He was pleased that he had good news for her. The Tennessee Volunteers had come out of the latest battle well. They’d withstood three full assaults by the Yankees and hadn’t given an inch. Why, General Hardee himself had complimented him in person over their steadfastness. Best of all, they hadn’t lost a man. A half-dozen injured, that was all. And the ground in front of them had been carpeted with blue-clad troops.
Of course, he wouldn’t tell her that part. He made a point of keeping the bloodshed out of it when he wrote her. There were some things that she just shouldn’t know about.
“Corey?” It was Mayfield. “There’s an officer from General Longstreet outside to see you.”
Wade looked past him to see a pair of unfamiliar faces waiting just outside the entrance. Putting the letter aside, he got to his feet. He looked around for his uniform jacket, but remembered that Corporal Sennett had taken it to give it a good brushing and otherwise spruce it up.
He saluted the officer—a major—as he drew near. What could this be about? The major’s expression did not promise good news.
“Colonel Wade, I am Major Prentiss. I have been dispatched from General Longstreet’s headquarters.”
Prentiss had a Tidewater accent, and was as perfectly turned out as an officer could be—cavalry boots, a feathered hat, a sash, a short cape over his jacket. His face was framed by a carefully barbered van dyke that Wade would never be foolish enough to attempt to grow. Wade felt like a coal miner standing before him, wearing only a shirt with no jacket. He buttoned the top of his shirt, feeling ashamed as he did.
“Would you care to take a seat, Major?”
Prentiss glanced into the barn and shook his head. “No thank you. This won’t take long.” He crossed his gloved hands in front of him. “Do you have any idea where this man Blandon is? Jonah Blandon.”
So it was Blandon. He might have guessed. “I’m afraid not.”
“I see.”
“At this point, it would be best to consider him a deserter.”
“Uh-huh. Did you notify the provost marshal as to that fact?”
“No I have not.”
Prentiss looked around him. “You’ve been in combat in recent days.”
“Yes—that’s right.”
“I understand. Now, you have no idea what Blandon has been up to?”
Wade shook his head.
“Let me explain. He raped and murdered a young girl in a farming village about forty miles southwest of here. His men proceeded to violate just about every other woman in the place. A travesty, sir. A hideous crime in the eyes of God and man both.”
“Good lord,” Wade said. “That was Blandon?”
“So you’ve heard this story?”
“It’s been making the rounds. How do you know this?”
“One of his men reported it. An Elijah Skinner. Do you recall him?”
Wade remembered him vaguely: few teeth, eyes a little close together, and a massive beard.
“Skinner, and his simpleminded younger brother, fled rather than join in. They encountered a cavalry scout in trying to locate your unit, and were sent on to headquarters.”
“Where is he now?”
“He has been court-martialed and punished.”
“For desertion?”
“No, sir. He was technically not a deserter, was he? But he was carrying a substantial amount of currency, so we got him for that. He is now serving a sentence of hard labor, digging the fortifications around this very city. As for his brother . . . well, one does not punish the simple for being simple.”
“I see.”
“It’s good of you to show concern for your enlisted men.” Prentiss gave him a wintry smile. “I admire that.”
Wade said nothing in response. He had nothing much to say.
“Now, here’s the thing. We’ve been suffering serious resistance from the locals hereabouts over the past few days . . .”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Very good.” Prentiss nodded. “The farming community that was victimized is called Holland Farms. Yesterday, a few miles away from there, a foraging party was ambushed by civilians. One man escaped. The rest were found hanging from tree branches. The corporal’s body had a sign attached, reading, ‘For Holland Farms.’”
Wade stared at him.
“So you see, sir. This is not simply your problem any longer. It is the army’s problem.”
He eyed Wade for a moment before continuing. “Do you have any idea where Blandon is? Was he operating under your orders? Does he have any friends in your unit? Took them with him. I see. Any relatives? Would anyone here have any information as to his whereabouts?”
Wade simply shook his head.
Prentiss glanced over at the sergeant, as if they’d discussed it in detail on the ride over. “Colonel, is there anything you can tell me?”
He shook his head once again.
“I was afraid of this.” Prentiss raised both gloved hands. “It’s all the same in this godforsaken army. Nobody knows anything. Don’t be offended, Wade. No disrespect intended. It’s not just you. It’s . . . everybody.”
He looked Wade up and down before speaking. “Now, you need to look into this. You need to talk to your people. Somebody may have heard something. If they did . . .”
“If anybody knows anything . . . Then I’ll goddamn well take care of it myself.”
“That, sir, would be one solution.” Prentiss took one precise step back and saluted him. “We will speak on this further.”
Wade watched them ride off before he turned back to the barn. The men were looking at him quizzically. He said nothing as he went back inside.
One hand giveth, and the other hand taketh away. That was life for you. There couldn’t be a single moment’s triumph without a double portion of misery to wash it clean away. You couldn’t get ahead—there was always worse around every corner. He was no longer Colonel Corey Wade, the man who had stood up to the Yankees at York, the officer complimented by General Lee himself. No—he was Wade the fool, Wade the incompetent, the man who had sheltered a vile killer, like a viper in his own bosom. The man who has set the Yankee civilians ablaze, the man who was getting his own people killed. The man who had helped disgrace the South and its cause.
He could picture General Longstreet himself: Wade, that damnable young fool, what the devil is he good for?
And General Lee—did General Lee know about this?
“Here you go, sir.”
It was Corporal Sennett, returned with his jacket. Wade got to his feet. “Thank you, Corporal.”
“My pleasure, sir. A great officer needs a good-looking coat.”
Wade sat back down, gazing at the three stars on the shoulders. He raised his eyes to the board on which the letter to his mother awaited. Reaching for the sheet, he crumpled it and tossed it aside.
★ CHAPTER 23 ★
Jefferson Davis had decided once again to greet the British envoy alone. This time it was because he couldn’t trust certain members of his Cabinet not to embarrass both the Confederacy and themselves.
“Well, they do have a point, Mr. President.”
Davis turned to Vice President Stephens. “I understand their point, sir.”
“Gentleman,” Judah Benjamin turned from his post at the window. “Let’s concentrate on the issue at hand.”
“Yes,” Davis sat back. “Quite so.” Still, he would have expected Stephens to be a little accepting of the agreement, considering how much hopeless effort he had put into a negotiated end to the war.
He was sick of talking about it. Did these backcountry fools think that the British Empire was going to put itself on the line for nothing? There were risks involved. What if that fanatic abolitionist Lincoln refused to back down? Anything was possible from that madhouse on the Potomac. Consider those newspaper stories about Lincoln’s attempted “kidnapping” by some imaginary Confederate cabal. And who had the ringleader of this conspiracy been? Why, John Wilkes Booth, a no-acco
unt actor. What lunacy!
“It’s not at all a bad deal,” Benjamin said. “They could have asked for more.”
“I’m not saying it is,” Stephens replied.
Yes, they could have asked for more. If Stephens only knew . . . As it stood, the offer was straightforward. The British wanted a base. The base needed to be on the Chesapeake. And that meant the James Peninsula. There was no real alternative. The fact that any such base would be a mere stone’s throw from Yorktown, where the British had been seen off only eighty years before, really shouldn’t factor into it. But it did all the same.
“But still . . . they do have a point.”
“I heard you the first time, Alex,” Davis said, more loudly than he had perhaps intended. “And I understand it.”
He did understand it. That was the simple truth. But look at what the British were offering! A fleet was already being prepared on the Nore. Within a month, six weeks at the most, it would set sail for Virginia. A dozen or more men-of-war, fifty- to ninety-gun steamers unmatched by any vessel in the Western hemisphere. Dozens of support vessels. Several thousand Royal Army troops to garrison the new base. Let’s see what Mr. Lincoln’s popinjay gunboats would do against an armada like that.
From that moment it would be over. No more blockade, no more bloodshed. He would not have to gaze any longer on the hungry faces of the children of Richmond, hear the complaints of bankrupt businessmen. See, over and over, the black crepe bands on the sleeves of the men in the street, the black dresses of the women. The South would be independent and free, its people able to live as they saw fit.
Wasn’t that good enough? Wasn’t that what they had been working toward these past two years and more? What more did they want?
There were men in the Senate who had actually crossed arms with the British. Men who as youths had fought beside Jackson at New Orleans in 1815. Their attitudes toward the British were conditioned by old brutal memories, honed and sharpened over the years. That was the cost of Tennessee being part of the Confederacy, Davis supposed. Old Hickory had a lot to answer for.
But they would change their tune. Once the war was over. Once the South was back on its feet. Then would come the time to reveal the rest of it—that other base in Florida that the British desired. The long-term discount on cotton exports to the Midlands. The “observers,” as they were carefully termed to be, that they wished to send to the Rio Grande, to keep an eye on French activity in Mexico. Several thousand of them. The trade concessions for British bottoms calling at southern ports . . .
And so on. They drove a hard bargain, the British. At several points in the discussions Davis had begun to believe that he knew precisely how a Hindoo prince must feel when confronted by representatives of the Lady King.
“A carriage approaches,” Benjamin said. He swung away from the window.
“That’s him.”
Davis nodded, suddenly overcome with an infinite sense of weariness. These past few minutes were supposed to have been devoted to a discussion of how he might deal with the new British envoy, carefully dispatched across the Virginia lines from their Washington embassy. But they had simply not gotten around to that.
Stephens got to his feet. “We’ll be waiting.”
“And do keep them calm.” The envoy was evidently an heir to nobility, of a type that most of his government had no idea existed. He’d had to distribute printed cards to inform them as to how he was to be addressed. That had not gone over well.
He heard footsteps in the hall. Straightening his jacket, he turned toward the door. Once again he thought of the princes of India, the potentates of Asia, all under the thumb of Britain. He recalled the words he’d once heard spoken by old Andrew Jackson himself: “Once the Redcoats are in, they never leave unless thrust out with the bayonet.”
The door swung open. The man who walked in was, once again, younger than Davis would have preferred. He was wearing a sash laden with decorations. On seeing Davis, he paused for a moment, then bowed magnanimously.
And what if they don’t leave here?
Davis stepped toward him, smiling broadly. “Marquesse Henry . . . welcome to the Confederate States of America.”
“Jonah . . . Jonah, hold up.”
Blandon looked over his shoulder. Giddens was giving him that sullen look he’d seen all too often the past few days.
“We’re nearly back to that town where . . . y’know . . .”
Blandon reined his horse in. That hadn’t occurred to him. He was so eager to return to the army with his information that he hadn’t really been thinking straight. He wanted to get word to them as soon as possible, so they could act on it. He’d taken the most direct route he could think of.
But what difference did it make? So they were headed for that one particular little backwoods village. So what. Bunch of farmers couldn’t even rightly protect their womenfolk. What kind of threat could they be?
“I ain’t riding through there again,” one of the men said. Mutters of agreement followed.
Blandon gritted his teeth. All right. They’d just detour before they reached the village itself. Turn north, ride across the fields until they got to the next high road.
They could do that any time. This minute, if he wanted. But instead Blandon rode on. He had to show them who was boss. They’d all been a little uppity the past few days. Giddens, for one, didn’t seem very taken with his idea of heading for Lee’s headquarters.
He smelled a familiar stench, plain even in the cool breeze. Two dead horses lay beside the road up ahead, bellies bloated and flies buzzing above them. Somebody had gone to the trouble of dragging them off the road. Blandon spotted a gap in the brush on the other side of the road. That made it three. No saddles or harness to reveal whether they were Confederate, Yankee, or from local farms.
There was another outburst of muttering from behind him. He listened for a moment, straining to make sense of the words. “All right, y’all,” he said at last. “We’ll cut across the fields in just a minute.”
“Let’s turn now.”
“No! Y’all just calm down now. Actin’ like a bunch of old women . . .”
“Hold on!”
He looked back. Giddens had stopped his horse and was looking wildly about him at the woods lining the road. “There’s somebody out there,” he said. “We gotta turn back.”
“What you talkin’ about?”
Giddens stared at him as if at a simpleton. “There ain’t no birds singin’!”
The first wave of gunfire swept Giddens off his horse. Blandon was reaching for his carbine when he felt a blow to his side. The screaming horse reared and he found himself lying stunned in the dirt.
He turned his head to see the others down, either alone or with their horses. Two stood with their hands held high. Only one man—Duber?—had escaped, and was galloping down the road. He got about twenty yards before another blast of gunfire from the brush caught him. He went over the horse’s head. It collapsed on top of him.
Blandon tried to rise, but a sharp pain from his leg dropped him onto the road again. He touched the wound in his side. It didn’t seem that bad.
There was a gunshot from behind. Somebody was being finished off.
“None of that,” a voice said. “No—we’ll keep them for the army.”
Someone stepped around his horse. A face appeared above him. Blandon recognized him despite his black eyes and the still-swollen features. The boy’s eyes went wide. “Pa!” he called out. “Pa—it’s him.”
The boy was replaced by an older, bearded version of himself. The farmer stared expressionlessly down at Blandon. “Are you sure, son?”
“As God is my judge, Pa.”
The farmer was joined by other stern Yankee faces, each regarding Blandon with dispassion. At last the farmer spoke.
“You defiled a virgin.” His voice was soft, as if he was making a point in a friendly disagreement.
She wasn’t no fourteen, Blandon said to himself.
&
nbsp; One of the farmers called out, “Go ahead and finish the rest.”
More gunshots rang out. Blandon felt rough hands grip his shoulders.
The farmer reached for the knife at his belt. “Look away, son,” he said softly. He bent over. Blandon was screaming before he even got to work.
★ CHAPTER 24 ★
Thorne raised his glasses for yet another look at Harrisburg.
They had been camped outside the city for the past two days. The Rebs had tried to burn down the bridge across the Susquehanna, but succeeded only in damaging it. It had taken the engineers only three hours to fix up the span enough to allow infantry and cavalry to cross. But the delay in getting artillery over the river had enabled the Confederates to dig in. They were now snug behind their fortifications, hooting and jeering at the Army of the Potomac while safely protected by trenches, barricades, and those infernal abatis.
He lowered the glasses. So why didn’t he see anybody over there now? He hadn’t caught sight of a single Johnny Reb for the past hour. There had been a sudden surge of activity around one or so, but after that, nothing. He got to his feet in plain view of the other side. Ordinarily that would have gotten him some kind of response up to and including a ball fired in his direction. But today there was nothing.
He was morally convinced that the line was deserted. He decided to go over and take a look.
He was turning to holler to Archie Willis to bring over a couple of horses when he saw three men riding toward him. He came to attention and saluted as he spotted the stars on the lead rider’s jacket.
“Something of interest, Colonel?” the general called out as he dismounted.
“Yes, sir.” Thorne stared at him, more than a little startled. He’d received notice of his brevet promotion only after arriving at Harrisburg and was still wearing his major’s insignia. He handed the general his glasses. “Why don’t you take a look?”
The general paused to remove his kid gloves, then took the glasses and peered through them. He made some odd noises as he ran them across the line. His aides came to a halt just behind him, saying nothing.
The Day After Gettysburg Page 34
