by Ralph Peters
His ordeal in the city he hated wasn’t over. Halleck lurked mid-hallway. He had two colonels with him, one detestably fat and the other skeletal.
“Sheridan!” the chief of staff called in a mighty whisper. “Unfinished business, if you please.”
Christ, what now? Sheridan wondered.
“These men … my engineers … they worked on the fortress plan. Splendid work, you saw the drawings yourself. I thought they might go with you to the Valley. Men of such caliber might be a help in siting your lines for the winter. You can show them the ground around Winchester yourself, en route to your army.”
When Sheridan hesitated, Halleck added almost pathetically, “It’s the least you might do.”
“Of course,” Sheridan said instantly. “They’ll be a great help.”
“Good, good. That’s all. Bonne chance. Splendid work. Proud of you, Philip. I always could spot ability, you know. You, Grant. Had to protect you both from the wrathful powers.…”
“My gratitude,” Sheridan said, “can’t be put into words.”
October 17, 3:30 p.m.
Three Top Mountain, Signal Knob
Words failed Gordon. Of all the opportunities he had witnessed—and seen squandered—nothing approached this, not even that dangling Union flank in the Wilderness.
“My, oh, my!” Clem Evans said. It was the third time in as many minutes that Evans had used the expression.
“Indeed,” Gordon commented. On a rock above them, a signalman waved his flags.
“I told you,” Hotchkiss said.
Far below, arranged like toys on a tabletop, Sheridan’s army revealed itself. The unaided eye could detect not only division encampments, but brigade allotments and regimental tent lines. With field glasses a man could spy the different uniform facings, the red of the artillery, cavalry yellow, and the pale blue that condemned a man to the infantry. Gordon could count every gun and every wagon. He could even confirm the report that the army was headquartered in the Belle Grove plantation house, busy now with the comings and goings of couriers and staff men.
Done right, a surprise attack might capture Sheridan.
“Beautiful, too,” Clem said. “Fair as the rose of Sharon.” And he was right. The Valley and its guardian mountains flamed, but with autumn reds and oranges, copper and gold, and not because of Sheridan’s pyromania. The air was bracing and clear as a maiden’s conscience, and down below—at a bruising climb’s remove—the Shenandoah gleamed as it ran northward, clinging snugly to the mountain’s base.
But Gordon had a poor eye for nature this day. His interest lay in Sheridan’s lax dispositions.
“I make it two to one against us,” Hotchkiss said.
“I like that better than three to one,” Gordon told him. Still a tad short of breath, he sighed. “Well, we know where he expects us to attack. To the extent he’s worried about an attack at all.”
“Cavalry massed on the left,” Hotchkiss agreed. “Just where General Early’s minded to go.”
“Not sure we’d even get across the creek, not over there. Not without paying a price we can’t afford.”
“I make that the Sixth Corps back toward Middletown, to the rear,” Evans put in.
“Army of the Potomac arrangement, unmistakable,” Hotchkiss said.
“Makes sense, putting them there,” Gordon told his companions. “Their best corps behind the cavalry, positioned to move to the south or west.” He passed the glasses back to Hotchkiss. “What I do find interesting is the rest of that army. Why on earth place a lone division off by itself, a mile to the south of its nearest support?”
“Looks flat from up here, I know, but they’re on high ground. Overlooking the creek bend,” Hotchkiss explained.
“I understand that,” Gordon told him. “What I don’t understand is why they’re all but abandoned out there. Just begging to be snapped up.”
“Bait?” Hotchkiss asked.
Gordon shook his head. “Can’t see how they’d spring the trap, the way the camps are disposed. And look behind them, up at the middle encampments. They’ve dug their earthworks, piled up their share of dirt.” He turned to Evans. “But what do you see? What do you see, Clem?”
“They all face south, every one of them. And the Sixth Corps hasn’t really entrenched at all.”
“Exactly. I don’t see a single stretch of fieldworks facing east. Not even southeast. Not one.”
“Problem,” Hotchkiss said, “would be getting there. Take the Front Royal road out of Strasburg to get up on that flank and they’d spot us, day or night.”
Gordon ignored the caution. “Any fords up there?”
“On the creek? Or the river?”
“The river. East of the mouth of the creek. A ford where we could get ourselves on their flank.”
“Find a farm by a river, find a ford. Wouldn’t solve the problem of getting there, though.”
“We’ll have to move along the side of the mountain. In the trees.”
Gordon saw Clem Evans lift a hand to his side, his wound. Clem had been game, but the climb, for which their riding boots had not been suited, clearly had pained him. Hellfire, it had been the Devil’s own ordeal for all of them, scrambling over rocks on all fours and forcing their way through thickets for hours, then tracing the ridgeback, thirsty and exhausted. Gordon had felt the strain of his own wounds, healed years before.
Worth it, though.
“Don’t see how,” Hotchkiss said. “River hugs the mountain tight as a corset.”
“Crook’s boys did it to us at Fisher’s Hill.”
“Smaller mountain,” Hotchkiss said. “And there wasn’t a river to be crossed twice, once when we set out, then right under Sheridan’s nose.”
Burning with visions of how a splendid battle could be won, Gordon let impatience rule his voice. “For God’s sake, Jed! You’re the one who wanted me to climb up here. You knew Early’s scheme wouldn’t work, before we saw all this. And here before us, welcome as revelation, is a potential Marathon, a Plataea. And you’re a naysayer?”
“Not a naysayer, General. Just raising a few details. Details do have a way of troubling plans, seen enough of that.” He kicked a disguise of leaves away from a rock. “I agree this has a beckoning look. I just don’t see how to get where we need to go.”
“Got to be a way,” Clem Evans said. Fire had kindled in his voice, too.
“We’ll find a way,” Gordon insisted. “Jed, we’ll find a way, you know we can. But you need to be with me, locking arms, when we put this to Early. If it’s me alone…”
Hotchkiss nodded. “I’m with you. That’s not the question.”
“What we need,” Gordon told them, “is one more day. Early’s impatient, we all know rations are short. But we need a good stretch of daylight to find a trail, a back road, anything. Find a way to pass Strasburg without being seen. Then find a ford that can cross, say, half the army.”
A fusillade of yellow leaves crackled toward them.
“I’ll pray on it,” Evans said.
October 17, 8:00 p.m.
Belle Grove plantation
“It’s the right thing to do,” Emory insisted. “Early’s no threat, he’s finished.”
Horatio Wright was doubtful. Sheridan had left him in command for the duration of his hasty excursion to Washington. The responsibility weighed more heavily than Wright had expected.
“What do you think, George?” he asked Crook.
Crook lowered a near-empty glass. Taking their ease at the day’s end, the generals were sharing a dose of whiskey. None drank heavily, and Wright only sipped his ration.
“Well,” Crook said, “I suppose I have no objection. The men are tired. Lord knows, they’ve done good service.”
“If I saw the least danger, I’d be the first to oppose it,” Emory argued. The firelight glinted orange in his red hair.
The fire was welcome: The nights were growing cold.
And yes, the men were tired.
“I’ll have the order published in the morning,” Wright told them. “Too late tonight, we’d just make a hash of things.”
“They’ll be grateful, the boys,” Emory assured him. “Standing to their weapons at two a.m. was the sensible thing a month ago. Not now, though. Campaign’s over.”
Crook had another taste of Virginia whiskey, the last wealth of the plantation’s looted cellar. “I suppose we can let the men sleep,” he said with only a slight hesitation.
October 17, 8:00 p.m.
Fisher’s Hill
“God almighty, Gordon,” Early said. “If I offered you angel’s wings, you’d cuss the feathers.”
Lit by a pair of candles, the cold room reeked. An orderly had tried to build a fire, but the chimney refused the smoke, driving out the staff. Cackling at the weakness of his subordinates, Early had declined to move his headquarters.
“I wish you could have seen it for yourself.” Speaking, Gordon studied the big, bent-over man, whose rheumatism had forbidden the climb. “If Jed and I find a route for the approach march, we could hit them just before dawn day after tomorrow, run right over them. Half their divisions aren’t in supporting distance of one another. And every last one is facing the wrong way, the way they expect us to come. They’d go down like dominoes.”
“You say.” Early spit tobacco juice into the blackened fireplace. “Haven’t seen them go down like dominoes yet.”
“Be it on my head, if this attack fails.”
“Damn you, Gordon, don’t be asinine. We get ourselves whipped, it won’t fall on your head. And you damned well know it.”
Hotchkiss stepped in. “General Early, Sheridan’s got his entire cavalry corps massed on his right. If we attack the way … the way we considered … we’d run right into them. Then the Sixth Corps would come right down on top of us.”
Slowly, bitterly, Early shook his head. “Sucking at the same teat as Gordon, are you?” He grunted. “Sandie Pendleton came back from the grave, I’d take a strap to his back for getting killed.”
“General Gordon’s asking for one day, sir. And I believe—”
“Oh, surely. ‘One day.’ And let the men eat shoe leather for dinner. Except they haven’t got any goddamned shoes.”
“It’s not as bad as that,” Gordon said.
“Not yet.” Early turned and stared at the fouled hearth. “God almighty, God almighty…” He wheeled again, ignoring Hotchkiss to shoot his scorn for all straight-backed, pomaded, woman-pleasing men in Gordon’s direction. “All right. All right, then, General Gordon. You take your day. Let it never be said I was unreasonable, let that never be said.” His spite overflowed toward Hotchkiss as well. “You take your goddamned day.”
He clomped out of his headquarters.
Gordon and Hotchkiss looked at each other.
“I’d almost describe that as pleasant,” Gordon said.
October 18, 6:30 a.m.
Fisher’s Hill
Dan Frawley fried up the rancid bacon, trying to burn the stink off it. The other men took turns tossing hardtack into the spitting grease. Nichols reckoned that none of them had figured when they signed up that the day would come when they’d be pleased to eat filth.
“Give my favorite hound for a cup of coffee,” Ive Summerlin said. “For half a cup.” In the unfixed light, he looked more like a Cherokee than ever.
“Doubt you own a hound worth a cup of coffee,” Corporal Holloway told him.
“Tell you, that’s how the Yankees been whipping us lately,” Tom Boyet offered. “They’re all rallied up on coffee. We got none.”
“Well, now,” Sergeant Alderman said, “maybe you should stroll over there for a visit, bring us some back.”
“I reckon that’s about what Old Jube’s thinking,” Dan Frawley put in. “Rations need to come from somewheres, men do have to eat. And Richmond ain’t no help.” He shuffled the bacon in the pan. It really did stink, no matter the frying inflicted. Still, it gave off enough bacon smell to madden a man.
Nichols knew he’d eat it, even if he puked it right back up.
Returned from a visit to the trees, Lem Davis said, “Surprised we haven’t gone over there already. Shows you what rumors are worth. Expected we’d take us a few Yankee haversacks, have a right full dinner.”
“I don’t mind staying put,” Ive admitted. “Not one little bit. I’m tired of getting whupped. Early’s played out.”
“Too late for Early.” Tom Boyet repeated the popular joke.
“Oh, we’ll attack,” Sergeant Alderman cautioned them all. “Only reason we’re sitting on Fisher’s Hill again. Early won’t try to defend it, not after last time. He means to attack, don’t you worry.”
“Place just makes my skin crawl,” Ive said.
“That’s your lice,” Holloway told him.
“I wager on chiggers,” Tom Boyet added. “Never had ’em worse than I did around here.”
“Hand over your plates,” Dan said. “Before this cooks to nothing.”
Careful not to nudge a comrade aside, the men accepted their portions, a mouthful apiece.
Being a town man, Tom Boyet gagged. “I can’t eat this,” he said.
But he ate it, after all.
The greased-over hardtack was fouler than the bacon, but every man chawed his to a pulp and swallowed it.
“Slick a man’s guts right through,” Lem Davis said.
“Know who I dreamed on last night?” Holloway asked. “Zib Collins. Poor Zib.”
“I dreamed about one of those big Pennsylvania gals,” Ive snapped. He and Zib had been close. “Man wouldn’t never sleep cold wrapped in that lard.”
They all had slept cold the night before. October had grown traitorous.
A leaf floated into the frying pan that Dan had laid aside.
“Quick, fry that up!” Ive told him. “Better than this ptomaine fatback, I bet.”
Dan picked the leaf from the pan and considered it. As if he really might take a bite.
Dreams. Nichols did not want to think about dreams, not about Zib and not about big, fat Dutch girls. He’d rather eat slops.
His night-world had grown violent and grisly, haunting him into the light near every day. That night, he had dreamed that his home was burning down with his ma inside. Chained by the unholy laws of sleep, he had only been able to watch, immobile and helpless. Other dreams of late had been much worse.
In his dreams the dead were not angels. And twice he had met a living woman in sleep, an unclothed woman, whose body was riddled with snakes like a cheese with worms. He dreamed of being hunted, never of hunting. Even his fondest night thoughts brought him shame.
Despite sharing blankets with Ive, he had lain awake shivering after that dream of fire. With his ma burning in a Hell made by men with torches. He did not think he’d cried out, though. That was something. In the depths of the night, sleepers shouted as they struggled with their dreams. At times, you heard whimpers in voices that surprised you. Strong by day, men shrank in the dark, and outbursts that once would’ve made for a morning of ribbing passed without comment. At dawn, men met each other’s eyes less often and hands trembled over tin plates.
Rising, Tom Boyet declared, “’Fraid I’m coming down with the trots again.”
Seemed like just about everyone had the bloody runs on and off. Nichols had been fortunate so far. He ascribed his good luck to nearly dying back in that Danville hospital: Maybe once you had it really bad, it didn’t come back. Kind of like the measles.
“Lord, for a cup of coffee,” Ive lamented. “Wouldn’t care how fast it scoured my guts.”
Elder Woodfin appeared, lugging the big Bible he favored in camp. The chaplain had grown a touch softer of late, just on the rough side of pleasant. Lem believed he was jealous of General Evans, whose sermons raised a man’s spirits instead of whipping him into a corner and keeping him there. Elder Woodfin’s homilies were ferocious, hard enough to kill any Yankee in earshot, but they weren’t always a comfort.
The chaplain squatted close enough to the fire to borrow some warmth.
“I want you boys to recall Psalm One Forty-four today. I’ll speak it out, and you’re welcome to recite with me.” He looked sternly at Nichols, demanding allegiance.
Leaves charged over the knoll.
“Blessed be the Lord my strength,” the chaplain began, “which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight…”
Nichols recited along. He had his psalms near perfect.
Fueled by the Word, Elder Woodfin’s voice gained power. “Bow thy heavens, O Lord, and come down; touch the mountains, and they shall smoke…”
Eager, Nichols plunged ahead: “Cast forth lightning, and scatter them: shoot out thine arrows, and destroy them.”
Elder Woodfin smiled with big brown teeth. Dan and Lem kept up fair, forgetting bits but then rejoining the psalm as it rolled past the “hurtful sword” and on to the plea: “Deliver me from the hand of strange children, whose mouth speaketh vanity…”
That stretch baffled Nichols every time: Weren’t children supposed to be innocent? Up to no good sometimes, even downright nasty, but why did children trouble David enough to nag his psalm? How could a warrior-king be frightened of brats? Couldn’t folks back then just take a strap to them?
Had “strange children” haunted David’s dreams?
Sun tore the haze. It would be another fine, God-given day. They would not fight.
Nichols decided to fix his mind on the last line of the psalm: “Happy is that people whose God is the Lord.”
He and his brethren were the Lord’s people, weren’t they? Surely they would be happy when God was ready.
October 18, 10:00 a.m.
Bowman’s Ford
“Yankees are like to shoot us, they catch us in these duds,” Hotchkiss said cheerily.
Pausing to scrape the soil with his hoe, Gordon grinned and told him, “Not me, Jed. Generals only get shot on the battlefield. Otherwise, we’re protected by the gods and a certain etiquette.” He cleared his throat portentously. “But a lesser fellow now, one who might not possess such august rank … were such a one caught in civilian clothes, he’d have some explaining to do. I’d put in a word for you, though.”
