The train, pulling but two passenger cars, slid to a halt, steam venting around the president's legs. The engineer leaned out of the cab, looking at him wide-eyed. "Are you Abe?" the engineer asked. "Last time I looked in the mirror I was," Lincoln said with a smile. The startled engineer quickly doffed his hat and nodded.
A captain leaning out of the door of the first car jumped down, ran up to him, nervously came to attention, and saluted.
"Mr. President. I must admit, I can't believe it's really you, sir." "It is."
"I thought the courier was mad when he grabbed me, told me to round up a company of men, and follow him to the rail yard and get aboard."
"Captain." Ely Parker stepped forward, the two exchanging salutes.
"That courier came straight from the War Department. You were, most likely, the first officer he spotted. Did you follow his orders and tell no one what you were about?"
"Yes, sir. I just rounded up my boys as ordered. I felt I should report to my colonel, but the courier showed me the dispatch with your signature on it, so I did as ordered."
"Good."
"May I ask what this is about, Major?"
"You and your men are to provide escort for the president up to Harrisburg. Absolutely no one is to know who is aboard this train. We'll stop only for water and wood. If but one man gets off the train and says a word to anyone, I'll have all of you up on court-martial before General Grant himself. Do we understand each other?"
"Yes, sir," said the captain, and he nervously saluted again.
"Son, I see you have a red Maltese cross on your cap," Lincoln interrupted. "Fifth Corps?"
"Yes, sir. Capt. Thomas Chamberlain, sir, Twentieth Maine."
"You were at Union Mills and Gunpowder River."
"Actually neither, sir. Our regiment was lost at Taneytown on July 2. We were paroled and just exchanged."
"We'll talk more about that later, Captain. I'm curious to hear your story."
"Yes, sir."
"Fine, now get aboard, and let's get moving."
The captain ran back to his car, shouting at the men leaning out the windows, "Get the hell back inside."
Ely looked up and down the track. They were several miles outside of Port Deposit, the length of track empty. The fast courier boat that had delivered them to this spot was resting in the reeds, the crew watching the show. Behind them was the broad open stretch of the Susquehanna, Havre de Grace just barely visible half a dozen miles downstream on the other shore.
Wisps of fog drifted on the river, several gunboats in midstream, anchored. On the far shore a huge Confederate flag, their "unstained banner," which could, when lying flat, be mistaken for a flag of truce, was displayed from the side of a barn.
He wondered if that just might be an outpost Someone with a telescope could perhaps see what was going on here, yet another reason he had insisted that Lincoln, at least for once, not wear his distinctive top hat and black frock coat, covering himself with a cavalry poncho and a slouch cap.
The two walked to the back of the train. Without a platform it was a long step up, but Lincoln took it with ease, actually offering a hand back to the far shorter Ely, who was almost tempted to take it, but then pulled himself up. They got on board the car, which was empty except for the staff officer from the War Department who had come up several hours ahead to make the arrangements for the train.
"A good job, Major Wilkenson," Lincoln said. "All very cloak-and-dagger, something almost out of a play."
"It was the first good locomotive I could grab and get up here, sir. The engineer says she'll make sixty miles to the hour on the good track up toward Chester. The road ahead is being cleared, with the report there's several wounded generals on board."
"Very good."
"I'm sorry the arrangements are so spartan," Wilkenson said, gesturing around the car.
It was clear that the car had seen hard use in recent weeks. The chairs were simple wood; a stove stood at one end, a privy cabin at the other. As the major looked about, he noticed dark stains on the floor and many of the seats, and there was a faint odor of decay.
"Sorry, sir,"- Wilkenson said. "It just came back from taking wounded up to Wilmington, still hasn't been fully scrubbed out, but it was all I could find."
"That's no problem," Lincoln said softly.
The train lurched, whistle shrieking. After looking for a relatively clean seat, Lincoln sat down. He motioned for Ely to sit across from him.
Wilkenson stood silent for a few seconds, then said he was going forward to check with the engineer and come back with some rations.
For Ely it was a moment to finally sit back, one more hurdle jumped. Little had he dreamed this time yesterday that he would be escorting the president to meet Grant.
They had left Washington early in the afternoon, taking a gunboat down the Potomac and up the Chesapeake. Amazingly, they had slipped out of Washington without being noticed through a series of subterfuges and a report that the president had a mild dose of variola and had to be confined to bed and quarantine for several days.
Once aboard ship the president had retired to a cabin and within minutes was fast asleep, sleeping, in fact, for most of the journey. Ely, consumed with concern for the man he escorted, found he could not sleep.
The train was picking up speed, rails clicking, the car swaying as they went through a sweeping curve. To their right was the Susquehanna, at the moment still rebel territory on the far side.
Lincoln put his feet up on the seat and smiled.
"Now, Major, guess we have a long ride ahead. Please tell me everything about yourself, your tribe, how you came to wear the uniform."
"A long story, sir."
"We have plenty of time. You know, I sort of volunteered during the so-called Black Hawk War, nearly thirty years back. Glad as anything we didn't have to fight. Actually, my sympathies rested more with your side in that unfortunate affair."
"Well, sir, America is my country, too." Lincoln leaned over and patted him lightly on the knee. "I'm proud to hear that, Major. I wish we could all feel that way."
He leaned back, looking out the window. They were racing by an army encampment, survivors no doubt of Gunpowder River.
"So start your story, Major, and then, when you're done, I've got a few questions for you about General .Grant."
The train thundered on, racing through the switching yard that put them on the main track heading north toward Pennsylvania.
Baltimore
August 23,1863 7:00 A.M.
Wearily, Gen. Robert E. Lee swung his leg out of the stirrup. Trembling with exhaustion, he dismounted, grateful that Walter Taylor was holding his mount's bridle. He had left Traveler behind this morning to rest, borrowing an escort's mount to press the final miles into the city. The horse was feisty and skittish and had nearly thrown him when startled by a dog that had darted out of an alleyway to challenge possession of the road.
The city was quiet, provost guards out patrolling the streets, weary troops marching at route step down the main roads from the north, then turning to file west into their old encampment sites used prior to the start of the Gunpowder River campaign. The ranks were thin, thousands of men having fallen out during the last twenty-four hours from exhaustion, and again he had passed orders to deal lightly with such men.
Coming down the steps of the hotel flying the First Corps headquarters flag came Pete Longstreet. Pete had pushed on ahead at his request to ensure that the city was secure, and that no coordinated action might be coming from the Union garrison still occupying Fort McHenry down in the harbor.
"General, sir, good to see you," Pete said quietly, saluting. "Did you get some rest last night, sir?"
"Yes, actually I did."
He had stopped just south of Gunpowder River and was asleep within minutes. If he was to think this current situation through, he had to be sharper, and, besides, he felt secure with Pete heading back into the city while he slept.
"Things here in t
he town are secure, sir," Pete said. "Not a peep from the garrison down in the harbor."
"As I assumed. I doubt if General Grant could extend such control in a coordinated manner, but still it was a worry. Even a brief sally from the fort could have caused us problems."
"I talked with one of our citizens, a bit of an amateur spy, a minister who said he was in the fort last evening, under a pass to visit his brother, who is ill."
"He was under a pass?" Lee asked. "You know I don't like using such things for subterfuge."
"No one ordered him to do it, sir, from our army. He took it upon himself."
Lee hesitated, then nodded.
"Go on then."
"He said they were aware of Sickles being beaten, but had no word whatsoever of Grant moving." "Good."
"He said they were all rather demoralized down there. Especially with word we were coming back into the city. That's about it regarding the fort. Garrison is still several thousand strong, with reports of more troops, mostly marines in the gunboats just outside the harbor. But nothing unusual to report from that side."
"And what else, General?"
"A rider came over the South Mountains into Gettysburg just before dusk, reporting in from Chambersburg. He carried a report that strong Yankee columns were seen coming down the valley past Carlisle.
"And then a report that just came in a few minutes back. Scouts report sighting Union infantry camped last night at Dillsburg."
Lee stood silent, trying to remember the location.
"At least ten miles south of Carlisle, a route that could take them toward Hanover. Also, Custer was screening that movement."
"Any indication which corps it was?"
"Nothing on any of that, sir. They are keeping up a solid screen."
Good move on Grant's part the first day out, Lee thought. Blinds us and now moves in a shadow land to the north and west.
As they spoke they slowly walked into the hotel lobby in which Longstreet had set up. Jed Hotchkiss, the army cartographer who had ridden ahead with Longstreet, was there to greet them. A table was set up covered with maps, and Lee walked over to it, with Longstreet by his side.
"Well, Major Hotchkiss," Lee said, "I see you've-been busy again."
"Same maps as before, sir, but I thought you might want to get a look at them."
Longstreet leaned over the table, pointing toward York and then Carlisle.
"Sir," Hotchkiss began, "we know that they have a screen of cavalry, at least two divisions' worth, spread in an arc from York westward, over to here at Heidlersburg, about twenty miles north of Gettysburg. It was from Heidlersburg that our last report came in, and that outpost is now withdrawing to Hanover."
"I'll want General Stuart to start moving out a screen tomorrow, probing, across this entire front."
As he spoke he drew a line with his finger from Gettysburg eastward to the Susquehanna River.
"Tomorrow, sir?" Pete asked.
"Yes, I know," Lee replied slowly, and as he spoke he sat down, reached into his breast pocket to take out a pair of spectacles and put them on.
"Walter, my compliments to General Stuart, and please convey that order to him. Tell him I only want him to send out those regiments that he feels are relatively fresh. I fear our new rival has the jump on us on that issue. I suspect many of Grant's troopers have mounts well shod and rested, and the boys astride them as good in the saddle as our boys are. If there is to be a tangle in the next few days, I want our boys on good mounts, otherwise they'll be run down."
He was silent for a moment, staring again at the map.
By rights he should give Stuart at least a week to refit. The reshodding of one mount would only take a matter of minutes, but ten thousand? Every blacksmith and farrier in Baltimore would be busy for days with that task. Then there were the horses for the artillery, quartermaster corps, and medical corps to be tended to as well before this army could march on a campaign of maneuver that also might span a hundred miles or more in a matter of days.
I need a week, he thought, but if I wait, that will give Grant a week to do as he pleases. "For want of a nail a horseshoe was lost, for want of a horseshoe..."
"Give the cavalry precedence in reshoeing the horses and drawing provisions. They have to move first or we will be blind.
"We need two things, General Longstreet," Lee said, adjusting his spectacles as he gazed at the maps, "time to rest and time to analyze what General Grant is about to do."
He forced a smile, accepting a cup of tea from Walter, who had fetched it from the kitchen in the hotel. He blew on the china rim before taking a sip.
"Don't worry, though, gentleman. We've faced others like this before. Remember Pope coming from the West with all his boasts?"
The staff chuckled.
"Headquarters in his saddle," Taylor laughed softly, and those gathered round Lee grinned with how that inane comment had been quickly turned into a meaning other than what Pope intended.
Lee looked over at Jed Hotchkiss and from him to Walter Taylor and the staff that was beginning to come in through the door.
"Gentlemen, two favors. First, Walter, would you be so kind as to ask the owner of this establishment if I might make my headquarters here? It is convenient and directly across the street from the telegraphy station. Also, Walter, I need you to see to the placement of the men as they file in. I want them to come in and find fresh rations. There's still plenty of beef and store goods in this town. Coffee, lots of coffee, tobacco, and fresh beef mean more now than three months of back pay. The men are to have tomorrow in camp, no drills, plenty of time to rest and for church services." "I'll see to it at once, sir."
"The second thing, gentlemen. If General Longstreet and I might have some time alone."
Nothing more needed to be said. Within seconds the room was emptied except for Pete and himself. A minute later Walter came back in, offering him a key to a room on the second floor with the compliments of the owner, who said he was honored by Lee's presence. After whispering that a guard was being posted around the hotel, he withdrew.
Pete was sitting across from him, exhaustion graying his features. It had been a hard march for him, too, he could see that.
Longstreet stirred, took out a cigar, and looked over at Lee, who nodded his approval before Pete lit up.
"I think we need to have a talk, General Longstreet." "I do, too, sir." "Why so?"
"Things have changed, a lot of things." Pete fell silent.
"Go on, General, I need you to speak freely. As I told you at Gettysburg, you are my right arm. I need to hear your opinions. Your insights gave us victory in the past; I am counting on you to help give us victory again."
Pete sighed, blew out a cloud of blue smoke, and leaned forward, looking Lee in the eyes.
"Sir, they just don't stop. I thought, after Union Mills, that would force Lincoln to give in. Certainly his abolitionist friends would stand by him, but the blow we gave them that day, I thought it was the beginning of the end."
"So did I, General," Lee said wistfully.
"We did it again at Gunpowder River. In some ways that victory was even more complete than Union Mills. It finished the Army of the Potomac, once and for all."
Longstreet sat back, shaking his head.
"I don't know anymore. I just don't know. I just thought
that finally they would stop coming, but here they come again."
"You knew Grant. I mean before the war." "Yes, sir."
'Tell me something about him."
"Well, sir, when I knew him, to be honest it was all rather tragic. He was a year behind me at the Point, graduating in forty-three. I knew him there as an honest sort. Didn't like to gamble, drink. A bit reserved. Curious, actually, since he didn't like the army all that much and would voice that in private. Even admitted he went to the Point simply because it was a free education. He planned to do his service afterward, then get out. The one thing he did enjoy was horsemanship. Underneath that gruff exterior there
is actually a rather sensitive soul, though most would find that impossible to believe."
"This tragic side you mentioned."
"The word was he took to drink out of loneliness and despair when separated from his wife. He was, sir, a gentleman and many of the men stationed out in California after the war... well, sir, you know what I mean when it came to women out there and such. Grant wasn't one of them, and the loneliness drove him half crazy."
"That's why he left the army?"
"I think so. Also, killing just sickened him."
"As it should all of us, General Longstreet. Yet everyone says he is relentless, cold-blooded," Lee finally ventured, uncomfortable with his own thoughts.
"He is indeed that At least I'm told that. I've never seen him in combat before. But from the word in the ranks he was absolutely fearless in Mexico. He doesn't lose his nerve under pressure the way many do, that is for certain."
"And yet, after leaving the army, he did not make much of himself."
Longstreet chuckled softly.
"No, sir, he did not. Failed at most everything he did. But let me put the shoe on the other foot. How many officers do we know who were all great guns in peacetime and then failed miserably when the bullets really did begin to whine about them?" Lee smiled sadly.
"More than any of us would like to admit, especially of old comrades."
"I think Grant is suited to this new kind of war that so many talk about."
"How so?"
"He doesn't stop. He just doesn't stop. Take Shiloh, for example, or his winter campaign around Vicksburg. Takes a reversal, what most anyone else would call a defeat, he wakes up the next morning as if yesterday didn't exist, and then pushes again."
"Like you, General Longstreet."
"Yes, sir, including me, but the difference is, he can draw on reserves we can only dream of. He understands that. Back in George Washington's time, an army fought a battle, it took weeks to resupply it, months to replace the men. Grant understands how different it all is now with trains, steamboats, factories. Fight a battle, he snaps a finger, brings up five million more rounds of ammunition, ten thousand more men, and pitches in again."
Both were silent for a moment.
Never Call Retreat - Civil War 03 Page 7
