by Jeff Shaara
Grant still watched from above the river, felt the sweat now on his face, held the cigar away, wiped at his brow with the back of his gloved hand. He did not like the gloves, the dull yellow cotton, preferred the feel of the leather straps in his bare hands. They were a gift, and Rawlins had insisted they would make the necessary impression. He wore a gold braid on his hat, another change, never thought much about the uniform, but that was Rawlins again, the concern for appearances. Grant had to tell himself it mattered, that the men would look to see the dashing figure of the commanding general, and they would expect some pomp, some excess of finery. The gold braid was his only grudging concession to that. He tasted the cigar again, also a gift, the dark aroma filling him, the wonderful smoke drifting to his eyes, his nose, and he thought, Yes, there is one good thing about being the commanding general, beyond the pageantry, the ridiculous vanity, something few of them would ever understand. You can get the best cigars.
There was motion in the water, a row of horsemen splashing across the river, the soldiers on the bridges calling out, wet protests, some laughing. Grant watched them come, saw now it was Sheridan.
There had been comments about the appointment, this small man with the small round face. He wore a strange box hat and looked more often like an Italian street vendor than a commander of troops, but Grant knew his habits well, had seen him take his division up the hill at Chattanooga, climbing the ragged face of Missionary Ridge, and they did not stop until they were at the top, Bragg’s army melting away in front of them. There had even been a question about following orders, whether Sheridan had ignored his instructions, should never have pushed his men that far up the hill; but Sheridan made no excuses, no explanations. The question quickly faded away, because Grant understood that when the fight is in front of you, and the enemy is handing you the high ground, there is great value in a commander who does not halt his men to clarify his orders. Grant never doubted that Sheridan could handle command of the cavalry corps, that nothing would be lost by the new assignment. He was a superb horseman, and was grateful to be brought east to confront Jeb Stuart.
Sheridan rode toward Grant, his men filing out neatly on either side of him. Sheridan saluted, and Grant could see he was furious. “Sir! We have been ordered … General Meade has ordered …” He was red-faced and looked down for a moment.
Grant said, “General, please proceed. Is there a problem?”
Sheridan closed his eyes, clamped down, seemed to be fighting for control. “Sir, General Meade has ordered most of my men to the east, toward Fredericksburg. There are reports that some of the enemy’s horsemen have been located in that area. General Meade seems to believe that the wagon trains may be in jeopardy.” Sheridan took a deep breath.
Grant motioned at him with the cigar. “Yes, so … what is your concern, General?”
“Sir! General Meade has us guarding the wagon trains! Surely the commanding general understands that we can better serve the army by spreading out farther to the south, protecting the roads. We have yet to locate any sizable force of the enemy, and we aren’t likely to if we are sitting at Fredericksburg.”
Grant glanced at Rawlins, could feel his chief of staff shifting nervously on the horse, impatiently waiting for an opening, the appropriate time for comment. Grant said, “You have something to say, Colonel?”
Rawlins tried to look surprised, said, “Oh … well, sir, if I may offer. A sizable portion of General Sheridan’s men are already in position down below us. General Wilson is protecting our right flank. I had thought General Sheridan would be pleased that his men are, in fact, being used in valuable service.”
Grant waited, wondered if the flow of words from Rawlins had ended.
Sheridan jumped in and said, “Sir, General Wilson is new to command. If it had been my decision, his division would guard the wagons. It is the smallest division in the corps. Now, that is not possible. General Meade insists, sir, that the bulk of my command stay to the east. He has … pardon me, sir, but General Meade is giving great credibility to the threat from Stuart. I have seen nothing to indicate this threat exists.”
There was a silent pause, and Grant said, “General, has General Wilson located the enemy’s cavalry?”
Sheridan looked down, seemed suddenly embarrassed. “I … don’t know, sir. I have not received word from General Wilson in … some time.”
“Well, then, until you do, I would tend to go with General Meade’s instincts. He has been here before, he has dealt with Stuart before. Unless you can determine with certainty that his orders are a mistake … I would suggest you obey them.”
Sheridan nodded, said, “Yes, you are correct of course, sir. I will send word to General Wilson to inform us of any contact with Stuart. I am convinced we will not find him at Fredericksburg. If you will excuse me, sir.” Sheridan saluted, turned the horse, and the troops followed after him, thundering down to the river, splashing across.
Grant saw a row of guns now, moving onto the bridge.
Rawlins smiled, said, “General Sheridan is a might small for a job this big, wouldn’t you say, sir?”
Grant did not smile at the joke, looked briefly at Rawlins, then watched the bridges again, the swaying motion of the pontoons under the great weight of the big guns.
“Colonel, General Sheridan will be big enough for all of us before this is through.”
THERE WERE FEW CLEARINGS, BUT THEY HAD FOUND ONE OPEN mound, rising above the level of the trees that spread out all around them, and he had chosen the spot for his headquarters. Meade had set up his tents nearby, and by midday the three corps were completely across the river, spread far along the roads that cut through the Wilderness.
There was a small house, long abandoned, a few pieces of furniture remaining, and Grant would use it only for meetings, was more comfortable in the tent. He leaned against a tall fat tree stump, pulled a fresh cigar from his coat. Meade’s camp was slightly below him, and Grant smiled at that. Meade had clearly given thought to the elevation of the headquarters tents, and made sure he was not higher up the rise than Grant.
But it was the flag that caught Grant’s attention. Meade had been given a new one, a field of deep lavender, with the stark likeness of a golden eagle in the center, circled with silver. Grant stared at it, shook his head, saw Meade now coming up the hill toward him. He thought, Let it go. Meade was never predictable, you never knew how he would react to anything. The breeze picked up, and the flag stood out straight, grand and regal. Grant couldn’t resist the urge, pointed with the cigar, said to Meade, “What’s this … are we in the presence of Imperial Caesar?”
Meade turned, looked up at the flag, and Grant saw him frown, a look Grant was becoming familiar with now. Meade carried a small folding chair, sat down, settled the chair into the soft ground. “If it is offensive … I can remove it.”
“Not at all, it lends an air of … the majestic. Not sure Secretary Stanton would approve. If he pays us a visit, I would suggest you stow it away. He would likely take it home with him.” Grant put the cigar in his mouth, hid a smile.
There was activity below them, couriers beginning to arrive, breathless horsemen, the staff moving to meet them. Grant saw one officer bringing a man up the hill toward him, and the staff officer said, “General, excuse me, sir, this man has information about the enemy’s position.”
Grant looked at the man, had expected to see a cavalry uniform, but saw infantry, a captain. The man looked at Grant, then Meade, seemed to gulp. Meade leaned back in the chair, said, “What do you have for us, son?”
“From General Warren, sir … I’m to tell you that his men are halting per orders, sir, and are on the Orange Turnpike. There is no sign of the enemy in our front, sir.” There was a pause. Grant saw other staff officers moving closer, the anticipation of hearing some piece of real news.
Meade said, “That’s it? That’s Warren’s report? What about the cavalry … they’re supposed to be on his flank.”
“Uh, no sir, we
haven’t seen any cavalry, not since early this morning. There’s nobody, sir. No horses, no rebs.”
Meade looked at Grant, and Grant turned, moved toward his tent, said quietly, “General, a moment, if you please …”
Meade stood, said, “Well, Captain, go on back to General Warren and tell him to keep an eye out. Lee’s not just going to watch us walk all the way to Richmond.”
Meade moved behind Grant and they ducked into the tent. Grant sat on a small chair, pointed at another, and Meade sat down. Grant held the cigar in his hand, looked at Meade, said, “Where is he?”
Meade thought, then said, “Lee?”
“Well, Lee too. I’m talking about Wilson. The cavalry. Where are the reports?”
Meade was suddenly nervous, wrapped his fingers around his knees, gripped hard. “I will send someone down there. It is possible—in this infernal place—he is lost.”
Grant watched him quietly, said slowly, “It is also possible that he has his hands full of a fight. Lee knows where we are, this is his ground. Wilson’s not that good of a horseman to sneak up on him. And he sure isn’t going to sneak up on Stuart.”
Meade nodded, said, “We should bring the army together, tighten up. Is Burnside expected tonight?”
“He’s supposed to be across the river by dark. We’ll see about that, but I’m not concerned about General Burnside right now. I’m much more concerned with how far Lee will let us go before he does something.”
“Mine Run … he must be waiting for us there.”
Grant thought, Yes, General, he would like us to make your mistake again, and you would like to have a second chance. He leaned back in the chair, said, “No. He cannot afford to just wait for us. If we move on to the south, we will have slipped by him and have a clear shot at Richmond, and he will not allow that. He has to move, to come at us. The only question is … when.”
Meade seemed puzzled, said, “You want us to wait for him? Here? Shouldn’t we keep going? He wants us to stay here. This is the best place for him to attack.”
Grant nodded. “Yes. And so we will let him. General Meade, we cannot defeat him if we cannot find him. He knows where we are, and he has three choices. He can retreat, move himself closer to Richmond and wait for us again; he can sit still and watch us go by; or he can attack. He has not built this tiresome godlike reputation by retreating or sitting still. He will come. And every time he comes, he loses more and more of his army. It is a simple case of mathematics.”
Meade stared at Grant, nodded slowly and said, “But I would feel better if I knew where … I do not like surprises.”
Grant thought now of Sheridan, but would not ask; there was no real danger yet, the numbers were too strong, the lines too compact. Lee would have to come in face-to-face, line against line, and Grant saw the faces of the commanders, Hancock, Sedgwick, Warren. This time, he thought, we have the right people, and we are ready for you. He pulled at the cigar, felt the smoke wash around his face, watched as Meade wrestled with his caution, wondered if Meade would ever understand the value of cavalry.
MAY 5, 1864
THE ORANGE TURNPIKE RAN DUE WEST, DISAPPEARED INTO THE deep woods of the Wilderness, and on both sides of the road the picket line had spread out on the edge of a wide field. They were mostly veterans, and along the tree line there was one regiment from New York, from the north country, the rugged mountains that gave their men willingly to this great army.
They could hear the birds, the first sounds of the land coming awake. One man rolled over, felt the musket, lifted it up and laid it against the stump beside him. He was young, had the smooth face of a boy, and they called him Chuckie, short for Charles. No one called him Charles but his mother. He didn’t like the nickname, but he knew these men were his friends, that they trusted him, they had shared some awful bloody times. There were other nicknames as well, old Bugeye, Redleg, Hawknose. No one seemed to mind, it was all good-natured, and he knew that “Chuckie” was better than most.
Beneath him the blanket was rumpled and wet. He had kept it wrapped around him through a warm night, and so the blanket and his clothes were soaked in the raw smell of sweat. He always used the blanket, had relied on it for survival through the winter, and now as the nights gave hint of the coming summer, he would still use it. It was his shield, his protection against the drone of the mosquitoes, the small whining sounds that darted and hovered over his face. He’d spent his life in the cold mountains, and hadn’t known about these strange little creatures and the misery they caused. He remembered the first one, setting down on his hand, and he had watched it, curious, not really feeling any bite, nothing like the bites of the black flies he had endured as a child. And then he’d forgotten it, and it was a day later when the bite appeared, the intense itch, the swollen redness. But there was another greater terror, a threat from below, from the soft damp ground. Months before, when his unit was in pursuit of Lee, crossing the Potomac in the steaming rain, he’d spent one hot night with his arms bare, had ignored the blanket and slept on a cool bed of damp leaves. He did not feel the slow advance of the tiny creatures from the ground beneath him, but suffered for days with the bites, a massive assault he would never forget. He had tried to see them, wondered what they looked like, always now swept the dirt with his bare hands. But they did not appear, and so he lay only on the blanket now, wide-awake, would never make that mistake again. Now he slept during the day, the brief rest stops, those days when they didn’t move at all, when it seemed the generals didn’t know which way they wanted to go.
He was used to the picket duty; it seemed nearly every night that he found himself out in front of the army, spread out into the woods, the first line against any movement by the enemy. It had been a while since they’d actually seen any rebs, and now most of the others had no trouble sleeping. They would use their bayonets, burrow down into a shallow pit in the ground, and the veterans joked and laughed at the new boys who slept with their muskets in their hands. He smiled, thought of that older fellow, Buchman, the woodsman, the thick black beard, the man who said he could smell the enemy. He wouldn’t dig in at all, would just prop himself up against a fallen tree, seemed to fall asleep at will and wake only when the bugle sounded, the call that meant breakfast.
If they spoke at all, quiet voices in the black night, they always talked about the grouchy lieutenant. Chuckie thought about him a lot, wondered if it was just his nature to be so angry. He thought, Maybe it’s something at home, a letter … maybe his wife has taken up with a neighbor. He did not like to think of that, none of them did; they fought to keep those thoughts far away. Chuckie rarely got letters anymore. His wife had given up asking him to leave all this, to come home. She did not understand what this meant to him, why it was important. He’d tried to explain, but he was not good with words, she would not understand, and when she stopped answering his letters, it scared him worse than anything he’d seen from the rebels. He thought about the lieutenant again, wondered, Maybe that’s why he seems to be so mad all the time, and he takes it out on us, on this unit.
The unit was still in good shape, but the new faces did not erase the memory of the ones who were gone. He still recalled the early days, the excitement, the adventure of riding the long trains, the men who became friends, who learned about marching and formations and bugle calls. He made an effort to remember them, especially the ones with no families, believed they needed to be remembered. He would try to keep the faces in his mind, see them in the night sky, but it hadn’t worked, because when he saw the faces, he also saw the wounds, the shattering of bones, could not keep the horrors away, the reasons why so many of them were gone.
Now, while some in the line would sneak a quick nap, and others would stare into the darkness toward the invisible enemy, he would lie on the blanket and search the dark for the little creatures that flickered invisibly above his face. He’d focus on the small high whine of the mosquito, wait for it to stop, knew now that silence meant the attack had truly begun. He would s
wat at his face, his ears, beating off the assault, and then the whine would begin again. He tried putting the blanket over his face, but they would still get through, no defense would work. Then he would feel a slight tickle somewhere on bare skin, the return of the strange little creatures that crawled and probed up through the leaves, moving silently onto the blanket until they found some tender place—and he’d explode into motion, scratching frantically, the counterattack.
There was a damp mist this morning, and he peeked up over the tree trunk, could see the road in the distance, disappearing up a long rise into the woods. He lay on the edge of a field, had not really known how big it was, if there were woods across the way. They had been sent out after dark, the grouchy lieutenant again ordering them into the woods. The order had come in a wave of cursing, harsh words, and angry shouts which he hadn’t understood.
He used to think of the mountains, of the cool streams and fishing in the deep ponds near his home. But that had faded away with the faces of his friends. He’d begun to believe he might never leave Virginia, that it was his destiny to spend the rest of his life enduring the torture, the torment from the nightly assault of the tiny insects. He wondered if it was punishment, that he or someone in his family must have done something terrible, some unspeakable offense to God. He could not tell the others, could not talk about it at all. They teased him about his fear of the creatures, laughed that if the rebels just sent their bugs into battle, Chuckie would be the first to run away.
He could hear the others stirring now, low talk, and some were standing, arms high, the long stretch. The sky began to glow far behind him; he could see the silhouettes of the trees where the rest of the army was coming to life. He looked out again to the front, could see clearly a thick line of trees across the field, the tall grass in the field standing breathlessly still. He thought of coffee now, sniffed the air for the smell of bacon. He shifted around, felt the soreness in his feet, wondered if they would march like they had yesterday, the river crossing, then the blessed halt in the afternoon. He’d wanted to jump right into the river, they all had, but the officers pushed them hard, the march fast and urgent, and they hadn’t expected to stop suddenly, surrounded by the thick woods.
