by Bob Mayer
“General Fremont,” Cord said.
The Pathfinder was leaning over a large map that covered the entire surface of a dining table, talking to a pair of officers. So far, Cord had not seen a single officer he knew. Fremont’s distaste for West Pointers was making its presence well known in his headquarters. It didn’t bother Cord in the least that he was going to make his former commander swallow a bitter West Point pill.
Fremont looked up and scowled. “You’ve not changed in the slightest.”
“Oh, I think I’ve changed in one or two ways over the years,” Cord said. He gestured at the other men. “You want them hanging around to hear what I got to say or you want this to be private?”
“What do you have to say?” Fremont demanded, placing both hands on the map, as if by doing so he commanded all the terrain beneath them.
“Remember back in Los Angeles in late ’46 with General Kearny?” Cord asked.
“Leave!” Fremont gestured imperiously and the room cleared until it was the two of them, the double doors swinging shut with a solid thud.
Cord walked over to the table, standing opposite Fremont.
“See this?” the General asked, running his finger along the map. He traced a route through southwest Missouri and northwest Arkansas into Louisiana and ending in New Orleans. “I will have it all by next summer.”
“You’re going to march to New Orleans on the west side of the Mississippi?” Cord asked.
“I’m a General,” Fremont said. “Address me properly.”
“You’re going to march to New Orleans on the west side of the Mississippi?” Cord repeated. “Sure you can find your way, or someone already do the route for you, Pathfinder? Or maybe I should title you Pathmarker? Did you ever really take a trail that someone hadn’t already walked on before you? Isn’t the truth that you just wrote better books about those trails than the other fellows who were there before you?”
“What the devil do you want, Cord?”
Cord pulled out his Bowie knife and Fremont started, but Cord slammed the point into the map. “Before you take New Orleans next summer, you need to keep hold of this. Cairo.”
“What about it?”
“I want you to give command of Cairo and all forces thereabouts to General Grant.”
“Who is Grant? One of your West Point cronies?”
“Listen, I’m doing you a favor by asking you to do me one.”
“Are you blackmailing me?”
“Not at all,” Cord said. “I’m asking you to keep your word. Grant’s the best you got out here and you put him in Cairo, he’ll make the situation favorable so you can march on New Orleans next year.”
“And if I don’t?” Fremont demanded.
“Then you are dishonorable.”
Fremont’s hand went to his saber grip. “Watch your tongue.”
Cord lightly touched the handle of his Bowie knife. “Ever since you had those unarmed men shot outside San Francisco, I’ve been itching to have a go at you. If it hadn’t been for Kit being involved putting that poor fella out of his misery and knowing you’d take him down with you, I’d have let Kearny hang you. I’d have sworn on a stack of Bibles ten feet high you were a murderer.” He gestured. “Try pulling that fancy blade and I’ll have this pig sticker in your guts before you clear the scabbard.”
Fremont took his hand off the saber. “Polk and Prentiss are senior in rank to Grant. They will not take it well to have him jumped over them.”
“They’ll live,” Cord said.
Fremont’s eyes shifted from Cord to the map, then back. “This Grant. He can fight?”
“He can fight.”
Fremont’s head inclined ever so slightly, a moment of awareness. “You still have that damn letter don’t you?”
Cord tapped his pocket. “I do. But that aint the big thing. The big thing is whether you are a man of honor or not.”
Fremont nodded. “I’ll give Grant the command.”
“Good.” Cord turned and headed for the door.
“I under-estimated you from the time we first met,” Fremont said. “When we meet again, I won’t.”
“We aren’t meeting again,” Cord said to the door. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Because you aren’t going to be in command here once Ulysses gets moving.”
11 October 1861, Charleston, South Carolina
“’So short-lived has been the American Union that men who saw it rise may live to see its fall.’” James Mason tapped the London Times. “The time is fortuitous for us to go to London and beseech the British to intervene on our behalf!”
Captain George King stood in the background of the Captain’s cabin on board the CSS Nashville listening to the ‘great men’ talk ideology and politics, a chart tucked under his arm, waiting with the patience of a saint. London was a long way from Charleston, where the re-flagged Nashville was anchored.
King respected Mason and it was the only reason he kept his tongue. The rest of the upper crust of Charleston crowded into the cabin he could do without as they were the men who had shunned his father in his misfortune. Mason had been the author of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which many considered the first splintering that finally led to the complete secession of the South from the North eleven years later. It was a simple law, requiring just proof of identity and two witnesses as evidence that a negro was a runaway. Then it directed that the contraband be returned to its proper owner.
The ship was riding the swell in Charleston Harbor and a cool October breeze blew in the open hatches, making the cabin tolerable. Despite the breeze, the air was full of cigar smoke and bluster.
“We’re eleven states now,” R.M.T. Hunter, the Confederate Secretary of States said. “If we swing Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri into the fold, we’ll be fourteen and the Union won’t be able to stop us.”
King could stay quiet no longer. “Then why do we need to beg England for help?”
All the old men in the room turned and looked at him.
“I’m all for victory,” King said, “but not at the cost of begging a foreign power and then owing them something. Our own honor and strength will be enough to overcome the Yankees. And if England wants to join the struggle against the North, have them do so for their own reasons and leave us free of any obligation.”
“Young man,” Hunter said, “you’re a military officer and can’t be expected to understand the intricacies of—”
“I understand tides and ships.” King pushed forward to the Captain’s table in the center of the cabin and rolled out the chart. “The Nashville draws too much water to take anything but the main channel. I know this from the ship’s specifications. I’m familiar with the tides and channels around here. I did a reconnaissance last night in a barque. The Yankees have five warships guarding the outer markers of the main channel. The Nashville will never make it through.”
That brought silence for the first time.
“Do you have a suggestion, Captain?” Mason asked. “We considered going south by land, through Mexico and leaving from a port there, but the journey would be time-consuming.”
“I do have a solution, sir,” King said. “There’s a smaller steamer anchored in the harbor. She draws much less than the Nashville. She could be bought or hired to leave Charleston via shallower waterways that are not guarded and make it to open water.”
“Can she sail to England?” Hunter asked.
“No, sir,” King said.
“Then what is—”
King cut Hunter’s protest off. “But, sir, she could make it to Havana where the British mail packet, Trent, regularly makes the route to London. If they leave tonight on the tide, they can get on the next sailing of the Trent.”
Mason perked up. “Once on board a British ship, we’ll be safe,” he informed his partner Slidell.
The two had been chosen to head a new delegation to London to enlist England in the war effort on the side of the Confederacy. To date, the British were neutral, but that neutrali
ty was slanted toward the south. British subjects were forbidden to fight for either side. But beyond that, the neutrality provided Confederate ships the same access to the mighty British empire’s far-flung network of ports for docking and provision and to build ships to make up the fledgling rebel navy. Much to the chagrin of President Lincoln and the Union.
“Conduct the arrangements, Captain,” Mason said.
“That’s my decision to make as Secretary of State,” Hunter said, his face red.
“Then make it, sir,” King said. “The tide isn’t going to wait on you.”
“Watch your mouth, Captain,” Hunter snapped. “I don’t like this plan. It requires us to rely on outside sources to get to London.”
“Then don’t send them,” King said. “We can win this war on—”
“Silence, you fool!” Hunter roared. “You’re as ignorant as your father.”
King slapped Hunter so hard, the elder man fell into the table, knocking it over, spilling the charts to the floor. As Hunter scrambled to his feet, assisted by several others, King threw his gauntlet at him. “On your honor, sir, I will face you on the Battery at dawn tomorrow. Pistol or sword, it matters not.”
“For God’s Sake man,” Mason said as he slid between the two. “We have a large enough fight on our hands without quarrelling with each other.” He pointed to the door. “Go, Captain. Make the arrangements for Havana.”
King was breathing hard through his nose, nostrils flaring.
“Captain,” Mason said.
King reluctantly nodded. “Yes, sir.”
He exited and made his way forward, to the same transom he’d climbed over the night of Fort Sumter. A Jamaican was waiting for him, wearing a silk shirt and embroidered trousers, a cutlass stuck in his belt along with a brace of pistols.
“Get to Saint Thomas,” King said. “Captain Wilkes and the USS San Jacinto will make port there on the way back from patrol off Africa. Tell him two Confederate emissaries will be aboard the Trent.”
The Jamaican held out a hand and King deposited a sack of coin. The man was over the side where a skiff of similar sailors waited. They pulled away toward a small barque.
“Captain.”
King turned. “Sir.”
Mason walked up, puffing on a cigar. He offered one to King and they went through the ritual of lighting it.
“Well played,” Mason said.
“As we discussed,” King said.
“You’re sure Wilkes will come for us?”
“I’ve met the man. He’s fiery and impulsive. He’s well known outside the Navy for his round the world survey from 1840 to 1841. But inside the Navy, he’s more known for losing a ship on the Columbia River tidal bar and getting court-martialed upon his return for that and other actions and found guilty of illegally punishing some of his men. He won’t be able to resist the bait.”
“I’m not sure I like being bait,” Mason said, “but unlike the men in that cabin, I know it’s going to take more than words to get the British to act.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mason put his hands on the wooden rail. “Secretary Hunter will not bear your strike lightly.”
“Then we will duel.”
“No, you will not,” Mason said. “We need good men. Hunter isn’t a soldier but he is a politician who knows the ways of international law. We have few such men. And you are a soldier who knows how to fight and we have few of those also.”
King said nothing.
“Maryland will not join us,” Mason said. “Lincoln holds an iron grip there. The way he crushed the Baltimore riots indicates how far he will go. What do you think the chances for Missouri and Kansas?”
“Not good for Missouri, sir. That Lyon fellow got himself killed, but he broke the back of our resistance there and saved the St Louis arsenal. The Yankees are reinforcing quickly. Same for Kansas. The key to those states is east of them in Kentucky. If we can hold the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers and then strike north to the Ohio, the entire war could change even more in our favor.”
“Then I’ll solve two problems with one move,” Mason said. “I’m sending a letter to President Davis to assign you to the western theater. They need men who know the water and can help defend our forts from Yankee gunboats on the rivers.”
“Sir, I’m supposed to report back to Norfolk and continue overseeing the refit of the Merrimack into an ironclad. If—”
“Captain, I’ve given you a large degree of latitude today. Understand when the leash has reached its limit. You are going west.”
Chapter Six
20 Dec 1861, Banquete, Texas
“Gonna be a white Christmas here in Banquete in five days,” Sally Skull said to Gabriel. She laughed. “Hell, gonna be white here all year round for a while. You never seen real snow, have you, girl?”
Gabriel shook her head. “No, ma’am.”
“Well, it’s sorta like that,” she pointed out the saloon window, “’cept lot colder and wetter.”
The main street running through town, El Camino Real, was now called the Cotton Road and bathed in white. The rumble of wagons loaded with bales was non-stop. The harsh Texas wind ripped off tufts and blew it about in such volume that every tree was laced with it and the ground was covered with a thin layer.
The doors to the saloon swung open and Declan came in, accompanied by a man sporting a large mustache with waxed tips and walking as if he had a steel rod for a spine.
“This’ll be interesting,” Skull muttered.
“My dear woman,” Declan exclaimed. He strode up to Skull and kissed her on both cheeks. Then he turned to Gabriel. “Ah, and the precious young one who has grown so admirably.” He leaned forward to give the same greeting, but Skull’s word froze him.
“No.”
“Ah, yes,” Declan said, stepping back. “I was swept up in the joy of meeting old friends. And this,” he indicated the man behind, “is Captain Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, of His Majesty’s Coldstream Guards.”
“That’s a lot of names for one fella,” Skull observed.
Declan introduced Skull and Gabriel and Fremantle bowed. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, ladies.”
“You sure on that?” Skull said. She shifted back to Declan. “The news?”
“That’s partly why I brought Captain Fremantle with me,” Declan said. “Much has been happening. You heard about Mason and Slidell?”
“Heard there’s a stir about them with the Yankees and the Brits,” Skull said.
Fremantle spoke up. “They, my lady, are two of your emissaries who were pirated off a ship flying my country’s flag. Under force of arms by a Union Navy captain.”
“In English,” Skull said wearily.
“Jeff Davis sent two fellows to negotiate with the Brits,” Declan said. “But a Union ship intercepted a British ship carrying them and took them off at gunpoint. The Brits aren’t happy at all with the Union.”
Skull looked at Fremantle. “You here to go to war?” She looked past him. “Where’s the rest of the Brit army?”
“I was already en route when I heard of the event while transferring conveyance in Havana,” Fremantle said. “But rest assured, the British Empire will not take kindly to the violation of their neutrality. And it appears many in the Union are clamoring for war with my country.”
“Over two men?” Skull asked.
“They were diplomats on a British flagged ship and as such their kidnapping violates international law and is a slap in the face to the Crown. I can assure you, this matter is being taken most seriously on both sides of the Atlantic. The Union Secretary of State is urging war.
“What about old Lincoln?” Skull asked.
Declan spoke up. “He hasn’t weighed in on the matter.”
“He aint that stupid.”
“Excuse me?” Fremantle asked.
“And you were coming here for?” Skull asked.
“Ah, the business,” Fremantle said. “Ships. Mister Declan here, made contact wit
h some representatives of various English ship-builders and I am here to ascertain whether the necessary financing would follow through on the actual construction.”
“But you’re in the British Army,” Skull said.
“Assistant Military Secretary of Gibraltar. On detached, special, secret assignment.”
Skull shook her head in amazement. “Secret? You think you’re being secret? You told me your name. He’s the rep?” she asked Declan.
“Indeed, he is,” Declan confirmed.
Skull sighed. “I got three ships loaded with cotton. I can get it for six cents a pound here, but it would cost you over thirty cents at least in Mexico. I give it to you for fifteen. The rest goes to the builders. And I can send many more ships until the Yankees wise up and shut the ports in Texas down; and then, as you can see, I’ll be moving it through Mexico.”
“They would want the cotton at ten cents a pound,” Fremantle countered.
“I don’t think so,” Skull said. “Them Confederate fools already burned over a million pounds on the wharves and they aint done yet. Where else you think England gonna get it? What happens when your factories shut down with no product? Gonna be some unhappy people out of work.
“We’re serious people here—” Skull continued, but paused as the swinging doors to the saloon were thrown aside and two men, covered in dust caked on by sweat, walked in.
Skull drew both pistols, Gabriel snatching up her Spencer as soon as she saw the older woman in action. Skull fired, hitting one of the men in the shoulder, spinning him about.
“Alive!” she shouted to Gabriel, a split second before the young girl fired.
The bullet from the Spencer hit the second man in the stomach as Gabriel jerked her aim down at the last second. The impact of the heavy slug bowled him back out the swinging doors onto the plank sidewalk.
