The Day After Gettysburg
Page 40
Lincoln did not seem to have noticed. He went on smoothly, his tone of voice remaining unchanged.
“On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it . . .”
A rumble of agreement arose from the northerners, drowning out belligerent remarks from the southern crowd.
“Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.”
The sounds coming from her left were abruptly cut short. Cassie looked over at a sudden wave of movement among the southerners. They were turning as one to look at a man on horseback riding toward the Capitol.
She was a little too short to make out any details. Then Steven let out a gasp and gripped her arm fiercely enough to cause pain.
On the platform Lincoln glanced in that direction, and seemed to rise even taller. With a quick gesture, he swept the papers before him to one side. After a moment’s pause, he began speaking once again, in the tone of a man in the midst of a friendly argument. “It was for us—all of us gathered here, and all within our great commonwealth, that fourscore and nine years ago, our forefathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal . . .”
The man of horseback dismounted and walked toward the platform. The troops surrounding it parted to create a path for him, the soldiers raising their muskets in salute before them.
“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from the honored dead we take increased devotion to the nation for which they gave the last full measure of devotion . . .”
Upon reaching the platform, he paused for a moment, as if uncertain of his welcome. Then, doffing his hat, he climbed up the short set of steps. At the top he paused, as if listening.
“. . . we here must highly resolve that those dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth.”
Turning from the podium, Lincoln regarded the man awaiting him. When they began walking toward each other, it was at the same moment.
The sun did not break through the clouds—it had been sunny all morning—and the church bells did not ring—that came later. But a roar began growing from everyone present, and Cassie reached down to rest a hand on her swollen belly and think, Yes, darling—you too were here with us. We were all three of us together at that moment that America became a nation once again.
The roar of the crowd peaked as Abraham Lincoln shook hands with Robert E. Lee.
★ AFTERWARD ★
J.R. Dunn
There’s something almost godlike about writing alternate history—seizing on the bare clay of the historical record itself and transforming it either to right historical wrongs or thrust it further into nightmare.
But there are some elements that can’t be changed—the motives, personalities, and characters of the participants above all. However much you may alter the historical circumstances, the individuals (particularly those that the critical literature calls “icons”—the actual historical actors) must remain the same, their personalities, foibles, weaknesses, and habits all unchanged. If you want to remain honest to your premises and your art, these must stand as they were, as far as you can grasp what they actually were in the first place.
What this means is that their actions will also tend to remain the same, given the change in the circumstances facing them. Lee is not going to turn into a vicious brigand. Meade is not going to be transformed into a wild-eyed gambler. Events will follow a pattern not completely different from those in the base timeline due to the limitations (and possibilities) inherent in character and psychology.
Therefore, any campaign featuring Lee, Longstreet, Meade, Grant and their subordinates will have unquestionable similarities to the one that we are familiar with. Not in the form of a blueprint as much as in echoes—the same themes being played in a different key.
It’s often overlooked that Grant’s overall war plan for 1864, encompassing not only the eastern theater but also Georgia and the Gulf Coast, was comprised of a series of massive pincer movements—possibly the largest ever contemplated up to that time. (If we take Rurik/Rorik’s simultaneous attack on Byzantium from the Mediterranean and Kiev as being more legend than anything else.)
With Sherman boring into Georgia, Nathaniel Banks was ordered to seize Mobile, while Grant advanced on Richmond across northern Virginia. Such a three-pronged attack would have created insoluble strategic problems for the Confederacy. Lee had been dealing with superior northern numbers by using railroads to shift units from quiet areas to trouble spots along interior lines, in the hope of curtailing northern advances on one front while the others remained quiescent. Grant’s plan was to deny Lee use of this strategy by hitting Confederate forces on three fronts at once.
But instead Henry Halleck, always eager to meddle, ordered Banks, a barely competent political general, up the Red River to attack Texas in imitation of Grant’s Mississippi campaign, though to no purpose whatsoever (Union control of the Mississippi had pretty much denied Texas any further role in the war). He was swiftly beaten by Richard Taylor and forced back into Louisiana, and took no substantial part in operations thereafter.
Grant proceeded to Richmond, to be foiled by yet another nitwit, “Baldy” Smith, who arrived at the city ahead of everybody else (including Robert E. Lee), but refused to seize the town because he was afraid that Rebels might be in there. This misjudgment resulted in a stalemate lasting the better part of a year.
But Grant was able to deny any reinforcement of Confederate forces outside the Virginia theater, enabling Sherman to seize Atlanta and march on to Savannah.
I have chosen a minor-key duplicate of this strategy, aimed at the destruction of Lee’s forces, rather than the Confederacy as a whole. Grant confronts the Army of Northern Virginia in Pennsylvania, harrying it constantly, just as he did in the Overland campaign. At the same time, Sherman marches a force over the mountains of Kentucky and into the Shenandoah Valley, rendezvousing with reinforcements from Washington as he pushes north up the valley towards Lee’s rear.
The full ramifications don’t become apparent until it’s far too late for the Army of Northern Virginia.
In a number of cases, I’ve duplicated or followed the pattern of engagements in our timeline. Jubal Early’s harrying of Washington is a near-duplicate of his actual raid (though the outcome is very different). The ending of the Battle of York, where Grant simply ignores his “defeat” and continues advancing past Lee, is drawn from the Battle of the Wilderness. Union forces passing a Rebel force too exhausted to gather itself for an attack is patterned on the aftermath of the Battle of Franklin, where a complete Union army marched through the Confederate position with the butternuts simply too played out to do anything more than watch.
As with battles and strategies, so with words. Surely, the words spoken in our timeline would have echoes in any other, emerging as they do from the same hearts and minds. By this means, I was able to preserve one of the greatest addresses ever given on this continent, the climactic words of which could serve as a better motto for the United States than the one we already have.
There are few episodes of American history that cause more controversy, by its very nature, than the American Civil War. At times, it seems that there’s not a single element of that conflict not subject to dispute. I expect the same response here and look forward to it.
Finally, a word about Robert Conroy. I never met the man, and yet I knew him all the same. Better, in some ways, than some people I have known for years. I served as copyeditor for his last half-dozen books. The work always reflects the man. Like his many other readers, I grew to appreciate his knowledge, his common sense,
his high respect for women, his faith in the American experiment (Conroy was the beau ideal of the serious patriot), and above all, his sense of decency.
I am honored to have taken part in the production of this, the final expression of Bob Conroy’s vision.
Vale, frater.