by John Jakes
“Slack off!” Billy shouted, jumping to knock the teamster out of the way moments before the limb broke and dropped onto the prow of the boat, smashing it and snapping the wagon’s front axle with its weight.
Furious with himself, Billy climbed from the mud. The wrecked wagon would prevent the others from coming up; there was no room to pass on the muddy road. “All right, you drivers—I’ll send you some men, and we’ll carry the boats to the launching site. We’re behind schedule.”
Away in the dark, some phantom shouted, “Whose fault is that?”
Billy scowled again. Someone else complained. “Carry them? From the last wagon that could be damn near a mile.”
“I don’t care if it’s fifty,” Billy said, and stormed back to Lije, full of self-disgust.
On the unfinished bridge, the weary infantrymen had fallen idle. Nothing more could be done until the next boat was floated down and pushed out twenty feet from the last one placed. “I need men to carry the boats, Lije. I tried to free the wagon that’s stuck and wrecked it instead. No one can pass.”
Standing with his musket in his arms, Farmer gave a majestic slow nod. “I saw. Don’t take the guilt so deeply into your soul. There is not an engineer breathing who has not miscalculated in his time—and these are not the best of conditions for sharp thinking. Be thankful you lost a wagon and not a life.”
The younger man stared at the older, thinking that when he and Brett raised children, he hoped they could counsel them as wisely and humanely as Farmer counseled those who served with him.
A musket flashed in the woods beyond the stream. On the bridge, a soldier yelled and grabbed his leg. He started to topple into the water, but others pulled him back. Simultaneously, Farmer grasped his musket by the barrel and clubbed the nearest lantern from its pole. Billy leaped for another as musketry and gibbering hoots and cries issued from the dark. They put all the lanterns out, retreated up the bank, and returned fire. In fifteen minutes the rebel sniping stopped. Fifteen minutes after that, Billy and Lije relit the lanterns and work resumed.
By half past two they had launched enough boats and laid enough balks and chesses to reach the opposite bank. Billy wrote a brief dispatch reporting completion of the bridge and sent it back to headquarters with a courier. Lije ordered a rest. The men slept in the open, finding the best available cover for themselves and their gunpowder. Troubling thoughts strayed through Billy’s mind as he lay against a tree trunk, a soggy blanket over his legs. Water dripped on him. He sneezed for the fourth time.
“Lije? Did you hear what they Said about the Shiloh casualties before we started out tonight?”
“I did,” came the answer from the far side of the tree. “Each army is said to have lost a quarter of those engaged.”
“It’s unbelievable. This war’s changing, Lije.”
“And will continue.”
“But where’s it going?”
“To the eventual triumph of the just.”
I am not too sure all of us will live to see that, Billy thought as he shut his eyes. His teeth chattered, and he started to shake. Somehow, though, he slept, sitting in the rain.
In the morning the engineers secured the last cables on the bridge, scouted the woods beyond for rebs and found them gone, and settled down to wait. They would be sent somewhere else soon enough.
Bivouacked one night near Yorktown, Charles said to Abner Woolner, “We’ve ridden together for a few weeks, but I still don’t know much about you.”
“Hardly a thing worth knowin’, Charlie. I don’t read good, I spell worse, and I can’t cipher at all. Ain’t married. Was once. She died. Her and the baby.” The straightforward way he said it, devoid of self-pity, made Charles admire him.
“I farm up near the North Carolina line,” the scout went on. “Small place. Right near where my grandpa fought the redcoats. King’s Mountain.”
“What do you think about this war?”
Ab pushed his tongue back and forth between front teeth and upper lip for a minute. “Might hurt your feelin’s if I told you.”
Charles laughed. “Why?”
“’Cause I don’t like you plantation nabobs and your godless high life down on the coast. You dragged us into this muss. There’s a few of you who are all right, but not many.”
“Do you own slaves, Ab?”
“No, sir. Never have, never would. I can’t say I ’specially favor the black folk, though if you pressed me, I’d prob’ly say no man ought to be chained up against his will. I know some judge said Dred Scott and the rest of the darkies wasn’t persons, but I know some who are fine persons, so I’m not sure how I feel about the nigra question that’s a part of all this. I do know which folks I like. You. Major Butler. Hampton—I could tell he din’t think I was enough of a gentleman to be in one of his regular troops when I signed up, but he didn’t say that and make me feel bad. He just acted real happy that I’d scout for him. I’ll take him over that flashy Jeb Stuart any day.”
“So will I. Beauty’s an old West Point classmate of mine, but I don’t have the regard for him that I once did. I share your feelings about Hampton. About most of the planters, too, matter of fact.”
Ab Woolner smiled. “I knew there was a reason I liked you, Charlie.”
In his journal, Billy wrote:
The general is a paradox. He requires us to emplace his siege artillery, all seventy-two pieces, to bombard a position many feel could be taken in a single concerted attack. The derrick and roller system required to unload the guns would take a page to describe. We must fling up ramps to move each gun into place. A layman would be led to believe that here is a siege destined to last a year.
Questions are asked. Why is this being done? Why is Richmond the objective and not the Confederate Army, whose defeat would force a surrender beyond all question? Be it noted that such questions, though common, are not voiced within hearing of any of the ultra-loyal officers the general has gathered about him.
The paradox of which I wrote is this. The general does little, yet is loved greatly. The men molded by his hand into the most superb fighting force ever seen on the planet lie idle—and continue to cheer him whenever he comes into their sight. Do they cheer because he keeps them safe from the hazards of a conclusive engagement?
Brett, I am becoming bitter. But so are the factions in this army. Some call the general “McNapoleon.” It is not meant as praise.
When the Confederates pulled back from the Yorktown line early in May, the engineers were among the first into the empty fortifications. Billy raced to a gun emplacement, only to curse what he found. The great black fieldpiece jutting into the air was nothing more than a painted tree trunk with a dummy muzzle cut in one end. The emplacement contained five similar fakes.
“Quaker guns,” he said, disgusted.
Lije Farmer’s white beard, grown long, snapped in the May breeze. “‘Thou has deceived me, and I was deceived. I am in derision daily—every one mocketh me.’”
“Prince John’s a master artillerist. Loves amateur theatricals, too. A deadly combination. I wonder if there are more of these?”
There were. Compounding the insult, a deserter said Magruder had paraded a few units up and down at Yorktown to convince the enemy that he was holding the line with many more than the thirteen thousand he had now withdrawn. While Magruder held his foes at bay with tricks and nerve, the main rebel army slipped away to better defense positions being secretly prepared farther up the peninsula. McClellan’s huge guns, three weeks in the placing, were now trained on worthless targets. Little Mac’s dallying had given Johnston a second advantage—additional time to summon reinforcements from the western part of the state.
“This blasted war may last a while,” Billy said. “Our side may have more factories, but it strikes me the other side has more brains.”
For that, Lije had no ready Scriptural reply.
In May, on the Pamunkey River, Billy wrote:
Last night I saw a sight that will
stay with me until I die.
Shortly after tattoo, duties took me on a course leading back across one of the low hills close by. There before me, unexpectedly, spread the whole of the Cumberland Landing encampment beneath a sky shedding light red as that from any furnace at Hazard’s. Struck dumb with wonder, I knew at last what Lije means when he says, ever paraphrasing the Bible, that we have come here with an exceeding great army.
I saw below the hill rows of Sibley and A tents numerous as the tipis of some migratory tribe. I smelled the smoke of cooking fires, the homely stinks of the horses, the worse one of the sinks. I heard the music of war, which is more than song or bugling; it is a varied strain of courier horses and artillery; the lowing of our great cattle herd; the hails of pickets, the called-back countersigns; arms rattling and clicking as they are cleaned and stacked; and voices, always the voices, speaking of homes, families, sweethearts, in English, Gaelic, German, Hungarian, Swedish—the many and varied tongues of man. Two units of our “aeronautic corps” tethered for the night like beasts, rode the air above the holy of holies—the tents of those who lead us, surrounded by the chosen of the headquarters guard. Adding brightness were the flags—our own, whose integrity we fight for, and all the regimental banners, rainbows of them, handed to so many proud colonels by so many pretty girls at so many martial gatherings in so many cities and hamlets. All the arrayed flags I saw, and watched their hues all melting to the scarlet of the sundown, and then to gray.
There is much of this war I am not clever enough to understand—and much I do not like. Nor do I refer solely to physical hazards. But as I stood watching the May wind snap the flags and ripple the white tops of five hundred wagons in their park, I had a sense of our purpose. We are here engaged in something vast and noble, and things will change because of it, though exactly how, I have not the wisdom to predict. Overcome by this feeling of epochal time and place, I lingered a while and then moved on. I soon came upon a civilian seated on a stump completing a sketch of our boys at bayonet drill. He introduced himself as Mr. Homer, said he had observed the drill earlier and was touching up his artwork for inclusion in a composite picture he will later prepare for Harper’s, which sent him here. He commented on the beauty and majesty of the evening scene. He said it made him think of the migration of the children of Israel.
But we are not many tribes bound to dwell peaceably in some promised land—we are many regiments bound to Richmond, to burn and kill and conquer. Behind the evening scene lay that truth, of which I said nothing to Mr. Homer as we walked down from the hill in companionable conversation.
The May woods smelled of rain. Charles, Ab, and a third scout, named Doan, sat motionless on their horses, hidden by trees, watching the detachment pass on the country road: twelve Yankees in double file, moving at a walk from the direction of Tun-stall’s Station toward Bottom’s Bridge on the Chickahominy. Johnston had withdrawn to the other side of the river. Pessimists in the army were given to observing that at several points the watery demarcation line was little more than ten miles from Richmond.
The three scouts had been on the Yankee side of the Chickahominy for two days, with inconclusive results. They had checked the Richmond & York rail line for signs of traffic, found none, doubled back, and were heading for the low, boggy land near the river when they heard the Yanks approaching. The scouts immediately hid in the woods.
A yellow butterfly darted in and out of a shaft of sun a yard to Charles’s left. He had his .44 Colt drawn and resting on his right thigh and his shotgun within reach. He wanted a fight far less than he wanted to know the identity of these Yanks and their purpose on this road.
“Mounted rifles?” he whispered, having seen that the pair of officers in the lead wore orange pompons on their hats.
“Not likely ’cept for them two shoulder straps,” Ab answered. “If any of the rest of them boys has been on horses more than two hours in their whole lives, I’m Varina Davis.”
Doan leaned close. “Who the devil are they, then? Their uniforms are so blasted dirty, you can’t tell.”
Charles stroked his beard, which now reached to an inch below his chin. He connected mud to riverbanks and riverbanks to his friend Billy. “Bet anything they’re engineers.”
“Might be,” Ab said. “Doin’ what, though? Scoutin’ the swamps?”
“Yes. For bridges. Places to cross. This may be the first sign of an advance.”
Sport shied. Charles steadied the gray with his knees as a far part of his mind noted a queer whispery sound on the ground. He didn’t ponder its meaning because Doan was talking.
“Can we shoot ’em up a little, Cap?”
“I wouldn’t mind, but I suspect it would be smarter to ride on to the next road. The sooner we’re over the river with news of this, the better.”
“Rattler,” Ab whispered, louder than he should have. The snake tried to slither past the forehoofs of his horse. The horse danced back and whinnied, long and loud.
“That’s done it,” Charles said. He heard halloos on the road; someone yelling orders. The snake, more frightened than any of them, disappeared. “Let’s ride out of here.”
Ab had trouble with his spooked mount. “Come on, Cyclone, damn you—” Accustomed to gunfire but not reptiles, the scout horse reared and nearly unseated its rider. Charles grabbed the headstall, the forehoofs crashed down, and Ab kept his seat. But seconds had been lost, and the horse’s erratic behavior had placed it in one of the shafts of light falling through the trees. Two Yankees at the tail of the column spotted Ab and aimed shoulder weapons.
Charles pulled his shotgun, discharged both barrels, then fired his revolver three times with his right hand. As the fusillade faded, the Yanks skedaddled, shouting, “Take cover.”
“Come on, boys,” Charles cried, leading the way. The Yanks would likely go to ground in the roadside ditches, giving the scouts a margin of time. He spurred Sport through the trees, not away from the road, as he had first intended, but toward it, up the side of an imaginary triangle that should bring them out well ahead of the detachment.
After some hard riding, he burst onto the road, Ab a length behind, Doan bringing up the rear. A glance behind showed him two Yanks standing in the road. The rest were hidden.
Both Yanks fired at the scouts. A ball flipped the side brim of Charles’s hat. Another few seconds and they were safely out of range of the enemy muskets. Charles shoved his revolver into the holster and concentrated on riding. The road serpentined through woods where swampy pools glittered.
Another quarter of a mile and the sheets of water were solid on both sides. The trees appeared to rise from a surface fouled by green scum and speckled by tiny insects. A mile or less should bring them to the crossing.
The road behind them erupted in a single jet of flame and a fountain of shrapnel. Ab was so unnerved, he nearly galloped off into the water. Charles reined around, saw a smoking hole and Doan dragging himself from under his fallen horse.
Round-eyed, Doan made choking sounds. The horse was finished. The buried columbiad shell triggered by a friction primer had hurled lethal fragments into the animal’s shoulder, chest, and crest.
Doan struggled free of the left stirrup. His horse slid tail first into the hole. Doan walked in a little circle like a confused child. Hidden by the looping curves of the road, the Yanks could be heard coming at a gallop.
Charles began to sweat. He urged Sport to the edge of the hole, but the gray shied from the dying horse, shuddering down there and blowing out its breath in great sad gasps. “Get up,” Charles said, reaching behind to slap Sport’s croup. Doan’s confusion continued. Ab excitedly fired a shot up the road, though no Yankees were in sight.
Suddenly Doan began crying. “I can’t leave him.”
“He’s a goner, and Company Q is a better post than some Yankee stockade.” The first blue horseman came around the bend. Charles seized Doan’s collar. “Get up, damn it, or we’ll all be caught.”
Doan managed to c
limb onto the gray and take hold of Charles’s waist. Charles pulled Sport’s head around, and they broke for the Chickahominy. Ab stepped his horse to one side to let the gray go by, then emptied his side arm at the oncoming horsemen. He had little chance of a hit, but the firing slowed the pursuers.
Even carrying double weight, Sport performed valiantly, leading the escape to the river. Charles could feel Doan trembling. Suddenly the scout yelled, “Goddamn savages.”
“Who?”
“The Yanks who buried that infernal machine in the road.”
“You’ll have to blame Brigadier Rains or somebody else on our side. Before we pulled out of Yorktown, Rains planted those torpedoes all over the streets and docks. How we doing, Ab?” he called to the scout riding alongside.
“We’re way ahead of them thimble merchants and ribbon clerks. Look yonder—there’s the bridge.”
The sight stopped the shouted discussion of the torpedo that had killed Doan’s mount. General Longstreet called the devices inhuman and forbade their use. Lot of good that did. What shook Charles as they raced to Bottom’s Bridge was realizing that the slain horse could just as easily have been Sport. A buried bomb didn’t differentiate.
The gray hammered across the river bridge, hoofs pounding a rhythmic litany. Just as easily. Just as easily.
Jealousy had as much to do with it as politics, Billy later decided. He had been primed for a scrap when he walked into the sutler’s tent that evening toward the close of May.
A dour nervousness had gripped the peninsular armies for days. The rebs were dug in beyond the Chickahominy, prepared to die for Richmond. On the Union side, instead of expectancy or a giddy sense that one fierce blow could end it, there was uncertainty. The high command suffered from it, and the leakage spread. Rumor simmered with fact in a stew of negativism. Jackson was humiliating the Union in the Shenandoah. McDowell, holding near Fredericksburg, might be diverted to meet that threat. Little Mac continued to insist he had not nearly enough men, though he had over a hundred thousand. He also insisted the hounds of Washington were tearing at him, led by the rabid Stanton.
