He scanned the enemy defenses all across the line, noticing with satisfaction that several of the artillery batteries had been captured. While he had an immense amount of artillery already, the captured cannon would prove useful after they had been incorporated into his own forces. More important, however, was the denial of their use to the Southerners.
He turned to one of his aides. “Send a telegram to the War Department. Inform them that we have smashed the enemy defenses around East Point and that we expect to control the railroad within the hour.”
“Happily, sir.” The man saluted and rode away.
A long column of rough, disheveled men slowly snaked out of the rebel fortifications and wound its way across the intervening ground. On each side were bluecoats holding rifles with fixed bayonets. Realizing that the group was one of Southern prisoners, Grant tapped Cincinnati with his spurs and walked out toward them.
“What brigade are you?” he asked the first man to come within speaking distance.
“Why don’t you go to the devil?” the man replied with irritation in his voice.
“We are Granbury’s Brigade,” another answered.
“Shut your mouth, John!” the first prisoner snapped. “Why would you answer any of their questions? Any information just helps them!”
The second man shrugged. “Never hurts to be polite.”
Grant ignored the conversation between the two prisoners, satisfied as to the identity of the unit that had just been overrun. If he recalled correctly, Granbury’s brigade was a unit of Cleburne’s division, which meant that his beloved Army of the Tennessee had just taken on and beaten the best troops the Confederacy had in the field outside of Virginia. That was all the more reason for celebration.
He turned to see McPherson and some staff officers riding up to report.
“Congratulations, James!” Grant said warmly.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Those trenches look every bit as strong as the ones which repulsed the Army of the Potomac at Cold Harbor. Your men did a stellar job getting through them.”
“We have suffered heavily, sir,” McPherson replied, not sounding nearly as happy as his commander. “Four thousand casualties in both corps. At the least, sir.”
Grant nodded. “And in exchange we captured a strong line of entrenchments, smashed two enemy divisions, and cut the critical railroad to the southwest. A fair trade, if you ask me.”
“What now?” McPherson asked.
“Prepare for a counter attack. I don’t see how the rebels would have the strength to strike back, but best to be on the safe side. Then, see to the wounded and the prisoners. Send forward ammunition and get your divisions in proper order. In half an hour, I want you to advance eastward until we are on the tracks of the railroad.”
McPherson nodded. “Easily done, sir.”
The two generals exchanged salutes and McPherson rode off. Grant pulled out another cigar and quietly lit it, watching as the long column of rebel prisoners continued to march to the rear. Seeing so many prisoners highlighted the victory more than any dispatch from a courier could. It was one thing for people in Washington to push colored pins into a map so as to indicate that a particular piece of ground had been captured, but to hear concrete numbers of enemy soldiers taken prisoner, battle flags captured, and pieces of artillery seized was infinitely better.
It would also make for good press, which Grant realized was almost as important as any strategic advance gained. He made a mental note to send the War Department exact figures on the number of prisoners, battle flags, and artillery captured, so that Stanton could ensure they would find their way into the headlines over the next few days. Lincoln had not discussed the upcoming election with him, but he had not needed to. Better than most generals, Grant understood perfectly well that political considerations were every bit as important in war as military ones.
*****
September 25, Evening
The scene north of East Point was one of utter pandemonium. Thousands of Confederate soldiers milled about in confusion, having become separated from their units and trying to find any officers who might be able to give them any sort of orders. Fires were burning in East Point itself, as many Union shells had landed in the town during the fighting. Everywhere there were men shouting and arguing with each other. Pervading the entire panorama was an overriding sense of fear, for a renewed Union attack was expected at any moment.
Hardee and Cleburne rode through the confusion and looked on dispassionately as their officers tried to bring order out of chaos. Of the six brigades that had been holding the defenses around East Point, only the Florida Brigade of Bate’s division and the Arkansas Brigade of Cleburne’s division had succeeded in maintaining a semblance of organization as they had retreated to the northeast. The other four brigades had simply disintegrated under the weight of the Union attack.
Beneath Cleburne, Red Pepper was far from happy. The horse instinctively sensed the disarray around him, which seemed to trouble him more than even the noise and bedlam of a battle. He shook his bridle repeatedly to make his displeasure known. Cleburne responded by gently patting the faithful animal on the neck to calm it down.
“It’s a damn fiasco, Pat!” Hardee said angrily. “We’ve lost the railroad!” Scattered reports had the first regiments of Union infantry on the Atlanta and West Point Railroad a mile south of East Point.
Cleburne nodded. His men had fought as bravely as any men possibly could, but all their valor and courage had counted as nothing against the overwhelming numerical superiority of the enemy. The Yankees had not so much beaten then as simply rolled over them like a deluge.
“We made them pay for it,” Cleburne said. “The ground in front of my division’s position is covered in dead and wounded Yankees.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Hardee said. “They’ve got more than enough men. They can wheel around to the north and crush us anytime they want to.”
Cleburne nodded again. He wanted to be stoic in order to cheer up an obviously dispirited Hardee, but he could not argue with his assessment of the situation.
Looking around at the confused soldiers nearby, he saw a group of about a dozen men being led by a lieutenant he recognized.
“McFadden!” Cleburne called out, waving.
The Texan heard him and his eyes lit up with relief when he recognized Cleburne. He walked over to the two generals, his soldiers trailing behind him.
“Good to see you, Lieutenant!” Cleburne said. “I am very glad to see you alive.”
“Thank you, sir. Likewise.”
“General Hardee, this is Lieutenant McFadden of the 7th Texas. He is the man who captured George Thomas. I might also add that he was the man who warned me of Grant’s movement.”
Hardee nodded. “Pleased to meet you, Lieutenant. I thank you for your service, although after today I must frankly state that it may have come too late to do any good.”
McFadden shrugged. Cleburne speculated than many other men might have taken offense to Hardee’s words, but McFadden seemed entirely disinterested. Looking at him, Cleburne only saw an exhausted and defeated man.
“Where is the 7th Texas?” Cleburne asked.
McFadden waved to the west. “It’s lying out there in those trenches, General. The regiment has been wiped out.”
Cleburne’s face contorted into horror. “Major Collett? Lieutenant Russell?”
“Either dead or prisoners, I suppose.”
Recovering, Cleburne nodded. “That means you command the 7th Texas, McFadden.”
“Don’t think that means much. I think these men around me are all that’s left of the regiment and a lot of them started the day with other units.”
“Form them in a line here, if you please. We’re trying to rally as many men as possible.”
McFadden nodded and started barking orders. His men spaced out in a long line before the two generals. As soldiers came by individually or in small groups, McFadden’s men halted them and pull
ed them into their line, which gradually grew longer and more compact.
A courier rode up. “General Hardee, sir! I regret to inform you that General Bate has been killed!”
“No!” Hardee said, casting a quick glance at Cleburne. In such a situation as this, with chaos and confusion having already swept through the disorganized troops, the death of a division commander was a disaster too terrible to contemplate.
“Yes, sir. He insisted on personally leading a counter attack after the Yankees got over the lines. I saw him fall myself, sir.”
“Find any of the brigade commanders you can,” Hardee said to the courier. “Tell them that they are to report to General Cleburne.”
“Yes, sir!” The man dashed off.
Hardee turned to Cleburne. “Consider Bate’s brigades as now attached to your division. Bate’s brigade commanders will be far too busy getting their own men back into some semblance of order, so I can’t burden one of them with the additional duties of taking command of the whole division.”
Cleburne nodded quickly. “Understood, sir. What are my orders?”
Hardee angrily shook his head and stared southwest, toward the massed Union formations that were just over the horizon. “No way to knock them out of there, is there?”
“No, William. We have only two reliable brigades at the moment and both of them are shaken to the core.”
“But we cannot allow the Yankees to secure the area. If they dig in here, we will never be able to pry them out.”
“If we try to counter attack now, we will fail and we will lose those two brigades as well.”
Hardee was starting to say something about bringing in reinforcements from the divisions of Walker and Maney, when a series of explosions ripped through the area a few hundred yards south. Instantly, cries of fear rose from hundreds of Confederate soldiers, many of whom began running wildly to the northeast in a panic.
“The Yankees are shelling us again!” Hardee said.
Cleburne nodded. “They’re trying to keep us from reorganizing.”
“We’ve got to get these men out of here. We’ve got to-“
The commander’s words were cut short when a Union shell exploded on the ground directly between their horses. Cleburne was thrown off of Red Pepper by the force of the detonation, flew several yards to the left, and landed roughly and painfully on the ground. His vision faded for a moment and he couldn’t hear a thing. He realized he was losing consciousness.
Time passed, though how much he did not know. Everything seemed slow and murky. His mind struggled to reassert itself. He felt as though he had been run over by a horse and wagon. Gradually, he realized that someone was shaking his shoulder.
“General Cleburne? Are you hurt?”
It was McFadden. His words struck Cleburne as ridiculously inane, seeing as he had just been thrown off of a horse. Cleburne tried to push himself up off the ground, but his arms were so sore that they refused to make the effort and he fell back onto the ground.
“Sir, General Hardee is wounded!”
This woke Cleburne up as though water had been splashed in his face. He glanced over to where McFadden was pointing and saw his worst fears realized. Hardee had been thrown in the opposite direction and lay on the ground several yards away. Large red splotches were visible on his left leg, which could only have been due to shell fragments having embedding themselves in his body.
Painfully, Cleburne stood up with the help of McFadden. He had been momentarily knocked unconscious by the force of the blast and the fall from his horse, but he did not appear to be seriously hurt. Having verified that, he walked over to Hardee as quickly as he could.
Hardee was still conscious, wincing in pain. Two of McFadden’s men were trying to apply a tourniquet to his leg to staunch the bleeding. As they tightened it, Hardee let out a scream that deeply unsettled Cleburne. He had seen countless severe wounds during his years in the army, but the man he now saw in agony was his closest friend.
Nearly delirious with pain, Hardee’s eyes focused on Cleburne. “Are you all right?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“Yes, William. I’m fine.”
Cleburne looked at the wound. It was clear that Hardee’s leg would have to be amputated. If it wasn’t, infection would inevitably set in and the result would be a slow and painful death. But it was entirely possible that the surgery to remove Hardee’s leg would be so shocking and painful that he would not survive. The rational part of Cleburne’s mind told him that the odds of his friend’s survival were, at best, fifty-fifty.
“Take command,” Hardee said, his words coming in painful fits. “Get all the troops into the Atlanta defenses. Hold out to the last bullet.”
“I will, William. I will hold the city.” Cleburne tried to sound confident as he spoke these words. The railroad was now in Union hands. The Confederates had taken massive casualties and suffered a demoralizing defeat. Much of their artillery had been captured. The defenses of Atlanta might be strong, but the odds against the Southerners were even longer now than they had been when the day had begun.
“Johnston is coming,” Hardee said weakly. His head fell as he lapsed into unconsciousness.
McFadden had located a stretcher and detailed four men to carry Hardee away. He was speaking to Cleburne, telling him that his men would take Hardee into the city as soon as they could find a horse and wagon. Cleburne barely heard him. He was consumed by something resembling panic.
In an instant, all the collected burdens of the entire Southern Confederacy had descended onto the shoulders of Patrick Cleburne. Grant’s army was on the verge of taking Atlanta, the fall of which would not only cripple the South’s ability to continue the war but would almost certainly ensure that Abraham Lincoln would be reelected President of the United States. The divisions of the Army of Tennessee in and around Atlanta would be destroyed, leaving Johnston’s remaining two corps easy prey for Grant’s victorious forces. The Confederacy would be left with no effective army outside of Virginia. If this came to pass, Cleburne doubted that the Confederacy would survive more than a few months at most.
And who was he? An Irish orphan who had come to America penniless and obscure, who still spoke with a strong Irish accent. If men like William Walker and Braxton Bragg were to be believed, he was no Southerner at all, but an abolitionist agitator who was unfit to command a company of infantry. How was it that everything had suddenly fallen to him?
“Sir, what shall we do?” McFadden asked.
The question snapped Cleburne out of his thoughts. “Keep your men with me, McFadden.”
“Of course, sir. Where are we going?”
“We’re pulling back into the city. Where is my horse?”
“Sorry, sir, but I’m afraid your horse has had it.”
He looked where McFadden was pointing and saw a grievously wounded Red Pepper whimpering in pain. Two of the horse’s legs had been torn off by the same shell explosion that had wounded Hardee and some of the animal’s entrails were spilling out onto the ground from a massive slash made by shrapnel in its belly. Nevertheless, Red Pepper was struggling to stand up, frightened, confused, and obviously in agony.
“Oh, Red Pepper,” Cleburne said sadly. A man at least could understand what the war was about and why he was being asked to risk his life. A horse had no such solace. It merely went to where its master directed it to go. The poor animal had no idea why it had to die an agonizing death.
“I’ll do it, sir,” McFadden said, drawing the pistol from his holster.
“No,” Cleburne said sharply. “Thank you, Lieutenant, but I’ll do it.”
He sighed as he walked over to his beloved horse. It neighed softly in recognition, perhaps asking if Cleburne could do something to help it. He pulled his pistol and pulled back the cock. Seemingly understanding what was about to happen, the animal moved its head slightly before laying it calmly back down on the ground. A second later, a single pistol shot ended Red Pepper’s pain.
Cleburne
shook his head. There was no time for grief of any kind. Right now, his job was to get all the men back into the Atlanta defenses and hold out for as long as possible. He did not consider it likely that they would be able to hold out long enough for Johnston to arrive, but it was his duty to try.
*****
September 25, Night
Marble has almost drifted off to sleep when the rusty creaking of the prison door startled him into wakefulness. He stood up from his uncomfortable cot. The cell and the hallway beyond the bars were illuminated by the flickering light of three torches, casting a pale yellow light. Two guards still stood impassively outside the cell, as startled as he was to receive a late night visitor.
Benjamin Butler entered the cellblock, looking as sinister and oafish as usual. Marble thought he saw something else under the rubbery exterior of the man’s face, though he couldn’t say what. Marble considered himself a good reader of minds, but he had always found it frustratingly impossible to know what Butler was thinking.
“Wait outside,” Butler said to the guards. They immediately saluted and departed, shutting the door behind them.
“General Butler,” Marble said with mock warmth. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Butler didn’t respond right away. He stepped forward until his face was almost between the bars of Marble’s cell, eyeing him closely and warily. Marble found this deeply unsettling. It was though he were being examined by a predator to determine whether or not he would make a decent meal. No one who knew Butler well could help but be afraid of him.
Butler took a step back. The next words were among the most surprising of Marble’s life.
“Do you want to get out of here?” Butler asked. His tone was simple, as though he were asking Marble what he wanted for dinner.
“I’m sorry?”
“You heard me.”
Marble snorted. “But General Butler, I am so enjoying your hospitality that I-“
“Drop the pretense, Marble. You shall never succeed in impressing me. I asked you a question. Do you want to get out of here or not?”
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