The Railroad War (29 page)

Somehow he doubted that. Jane was too elusive and quick for the Grim Reaper.

But if she was alive, he had many questions to ask her.

On Wednesday, August 19, a company of Union troops broke into the shed south of Okolona that contained Dart, Javelin, and
Perseverance. The troops belonged to General Grenville Dodge’s Second Division of the Army of Tennessee, and they were accompanied
by a dozen and a half railroad engineers, mechanics, and trainmen. Once inside they started on the task of putting the three
locomotives in working order.

It was not easy, for the engines had been in storage for many months. Rust had blossomed insidiously in all the hardest to
reach places. Whatever had to be tight had worked itself loose. Whatever had to be loose had become solid. Oil had to be soaked
into every joint, bearing, and coupling.

Meanwhile, as the engineers and mechanics worked over the locomotives, a track crew put down the spur that led to getting
the main line back in shape.

The locomotives and the track were ready for operation by Monday, the twenty-fourth. On that day Dart, Javelin, and Perseverance
were driven about twenty-five miles north of Okolona and placed on a spur on the Tennessee side of Tupelo.

By Thursday, the twenty-seventh, eleven other locomotives that had been concealed at the orders of Walter Goodman had been
refurbished enough to allow them to be driven up to the spur along with Dart, Perseverance, and Javelin. The Union officers
who had done the sleuthing that had discovered the locomotives had not found the remaining twelve in the area.

The orders that had resulted in this operation had their origins in a conversation on the night of August 17 between Brigadier
General Grenville Dodge and Captain George E. Spencer.

George E. Spencer was Dodge’s adjutant. Though an adjutant functions for a general much as in civilian life a secretary functions
for an executive, Spencer was not a mere adjutant. He was an extremely useful man outside as well as within the army, with
close and deep associations with any number of powerful and influential people. In time he would become a United States senator
who numbered among his friends men like Thomas A. Scott, Jay Gould, Andrew Carnegie, and other tycoons. At the moment, in
addition to handling General Dodge’s correspondence, he watched over many of Dodge’s more complex, sensitive, and personal
requirements. Spencer was in charge, for instance, of the lobbying efforts to obtain for the general his second star. But
he was also “a genius,” in Dodge’s words, in “getting inside of the enemy’s lines.”

It was quite late on the night of August 17, but Dodge was still up working, dealing with the twin mountains of paperwork
created from his dual role as division commander and spy master.

He normally worked late; he liked the quiet and the absence of the unpredictable and pressing jumble of demands that running
an army division put on him during the day. But this night he was especially busy. Earlier that day Dodge had received a message
from Dr. Thomas C. Durant (a Doctor of Medicine, though he rarely practised that profession). Durant had requested Dodge’s
presence in New York a few days hence. It was an invitation Grenville Dodge could not take lightly. Thomas C. Durant was the
leader of the group of men who were promoting and organizing the transcontinental line that would become the Union Pacific
Railroad Company. Construction was scheduled to start in the spring of next year, and Durant wanted very much to induce Dodge
to leave the army and take charge of the project.

Though no specific offer had been made, General Dodge was sorely tempted to accept it if it were to come.

“Captain Spencer to see you, sir,” an aide said to General Dodge. The aide and the captain both stood framed in the wide double
doorway of the room in the Corinth, Mississippi, town hall that Dodge used as his office.

“Come in, George,” Dodge said without looking up from his paperwork. “Come on in. Sit down.”

The aide moved aside, and Spencer walked past him.

George Spencer was a stout man with a round face and curly, corn-colored hair and chin whiskers. Normally he kept his hair
and whiskers carefully groomed, but that was not now the case. He had been on the move for over thirty-six hours, and all
other things being equal, he would as soon have been in bed as calling on his superior.

“Don’t bother with that saluting business,” Dodge said, still intent on his papers. “Not among friends. Just sit yourself
down and make yourself comfortable.”

“I didn’t plan to chat, General,” Spencer said hesitantly, remaining on his feet. “It’s late, and I don’t want to take your
time, but I’ve just learned information that I was sure you’d want to hear.”

At that, Dodge lifted his face from his papers for the first time. “Go ahead, George, sit down. It’s late enough now anyway
that another half hour or so won’t make much difference. Take a load off your feet; you look like you need it. You can tell
me what you’ve got to say, and then I want some advice from you.”

“All right, then,” Spencer said gratefully. A chair wasn’t as inviting as a bed, but it would do.

The room was dark except for the lamp on Dodge’s desk. After Spencer had pulled up a chair close to it, he sighed. “You’re
right, General, I’ve had a rough one.”

“So tell me about what you’ve found.”

Spencer began, “Do you remember that two-car train the First Tennessee ambushed a couple of weeks ago? The one that was full
of military and carrying a pair of officers on some kind of errand?”

“I recall it.”

“Well, that gnawed at me in the back of my mind for a while. Nothing specific, but I just kept wondering what the Rebs were
doing up at Okolona. And the more I wondered, the more I got curious about the errand those two officers were on.

“One of them is a major, but I don’t know his name. The other one’s name is Will Hottel, and he’s a captain. More interesting,
he’s the man the Railroad Bureau in Richmond has put in charge of the railroads in these parts. He’s been seen here and there
at other times by friendly civilians that I talk to now and then. They’ve seen him poking around and about the railroad lines
north of Meridian and Jackson—the Mobile & Ohio, the Mississippi Central, and the Mississippi & Tennessee. So after I learned
he was poking around, I started to get interested in why he was poking around.

“There’s a spur off the main line south of Okolona. It looks abandoned.” He leaned a little closer. “It’s been
made
to look that way. Up the spur about a mile there’s a shed. That also looks like nothing much. That’s what those two officers
were out to see.”

“The shed?” Dodge asked.

“Yeah. What’s in it.”

“Well, then?”

“They’ve hid three locomotives in there. Pretty ones. Baldwins. In lovely, nearly pristine shape.”

“They hid them?” Dodge asked. “Why’d they go and do that?” It was hard for Grenville Dodge to understand why anyone would
want to take a locomotive out of use. The purpose of locomotives was to pull loads, not to sit rusting in sheds. Putting up
a locomotive in a shed was as senseless as sleeping in the snow when you have a house with a stove and wood to burn in it.

“Right,” Spencer said. “They hid them…but not just these three. There are at least eleven more hid away, eleven more that
I’ve found out about, anyhow. And every one of them,” he added, “is a fine machine, not the worn-out, disrepaired hulks that
the Rebs have been forced to use lately.”

“That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard!” Dodge said, his eyes blazing.

“I’m not testifying to the sanity of all this, only to the fact.”

“And somebody clearly thought he was doing the reasonable thing,” Dodge said, trying to imagine what that might be.

“That’s it,” Spencer said. “After I found the engines, I began to wonder why anyone would want to keep them out of action.
What I concluded—and it’s clear as day once you think about it—is that the owners of those machines would rather keep them
for themselves, rather than waste them in the war.”

“It’s shortsighted,” Dodge said with a sharp, contemptuous snap to his words.

“Maybe so, but that’s what they’ve done. And then somehow or other this man Hottel got wind of them, and I would suspect that
in a short time he’s going to send out people who’ll bring them down to where Joe Johnston can use them.”

“So what do we do with them before that happens?” Dodge asked. His question was addressed to himself more than to his adjutant.

“Do you want to know what I think?” Spencer said.

“By all means,” Dodge said.

“Confiscate them. We can use them.”

Dodge shook his head. “Our orders are to wreck all that’s useful. And it would be the easy thing to do,” Dodge said. “Easier
than bringing them here, or wherever. Less time and effort, fewer men. And,” he continued, still considering, “it would be
interesting to see the look on Joe Johnston’s face when he learns we’ve destroyed those locomotives.”

“Possibly,” Spencer said. “But also realize that those are mint-condition locomotives that we can use as well as they. And
think of the look on Joe Johnston’s face when he learns that we are pulling troops and ammunition and supplies with
his
engines.”

“I like the way you’re thinking,” Dodge said. “But I’ve still got orders to consider.” Then he brightened. “I’ll tell you
what, let me tell you my news, and then we’ll worry about those locomotives.”

“Fine,” Spencer said, drawing his chair even closer. He could tell that Dodge, a normally cool and taciturn man, was excited,
and he was curious to discover what the excitement was about.

“I received a letter from Dr. Durant today,” he said. “He wants me to come to New York to meet with him about the transcontinental
railroad. He didn’t say so outright, but if you read between the lines, it seems as if he wants me for the chief engineer’s
position.”

“And will you go there?”

Dodge smiled. “Of course, wouldn’t you? I’ll take a month off. I can claim some kind of sick leave.”

“And will you take the chief engineer’s position, should it be offered?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

Spencer gave a grave nod. It was a hard decision, he acknowledged. “It would mean resigning from the army,” he said, “at a
time when things seem to be coming closer and closer to a head. And at a time,” he went on with more feeling, “when all the
efforts to earn you a second star and the command of a corps are coming to a head, too.” He looked hard at Dodge. “You’ve
made a pretty fair general, sir. You should have a larger command.” He breathed a deep sigh. “On the other hand, you may never
have another opportunity like the one Tom Durant is hinting at.” He shook his head. “It’s a hard choice.”

“That it is,” Dodge agreed.

The two men sat in silence for a time, considering the implications of what had been presented.

Finally Spencer spoke. “I wonder what the chances are of delaying a decision.”

“What do you mean?”

“Can you ask the doctor to let you hold out until the war is over?”

“I don’t think he will buy that. They’re starting construction next spring, as he won’t let me forget. He must have mentioned
that four times in his letter.”

Spencer nodded. “Well, there’s nothing to do but go see him and listen to what he says. Wait, find out the facts, and see
what you must do.”

“You’re probably right,” Dodge said, not totally convinced. He didn’t like uncertainty.

“In fact,” Spencer went on, “I’d like to act the same way with regard to those locomotives.”

“How do you mean?”

“I’ll bring them up the line while you’re gone—somewhere safe and easily protected. And then after you return you can decide
how to dispose of them.”

Dodge thought a moment, then gave a nod of assent. “Yes. All right. Do that,” he said.

Spencer rose. “It’s time I took leave of you, General,” he said.

“Good night, George,” Grenville Dodge said.

After Spencer’s departure, Dodge began his last chore for the night. He pulled out a half-dozen blank pages for a letter to
Anne, his wife.

Anne was a fearful woman who had never been pleased that her husband had joined the army. She hated that he had to risk himself,
but she hated it even more that he had to be away from her. Thus he was sure she would not welcome it if he responded favorably
to Dr. Durant’s overtures.

He stared at the blank pages, wondering how he would fill them when he had nothing to say to her that would give her comfort.

Her last letter to him was somewhere on the desk. Where? He groped around until he found it in a pigeonhole. He slipped it
out and opened it to the last page.

I am so afraid [he read] Oh, God, this war! What shall we not be called upon to sacrifice if it lasts much longer? If anything
happens to you, I shall want to die! Yes ! I feel as though I could not live! When you are with me, I can endure anything
and do anything, but alone—oh, to be left in this world alone! What would become of me?

He shook his head and laid the pages down and then stared once more at his own blank pages. He took up his pen and began to
write,

My dearest Anne,

How I’ve missed you during the last week.

I’ve thought of you hourly…or even more often.

The war, you’ll be happy to learn, is quiet in these parts. It’s almost as though we are at peace. The crops are growing ripe.
My troops might as well travel unarmed.

He stopped. Now what do I say? he thought, again at a loss for words. Damn! Why can’t I ever tell you anything close to the
truth, the way any soldier writes his wife?

“Oh, Anne, Anne,” he said aloud, “you are so dear—and so tiresome.”

Sometimes I wish you had a heart more like the one God gave Jane Featherstone, he thought. To have your sweetness joined with
her boldness. Now
that
would be a woman!

*    *    *

Jackson, Mississippi, had been left so desolate by William Tecumseh Sherman’s troops that there was little in the town for
Noah Ballard to inventory.