Never Call Retreat - Civil War 03 (28 page)

"So that leaves one of Grant's corps unaccounted for," Longstreet said, feeling it best to change the topic. "Banks, supposedly his strongest unit."

"I suspect he is on the far side of that ridge even now," Lee announced.

"There's nothing to the north," Stuart said. "My screen is still holding, though there has been some heavy skirmishing with Grierson. The only cavalry unit to break through so far was Custer, and we saw what happened to him yesterday."

"But he did bum the rail bridge and covered bridge and mauled several regiments in the process," Hotchkiss interjected. "I'd consider that a fair trade."

"Yes, indeed, a fair trade. And it also fixed this place as the one where this war will be decided, once and for all," Lee announced.

Pete, sipping his coffee, looked over at Lee.

"It has to be here," Lee said. "We could have held those heights up there." He pointed to the Catoctin Ridge. "But if we had, Grant would not have taken the bait. The position is simply impregnable, and even Grant would not have attacked us if we had stayed there. He'd have stopped his advance and dug in along South Mountains."

Lee turned to face his officers.

"Remember last year. But one of our divisions held that ridge for an entire day while we regrouped at Sharpsburg. The Catoctin Ridge was an even better tactical position, with only one road crossing it versus three at South Mountains."

"Then, sir, why did you concede it?" Longstreet asked.

Lee smiled.

"Because it was too good. If Scales had stayed there, and then been reinforced by Robertson's Division, no force on the face of this earth could have pushed us off. Grant would have remained concealed behind South Mountains, and that would give him time. He could have sat us out for weeks or perhaps pushed down to Harpers Ferry, crossed into Virginia, and thus forced us to follow him. No, when I saw this ground, I wanted him here."

Lee turned and pointed to the flat open plain between the river and Frederick.

"They will deploy out there, gentlemen. Our elevation here, according to Jed Hotchkiss, is a good hundred to two hundred feet higher, with excellent fields of fire for our preponderance in artillery. We have the range of hills to our south bordering the river; they can act as a tactical shield if we should wish to maneuver that way. But I think Grant will come straight on."

"Just like Burnside at Fredericksburg," Hood interjected.

Lee nodded in agreement.

"I believe I am getting the measure of Grant. He is tenacious. He pushed McPherson's Corps forward yesterday afternoon to seize the town and perhaps the bridge regardless of the losses. We bloodied him. It is obvious by what we see over there that blood has not deterred him. He has pushed two more corps in, and they will begin to deploy down to the river and then come straight at us. And I say, let them come!"

He slapped a balled fist against the palm of his hand.

Longstreet turned to look at the ground. Lee was right. It was indeed ideal ground for a fight. The Monocacy Creek formed a natural barrier to slow any assault. There were numerous fords, and the still-intact stone bridge of the National Road, but each of those fords and the bridge faced, on the east side, excellent ground for artillery, infantry, and observation. Union attacks would have to funnel into those points, and it would be a killing ground. There were also fairly good roads on the east side, running north to south, which could provide for rapid redeployment of troops.

"Then why will he attack?" Pete asked. "We do hold the better ground here. Not suicidal, as would be the case if we were atop Catoctin Heights, just slightly better ground than those on the west side. But why attack us? Why not wait? I think, sir, if it was us over there, we would definitely not attack."

"Because he is under pressure, General Longstreet, from Washington. And because everything we know about Grant tells us that he is aggressive and persistent. I think Grant is not a fool like Burnside. When he hits, as he did at the second day of Shiloh, he will come on with everything at once. But he will come on."

"Only if he thinks he can win, or has a broader plan," Pete said. "I wish Beauregard was here to see this and offer his opinion."

At this Lee turned to look at Pete with fire in his eyes, a flash of anger even. Pete had seen that look before. So many spoke of the gentleman Lee, the courtly Lee, but when battle loomed, a cold side could come out, even one of anger. That had truly flared to the surface at Union Mills when he fired Dick Ewell from command and sent him home in disgrace.

When word had first come that Grant was on the move he had seen Lee surprisingly off balance for over a day, pondering, unsure. That was now washed away. He was confident, eager for battle, perhaps too much so.

"We both want this to end," Lee snapped. "We received a report yesterday that not three days past Lincoln was with Grant up by Carlisle. Lincoln is facing a firestorm back in Washington over his removal of Stanton and the defeats. If Grant cannot win it for them in the next week or two, their government might collapse."

"Therefore, might not the seizing of Catoctin Heights have been a wise move?" Longstreet ventured. "It would have forced Grant to either make a suicidal attack or maneuver, which would have taken too much time."

Lee looked at him sharply, and Pete realized he had overstepped his bounds. It was something he could have said to Lee in private, but to second-guess a decision which could no longer be reversed, in front of others, was a major mistake.

"I apologize, sir," Longstreet said softly.

"No offense taken," Lee replied, and his features softened.

"No, General Longstreet, I want this settled now. We have .lured Grant down out of the pass. Once our guns are up and in place, we can turn that field across the stream into a slaughterhouse. We break him in his attacks, then counter-strike. He'll have only one road out as we converge in. We break him, then unleash Jeb here to finish the job. I dare say that in three days we can annihilate Grant here, push him up over the Catoctin Pass, and what is left we can annihilate in the valley beyond."

Longstreet said nothing. He could see that the Old Man's fire was up, the same as the first day at Gettysburg, and there was no arguing with him now. It was just that there was one question unanswered. If this was indeed a killing ground, why was Grant marching into it?

Braddock Heights 8:00 A.M.

R
eady to go, Ely?" Grant asked. "Yes, sir!" Grant looked around at his staff. Lohman would stay behind at the crest to keep an eye on the approach of Banks's Corps, which, though slow, was now cresting the South Mountain range. All of Hunt's guns had long since passed. Behind Banks would come the tangle of supply wagons, twenty-five miles of them, with orders to go into reserve behind the Catoctin Mountains, with priority given to ammunition, rations, and medical supplies.

A report had just arrived that the railroad crews had completed the repair of the Cumberland Valley Railroad down to Hagerstown, and the first trains were coming in even now, carrying extra supplies. A dozen trains a day from Harrisburg would free up a thousand or more wagons that could be used to improve his supply line from Hagerstown to here. With the double mountain barrier, other than the problem it presented with the steep slopes, he now enjoyed a very secure line of supply. With the extra wagons, the load per wagon could be lightened to speed up the passage over the mountains. By midday his telegraphy crews promised they'd have a direct line completed from Hagerstown to Frederick. With that in place he'd be linked to Harrisburg and the North.

Another crew a hundred miles away was hard at work stringing a connection due east out of Washington to the Chesapeake and another line on the east shore connecting into the line that ran up to Dover. By late in the day, messages from Washington and back, which only yesterday took days, would be cut to not more than an hour or two.

There were times in his past when he had wanted to be as far away from contact with Washington as possible. But not now, not with the confidence among himself, Lincoln, and Washburne. If his plan was to work, they had to have this intricate web of wire to hook it all together, encircling Lee with tapping signals made of electricity that Napoleon and Caesar could never have dreamed of.

He was grateful to Ely for the five hours of uninterrupted sleep. All of Hunt's Artillery had passed, and now the second division of Ord's Corps was slipping and sliding to the top of the crest and then sliding down the opposite side. Ely had told him that Ord had passed by without even wakening him, saying he and Phil would figure out where to deploy.

Both these men were new to corps command. Ord only in May, Phil just since yesterday, but he felt a sense of confidence in them. They understood every detail of the intricate plan he had worked out even before Sickles went off half-cocked. Though he had yet to actually see Phil under fire, he knew Ord had a good eye for ground and would act correctly. If he had encountered any real questions, he would have sent a message back.

The men of Ord's command were indeed exhausted. Typical of Ord he had pushed them remorselessly. As Grant rode out into the road, he took one last look to the west and saw Ord's Third Division struggling forward. The side of the road for miles back across the valley was dotted with blue specks, men who had collapsed after a day and a night of marching, with only a two-hour break at midnight. Perhaps twenty percent of his strength was thus scattered, but he had learned long ago that each regiment had its core, the hardbitten lot of two or three hundred who did ninety percent of the fighting. Some of the stragglers, he knew, were good spirits in a fight but physically unable to keep up on a forced march, some were the shirkers, worse than useless in a fight, and many were just ill with the usual complaints of the "two steps," ague, or lung sickness, and to slow an army for them to keep pace was senseless. '

A collecting point had already been established for them in the village of Middletown, appropriately named, for it was midway between the two mountain ranges. Hospitals were set up there for the sick, and once the road was cleared, those capable again of marching would be pushed forward.

He started down the slope, taking in the details. At least half a dozen of Hunt's guns and even more of the double limber caissons had wrecked on the way down. Crews had lost control and jumped off, with horses, guns, and caissons going over the side of the road in a horrifying tangle. And yet Hunt had pushed on.

A scattering of dead from both sides lined the sides of the road. Boys in tattered gray and butternut mingled with the tattered blue of McPherson's boys. No one had bothered to move them, other than to drag off the road those who blocked the way.

He tried not to look; the sights were far too distressing: sixteen-year-olds clutching a Bible or daguerreotype, older men twisted up in agony, others so peaceful, as if asleep. Two boys, identical twins, lay arm in arm, their blood commingled in the mud. The bodies were all so still, but strangely, if you stared at them too long, they appeared to be breathing still. A reb sergeant and a union private lay side by side, an open canteen between them, and yet ten feet away were two more, transfixed in death, one with a knife buried in the stomach of the other, the faces of both frozen in a terrible rage.

One man, a Confederate captain, was sitting against a tree, letters scattered about him, one still clutched in his hand. Letters from a mother, a sweetheart perhaps? He looked for a second, then turned his gaze away, forcing himself to again look straight ahead. None would ever go home; they'd be buried here. Perhaps weeks or months later a letter might arrive from a company officer or comrade, "Dear Madam, I regret to inform you ..."

Wellington was right, the only thing as terrible as a battlefield lost was a battlefield won. Win or lose was still not decided, but for those now carpeting the sides of the road, victory or defeat no longer mattered.

I
can never dwell on that too long
,
he thought.
Will Lee and I one day answer for this
,
he wondered. It was a thought he knew was not healthy for him at this moment, and he forced it aside.

The migraine still bedeviled him, and he rubbed his brow. Ely was watching him with concern. He had tried to eat breakfast, a fine feast of fresh eggs, some salt pork, and even a few links of smoked sausage, and then slipped into the woods to vomit it all up. He smiled away Ely's concerns with the simple, "I'm fine."

A cigar helped a bit, and he puffed on it continually as he rode down the slope. The random thought came to him that a drink right now would taste awfully good, would settle his stomach, perhaps push the headache back, but that was something he knew he could never do now.

Maybe years from now, when I think of this moment,
he thought,
perhaps then I'll get a good bottle of whiskey down and drink it dry, but not now, definitely not now
.
But if there was anything that could turn a man back into an alcoholic it was this nightmare road and the wreckage of battle strewn along it.

The headache intensified. He tossed aside the cigar he was smoking, half finished, and then in a couple of minutes lit another.

They rode into the western end of Frederick, dozens of buildings smoking ruins. Ord's lead division was by his side, men moving slowly in their exhaustion but looking around, exclaiming over the wreckage, the obvious signs of a hard-fought battle.