A Rainbow of Blood: The Union in Peril an Alternate History (46 page)

ALONG CLAVERACK CREEK, NEW YORK,
12.45 AM, OCTOBER 28, 1863

The subaltern of the Scots Fusilier Guards brought his horse to stop
north of the creek. His jaw dropped as he saw the blue regiments coming down from the direction of Hudson with their colors whipping in
the wind on a mile front. It was excusable if he completely forgot Lord
Paulet's instructions to his colonel. He turned his horse and galloped
back to where the Scots and the remnants of the Borderers and Canadians were fighting off Geary's renewed attack. He found Scarlett on the
ground, surrounded by his staff as his life ebbed out through a gaping
hole in his breast. It was suicide to he sitting on a horse as a well-aimed
American bullet had just proved. The subaltern leaped off his own just
before the animal screamed at the impact of a half dozen rounds. The
close-range fire splintered the apple trees, their branches falling amid
the dead and wounded. Groups of Americans rushed the line in a swirl
of steel and clubbed rifles only to be driven back by the bayonet work of
the Fusiliers.

Frantic to relay his warning to someone in authority, the subaltern
stumbled into a one-eyed staff lieutenant colonel who was giving encouragement up and down the firing line. Bullets whizzed around the
oblivious man. The line seemed to stiffen and its fire redoubled as he
passed. The subaltern took him by the arm and shouted into his ear his
warning - that and the fact that he was now senior officer on the field.

To disengage from an aggressive, able enemy is one of the most perilous of all maneuvers in war. Only the steadiest troops in the hands of
the coolest commander can pull it off. But Wolseley was thinking several
steps ahead of even this. He calculated that the enemy approaching from
the direction of Hudson was Hooker's missing corps, and if the subaltern
had judged the distance correctly, they would close on the rear of the
army in short order. New York would consume its second British army
in eighty-six years.26 Wolseley was in no mood to tolerate any panic.
When a French Canadian seeing the Fusilier Guards falling back by companies rushed by shouting, "La Garde recule!" (The Guard retreats!), Wolseley shot him dead on the spot.27

Colonel Ireland's tired New York regiments were the first to detect
a lessening of fire on their front. What they could not see immediately
was the retreat28 by companies of the surviving Borderers and Canadians behind the shield of the Scots Fusilier Guards, who themselves were
pulling back by alternate companies through the orchards. The Borderers and Canadians were filtering through the shattered and abandoned
trains, filling their ammunition pouches and haversacks. Some were
driving away wagons of ammunition. The Americans had come and
gone so quickly through the trains that many of the wagons were still
left with their unharmed teams in harness. The artillery was driving by
section at a time, filling their limbers where they could. Wolseley had
thought ahead of this as well. If men ever made haste, it was these men,
exhausted as they were, for plainly visible in the shortening distance to
the north were Meagher's men, fresh from their victory at Stottville. The
Royal Artillery batteries supporting the fighting south of Claverack had
also been warned by now and were turning their guns north.

None of this was apparent to Hooker, whose focus was the suicidal
charge of the cadets. They had bought him minutes, seemingly for nothing-his reserves were exhausted. But the Guards' commander did not
know that and was loath to leave the orchard open on his flank. Preston peeled off two companies from his support line to clean out the orchard.
They would be in the trees in five minutes, seven or eight if Hooker was
lucky. He turned to an aide, "Warn the hospital and get those prisoners
on the road south. Then-"

He turned to look back. He heard the unmistakable sign of infantry
on the double - the pounding feet, the rattle of equipment. Up through
the trees rode a field officer. Behind trotted the infantry. Colonel Gates
rode up, saluted. "General, the 20th New York State Militia has arrived. General Sharpe sends his compliments along with our new toys."
He pointed to the coffee mill guns jolting by. "Where do you want us,
General?"

Hooker slapped his hat against his leg. "By God, sir, I want you
to stop them." He pointed to the mass of the Grenadier Guards wheeling to attack the Pennsylvanian brigade and its two companies coming
directly at them. Gates's veterans uncoiled their column with the fluid
grace of long practice. The companies left room for the coffee mill gun
crews to wheel their weapons between the companies in three four-gun
batteries. Hooker watched, fascinated by the strange guns. Sharpe had
alerted him that they were something special, but he had expected little
more than toys.

It was not toys that opened up when Gates gave the command. The
tree line shot flame at the two Grenadier companies-250 riflemen and
12 coffee mill guns - the firepower of a brigade and more. Click-bang
turned into a staccato scream. The scarlet ranks melted away. It was a
massacre. Hooker gaped at the destruction.

The look on Paulet's face from the other side of the field was even
more stunned. He did not have time to recover. His mounted party
was too prominent a target and drew the fire of a coffee mill battery.
The steady, level stream of bullets scythed through men and horses until only wounded animals thrashed on the ground amid the dead and
wounded. Paulet and Lindsay were both dead. The Albany Field Force
had been decapitated in thirty seconds.

But the Dandies marched on, oblivious to the slaughter of the generals. Preston rode directly behind the colors as the battalion wheeled past
the orchard. The guns struck them in the flank and rear. The big Guardsmen crumpled or pitched forward, struck from behind. Preston and his
horse went down as the guns converged on the scarlet colors. The color bearers and guard fell to the ground with no one left living near to pick
up the fallen staffs. Fifty yards to the rear, the support line watched the
destruction but continued marching. A subaltern and a pair of Grenadiers ran forward to retrieve the colors only to be shot to pieces themselves. Still, the support line marched forward into the fire of the guns,
which had few targets left in what had been the main attack line. At last
the line stopped on the command of the battalion major and attempted
to turn front to return fire on the orchard. The major and the other officers fell as the line disintegrated in the fire of the guns.

Hooker was at Gates's side during all this. "Stubborn to the end,
Gates. The Queen will mourn this day for sure, but by God, the woman
will have nothing to be ashamed of." Not more than a hundred Grenadiers were left standing, but standing they were, returning fire until the
guns swept the last of them to the ground. The dark, turned earth of the
field was strewn with bright scarlet and the darker color of blood .21

A deadly stillness hung over the field. Both the nearby 1st Montreal
Brigade and the Pennsylvanians had been witnesses to the destruction of
the Grenadier Guards. The stillness was broken by a spontaneous cheer
from the Americans, whose hats were sailing through the air. The cheer
was taken up all along the line until it thundered louder than the guns. A
shiver ran through the Imperial and Canadian battalions.

They would have done more than shiver had they also known that
Meagher's XI Corps and the cavalry division were closing on their rear.
For Wolseley, it was a race to get his battered command out of the way
of that onrushing mass in dark blue without being slowed down by
Geary's regiments close on his rear. He was puzzled for a moment, then
hurried his men on faster when the guns to the north went silent and
the noise of wild cheering took its place. He kept Geary's men off with
sudden bayonet charges as he displaced his companies back. He was impressed with the sureness of the Fusiliers, who executed the difficult maneuver with quickness and skill even as the bullets and shells winnowed
their ranks. As much as the moment filled his attention, he had thought
to get the remnants of the Borderers and Canadians and the artillery into
the protection of the village, which could he turned into a strong point
behind which the army could retreat.

Meagher had anticipated him and sent Custer into the town first.
His dismounted cavalrymen were waiting with their repeaters, more
than eager to get even after their bloody repulse. They waited until the first battery was within a hundred yards. It was a target few had ever
thought they would have - six guns, caissons, limbers, and over a hundred men in the dark blue of the Royal Artillery and as many horses
crowding the road. The men riding the lead horses of the gun teams
lashed their beasts forward. They rushed into a wall of lead. Horses
crashed to the ground, dragging down the others in their traces, overturning vehicles and guns, spilling the riders until the column was a
tangled, writhing mass of ruin. The infantry behind them stopped dead
in its tracks, the men too tired and beaten up to push on. They went to
earth where they could.

But Wolseley was guided by the ability to see at one glance what is
vital, that greatest of military talents, the coup d'oeil. As the Fusiliers and
batteries formed a rear guard, Wolseley kicked and prodded the Borderers and Canadians back to their feet and ordered another battery to fire
on the town. He led the bayonet attack that drove Custer's men through
the village streets and hedges.

He barely had time to lean on a fence and gasp for breath when an
officer found him to report the destruction of the Grenadiers and the
deaths of Paulet and Lindsay. The man could find no other senior officer
after riding along the battle line across the creek. Just then he heard the
crash of firing outside the town as Meagher's regiments closed on the
Fusiliers. Over the creek, the firing also took up again as Williams's division went over into the attack. It seemed to Wolseley that death's head
was grinning at him, savoring its joke-that he had acceded to his life's
wish of command of an army in a desperate struggle only to surrender
it. He looked at the death's head straight on with that single ice-blue eye
and said, "Not today."30

FORT ALBANY, VIRGINIA, 12:33 PM, OCTOBER 28, 1863

From the fort's observation tower, Lee had no doubts that his long shot
had failed. The carnage on Long Bridge had put paid to his daring coup
de main against Washington. He buried that hope without another
thought and turned to what he must do to save the army. He would
have to move quickly to extricate Ewell's corps. Every courier from
J. E. B. Stuart had been more and more insistent. Meade's army was getting closer and closer. He took barely a moment to once more gaze at Arlington House on its hill. He realized then that he and Mary would never
see it again.