A Rainbow of Blood: The Union in Peril an Alternate History (18 page)

Even with the generals clustered around him, Bazaine could see the
carnage. Banks turned white, but before he could speak, Bazaine turned
his horse around and spurred into the slaughter, striking left and right
with his sword at the Sudanese, crying out, "Quels sauvages!" His staff
plunged in after him, and then Zouaves of the Guard rushed in to throw
a cordon of bayonets around the Americans. With the Sudanese finally
under control, Bazaine rode up to their commander, seized his sword,
and snapped it like a stick.

None of this was evident to Franklin, but seeing the ruin of XIII
Corps as the Prince de Polignac rolled up its flank, he realized he was
on his own. He could passively accept the fate of the rest of the army or
save what he could. For this old soldier, there was really no choice at all.
He carefully swung back his line to face south, still engaged with Walker's division, probably the supreme tactical achievement of his life. He
could not have done it had not his four batteries held the Greyhounds
at bay while the infantry wheeled away. The guns literally backed up
yard by yard in the technique called "firing by prolonge." Normally to
move a gun, it would have to be hitched to a caisson or limber, and its
crew would have to mount horses, drive away, then unlimber and set
up again. In the face of an advancing enemy, it was fatal. By firing by
prolonge, the gun stayed harnessed to its team, which was pointed in
the direction of retreat. The harnesses remained taut so that when the
gun fired, the recoil took it a few yards to the rear in the direction of the
retreat. The crews simply marched back with gun instantly ready to load
and fire. It was a fighting retreat that spewed canister into the oncoming
enemy so continuously that even the hosts of heaven would have gave
pause. And it was the margin that Franklin needed.

His gunners gave it to him, fighting their guns back yard by yard,
crewmen and horses dropping from the enemy's rifle fire. Dead horses
were cut out of their traces, and the surviving crewmen just kept feeding the guns. The regulars of Batteries F and L of the 1st U.S. Artillery
were matched by the volunteers of the 4th Massachusetts and 25th New
York Batteries. Even the toughest and most determined Red Leg' was
not proof to Texan marksmanship, and one by one the crewmen began
to drop as did their horses until there were not enough men to keep the guns firing or horses to pull it off. One after the other, guns were
left in the wake of the batteries' fighting retreat. When almost half the
guns were lost and three of four battery commanders dead or wounded,
Franklin rode up to give the command to pull back to the new line he
had established that straddled the main road that led eighteen miles
north to Opelousas.

The sacrifice of the gunners had saved XIX Corps. Walker's division was too badly mangled itself to renew the attack against Franklin's new position or hang onto his rear as he retreated. Night fell not a
moment too soon for Franklin. There had not been enough daylight left
for Bazaine to transfer his cavalry north to cut him off. And so the cloak
of darkness wrapped its thick folds about them as Franklin trudged
north to safety.

THE HOME OF ASIA BOOTH CLARKE, PHILADELPHIA,
PENNSYLVANIA, 1:30 PM, OCTOBER 22, 1863

There was an added pleasure to the rave reviews John Wilkes Booth was
receiving for his "blood-and-thunder" performance in The Marble Heart,
which was the role most considered his best. It was to relax in the home
of his sister Asia. He reclined on her plush red settee with all the languid
grace of a leopard on tree branch. Asia knew her little brother with the
clarity of all big sisters.

Their father, the great lion of the American stage, the tempestuous
Junius Booth, had named him well. Junius Wilkes was probably the most
notorious demagogue, folk hero, and scoundrel of eighteenth-century
British politics. The London mob cheered him on with "Wilkes and liberty!" for his goading of both king and parliament. His namesake's reputation had not been lost on young Booth who seemed to have acquired
the same gift for the dramatic and for fiery stands against authority. Like
his namesake, he could go too far. He was vociferous in his Southern
sympathies, and it had got him in trouble on more than one occasion.
Only a glib tongue and a ton of charm had eased him out it. John was the
unusual American who, as an actor, had free passage of the lines to perform North and South.

Asia was half an indulgent mother as well. She was as susceptible
to his easy charm and good looks as anyone else. John was easily the
handsomest of the family and now a clear rival to his more serious brother, the great tragedian Edwin Booth, whose performance in Macbeth
was highly regarded by the critics. John was riding a wave of success
achieved far more quickly than his more somber older brother. In fact,
Edwin was the subject of his conversation.

"Asia, dear, Adam Badeau said the queerest thing about Edwin in
New York this summer." Badeau was an old friend of Edwin's and a
journalist. He had come to provide the comforting moral support needed
to rouse Edwin from his fits of depression. Badeau had gone off to war
and had been badly wounded in an attack on Port Hudson. Edwin had
taken him in to nurse him back to health in his own Manhattan home.
He and John had carried him upstairs to a bedroom, dressed his wounds,
and tended him in shifts. During the draft riots, Badeau had been afraid
for the safety of his black body servant, but John had assured him he
would personally see to the man's safety.

"He said that it was appalling to witness such melancholy in a man
who had so much to live for. Well, you know Edwin. He is Hamlet, but I
was worried when Badeau said that Edwin had told him that he had' the
feeling that evil is hanging over me, that I can't come to good.' What on
earth could he have meant?"

Asia could only shake her head. She knew Edwin as well as John.
Then John laughed, and the grimness in it startled his sister. "Imagine
me, helping that wounded Yankee with my Rebel sinews. If it weren't for
mother, I wouldn't enter Edwin's house. If the North conquers us, it will
be by numbers only, not by native grit, not pluck, and not by devotion."

Asia was now thoroughly alarmed by this sudden revelation. "'If
the North conquers us?' We are of the North."

John jumped up. "Not I, not l!" he shouted. "So help me Holy God!
My soul, life, and possessions are for the South!"2

OFFICE OF THE SECRET SERVICE, WASHINGTON, D.C.,
2:47 PM, OCTOBER 22, 1863

Lafayette Baker was a good judge of character, especially had character.
It was a useful talent in a man set to catch spies. It was also useful in
his thuggish sideline of shaking down anyone he wanted, and the man
standing in front of him, hat in hand, seemed just the sort he could use.
Baker saw right through the big, bearded man's submissive body language. There was a brute.

Baker tossed aside the letters of recommendation. "I can use you,
Miller. And right away. There's an actor over at Ford's Theatre who
needs the fear of God and the Union put in him. Talks too damned much
about his Rebel sympathies. Did you ever hear of John Booth? Brother
of Edwin Booth, son of the great Junius?" Baker saw that he had clearly
overestimated the man's acquaintance with culture. "Well, he's vain as
a peacock, and a suggestion that his pretty face might no longer be presentable on the stage should get his attention."

Miller grinned, and his canines gleamed. Baker was pleased that he
had not been wrong in his appraisal.

He was only half right. The man was a thug of the first order. But
he was also a traitor, a Copperhead who had fled ahead of Sherman's
rampage through the rebellious Midwest. His name was well known
in Indiana, where he had been the murderous enforcer of Copperhead
discipline. He was Big Jim Smoke, the man who had brutally killed the
government's agent in the midst of the Copperhead conspiracy, the
man who had murdered the guards outside Camp Morton in the attempt to liberate the huge Confederate prisoner-of-war camp. He had
barely escaped with his life as Hooker's Horse Marines had charged into
the camp on the heels of the Copperheads. And he had fled straight to
Washington, where his cunning told him he would be safest in the bosom of the tyrant and his chief spy-catcher. He had gone directly from
the train to activate his contacts with the Copperhead network in the
capital to replenish his cash and acquire the spurious letters of recommendation that had so easily fooled Baker.

Smoke got directions for Ford's Theatre and rushed off to find this
John Booth. He did not notice the nondescript black man selling peanuts
on the street outside Baker's office, but then few whites paid attention
to the omnipresent black population of the capital. The peanut vendor
motioned to a boy playing marbles in the dirt. "Jimmy, go tell Massa
Sharpe that Mr. Baker's got hisself a new man." He did not have to give
any more instructions. The boy had memorized the Smoke's appearance,
despite giving every indication of total absorption in his game.

COLT ARMS FACTORY, HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT,
3:02 PM, OCTOBER 21, 1863

Andrew Carnegie saw nothing but potential and opportunities as he toured the huge Colt Arms Factory with its manager, Elisha K. Root.
Carnegie had heard the old man had come out of retirement to take over
the management of the company when "the Colonel" - Sam Colt - died
last year. His age had not relaxed his grip, and it was evident the place
ran with precision and efficiency.

Not even thirty years old and with hair as white as snow and cornflower blue eyes, this shrewd Scotsman was already wealthy. He worked
by the motto, "The rising man must do something exceptional, and
beyond the range of his special department. He must attract attention."
The purpose of his visit was the perfect opportunity to attract attention on the national stage in the moment of his adopted nation's greatest peril. Carnegie's talent was not as an industrial expert or manager,
but as someone who saw opportunities and sought out the men who
could make things happen. He would also be sure to ask Root who his
best managers were, the men with initiative and good judgment. Later,
he would shamelessly try to hire them away, but that was later. He had
no doubt of being able to do so. As one man described him, he "was the
most genial of despots, bending men to his will by an unfailing charm.
And he would not hesitate to outbid anyone for the talent he wanted."3

Right now it was the scale of the operation that impressed him. The
Colt Arms Factory, covering six and half acres, was the largest weapon
manufacturer in the world. Its main building had eight major bays each
five hundred feet long by sixty wide.

There were 400 rifling machines, with each barrel being subjected
to forty-five separate operations. The rammers experienced nineteen, the hammers twenty-eight, and the stocks five, and there
was a grand operating total of 454 distinct procedures within this
single gun-making enterprise.'

The drop hammers consuming 900 horsepower via endless leather
belts was deafening. Carnegie did not care. Mark Twain would describe
it a few years later:

The Colt's revolver manufactory is a Hartford institution. On
every floor is a dense wilderness of strange iron machines that
stretches away into remote distances and confusing perspectives - a tangled forest of rods, bars, pulleys, wheels, and all the imaginable and unimaginable forms of mechanism.... No two machines
are alike, or designed to perform the same office. It must have
required more brains to invent all these things than would serve to
stock fifty Senates like ours.5

Brains, the native genius, had created the American system of manufacture -interchangeable parts, specialization of skill, and that knack
for extracting ever more efficiency from every step and process. Hartford
throbbed with such factories, especially the weapon makers, including
Chris Spencer, whom Carnegie had brought along to Root's surprise.
Spencer's repeating rifle was the single best model in the world and a
competitor to the Colt revolving rifle. Carnegie was relieved that Root
greeted Spencer cordially. Spencer had worked at Colt and obviously
left on good terms. It was clear that Root both liked and respected the
young man. A mechanical genius, Spencer had, at the age of fifteen, built
a working model of a steam engine from a book. Only a few years ago
he had taken to driving to work in a steam-powered automobile of his
own invention. But it was as a gun maker that he excelled. At the age of
eighty-seven, he would learn to fly an airplane. A future friend of Mark
Twain, Spencer was probably the model for his hero in A Connecticut
Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

Spencer's rifle was not the product of a mature arms manufacturer,
but was a special handmade tool put together in the machine shop of
his partner's company, the Cheney Brothers Silk Mill. That partner was
a Boston neighbor of Gideon Welles, secretary of the Navy, a Hartford
man, and not surprisingly a demonstration was arranged at the Washington Navy Yard in June 1861. Admiral Dahlgren, chief of the Ordnance
Bureau at the time, personally tested it, and no sharper eye could have
been found. Dahlgren was rightly known as the Father of American Naval Ordnance for his fine line of guns, the soda bottle-shaped Dahlgrens,
which even the British had tried to buy before the war.

There was only one misfire of the five hundred brass rimfire cartridges fired, and that was found to be owed to defective fulminate. The
rifle sustained a rate of fourteen shots a minute without overheating and
did not require cleaning to continue, unlike the standard Springfield and Enfield muzzle-loading rifles, which began to foul after a few dozen
shots. It fired as well with the five hundredth shot as the first. Dahlgren
ordered seven hundred on the spot.6

Spencer left Washington in a state of euphoria that dissipated when
it sank in that the demonstration rifle was his only model and that there
was no factory, machinery, or work force to fulfill the government order.
In the meantime, Lincoln had heard Dahlgren's enthusiastic praise of the
rifle, and there was no man whose technical judgment he trusted more.
He prodded Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, to consider the weapon. The
Army's test was as positive as the Navy's, and an order for ten thousand
followed in December. For the Spencer Repeating Rifle Company, it was
an embarrassment of riches. The weapon's promise would be crippled
by the lag in producing them as the factory only slowly took shape. It
would not be until June 1863 that the initial orders could be filled. Lincoln's interest had cooled as well. The Navy had given him two demonstration models, and one would not work because of a rusted magazine
tube. The other jammed with a double feed. Lincoln then halted deliveries of the weapon.