“No, send Stanley. It’s about time he proved he can handle at least one assignment. Besides, he’s spoiling for a fight with Wheeler.”
Garesché scribbles the note to Stanley and sends it off with one of the orderlies waiting outside the door. Rosecrans lights one of the Cincinnati cigars from Grant’s tobacconist, studies the glowing end. “Did you know,” he says, “that old Useless never issues a proclamation to his army before battle? I don’t understand that. It seems unfair to ask men of little education and less understanding to risk their lives without some encouragement from their general.” He withdraws a folded sheet from a pocket. “Shine this up a little and then send copies to all divisions. Let the men hear it at assembly.”
Garesché unfolds the sheet, mind already busy with the logistics of making and distributing so many copies this late at night. He scans the message. It is quite good, more restrained than he would have expected. A word or two here and there… . “I would suggest, General, that where you say—”
“Whatever you think, Julius. Whatever you think.”
Bragg, Hardee, and Polk study the map in the yellow light of the coal-oil chandelier. Bragg has proposed attacking along the axis of the Nashville Pike to pierce the Yankee center.
Polk and Hardee object strenuously. Overbalanced to the left, the army is improperly aligned for an attack on the Yankee center. Readjustments cannot possibly be made before midmorning, and by then Thomas’s lines will be thick with infantry and batteries. (Leave it to Old Slow Trot to make sure of that.) Better by far to hit the right flank with McCown’s and Cleburne’s divisions.
Bragg could chortle at his success. The Professor and the Bishop have conceded the question of whether to attack or to defend. And in so doing, they have fallen in with his tactical plan, which—to anyone save this pair of cretins—should have been obvious once he ordered Cleburne positioned behind McCown.
“Very well then, gentlemen, we will attack the enemy’s right flank at dawn. You will have written orders within the hour. Until then, please enjoy the comforts of this house.”
When they have left the room, he writes out the orders he has been considering all day. McCown’s and Cleburne’s divisions of Hardee’s corps will open the attack, the successive lines rolling over the Yankee flank and then wheeling to the right. Cheatham’s and then Withers’s divisions of Polk’s corps will advance in echelon by brigade to Cleburne’s right, the regiments of the Yankee right and center giving way as they are struck successively in front and flank by the pivoting wheel. Like a gigantic swinging door hinged on the Nashville Pike, the maneuver will sweep Rosecrans’s fleeing multitudes before it until it slams against Stones River and Breckinridge’s line on the far side. And this time Breckinridge will be exactly where he is ordered to be, or Bragg will have him shot.
Brigadier General Joshua Woodrow Sill is not by temperament a soldier. Many people know this, including his classmate, friend, and commanding officer, Phil Sheridan. In Kentucky, they both commanded divisions, but Sill has since been demoted to command of one of Sheridan’s brigades.
The two friends sit together in the midnight hour under the cover of a rain fly, their backs to the fallen trunk of an oak. They have stripped off their wet uniform jackets and sit with blankets about their shoulders, blowing on cups of coffee. Sheridan, taciturn even in the best of peaceful moments, is glum over the prospect of little action in the morning.
“May I see the order?” Sill asks.
Sheridan reaches into a pocket and hands Sill a single sheet.
Sill unfolds it and leans close to the fire to read. He frowns. “This is General Rosecrans’s order to General McCook. Didn’t McCook amplify it?”
Sheridan shakes his head. “No, he just gave us copies and told us to exercise our best judgment as division commanders.”
Sill reads: “‘Take a strong position; if the enemy attacks, fall back slowly, refusing your right, contesting the ground inch by inch. If the enemy does not attack you, you will attack him, not vigorously, but warmly.’” Sill reads the order through a second time to himself. “‘Not vigorously, but warmly.’ That’s an odd sort of phrase. I believe I detect the Jesuitical hand of Julius Garesché.”
Sheridan grunts. “Yes, it sounds like him. What do you think McCook will do with the order?”
“I suppose he will do nothing. Alex hasn’t seemed aggressively inclined of late.”
“So unless we’re attacked, we’ll sit here all day trying to stay warm.”
“So it would appear.”
Sheridan shakes his head. “No matter how many times I consider it, I can’t comprehend how a chucklehead like Alex McCook can be a major general commanding an entire army wing.”
“Politics. His family—”
“Yes, politics. I know. But Rosy could have demoted him when he took command. McCook was utterly disgraced at Perryville.”
“But Rosecrans wants to be governor of Ohio and then president. He’ll need the McCooks behind him.”
“Well, when the war ends, all this volunteer rank will be just so much paper. Alex, you, and I will be a trio of lowly captains again.”
“Not me, Phil. I’ll be back in my university while you two are chasing Indians on the prairies. You’ll have many a long evening around the campfire to argue seniority. I plan to be at the Metropolitan Opera, a beautiful young thing on my arm.”
Sheridan gives him a quick glance, receives a beatific smile in return: they both know it is as likely to be a beautiful boy as a beautiful girl.
To the rear, a horse approaches at a trot, hooves splashing through puddles. A sentry barks a challenge. “God, don’t shoot him,” Sheridan mutters. “No one’s going to be coming at this hour except a courier.” There is a muffled exchange of sign and countersign.
A moment later, the duty officer approaches. He is a robust young lieutenant, bursting with excitement and self-importance despite the chill drizzle. “A message from army headquarters, General,” the lieutenant announces to Sheridan, snapping off a salute that showers water from his raincoat onto Sill’s back and neck.
Sheridan acknowledges the salute. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”
“You’re welcome, sir.” The lieutenant stands smiling, as if expecting to be included in the conversation of generals.
“That will be all, Lieutenant. You may look to your pickets.”
“Oh. Yes, sir.” The lieutenant bounds away.
Sheridan shakes his head, and Sill laughs gently. “And tomorrow he will fight like a lion and win the new medal Congress is giving out.”
“But he’ll never be so young again,” Sheridan says.
“No. Never so young.”
Sheridan unfolds the waxed cover, scans the message, and then passes it to Sill. “The commanding general has issued his proclamation for the morning.”
Sill reads aloud: “‘Soldiers, the eyes of the whole nation are upon you; the very fate of the nation may be said to hang on the issue of this day’s battle. Be true, then, to yourselves, true to your own manly character and soldierly reputation, true to the love of your dear ones at home, whose prayers ascend to God this day for your success. Be cool! I need not ask you to be brave. Keep ranks. Do not throw away your fire. Fire slowly, deliberately; above all, fire low, and be always sure of your aim. Close steadily in upon the enemy, and, when you get within charging distance, rush on him with the bayonet. Do this, and the victory will certainly be yours. W. S. Rosecrans, Major Gen., U.S. Volunteers.’”
Sill looks up. “This is all well and good, Phil. But I don’t want to assemble my brigade to hear this. I want my men in line, ready to repel anything the Rebs throw at us.”
Sheridan nods. “Of course, although I doubt we have much to worry about. Send it down to the regiments and let the colonels read it to the men when they have a chance.” He draws in lips, whistles a short, sharp note.
The duty officer is there in a moment, dripping face eager. “Yes, General.”
“Have one of th
e clerks copy this. Give the first copy to General Sill, then send copies to Colonel Schaefer and Colonel Roberts.”
“Yes, sir.”
Sill and Sheridan sit in silence for a few minutes, staring into the rainy darkness. Sill asks: “Do you remember when you were assigned to my room after your suspension? It was an odd match.”
Sheridan snorts. “It was a perfect match. They knew you had the integrity to report me if I broke the code of conduct. Colonel Robert E. Lee never intended for me to graduate. After all, I’d damned near bayoneted one of his fellow Virginians.”
“Yes, one who died fighting for the Union. But do you remember what I told you?”
“That none of us could change the nature given us, but that we could learn to control our inclinations.”
Sill smiles. “There was rather more to it at the time, but that was the sum of it. Well, I have learned to control my fear. I am still terrified, but I’ll retreat only if forced. But can you retreat at all, Phil? Or are you going to refuse to give so much as an inch of ground, even if it means killing your entire command?”
Sheridan looks at him sharply. “You only asked me to master my temper. I have done that.”
Sill smiles, knowing that he has gained the upper hand, as he always could over this Irish mucker’s son. “I know you better now. It’s more than temper.”
“Then the answer is: I don’t know what I would do.”
“Well, I think your choice may determine whether you become a great general or die a foolish one.”
“You are saying that I should learn to retreat?”
“A coward can’t advise a warrior. He can only pose the questions.”
“You are no coward.”
Sill smiles, does not reply. A moment later the young lieutenant is back with Sill’s copy of the proclamation. Sill rises. “Good night, Phil. Sleep if you can.” He bundles his uniform jacket under his rain coat and steps into the drizzle.
Sheridan arranges his bed, folding the remaining uniform jacket for a pillow. He notices then that it is Sill’s jacket, not his own. Well, no matter. In the morning, they will trade.
Brigadier General David Stanley is lying under a lean-to of canvas and cedar bows when he is awakened by the courier from Garesché. He reads the orders directing him to take charge of the army’s trains between Wilkinson Crossroads and Stewart’s Creek, forwarding the ordnance wagons and protecting McCook’s rear.
The assignment seems better fitted to a junior colonel than to the commander of the Army of the Cumberland’s cavalry, but Stanley is not disposed to argue in the aftermath of Wheeler’s depredations. Besides, the cavalry is so wildly dispersed in chasing after Wheeler and protecting the remaining trains that he no longer has all that much to command anyway.
He steps from under the lean-to and turns his face up into the cold drizzle. He feels the first throb of what he supposes will be a hangover by first light. After leaving Rosecrans’s headquarters, he and McCook had paused to drink a flask of brandy before parting. McCook will be, as always, unaffected. But Stanley is prone to hangovers—some weakness of the brain, he supposes—and should know better than to match Alex McCook drink for drink.
He calls his staff together and begins issuing orders. It will take at least an hour for the two regiments in the cavalry reserve to get on the road. In the meantime, he will ride ahead to look over the situation at the crossroads. He steps close to the fire, takes coffee from an aide, and drinks. Should he ask if anyone has a flask? No, a bad example, though no doubt many are staying warm tonight with the occasional snort of brandy or whiskey. Colonel John Kennett appears out of the darkness, growls, “What’s all this foolishness I hear about Wheeler coming down our backs?”
“Have some coffee, Judge,” Stanley says. “It’ll improve your temper.”
Kennett grumbles, looks about for coffee, accepts a cup and swallows. “God, Jesus! What kind of piss is this? Can’t a man of you make a pot of coffee?” There are chuckles among the staff. Kennett glares. “If you came before my court I’d have you all whipped. Revive flogging, I say! Solve half the problems of the younger generation. That and decent coffee.” Kennett swallows again, holds out his cup for a refill, still grumbling, though his eyes are merry.
Kennett is an old man for cavalry service—for any field service, really— hair turned iron gray and face furrowed by years of frowning down at petitioners and petty offenders from the bench in his Dayton courtroom. A volunteer officer in Mexico and a militia colonel afterward, he is technically in command of the cavalry division. Yet he is largely supernumerary in this army where Stanley, as chief of cavalry, has only the single division to direct. Kennett has accepted his role gracefully, relays Stanley’s orders while daily dreading a discharge that will send him home to old age.
When Stanley has finished explaining Rosecrans’s concerns, Kennett scowls. “I should go, you should stay. Come morning, we’re going to have a hell of a fight here. I feel it.”
“Perhaps, but I think it’s more likely that we’ll find Bragg withdrawing his left to the far side of the river come morning. That will cause a revision of our plans and another day of waiting. Besides, I’ll only be a few miles off if I’m needed.”
“Still, General. I think—”
“Judge, I want you to represent me at army headquarters. Colonel Zahm can manage the straggler line and watch the army’s flanks.”
The judge harrumphs. “Can I issue an order to young Zahm, or do I just pass on your orders?”
“Of course you can issue him orders, Judge. As circumstances dictate or the commanding general directs, issue all the orders you want to. Just keep me apprised of developments.”
Kennett turns to demand yet a third cup of “this micturition you call coffee.” (By the end of an ordinary day, he will have consumed two or three gallons, causing some on the staff to speculate that the old man actually died years before and is vivified only by the steady affluxion of coffee.) Stanley excuses himself, goes behind the lean-to to empty his bladder. He nearly trips over two orderly sergeants passing a half-gallon jug. They jump to their feet, attempting to hide the jug, then grin sheepishly. “It’s a cold night, General,” the older one says.
“Yes, it is, Sergeant. Very cold.”
The sergeant glances down at the jug. “Would the general care for a bit of warmth?”
Why not? Stanley thinks. A democratic war, after all. “Thank you, Sergeant.” He takes the jug, tilts it back, the corn liquor cold as ice water in his mouth, then turning raw fire in his gullet. He coughs, smiles at the grinning sergeants, and takes another, longer swallow, already feeling better.
He hands the jug back and waits for it to pass around to him again. Another swallow or two and he will be ready to go see to the supply trains. Perhaps Wheeler will come with the dawn. Perhaps Stanley will have his revenge early, recover all the reputation the last day has cost him. He notices that the sergeants’ faces have taken on a rosy glow in the firelight. Damn good fellows. Should learn their names.
Wheeler can push his brigade no farther. A dozen miles short of Murfreesboro, he lets them fall out to bivouac in a field beside the Salem Pike. The men are exhausted, will be useless for anything until late in the day. They fall asleep in clumps, pressed to each other to preserve what body heat they can on the freezing earth. Wheeler rides on toward Bragg’s headquarters to report. He knows that captured wagons have been rolling into the Confederate lines all afternoon and evening, and with them reports of all the destruction he and his men have wreaked on the Yankee army. Yet he has a sensation of opportunities overlooked, of greatness missed by an eyelash, of still being “Little Joe”—not “Fighting Joe”—Wheeler.
When Garesché lies down, he cannot imagine sleeping. Yet he does sleep. He dreams of sitting over glasses of wine with his brother Frederick, the priest, in the Washington café near the War Department. It is summer again, the afternoon light flooding across the tablecloth so that the glasses are elongated in reflection, the
wine as red as the blood running from Christ’s side in the crucifixion window of St. Catherine’s. He is telling again of sitting beneath the window, the crazy old woman behind him, whispering of death in his first battle, of Julius Garesché rendered no more. He wants very much to hear Frederick tell him again that such presentiments are “fumes of an overwrought fancy.” But his brother does not speak, sits rather with face immobile, grim, accepting. Garesché reaches out a hand in appeal: Tell me that I will see them again. My wife, my children. Tell me—
But his brother rises, turns without farewell, walks toward the door. As if tipped by some invisible hand, the wine glasses overturn, spilling across the tablecloth. He tries to staunch the spreading stain, blots desperately at it with his napkin, then his coat sleeve, but it overspreads the table, floods onto the floor, no longer wine but blood in an unremitting torrent. He cries out to his brother for help, but Frederick is gone, the open door swinging lazily on silent hinges. Garesché runs after him, his shoes splashing ankledeep in the gore that flows unnoticed among the crowded tables. No one looks up or pays him the least mind. He steps not onto a Washington street or a Tennessee lane but into a place he has never seen: a blasted landscape of lava-scorched bushes and black ash slopes under a sky so blue that it might have been painted by Donatello or Fra Lippo Lippi except that there is no pity in it.
Bragg dreams of the perfection of flying artillery, of the beauty of his guns, shining bronze in the Mexican sun. This wasn’t clumsy horse artillery, no motley collection of nags and men supporting the infantry. A flying battery was a weapon unlike anything the world had ever seen: every man mounted, every gun, limber, and caisson moving with the choreography of ballet. From now on, it would be the decisive factor in battle. Bragg and a half dozen young artillery officers, among them George Thomas, had come to Mexico to prove it so.
It fell to Bragg at Buena Vista to show the world. He wheeled his guns from crisis to crisis, always one step ahead of disaster. He can picture Colonel Jefferson Davis: tall, gaunt, unmistakable in his manliness as his redshirted Mississippians formed their famous V to repel a Mexican charge. The maneuver was doomed, the last desperate tactic before the Mexicans wrecked Taylor’s army. Then Bragg and his guns hurtled out of a deep draw like demons summoned from the underworld. In the brief three minutes before the charging Mexicans could cross the plateau, Bragg’s guns swung round, unlimbered, and loosed a blast of grapeshot that eviscerated the Mexican formations. The Mississippians fired their volley and charged, Davis in the forefront, to drive the Mexicans off the plateau. By the time the Mississippians fell to butchering the wounded with their bowie knives, Bragg’s battery was limbered and dashing off to another crisis.
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