The Day After Gettysburg

by Robert Conroy

  This chill night, he was assisted by Sid and Nate. If this was what the Confederacy was going to use in key operations, Richard wasn’t impressed. They did not split up to search for the guards. They believed they would be found in the rear of the building where there was a coffee pot and some couches, and they were right.

  As they tried to sneak close, Nate managed to stumble and send some packages tumbling. “What the hell was that?” A suddenly alarmed guard jerked awake. “Who goes there?”

  The time for subtlety was over. “Now,” Dean yelled, and the three men charged. The guards had their clubs and each, to Dean’s shock, had a large blade, much the like the type called a “Bowie knife” in their belts.

  “Copperheads!” shouted one guard as he lunged towards Richard, who parried easily and rammed his own knife into the man’s gut. He thrust upward and turned, just like Sid had told him. To his astonishment, it worked. The man staggered backwards and let out a guttural scream. Richard pulled out the knife and turned to the second guard, who stared at him in disbelief before dropping his own knife and running for an exit, grunting in fear as he went.

  Richard swore and took off after the man who’d begun gasping after only a few strides. Richard caught him and wrapped one arm around the guard’s neck while slicing at his throat with the other. Enormous fountains of blood poured out as the guard staggered and died.

  “Jesus.” Nate stared at him wide eyed. “I didn’t think you had it in you. And, Lord, are you ever a mess.”

  Richard’s clothing was covered with congealing blood. He couldn’t go outside like this. The guards’ quarters provided him with a solution in the form of a long and weathered frock coat. He slipped it on and the three of them began setting explosives and laying out fuses. Containers of oil were set alongside the explosives. It took about an hour to get everything ready. Richard pulled out his watch. Everything was supposed to explode at four-thirty and it was five to four. Other fire bombs were scheduled to detonate throughout the city at the same time to maximize confusion and prevent any useful response from the police or the fire companies.

  The three men waited for a few minutes and tried to calm themselves. They also tried to ignore the stink coming from Richard’s ill-fitting coat. “Now,” he said and struck a match. The explosions would be a few minutes early, but who would care. Primary and secondary fuses were lit and they ran out the rear door and into an alley. Nobody was there.

  They forced themselves to walk slowly, casually, just three friends who’d had a little too much to drink. They walked along a beach and Richard waded in. The water was icy cold and made him gasp, which the other two thought was funny. Dean could care less. Louts would be louts. As for him . . . he had proven to John Wilkes Booth that he could kill efficiently and coldly. Now he was confident he would be an asset to the Confederacy and Booth. He smiled widely in the darkness.

  There was a rumble behind him. In the distance, explosions began to rock the warehouse and dock areas of Baltimore. Sid began dancing around on the sand like a loon. Dean waded back to shore. He thought the fireworks were lovely.

  Confronting one general was bad enough, but now there were two angry brigadiers to deal with in the offices of the War Department. At least, Thorne thought, he wasn’t alone. Along with Montgomery Meigs, the Quartermaster General, was Brigadier Herman Haupt. General Haupt’s specialty was railroads, and he was considered a genius at building them and maintaining them. Thorne was accompanied by a select group of other field-grade officers who’d been tasked with keeping the supply lines open. If evidence of the last few days was accurate, all had failed miserably.

  “Another train was destroyed yesterday,” said Meigs. “This time it was by a raggedy group from Tennessee led by a Colonel Wade. To give the devil his due, no civilians were robbed or molested. He even let a handful of convalescing soldiers go on their way. All of that says that Wade is a gentleman, but he made off with two and a half million dollars in Mr. Lincoln’s greenbacks which will be put to use supplying our enemies. Something has to be done about this. The newspapers are having a wonderful time at our expense. Colonel Wade’s attack was not the only one and some of the others have been fairly bloody confrontations. Obviously, we want these stopped. The President is most anxious that they cease.

  “The only successful efforts were those in which soldiers were hidden on trains and gave the Rebels more than they could handle. Unfortunately, raiders like this Wade’s are larger than any number of soldiers we could hide on a train.”

  “On the other hand,” said Thorne, “do the Rebs really want to suffer the heavy casualties that would be required for them to take a well-defended train?”

  “And what if that train was armored?” suggested another officer.

  “And how did the bastards find out about the money that was on the train in the first place?”

  Meigs replied stiffly. “The provost marshal is working on that obvious problem. Someone in the Baltimore and Ohio or in the Treasury has to be informing them. Scores of trains take that route every day and it cannot be a coincidence that they attacked this particular one.”

  “Or some of the others they’ve robbed,” said Haupt. “Some attacks may be random targets of opportunity, but I don’t think this one was. They had information. A Mr. Rutherford from the Provost Marshal’s office will be in charge of the investigation. He believes, and I agree with him, that the traitor will turn out to be someone in the Treasury—or perhaps another department—who supports the South.”

  Annette Cosgrove was a nothing, a cypher. She was middle-aged, lonely, and hated her job and Abraham Lincoln. To her, the Great Emancipator was the Great Destroyer. She loved only two things in this life: the South and John Wilkes Booth.

  She had been born in what was now West Virginia in a small town near Wheeling. She hated the fact that her home country had deserted the South and joined the Union. There should have been battles and bloodshed. West Virginia should have remained part of the grand state of Virginia. She despised Jefferson Davis for not fighting more strenuously to keep West Virginia in the Confederacy. She was more lenient towards Robert E. Lee, whose conduct in the brief campaign against the Union had been less than stellar. Now he was the only man who could save the Confederacy.

  So Annette did what she could. Her job at the Treasury Department at 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue was to record planned shipments of money and send out the necessary communications. The building, still under construction, had been designed to emulate a Roman place of worship. It was huge, and many columns rose to impress visitors.

  Annette was far from stupid. It had taken her more than a year to make legitimate contacts with the Confederate government in Richmond. Even then, there was a distinct lack of interest from Richmond. She concluded that the South had no way of utilizing the information. But now, with the South’s army on the doorstep of Washington, there suddenly was interest.

  Her contact was a man named Jessup. She didn’t like or trust Jessup—he was tall and thin and he looked mean. But he was the man designated by the Confederacy—and he worked with John Wilkes Booth. When she had heard that, she knew that destiny had touched her. She would be helping both the South and her idol, whom she had seen on stage on over one hundred occasions, at the same time.

  Jessup’s eyes had widened when she told him of the money shipment and added that she could give him many more. Her job as a clerk was to make schedules, not decisions. Days later, when she read the newspapers that told about the multimillion-dollar train robbery, she knew she’d made the right decision. It was also quite pleasant to see her superiors running around like the proverbial headless chickens.

  Since money shipments had to be set up in advance, there was plenty of time for her to provide information and for the Rebel army to react. Each Friday, she would have her lunch at a particular modest restaurant and, if she had anything of note, she would ostentatiously put the information in a particular wastebasket. She always made sure that Jessup was present
for the drop and loitering across the street. A day later, slipped beneath the door of her room, she would find a note of thanks, just a word or two, never more than that, but signed by John Wilkes Booth. Her life was now not quite as dull as it had been. She was doing something for her country, the Confederate States of America. And for Booth.

  Lord Richard Lyons, the first Viscount Lyons, was shown in to the President’s office. He was accompanied by Secretary of State William H. Seward. Neither man looked pleased. While Great Britain supported the North, it was a strained relationship. Early on in the war, the Union and Great Britain had almost gone to war as the result of a regrettable incident called the Trent Affair. A Union warship had stopped a British ship on the high seas and taken off diplomats accredited by the Confederacy. No matter that the Union did not recognize the Confederacy or its diplomats, Great Britain had been outraged by the seizure of its ship and war seemed inevitable. But cooler heads had prevailed. The men were released to go on to London where they continued to pester Queen Victoria’s ministers, but to no avail.

  There would be other problems, in particular the fact that a number of Confederates had taken refuge in Canada, where American law couldn’t touch them.

  There was also the nagging rumor that Lord Lyons considered Americans to be little more than barbarians. He and many in his class would have happily sided with the more aristocratic Confederacy had it not been for the Confederacy’s stubborn and, in Lyons’ opinion, insane insistence on retaining slavery. Southern plantation owners were gentlemen in the manner that northern factory owners and merchants could never be. But Great Britain had abolished slavery in the early years of the nineteenth century and it would have been anathema to support a nation that kept humans in bondage.

  Lyons accepted his tea, sipped, and spoke. “Mr. President, my country and my queen are sorely conflicted. Weeks ago, when your General Meade was victorious at Gettysburg at the same time that Vicksburg was falling to Union forces, it looked as if the war was all but over. But now the situation has changed and not in your favor or ours. Simply put, sir, the war is dragging down our economy. Labor is getting restless. There have been strikes and even some rioting. The economy is down and unemployment is high, in large part because of the shortage of cotton. Right now, my party does not believe there is any likelihood that the British government will recognize the Confederacy and just turn a blind eye towards the issue of slavery. But another reversal like the last one, or a lack of progress in the war, could result in Parliament changing its mind. Her majesty would not like it, but she is, after all, a constitutional monarch who reigns but does not rule.”

  Lincoln seethed but did not let it show. How dare this snob lecture him on the situation confronting him? This was the United States, not a nation dominated by a medieval aristocracy.

  Lyons continued, apparently oblivious to Lincoln’s growing discomfort. “And the situation with France could only get worse. Napoleon III has gotten himself into something of a mess in Mexico. His puppet ruler, the emperor Maximilian and his wife, the empress Carlotta, are barely hanging on. The brave Mexicans don’t want any foreign power governing them. They are back fighting savagely.”

  Lyons continued. “Maximilian is convinced that your government is providing covert aid to the indigenous Mexicans.”

  Lincoln smiled tightly. “We have a little item we call the Monroe Doctrine, your Lordship. You will note the French waited until we were embroiled in the current conflict before making their move in Mexico. While we cannot as yet confront them directly, we will use whatever means we can to make their Mexican sojourn uncomfortable.”

  “Monroe Doctrine,” Lyons said in a dismissive tone. “Mr. President, many in France, as well as a number in Great Britain, feel that Mexico is not ready for nationhood. They believe it is true of all the Latin American countries. Just look at all the wars and upheavals that have occurred since they forced Spain to leave Mexico.”

  Lyons had a point, but Lincoln would not concede it. “While we have not been able to enforce the Monroe Doctrine because of the greater war we are fighting against the Confederacy, I’m sure both Great Britain and the French realize that once this war is over we will assist the Mexicans in driving the French out of Mexico.”

  “Unless, of course,” said Lyons, “France is firmly ensconced in Mexico and is allied with Great Britain. In that case, the Monroe Doctrine would be nothing more than an interesting bit of philosophy that somebody thought to write down.”

  Having made their points, they diverted the conversation to less bothersome topics. Seward took the opportunity to ask Lyons a question concerning a matter that he had been pursuing.

  “What’s that? Russian Alaska?”

  “Yes, sir. What is Britain’s interest in that region?”

  Seward had a bee in his bonnet about the czar’s North American territories. As Lincoln understood it, the Comte de Tocqueville’s study Democracy in America (Unread as yet by Lincoln—there were many worthy volumes awaiting him. When this was all over, he’d have to make up a list.) had predicted that the great national rivalry of the epoch to come would be between the United States and Imperial Russia. Seward had developed a firm belief that Alaska must be acquired to gain an advantage.

  “Sir, I assure you that Great Britain has no interest whatsoever in a barren icefield.”

  Seward sat back, looking far more content.

  A British nobleman annoyed by the work of a French count concerning Russian territory while in Washington D.C. There, thought Lincoln, was the makings of a first-rate yarn.

  “. . . please believe me, sir,” Lyons said as the meeting drew to a close. “when I say that I want nothing more than for the Union to prevail. But this cannot deteriorate into another Thirty Years War. There must be progress and it must occur soon. Bluntness may not be diplomatic, but I must bluntly implore you to solve your command problems. There is no reason for the Union to lose this war. You have all the tools and resources. You lack only the man to lead you to victory.”

  It took several scrubbings for the blood to come off Richard Dean’s skin, leaving him raw and feeling as if he’d been lightly burned. The clothes he’d been wearing had been burned as trash. Nobody noticed. Burning trash was just one way of getting rid of it and one more fire in a city that was suffering through dozens of them.

  Mary Nardelli handed him a clean shirt and helped him pull it over his head. Despite the fact that he’d been standing naked in his own room, there had been nothing sexual about the situation.

  “Did you enjoy it?” she asked.

  “Enjoy what?”

  “Killing those two men, Richard. Did it give you pleasure to stab them and watch them die as their blood poured all over the floor?”

  “Lord, that is lurid. Have you been indulging in those terrible books that sell for a penny?”

  “You forget, sir, that I am Italian,” she smiled.

  “Well, let me assure you that I did not enjoy it. First, I was afraid for my life and, second, those were human beings whose life I snuffed out.”

  “Would you do it again?”

  “If I had to, of course. But there is nothing that says I would have to like it.”

  “That’s reassuring, Richard. You’re a nice but confused man and I would not like to see you turn into a monster.”

  “Or an Italian.” He laughed. She was several years younger than he and not terribly attractive. He thought she liked him and he liked her but could not see himself taking her to bed. Unless, of course, he was totally desperate. This had not yet been the case. There were enough whores along the Baltimore waterfront to satisfy an army.

  “Mary, how did you meet Booth?”

  She giggled impishly. “Are you implying that I’m not his type? Well you’re right, I’m not. He prefers them much prettier than plain little me. I met him because I chased him. At first he was annoyed when I kept showing up, but then he thought it was funny. I let him seduce me and that pleased him. If you’re curious, we
did it once and there was no second time. And he wasn’t really all that good in bed.”

  Richard roared with laughter. So the fabulously famous John Wilkes Booth wasn’t a great lover. How wonderful. Mary really was a sweet thing. Perhaps he should go to bed with her and find out if he was better than John Wilkes Booth. And he had lied to little Mary Nardelli. He had enjoyed the hell out of butchering those two men and would love doing it again.

  Both Confederate troops and Rebel sympathizers were angry, and this included the criminals who passed themselves off as soldiers. The cause of their anger was what they described as the murder of the beloved Jeb Stuart. Direct communication with the Confederates didn’t happen, but it didn’t have to. Marauders had decided to become their own versions of Jeb Stuart’s cavalry, forgetting the fact that neither Stuart nor his troops intentionally committed atrocities. They were soldiers, not bandits.

  Cassie and Mariah had overstayed at the latest place that Hadrian called home and it had turned dark as they drove their carriage back into the city. At least they were close to the Union lines. The fortifications surrounding Washington City were massive and all encompassing. It was a shame that contraband camps were forced to locate outside the safety of the defenses. She suspected that racial animosity was at the root of it. The average northern soldier could not abide Negroes and wanted them back south where they could be free alongside their white neighbors. That the whites would kill the blacks, or at least try to, was of no concern.

  It was a dangerous world, and now they were two women foolishly alone in the dark. They had been offered an escort, but had declined. Hadrian hadn’t been there, otherwise he would have insisted. This close to the defenses, the two women had decided that they did not need an escort.

  But other people did.

  They heard shots and the screams. They came from several hundred yards down the narrow dirt road.