Rebel Train: A Civil War Novel

by David Healey

  “You and your men will leave Richmond in two smaller groups and slip across the Potomac River into Maryland,” Norris continued. “From there, you must travel thirty more miles to Ellicott Mills. That town is the real starting point on the B&O's westward route.”

  Percy's raiders would assemble there after slipping through enemy territory. Lincoln's train had to stop in the same town, and Percy's men, who would purchase tickets to various towns along the B&O line, would board the train.

  "He'll have too many guards," Percy interrupted. "We'll never get near that train."

  Norris shook his head. "He'll be doing this secretly, remember? He'll have one car and only a small number of guards. Lincoln has never shown much concern for his personal safety in the past."

  Percy still wasn't convinced. He had been a soldier too long to believe the odds were ever good, or that anything ever went according to plan.

  "All right," he said. "But how do a handful of men commandeer a train? There will be passengers, maybe even soldiers traveling home or back to their posts, not to mention Lincoln's guards. We can't overpower them all."

  "That's where breakfast comes in," Norris said. He tapped the map with a tobacco-stained finger. "The train is scheduled to stop briefly in a town called Sykesville, a few miles from Ellicott Mills. Most of the crew and passengers will get off to eat breakfast at a hotel near the tracks. At that point you'll take the train and run for the Shenandoah Valley. You should have just enough daylight to make it."

  Percy suddenly remembered. The Andrews raid! That was where Norris had gotten the idea. The Yankees had stolen the train when the crew stopped for breakfast at a station outside Atlanta. The crew had left her under steam and gone inside the station house to eat, never thinking there was any danger of the train being stolen.

  It had worked once before, Percy thought. It might just work again. The whole damn thing might work. Norris gave him the rest of the plan. Once they had the train, they would run like greased lightning across Maryland, cross the Potomac River at Harpers Ferry, and head for the Allegheny Mountains.

  Percy interrupted again. "If you want us to head south into the Shenandoah Valley, why wouldn't we take this branch?" he asked, letting his finger on the map trace the route of the Winchester and Potomac Railroad than ran south from Harpers Ferry to Winchester, Virginia.

  Norris shook his head. "It would be faster—if Winchester weren't crawling with Union troops. There's no way we can get cavalry there to escort you to Richmond. The Yankees have had a firm grip on Winchester since Stonewall Jackson left the valley."

  Percy nodded in agreement, and Norris continued to outline his plan. Once the train had gone deep into the mountains, some of General Jubal Early's men would be detailed to meet it near the town of Romney and help spirit Abraham Lincoln down the valley to Richmond, where the Union president would become a prisoner of war.

  "That is, if you can take him alive," Norris said. "If not, you'll have to kill him."

  "He's a civilian," Percy pointed out.

  "He's commander in chief of the Union Army. Civilian or not, that makes him the enemy. Kill him if you must."

  "What's to stop the Yankees from doing the same to Jefferson Davis?"

  Norris shrugged. "There are those who might say we'd be better off without him."

  Percy chose not to acknowledge the last remark, just in case Norris was testing his loyalty. "Who do I take with me?"

  "The men you have with you in Richmond will do," Norris said.

  Percy started to protest. "This is too risky."

  Norris held up a hand to interrupt him. He smiled wickedly again. "If I could have you arrested, Colonel, think of what I could do to them. Take your men."

  "You're a bastard, Norris."

  The chief of the Signal Bureau calmly puffed his cigar, ignoring the insult. "Oh, and you'll be taking Fletcher, too."

  Percy couldn't believe what he was hearing. "What? Look here, Colonel—”

  "Fletcher goes with you," Norris said. "I want two of my own men on this raid. Fletcher will serve as an official representative of the army. He's also from Maryland, which might prove useful."

  "He does look good in a uniform." Percy smirked. "Who's the other man?"

  "His name is Flynn."

  "Does he have a nice uniform, too?"

  "Flynn doesn't wear a uniform, Colonel. He's not the type. In point of fact, he's not even a soldier."

  "Then what's he got to do with this raid?"

  "I'm sending Flynn along to kill you if you change your mind about the raid once you get to Maryland."

  "What? I can't do this thing with some murderous bastard waiting every moment to shoot me."

  Norris laughed around his cigar. "Flynn isn't that way, Colonel. I think you'll like him, in spite of yourself. But make no mistake, Flynn does as he is told. I pay him very well for that."

  "You mean this isn't his first time?"

  "Exactly."

  Percy shrugged. The whole plan was already outrageous. Adding Captain Fletcher to the mix couldn't make things much worse, he decided. But who was this Flynn? The last thing Percy needed was someone waiting to shoot him in the back when things weren't going right.

  They discussed a few more details such as the number of raiders, weapons and cash for train tickets. Then Norris stood and extended his hand. "Good luck, Colonel."

  Percy made no effort to take Norris's hand. "I would rather shake with the Devil," he said.

  Norris simply shrugged and sat down to busy himself with paperwork.

  Head spinning, Percy practically ran from the room. In the hallway, he paused to take a deep breath. Captain Fletcher worked at his desk in the hall, pointedly ignoring both Percy and his servant, who sat in a chair near Norris's door. It made sense, of course, that Norris wanted two of his own men along for the raid, although Fletcher was the last man Percy would have picked for the mission.

  Hudson looked at Percy expectantly, but the colonel only shook his head, not wanting to take the time yet to explain what had happened. He just wanted to be out of that dark, dismal building. The place had an unwholesome air.

  "Come on," he said, and Hudson got up from his chair and followed Percy out.

  On the street, Percy paused to get his bearings. He actually felt dizzy. This was madness. A plan to end the war, or at least to strike a terrible blow against the Yankees. He decided then that he would go on this mission not because of Norris’ threats but out of his own sense of duty. He knew that if they brought President Lincoln to Richmond as a prisoner, it would be a blow to the Union worth more than a thousand Buckley Courthouse raids.

  Percy nearly laughed in spite of the circumstances. The plan was just crazy enough to work.

  Chapter 6

  Caswell's Rooming House, Richmond

  November 10, 1863

  Tom Flynn stood in front of the rooming house that served as the headquarters for Colonel Percy's train raiders. Poor bastards, he thought, watching the three men who lounged on the porch. In just five days they would cross the Potomac, probably never to return. Flynn felt even sorrier for himself because he would be going with them. Silently, he cursed Colonel Norris. The colonel was mad if he thought they could capture Abraham Lincoln with a handful of raiders.

  He climbed the porch steps as the three men watched him warily.

  "I'm looking for Colonel Percy."

  "You're not welcome here," said one of the men, who wore a lieutenant’s insignia.

  "That's no way to treat a stranger," Flynn said, thickening his accent until he sounded like an Irishman fresh from the bog. He knew it was the quickest way to render himself harmless in the soldiers' eyes. "What's the world comin' to?"

  “Hud, you best go fetch the colonel,” the lieutenant said.

  The biggest of the men, who looked as hard and dark as oiled locust, finally stood. Flynn shifted the heavy satchel that hung from his shoulder, ready for anything. But the enormous black man only looked him over for a momen
t, then disappeared into the house.

  Flynn sighed and promptly collapsed into the old chair the guard had been using. The other two men just stared, like dogs deciding whether or not they would bite. He ignored them. After all, he had not been expecting a warm reception. He settled down to wait.

  • • •

  Flynn had come to America in 1847, the black year when the famine was at its worst in Ireland. Hundreds of thousands of Irish were starving to death due to the failure of the potato crop but Flynn managed to escape thanks to an aunt who scraped together the money to buy his passage from Cobh Harbor. Unlike many of the Irish refugees who sailed to New York or Boston or Newfoundland, his famine ship arrived in Baltimore.

  "There it is, lad," one of the deckhands said, pointing out the brick fort standing guard at the harbor entrance. "That's Fort McHenry, where the British met their match against the Americans."

  "I'm going to be an American now," the boy said proudly. Like most of the Irish, he hated the British who were slowly starving his people.

  "Aye." But the deckhand shook his head sadly. "So much for Ireland, laddy. There's no doubt your future lies here now."

  Baltimore was a seafaring city where ships arrived from around the world full of goods and immigrants hoping for a better life. Along with the Irish came Polish and Germans, each living in their own squalid neighborhoods ringing the harbor.

  Flynn’s new home was in the cellar of a decrepit row house, where he shared the damp quarters with an extended family headed by a distant cousin. They took him in because they had to, but there was no joy in greeting the young boy from home.

  "He's a big 'un," he overhead the cousin telling his wife late one night when they thought Flynn and the other children were asleep, tumbled among each other under the dirty blankets. "Another gob to feed."

  "He’s plenty big enough to work," the wife said. "He can earn what he eats."

  So Flynn was sent to the docks and the breweries and the stables, wherever a strong young boy was needed. His wages were paid to the cousin. In return, Flynn got scraps of bread and salt pork.

  Life was hard and the boy might have been worked to death before that first winter was out. But his fate changed one day when the parish priest hired the boy's services to muck out the stables. After hours of shoveling, Flynn sat eating a bowl of soup at the table in the rectory kitchen when the priest came in with a newspaper. He put the paper down on the table and proceeded to talk with the cook. Flynn sneaked a look at the paper and glanced up a minute later, mortified, to find the priest staring at him.

  "You can read, boy?"

  "Yes, Father."

  At a time when most of the Irish immigrants still spoke Gaelic, a boy who could read was rare. But his aunt had taught him in Ireland, holding lessons in front of the peat fire, telling him it was the way of the future.

  Impressed, the priest put an end to Flynn's laboring. Flynn became an altar boy and an errand runner for the priest. Father McGlynn was a rough and belligerent working man's priest who drank too much whiskey, but he made certain that Flynn got his lessons. "Reading and writing and thinking are what separate us from the dumb beasts," the old priest grumped. "Now copy out that damned page like I told you."

  By the time he was a teenager, the penniless immigrant boy could read and write as well as anyone, even in Latin.

  He could have gone into the priesthood or found some job clerking in an office, but that was not the life for Flynn. He found that quick wits were useful, but quick fists even better. He went to work in the adventurous world that was America in the 1850s. When the war broke out, he found himself on the Southern side when the lines were drawn. Briefly, he shouldered a musket in the Confederate ranks but discovered that soldiering wasn't for him. One dark night he deserted and fled to Richmond.

  He soon found himself employed by Colonel Norris. From smuggling messages and quinine to helping Confederate agents cross the Potomac, Flynn had done more to help the Cause than he ever had in the ranks of General Joseph Johnston's ragtag army.

  As for Colonel Norris, his stern demeanor and severity reminded Flynn of Father McGlynn. But Flynn did not believe in the Southern Cause, just as he had not believed in old McGlynn's unrelenting Catholicism. Flynn was in this war for himself, just as he had always done everything for himself. It was the way of the future.

  • • •

  Flynn was still sprawled in the chair a few minutes later when Colonel Percy came out onto the porch with the massive guard. Flynn made a show of clumsily scrambling to his feet and saluting awkwardly. The tall, sandy-bearded colonel squinted at him. He was about Flynn's height but with a lean build. In fact, his clothes hung loosely, as if he had lost weight. Flynn seemed to remember something about the colonel having been wounded.

  "I'm Percy," he said. "Who are you?"

  "Thomas Flynn, sir. Sergeant Flynn." Flynn promoted himself; he had only been a private when he last wore a uniform.

  "You're the one Norris sent," Percy said. His look was not friendly. "You're the one who's going to shoot me."

  "Well, I'm not in any hurry."

  "What if I shoot you first?"

  "That could happen." Flynn shrugged. "The truth is that I'm against shooting either one of us. I propose we go get Mr. Lincoln like Colonel Norris wants and make that the end of it."

  Percy still looked hostile. Evidently, he had already told his men what Flynn's role was to be on the raid. The big guard had huge hands that he kept flexing as if he couldn't wait to fit them around Flynn's throat. Two other men had appeared in the doorway, the first a tall, lank-haired fellow with bad teeth and a wicked scar under his cheekbone. The second man was pale-eyed and whip thin, and his hand rested on a revolver in a hip holster.

  "This could end right here," Percy said.

  Flynn nodded. "Sure, and you think Colonel Norris would let you get away with that? He's a vengeful bastard and if he doesn't find you, he will find your men. Or maybe even your home and your family. Fauquier County, isn't it?"

  "You son of a bitch," Percy hissed, taking a step toward him.

  Flynn held his ground. "It's not me you should be mad at, Colonel," he said, realizing that things had gone as wrong as they could. Percy's men circled him like wolves. "It's Norris. I'm stuck with you as much as you're stuck with me, don't you see? There's things I'd rather do than drag me arse to Maryland. Besides, I'm kinder than anyone else Norris could have sent. Or might still. I'll only use one bullet."

  Percy smiled slightly, and Flynn decided that the colonel understood him, even if he couldn't like him. His men seemed to sense the tension ease and drifted away. Flynn really hadn't known what to expect when Norris had sent him to join these soldiers. And Flynn hadn't been exaggerating about Norris' long reach. There was no betraying him unless a man wanted to find himself dragged out of bed late at night and dumped into the James River with a hundred pounds of iron chain around his ankles. Flynn himself had performed those exact services for the spymaster.

  Considering the company Norris kept, Flynn had expected Percy to be an altogether different man from the gentlemanly, handsome, likable officer he found. Percy looked every bit the dashing Southern hero and Flynn would not be surprised if the man even wore a plume in his hat. He would regret killing him, if it came to that.

  "Let's get off the street," Percy said, interrupting his thoughts "This is the sort of discussion we should be having indoors."

  Percy led the way into the house, followed by Flynn and then the two who had come out on the porch. The huge black man stayed behind to keep a lookout.

  "That was Hudson on the porch," Percy explained as they entered a high-ceilinged parlor to the left of the front door.

  "Oh? I thought it was Samson, guarding the temple."

  Percy chuckled. "Hudson does not have much faith in humanity. You wouldn't, either, if you had been born a slave."

  "I'm Irish. That's close enough."

  The colonel nodded at the group of men now staring at Flyn
n. "You’ve already met Lieutenant Cater, I believe. This is the rest of the bunch."

  The room was crowded with soldiers. Flynn could see at once that they were all veterans, except for one young fellow who was trying to look fierce, but not quite succeeding. The soldiers shared that same sharp, wary look about the eyes that men who have been in combat frequently develop. These hard-eyed men were all watching Flynn, as was Percy. It was not a friendly welcome.

  Flynn smiled at them.

  "Well, Sergeant Flynn," Percy said in his no-nonsense officer's voice. "I take it you already know Captain Fletcher?"

  The young, arrogant captain, well-dressed as usual, stepped in from another room. He saw Flynn and frowned.

  "Why, if it ain’t Colonel Norris's bootlick."

  "Sergeant," Percy said sharply. "You are speaking to an officer."

  "All right. Why, if it ain't Captain Bootlick."

  That brought laughter from the men in the room. Even Percy couldn’t suppress a smile. It was easy to see Fletcher was less-than-popular with the other raiders.

  "A pleasure to see you, too, Flynn," said Fletcher, scowling.

  Only the man with the bad teeth didn't laugh. He spoke up: "I don't believe we need any more hands on this trip, Colonel," he said, not taking his eyes off Flynn. "Not with this boy Benjamin along. We sure don't need no damn Irishmen who wander in off the street."

  "That's Sergeant Hazlett," Percy said.

  Flynn forced himself to smile, even though he wanted nothing better than to smash a fist into Hazlett's ugly face. He had always found it the quickest way to settle any questions about the Irish being an inferior race. But he was here to join the raid, not start brawls. Besides, Hazlett was surrounded by friends and Flynn was not eager to take on a room full of soldiers.

  "It's not polite to insult strangers, lad," Flynn said, an edge coming into his voice in spite of himself.