Down the Sky: Volume Three of the “Strike The Tent” Trilogy

by W. Patrick Lang

  “Ah, good. I will telegraph him to meet us at the station. Claude will be there as well.”

  Smoot’s face was indecipherable.

  The train moved down the track from Baltimore, rocking back and forth on the uneven roadbed.

  Smoot looked out the window at the passing scene.

  The railroad car was European in manufacture. The velvet curtains were shabby. The paneling had dried to the point of discoloration, but it was a world of luxury after the hellish trip from Lynchburg.

  He clutched the arm to his chest. For so long now he had tried to avoid showing his pain and misery. Now, he felt relieved of the need. The arm itched terribly, but that was a great improvement. It had hurt him so on the march north.

  Jim Fowle sat with him in the compartment.

  Smoot would not look at him nor speak to him. He would always feel that this man had conspired to force him into these weeks of torture. He knew that made no sense, but that did not matter.

  The cars transferred to another engine in Washington. There was a delay at the guard post on the “Long Bridge” across the Potomac. Passes and other papers were checked. Fowle seemed to have no trouble with these formalities. He smiled and smiled, and gave the sergeant in charge something in a corner and then the train moved on.

  There were carriages and an army ambulance waiting in Alexandria. Brigadier General Devereux was first to board the train. He held Smoot’s unwounded hand for a moment, said a few words of welcome and then left to stand waiting on the station platform.

  When her husband was gone from the compartment, Hope led the Devereux women to Smoot’s side. They hovered over him, but Smoot had eyes only for her.

  Medical orderlies helped him off the train. On the platform, they laid him on a stretcher and carried him to the ambulance.

  Hope wanted to hold Smoot’s hand and ride in the ambulance beside him but her husband’s silent presence made that impossible.

  In Richmond the previous December John Balthazar had told his new bride, Victoria Devereux, how much Isaac Smoot loved Hope. She, inevitably, told Hope. This changed the world for Hope. It gave her a new focus. Claude Devereux was not a man that a woman could rely on. He was a man to worship, a man to possess but not a man for a woman to rely on. Isaac Smoot seemed to be just such a man. In her own need she could easily avoid thinking of Smoot’s wife and children. She had never seen them, might never see them. The issue of Smoot’s family was not in her mind. Her need for comfort ensured that this would be true. She had thought much of her situation. To have Smoot here, so badly wounded, and obviously trying not to stare at her meant a great deal to her. At home she would have him to herself…

  The women understood. Even Madame Devereux understood. She knew her eldest and understood the consequences of his faithlessness.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  — Fort Stevens —

  12 July, 1864

  “And where are they now,” Lincoln asked. He looked around the telegraph office seeking an answer for this simple question.

  The room was warm for eight in the morning. Black broadcloth coats filled the room. Government officials steamed and waited for the president to say something, anything.

  The city was unseasonably warm. The middle of July in Washington was normally a hot and humid time, but this year the weather was particularly unbearable.

  The president had directed the question to a shirt sleeved, mustachioed young man who stood beside the table on which several telegraph keys waited for the operator’s attention. This telegraph operator was confused by the question as were his elders in the group around Lincoln.

  “They don’t know who you mean, sir” Devereux murmured from beyond the circle of black coats.

  “What? Oh. I see,” Lincoln responded “I mean Wright’s corps. Where is the Sixth Corps? General Grant said they were embarking at City Point two days ago… Where are they? I know where Early must be. He is somewhere between here and the Monocacy River. How far is that? He whipped Lew Wallace there yesterday. He must be getting close now…”

  “Forty miles,” someone said, “more or less.”

  “Here it is,” Claude said. He was sitting at a table in a corner, leafing through filed telegrams. “Fort Washington signaled two hours ago that the leading vessels were passing.” He looked at his watch they should be here any time, any time.”

  “Claude,” Lincoln said. “Come. We are going, to wherever it is that Early will try to enter the capital. Where is that?”

  Devereux looked at the map mounted on the wall above his head. “Fort Stevens, about five miles, five miles,” he announced.

  “Let us go,” Lincoln said. “Now.”

  “Mr. President, let us go to greet Wright first.”

  Lincoln nodded.

  The president’s carriage took them down to the waterfront on Maine Avenue.

  A long column of ships were in the river, a few had tied up in the small harbor.

  “There’s Wright,” Devereux cried, standing in the carriage and pointing to a bearded general who was watching while horses were led up a ramp and over a ship’s side onto the land. “General Wright,” he called out. “President Lincoln is here.” He beckoned and Wright approached.

  Major General Horatio Wright stood at the side of the carriage saluting. “Good morning, Mister President,” he said.

  His orderly stood behind him holding the reins of two horses. One of them wore a saddle blanket with gold embroidery around the edge. This horse danced impatiently, eager to be off after his confinement in the ship. The soldier holding him pulled his head closer to pet him. The animal quieted.

  A crowd was gathering on Maine Avenue to watch the soldiers leave the ships.

  They were pouring into the street. The columns of fours became more and more a solid wall of blue. Officers’ mounted their chargers, and regimental colors were uncased.

  The first ships pulled away from the quays to make room for others waiting in the river.

  Lincoln nodded at Wright and stepped out of the carriage to shake his hand.

  The soldiers cheered at the sight of the commander in chief. The crowd joined the applause when they turned and saw him.

  Lincoln took off his hat and bowed.

  Wright waited.

  Lincoln turned to Devereux for assistance.

  Claude nodded. “Wright,” he said firmly. “Take your men up 16th St. Early is coming this way and he will meet the line of defense forts up there about five miles from here. The closest one is Ft. Stevens. There are some heavy artillery troops there and some District of Columbia militia.”

  Wright looked at the president.

  Lincoln nodded.

  The Sixth Corps commander mounted the black horse. “This way, he yelled at the nearest brigade.”

  The column now formed on Maine Avenue, faced right and started towards him.

  “16th Street is four or five blocks that way” Devereux said to Wright. “Turn right, when you reach it. We’ll take a parallel street and meet you there.”

  Seven miles to the north Jubal Early sat in a buggy on the hard surfaced road that ran away beyond him to the Monocacy River and Frederick, Maryland. His advanced guard was scattered in a village to his front. The head of the main column was close behind him on the road. The men back there were sprawled everywhere in the heat.

  Damn, he thought. I should have them stack arms at breaks. Jackson would have done that. He did do that. I’m just not all that good at this…

  Major General John Gordon walked his horse to the buggy. The tall, handsome Georgia lawyer looked every inch the soldier. His beautiful wife traveled with the column. She kept his clothes in immaculate condition.

  Early imagined that his deep admiration for Mrs. Gordon was a secret, but, in fact, everyone knew. John Gordon knew, and Mrs. Gordon certainly knew. She would have “taken charge” of the old bachelor and cleaned up his gruff, scruffy ways if she had thought that he would have let her do this and if she had thought that rum
or would not have been inspired by this kindness.

  “Mornin,’ Gordon, hot, damned hot,” Early remarked to the lucky husband.

  “Yes, sir. The boys are spread out back there for ten miles. Straggling is bad today. We’ve come how far from Lynchburg, three hundred miles, four hundred miles?”

  “More. They’re used up. We should have kept coming from the Monocacy yesterday, but I just couldn’t bring myself to push them any harder in that wet heat. I couldn’t do it. I should have, should have…” Early wiped his sweating, bearded face with the red handkerchief that he always seemed to have. “But, we whipped’em. We whipped’em. Where’s John Breckinridge?” He was referring to John C. Breckinridge, once vice-president of the United States and now a major general of their army.

  “Back down the column,” Gordon replied. “What is this place,” he asked while looking at the village.

  “Tenally Town,” Early responded. “Blair, their postmaster general lives over there in that big house. Had dinner there once… Just a few more miles to the White House. Let’s get them up and moving…”

  16th Street seemed very long as it extended from downtown Washington to the northern outskirts of the capital.

  Devereux urged the black coachman on, threatening to take the reins from him if he did not hurry. The man did not want that, did not want the humiliation that would come with usurpation of his work by this white general. To avoid that, he pushed the horses as hard as he dared in the miserable, cloying heat.

  A cavalry escort had joined them and the little procession clattered along the cobbled street. To the north scattered gunfire could be heard and after a few more minutes, artillery as well. People lined the street peering anxiously towards the sound, afraid that the shabby killers in brown and gray might appear at any moment.

  The buildings became fewer and fewer, the open spaces more and more numerous. Down the road the earthen battlements of Fort Stevens were visible.

  Early’s skirmishers pressed close to the walls of this fortification, as close as they could without inviting a bullet or a shell burst. Robert Rodes’ division was deployed in line to face the fort. Stephen Ramseur’s division was behind them. Confederate artillery batteries kept a safe distance, afraid of the big guns in the fort.

  Lincoln’s carriage entered the 13th Street gate. The little fort was filled with blue uniforms and government wagons. Confederate rifle bullets whizzed through the air above all those sheltered behind the earthen walls. There were eight large Parrot rifles mounted in permanent rotating positions just below the top of the battlements. They faced north and west.

  The president left the open carriage. The door hung open behind him. He walked with long strides toward the northwestern corner of the fort. Recognizing him as he passed, soldiers stepped out of his path.

  Devereux watched him go, surprised at the rapidity and suddenness of his movement.

  Lincoln started up the wooden steps to the battlements.

  He is going to stand beside those cannon… Every rifle out there will be shooting at the big guns. This can’t be allowed. No, he thought. I should let him go, let him go… Even as he thought that, Devereux ran across the dirt and mud of the fort’s inner yard. He ran as fast as his ruined leg would let him. At any moment the pain might stop him, but it did not.

  An officer reached for his arm to halt this pursuit of the commander in chief, but then saw the star on his shoulder and drew back his hand. At the top of the stairs Lincoln stood with his hands behind his back. He was looking out at the countryside north of the fort. He was near one of the big cannon.

  The gun crew looked at him, and at the enemy army so close, so near.

  Devereux turned to see what held the attention of the president.

  Jubal Early’s skirmishers filled the scene with brown bodies from left to right. They stood in the brown grass methodically loading their rifles and firing their weapons at the fort. Their batteries of six and twelve pounder guns were now going into “battery” so that they could shoot at the fort with some hope of effect before they were destroyed. The main body of the Rebel infantry waited for the order to go forward against Fort Stevens…

  The sun shone brightly. The overnight rain had cleared the air here outside the city’s suffocating streets. The birds sang, ignorant of the day, ignorant of the bullets that could knock them from the air forever if they were unlucky.

  Lincoln looked at the brown ranks… There were few who wore gray. “They look like farmers,” he said to himself. “Why do they look like Illinois farmers?”

  Bullets sang around them, singing their old sweet song. Devereux knew that song well. In his inner self he waited behind the mask of his inexpressive face for the hammer blow.

  The blue artillerymen looked at Devereux, and then at the president. They had ceased fire when the president appeared. This was suicidal. A suppressing fire had to be kept up, especially against the Rebel artillerists.

  “Let them shoot, sir,” Devereux said, hoping to live another day.

  Out in the field there were men in brown and grey pointing at Lincoln.

  “The ‘farmers’ see us here,” Mr. President” Devereux said. “They see you and will kill us.”

  The heavy artillery battery commander waited anxiously.

  Devereux nodded to the man.

  The guns roared again.

  A Confederate field piece jumped wildly toward the sky, struck by the lightning from the fort.

  “Would that be so terrible?” Lincoln asked, turning to look at him.

  Devereux watched a sharpshooter team plant their forked iron support and then lift the heavy English hunting rifle onto it. Even at this range, the telescopic sight was visible. The glass lens “winked” in the sunlight.

  In a moment, Devereux’s brothers in brown would surely kill the tall, sad man from Illinois.

  “Come down, sir,” he said. “Mr. President. You will die if you stand here. Please come down.”

  “Get down from there, you damned fool,” someone shouted from the courtyard. It was General Horatio Wright. “God damn it, General, get him off that platform! Now!”

  Lincoln heard and stumbled down the stairs into the fort.

  “What the hell is the matter with you?” Wright fumed at Devereux. “Get him out of here.”

  A tall thin captain held the door of the president’s carriage while they got in.

  “What’s your name?” Devereux asked him for no reason other than to have something to say in his confusion over the scene on the ramparts.

  “Holmes, sir. Oliver Holmes” was the reply.

  Blue soldiers were now falling from the walls with great regularity. Early’s “boys” had found the range.

  The carriage rolled out the gate.

  Wright’s Sixth Corps infantry were coming up 13th Street. They had double timed all the way from the docks along the Potomac. The troops divided passing around both sides of the little earthwork, going from columns into line of battle as they went.

  A roar went up as the Union soldiers passed beyond the massive dirt walls. Early’s men could then be seen.

  “Hah! We found ye! We found ye!” a Union soldier yelled at the brown figures.

  Devereux prodded the driver. He wanted to get Lincoln out of the fighting. The horse and carriage rolled down 13th Street toward the White House.

  A half mile from the fort, Jubal Early brooded. He had seen the tall figure on the parapet. He carried a field telescope in his headquarters buckboard. Lincoln was unmistakable through the glass. Claude Devereux was standing beside him in his Yankee costume. He had gestured in Early’s direction. Jubal could only imagine that he was trying to keep Lincoln up there until a sharpshooter had the man in his sight. Early had often been a guest in the Devereux home in Alexandria. Claude’s father and he had been allies in the Whig Party and had voted together against secession in 1861. Both men had decided after their defeat at the secession convention that their ultimate loyalty was to Virginia. Early could
not imagine that Claude Devereux had urged Lincoln to remove himself from danger. He would have spurned the idea that a Devereux could do that.

  Wright’s troops were now filling the horizon around the fort in greater numbers. The blue regimental flags were recognizable as the Sixth US Corps.

  Early turned to Breckenridge and Ramseur standing nearby. “No assaults. They are too many. We scared old Abe good, but that is an end to it. We will withdraw to the southwest tonight. Gordon will lead. Breckenridge, you will be the rear guard. We will make big fires and McCausland’s cavalry can tend them for a while. John Balthazar holds the door for us at White’s Ferry. We will be in Leesburg across the Potomac by tomorrow evening.” He pointed at the blue army, “They will follow us across the Shenandoah River where we will wait for them on ground of our choosing and among our own people…”

  Lincoln and Devereux rode back to the White House together. The president expressed his thanks for Claude’s help. In doing so, he called Devereux “Claude” for the first time. He invited Devereux in for a drink. They sat in the president’s private study on the second floor. Mary Lincoln looked in to see them. She had no idea what had happened. Devereux stood.

  “Please sit down, General Devereux,” she said. “We have not seen your lovely wife lately. May we invite you to dinner with her, of course?”

  “Of course ma’am. We are at your disposal…”

  He arrived home at midnight with several whiskeys in him.

  His mother and Hope waited with Victoria Balthazar in the family parlor at the back of the house. Victoria was now large with child.

  “I think John was this side of the river with Early,” Claude said to her. “More than that, I know not as yet.”

  “I suppose that you would know…”

  “Yes, and I would tell you.”

  “That is one of your redeeming qualities. You are a brilliant and coldly honest man.” Victoria replied.

  “Smoot?” Devereux asked. The question was directed to his mother as the head of the household after his father’s death.