Never Call Retreat - Civil War 03 (51 page)

Hauling Ferry 2:45pm

Mr. Bartlett?"

Jim was asleep, heading resting on the table. He stirred. It was a white officer.

"Yes, sir?"

"General Hancock wishes to see you, Mr. Bartlett." "Of course."

Jim stood up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, taking a few seconds to wipe his spectacles with a dirty handkerchief. Like so many who fall asleep at midday he was surprised by the bustle of activity around him even as he had dozed. Men were setting up awnings to protect boxes of ammunition being off-loaded from a canal barge, a company of a hundred men, shovels and picks on their shoulders, were coming off the line to eat their noonday meal. They were all covered in mud, soaked to the skin, but their spirits were still high, a team of a hundred moving from the kitchen area back up to replace them, gibes about the food awaiting the returning crew being exchanged.

Jim followed the officer out from under the awning, glad when one of his assistants came up and offered him an army poncho and an army slouch cap to cover himself. The immaculate clothes he wore as a butler at the White House, black coat, trousers, boiled shirt, black cravat, were now filthy, most likely beyond any hope of repair.

He mounted his old swaybacked nag and fell in with the officer by his side.

"Your men, Mr. Bartlett. I never seen such workers," the officer said. "They just don't stop."

Jim smiled at the compliment.

"Thank you, sir. These boys have a reason to be here. Mr. Lincoln gave them that, Mr. Lincoln and you soldiers. We'll dig till we hit China if that is what you need."

The officer chuckled and shook his head.

"Maybe get a few million of them to help us, is that it?"

"I heard say those working out in California on the railroad are mighty fine workers."

"How the country is changing," the officer said.

"How is that, sir?"

He reddened slightly and shook his head. "Oh, nothing." "You mean us colored, the Chinese, and such?" "No offense, Mr. Bartlett."

"None taken, young sir. Yes, the country is changing."

They crested the top of the slope and Jim smiled with satisfaction. Little more than a day ago this had been open fields, woodlots, and just the beginnings of a trench. The entire landscape had been transformed by the terrible needs of war and he smiled because he had had a hand in achieving what needed to be done.

A rectangular bastion was before him, a hundred feet long and about fifty feet broad. The earthen ramparts were eight to ten feet high, all sides around it dug out into a moat. On a raised platform in the center was one of the huge cannons, what the officers were calling a Parrott gun. Four other smaller guns were inside the bastion as well. The entryway was a rough-hewn bridge made of logs split in half.

"Be careful," the officer said, "it's a bit slippery."

Not too sure of himself on horseback Jim decided to dismount and walk in.

Sentries were posted at the entryway. Just behind them, inside the fort, was a stack of logs that he realized could be thrown across the entrance to block it if the fort was surrounded. Within, hundreds of men, all of them soldiers, were forming up, some already positioned at the guns. The officer led the way for Jim as they walked across the muddy ground and up a sloping ramp, paved with logs, to where the great gun rested. Hancock, leaning heavily on his cane, was standing by the muzzle of the gun, field glasses raised, looking toward the road that headed north.

The ground before them was completely transformed. Everything had been cut back for several hundred yards. Trees dropped, brush cleared, sharpened stakes driven into the ground, entrapments dug. Looking north and south Jim saw where long zigzagging entrenchments had been dug in each direction. The one to
the left sloped down to the Mo
nocacy. The stream itself was now blocked by a half dozen barges, each mounting a light artillery piece; a rough-hewn bridge, now spanning the creek, was wobbly, and looked as if it would collapse if more than a few men were on it at any time, but it gave them a means of moving men across the creek without relying on the barges and canal.

On the far side there was another bastion, another of the great guns within, more entrenchments, connecting to yet another bastion. Men were still out in the fields forward, working, cutting down trees, even trampling down the corn to deny concealment.

To the south the line continued for over a mile before finally sloping back down to the canal and the Potomac behind it. The position was firmly anchored by two more bastions on this side of the river.

Hancock turned, looked at Jim, and, releasing his cane, eagerly extended his hand. Jim shook it.

"Mr. Bartlett, I felt you should see what your men have done while you slept."

Hancock smiled.

"Sorry, sir. Guess exhaustion caught up with me." "I told everyone not to disturb you. I know you were up most of the night." "Sorry, sir."

"Mr. Bartlett, how old are you?"

"Not rightly sure. Maybe sixty."

"Men half your age have dropped doing less work. I must say, this would have been impossible without you."

Hancock extended his hand, pointing to the defensive line, swayed a bit, and clutched his cane again, using his other hand to brace himself against the iron carriage of the Parrott gun.

"And now we shall need it!"

"Sir?"

"I guess you didn't hear," Hancock said excitedly. "The telegram just came in from Washington. Lee has been defeated at Frederick and is believed to be retreating this way."

"My God," was all Jim could say. His feelings were now so mixed. His son and grandson were up in Frederick, what of them? Yet if Lee was defeated, perhaps that might mean all this was coming to an end. It would also mean he was coming this way.

As if reading his mind, Hancock nodded.

"Lee is undoubtedly coming straight here. Skirmishing just a couple miles up that road is getting heavy. Infantry has been reported. I think he will try to force this position by the end of today."

"Then we keep working till he does show up."

"No, Mr. Bartlett. I think it's time I sent your people out. You've done a magnificent job. I'm convinced we can hold this place now. I wasn't so sure yesterday, but I am today. But still, you are civilians, and I guess I must add, colored civilians. I don't want you and your men here if things turn bad."

"We are staying, sir. No disrespect intended, but we are staying."

Hancock looked at him, not responding.

"Sir, how many cooks in your army? How many stretcher bearers, how many wagon drivers, how many men hauling boxes of ammunition once the fight starts?"

Hancock smiled.

"Quite a few."

"Put rifles in their hands, put them on the line, my men will do whatever is needed. We can fight that way, and we will keep digging right up until the bullets begin to fly."

Hancock hesitated, and then nodded.

"It's against my better judgment sir," he said, and Jim was startled by that one word—"sir." Few whites had ever called him that before.

"Keep your men well organized. Detail off reliable ones to do the tasks you've suggested. The rest of you I want back behind the canal when the shooting really starts."

"Yes, sir," Jim replied with a smile.

"It won't be long now," Hancock said, and he motioned to the north.

In the distance there was a muffled thump, followed seconds later by a crackling sound.

"They're coming up," Hancock said.

He turned away and Jim walked back out of the fort, mounted his old swaybacked horse, and rode back to his own "headquarters." His assistants were gathered round, waiting anxiously.

"We staying?" one of them asked.

Jim nodded.

There were exuberant shouts and Jim held up his hands for silence.

'This will be no picnic," he shouted, and all fell silent.

"A lot of men are going to be dying soon. A lot of men are dying for us. Some of us are going to join them in the dying."

He thought of his own son, his grandson,
but forced that thought aside.
I
can't dwell on that now
,
he realized.

"We have to get organized to do our part. Here are your assignments."

He detailed men to find and assign drivers, hospital workers, cooks to bring up hot food to the troops. He then fell silent for a moment.

"And the rest of the men?" someone asked.

"Behind the canal embankment. Every man with a shovel, axe, or pick. They'll know what to do if the rebels break through."

In F
ront of Hauling Ferry 4:30 P.M.

R
obert E. Lee pushed forward, watching as his men to either flank deployed out into line of battle. Phil Duvall, former captain, now colonel, rode up to
his side.

"Sir, the news I've got isn't good," he announced as he came up to Lee's side. "Go on, Colonel."

"They extended their fortifications during the night. Nearly a mile now farther south than what they had yesterday."

"It was to be expected, Colonel."

"Sir, I must warn you, the fortifications ahead, it's like a week or more of work done in just a day. I don't see how they did it."

"Their numbers?"

"I counted six regimental flags, sir, maybe three or four thousand, and a lot of colored." "What?"

"Workers, they're still digging." "That explains the fortifications." "What I thought, too, sir."

Phil hesitated. Two weeks ago he was just a lowly captain on outpost picket at Carlisle, now he was leading the forward edge of a desperate attempt to
seize this river crossing. But he
had to speak out

"Sir, assaulting this position looks like desperate work to me. Give me to tonight, sir, and I'll find some flanking lanes that can put us down between here and Edwards Ferry."

Lee shook his head but smiled at the offer of this young officer.

"In other times and places, perhaps, Colonel. But would those roads be wide enough for our pontoon bridges? I doubt it. We crossed this ground last year, and I know it well. We'd have to march ten miles south to Poolesville then back west again to the next crossing down. In the meantime they have the canal to move their troops and laborers.

"No, Colonel, we must strike them right here. We go forward, seize the ferry. The river will act as a shield to our right flank and then we put our bridge across. We must do this now, tonight."

Phil sighed and nodded.

"Sir, let me show you a good vantage point."

Lee followed the colonel as he trotted down the muddy road. Troops ahead were falling out, forming up into lines of battle. Three batteries of guns, still limbered, waited in the middle of the road under a canopy of trees dripping moisture.

He turned and rode off, following Duvall up the slope to where he reined in.

The battlements were before him, half a mile away, skirmishers out, already firing from long distance, a scattering of shots from the fortress line coming back.

If this was an open-field fight
,
he thought,
I'd have the crossing in half an hour. I have more than ten thousand of my best with me; they can't have more than three to four thousand here. One solid charge would have swept them aside.

Now, at best, with all those entrenchments and heavy artillery, it's an
even
chance.

He took a deep breath.

"Order the artillery forward," he said.

The order was passed and a few minutes later a cheer went up from the road, the batteries racing forward, reaching the crest. They did so with their usual elan and precision, turning at right angles at the full gallop, mud and dirt spraying up, two batteries to the south of the road, one to the north. Even before the last gun had appeared three shots ranged out from the bastion line, thirty-pound shells winging in, well aimed, most likely already practiced, one of the shells blowing directly over a double limber wagon, the two caissons of ammunition exploding in a fireball.

The guns swung about, dismounted, and in less than a minute opened up, pounding the bastion with solid shot and case shot.

And then the heavy hundred-pounder erupted. There was a brilliant flash, four seconds later a thunderclap roar as the shell hit the ground just forward of the slope, sending a geyser of dirt and mud a hundred feet into the air, dropping several gunners.

In the fields behind the slope the first wave of infantry was beginning to advance. There was no cheering, just grim determination.

He could no longer contain himself. Turning about, he raced down the slope and reached the left flank of his advancing line, the few battered men of Hood. Standing in his stirrups, he drew his saber.

"Come on, boys, come on!" he roared. "Win this one and we are back in Old Virginia. Virginia, boys, covered with glory for all that we have done. Do this and victory is still ours!"

There was a desperate tone to his voice, conveyed to the men.

"I am with you, boys."

He turned about, taking the lead, as the battered battalions, fifty to a hundred men behind each flag, swept forward, and for some the dream was still alive. Win this one and we are across the water, safe, to live another day, perhaps to still win this war.

4:45 P.M.

S
ergeant Major Robinson was at the fore of his regiment. Seventy-two men left, according to roll call just before going in. Seventy-two men gathered round one tattered flag. But at the sight of Lee their hearts were full. If Lee was before them, then victory was still before them. They marched up the slope, guns silhouetted at the top of the crest, wreathed in smoke, pounding away, every few minutes a terrible explosion erupting along the line. Robinson looked to his right. Other regiments were coming forward: He saw the men of the Fourth Texas, not more than a hundred, a few score with the Second Texas. Next to them men of a brigade he didn't know, most likely some of Beauregard's men.

Gone were the days when Hood's Texans went forward in their glory, thousands of them, their wild cheer, the knowledge that when they went forward all would flee before them.

But Lee was in the front. What waited ahead, after the nightmare of yesterday, could not be anywhere near so bad.

"Come on, boys!" Robinson roared. "Do you want to live forever?"

5:00 P.M.

T
he first wave of the charge crested the slope and Win-field Scott Hancock stood silent, field glasses raised. If what was coming forward was a beaten army, it most certainly did not look so at this instant.

Though ragged, their lines were coming forward. He looked about the bastion. Gunners were in place, orders shouted to shift fire from the enemy guns to the infantry, fuses cut to two seconds. The bastion on the far side of the Monocacy was opening with enfilade, thirty-pound shells bursting in air. "Stand clear!"

Hancock stepped back and covered his ears. The hundred-pounder lit off, its heavy shell screaming down-range, bursting in the air two seconds later, dropping several dozen of the advancing infantry.

"Reload with canister!"

He was about to shout a countermand, but then realized these men knew their business. The heavy monster took minutes to reload, and by that time the waves of infantry would be in range. Four twenty-five-pound bags of canister and grape were loaded into the barrel, over a thousand iron balls, propelled by thirty pounds of powder. One gun with the firepower of two batteries of Napoleons.

The charge was coming closer, still out of rifle range. He caught a glimpse of an officer mounted on a gray horse, turned his field glasses on him. My God, it was Lee himself. He was surrounded by a half dozen cavalryman, who were forcibly pushing before him, holding him back.

That revealed much. Lee was here, and he was desperate, wanting to lead this mad charge.

All the guns were loaded with canister, and they waited.

The charge was down to three hundred yards and then started to hit the edge of the entrapments, men tripping into spider holes, falling, lines breaking apart as they pushed through rows of sharpened stakes and tangled piles of brush.

Three hundred yards. "Stand clear!"

He stepped back again and the hundred-pound Parrot
t recoiled with a thunderclap.

T
he hurricane of iron swept through the ranks of the Texans. Dozens dropped from the blast of the great Parrott .gun. It looked as if the entire Fourth Texas went down from just that single blast.

Lee was no longer in front of them. A cavalry colonel and his men were forcing him back in spite of his protests.

They were down to two hundred yards and something spontaneous now happened up and down this line of hard, bitter veterans. They knew that the next two minutes would decide their fate forever.

They had been in enough charges to know that moment when, if but one man wavered, if a foolish officer shouted for them to stop, to return fire, they would be slaughtered. Their only hope was to charge! To charge with mad abandon, the way they had at Gaines Mill, Groveton, Sharpsburg, Chancellorsville, Taneytown, Gunpowder River. To stand out here even for a few minutes longer was death. "Charge!"

The cry was picked up. It wasn't the officers, it was the men, the veterans, the final chosen few, who knew that if there was any hope of personal survival, any hope of getting back across the river, any hope of their cause surviving, it had to be now.

Robinson was in the fore, looking back, screaming for his men to charge, to run straight at them, to get over the wall and into the fort.

The wavering line took strength and set off in a wild run. Spontaneously, driven by no one mind, but imbued with the spirit of the general who watched them, whose face was streaming tears, they sprinted across the open field, dozens dropping, falling into the spider traps, knocked over by volleys fired from the battlement walls.

And then he saw the heavy guns rolling forward in their embrasures, barrels cranked down. "Texas!"

The four thirty-pounders and the hundred-pounder recoiled—and hundreds dropped.

Robinson was jerked off his feet, thrown backward, his left side numb. He looked to his shoulder, his arm shredded, nearly gone. Beside him was the flag bearer of the First Texas, colors on the ground beside him, the man dead.

His flag, his beloved flag. The one he had carried for a few minutes at Fort Stevens, the one in his hand when he had stopped Robert E. Lee at Taneytown. His flag
...
his beloved flag.

As if in a dream he stood up, picked up the flag from the mud.

'Texas!"

He wasn't sure if any were behind him now. The crest of the bastion was ablaze with fire. 'Texas!"

He went down into the muddy moat and crawled up the slope of the fort, using the flag as a staff to keep himself upright.

My God, give me the strength to do this today
.
All other thoughts were disappearing, of his wife, of his young son Seth, at fifteen wanting to join the army, of his three-year-old baby girl, of his home. It was now just the flag he carried, praying that someone, anyone, was still behind him.

He reached the top of the slope, planting the flag atop the crest.

There was a brief, an all-so-brief moment when he looked down the length of the battle, dreaming that dozens of flags like his, from Arkansas, G
eorgia, Virginia, and the Carol
inas crowned the heights, the way they had so many times before.

His was the only one.

"Sergeant!"

He looked down. A Yankee officer, a general leanin
g on a cane, had pistol raised,
pointed straight at him. "It's over, Sergeant."

He collapsed inside the wall of the fort, colors falling over with him as he clutched the staff.

Several men rushed to pull the flag from Robinson's hand, but the general holstered his pistol and knelt down by his side.

"You can keep your flag, Sergeant. You're one of the bravest men I've ever seen. You got farther than any other man in your army, but for you the war is over."

Sergeant Major Robinson looked up at him, unable to speak. All he could do was nod.

"My surgeon will tend to you, and I'll make sure you get home."

General Hancock patted him on his good shoulder, then stood up and limped off.

5:15 P.M.

L
ee stood silently, head bowed. The charge was over before it had barely begun. He knew in his heart he had asked far too much of these men. Rest, ranks replenished, officers replaced, the men well fed, perhaps it might have been different.

The beaten survivors were falling back, not many of them. Out in the field, to his horror he saw many with their hands up in the air, casting aside rifles. The heavy artillery which had so frightfully decimated the charge, perhaps dropping a thousand or more in a matter of seconds, now resumed fire on the light batteries brought up in support. A gun was dismounted, fragments flying in a deadly spray. Around to the south, come dawn, he now wondered, still not ready to give in. He could catch a glimpse of the canal, which was filled with barges coming up, many of them loaded with additional troops.

The door this way was closed. He would have to find another way out. That realization, he knew, had just cost him several thousand more men as he surveyed the stricken field.
I
am bleeding out by the minute.

He looked over at Colonel Duvall, who was silent, a bit red-faced, for only minutes before Lee had threatened him with a court-martial if the colonel did not release Traveler's reins and let him go forward.

"My apologies, Colonel," Lee sighed. "You were doing your duty."

"Thank you, sir. It was your safety, sir. The army needs you."

"Yes, son, I guess it still does," Lee said.

"Scout that road down to Poolesville," he said softly. "See if we can move that way. Send a courier up to General Longstreet as well. Inform him of our failure to breach the line here. He is to abandon his position tonight and move down here. We must find a way across this river tomorrow. I will need him with me."