1862

by Robert Conroy

  “I hope you're right,” Knollys muttered. It was widely understood that the garrison of forts like Stephens were not combat-experienced regulars. Maybe they would duck for dry places and wait until the storm passed.

  The British soldiers inched, crawled, and stumbled through the mud. When they reached the first line of barricades, thechevaux-de-frise, they crawled up to and through the interlocking barricades. There was no rifle fire from the trenches.

  Maybe he's right, Knollys thought with growing hope. A select handful of British soldiers slithered over the lip of the trench and disappeared from sight. Still no sound. A head peeked over and waved them onward.

  “Migawd.” someone muttered. “Were bloody fucking in.”

  By this time, most of the assault force had made it through thechevaux-de-frise and were awaiting the signal to rush the trench. Knollys gave the command and they hurled themselves forward and into the earthen pit. A dead Union soldier lay facedown in the water at their feet.

  “He was all wrapped in his blanket and never saw us,” Wolsey said, and Knollys realized the brigadier general had been one of the first men over the top. “Our men are fanning out and taking care of other sentries. If they are as alert as this poor boy was. we'll have no problems. Your wish has come true. John. It's New York all over again.”

  More British poured in and Wolsey sent a runner back for reinforcements. 'They'd best start now. The weather will slow them down,” Wolsey said.

  Just then, a shot rang out, strangely muffled by the rain. There was shouting and an additional burst of gunfire. The garrison, safe and warm in its earthen-covered barracks, was awake and angry.

  While fierce skirmishing took place, Knollys grabbed a couple dozen men and headed to the rear of the fort. It was imperative that no one escape to warn the city. It was possible, just possible, that the adjacent forts, De Russey and Slocum, were not able to hear the gunfire through the muffling effects of the rain.

  Knollys quickly set his men in a firing line just as a half-dozen frightened Union soldiers came running. They ignored the order to halt until a half-volley dropped two of them. The remainder surrendered, as did others who stumbled upon the scene. It was working.

  “Major, over here, please.” yelled a sergeant. “I've found their telegraph line.”

  “Cut it.” Knollys hollered. “Cut it now!”

  The sergeant hacked at the wire and it separated. That was close. Knollys thought, then he wondered if his action had been in time.

  Firing inside the fort slowed and then ceased. While some Union soldiers had fought bravely, others had been confused and disoriented by the sudden British attack. The survivors were now prisoners. Knollys saw handfuls of Confederates in among the British as they rounded up the remainder of the garrison. The brigade from Longstreet^’ s Corps had begun arriving. A dull boom came from the direction of Fort De Russey. “What the devil?” Knollys snapped.

  “They've seen us,” said Wolsey, who had just walked up to him. “More precisely, I think they've somehow noted the Confederate mass heading in this direction. With a little luck they won't realize that there's a hole in their dike.”

  “But their guns overlap Fort Stephens,” Knollys said. “That means they can maul Longstreet’s men, who can’t get here all that much faster than we did. It’s still going to be a long, slow crawl for them to get here.”

  “Good point,” Wolsey said. He turned to some other officers who'd accompanied him. “Get some of the guns we've just captured and turn them on De Russey. That'll distract them. We'll lose some of the element of surprise, but that's a price we'll have to pay. At any rate, Knollys, we've done it. We're in Washington.”

  Major General George Henry Thomas fully understood that he was both a damned good general and his own worst enemy. At the beginning of the Southern insurrection, he had considered resigning his federal commission and joining the Confederacy to help defend his native Virginia. After deep and profound thought, he had decided to stay with the Union, but the damage had been done. He had voiced his doubts and opinions to others and they had reached the ears of those in charge. Thus, he was not well trusted by the Union government, many of his own family had turned against him. and at least one former neighbor had said he'd shove Thomas's sword up his ass if he ever showed his face in Virginia again.

  The family situation he could handle. He had never been all that fond of his unmarried sisters. It was the fact that he had been backwatered that galled him. He knew he was at least as good a general as Grant, and better than Sherman. In the beginning he had been cursed with assignments under dullards like Rosecrans. who still hadn't pushed the outnumbered Bragg into battle, and Halleck himself. Hell, if he'd been commanding instead of Rosecrans. Bragg's army would be retreating through the Gulf of Mexico by now.

  Despite his confidence in his own abilities. George Thomas was a modest man who disliked show-off generals like McClellan. He cared for his men with a father-like concern and they reciprocated by calling him “Pap,” for pappy. His concern for his men sometimes led him to be meticulous in his planning and that sometimes exasperated those who were higher up than he.

  Despite his stint in purgatory, Thomas had won a number of small battles, fought well in larger ones, and forced people to notice his abilities.

  Finally, he had been given a command worthy of his own expectations even though it was under Grant. Ulysses Grant was four years his junior and hadn't even been in the army at the beginning of the hostilities, while Thomas had been a major in the regulars. Thomas had swallowed his pride and taken command of the Union forces defending Baltimore. It was some solace that his new command was almost twice that of the entire U.S. Army at the beginning of the war.

  George Thomas's role was to shift to Washington and take command over Meade's smaller field force when the Confederates moved to his south. He would then pressure Lee into a battle. This suited Thomas just fine. The sooner Lee was defeated, the sooner the damned war would be over and he could start talking to his relatives. If he wanted to, of course. He had begun to think he'd never return to Virginia.

  However, all of this depended on orders from Grant, who was choreographing the whole thing and, in Thomas's grudging opinion, doing a fine job. So where, then, were the orders? In anticipation of getting the word from Grant, his army was prepared to move, and part of one corps, Major General James McPherson's, was already on trains and marking time throughout the night.

  Thomas was normally quite calm, but this day the burly general was concerned. Thus, when trainloads of men from Sherman's army began to arrive, Thomas was puzzled and angry. Where the hell were the orders to move? Obviously, Sherman had gotten his, so where were those for Thomas's army? Then when telegrams from Washington started to come in informing him that some fighting was occurring, General Thomas had the sickening feeling that something had gone wrong.

  Thomas took a deep breath and calmed himself. It was time to actually be a general and not just an order taker. He might catch hell for taking the initiative, but he was not built to stand and let the world pass him by. It barely occurred to him that, by taking prompt action, he might divest himself of what he felt was an undeserved reputation for being too slow.

  Thomas located McPherson standing by his train and watching the arrival of Sherman's lead units. “Everything s fucked up,” Thomas said. “Go now.” McPherson was quickly alert. “We have orders?”

  “The hell with orders.” Thomas snarled. His anger was towards the situation, and not the thirty-two-year-old McPherson, who was one of the better generals he'd ever commanded. If McPherson was surprised by the unusual outburst, he didn't show it.

  “Only Logan's division is on trains.” McPherson said. “What about the rest?”

  Thomas thought quickly. Flexibility was needed. His preference was for thorough planning, but there was no time for that luxury. He had to improvise. His own empty trains were being blocked on sidings by Sherman's arrivals. When Colonel Haupt found out what was happ
ening to his precious schedules, the colonel would shit.

  “Sherman's men are arriving and they're already on trains. I'm not going to waste time getting them off and your men on. If something's fucked up in Washington, it needs tending to right away.

  Sherman's boys’ll simply follow you, and you do what you have to with them. I'll square it with Sherman and Grant, and well sort them out later. Is that a problem?” McPherson assured him it wasn't and strode off. Minutes later, the first trainload of Union troops began to chug its way towards Washington.

  Major General George Thomas took a deep breath and wondered if he'd saved the day or messed it up utterly. He^’ d tried to cover his ass by sending a telegram to Grant telling him what he^’ d done in the absence of orders that made any sense. At least no one would ever again call him over-meticulous.

  Colonel John Rawlins knew the shame and nausea that came from failure. The first telegrams from Washington telling of the Confederate attack and asking where Thomas was were fobbed off. Thomas was on his way. He was slower than Grant liked, but he did his job and did it well. Thomas would be there. He had been ordered to Washington, and Grant had every confidence that Thomas would get there before Lee could do much damage.

  But when a telegram came from Thomas stating that Sherman's men were arriving and asking should he or should he not proceed to help Meade, it had shocked Grant's staff and stunned Rawlins who, as chief of staff, had the responsibility for sending out all orders. Grant had remained outwardly imperturbable, but he had fixed Rawlins with the icy glare he used to intimidate and crumple those who crossed him.

  A moment later, Grant had softened and a look of pity had come across his face. He, Grant, had made the mistake of entrusting Rawlins: and the responsibility for anything that happened was Grant's, not Rawlins's. However. John Rawlins knew that he would never again be trusted with anything important.

  Rawlins had run to the telegraph office with a fresh set of orders from Grant telling Thomas to proceed to Washington immediately and with all possible haste. They also told Thomas to assume command of Meade^’ s forces as planned and now Sherman's as well, and to coordinate the defense of Washington. While these telegrams were being sent. Rawlins checked the message log for the previous night and saw that nothing had gone out for Thomas.

  Then he remembered being knocked to the mud and scrambling for lost papers. He had assumed that he had recovered them all and hadn't double-checked. The mix-up was all his fault. He should have checked.

  Rawlins was so upset he wanted to weep. The Confederates were attacking Washington and Thomas's army was nowhere near the place. He. John Rawlins. a fine lawyer and good friend of Ulysses Grant, stood a good chance of being remembered by history as the man who lost both the capital of his country and the war because of one moment's carelessness.

  If he'd had a gun. he would have blown his brains out. But then, he thought sadly, he'd probably have missed.

  At first Nathan mistook the dull booming for the sound of natural thunder in the rainy night. After all, it was storming and thunder was not unknown at that time of the year. He almost slept through it.

  But then he^’ d noticed a difference in the sound. It was too sharp, too rhythmic. He'd walked to the window and opened it carefully so as to not wake Rebecca. He wasn't successful.

  “It's not a thunderstorm, is it?” she asked. Her face was pale in the night and she looked both grim and concerned. She looked like a waif with the quilt pulled up to her chin. She was naked underneath it, as her monthly curse had ceased.

  “Cannons,” he said simply. The war had come to Washington, D.C.

  “You're going?”

  “Yes.”

  He dressed quickly in the uniform of a Union colonel. Rebecca had thrown on a robe and gone to awaken Fromm. The former sergeant had put on his own uniform and then saddled two horses. Nathan was surprised.

  “Got to see this one,” Fromm said with a grin. Thanks to Bridget Conlin's good cooking, his uniform barely fit him.

  Nathan and Rebecca hugged tightly and without words that would have been meaningless. Nathan and Fromm mounted their horses and cantered off into the night.

  For Sergeant Billy Harwell, this was the worst of all possible nightmares. They had been roused by Captain Melcher with the stunning news that the rebels were inside the fortifications around Fort Stephens and that Melcher's regiment was going to try and plug the leak.

  Within minutes, the entire regiment had been assembled and began to march northward. The cold wind whipped their faces, and the mud made marching an effort that sucked the breath from their lungs. What ground they should have covered in an hour took more than twice that.

  They were still more than a mile from Stephens when they met their first refugees from the fighting. These confirmed that Stephens had fallen as a result of a sneak attack and that Fort De Russey was under a flanking attack because its guns were a pain in the ass to the Confederates, who wanted to send their army through the breach. Fort Stephens was directly to their front, with Fort De Russey to the left and Fort Slocum to the right.

  Billy, Olaf, and the rest of their companions wanted nothing more than for De Russey to hold out for all eternity and keep the rebs pinned down. It was still dark and, since it was mid-December, likely to stay that way for a while. At least the rain had slackened considerably. This would be much better if they had to fight, which was becoming increasingly likely. Without the rain, he could see his targets, and bullets were far less likely to misfire from the dampness.

  They were arrayed across what passed for a road with Stephens and De Russey at the far end of it. Billy stared down it but could see nothing, only an occasional retreating Union soldier who confirmed what they already knew. The captain sent out a couple of men to patrol up ahead and see what was happening. It was obvious the regiment wasn't going to try to retake Stephens with the few hundred men they had at hand.

  Billy turned behind him and saw a pair of riders on horseback talking to Major Snead and Captain Melcher. Colonel Hodges was ill and hadn't arrived if he was going to at all. One rider looked familiar and then Billy recalled an equally rainy night outside Washington many months before. It was the commanding-looking gentleman who had flipped him a coin and who he had later seen with General Scott.

  Another group of riders rode up and a small cheer went up from the men. It was General Meade. Now. by God. there was going to be some action.

  Major General George Gordon Meade had been educated as an engineer and counted as one of his skills his ability to understand topography and the lay of the land. Still, it did not take a genius to recognize that the small Union force he'd found waiting across the road to Fort Stephens held a key position. It was directly between Washington proper and the rebels who would soon come down from Fort Stephens.

  Meade, however, was surprised to see Nathan Hunter observing and helping place the troops. He'd known Nathan slightly and understood his position both with Grant and with retired general Winfield Scott. As a colonel Hunter ranked over anyone else in the area and had taken control of the men in the road. He had been getting them organized when Meade had arrived. Nathan had placed his men in two-deep rows and in an inverted Vin which any column coming down the road could be taken by either flank. They had dug in as best they could, clawing frantically at the earth with bayonets, shovels, and cooking gear. Stones and fence rails were used as barricades to help protect the thin lines of troops.

  “And what will you do if the rebs come cross-country instead of straight down the road?'^: Meade asked.

  Nathan shrugged. “Back off. We don't have enough men to do anything else. The best I can do is delay them until help gets here. When will reinforcements arrive?”

  The hawk-nosed Meade glowered. “They're coming, but it'll take a bit. Secretary Stanton heard of a plot to take the Arlington forts from some idiot actor named Booth. Stanton convinced me I should send the reserves to protect them. As a result I have eight thousand men on the wrong side of
the Potomac. I will never listen to Stanton again and the damned actor is under arrest.''

  Nathan was taken aback by the news. He had one regiment and parts of two others, in all. just under a thousand men and no cannon to stop the Confederate army. With the roads in even more miserable condition then they usually were, it would be awhile before the rest of Meade's reserve force returned from their wild-goose chase. The remainder of Meade's army garrisoned the forts and were scattered all about the thirty-seven-mile perimeter.

  Meade continued. “General Thomas is headed this way from Baltimore, but he'll be later than my own men in arriving. Until then, you are to hold them off as best you can. Oh yes, President Lincoln and his family are already holed up in the Treasury.”

  Nathan had told Rebecca to take General Scott down to the cellar if he refused to go to the fortified Treasury Building. “We'll do our best, General.”

  “You're in for a battle. Hunter. This won't be like staff work for Grant.”

  “Can’t argue that, sir,” Nathan said grimly. “However, I do have one advantage, General. I've inherited a full regiment armed with Henry repeaters, and the men seem to know how to utilize them.”

  Meade grinned. “Repeaters? Well, let's hope they are a nasty surprise for the rebels.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Rebels came at first light. The rain had stopped totally and they were seen as a thick column of humanity pushing down the road from Fort Stephens. There were no discernible blocks of men to identify as separate units. They had become too intermixed while navigating through the trenches and ducking the shelling that still hit Fort Stephens. The situation was too urgent for them to stop and organize. Their orders had been for them to push as far and as fast as possible towards Washington before the Union forces recovered from the shock.

  Nathan stationed himself by Captain Melcher. Major Snead had disappeared, probably run off in fright. Nathan wasn^’ t sure he blamed the man, although he'd be court-martialed if he was caught and hopefully hanged. Nathan found he had little sympathy for anyone who claimed to be an officer and who then failed. But then, who was guaranteed success? There had to be five or six thousand rebels in the oncoming horde. Was there that much difference in failing by running, and by staying and still failing?