Unholy Fire

by Robert J. Mrazek

  “That was Senator Randolph’s home,” said the corporal, with a satisfied smile.

  It was after four by then, and the light was already fading in the west when we finally arrived at the military camps near Falmouth.

  “You’ll be seeing our boys now, Captain,” said the corporal, “a hundred and thirty thousand strong.”

  As he spoke, the first bivouacs of the Army of the Potomac came into view ahead of us. They filled the snowy plain in every direction, a seemingly endless landscape filled with Sibley tents, artillery parks, army wagons, cavalry units, log huts, ammunition piles, and thousands of cook fires. A thick smoke haze hung everywhere low to the ground, and soldiers would suddenly materialize out of the vaporous fog only to disappear again like ghostly spirits.

  The regimental camps went on for mile after mile, instilling me with a level of confidence that an army of this strength and magnitude was unstoppable. But then I remembered feeling similar thoughts before Ball’s Bluff.

  The rattle of the coach wheels subsided as we entered the broad gravel drive of a country estate. It wound its way through a park of sycamore trees. Soldiers’ tents were pitched right up to the edge of formal gardens. On the crest of a rise stood an impressive redbrick manor house built in the colonial style, with tall, white-trimmed windows and black shutters.

  Officers and couriers were streaming in and out of the entrance as we came to a stop. Off to the right, I spied a line of thunderboxes that had been erected over a latrine pit. I told the corporal that I needed to avail myself and headed over to them. As I grasped the handle of the last one in the row, it turned in my hand, and a young man stepped out of the foul chamber in front of me.

  He had flaming red hair and bright blue eyes. I knew his broad fleshy face instantly. It was Philip Larrabee, one of my classmates from Cambridge. I had not seen him in two years.

  “Kit,” he said, in an excited voice, “what are you doing here? Are you in a field command?”

  “Just a policeman,” I said.

  “Hardly,” he came back. “The Harvard Crimson had a whole page on your exploits at Ball’s Bluff: ‘the young lion of Troy.’”

  “That was from war dispatches. They are always embroidered to the hilt. What about you, Phil?”

  “I’m writing war dispatches,” he said, with a grin. “And the Boston Examiner sent me down to do some portraits of the Massachusetts boys at the front.”

  I remembered then his skill as an artist. He showed me a tablet that contained some of his latest studies of men in camp. They were dead-on accurate.

  “The rumor is that we are going to drive the Rebels off those heights within the next few days and then push on to take Richmond.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” I said. “Really, I’m just a policeman.”

  “Yes,” he said, with obvious disappointment. “Well … see you then.”

  “See you,” I responded.

  After successfully moving my bowels, I rejoined the dour corporal, and he showed me to the tent that had been assigned to me within the grouping allotted to the Provost Marshal’s Department. I left my satchel bag under the cot and followed him to the front entrance of the mansion. Inside, a wide oak-floored hallway ran the whole length of the house. We followed it to a room near the far end. Next to the open door was a hand-lettered sign that read: GENERAL HATHAWAY, PROVOST MARSHAL’S DEPARTMENT.

  It had once been the family library, but the dark cherry bookcases were now bare. Inside the room I could see the colossal bulk of Val Burdette ensconced in a large leather chair in front of a snapping fire. There were two others with him. One was sitting down and facing Val next to the fire. He wore no insignia of rank, and the collar of his tunic was unbuttoned.

  The other man wore sergeant’s stripes on his immaculate uniform and was standing behind him. As I crossed the room, I realized that the man closest to Val was actually seated in a wooden wheelchair. He was holding a sheaf of papers in his right hand. A red woolen blanket covered his legs.

  “Captain McKittredge, I don’t believe you have met Brigadier Hathaway,” said Val, without getting up.

  “No, sir,” I said.

  “Please call me Sam,” said the general, extending his hand. “And you go by?”

  “Kit,” I responded.

  It was hard for me to believe he was really a general. Although his tousled black hair was going gray, he could not have been more than thirty-five years old. With his thin, youthful face and the rimless spectacles that were dangling from the end of his nose, he looked more like a young professor than a brigadier general. Above the glasses, though, his eyes were steely and uncompromising.

  “This is my aide, Billy Osceola,” he said. Short and wiry, the sergeant was about my age, with a rugged bronzed face and deep-set black eyes. When he shook my hand, I saw that two of the fingers on his right hand were missing.

  “I’m sorry to have ordered you to come down here so precipitously, Kit,” said Val, “but we have a major problem on our hands. Burnside’s attack against Lee is no more than a few days away, and we are no closer to determining which gun carriages are defective. Thankfully, Sam and a young officer in the Ordnance Bureau solved the riddle of the friction primers. They came up with a simple test to gauge the efficacy of the fulminate of mercury in each tube. It means checking every one of them, but that process is already underway. As far as the gun carriages, though, there is still no foolproof way to determine which ones are suspect.”

  Sam Hathaway took off his glasses and placed them in his breast pocket. He suddenly looked more like a general.

  “We need to secure the cooperation of at least one of the federal inspectors who were bribed to approve the defective carriages in the first place,” he said. “If we can get one to talk, we’ll hopefully learn which manufacturers are involved and which carriages have to be replaced.”

  “Two of the inspectors slipped through our grasp last night and are presumably on their way back to Washington,” said Val. “The other one, a Major Duval, is still here, although he is being carefully safeguarded by his superiors. They are almost certainly aware of his perfidy and very likely complicit.”

  General Hathaway wheeled himself away from the fire.

  “You’ve come a long way, Kit,” he said. “You could probably use some coffee.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said, as he poured me a cup and refilled his own from a pot on the desk. Standing close by him, I saw there was an unhealthy pallor to his skin, as if he had recently been sick.

  “Sam has been leading a one-man crusade against corruption down here,” said Val.

  “A thousand men wouldn’t be enough,” said the general, with bitterness in his voice.

  A courier entered the room, went straight to the wheelchair, and handed him a dispatch. General Hathaway glanced at it for several seconds, initialed the document, and handed it back.

  “Why does President Lincoln keep making these decisions, Val?” he asked, as soon as the courier was out the door. “Appointing corrupt men, incompetent men, one after another, to positions of the highest responsibility just because they have the right political connections. Cameron was the worst, but there are so many others. These bloody gun carriages are just one example of the iniquities they are responsible for.”

  I wondered then whether Val had confided in him about his relationship with the president.

  “At first I thought he was simply misled,” went on General Hathaway, “but it is endemic, Val, and it goes beyond corrupt profiteers. How could he commission someone with no military experience, like Congressman Banks, to be a major general and then allow him to be put in command of thousands of men? Do you know how many boys died because of his incompetence at Winchester? It was criminal.”

  Banks had been speaker of the House of Representatives prior to the war. At Winchester, he had suffered a disastrous defeat at the hands of Stonewall Jackson.

  I waited for Val to come to President Lincoln’s defense, but he remained silent.
/>
  “And Edward Baker at Ball’s Bluff,” he said, the passion rising in his voice. “The man had no idea what he was doing. Like Banks, another vainglorious fool.… His dead were floating up like cordwood to the docks of Georgetown for two weeks after that slaughter.”

  I found myself nodding in agreement with him.

  “You left out Pope,” said Val, finally.

  “Yes,” he said, staring down at his ruined legs, “Pope.”

  General Hathaway slowly wheeled his chair back to the desk.

  “And now he gives us Burnside,” he said, wearily shaking his head. “Almost three weeks ago, Joe Hooker got here with forty thousand men. He could have waded his boys across the Rappahannock and pushed straight on toward Richmond if Burnside had just allowed him to cross. Now we have a hundred and thirty thousand, and I fear it won’t be enough.”

  He pointed to a pair of binoculars on the desk and said, “Just take those glasses, Kit, and see for yourself.”

  I picked them up and walked over to the window.

  “You can see them digging in across the river on the heights above Fredericksburg,” he said. “Lee must have fifty thousand men waiting for us already, and the number is growing every day. Every Rebel in Virginia old enough to aim a rifle will be over there waiting for us.”

  The house we were in sat on a bluff above the northern bank of the Rappahannock. The southern bank swept up toward an ancient town of narrow cobbled streets. With the naked eye, I could see a mass of brick homes, church spires, and commercial buildings. Beyond the town, an open plain rose up a long wide hill. I put the binoculars to my eyes and focused them on the heights above it.

  In the waning light, I could see the Confederate battle flag flying from a mansion on the crest. As I watched through the glasses, a battery of guns was wheeled along the ridgeline and moved into position facing down the slope. I couldn’t imagine ever seeing better defensive ground.

  “They are wasting their time digging in up there,” I said, putting down the glasses. “No one in his right mind would try to attack that position.”

  “Well, that’s Burnside’s plan,” said General Hathaway, his voice now drained of emotion. “As soon as his pontoon bridges arrive, the army will be sent across to attack those heights.”

  “Why did it take so long to get the bridges here?” I asked dumbly.

  “Ask the Quartermaster Corps,” said Val, “the same department that inspected the gun carriages.”

  I heard the muffled stamp of men’s boots farther down the corridor.

  “It’s time to prepare for the party,” said Val, breaking the silence. “All of our adversaries will undoubtedly be there, including General Nevins and Major Duval.”

  “What party?” I said.

  “Joe Hooker’s forty-eighth birthday party,” he replied. “Dan Sickles decided to organize it. He loves giving parties, and this one is required attendance for every senior officer down here.”

  I knew who Sickles was; every citizen in the country did. A congressman before the war, he had cold-bloodedly murdered his wife’s lover, who was the son of Francis Scott Key. Sickles had somehow won acquittal for the crime on the basis of temporary insanity. After the war began, Lincoln had made him a general, and he was now commanding a division.

  “Last week Sickles wired a ten-page list of required delicacies to Delmonico’s restaurant,” said Val. “Yesterday, a train of thirty-two Pittsburgh wagons rolled into camp, having come all the way from New York under full military escort. I’m told that one of them had an insulated metal compartment containing two thousand pounds of chocolate ice cream.”

  “Why didn’t they put the pontoon bridges on that train?” I blurted without thinking. Even General Hathaway laughed at that.

  “You’re learning, Kit,” he said.

  “Who is General Nevins?” I asked.

  “Nevins is in charge of military procurement at the War Department, and he is Major Duval’s commanding officer,” said Val. “Before the war he was an intimate of Simon Cameron and one of the biggest campaign contributors to the Republican Party in Pennsylvania. He is financially connected to several influential members of Congress, so we must move carefully. These are some of the most powerful men in the Union, and they will stop at nothing to protect themselves. For tonight, our sole task is to discover any scrap of information that can help us identify the defective carriages.”

  Val and I left the library together, slowly working our way through the crowd of officers choking the corridor.

  “I only wish we had more men like Sam Hathaway in the department,” said Val. “He is the most dedicated and effective officer I have yet worked with in the army. Not only is he honest, but he is totally unafraid of taking on the high and the mighty … As you saw for yourself.”

  “You never defended the president,” I said.

  “For one thing, Sam was right about those decisions. Aside from that, I cannot afford to let anyone know about what we are doing for the president, even Sam. Secrecy is vital.”

  “How were his legs paralyzed?”

  “Wounded at Second Bull Run, I believe. He is to receive a presidential commendation from Father Abraham himself in a few weeks for what he did during the Seven Days.”

  Outside, night had fallen, and across the river I saw the distant fires of the Confederate army. As we passed a row of stables, I could hear the sound of a hammer clanging against an anvil.

  Val turned and said, “‘Piercing the night’s dull ear; and from the tents, The armourers accomplishing the knights, With busy hammers closing rivets up, Give dreadful note of preparation.’”

  “Henry the Fifth,” I said, grinning. “Funny, looking at all those Rebel fires across the river, I was thinking of a line, too,” I said.

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “‘I wandered lonely as a cloud … When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils,’” I said.

  “A true warrior’s refrain,” said Val.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I went back to the tent and pulled out my satchel bag. The frigid air had begun to make my wound ache again, and I did not tarry in my ablutions. Cracking the ice in the pitcher, I poured a few inches of water into the bowl, washed my face with lye soap, and combed my hair. Although I had lost a great deal of weight since the start of the war, my spare uniform coat was still fairly presentable, and the pants were of good broadcloth. I buttoned my greatcoat over the uniform and headed for General Hooker’s party.

  Fog had settled near the ground, creating strange ghostly halos around the soldiers’ fires and muffling the usual noises of camp. The raw air was keeping most of the army inside their tents and shelters.

  Suddenly I heard the strains of what sounded like a full orchestra, and a moment later, a canvas wall materialized out of the fog ahead of me. It was like no tent wall I had ever seen before, stretching fully twelve feet into the air. It took several minutes of walking around the perimeter before I came to an opening in the wall. Sentries were posted on either side of it. Neither of them asked me for an invitation, and I stepped through the opening.

  The first thing that struck me was the blessed warmth. An odd assortment of wood-burning stoves, probably stripped from homes in the surrounding countryside, dotted the perimeter of the vast canvas hall, conveying light and heat toward the crowd of pressing figures. A newly constructed hardwood floor provided further insulation from the cold. The word HOSPITAL was stenciled into many of the canvas panels, and I surmised that the party hall had been constructed by lashing together dozens of huge hospital tents. Army engineers must have spent a week constructing it.

  The walls and support beams were decorated with Chinese lanterns, regimental battle flags, boughs of evergreens, and gaily colored bunting. More than two hundred officers congregated near the plank bars in each corner. There were kegs of whiskey and brandy stacked behind the bars, along with crates of French wines and champagne. Enlisted men in white cavalry-length tunics were making and se
rving the drinks.

  Scanning the crowd, I recognized some of the most senior generals in the Army of the Potomac, including several I had heard General Hooker refer to as morons and cowardly imbeciles. There were famous senators and congressmen there, too. More than a hundred gaily dressed women, officers’ wives and daughters, were gathered in the center of the pavilion. No one was dancing yet, but the orchestra was playing quadrilles from an elevated stand along one of the walls.

  A line of plantation tables, each covered by a starched white tablecloth, was heaped with Delmonico’s fare, all of it giving off a heavenly aroma. Engraved cards identified the lobster bisque, scallops bouillabaisse, Normandy-style fish stew, coq au vin, lamb en croute, suckling pig stuffed with apricots and sausage, and a selection of roast meats including beef, duckling, goose, and pork. Two men wearing rubber aprons were expertly shucking large oysters and laying them down in half shells on a vast bed of chipped ice.

  As I stood staring at the opulent buffet, an officer strode briskly up to me. He was barely over five feet tall, with thin brown hair and close-together eyes.

  “I tell you, Kit, it’s sordid,” he said, in a tremolo voice.

  For a moment, I didn’t recognize him.

  “Charles?” I said uncertainly.

  “Of course, it is I,” he responded.

  Charles Francis Adams Jr. had been another one of my classmates in Cambridge. He was the grandson of former-president John Quincy Adams.

  “What are you doing here?” I said.

  “I’m posted with the First Massachusetts Cavalry,” he said. “It’s disgusting.”

  “The cavalry?” I asked.