The Blue and the Gray Undercover

by Ed Gorman

  Dr. Rowland said gruffly, “I’d want to hang Colonel Ashby.”

  Lorry, who had been collecting stories about the valiant cavalier from the newspapers, looked at her grandfather in horror.

  “Ashby isn’t a bad man,” Hotchkiss said in a conciliatory manner, “just too enamored of glory and too little with dull routine. Sadly, he’s not at all a unique element in our army. Rumor says that Jackson will try to clip Ashby’s wings, but I fear that if he does so he may end up with a mutiny in the ranks. Ashby is well loved and too many of the men witnessed his heroics during the holding action at Stony Creek.”

  Dr. Rowland shook his head. “More men should see war from my perspective, then they would prate less about glory—but I apologize. I have interrupted you, sir. Pray, tell us what happened next. We have only heard fragmented accounts of the battle. Some say Colonel Ashby was nearly killed.”

  “Not even scratched,” Hotchkiss assured the wide-eyed Lorry, “though his horse was shot out from under him as he held the rearmost line of our retreat. It is said that he was so close to the Union army that it looked as if he was leading their charge.”

  “I can see why the men love him,” Dr. Rowland admitted.

  Hotchkiss gave a rueful laugh of agreement. “Yet once again General Banks may have been our greatest ally. Just as after Kernstown, he chose not to pursue when he might have. Banks likes a sure thing and a running battle along a wet road isn’t his type of fighting at all.”

  Katie sighed, feeling bitter.

  “Then two weeks was all we won for Jackson’s army?” she said grimly. “Two weeks, and even that thrown away in the end!”

  “It wasn’t thrown away,” Hotchkiss insisted firmly. “The army had two more weeks of rest and training—two weeks to heal. Old Jack had two weeks to get his staff in order and to send supplies to our Southern bases. He even had a locomotive moved from Mount Jackson. He had two weeks to decide where to go next rather than being forced to retreat blindly with a Yankee army at his back. Indeed, though we gave up the crossing at the North Fork, Conrad’s Store is a far better base than Rude’s Hill.”

  Hotchkiss laid a fatherly hand on Katie’s shoulder.

  “Never think, Miss Katie, that two weeks is nothing. General Jackson didn’t. That’s one reason I’m here.”

  He held out to her a neatly folded letter.

  “I believe this contains the general’s personal thanks for the risks you took in guiding Brown and myself.”

  Katie was starting to tear General Jackson’s note open when Hotchkiss again dipped his hand into his pocket. He took out another packet, this one much fatter, which he handed to Mrs. Rowland.

  “And this,” he said with a broad grin, “is from your husband. It took us awhile, but Sandie Pendleton and I tracked him down. He’s been convalescing at a farmhouse, too feverish to write until recently. Then there was no one to carry a letter. He’s on the mend and will be given invalid’s leave as soon as he can travel.”

  Mrs. Rowland shrieked with delight and for a moment looked as if she might faint. Impulsively Katie hugged the bearded cartographer and was surprised to see him blush.

  “Thank you, Mr. Hotchkiss! Thank you!”

  Hotchkiss bowed. “My pleasure, Miss Katie.”

  He made his exit while the family clustered around Mrs. Rowland, begging for her to read aloud from the thick sheets of paper crammed in the packet.

  Listening from the doorway, Katie watched Hotchkiss ride off, waving until the roan carried him out of sight. She held General Jackson’s note unopened in her hand, feeling that nothing could add to the joy of this moment.

  Her father was coming home.

  In her twenty-five years as a writer, editor, and publishing consultant, Janet Berliner has worked with such authors as Peter S. Beagle, David Copperfield, Michael Crichton, and Joyce Carol Oates. Among her most recent books are the anthology Snapshots: 20th Century Mother-Daughter Fiction, which she edited with Joyce Carol Oates, and Children of the Dusk, the final book of The Madagascar Manifesto, a three-book series coauthored with George Guthridge. Currently Janet divides her time between Las Vegas, where she lives and works, and Grenada, West Indies, where her heart is.

  Here she brings her own distinct view to the Civil War, shedding light on a little-known involvement of the Territory of Nevada and the West getting involved in the War between the North and South. The following story is based on true events.

  OTHER ……… 1

  Janet Berliner

  FACT: The Territory of Nevada participated in the Civil War.

  FACT: Thirty-three of the troops furnished by the Territory of Nevada died while in service. These men were listed as Civil War casualties. One of them, known to inner circles as a spy, was listed only as “Other ……… 1”

  1864

  Ulrich Luserke balanced his stein against the railing and watched the flow of traffic on the Rhine. The same barge he watched at the end of each day made its way slowly over the water. The captain was a friend of his. As he did each day in greeting, he lit his lamps and raised a glass in greeting. As the barge passed directly below Ulrich, he whistled melodically.

  Tonight he chose “Tales from the Vienna Woods”. Ulrich smiled. He was partial to waltzes and had ridden often through the forest with that particular song echoing through his head. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his harmonica, and played an accompaniment, momentarily at peace with the world. How unfortunate, he thought, that this moment could not last, especially during Oktoberfest.

  The barge moved out of sight and he turned to view the rising activity in the biergarten. Immediately in front of him, the wooden tables were filling up. Each seated a half a dozen beer drinkers comfortably. As the night wore on, they would become tables for ten, even twelve—this being the most popular drinking place in Karlsruhe.

  In the restaurant beyond, a round of applause greeted the arrival of the piano player. Ulrich found a seat at an as-yet-unoccupied table. He watched through the glass door as Gerhard bowed to his audience and sat down at the pianola.

  “When Johnny comes marching home again, hurrah, hurrah.”

  “As if I didn’t hear enough of that song in North America, I stop here for beer and wurst and some good German music and what do I hear? ‘When Johnny comes marching home again, hurrah, hurrah.’”

  The man who addressed Ulrich was well dressed and alone. “May I join you?” he asked, though he could simply have assumed ownership of the space.

  “But of course. Sit.” Ulrich took a sip of his beer. He had lived in the small industrial town of Karlsruhe all of thirty or so years, the last several as a journalist for the town’s only newspaper. His work had sent him to Vienna and Berlin, once even to Paris, but he had only dreamed of traveling to the other side of the world. To that end, he had chosen to take English lessons at school, had continued his studies afterward, and he had read widely about the New World.

  “Ulrich Luserke,” he said, putting out his hand. “You have been to the Americas?”

  “Ernst Marcus,” the stranger said. “And yes, I have just lately returned across the ocean.”

  “Will you tell me what it is like over there?” Ulrich asked.

  Marcus was happy to oblige. As the table filled with other drinkers, he boasted of hitting it rich in the silver fields of Nevada and, as if to prove himself an honest man, bought round after round of drinks. During the course of the evening, he substantiated what had, he said, previously been revealed only in top-secret documents.

  “The Confederacy will soon be running out of money for weapons and ammunition and bodies to fight the war,” he said, “while the Union seems to have limitless funds. Imagine. While the South starves, the North thinks nothing of giving sums as high as twenty-five thousand dollars for the care and feeding of remote American Indian tribes.”

  “Mein Gott, but that is a fortune,” Luserke said.

  “Yes. It is.” The stranger looked thoughtful. “I think they must be convin
ced the money they send in that direction will come back to them tenfold from the fruits of the earth.”

  Neither the Indians nor the stranger were more deserving of riches than he was, Luserke thought. “If I could only find a way to pay for the journey, I would leave home at once,” he said, his voice melancholy.

  “Go as I went, that is, if you are not too proud,” his new friend said.

  “And how was that?”

  “I took a position as a valet for the journey.” He looked contemplative. “As a matter of fact, I but yesterday refused the same position. If I were to recommend you…”

  * * *

  So it began, the journey of Ulrich Luserke. With the help of Ernst Marcus’s introduction, the small-town journalist and budding opportunist was hired on as a valet to Robert Rabe, formerly underling to the undersecretary to the Kaiser and, now, a spy in the service of the Confederacy.

  At first Mr. Rabe, an older man of obvious means and education, kept to himself. He spent his time in his cabin, or on deck in a lounge chair, a book in his hand and a blanket wrapped around his knees. As the journey progressed, he became increasingly more garrulous, until one day, having indulged perhaps in one too many glasses of wine with dinner, he confided in Ulrich.

  All but the most optimistic, he said, agreed things were not faring well for the Confederacy. They also agreed that the war with the South was not yet over.

  “In North American places as far afield from the battlefront as Nevada, scalps are being removed in the name of the War between the States,” he said. “Even in Europe a stance is being taken. Great Britain supports the Confederacy. France, not wanting to be overlooked, allies itself with the Union.”

  “And what of Germany?” Ulrich asked, pouring the last of the bottle into his employer’s glass.

  “We have as yet to play an active role, but that is soon to change,” Rabe said. He lifted his glass. “To the Kaiser, who has declared himself a moral supporter of the South.”

  Two things had recently happened simultaneously, Rabe explained. First, the Union Senate, with money to spare, designated large sums for the care of Indians in the Western Territories, messengering as much as $25,000 in cash for that purpose.

  Interesting as this was to Ulrich, it merely confirmed what he had already learned from Ernst. What Rabe said next, however, was both fascinating and new to Ulrich. “The South,” he said, “entered into a secret exchange of letters with an undersecretary to the Kaiser.”

  “With you?”

  Rabe smiled. “With my immediate superior,” he said, “whose English was not quite as good as mine.” By way of this correspondence, he explained, Germany offered its services to the Confederacy. They suggested that, if a suitable amount of money exchanged hands, they would provide armed mercenaries which, clearly, the South sorely needed.

  The Confederacy was without funds to pay for such services. Being in desperate need of money, men, and weaponry, it determined that the money designated for Indian assistance was free game and said as much to the undersecretary. He at once took action by way of Robert Rabe, who had often expressed the desire to travel to North America.

  With that, Rabe declared himself ready for bed, where he remained for the next several days. At first Ulrich concluded that Rabe was feeling unwell as a result of his overindulgence with Bacchus. As it turned out, however, he appeared to be suffering a serious ailment from which the ship’s doctor—called in by Ulrich—did not expect him to recover.

  Call what happened next “Fate,” call it synchronicity. The fact is that, knowing he would not survive the trip, Robert Rabe decided to place his full trust in Ulrich Luserke.

  “I am on a mission for the Kaiser,” he said, “a most important mission. God give me the strength to explain it to you, and give you the courage to fulfil it.”

  Rabe, it appeared, was to journey first by sea, then by train, to Cleveland, Ohio. He was to meet a man named Isaac Stewart, a secret supporter of the Confederacy. Together, under the guise of being miners, they would travel to the Nevada Territory. There, Stewart would join the Nevada Volunteers, who guarded an enormous area extending from the Great Plains to the heights of the Sierras, and from California’s Mojave to the Territory of Idaho. Apparently, to their regret, the Volunteers were less involved in the affairs of the great Civil War and more involved in protecting the miners from the thieves, the gamblers from the squatters, and the Piutes, Bannocks, and Shoshones—who outnumbered them five to one—from each other.

  The uniform would allow Stewart to move without suspicion around the state. This would simplify contact between the two men and the Indian Agent, who was also secretly a supporter of the Confederacy and who had been instructed to hand over the $25,000 entrusted to him by the government.

  This money, delivered personally to the Kaiser’s undersecretary, would easily pay for German mercenaries to assist the South.

  “For your Kaiser, do this,” Rabe pleaded.

  Though in truth Luserke didn’t care much for the Kaiser, he cared everything for the prospect of holding twenty-five thousand North American dollars in his hot little hand. Trying not to show too high a degree of immediate enthusiasm, he agreed to carry out the plan.

  * * *

  Two days later, Robert Rabe was buried at sea.

  Ulrich spent much of the remainder of the voyage to New York in Rabe’s cabin. When the ship docked in New York, he disembarked with Rabe’s possessions, including his identity papers.

  Calling himself Robert Rabe, Ulrich boarded the American railroad to Cleveland. The journey, white bumpy and disjointed as the train switched from what he found out was one independently owned segment to another, provided Ulrich with time to admire the seemingly endless forests and hills of America.

  He was met at the train by a fairly tall, light-haired, utterly unremarkable fellow who identified himself as Isaac Stewart and took Rabe/Luserke to a bar not unlike the one where he had first heard the story of the $25,000.

  “How did you recognize me?” Luserke asked.

  Stewart smiled. “In those clothes, you stand out like a silo in a cornfield.”

  He looked at his clothes, a mixture of his own and some of the finer pieces from Rabe’s trunk, then at the other patrons in the bar in their home-sewn, rough-woven garments.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it none,” Stewart continued. “There’s plenty of Germans come over here heading west, and a fair enough number heading back again.”

  The two men paused their conversation while a barmaid brought two mugs of beer to their table. Luserke took a sip, then, appreciatively, a second. “Good.”

  Again Stewart smiled. “Yes, a few Germans settled near here, too, and one of them knows how to brew good beer.”

  “So tell me of the plan.”

  “We’re to rendezvous with the Indian Agent who is in possession of the money at some place in Nevada called Walker Lake,” Stewart told him.

  “How do we know he will come?” Luserke asked.

  “He’s under threat of exposure for illegally renting Indian lands to white ranchers. He’ll come.”

  “And how do we find this place? This Walker Lake?”

  “A good map, an Indian guide—one, the other, or both.”

  “When is this meeting to take place?”

  “In early March.”

  “Sounds like a simple matter,” Luserke said. Then all I have to do is get rid of you, my stupid, patriotic new friend, he thought. “This will be a piece of Bavarian pie.”

  “Yes.” Isaac said, laughing. “A piece of pie, indeed. What’s more, the world is flocking westward in search of silver. It’s said the mines are overburdened with ore which is there for the taking. When we’re done with our … assignment … you will have to return at once to your Kaiser. Doubtless he will reward you for your services. No one will reward me, so I intend to stake a claim to a silver mine. I’m sorry you won’t be able to stay and mine it with me.”

  Stewart might want to break his ba
ck down below the earth, but that was hardly his idea of a good time, Luserke thought. All he said was, “Things are shaping up well.”

  * * *

  Nattee-Tohaquetta hovered around the edge of the sweat pit where his father had spent the better part of three days and nights. As always, this was for him a period of high anxiety. It was his father’s frequent habit to undergo this ritual, for purposes, he said, of cleansing himself and communicating with the spirits of his ancestors.

  Which was all well and good, except that no one ever quite knew how to predict his mood when he emerged. The only thing they knew for certain was that after bathing, eating, and sleeping, he would tell stories about the journey of his mind and pass on the instructions of his ancestors.

  “Nattee-Tohaquetta!” his father bellowed.

  The boy froze. Rigid, he watched his father’s big head emerge from the pit.

  “Nattee-Tohaquetta,” his father said, more quietly this time. “I am ready. Come. You are old enough yourself to sweat in the pit. You will sit here and think while I rest and recover. Then we will talk.”

  Before he knew it, twelve-year-old hunter-gatherer Nattee-Tohaquetta, who was named after the great Chief White Belt, was sitting in the three-day sweat smell of his father, staring up at the blue sky of morning and wondering if he would be allowed out in rime for dinner.

  “What should I think about, Father?” he asked.

  “Think about your spirit guide,” his father said. “If he comes to you, you will not have to leave home to search for him.”

  And then there was silence.

  Sitting by himself, with no distractions, Nattee-Tohaquetta tried to think about his spirit guide. He thought of what it was to be a hunter-gatherer, and he thought about what he had learned from the storytellers and from his Paiute father, that the white man’s country was embroiled in a Civil War. Though they had explained what that meant, he knew nothing of it from personal experience. It was as far removed from his life in Paradise Valley, Nevada, as wearing shoes or going to school or attending church services.