Shattered Nation

by Jeffrey Brooks

  “Three cheers for General Grant!” a man of the 15th Michigan Infantry shouted as they marched past. The men responded with three hearty cheers. Grant didn’t smile, but doffed his hat to show his appreciation. He never sought the adulation of his troops, for his naturally shy nature made him feel distinctly uncomfortable when faced with such displays. Whatever else he was, Ulysses Grant was not George McClellan.

  Nevertheless, it was good to know that his men had confidence in him. On his orders, they had cast themselves loose from their supply lines and were now moving through enemy territory without so much as a clue as to their final destination. Yet they did so without a murmur of complaint. Of all the men in the army, only Grant himself knew where they were going. In order to pull the wool over the eyes of the enemy, it had been necessary for him to pull the wool over the eyes of his own men.

  Things were going well. Since setting our four days before, the Army of the Ohio and the Army of the Tennessee had covered about sixty miles, which was not bad considering the difficulty the wagon trains were having. The Confederate cavalry brigade stationed across from the small town of Campbellton had been dispersed and there still seemed to be no effective opposition in his way.

  Grant turned at the sound of a troop of horsemen approaching and recognized General McPherson. A moment later, the commander of the Army of the Tennessee was reining in beside him.

  “How’s it going, James?”

  “Well enough, sir. No good roads around these parts, though. My boys are taking it all in stride, but the wagon trains are having it mighty rough.”

  Grant merely grunted.

  “I have my engineers hard at work constructing corduroy roads, which should speed the advance.”

  Grant almost told him that there was no need for him to do so, but decided against it. Instead, he merely nodded. It was not yet time for him to bring his three army commanders into his confidence. Until then, Grant wanted every soldier serving with the Union forces, from generals down to privates, to think they were on their way to Alabama. For if they thought they were moving toward Montgomery, they would obviously continue to act as though they were moving toward Montgomery. One way or another, this information would get back to General Johnston. So long as Grant’s plan was contained within the confines of his own mind, it would remain unknown to everyone else, most importantly his opponent across the river.

  “Have you dispatched scouts to the south side of the river?”

  “No, sir,” McPherson answered. “From my reading of your orders, I did not believe that you wished me to do so.”

  “I do now,” Grant said. “But not in large formations. Dispatch picked squadrons with instructions to detect any movements of large enemy infantry units and report back immediately. They should endeavor to avoid direct contact with the enemy and do nothing which might attract attention.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  Grant nodded. He was attempting to dupe Johnston, but he had to know whether or not the trick was working. The thought suddenly made him tense, and he found that he distrusted himself. Johnston was far from a fool. At the war’s opening, the Southern general had won the First Battle of Bull Run by anticipating and then outwitting his Union opponents. He had also constantly thwarted Sherman’s flanking maneuvers during the Union advance on Atlanta. Grant found himself wondering if Johnston might successfully get into his head and deduce his plan.

  Grant shook the thought from his mind, angry at himself. He recalled a skirmish in Missouri against some rebel guerrilla leader nearly three years before when he had been a low-ranking officer. It had been his first taste of combat since the Mexican War and he remembered how frightened he had been. But upon discovering that the rebel guerrillas had fled in haste at the approach of his own troops, Grant learned a lesson which he had tried to burn into his mind. The enemy was as much afraid of him as he was of them.

  It had been this simple confidence that had allowed Grant to go toe-to-toe against Robert E. Lee earlier in the year in the nightmarish fighting of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg. It had not been easy. At the end of the first day’s fighting at the Battle of the Wilderness, during which Lee had outwitted and outfought him, Grant had been reduced to sobbing on his cot in his tent. But Grant had quickly recovered, just as he had after the disastrous first day of the Battle of Shiloh, and came out swinging the following day.

  Some might call Grant a military genius, but he didn’t see himself as one. As far as he was concerned, so long as one was smart enough to get his troops onto the battlefield and give them a bit of faith in themselves, victory would go to whichever commander kept his wits about him.

  It was impossible to know exactly what the coming days had in store, but one thing was certain. Sooner or later, the men under his command were going to fight a bloody battle, which might well determine the outcome of the war. As he gazed over the sixty thousand men he was leading to the southwest, and as he thought of the forty thousand men of the Army of the Cumberland still encamped across the river from Atlanta, he knew that a great many of them would not be going home.

  It was the brutal truth. But if he had anything to do with it, the deaths of so many of his men would not be for nothing. Grant would bend every sinew of his strength to make sure, no matter how many of his men might fall under Southern bullets and blades, that the Union would be restored and that the sin of slavery would be eradicated from America.

  *****

  McFadden blinked rapidly, trying to cleanse his eyes of the dust kicked up by the tramping feet of the forward regiment. He was used to hard marches and never complained, but this made the treks no less unpleasant. Having started just before dawn, he had already been marching for more than four hours and his legs ached painfully. For a moment, he found himself thinking that if he ever made it back to Texas, he would forever refuse to walk more than a quarter mile on any given day.

  He marched in the ranks of the 15th Illinois, the regiment to which he had been assigned. Ahead of them were several brigades and following behind were two limbered artillery batteries. Cavalry units and generals with mounted escorts regularly trotted by on either side of the column, filling the air with ever more dust. Angry officers continually shouted orders. It seemed that the whole Army of the Tennessee was on the move, travelling southwest down the north bank of the Chattahoochee River. He had heard chatter among the men that some scattered fighting had taken place at the point of the advance, but it did not seem that any major battle was yet happening. McFadden didn’t think any large Confederate units were nearby.

  It had taken him a few days to get over the strangeness of serving with a regiment of Yankees. They were, after all, the very men had had spent the last two-and-a-half years doing his best to kill. Upon arriving in the regiment’s camp, he had kept to himself and tried to avoid conversation. After the first few attempts to approach him had been rebuffed, most of the Northern soldiers had decided that he simply wanted to be left alone and paid him no more mind.

  Living in the Union camp was certainly different. The coffee was wonderful, but McFadden had expected that. What had taken him by surprise was the sheer abundance and variety of the food. McFadden and other Confederate soldiers had been told that Forrest and Wheeler had torn the Union supply lines to pieces, but his eyes now told him a different story. There was plenty of bacon, fresh bread, a seemingly endless quantity of sugar and molasses, fresh fruit and vegetables, and even luxuries such as cakes and ice cream.

  The sight of so much plenty in the Union camp had filled McFadden with dread. If the Union had the logistical ability to feed its soldiers so well and so easily, how could the Confederacy hope to win the war?

  He set these thoughts aside and tried to focus on why he was in the Union camp in the first place. From what he had learned before setting out from the Confederate camp, the 118th Ohio was not in the Army of the Tennessee, but rather in the Army of the Ohio. Therefore, McFadden was in the wrong army. He didn’t blame himse
lf for this, for he could not have known which Federal unit he would first encounter when he crossed the river. It had just been bad luck.

  He had gathered from listening to the chatter of the men around him that the Army of the Ohio was marching ahead of the Army of the Tennessee. He realized that he would have to desert from the ranks of the 15th Illinois very soon, perhaps that very night, if he wanted to make his way forward in order to find his quarry. If he was lucky, the men would assume that he had changed his mind and decided to return to what they thought was his former regiment in Virginia. But in any event, looking for a single deserter would probably not be a priority for a regiment about to go into battle.

  There was a sudden rustling among the men. The mounted commander riding at the head of the regiment turned in his saddle to look behind him. His face lit up and he quickly removed and waved his hat.

  “Three cheers for General Grant!” he called.

  McFadden turned and saw the Union general, riding just ahead of a swarm of mounted staff officers. It was the first time McFadden had laid eyes on the commander of a Union army. The Illinois soldiers gave three hearty cheers, waving their hands energetically. Grant’s face did not change, but he politely touched his hat as he rode past. McFadden was struck by his unpretentious appearance, for the supreme Union commander wore the uniform of an ordinary private. In that regard, he reminded McFadden of General Cleburne.

  “Impressive, isn’t he?” the man marching beside McFadden said.

  He turned. “I’m sorry?”

  “General Grant. He’s an impressive fellow, wouldn’t you say?”

  McFadden shrugged. “I suppose so.”

  “Archie O’Connor,” the man said, extending his hand.

  For a moment, McFadden’s mind became careless and he was about to speak his actual name. He caught himself. “Sam Stephens,” he finally replied.

  “You’re the new one, right? They say that you escaped from Andersonville.”

  “That‘s right.”

  “What was it like down there?”

  “I’d really rather not talk about it,” McFadden said, trying to sound stern without being rude.

  “Okay, okay,” O’Connor replied. “A man’s got a right to privacy. But I do think Grant’s an impressive fellow. Don’t you agree?”

  “I suppose so,” McFadden repeated.

  “Everywhere he goes, he wins. Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chattanooga. All those battles against Lee. Now that that crazy loon Billy Sherman is gone, we can have a right decent fight against the rebels. And once we’ve beaten them, Old Abe will be reelected and everything will be just as it’s supposed to be. Don’t you think?”

  “We’ll see, I guess.”

  “And when the war’s over, I’ll go home, marry my sweetheart, and settle down to life on the farm. Had to join the army, you know. When the war started, I mean. Not like a man can sit out the fight. Not when the country is at stake. Got to preserve the Union and free the slaves, you know. Everybody’s got to do his part, you know what I mean? Anyone who tries to sit the fight out is a coward. A damn rascal, if you ask me.”

  “You have a sweetheart back home?” McFadden asked. He immediately wondered why he had bothered asking.

  O’Connor smiled. “Alice is her name. Grew up not more than a mile away from her family’s farm. God, she’s pretty. Can’t wait to see her again. The day I enlisted, I asked her to marry me. She said yes. Since then, she’s written me a letter every week, without fail. I try to write back just as often, but it’s not easy. What with the marches and battles and all that.”

  McFadden thought about Annie. By now, she had probably received his letter. He wondered how she had reacted. McFadden supposed that she would have nothing further to do with him, even if he somehow made it back to Confederate lines alive. After all, he had deserted his post for a personal vendetta, trying to satisfy the dark and angry forces within his soul, the very forces he had hoped Annie would banish. In short, he had rejected the gift of a new life with Annie in order to seek out and kill a fellow human being. How could she respect him after he had done such a thing?

  For the thousandth time, he told himself that it did not matter and that such thoughts were useless. Whether it had been the right thing to do or not, he had committed himself the moment he had left his regiment and crossed the river. He could not abandon his quest for vengeance now. The only way he could even hope to have a future was to find Cheeky Joe, send him to the grave, and then somehow escape back to Confederate lines. Not being able to deceive himself, he knew that the chances of success were fairly small. More than likely, he was going to end up dead.

  *****

  September 14, Afternoon

  Having left behind the tiny hamlet of Campbellton a few minutes before, Johnston walked his horse slowly toward the south bank of the Chattahoochee River. Behind him, keeping a respectful distance from their chief, were Hardee, Cheatham, Stewart and Jackson. All around them milled thousands of Confederate infantrymen, some getting fires going to cook their food and brew their coffee. Many pointed to the collection of generals and talked excitedly as they passed by.

  A few minutes later, the five men reached the banks of the river and pulled their horses to a stop. Along the bank were Confederate pickets, mostly sitting quietly and gazing across the river. Without dismounting, Johnston removed his field telescope from his saddlebag and raised it to his right eye. Scanning the northern bank of the river, he saw blue-coated pickets keeping vigil in much the same way as his own men. Beyond them, he saw the white tents of what looked like a full infantry brigade. Altogether, he estimated that within his field of sight there were perhaps a thousand men.

  He spotted a Union officer staring back at him with a telescope of his own. It was too far to make out what rank the man held, but he appeared to carry himself with a self-assured air. He waved when he saw Johnston looking at him. Seeing no reason to be impolite, Johnston waved back.

  “A brigade?” Stewart asked, scanning the area with his own telescope.

  “At least,” Johnston answered. “But there’s no telling how many other Yankee troops may be in the area.”

  “Well, they can’t cross the river here,” Cheatham said emphatically. “We have two entire infantry corps, plus half of a third, either here in Campbellton or within a few hours’ march of it. That’s upwards of fifty thousand men. If the Yankees tried to cross, the river would run red with their blood.”

  Johnston nodded. “A fact Grant no doubt knows perfectly well.”

  “The main force is already several miles down the river,” Jackson said. “This, near as my boys can tell, is just the brigade bringing up the rear. The tail of their army, if you will.”

  Johnston let out a deep breath. “It’s quite clear, gentlemen. Grant does not intend to cross the river. Not here, at any rate. If he intended to cross the Chattahoochee and attack Atlanta from the west, this would be the most distant ford from which to do so.”

  “What is Grant doing, then?” Hardee asked.

  Johnston snapped shut his telescope and put it back in his saddlebag. “It would seem that General Cheatham was correct, gentlemen. Grant is moving directly against central Alabama, seeking to capture Montgomery and Selma before we have a chance to assemble enough troops there to defend them. A simple plan, but potentially a very effective one.”

  Cheatham couldn’t help but smile. “I thought that’s what he’d do,” he said with a certain smugness.

  “General Cheatham, the army is in your debt,” Johnston said. “But for your warning, I might not have properly planned a course of action for the situation that we now see unfolding.”

  “And what is that course of action?” Hardee asked.

  Johnston turned his horse about so that he directly faced his corps commanders. “Stewart and Cheatham will march their corps to Palmetto, there to entrain for the trip to Alabama. I have already arranged for sufficient rolling stock to be assembled. Even though the enemy has a head sta
rt, by traveling by rail while Grant’s men are marching on foot, we shall be able to arrive well before the Yankees. Rather than marching into undefended cities, Grant’s men will be faced with forty thousand troops on a selected battlefield some miles to the east of those cities. Having just completed a long march and being far from their sources of supply, we might even be able to attack and defeat them in pitched battle.”

  “And my corps?” Hardee asked.

  “William, you and your men shall remain here in the vicinity of Atlanta, in order to properly garrison the city and keep an eye on the Yankee troops who remain encamped at Vining’s Station.”

  “My scouts report that those troops are the Army of the Cumberland, or at least a considerable portion of it,” said Jackson, who was trying to sound helpful.

  “My corps numbers only about eighteen thousand men,” Hardee protested. “If I am not mistaken, the Army of the Cumberland now numbers around thirty-five thousand men. If they decide to make a play for Atlanta, I don’t much care for those odds.”

  “You have the river,” Johnston reminded Hardee. “And even if they get across the river, you have the defenses of Atlanta, with its fortress artillery. The Georgia Militia can also provide some assistance, weak though its men may be. Enough supplies of food and ammunition have been stored in the city to allow it to withstand a long siege, if necessary. I know the odds are long, but our forces have always faced long odds.”

  Hardee nodded. “True enough, sir.”

  “I will leave your precise dispositions up to you, of course. But I would suggest that you leave one of your divisions within the defenses of Atlanta itself while the others are deployed at the most likely crossing points.”