of what used to be homes. “You think I planned this? Is that what your damned newspaper will print, that I burned this place, and fiddled like Nero all the while?”

“I won’t. Others will. Depend on that, General.”

“Who burned the cotton? Who started those fires? This is not Atlanta, there are no great military targets hereabouts. I had
no reason
to set a torch to anything here.”

Dayton said, “Sir, General Woods, Colonel Stone, they said there was fire burning when they rode in. They assumed the rebel cavalry tried to burn up the cotton before we could claim it.”

Conyngham moved with Sherman, a quick-paced walk. “And who will believe that? Who will want to hear that the great cavalry hero General Hampton might have begun this? No, General, this is your campaign, and your conquest, and those who believe you to be without morals will condemn you for this.”

Sherman stopped, looked at Conyngham, tried to summon a fury against the man, but the impotence came in waves now, utter helplessness. He felt sick to his stomach, looked away from Conyngham, searched the streets for the route back to his headquarters, one of the few homes close to the fires that had been saved. He moved with deliberate steps, thought of the eyes, all those men in Washington and Richmond, every newspaper and every politician, every speech maker, North or South, who would take the flames from this city and use that to build a fire of their own. The thought rolled through him, spoken in soft words.

“Damn you, Conyngham. You’re right.”

T
he army remained in and around Columbia for two more days, Sherman authorizing a herd of five hundred beef cattle given to the city, the only real bounty he could offer. As well, the mayor was given one hundred muskets, with instructions to arm capable men to serve as guards, once Sherman’s provosts had left the city.

On February 20, the army began to move again, leaving behind
the devastation that many knew would be laid upon them. But Sherman had to keep his focus on what lay ahead, and as the men made ready to march, Sherman gave the order so familiar that Captain Poe’s engineers began work immediately. They knew the routine now, the men spreading two or three miles out from Columbia in every place the rail lines ran, obeying the order they had received so many times before. They were destroying the tracks.

NORTHWEST OF CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA—FEBRUARY 26, 1865

I
t had rained for most of the week, adding to the gloom that spread through the army that marched with him. But the morning dawned clear and cold, the men picking up the pace on drying roads, Hardee moving along the columns talking to the men whenever he could.

Within a few days after the fire, he had learned of the extent of Columbia’s destruction, what seemed to be a catastrophe for the citizens there. The harsh irony was that the fire had taken place on the same day Hardee had ordered his army to march out of Charleston, which to the people there had been a catastrophe of its own. There had been protests aplenty, prominent dignitaries learning of his orders within hours of his troops pulling down their camps. The outcries had been loud and vigorous, tearful and angry, the women especially seeming to believe that Hardee and his army were tossing them to Sherman’s rapacious savages. But Hardee could offer no better explanation than the obvious. For reasons Hardee didn’t completely understand, Charleston had been spared, Sherman choosing to strike through the center of the state, rather than making a grab for the port that Hardee considered far more valuable. But he had not ever truly understood
what Sherman was about, whether or not the man was as brutish and unsympathetic to the civilians as the rumors suggested. The results of the campaign thus far had shown an odd inconsistency, some towns escaping completely, others left in a pile of ash.

Through it all, Hardee had been frustrated by the inability of anyone in command above him, Bragg and Beauregard, to devise any sort of plan or a strategy that seemed aggressive. It galled the man who penned his own book on strategic campaigning that he had no authority to put any kind of strategy of his own into motion. He still answered to Beauregard, and from all he could find, Beauregard and Bragg had their heads together, arguing and debating over a variety of plans, neither man having enough confidence in his own ideas to put those plans to paper.

Bragg had been in Wilmington, a city now indefensible, the number of Federal forces coming into nearby Fort Fisher far exceeding what anyone in the Confederate hierarchy anticipated. If Bragg expected a fight, he had been overruled by Beauregard, whose decision to vacate that city had been seconded by Richmond. It was a glaring admission that even the dreamlike optimism of Jefferson Davis had accepted the reality that the Confederacy was rapidly shrinking.

If Beauregard seemed to hesitate, Hardee had finally been convinced to begin his march by receiving the most bizarre of sources. A copy of the
New York Tribune
had been spirited in to Charleston, a column explaining in astonishing detail just what Sherman’s army was planning to do. The reporter, who had impressive knowledge of the Federal army, had no qualms about revealing that Sherman’s goal now was to march steadfastly into North Carolina, aiming to capture the city of Goldsboro by way of Fayetteville. Already cavalry reports from both Wheeler and Wade Hampton had suggested that Sherman would target Charlotte first, a logical choice, the city resting so close to the state line. But Sherman feinted again, suddenly turning eastward, and if the cavalrymen seemed unconvinced just where he was heading, the reporter in New York spelled it out with perfect precision. Regardless, sitting with several thousand experienced troops in battlements at Charleston now made little sense for Hardee at all. No matter the outcries by those who believed themselves certain victims, Hardee had ordered his army to begin their march northward.

Once he acknowledged the abandonment of Charleston, Beauregard only added to the confusion of command by ordering Hardee to march his men by way of Wilmington, what seemed on the maps to be a logical route to take toward Goldsboro. With Bragg vacating the city, Hardee had already received the last telegraph signals that the railroad there was certain to be engulfed by the newly arrived Federal troops under General John Schofield, who would certainly order the same kind of destruction to the rail lines that Sherman had perfected in Georgia and South Carolina. Hardee pleaded with Beauregard as much as decorum would allow, that he should make his march by way of the town of Cheraw, South Carolina, just below the North Carolina state line. Whether Beauregard had serious objections, or even second thoughts to any kind of plan Hardee now put into effect, Hardee had no idea. With Hardee’s men on the march, and Sherman driving northward from Columbia, Hardee’s means of communication were nonexistent. His greatest hope for learning anything specific about Sherman’s whereabouts would come from the cavalry, who continued to skirt around Sherman’s flanks, jabbing and poking at the screen established by Judson Kilpatrick. It did not escape Hardee that the boisterous patriot Wade Hampton had spoken long and loud about the rescue of his beloved state. But within days of his assuming command, all Hardee could learn was that Hampton was riding hard and fast for North Carolina.

H
ardee rode at the head of his column, thought of what lay behind him. They had completed their crossing of the Santee River the day before, the rain-swollen waters slowing the march in a way that lowered morale even more.

Miles ahead, he knew the vast parade of refugees were on the move, some using the few remaining railcars, some in wagons, every conveyance they could find. He stared that way, knew his wife was there, a fierce argument inside him, fearing for Mary’s safety, and the safety of his daughters, wondering if the journey itself would prove more dangerous than what might happen to those who kept to their homes in Charleston. His son had ignored any of that, of course, the boy now pushing hard to keep with the army, still riding as part of
Hardee’s staff. It was the ignorance of the young, Willie seeming to burst with confidence that as long as he was allowed to become part of the next great confrontation, the army was safe.

The column was slowing again, Hardee crossing a small, clear stream, allowing the men to fill their canteens. Many of the men garrisoned at Charleston had never made a forced march, and even the veterans rarely had to push through these dismal pine woods, lacking decent cover, decent clothing, and nearly any kind of rations.

Roy moved up beside him, said in a low voice, “Willie’s about to drive me to desert. With all respect, sir. He keeps bragging about all he’s going to do to Sherman when they meet.”

Hardee looked back among the men, saw his son kneeling low at the creek, speaking to one of the sergeants, the man patiently ignoring the boy. “What would you have me do? If his mother were alive, I’d have every excuse to send him on to Raleigh, but Mary is not his mother. And he’s too full of vinegar to take anyone’s advice.”

“You could have ordered him, flat out.”

Hardee had thought of that long and hard, shook his head now. “No. He may never get an opportunity like this again. No matter how this ends, for good or bad, he has to prove to me he’s a soldier. A father’s curse, I suppose. He sees my uniform, has to find a way to wear it. Just try to keep him out of trouble, Tom. I can’t be watching over him, and worrying about the enemy, too.”

“Of course, sir. I’ll keep him underfoot, as best he’ll let me.”

There was a rider coming forward, along the column, and Hardee saw the look, another dose of despair.

Roy said, “That’s General Wright’s man, Long.”

“I know. Got something to say, for certain.”

Long moved up close, a crisp salute, said, “Sir, I have been ordered to communicate to you General Wright’s respects, and inform you that we have received a dispatch by rider, crossing the river behind us. The man was in considerable hurry, sir, and made great sacrifice to deliver his charge.”

“What kind of charge, Captain?”

“Sir, the general has received an urgent plea from Governor Brown that he return to Georgia. I must also report, sir, that General Mercer has been summoned as well.”

Hardee soaked up the man’s uneasiness, said, “Why? In God’s name, why?”

“Sir, General Wright is obeying the wishes of his state’s executive. General Mercer has been summoned by General Cobb, to lead his remaining troops to the garrison at Macon.”

“For what purpose? There is no war at Macon.”

Long glanced at Roy, cleared his throat. “Sir, I apologize for not being better informed. All I was told is that Governor Brown has ordered the Georgia militia still with this column to return to their native state, to attend to their agricultural fields, sir.”

Hardee stared at the man, wanted to be angry at him, but he knew that Long was just conveying a message that Wright himself was too sheepish to deliver in person. “Where is General Wright, Captain?”

“At the rear of this column, sir. He is assembling those units mentioned in the governor’s order.”

“And he did not feel there was time to inform me himself?”

Long hesitated, and Hardee saw the answer to his question. “I was only ordered to deliver his message, sir. The general regrets he cannot accompany your army farther. With your permission, sir, I must return.”

“Certainly. I wouldn’t want to cause any delay for Governor Brown. These men will have fields to plant in a
couple of months
.”

He regretted the sarcasm, the captain absorbing it with obvious discomfort. Long began to turn his horse away, then stopped, said, “General Hardee, may the Almighty keep you safe. This war can still be won, with His blessing.”

“Was that a part of General Wright’s message as well?”

He saw a different look on Long’s face now, sadness. “No, sir. It is my own wish, sir. I have respect for your command, and it has been a privilege serving under you.”

Hardee could not fault the young man, the salute coming up, Hardee answering it as crisply as it was offered. “Thank you, Captain. Safe journeys to you as well. Should the enemy reverse himself and make another assault against Georgia, I am certain your state is in capable hands.”

Long did not delay, rode away without looking back. Roy said,
“What kind of nonsense is this? Forgive me, sir, but this is an outrage!”

Hardee raised a hand. “Quiet, Major. No need to add to this army’s discomfort. They shall learn soon enough how their numbers are diminishing. Our greatest hope right now is that Sherman is not made aware of that.”

CHERAW, SOUTH CAROLINA—MARCH 2, 1865

He had formed a defensive position suited to the number of men still remaining in his command. As the army continued their march, stalled by more rain, and the lack of food and forage, desertions had become routine, each morning’s roll call revealing fewer men in every unit. The greatest number of desertions had come from the South Carolina regiments, those men quick to realize that Hardee was marching them closer each day to the North Carolina border. At Cheraw, there was at least the opportunity for the men to find rations, to rest wounded feet and lame animals. For days now, Hardee had no real idea just where Sherman was, but with Hampton’s cavalry finally making an appearance, Hardee learned that Sherman was moving directly toward him. If there were advantages to Cheraw for the Confederates, Sherman seemed to be eager to reach the town first.

Hardee rode among the workers, as he had done at Savannah, watching their spirit, the labor ongoing with a weariness he had not seen before. He knew it wasn’t the march alone, that these men welcomed each morning with a miserable question, just who among them had vanished in the night. Hardee had already made the effort to reorganize his forces, Lafayette McLaws and William Taliaferro his two remaining ranking generals. Both were veterans, though neither man inspired the kind of leadership Hardee required. And so Hardee rode through their newly dug earthworks, making his best effort at inspiring the men to dig just a little faster.

The staff trailed behind him, his son Willie calling out to the men with the kind of cheerfulness that inspired curses. Hardee tried to ignore that, kept as much distance as he could between himself and
his boy, knew that very soon, it might be time to yank the boy’s leash with a firm pull.

“Sir, the aides report there are rations back at the camp wagon. One of the aides lassoed a hog.”