A Rainbow of Blood: The Union in Peril an Alternate History (28 page)

Sharpe had left Lowe in full charge of the balloons with the assistance of a few of his officers. He returned to his headquarters on Lafay ette Square, arriving just as Lincoln walked across the square, tipping his
tall hat to the statue of Andrew Jackson rearing on his charger. Looking
up at the bronze visage of the sharp-nosed Tennessean, he said, "Wish
you were here, General .1117

Sharpe had just come in and thrown his hat onto a chair when the
guard at the front door shouted inside, "President coming!" Sharpe met
him on the steps as the guards presented arms. Sharpe was pleased that
his boys from the 120th New York had responded smartly. "Sharpe, I
hear you have as good a telegraph set up here as at the War Department
Telegraph Office; I thought I would come over to see what turns up."

"Glad to have you, sir." Sharpe's smile fell from his face as Lincoln went in and he got a good look at the new bodyguard. He'd never
seen this man before. He was big and burly with a coarse face and beard.
He did not like the look of him. Their eyes met and for a brief moment,
Sharpe saw something savage in those eyes, which then furtively looked
away.

That gaze subconsciously triggered the memory of a story he had
been told after he had arrived in Washington. It was about an old black
slave named Oola. She was a frightening, wizened woman said to come
by slave ship from Africa before the turn of the century. She terrified
the other slaves with her piercing glance and her reputation of the evil
eye and the ability to conjure spells. It was in early 1861, the time when
the Lincolns were settling into the White House, when the issue of war
and peace hung in the balance between North and South. At that time, a
great comet had hung in the sky over the East. Old Oola had said, "You
see dat great fire sword, blazin' in de sky? Dat's a great war comin' and
de handle's to'rd de Norf and de point to'rd de Souf and de Norf's gwine
take dat sword and cut de Souf's heart out. But dat Lincum man, chil-
luns, if he takes de sword, he's gwine perish by it."18 Sharpe shook it off
and attended the president.

Lincoln settled himself into a stuffed chair in the telegraph room as
the analysts rushed down the hallway from room to room, comparing
notes and the latest information. Sergeant Wilmoth came and handed
Sharpe the latest telegram. Lincoln's interest perked up. "Young man,
it's good to see you again. What do you hear from your mother in Indianapolis?" Wilmoth smiled from ear to ear and said all was well. The president had been an increasingly frequent visitor since he realized that
Sharpe's headquarters was the place to find out what was going on. He
had taken a personal interest in the bright young man who seemed to
have the whole of Lee's army at his fingertips. Sharpe's faith in Wilmoth's knowledge and good judgment was even stronger, and he asked
Wilmoth to brief them both on what he had been able to put together
over the night 19

The young sergeant calmly and clearly laid out their findings. "Late
last night, the situation clarified after all the day's messages came from
our cavalry pickets, the signal stations, and the Balloon Corps. Hill's
corps marched past Mount Vernon late yesterday. We expect it to lead
the attack on Alexandria. Ewell's corps is swinging to the west and coming down the Columbia Turnpike, we think, to cut Alexandria off from
the north and drive to the river. Some of Stuart's cavalry is screening
both corps and raiding north as well, though his entire division does not
appear to be present. We estimate that they will attack sometime today."

A look of consternation flew across Lincoln's face. "It is morning
already. How will we get what troops we have to reinforce those forts in
Lee's path?"

Without missing a beat, Wilmoth said, "This morning I notified
General Augur of this and recommend he reinforce in that direction. I
took the liberty of signing your name, General." He looked straight into
Sharpe's eyes.

Sharpe suppressed a smile. "You took the liberty of signing my
name, Sergeant?"

"Yes, sir, I did."

"What made you think you had the authority to set such critical
things in motion? They pay generals to make those decisions."

"My information was correct, there was no time to lose, and you
were not here, sir."

Sharpe stepped forward, put his hands on his hips, and cocked his
head forward to look the sergeant in the face. He said, "And continue to
do so when in your good judgment such action is necessary. You have
my permission, forward and backward." He winked and then broke into
a broad smile.

As they laughed, the guns began to rumble to echo up the river and
over the city. The three of them stopped and stared out the window.

MOUNT EAGLE, ALEXANDRIA, VA, 7:15 AM, OCTOBER 26, 1863

Lt. Gen. Ambrose Powell Hill had been riding among his troops, deeply
echeloned in the terrain that they had occupied after dark. Morale had
not been this high since the men had crossed the Potomac far upriver in
June, serenaded by their bands, on the way to Gettysburg. Victory finally
lay just ahead. Just a few weeks ago it seemed the Yankee's coils had
been slowly crushing the South; it would be just a matter of time. Now it
was the Union's turn, feeling the torch of an enemy trampling across her
soil, her own people in revolt in the Midwest, and her ports shut by the
Royal Navy's blockade. There was much grim satisfaction in the ranks.
Now Washington itself lay just a few miles to the north across the river.
One last battle, one last supreme effort, and it would all be over.

Hill had forced himself into the saddle. He could not miss this battle
because of sickness. There had been too much talk already about how
he always seemed to take sick before a fight. No one, not even he, knew
it was the gonorrhea spiking up through stress. The sun was coming up
over the Potomac, sending the long fall rays to glint softly among the
bayonets of his men packed together waiting for the order to move. As
the sun topped the trees on the eastern side of the river, a balloon rose to
their front to hover over the center of the Union fortifications.

"Damned things," he said to himself. "Thought they were gone after Chancellorsville." They had not seen them in Pennsylvania. He hated
them. He was impatient to get going, sickness or not. That balloon made
him feel uneasy, like some hovering black bird of ill omen. He turned in
his saddle. Where was the order to attack? Move quick, strike quick, he
had always believed. Where was that order? He turned to an aide, "Ride
to General Lee and say we must move at once!"

He heard the gun just as the aide spurred his horse. A shell burst in
the field two hundred yards behind the men who sheltered behind in a
rise of the ground and were invisible from the forts. A second shell fell
a hundred yards closer. The ranks rustled nervously. There was a pause,
and when nothing happened, the men relaxed.

Inside the forts, the gunners adjusted the elevation of their huge 15inch Rodman guns as the gun captain shouted the corrections based on
the telegraph message that had come from the balloon overhead. "Fire!"
The guns recoiled as they spat their enormous projectiles to fall on the reverse slopes of the gentle hills to the south. They laced into Hill's
dense ranks in a line of orange-red pulses of energy that flared before the
sound could be heard. Hill did not have to wait years for the gonorrhea
to kill him. A jagged fragment of shell cut him nearly in two.zo

HEADQUARTERS, BMI, WASHINGTON, D.C.,
7:17 AM, OCTOBER 26, 1863

Lincoln covered his tenseness that morning by likening the telegrams
as they came in to hotcakes right off the griddle and so good they could
be gobbled up without any molasses. As the morning went on, he noted
they were getting tastier and tastier all by themselves. Hill's attempted
attack had been disrupted by the artillery's indirect and adjusted firing
by balloon observation. Where the Confederates had been able to move
forward and press home their attacks between the forts, the defenders
had been able to direct their meager infantry reserves to stop them. Lt.
Gen. Richard Ewell's attacks down the Columbia Turnpike had run into
the same web of forts supported by balloon intelligence. The high morale
of their attacks had not been enough but left only a carpet of bodies in
front of the fortifications. The day ended badly for Lee who could see the
roof of Arlington House on its hill. It pained him to see that the beautiful
groves that had once surrounded it had been chopped down, surely to
build the very forts that stood in his way.

The fighting stopped as the sun set and the balloons settled to earth.
The good news clicked over the telegraph and was read with immense
relief in the headquarters on Lafayette Square. Lincoln picked up his hat
to go and looked out the window. The shadows had faded into night
and the statue of Jackson in the square was lit by a few gas lamps, picking out the obdurate image of the hawk-faced warrior president. "Well,
General, it's been one of my better days. It reminds me of the boy who
was talking to another as to whether General Jackson could ever get to
Heaven. Said the boy, 'He'd get there if he had a mind to.' I think we
will prevail if we have 'a mind to."121

Over Sharpe's shoulder, Lincoln saw Sergeant Wilmoth absorbed
in writing at his desk. "It occurs to me that a lieutenant's shoulder straps
would look just fine on young Wilmoth. Good night, General." Sharpe
bid him goodnight and watched as the tall figure in black walked across the square with his hulking bodyguard trailing discreetly behind. Sharpe
saw him tip his hat as he passed the statue before the bulk of the bodyguard blocked his view. A wave of unease came over Sharpe.22

A man had been lounging on a park bench under one of the gas
lamps near the Jackson statue. The lamplight made the polished silver
head of his cane gleam. He got up and gracefully took off his hat as
Lincoln passed, lost in his thoughts. A wagon rumbled up from an alley
nearby. The man got up and followed Lincoln.

Sharpe motioned to the guards, "See him home safely, boys." They
hurried down the stairs, trailing arms at a run to catch up with the tall
figure. The man from the park bench froze as the soldiers rushed past
him, their blued bayonets picking up the lamplight's glint. He slipped
into the shadows. The wagon turned sharply away.

HEADQUARTERS, ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA, ARLINGTON MILL,
VIRGINIA, ON THE COLUMBIA TURNPIKE, 8:25 PM, OCTOBER 26, 1863

Night had fallen on the countryside along with bitter disappointment
around the campfires of the Army of Northern Virginia. Nowhere was
the disappointment as keen as it was in Lee's tent. Lee's only comfort at
the moment was the fresh coffee his aide and adjutant, Major Walter H.
Taylor, had brought him, courtesy of a Federal supply warehouse. Lee
would not touch such little pleasures unless assured that most had been
distributed to the men first, and even then he would more often deny
himself. But at this moment, it was a most necessary comfort.

"Major Taylor, had General Longstreet been with us, he would have
remonstrated most strongly not to attack prepared positions. And after
Gettysburg, I would have to agree with him, but we had victory within
our grasp, and I thought it worth the terrible cost. We have no choice
but to try again tomorrow. But we must not play our hand the same way
again."

Just then, the soft caress of a hymn wafted through the still night of
the camp. Lee stood up and walked to the tent entrance and placed his
hand on the pole as he listened.