1862 (50 page)

A moment later, Grant had softened and a look of pity had come across his face. He, Grant, had made the mistake of entrusting Rawlins: and the responsibility for anything that happened was Grant’s, not Rawlins’s. However. John Rawlins knew that he would never again be trusted with anything important.

Rawlins had run to the telegraph office with a fresh set of orders from Grant telling Thomas to proceed to Washington immediately and with all possible haste. They also told Thomas to assume command of Meade’s forces as planned and now Sherman’s as well, and to coordinate the defense of Washington. While these telegrams were being sent. Rawlins checked the message log for the previous night and saw that nothing had gone out for Thomas.

Then he remembered being knocked to the mud and scrambling for lost papers. He had assumed that he had recovered them all and hadn’t double-checked. The mix-up was all his fault. He should have checked.

Rawlins was so upset he wanted to weep. The Confederates were attacking Washington and Thomas’s army was nowhere near the place. He. John Rawlins. a fine lawyer and good friend of Ulysses Grant, stood a good chance of being remembered by history as the man who lost both the capital of his country and the war because of one moment’s carelessness.

If he’d had a gun. he would have blown his brains out. But then, he thought sadly, he’d probably have missed.

At first Nathan mistook the dull booming for the sound of natural thunder in the rainy night. After all, it was storming and thunder was not unknown at that time of the year. He almost slept through it.

But then he’d noticed a difference in the sound. It was too sharp, too rhythmic. He’d walked to the window and opened it carefully so as to not wake Rebecca. He wasn’t successful.

“It’s not a thunderstorm, is it?” she asked. Her face was pale in the night and she looked both grim and concerned. She looked like a waif with the quilt pulled up to her chin. She was naked underneath it, as her monthly curse had ceased.

“Cannons,” he said simply. The war had come to Washington, D.C.

“You’re going?”

“Yes.”

He dressed quickly in the uniform of a Union colonel. Rebecca had thrown on a robe and gone to awaken Fromm. The former sergeant had put on his own uniform and then saddled two horses. Nathan was surprised.

“Got to see this one,” Fromm said with a grin. Thanks to Bridget Conlin’s good cooking, his uniform barely fit him.

Nathan and Rebecca hugged tightly and without words that would have been meaningless. Nathan and Fromm mounted their horses and cantered off into the night.

For Sergeant Billy Harwell, this was the worst of all possible nightmares. They had been roused by Captain Melcher with the stunning news that the rebels were inside the fortifications around Fort Stephens and that Melcher’s regiment was going to try and plug the leak.

Within minutes, the entire regiment had been assembled and began to march northward. The cold wind whipped their faces, and the mud made marching an effort that sucked the breath from their lungs. What ground they should have covered in an hour took more than twice that.

They were still more than a mile from Stephens when they met their first refugees from the fighting. These confirmed that Stephens had fallen as a result of a sneak attack and that Fort De Russey was under a flanking attack because its guns were a pain in the ass to the Confederates, who wanted to send their army through the breach. Fort Stephens was directly to their front, with Fort De Russey to the left and Fort Slocum to the right.

Billy, Olaf, and the rest of their companions wanted nothing more than for De Russey to hold out for all eternity and keep the rebs pinned down. It was still dark and, since it was mid-December, likely to stay that way for a while. At least the rain had slackened considerably. This would be much better if they had to fight, which was becoming increasingly likely. Without the rain, he could see his targets, and bullets were far less likely to misfire from the dampness.

They were arrayed across what passed for a road with Stephens and De Russey at the far end of it. Billy stared down it but could see nothing, only an occasional retreating Union soldier who confirmed what they already knew. The captain sent out a couple of men to patrol up ahead and see what was happening. It was obvious the regiment wasn’t going to try to retake Stephens with the few hundred men they had at hand.

Billy turned behind him and saw a pair of riders on horseback talking to Major Snead and Captain Melcher. Colonel Hodges was ill and hadn’t arrived if he was going to at all. One rider looked familiar and then Billy recalled an equally rainy night outside Washington many months before. It was the commanding-looking gentleman who had flipped him a coin and who he had later seen with General Scott.

Another group of riders rode up and a small cheer went up from the men. It was General Meade. Now. by God. there was going to be some action.

Major General George Gordon Meade had been educated as an engineer and counted as one of his skills his ability to understand topography and the lay of the land. Still, it did not take a genius to recognize that the small Union force he’d found waiting across the road to Fort Stephens held a key position. It was directly between Washington proper and the rebels who would soon come down from Fort Stephens.

Meade, however, was surprised to see Nathan Hunter observing and helping place the troops. He’d known Nathan slightly and understood his position both with Grant and with retired general Winfield Scott. As a colonel Hunter ranked over anyone else in the area and had taken control of the men in the road. He had been getting them organized when Meade had arrived. Nathan had placed his men in two-deep rows and in an inverted V in which any column coming down the road could be taken by either flank. They had dug in as best they could, clawing frantically at the earth with bayonets, shovels, and cooking gear. Stones and fence rails were used as barricades to help protect the thin lines of troops.

“And what will you do if the rebs come cross-country instead of straight down the road?’: Meade asked.

Nathan shrugged. “Back off. We don’t have enough men to do anything else. The best I can do is delay them until help gets here. When will reinforcements arrive?”

The hawk-nosed Meade glowered. “They’re coming, but it’ll take a bit. Secretary Stanton heard of a plot to take the Arlington forts from some idiot actor named Booth. Stanton convinced me I should send the reserves to protect them. As a result I have eight thousand men on the wrong side of the Potomac. I will never listen to Stanton again and the damned actor is under arrest.’’

Nathan was taken aback by the news. He had one regiment and parts of two others, in all. just under a thousand men and no cannon to stop the Confederate army. With the roads in even more miserable condition then they usually were, it would be awhile before the rest of Meade’s reserve force returned from their wild-goose chase. The remainder of Meade’s army garrisoned the forts and were scattered all about the thirty-seven-mile perimeter.

Meade continued. “General Thomas is headed this way from Baltimore, but he’ll be later than my own men in arriving. Until then, you are to hold them off as best you can. Oh yes, President Lincoln and his family are already holed up in the Treasury.”

Nathan had told Rebecca to take General Scott down to the cellar if he refused to go to the fortified Treasury Building. “We’ll do our best, General.”

“You’re in for a battle. Hunter. This won’t be like staff work for Grant.”

“Can’t argue that, sir,” Nathan said grimly. “However, I do have one advantage, General. I’ve inherited a full regiment armed with Henry repeaters, and the men seem to know how to utilize them.”

Meade grinned. “Repeaters? Well, let’s hope they are a nasty surprise for the rebels.”

   The Rebels came at first light. The rain had stopped totally and they were seen as a thick column of humanity pushing down the road from Fort Stephens. There were no discernible blocks of men to identify as separate units. They had become too intermixed while navigating through the trenches and ducking the shelling that still hit Fort Stephens. The situation was too urgent for them to stop and organize. Their orders had been for them to push as far and as fast as possible towards Washington before the Union forces recovered from the shock.

Nathan stationed himself by Captain Melcher. Major Snead had disappeared, probably run off in fright. Nathan wasn’t sure he blamed the man, although he’d be court-martialed if he was caught and hopefully hanged. Nathan found he had little sympathy for anyone who claimed to be an officer and who then failed. But then, who was guaranteed success? There had to be five or six thousand rebels in the oncoming horde. Was there that much difference in failing by running, and by staying and still failing?

Melcher had supervised the placement of ranging sticks out to a quarter of a mile in front of the Union lines. As the gray column approached the farthest stick, Melcher raised his sword.

“At my signal, volley fire, one round.” He paused and hollered, “Now.”

Four hundred and fifty rifles crashed in unison. “Load,” ordered Melcher and the men replaced the one missing shell. “One round, fire!”

The rifles thundered and the head of the Confederate column seemed to shrink. A quarter of a mile was too far to be accurate, but the rebels were massed and the host was impossible to miss. The rebels shook off their losses and came on. They could see that there was only a small force between them and victory.

The mud and the narrowness of the road compressed the Confederates and slowed them. Melcher was able to get off a couple more volleys before they reached the two-hundred-yard mark, and each one was more devastating than the previous.

The Union soldiers topped off their magazines each time they fired: thus, they still held a full complement of bullets in their Henrys. The rebels were unaware what they were facing.

At two hundred yards, the order was given. Rapid fire. The Henrys fired and never seemed to stop. The rebel column shook as if it was a beast in torment. Men fell by the score and others fell on top of them.

Melcher had wisely ordered only half of his men to fire. When their guns were empty, the second half took up the rain of bullets while the first group reloaded. This continued until the road before them was choked with the dead and dying. The head of the rebel force had made it to about a hundred yards away, but had not deployed as skirmishers. Their units were too mixed up to permit any maneuvers.

The slaughter continued. A handful of rebels took up the challenge and returned fire, but did little damage. The repeating rifles enabled the shooters to fire while prone or kneeling behind their hastily thrown-up earthworks. This and their shallow entrenchments meant they presented themselves as very small targets.

Nathan ordered his flanking units to advance and enfilade the Confederates. These didn’t have Henrys, but their fire was almost as effective, silencing the few rebels who’d begun shooting back.

The Confederates could stand no more. The gray-clad mass inched back beyond the apparent safety of the quarter-mile markers. Nathan ordered a cease-fire. It was a standoff. They had bought time. But was it enough?

In Fort Stephens, John Knollys could scarcely hear. He had been directing the fire of a pair of cannon that had been manhandled into position to fire at Union guns, and the blasts had nearly deafened him. While the Union guns had originally been sited to provide overlapping fire to protect Fort Stephens, they had not been set so they could fire on other Union positions. As a result, much brute force was required before they could be used.

The Union gunners in the adjacent Fort Slocum had several advantages that they used to the fullest. For one thing, they were skilled artillerymen and knew how to both move and fire their dreadful charges, while the British were infantry trying to learn about the great guns in the middle of a battle. Despite the British efforts, it seemed to Knollys that the Union fire was becoming more effective.

“How long can you continue with this?” Wolsey asked. He was filthy with mud and had lost his hat. The brigadier general had been supervising the construction of ramps and the filling in of trenches to enable incoming Confederates to pass through more quickly. As a result, a steady column of men, two and three abreast, was flowing through the gap created by the capture of Fort Stephens. D. H. Hill’s entire division was almost through, as were parts of McClaws’s.

Knollys had him repeat his question. “Not much longer.” He pointed to an overturned cannon and the bloody mass that had been its crew. “I had four guns and now only three. We’ve got to expand this or we’ll be blown to bits.”

“Hopefully it’ll get better soon. Did you see those horsemen ride through?” Knollys hadn’t. “It was Lee. and he’s gone ahead to take charge. Right now, the Confederates are just a mob. Lee’ll make them an army.”

Knollys had been too preoccupied to notice any riders. He was about to respond that a man must be either brave, foolish, or determined to ride a horse while under artillery fire when a massive explosion hurled him to the ground and buried him in soggy dirt. He gasped and reached for daylight. A soldier grabbed his arm and pulled him free of the mud. Shaken, he checked himself, stood, and thanked God that he was unhurt. A couple of others standing nearby weren’t as lucky. One man had been decapitated and yet another of Knollys’s precious guns had been destroyed by Union soldiers who weren’t about to give up.

Then it dawned on him. Where was Wolsey? He heard a moan that turned into a low, primal scream. Wolsey was sitting on his haunches and holding his head in both hands. There was blood on his head and it streamed down his hands and onto his chest. Knollys stumbled over to his side and gently pulled Wolsey’s hands from his face.

Knollys gasped. Wolsey’s face was little more than a large lump of raw meat. I’m blind,” Wolsey said. “I’ve lost my other eye.”

The Confederates’ second attack was much better organized than the first. This time they moved out into the fields in long battle lines that were three deep and presented a much more difficult target. This also enabled them to use the weight of their numbers to fire on the outnumbered Union soldiers and largely negate the advantage of the Henrys.