Valley of the Shadow: A Novel

by Ralph Peters

  “I’ll give General Sheridan your regards. You get along now, see everything’s packed and ready.”

  “Should’ve let me shine up them boots. Miss Julia don’t like you looking like no field hand.”

  “We go to Washington, you can shine ’em up.” With his cigar, Grant gestured toward the soldiers gathered in small groups along the street, all of them sneaking glances in his direction while pretending to be immersed in doubtful duties. “Last thing those boys need is another general with a high shine on his leathers.”

  His manservant went off, muttering. Bill was nigh on the only man left who would always tell him the truth. Even if the truth came roundabout from the darkey’s mouth.

  Bill and John Rawlins. Rawlins, too. With his weak lungs and worrisome cough. And Cump Sherman.

  Grant flicked the butt into the yard. And there was Sheridan, already dismounted and striding up the street on his tiny legs, long arms dangling and chest thrust out like a pigeon’s breast, with a flat-crowned hat slapped down on his bullet-shaped head. Had the man not been such a priceless killer, he might have done for Paddy the Mug in a traveling comedy show.

  Well, neither of us will win any prizes for beauty, Grant thought.

  Grinning, Sheridan met Grant’s eyes and offered a gesture midway between a salute and a friendly wave. He came on fast, Little Phil, the way he always did, a man of profane energy, small and explosive. Still, he managed to cajole the loitering soldiers, threatening them gaily with duty in the line and an end to their easy living in the rear. And the soldiers loved him for it, it was the queerest thing. Sheridan excited soldiers so easily it was uncanny, and he made them discover reserves of courage and daring they had never dreamed they might possess. He’d killed Stuart and made the eastern cavalry.

  Now Sheridan faced a greater task and had shown a hesitation that was unlike him. It was high time for a reckoning in the Valley: Cump had delivered Atlanta, shifting the political odds in the North, but Phil had to score a decisive victory here, before the election.

  There could be no more raids on Washington, no more northern towns reduced to cinders. No more Chambersburgs.

  What had Early been thinking? Was it mere spite? Hadn’t he seen that retribution must come?

  Sheridan swung through the gate, greeting Grant’s aides by name. He tipped his hat, smoothed his mustaches, and let Grant feel the flash and force of eyes that looked faintly Chinese—eyes that could veer from merry to murderous quicker than a man could pull a trigger.

  Spanking dust from his uniform, an instinctive courtesy, Sheridan leapt up the porch steps and said, “Sam, ain’t it fine to see you?”

  Grant rose. “Where’s that big black nag of yours?”

  “Getting a new shoe. Right foreleg. Month’s been hard.” Sheridan smiled. “You should ride him sometime. You’re the horseman.”

  “Might not give him back.” Grant dropped the playfulness. “You’re smart enough to figure why I came up here.” He resisted drawing out the campaign plan buttoned in his pocket. Willing to give Sheridan first say.

  The smaller man smiled again, but it seemed an effort now. “Presumably, not for the sake of my Irish charm. Sam, it’s all right. I’ve got him, I’m ready to move.” Sheridan made to unbuckle his dispatch bag. “My plan—”

  “Come inside,” Grant told him.

  He led Sheridan into a parlor and pointed to a beautifully polished table. “Over there.” It was a handsome room, with a pink-and-white Belgian carpet dirtied by boots. A finer place it was than Grant had ever provided for his wife.

  Glancing about, Sheridan asked, “We alone?”

  “Provost marshal suggested that the residents have the courtesy to go visiting. Secesh to the core, I’m told.”

  Sheridan smoothed a map over the tabletop. Then he stopped and straightened, looking up into Grant’s eyes. There was no shyness, no timidity, in the man.

  “Sam, I read the papers, goddamn them. I know what they’re saying. ‘Sheridan won’t fight. Time for a new general.’ Calling me ‘Harper’s Weekly’ because of all the damned jockeying back and forth around Harper’s Ferry. But, Christ, I’ve had Halleck and Stanton—even Lincoln—telling me they’d like me to whip Early, please, but to take no risks, whatsoever. They’d like a victory before the vote, but they positively do not want a defeat. ‘Be careful, be cautious.’ And I’m supposed to protect Washington as my first priority, they make that clear. I know they fought you over giving me this command, but bugger me to Sunday…” A little bull, he grunted. “They want me to perform magic tricks while squatting on the Potomac.”

  “Best way to protect Washington is to smash Early,” Grant said.

  He looked aside just for a moment, thinking of his own problems with Washington, with Halleck’s meddling and Stanton’s imperiousness. After much persuading, Lincoln had been the deciding vote in trusting Sheridan with the newly organized Army of the Shenandoah, but the president still worried that Sheridan, at thirty-three, was too young. None of them grasped that at thirty-three a man was as good as ancient in this war. The problem wasn’t the young generals, but the old ones.

  “I’m sick of people who always take the frights,” Grant added. He bored in. “Phil, I didn’t give you this command so you could ‘cover Washington.’”

  “I know that. But Halleck—”

  “Don’t worry about Halleck.”

  “Stanton?”

  “From now on, you answer only to me. Directly. The president’s agreed.”

  Sheridan slapped the table so hard, the crystal baubles chimed on the oil lamps. “By God, Sam, by God! That’s better than all the redheaded sluts in Mayo.” Heels rising off the carpet, he added, “I’ve just been waiting for my opportunity. And I’ve finally got Early where I want him. Anderson’s gone back to rejoin Lee, he just marched off. Took Kershaw’s entire division and a battalion of guns. Early clearly doesn’t expect a fight.”

  “That’s news.” It told Grant Lee was feeling the pinch at Petersburg.

  “I had it from a Quaker girl in Winchester. Anderson and Early weren’t—”

  “‘Quaker girl’?”

  “Braver than any ten men you’ll find in these parts. A darkey carries the messages, he’s got a pass from the Rebs to cart in vegetables.”

  Grant couldn’t help smiling, but his smile did not equal confidence. “A Quaker girl and a darkey potato man…”

  “It’s confirmed, though, I’ve had the cavalry out. Kershaw cleared Front Royal yesterday.” Sheridan was almost pleading. “Sam, this is our chance. Early’s strongest division’s gone, with a quarter of his guns. And he spreads out his force, the risks he takes are madcap. He thinks I’m cowed.” Sheridan grinned. “I’m going to eat that bastard raw, one bite at a time.”

  “Show me,” Grant said.

  They leaned over the map. Up close, Sheridan smelled more of horse than of man, but that never bothered Grant. Engrossed, the Irishman traced converging roads, describing how he would bring his entire army to bear on Early’s extreme right, cutting the Valley Pike at Newtown south of Winchester, which would force Early to attack in turn, at a disadvantage. Then his cavalry divisions would outflank the Confederates and envelop them.

  Grant took out a fresh cigar and offered one to Sheridan, who declined.

  “Sam, the past month hasn’t gone to waste, believe me. We’ve been skirmishing every day, with a few real fights thrown in. Gave me time to study the ground and get to know this army. Feel out my three corps, get a sense of the strengths and weaknesses.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Wright’s fine. Good, old Sixth Corps. Have to wait and see about Emory. But Crook’s boys are much better than I expected, I must say. George just got himself in a pickle at Kernstown, plain outnumbered. And my cavalry … damn me to blazes, they’re going to give Early’s bunch a royal time.”

  Glad to listen, Grant said nothing.

  With zeal in his Chinaman’s eyes, Sheridan charged on. “Sam, our cavalry’s been wasted for years, o
utpost duty, guard the trains … they’re a fighting force, for Christ’s sake. And with Spencer repeaters—remember that first morning at Cold Harbor? Dismounted, they can stop infantry, bloody ’em up.”

  “Yes,” Grant said with a passing chill in his voice. He preferred not to think of Cold Harbor in any respect.

  “But there’s more to it, much more. Cavalry can attack and beat infantry, too. At least mine can. I believe it with every inch of my soul that I don’t owe the devil.”

  The little man had a way of filling every room he occupied, a charisma that made Grant marvel. Sheridan could have sold plain syrup to a medicine show, with a promise to raise the dead.

  Now he was ablaze with his ideas: “It’s a matter of getting the combinations right—artillery, infantry, horse—and the timing, the coordination. The different arms have never worked as a team, not really. Not the way they should. This is modern war, the future. Speed, range, surprise. And the mounted divisions are well officered now, the dead wood’s fallen away.”

  “Generals?”

  “Torbert’s doing fine, he was the right pick to head the Cavalry Corps. Averell may have to go. At his best, he gives the Rebs a nasty time. But he’s not always at his best.”

  “Relieve him.”

  “Might. Not yet. But the young bucks,” Sheridan pushed on, “Merritt, Custer … Wilson, too. Sam, they’d fight the Rebs bare-handed, I swear to God.”

  “Shouldn’t come to that.”

  “And the Reb cavalry, they’re little more than rags and reputation. We beat them every time the numbers are even. Haven’t kept up, they’re still a muddle of Walter Scott and the county-fair steeplechase race. They’re poorly mounted, unsteady…”

  “Never underestimate an enemy,” Grant said. He thought: The way I did Robert E. Lee. It was a mistake he would always rue, although he had refused to let it stop him.

  “Well, I damned well won’t go in fear of Early, either. I plan to move fast now, he won’t know what’s happening until it’s too late. I’ve sent the cavalry raiding across the Opequon every day. He’ll assume any movement of mine’s just more of the same. But this time my whole army will be on the march.” Sheridan placed his fists on the table and leaned in toward Grant. “I can break him, Sam, I’ll whip him and break him.”

  This was the Sheridan Grant valued, the slashing, can’t-be-stopped officer he’d brought east from Tennessee. The plan didn’t matter half so much as the man.

  Grant chose to keep his own plan in his pocket.

  “Phil, you’ll have to move soon. It’s politics now. Can you go by Tuesday?”

  Sheridan smiled. “Not Tuesday. I mean to attack on Monday. Before dawn.”

  “That’s less than two days out.”

  “My army’s ready.”

  “All right,” Grant said. “Go in.”

  * * *

  Accompanying Sheridan to the blacksmith’s shop, Grant paused by an oak tree.

  “Don’t hesitate,” he said. “Ignore any orders from Halleck. Whip Early and move south. Far as it makes sense. Then pull back down the Valley, burning every barn, granary, storehouse, and depot behind you.”

  Grant paused to choose his next words with precision. The morning cool had been vanquished by summer’s rear guard. Sheridan waited silently, all his joviality tucked away.

  “We’re going to put an end to threats from the Valley,” Grant said. “Make sure the Rebs can’t feed off it anymore, can’t even move through it. Leave it so barren a crow flying over will need to carry his own provisions along.”

  Sheridan nodded. “Burn a town? Or two? Retribution for Chambersburg? Teach them a lesson?”

  Grant shook his head. “Don’t burn their houses. Going hungry will be enough for the worst of them.”

  “The bastards need to feel the war. Every man, woman, and child.”

  “We need to end the war. And think about what comes after.” Grant considered the first fallen leaves, their mottled yellow. “Bad enough, Rebs blaming Sherman for every struck match down South. When Hood fired those warehouses himself.” He made a barely perceptible sound, cold laughter. “Not that Cump would mind burning out every last plantation in Georgia. But blaming him for Hood’s doings isn’t fair.” Grant reached out, as if to touch the trunk of the tree, but only pawed the air and dropped his hand again. “Only make him meaner, he’s sensitive to the newspapers. Cump gets going again, he’ll make Georgia howl.”

  “Speaking of fairness,” Sheridan said, “Wallace still begging you for a division?”

  Grant rubbed his beard. “Believe he’s given up. Poor devil. Saved Washington, and Halleck does his best to drum him out. Old Brains does hold a grudge.” He looked at Sheridan with renewed curiosity. “You’re about the only officer who ever got on with Halleck.”

  “As long as I filled out the requisitions correctly and all the supplies were accounted for, he didn’t harp.”

  Grant nodded. “And you’d still be a glorified clerk. If Halleck had his way.”

  Sheridan grinned. “A man has to take matters into his own hands. But about Wallace?”

  “Did what I could for him. Gave him back his Baltimore command. For what that’s worth.”

  “You know, I’m apt to lose a division commander at some point…”

  “No,” Grant said. “It’s not just Halleck. Washburne won’t hear of it. Wallace has political enemies back in Indiana. And Lincoln needs the Indiana men.”

  Sheridan’s black eyes glowed with scorn. “And it doesn’t matter what a man does on the battlefield? If he’s on the wrong side of some crooks in a gimcrack statehouse?”

  “No,” Grant said. “It doesn’t.”

  * * *

  Bill enjoyed the adoring eyes as he ate the skillet of chicken. With colored folk crowding the kitchen shanty, half of them field hands new run off to town, he hurried to finish before Grant returned and called for him. Fool man lived on sliced cucumbers slopped with vinegar and cooked-black meat a hound dog wouldn’t eat. Bill preferred a fried-up hen himself. With hot biscuits dipped in grease to burn your mouth.

  “Hmmm-mmm. He eat like him a genr’l hisself.”

  “Cap’n,” Bill corrected. “Cap’n, that’s all. Man shouldn’t go exaggerating himself.”

  “That’s sho’.”

  “Why he ain’t got no soldier suit? Him a cap’n?”

  “Scare all these white folk round here,” Bill explained. “Genr’l don’t want no trouble, he got enough. I’m traveling in disguise.”

  He had gone round the side of the house to show them how he could walk right up on the general, while all the coming-by white men got shooed away. The chicken had been only one of his rewards.

  The black folk that hadn’t run off farther north were an embarrassment, though, afraid to do much of anything for themselves, living day to day, as though they were convinced they’d be slaves forever and didn’t much mind. And yet, they had ideas downright fantastical about what might be heading their way in glory and jubilation: fried chicken every single day and a feather bed at night. Made no sense, but what did, anymore?

  He knew the other black folk, too. The sort who wore uniforms now, who bowed and scraped around their fine white officers, but longed to stick them a bayonet deep in a white man’s belly. And the truth was that most any white man would do, although a Reb was their preference.

  Hadn’t turned out very well at Petersburg. When they blew up that big hole in the ground. Rebs had gutted the Colored Troops like caught fish. And the white Yankee prisoners standing by hadn’t complained, if the telling was right. Even gave the Johnny Rebs encouragement, so they said.

  Fool thing, how white folk could have spent going on four years butchering each other worse than hogs and still not understand what hatred meant, real hatred. It was as if they hadn’t read their own Bibles. Some of them were learning it now, though, at long last. Especially the Johnnies, the poor ones who held no slaves. That carried no sense, either, but life was made that way.
>
  Their hearts were grown bitter as wormwood, as bitter as gall, the way the Good Book told.

  And walking the streets of the Southron towns the Yankees had took over was near as bad. He had lived long enough to know a thing or two about men of any color, so he recognized the mark of Cain on the white faces in Virginny and he heard their sullen quiet louder than a bobcat’s screech. Wasn’t no kindness left, no Christian feeling, in the set of those faces and those eyes when they saw a black skin come along.

  Wasn’t even hatred, tell the truth. Didn’t have the dignity of hatred. It was just the sort of meanness a man might feel toward a dog that had displeased him, that bit him after being given a feed. And that was the thing, the all-wrong part about it: Southron folk looked at a black man as if he bore the blame for all their suffering, as if the colored race had been a visitation, unwanted, unsought, just like the cholera. Bill feared for what the future might hold, once white folks stopped killing each other and started looking around for somebody else to truss up and gut.

  Wasn’t no trouble about his personal future, that was a blessing. The general was fond of familiar things and was like to bring him along where his doings took him. Old ’Liss Grant was a good man, not particular. Poor as a nigger himself back in Missouri, before the war took him up like the hand of Jehovah. Even when this war tired itself out, Bill calculated that the general would be all right. Powerful folks had gathered him in, like angels in a chariot swooping down.

  “Him eat all that up.…”

  They watched him, those kindred-eyed faces of differing darkness, faces of his kind, at once expectant and docile. Reverent, they studied him as he finished a last wing, impressed by the thrall he held over Grant and downright worshipful after they learned that he had seen President Lincoln in the flesh … which was a true-enough thing, although he had fattened the tale a bit, allowing the president to ask his advice about the Negro’s future.

  Wiping his chin, Bill smiled and said, “Now wasn’t that fine? Run out of compliments, talking about that chicken.” He produced two cigars, one for himself and one for the man who had been introduced as the pastor of this flock, though he bore no outward sign of it beyond a shabby frock coat and collarless shirt.