1862 (48 page)

She reached across and grasped his hand. “Because I wish to be here with you. Congress are a bunch of cowardly rascals and their flight is of no surprise or consequence. I saw them flee like rabbits after Bull Run. so this doesn’t surprise me. Besides. I’m confident that the city’s walls are strong enough to withstand any attack.”

Nathan wanted to lecture her on the theory that there was no such thing as an impregnable fortress, but recognized that her mind was made up. Damn: why did he always have to fall in love with strong-willed women?

Congress had indeed fled, and had taken with it much of Washington’s population. Many had departed at Lee’s first advance, and others had packed up and left on hearing that he was returning on his way back south. Even the dullest understood that Lee would strike at any time and at any place he felt it to be to his advantage. As a result. Washington City was a virtual ghost town.

Within the capital, siege preparations continued with the Treasury Building designated as the last citadel should the defenses be breached. The great stone building now bristled with cannon and was garrisoned by several hundred regulars. President Lincoln and his family would live within its walls should there be danger to his person. Lincoln had bristled at the thought of abandoning the White House, particularly since the British, who had burned it in 1814, might be part of the danger and would likely burn it again if they could.

Reason had prevailed. The president and his family finally agreed to move to the Treasury should the Confederates approach.

“Will General Scott seek refuge in the Treasury?” Rebecca asked.

“I doubt it”

“Then I will stay here with him and wait for you.”

“And where do you think I will be?” he asked

She looked at him sadly and shook her head. ’When the guns fire, you will be with the soldiers.”

Lord Palmerston felt a dull ache in his arm, which was odd since he could scarcely feel his fingers. His skull throbbed and he felt so exhausted that both speech and rational thought were suddenly difficult. He badly needed rest. He wasn’t young anymore and playing the game of empires was draining him. He wondered if the Roman emperors had felt this way. It really didn’t matter. This was England, not Rome, and the British Empire was poised on the brink of a colossal defeat.

It was now confirmed. Lee and his Anglo-Confederate army were withdrawing back to Virginia. Lee had been outmaneuvered by Grant, who had declined to give battle, thus causing the invaders to use up all their food and much of their ammunition in a fruitless chase of the Union army. As a result, the British expeditionary force was in peril. The Anglo-Confederates were outnumbered and were being tracked by vast Union hordes that used railroads to ship their armies parallel to those of Lee’s. Damn, he hated this new technology! And where was it written that Lee’s and Napier’s army travelled by foot while Grant’s rode trains?

Of particular concern was the way Napier’s army was now inextricably involved with the Confederacy’s. The presence of British forces in Virginia had been predicated on a decisive victory over the North that would have ended the war and permitted the British troops to be withdrawn and returned to Ireland and Canada.

Yet how could they be withdrawn with their Union enemies intact and strong? To have Napier depart Virginia would be correctly construed as abandoning the Confederacy. As repugnant as it felt. Great Britain was being inexorably drawn into a bloody land war in the vastness of North America.

The choicest morsels of Canada remained under Union control, and a Northern army inched towards the eastern end of Lake Ontario. In Ireland, chaos reigned. The discredited Sepoys held only a couple of seacoast garrisons, and northern Protestants had commenced their own civil war against the more numerous southern Catholics. Atrocities of all kinds were being committed by both sides. The regular British army was urgently needed to reestablish control,

Messengers from Lord Napier had arrived at Norfolk and had cabled reports to Palmerston. In them, the prime minister was told of the possibility of a strike at Washington. This was the only good news to come from the campaign. And it was also the proverbial last chance. A return to Virginia without a substantial victory would not only be a defeat for the combined arms of Britain and the Confederacy, but could spell the political downfall of Palmerston’s Whig party. To be out of power at this stage of his long life and career would be a virtual death sentence. His opposition would doubtless sue for peace, which would doom any chance for eliminating the United States as a rival as well as hamper any future plans to neutralize England’s real enemy, France.

Palmerston grasped his left hand with his right. It was so difficult to feel the cold limb. He needed a rest, but there wasn’t time. He tried to visualize the British army, thousands of miles away, advancing in triumph into Washington. But the picture wouldn’t focus.

   The Union forces defending Washington were arrayed in a wide circle, which meant that not one single position was defended in extraordinary depth. While the fortresses could stop virtually any attack, it was accepted that no fortification was truly impregnable. Thus, the intent of the massive fortifications was to delay an attacker until reinforcements could arrive both from within Washington and from other locations.

Washington was perceived by planners on both sides as being like Mr. Lowe’s balloons in that once pierced a collapse could occur. As commander in Washington, Major General George Meade had planned for exactly such a contingency. He was confident that his reinforcements could react in a timely manner and blunt any Confederate assault. He was particularly pleased that Mr. Lowe’s balloons would give him an additional advantage in that the movement of a large force of men would easily be seen from thousands of feet in the sky.

If a small leak did occur in the balloon of his Washington defenses, General Meade was confident that it could be plugged. There, the metaphor ended. Meade wanted the rebels to attack and impale themselves on Washington’s fortifications. He had shared this thought with Grant, who’d concurred but who’d also doubted that the British and Confederates would be so cooperative.

In the Anglo-Confederate camp, it was Brigadier General Garnet Wolsey who first postulated a solution to the Washington problem as the weary army trudged slowly towards Virginia. The British had much more experience in siege warfare as a result of the Crimean War, so he proposed that he command a small force of volunteers who would assault one of the Union forts under cover of darkness. It was very similar to the concept of a Forlorn Hope, which was the name given to a group of British soldiers driven to desperation, for whatever reason, who volunteered to make nearly suicidal attacks in hope of achieving glory, forgiveness for crimes, or both.

To provide additional camouflage for his efforts. Wolsey proposed that the main part of the Anglo-Confederate army be several miles away from the point of attack to avoid being considered an immediate threat by the observers in the balloons. Elements of the main army, however, would rush to support Wolsey’s attack, also under cover of darkness. When the breach was successfully made, as many troops as necessary would be poured through to defeat Meade’s reserves and take Washington.

Once taken, they would do what they wished with it for a couple of days and continue their withdrawal. There were no plans to hold on to the Union capital. It was hoped that the capture of major Northern leaders and the shame of losing the city would be enough. The Union would be humiliated, and purpose would be given to the Anglo-Confederate force’s so-far-unsuccessful efforts in Pennsylvania. Whether it would bring the Union to a treaty was problematical. At this point, no one cared. They just wanted to return home victorious.

“Are you with me?” Wolsey beamed. “Then it’s approved?” asked Knollys.

“Certainly. What do Lee or Napier have to lose besides a one-eyed brigadier general and a couple of hundred men? I have more volunteers than I could handle. Thank God we still have men who think burning Washington is a marvelous idea. I want you to be my second in command.”

“I’m honored. Perhaps we’ll have as much success as we did at New York.”

“Nothing could ever go that well again.” Wolsey looked skyward. The clouds were low and threatening. He wondered what rain would do to his plans.

Colonel John Rawlins often felt his inadequacies as Grant’s chief of staff and was frequently embarrassed by them. Managing the myriad functions and controlling Grant’s communications was definitely beyond his limited capabilities as an administrator. Yet he would not resign and Grant would not replace him. They were friends and needed each other.

Thus, Rawlins and Grant had been up much of the night drafting the multitude of orders necessary to once again shift the massive army, with Grant again doing much of the clerical work. This time, they were shifting the army southward and would continue to stay parallel to the retreating enemy. Sherman was to move to Baltimore while Thomas, currently at Baltimore, would move south and assume command over Meade at Washington. All the while. Grant would exert heavy pressure on Lee’s rear guard.

The rules of the chase had changed. Whereas battle with Lee had been avoided, now it was to be sought out. It was felt that the food and ammunition shortages, verified by prisoners and deserters, had so weakened Lee that victory was a strong likelihood. It was also interesting that a number of the deserters had been British.

Rawlins was tired, and he lurched more than walked in the predawn darkness. As so many times in the past, Grant had dictated the orders and Rawlins had written them out. Rawlins was always impressed by the general’s lucidity and the manner in which he wrote copiously and unambiguously the directions that kept the vast army coordinated and organized. To first see the slight, rumpled little general, one would never dream that he had such intellectual capabilities.

Compounding the difficulty in coordinating the dispersed armies was the use of Haupt’s railroads. In Rawlins’s opinion. Haupt was an arrogant, bullheaded Kraut who also happened to be a genius. Every day. miles of additional track were laid, or ripped up, or ripped up and moved. Haupt understood that the rail lines were temporary and did not have to last forever, only a couple of months at most. He had often laid tracks on ground that had been minimally prepared. As a result, spiderwebs of tracks grew daily and emanated all around the Union armies, thus permitting the swift movement of Grant’s forces.

This swiftness was part of Rawlins’s problem. Events with armies, corps, and divisions moved with a speed he couldn’t keep up with. His pockets were jammed with orders that needed to be distributed promptly and accurately. Some would be sent by messengers to commanders in the field nearby. However, since the armies were distributed over so wide an area, a large number would be sent by telegraph from the communications tent, which was where Rawlins was headed. Grant had a telegraph machine in his tent, but it couldn’t handle the volume.

Just as he approached the telegraph center, he was suddenly struck in the side and knocked to the muddy ground. Stunned, he rolled over in the muck and got to his knees just in time to see a young private gazing at him in horror.

“You goddamn fool!” Rawlins snarled.

The private, however, was not a fool. He quickly realized that he had knocked one of Grant’s staff onto his ass and into a mud puddle. The private picked himself up and ran off into the night.

“Come back here, you dumb little shit!” Rawlins yelled fruitlessly.

A couple of other soldiers came and helped Rawlins up. all the while managing not to laugh at his discomfiture. Then they started to pick up all the papers that had spilled from Rawlins’s pockets in the collision.

When he finally got everything collected. Rawlins began to see the humor in his situation. Where once he had only been tired, he was now cold, wet. and dirty, along with still being tired.

“Thanks, boys,” he said. “I think I’ll survive, which is more than I can say about that clodhopper who knocked me down if I ever see him again.”

The soldiers laughed and went their way. Rawlins headed towards the telegraph office. None of them noticed the piece of paper that had been ground into the mud.

Rosemarie DeLisle was an intelligent woman, which was one of the traits that John Knollys found irresistible. In comparison with the vapid and shallow ladies who were the usual occupants of his social station, her intelligence was a tonic. This meant that she could see through the charades being played by the Confederate government.

The Richmond newspapers had proclaimed the completion of the campaign into Pennsylvania as a great triumph. “The Heroes Return” had been one headline, and “North Lacks Will to Fight” had been another, while “Grant and Lincoln Turn Tail” had been a third.

Rosemarie recalled her conversations with John Knollys and understood full well that the enterprise had failed. The Union army was as strong as it had been, if not stronger, while the Confederate and British forces were weaker. She could see that reflected in the number of wounded who had been shipped back to hospitals in Richmond, and the fact that precious few reinforcements had departed northward. The garrison of Richmond was almost entirely composed of the lame, the halt, the very young, and the too old.

It was not lost on her that Union patrols operating out of Baltimore were making no attempt to interrupt the columns of ambulances as they wound their way south with Confederate wounded. The wounded would be a burden on the South’s diminishing resources, rather than on the North. It was a heartless trick, but one Rosemarie appreciated.

Rosemarie had spent a good deal of her spare time helping wounded Confederate and British officers convalesce. From the British she heard their disgust that no major battle had been fought and that they were retreating. From them, she also got information regarding John Knollys, including a letter sent courtesy of a young captain who’d lost a leg in a nameless skirmish.