How Few Remain (great war)

by Harry Turtledove

  "This is not as it should be," Jackson said, and tried to decide whether that was a bigger understatement than the one he'd made a moment before.

  "Some such conception had already formed in my mind, yes," Willcox said. Jackson did not remember any sardonic streak in him, but they'd had little to do with each other for more than thirty years, and nothing to do with each other for more than twenty. Maybe Willcox had changed. Maybe, on the other hand, he'd just been tried beyond endurance.

  "What am I to tell my president, then?" Jackson asked. "He will suspect your government of having asked for this cease-fire so you could strengthen your position here, not as a prelude to abandoning it." Longstreet would certainly suspect that. Longstreet and suspicion were made for each other.

  General Willcox spread his hands. "This is not the case. The cease-fire requested was on all fronts, against all enemies. What point to making such a request for the purpose of fortifying one relatively small position from which, you must be able to see as well as I, we have no prospect for large or rapid advance?"

  "That is so," Jackson admitted. But then he felt he had to qualify his words: "I say it is so in my own person, you understand. How the president will view the matter when I report to him remains to be seen."

  "Of course, General." Willcox's laughter was bitter. "The responsibility for war and peace and, in the broad sense, for the conduct of the war lies with the civilian branches of government. Who, though, who takes the blame when their plans go awry? Do they blame themselves? Have you ever seen them blame themselves?"

  Jackson did not answer. In the main, he agreed with Willcox. Most professional soldiers, in the USA and CSA both, would have agreed with Willcox. But not all the blunders in the U.S. campaign in Kentucky lay with the civilians. Willcox could not have more plainly advertised what he purposed doing had he telegraphed Jackson ahead of time, and his flanking attack had been woefully late.

  Willcox went on, "I do not desire any more fighting here. Not a man in my command wants any more fighting here. If, however, we are ordered to resume the struggle"-he spread his hands again-"we shall do so. What is the soldier's lot but to obey?"

  "What do you judge President Blaine's likely response would be to an ultimatum demanding withdrawal from Louisville on pain of renewed war?" Jackson asked.

  "I cannot answer that question," Willcox said. It was the proper response, but disappointed Jackson all the same; he had hoped Will-cox's anger might lead him into a revealing indiscretion. The commander of the Army of the Ohio went on, "The only one who knows Blainc's mind for certain is Blainc, and, by all we've seen, he is none too sure of it, either."

  That was indiscreet. It might have been revealing, had recent events not shown it to be a simple statement of fact. Jackson said, "President Longstreet is not pleased that you remain here, and will grow less pleased by the day."

  "I wish I could tell you more," Willcox answered. "I am, however, not a free agent, any more than you are, sir. Probably less than you are, for I doubt the apron strings holding you to your government are as tight as the ones I am compelled to wear."

  "I doubt that-but then, I would, wouldn't I?" Jackson said. He and Willcox looked at each other with wry sympathy. Soldiers from one side often had more in common with soldiers from the other than with the civilians who told them what to do. "You have no better word to give me, General? Nothing I can send to Richmond to help ensure that we remain untroubled here?"

  "If I had it, I would gladly give it: I assure you of that," Willcox said. "But I cannot give what I do not have."

  "Very well." Jackson 's nod was almost a bow. "I thank you for your time, sir, and I thank you for your courtesy. Please do take it as given that, should you at any time desire to visit me at my headquarters, you shall have no difficulty in passing through the lines and you will be most welcome there."

  "You are very kind, sir." Willcox did bow. After further protestations of mutual esteem, the two men parted. Jackson made his way back into Confederate-held territory. He got aboard his horse there; entering the U.S. lines mounted might have made him seem like a man who judged himself a conqueror, and so he had refrained (even if he did so judge himself).

  As he rode south, devastation gradually diminished. Single buildings and then whole blocks appeared, as if they were growing out of the rubble. His headquarters, being beyond the range of U.S. artillery, were set among unharmed trees and houses on the outskirts of town, and were quite pleasant. Taken as a whole, though, Louisville would be a long time recovering.

  He wired Longstreet the results, or rather lack of results, of his meeting with General Willcox. The answer came back within a few minutes: WILL ANOTHER BLOW

  AID IN SHIFTING THE YANKEES? IF SO, CAN YOU LAY IT ON?

  I CAN, he replied by telegraph, WILLCOX JUDGES BLAINE DOES NOT KNOW HIS OWN MIND. A BLOW MAY RESTART THE WAR.

  He paced back and forth, awaiting the president's judgment. Longstreet was right; telegraphic conferences were not all they might be. After a while, the clicker

  brought the president's response, HAMMERING FULMINATE OF MERCURY UNWISE, Longstreet Said. WE CAN WAIT. WAITING HURTS USA WORSE.

  ALL IN READINESS HERE AT NEED, Jackson wired.

  I ASSUMED NOTHING LESS, Longstreet eventually answered, I RELY ON YOU. KEEP ME APPRISED OF YOUR SITUATION.

  That last wire made Jackson feel good. He knew Longstreet had sent it for no other reason than making him feel good. Knowing why Longstreet had sent it should have lessened the effect. Somehow, it didn't. Jackson took that to mean Longstreet was a formidable politician indeed.

  He chuckled, which made the telegrapher waiting for his reply give him a startled look. "Never mind, son," Jackson told him. "It's nothing I didn't already know."

  Alfred von Schlieffen's office in Philadelphia was neither so comfortable nor so quiet as the one he had enjoyed down in Washington. Nor did the German military attache have here the reference volumes he'd used there. That Philadelphia did not lie under Confederate guns was at the moment, in his view, less of an advantage than the other factors were annoyances.

  He had-he hoped he had-the books he needed here. He looked from an account of Lee's advance up into Pennsylvania, the advance that had won the War of Secession for the CSA, to an atlas of the world. Tracing Lee's movements day by day, fight by fight, gave him a fresh appreciation not only of what Lee had accomplished but also of precisely how he had accomplished it.

  Indirect approach, Schlieffen scribbled on a sheet of foolscap. He had been studying Lee's campaigns since he came to the United States; they were not so well known to the General Staff as they should have been. When he traced on the map the Army of Northern Virginia's movements, he saw strategic insight of the highest order. He had seen some of that all along. Now he saw more. He also saw, or thought he saw, how to apply that insight to his own country's situation. Up till now, he had been blind to that.

  Had Beethoven had this inspired feeling, this dazzling burst of insight, when the theme for a symphony struck him? For his sake, Schlieffen hoped so. The German military attache felt like a god, noting the movements on the map as if he were looking down on a world he had just made and finding it good.

  He underlined indirect approach. Then he underlined the words again-for him, an almost unprecedented show of emotion. Lee's goal all along had been Washington, D.C., yet he'd never once moved on the capital of the United States. He'd swung up past it and then around behind it, smashing McClellan's army and ending up here in Philadelphia before Britain and France forced mediation on the USA.

  But Washington had been the Schwerpunkt of the entire campaign. Not only had Lee taken advantage of the U.S. government's urgent need to protect its capital, he had also used the great wheel around the city to gain the Confederacy the largest possible moral and political advantages.

  Schlieffen flipped pages in the atlas. Since it was printed in the USA, the states of the United States and Confederate States came before the nations of Europe, and were
shown in more detail. Provincialism, Schlieffen thought scornfully. But the maps he needed were there, even if toward the back of the book.

  "Ach, gut," he muttered: the map of France also showed the Low Countries and a fair-sized chunk of the western part of the German Empire. In the Franco-Prussian War, the armies of Prussia and her lesser allies had moved straight into France and, after smashing French forces near the border, straight toward Paris. That coup would not be so easy to repeat in a new war; he had seen for himself how stubborn good artillery and good rifles could make a defense.

  As if of itself, the index finger of his right hand moved in a wide arc, from Germany around behind Paris. He smiled and scribbled more notes. That sort of manoeuvre would make the French come out and fight in places they had never intended to defend and hadn't spent years fortifying. And what Frenchman, even in his wildest nightmares, could imagine Paris attacked from the rear?

  The finger traced that arc again. Schlieffen noticed it ran through not only France but also through Luxembourg, Belgium, and perhaps Holland as well. In case of war between Germany and France, all three of the Low Countries were likely to be neutral. Would this manoeuvre be valuable enough to justify violating that neutrality and bringing opprobrium down on Germany 's head?

  "Ja," Schlieffen said decisively. Whether the General Staff would agree with him, he did not know. He did know his colleagues back in Berlin had to see this notion, and had to see it soon. Even if they did not accept it, it would give them a new point of departure for their own thinking.

  He was writing furiously, moving back and forth between the maps of France and Pennsylvania, when he noticed someone knocking on the door. The knocking was loud and insistent. He wondered how long it had been going on before he noticed it.

  "How is a man to get any work done?" he muttered, and gave the door a resentful stare. When that failed to stop the knocking, he sighed, rose, and opened the door. Kurd von Schlozer stood in the hallway, looking less than happy himself. "Oh. Your Excellency. Excuse me," Schlieffen said. "How may I serve you?"

  Seeing Schlieffen contrite, the German minister to the United States made his own frown vanish. "You must come with me to President Blaine's residence," he said. "Perhaps between the two of us, we can convince him not to resume this idiotic war."

  "Must I?" Schlieffen asked, casting a longing glance back toward the maps and papers.

  "You must," Schlozer said. Sighing again, Schlieffen obeyed.

  While in Philadelphia, President Blaine resided at the Powel House, a three-story red brick building on Third Street, about halfway between Washington Square and the Delaware River. The reception hall was full of rich, ruddy mahogany. Schlieffen noticed it only peripherally. He paid closer attention to James G. Blaine, whom he had never before met.

  Blaine was about fifty, with graying brown hair and beard, and would have been most handsome had his nose not borne some small resemblance to a potato. He gave an impression of strength and vigor. Married to good sense, those were valuable traits in a leader. A vigorous leader without good sense was liable to be more dangerous to his country than an indolent one similarly constituted.

  "Minister Schlozer, Colonel Schlieffen-say your say." Blaine sounded abrupt, as if nothing the two Germans might say had any hope of changing his mind.

  Kurd von Schlozer affected not to notice. "I thank you, Mr. President," he answered in English more fluent than Schlieffen's. "My attache and I are here to try to persuade you that, since you have wisely chosen peace, you would do your country a disservice if you allowed the talks between your representatives and those of your opponents to fail."

  "I would do my country a worse disservice if I let my enemies ride roughshod over the United States," Blaine growled.

  "But, Your Excellency, how by weapons can you keep them from doing this?" Schlieffen asked. "They have on every front defeated you."

  "Not in Montana, by jingo!" Blaine exclaimed with savage pleasure.

  "Oh, yes-the battle after the cease-fire," Schlieffen said. The U.S. press shouted that fight to the skies. Putting what the U.S. papers said together with what came from Canada and London by way of Berlin, the military attache gathered that the U.S. and British had tried to impale themselves on each other's guns, and the British had succeeded.

  "That shows what we can do when we set our minds to it," Blaine declared.

  "Yes, Your Excellency-but what of all the fights before the cease-fire? What of all the fights that made you for the cease-fire ask?" Schlieffen said.

  Blaine looked as if he hated him. He probably did. Schlieffen bore the hatred of an American with indifference only slightly tinged by regret; it was not as if that could matter to him in any important way. The president of the United States said, "I did what I had to do to still public outcry. That having been accomplished, I am now obliged to seek the best possible peace for my country."

  Schlieffen thought of Talleyrand, battling for France at the Congress of Vienna after Napoleon's overthrow-and gaining concessions, too, despite the weakness of his position. Then he thought again. Talleyrand was a gifted diplomat, something the Americans, despite their many abilities, had yet to produce.

  "If only we were not so alone in the world," Blaine said querulously. "If only every nation's hand were not raised against us."

  "That is not so," Kurd von Schlozer said. "Throughout this unfortunate time, Mr. President, the hand of Germany has been outstretched in friendship and in the search for peace."

  "Sir, you are right about that, and I beg your pardon," Blaine replied. " Germany has done everything a good neighbor can do. But Germany, though she is a good neighbor, is not a near neighbor. All the nearest neighbors of the United States have joined together in oppressing us."

  As you should have anticipated, Schlieffen thought. As you should have prepared for. But that was water over the dam now. Aloud, he said, "Your Excellency, General Rosecrans and I have about this talked. Germany is not your near neighbor, no. But Germany is to France a near neighbor, a nearest neighbor. France is now your enemy. France has our enemy been, and is likely our enemy again to be. Two lands with the same enemy can find it good to be friends."

  He watched Blaine. Slowly, the president of the United States nodded. "Rosecrans has mentioned these conversations to me," he said. "For all their history, the United States have steered clear of entangling foreign alliances." Rosecrans had used that phrase, too; it seemed deeply engrained in the minds of all U.S. leaders. Blaine might almost have been quoting Scripture.

  "Your Excellency, the Confederate States have had foreign allies," Kurd von Schlozer said. "The United States have not. When you and they have quarreled, who has had the better of it?"

  Blaine 's mouth puckered. His cheeks tautened against the bone on which they lay. "I do take the point, Your Excellency." And then, instead of merely saying he took it, he looked to take it in truth. "When you fought the French, you beat them like a drum. The last time we beat anyone like a drum, it was the Mexicans: not much of a foe, and a long time ago."

  "Perhaps, then, you will to Berlin send officers to learn our ways," Schlieffen said. "Perhaps also your minister to my country will speak with Chancellor Bismarck to see in what other ways we can work together to help us both."

  "Perhaps we will," Blaine said. "Perhaps he can. It might be worth exploring, at any rate. If nothing comes of it, we are no worse off."

  Schlieffen and Schlozer glanced at each other. Schlieffen knew fellow officers who were avid fishermen. They would go on at endless, boring length about the feel of a trout or a pike nibbling the hook as it decided whether to take the bait. There sat James G. Blaine, closely examining a wiggling worm.

  "The enemy of my enemy is-or can be-my friend," Schlieffen murmured. Blaine nodded again. He might not bite here and now, but Schlieffen thought he would bite. Nothing else in the pool in which the United States swam looked like food, that was certain.

  "May we now return to the matter of the cease-fire and the pea
ce which is to come after it?" Schlozer said. Schlieffen wished the German minister had not been so direct; he was liable to make Blaine swim away.

  And, sure enough, the president of the United States scowled. "The Confederates hold us in contempt," he said sullenly, "and the British aim to rob us of land they yielded by treaty forty years ago. How can I surrender part of my own home state to those arrogant robbers and pirates?"

  "Your Excellency, I feel your pain," Schlozer said. "But, for now, what choice have you?"

  "Even Prussia, for a time, yielded against Napoleon," Schlieffen added.

  Blaine did not answer. After a couple of silent minutes, the two Germans rose and left the reception hall.

  Chapter 18

  The cab drew to a halt by the edge of the sidewalk. The Chicago street was so narrow, it still blocked traffic. Behind it, the fellow atop a four-horse wagon full of sacks of cement bellowed angrily. So did a man in a houndstooth sack suit whizzing past on an ordinary. The cab driver said, "That's sixty-five cents, pal. Pay up, so I can get the hell out of here."

  Abraham Lincoln gave him a half dollar and a quarter and descended without waiting for change. No sooner had his feet touched the ground than the cab rolled off, escaping the abuse that had been raining down on it.

  This was a Chicago very different from the elegant, spacious North Side neighborhood in which Robert lived. People packed the streets. Lincoln had the feeling that, were those streets three times wider, they would still have been packed. One shop built from cheap bricks stood jammed by another. All of them were gaudily painted, advertising the cloth or shoes or hats or cheese or dry goods or sausages or pocket watches or eyeglasses sold within. Most had signs in the window proclaiming enormous savings if only the customer laid down his money now. FIRE SALE! GOING OUT OF BUSINESS! SHOP EARLY FOR CHRISTMAS!