Valley of the Shadow: A Novel

by Ralph Peters

  The man who failed to look ahead fell behind.

  He wished he had a confidant to whom he could unburden himself regarding the prospects of the ailing Confederacy. But no man dared utter heresy or hear it; all had to pretend to a flawless belief that by some astonishing run of the cards the game would turn in their favor, even now. Many, like dear Clem Evans, truly believed it, discovering hidden victories in every defeat. Clem believed in miracles, divine or earthly, and Gordon had no wish to weaken his enthusiasm: He needed men who would fight without hesitation.

  Gordon loved to fight. His concerns about the war’s outcome didn’t alter that. On the contrary, he knew full well that he’d miss all this immeasurably: Nothing so enlivened a man as a battle. A side of Gordon dreaded the end, the demotion back to mundane life and petty concerns. But he meant to be prepared for it.

  He thought a bit more on Clem Evans, who planned to become a Methodist preacher and practiced by delivering camp sermons. Immaculate belief was a powerful thing. It was a gift the war had taken from Gordon.

  No, he could never talk to Clem, fond as he was of the man.

  He even had to be circumspect with Fanny, who possessed blind faith that he, her champion, could not be defeated. Evidence meant nothing to such as her; her confidence shone like Persephone’s in the Underworld. Nor would he deprive his wife of hope. When worse came to worst, her practical side would digest defeat and continue.

  His splendid Fanny! She was as fine a woman as ever breathed, demure in the world and passionate in his arms, Penelope to his Ulysses. No, far better than Penelope, since Fanny had left their children in her family’s care to follow him through the war, to nurse his wounds and sew on his latest rank. She would not sit at home working her loom amid the cowards. Fanny believed in a distant Christ, but wanted her husband near.

  Beside him, Breckinridge alerted, canting his head like a hound dog figuring things.

  “That cannon?”

  “Didn’t hear it.”

  “Listen now.”

  Gordon waited a fair time, then shook his head.

  “Imagining things, I suppose,” Breckinridge told him. He mused for a bit, then added, “Johnson’s cavalry ran up against some militia yesterday. On the Frederick road. Gave him a fight, I hear.”

  “I doubt Johnson gave anybody much of a fight,” Gordon commented. “I’m in accord with Early on that much. Johnson’s brigands aren’t worth a pail of oats. Cavalry’s not what it was. Best men gone, horses ruined.”

  “McCausland, though, he’ll fight. Full of pepper, that boy.”

  Gordon lifted a brow and sweat stung his eye. “Wouldn’t stop for a few militia, I’ll give him that.”

  “Assuming they’re just militia.”

  Gordon smiled, but with no trace of pleasure. “I’ve been pondering that question myself, if truth be told.” He pulled his horse away from the column. “Yankees have to figure this out, at some point. Sooner or later, it won’t be farmers in soldier suits anymore. And we’ll have a real fight on our hands.”

  “Well, we’re ready for that, too,” his temporary superior told him. “Let them come on out and get whipped, they’ll find us ready.”

  Ever alert to the nuances of companionship, Gordon reassumed his genial tone. “I expect so, General, I expect so. And I do hope to host you in Georgia, after the war.…”

  Ahead, a soldier staggered to the roadside and collapsed.

  “Killing this army,” Breckinridge sputtered. “Just killing it.” He turned his well-formed face toward Gordon. The man’s waxed mustaches were frosted with dust again. “You disagree, I know that, John. But I do believe we’re pushing the men too hard. They’re game enough, but the body’s a sight weaker than the spirit.”

  Gordon knew it was fruitless to argue, or at least impolitic. Early brought out his combative nature, but Breckinridge was of a different breed, a gentleman. And like so many of his fellow gentlemen, Breckinridge was willing to push men to their deaths on the battlefield, but would not press them sufficiently hard to get them there before the foe was ready—and thus save far more lives.

  No one since Jackson grasped the brute mathematics. Even if you lost one man in ten—or more—on the march, if you got to the fight before the Federals could double or triple their strength, you had the odds. It wasn’t hard figuring. And it was a remarkable thing, how much men delivered if they were soundly led. Soldiers just wanted a little show, a handful of stirring words and a flash of courage from the man giving orders.

  Beside the road, the fallen soldier raved as they rode past.

  “Poor devil won’t see Washington,” Breckinridge said.

  Gordon wanted to tell him, “None of us will see Washington, if we give the Yankees time to shift their beef. We should have been across the Monocacy yesterday, rather than fooling with Sigel and tearing up rails.”

  Instead, he said, “Hottest weather we’ve seen, I do believe. Prelude to Hades, and not even ten.” He lifted his hat to the nearest soldiers and poured the Deep South into his sonorous voice. “Weather here’bouts leave you boys mindful of Georgia? Y’all settling thoughts on home, way I am myself? Peaches near to ripe on the branch, and the Lord smiling down on the cotton? Win this war, and we’ll all go home a-grinning, that’s a fact.”

  “Sure enough,” a voice returned. “Home, sweet home!” called another. A third voice rhapsodized, “Get me some of that sweet well water’n drink it till I bust.…”

  Breckinridge sneezed. “I swear, John Gordon, you start in to praising Georgia again…”

  Amazing, Gordon thought, that a political man who had been vice president of the United States and had run for the highest office did not understand the value of praising Georgia in front of Georgian troops. Not least when a man intended to go back home and run for a seat, if the bullets veered off. Let the war be lost or won, the political future would belong to veterans, whether they sat in the governor’s chair or stood behind it, out of sight of the Yankees.

  Thinking on Washington again, Gordon pondered Early’s likely intentions. Despite Black Davey Hunter’s depredations before they whipped him back into western Virginia, Early kept a strict hand over the soldiers—of which Gordon approved. There had been no reprisals, at least not yet, for the burnings in Lexington and elsewhere, the wanton destruction and barbarism. He knew that Early intended to press the Yankee town fathers for ransoms, wherever he sensed full coffers and Union loyalties, but the soldiers were not to indulge themselves, a prohibition that occasionally demanded the wisdom of Solomon in its enforcement. Gordon approved of maintaining order and discipline—he would have no rampaging—but he also had sense enough to avert his eyes, nose, and salivary glands when his men cooked up fresh pork or a quarter of beef that appeared by magic.

  Soldiers were like children, delighted to get away with small transgressions. One of the knacks of leadership was to know which mischief to ignore and when to descend upon a rogue like the Furies. The best leaders weren’t the soft ones who meant to be kind, but those who firmly punished misdeeds the soldiers themselves despised.

  If they did get to Washington—get inside the city—what did Early intend? Old Jube wouldn’t say. Probably hadn’t decided, Gordon figured. For all his barking and snorting, Early had trouble making big decisions; Gordon had realized that way back at Gettysburg. The revelation had come as a shock, since making decisions came naturally to him, the way what to do in battle just seemed obvious. It had bewildered Gordon to realize that all those fellows with West Point educations did not see things that were plain as Aunt Sally. On a battlefield, what struck others as audacity was only common sense, as far as John Brown Gordon was concerned. And if you did not know what to do, you attacked.

  Gordon never found leading much of a challenge. Following was another matter, though.

  Well, he hoped that Early was shaping up a plan, since they wouldn’t be able to hold the city long, even if they took it. Have to destroy the military stores, of course, and put the
right government buildings to the torch. The Navy Yard, certainly. That was part and parcel of war. Perhaps the Treasury, too. But the President’s House? The Capitol? Gordon recoiled at the thought of such destruction.

  Yes, he had seen the ruins of the Virginia Military Institute. And Governor Letcher’s house had been burned to the foundation, his family prevented from rescuing heirlooms or even saving essentials. There would be no forgetting. But giving in to the impulse to retaliate was the opposite of strategy. And the South needed a strategy that weighed the possibility of defeat, with all its consequences. Vengeance was a very dangerous tincture, best administered in measured drops.

  If they reached the streets of Washington, they would have to restrain the soldiers on pain of death. It was natural for the South to hate the North, given the years of Yankee depredations, but woe unto the South if the North learned hatred. Burn Washington, then lose the war, and only the nigger would profit.

  The sun seemed hot enough to ignite fires. Still, Gordon felt they were lagging on the march. But he could do nothing, not with Breckinridge present.

  He chafed, but smiled.

  Adjusting his rump in the saddle, he asked, “Well now, Mr. Vice President … we do get to Washington, what would you like to do in that fair Thebes on the Potomac?”

  “Take a bath,” Breckinridge said.

  July 8, 4:00 p.m.

  The western approach to Frederick

  Why didn’t they come on? Wallace asked himself. They already had the numbers. What were they waiting for?

  He steadied his sweat-glossed horse and scanned the horizon.

  Days of little sleep had told on his nerves, and all morning it had seemed as though the Confederates were preparing to attack. Yet their probes had rarely risen above the skirmish level, and in the afternoon the Rebs had gone quiet. From moment to moment, he had waited for their guns to open, for gray ranks to swarm forward. But the attack never came, only odd encounters, as when a stray detachment of Reb cavalry somehow got into the streets of Frederick and collided with two squadrons of Clendenin’s troopers. Back for a parley with the city’s mayor, Wallace had nearly been caught up in the clash—which had kicked up so much dust the riders fought blind, lost souls in a maelstrom. In short order, the graybacks had found it politic to withdraw the way they’d come, disappearing after giving the town fathers a fright.

  The mayor and his coterie had begged him not to give up the city to the Confederates, citing their loyalty to the Union and pleading that Frederick had already suffered, due to repeated Rebel visitations. Having witnessed the poverty of the South, Wallace barely refrained from chiding the men. If the war had harmed Frederick City, the wounds were invisible. Prosperity was evident on every side. Nor would he promise what he couldn’t deliver.

  “I’ll do my best.” Those were his only words, carefully chosen. He knew he could not protect the city much longer. The real fight would come on the river, three miles south.

  Military stores were being evacuated from the yards, and what could not be rescued would be destroyed. As for the convalescent soldiers in Frederick’s hospitals, not all could be removed … but the Confederates were not beasts.

  He was proud of what he had managed to bring off. The little battle the day before had been splendid. Not only had Clendenin fought with art, but the Potomac Home Brigade had been unexpectedly stalwart, as had the strays and artillerymen he’d sent forward.

  Now he had a veteran regiment in the line, those Vermonters, men with faces so darkened by campaigning that they might have been mistaken for U.S. Colored Troops. And regiments kept appearing down at the junction. Every hour that passed was an hour won.

  Tomorrow would bring the reckoning, though. It could not be otherwise. Scouts had reported enormous clouds of dust just west of the ridges, clouds that betokened divisions on the march.

  Nickering, his horse stepped back, then calmed again. Wallace patted the animal’s neck, taking its smell on his hand. The heat was monstrous. The Vermonters had set the example by stripping to their shirts, and the recruits had aped them. Wallace didn’t mind. But he felt that he had to remain in uniform himself, another of the pretensions rank required.

  He remembered how, in his innocent years, he had written extravagant scenes of battle between Cortez and Montezuma The actions he had described seemed ludicrous now, impossible in their chivalry and glamour. He had captured neither the swift, brute shock of combat nor the grinding dullness that surrounded it. Even Mexico had taught him little, compared to this grim war that crimsoned a continent.

  Captain Woodhull reappeared, returning from the Frederick telegraph station. He did not seem pleased with the world.

  “Bad news, Max?”

  “Yes, sir. I mean, yes and no.” The young man’s face was a Niagara of sweat. “Two more regiments arrived down at the junction. Makes five total, the whole brigade. With another brigade set to follow, maybe tonight, Mr. Garrett says. Colonel Ross wants to know if you’d like any more men sent up here.”

  “No. No more. If we can bluff the Rebs until dusk, I mean to pull everyone back across the river.”

  “The mayor—”

  “The mayor’s a fool. Good Lord, does he really believe we could hold an army at arm’s length? Here? In the open? Does he want a fight in his streets?” Wallace shook his head. “If Early rides in quietly in the morning, the people of Frederick will fare a good deal better than they would under a bombardment.” Bunching a sodden handkerchief, he wiped sweat from his eyes. “What’s the bad news?”

  “Telegraph operator ran away. The one in Frederick, not at the junction. I found the message from Colonel Ross on his desk.”

  Wallace hooked his lips. “Wise man, I suppose.” He gestured back toward the townspeople with their carriages and parasols who, in defiance of his repeated orders, had clustered behind his lines to see a battle. “Wiser than those fools. Max, you try one more time to reason with them. If I go back there again, I’ll lose my temper.”

  General Tyler steered his mount toward Wallace, but did not hurry the animal. Erastus Tyler had been put out to pasture, too, condemned to rot in Baltimore’s defenses, but the man had handled his little force magnificently the past evening and had been ready to stand his ground today.

  All of them had done handsomely: Tyler, Clendenin … and Captain Alexander, with his pop guns. The fellow looked like a college professor, but handled artillery like a young Napoleon. All these men whom Washington had cast aside or consigned to the rear …

  Would anyone think well of him when this was over? There had been so many setbacks in his life. So many failures, in truth. His father had turned him from home while still half a boy—not out of cruelty, but to teach the prodigal son a needed lesson. Having left many a school and quarreled with many a master, he had found himself copying legal texts to survive, earning his soup by piecework. Of course, the lawyer who took him in had been a family friend … but his father’s firmness had been a required tonic. Still, he had failed in his first, halfhearted reading of the law and gone off to Mexico. That had been the dawn of his serious life. Upon returning home, he had passed the bar, wed, and even prospered. But the greatest humiliation had been yet to come: his scapegoating after Shiloh, the sort of shame a man never quite lived down.

  Tyler reined in. His mouth gaped.

  “What I wouldn’t give for a good iced punch,” he said. “Whole bowl of it.” He lifted his hat, revealing a bald pate above his woolly beard. “Think they really mean to come this way, sir? They haven’t been showing much spunk.”

  Wallace had begun to have his own doubts as the afternoon dragged on. Had the Rebs been laughing at him all the while, fixing him in place while they marched to Washington on a southerly route? Should he have let those veteran regiments continue to Point of Rocks? Had he failed again?

  “They’re coming,” Wallace said, determined to be right. “They’re coming right over that ridge.”

  Rather than look Tyler in the eye, he snap
ped open his telescope.

  And there they were! Marching down three separate mountain roads, five miles away at most, endless columns surrounded by halos of dust.

  “Look for yourselves,” he told the men beside him.

  July 8, 9:00 p.m.

  Early’s headquarters, Catoctin Pass

  The tent did a fine job of trapping the day’s heat. Kept the dust off a man somewhat, but there was little more to recommend it. Did serve for a hint of privacy, but Early much preferred to borrow a house, when a house could be had. His quartermaster had picked out a site on the mountainside, though, hoping to snare a breeze. Hope hadn’t come to much.

  By a lantern’s light, Early stared at Brigadier General Bradley Johnson. “Understand what it says there?”

  The cavalryman looked up from reading the order. “Yes, sir. I understand.”

  “Make all the noise you can. Burn bridges, army stores, anything touching the government. Make ’em believe the armies of Hell are headed their way and Baltimore’s doomed as Sodom.” He cackled, disdaining the sound of his own laugh, then sharpened his tone again. “Just leave the civilians alone, I’ll have no wantonness. You know this country, these here are your own people. Don’t go acting the fool.”

  “Point Lookout?”

  Early grimaced. “You read the order. You get down there and free those boys … if practicable. No damned foolishness, though. South don’t need any more dead heroes, category’s filled.”

  Johnson nodded. Early had chastised the cavalryman for his dawdling before Frederick, only to have Johnson hurl back in his face Early’s admonition not to become decisively engaged or to do anything to suggest that their goal was Washington. Early lost his temper, couldn’t help himself. Few things enraged him as much as a cavalryman in the right.

  Well, let Johnson and his band of thieves go roving. The sight of the mangy fellow was enough to set a man to missing Jeb Stuart, for all that fool’s shenanigans. Early would never have backed the fellow’s recent promotion to brigadier general, but Johnson had been a Breckinridge man in politics before the war, and the old ties remained.