The Last, Long Night (#5 in the Bregdan Chronicles Historical Fiction Romance Series) (17 page)

“Well, the food wasn’t too good,” Jeremy replied, “but other than that, we could probably have all stayed home, and Richmond would have been just fine.”

“So it’s true,” Thomas said with a chuckle.

Jeremy nodded.  “If every Union general was like their General Butler, we would have won this war a long time ago.”

Thomas answered Carrie’s unspoken questions, addressing the whole table.  “General Butler headed up the river with thirty thousand men.  If he had come straight through and attacked, he probably could have taken the city, or at least opened the way for Grant to sweep in.  We quite simply didn’t have enough men to stop him.”

“Why didn’t he?” Janie asked.

“We may never know the answer to that,” Thomas replied.  “We can all just be grateful.”

“I never even got to fire a rifle,” Jeremy complained, but then smiled his delight. “By the time Butler’s men got around to trying to do anything, General Beauregard had arrived.  He managed to pull together twenty thousand veteran soldiers, and sent us all home.”

Carrie glanced around the table at the other three boarders who had been called up.  All of them looked as relieved as Jeremy.  Their years in Richmond’s government offices had done nothing to prepare them for fighting.

“Did Butler finally have enough guts to put up a fight?” George demanded. 

“Two days ago,” Thomas informed him.  “I can’t say he was the one to put up the fight though.  Beauregard went after him pretty hard and pushed him back to Bermuda Hundred.  Butler’s troops took heavy losses.”

“So did we,” Carrie added, determined the whole story be told.  “Beauregard’s men were successful, but I treated several of them today.  One of them was with a brigade that suddenly stumbled into a whole trap of telegraph wires strung all over the field.”
              “Telegraph wires?” George echoed. “You mean they set up a booby trap?”

Carrie nodded grimly. “Nobody could see them because the fog was so heavy.  Our men fell over them.  When they tried to stand back up, they were shot down.”  She took a deep breath.  “The man I treated this morning lost his right leg.”

Silence settled over the table as her words reminded them any good news came with a solid dose of bad news and reality.

George was the first to break it.  “Has Lee drove the Yankees away from Spotsylvania yet?”

“From what I can tell from the reports, Grant is still hanging around, but after the Bloody Angle, he is surely going to decide he can’t win there either,” Jeremy responded.

“The Bloody Angle?” George asked.

“Grant decided to go after our army when they were solidly in the entrenchments.  From what we can tell, it was the longest sustained fighting of the war – close to twenty-four hours of hand-to-hand combat,” Thomas explained.  “Our lines held, but there was a heavy price to pay.”

Carrie pressed her lips together tightly and exchanged a long look with Janie.  Ambulance wagons were still arriving with men from that battle.

“I think this fighting has taught the Yankees some lessons,” Thomas said grimly.   “I believe Grant has learned the futility of winning a battle against us in an untracked forest.  I also believe he is figuring out that he cannot take Lee in trench warfare once our general, who is also an excellent engineer, has gotten our troops dug in.” 

George listened closely.  “So General Lee is winning?” he asked hopefully.

Thomas took a deep breath and seemed to choose his words carefully.  “As much as I would like to say he is, I don’t think I would go that far.”

When he hesitated again, Jeremy added, “I think the best you can say is that at this point we seem to be reaching a stalemate.  Neither side can truly say it has won or lost.”

Carrie flushed angrily.  “How can you say that?” she exclaimed, her green eyes snapping fire.  “Over twelve thousand soldiers are either dead or wounded.  More than eight thousand have been captured, or they are missing.  I hear the numbers are even higher for the Union side.”  She allowed her scathing look to touch everyone at the table.  “I believe I would say both sides have indeed
lost
.”

Suddenly, she just couldn’t hear any more.  Her attempts to hang on to the promise of the rainbow that she had tucked into her heart were failing.  Blinking back hot tears she pushed back from the table and fled up the stairs. 

Chapter Ten

Moses shifted his body and stretched out his exhausted legs.   He and his men had been marching in blistering heat all day.  He’d heard that men who arrived earlier had attacked the trenches, briefly overrun them, and then were pushed back by a strong counterattack. 

“Hey, Moses?”

Moses managed a smile for the wiry boy he had discovered was only sixteen.  Having run away from his plantation in Georgia, he had come north, determined to fight.  “Yes, Clay?”

“You know where we be?  These here woods and fields all startin’ to look de same to me.”

“The word is that we’re near Cold Harbor.  General Sheridan’s cavalry took it yesterday.”

“If they done took it, what we doin’ here?”

“I imagine Grant figures he can cut around Lee’s army and open the way for us to move into Richmond.”

“You figure he’s right?” Clay asked.

“I have no idea,” Moses answered honestly.  “I sure hope he is, though.”  He didn’t add how much he wanted the war to be over.

“We don’t seem no closer than when we started,” Clay said dubiously.

That brought a chuckle from Moses.  “I’d say you’re right.  The one thing I know, though, is that we can’t see the big picture from where we are.  Grant and the generals know things we have no way of knowing.  We have to trust them and follow their orders,” he said confidently, knowing the best gift he had to give his men was confidence; whether it was justified or not, whether he believed it or not.

“Yeah,” Clay said thoughtfully.  “I reckon that be the truth.”  He paused and stared out into the rapidly approaching darkness.  “When you reckon the next orders comin’?

“They’ll come when they come,” Moses responded.  “The best thing you can do is get some rest.  When they come, we’ll have to be ready.”

The boy turned to move away, but Moses stopped him.  “Make sure you and the rest of the men have tagged your jackets.”

Clay nodded soberly.  He knew what that meant.  Those who could write were to write their names on slips of paper and then sew them to their coats so they could be identified if there was a need.

The Union orders came about thirty-six hours later while darkness and dense fog lay over the ground.  During those thirty-six hours what had been a small force of Rebel infantry had been able to reinforce their position and bring more troops in. 

“Get your men ready, Moses!” 

Moses snapped to attention when Captain Jones rode up into the foggy darkness.  “Yes, sir!”  Captain Jones rode closer and hesitated.  Moses moved closer.  “Something else, Captain?”

“It’s been a rough month for your men.”

“Yes, sir.”  Moses tried to block out the faces of almost one hundred men who had not made it out of the battles.

“They’ve fought well.  Please let them know I’m proud of them.”

Moses straightened a little more.  “Thank you, Captain.  That will mean a lot to them.”

“We’re going to win this thing, you know.”

Moses smiled grimly.  “It’s what keeps us fighting, Captain.  We’ve
got
to win this war.”

Captain Jones hesitated again. 

Moses gripped his rifle tightly.  “Is there something you want to tell me?” he asked quietly.

“I’m not feeling good about today,” Captain Jones finally admitted. 

“It’s going to be a bad one,” Moses agreed heavily.

“You feel it too?” 

“Have been ever since we arrived.  We’ve already learned what happens when we go against Lee’s entrenchments.  Combine it with hilly, woody terrain…” He shrugged his massive shoulders.  “I think it’s going to be a very bad day.”

Captain Jones said nothing but reached down and gripped Moses’ hand for a long moment.  “I’ll see you when it’s over.”

Moses managed a smile.  “Yes, sir!

The order to attack came moments later. 

Moses and his men raced straight into Hell.

Matthew struggled to breathe, torn between fury and sickening pity for the soldiers lying in piles on the field stretched out before him and Peter. 

“But… aren’t they going to help them?”  Peter gasped.  “The army can’t just leave them there.  It’s been two days…”   His voice trailed off, fatigue and misery etched into every line of his face.

“Seems Lee didn’t like the way Grant worded his letter requesting a truce, so he denied it,” Matthew snapped.

“But those men…”

“Grant sent a letter requesting a truce.  He tried very hard to make it sound as if both sides needed time to retrieve their casualties.  Lee responded that he didn’t have any.”

“But….”

Matthew turned around and glared at Peter.  He knew he was directing his anger at the wrong person, but he had to vent it somehow.  “As long as there is fighting, Grant won’t send anyone out there to get those men.  More will be shot!”

“But listen to them,” Peter protested.  “There are thousands of men who have been crying out for water and help for the last two days.  I can’t even imagine how they’re suffering.”

Matthew’s stomach rolled as the cries continued unabated.  His dreams the last two nights had been full of confused eyes begging someone to help them, not to leave them out there to suffer and die. 

“The whole thing should have never happened,” he said hoarsely, his eyes burning from the heat and smoke and stench of decaying bodies.  “They never stood a chance.”

“Do you think the numbers are true?”

Matthew nodded grimly.  “We lost eight thousand men in less than an hour, most of them in the first ten minutes.  I can’t bring myself to call it a battle.”

“It was a slaughter,” Peter said heavily.  “I’ve seen horrible things in the last three years, but I’ve never seen anything like this.”  He stared out over the field.  “I hope to never see anything like it again.”

Matthew was still furious.  “I just wish the men who ordered those poor soldiers to attack those entrenchments were out there with them.  Instead, they stay far behind, knowing they have plenty of men to sacrifice for the cause.”  He made no attempt to hide his bitterness.  He finally groaned and dropped his head into his hands.  “I hate this war!”

Two hours later when darkness had swallowed the
sight
of the suffering soldiers, if not their cries, Matthew was startled by steady movement out onto the battlefield.  “Who goes there?” he called sharply, hating the job that made it necessary for him to document such atrocities.

“We’s just goin’ out to get our friends,” came a quiet voice.  “We figure we gots a better chance in the dark.”

Matthew held up his lantern and stared at the black soldier, really nothing but a boy, looking back at him defiantly.  “No one has called a truce.”