The Railroad War (31 page)

“You know I am, you bastard,” Noah said.

“All right, then,” Hottel said, taking a long draw on his cigar. “The main thing you’ll probably want to know is that we can
move on those locomotives now.”

“Well, son of a bitch,” Noah said with relief. A great load had just been taken off him. “How did you light a fire under General
Johnston?”

“I didn’t,” Hottel said. “James Seddon did.”

“Well, I’m grateful to whoever did it.”

“But I don’t have all good news,” Hottel said gravely. “One of Grenville Dodge’s officers, or else one of his spies, got wind
of the engines hidden north of Meridian on the Mobile & Ohio.”

“Shit,” Noah said under his breath. He looked at Lam, who was shaking his head. Then he turned back to Hottel. “So what did
they do?”

“They searched for and found about ten or fifteen of them. You remember those three we looked at south of Okolona? They found
those, and they moved them north of Tupelo.”

“Shit,” Noah repeated. “When did this all happen?”

“Within the past week or so.”

Noah was silent for a time, his rage building. Then he let out a blast of white fury,
“Goddamn Joe Johnston!”
he said slowly, distinctly, the words measured, the volume scarcely louder than his normal one. No one had any doubts, though,
about the magnitude of his anger. “While I’ve been here in Jackson sitting on my ass, the goddamn Yanks have gone off and
taken my engines. Goddamn it all to hell!”

“You see why I waited to tell you this news?” Will Hottel said.

“You mean that they’ve got Dart and Perseverance and the other one?” Noah said.

Hottel gave him a nod.

“Goddamn!” Noah said, then rose abruptly and began to pace swiftly back and forth across the room, muttering to himself as
he pounded the floor.

Lam and Gar both started to say something to him, but Will Hottel shook his head no before either man could begin. “Let him
walk it off,” he said softly.

“And how well are they guarded?” Noah asked moments later. “Doubtless by a division,” he said, answering his own question.
“Goddamn the Yanks for their population. They could spare a corps to guard my locomotives!”

“So they’ve become
your
locomotives?” Will Hottel asked innocently.

“You know what I mean, Will,” Noah said.

“I don’t mind your getting a little proprietary,” Will said with a twinkle in his eye, “but I don’t know how Walter Goodman
would feel about that.”

“He can choke on it,” Noah said.

“Who’s Walter Goodman?” Lam asked

Hottel explained. Then he went on, “Are you serious about wanting an answer to your question about how well the engines are
guarded?”

“Absolutely,” Noah said. “I want to get them back.”

“Splendid!” Hottel said with a meaningful glance at Lam. “They’ve stationed a regiment as guards.”

“An entire regiment?”

“As you said, they have men to spare.”

“Shit.”

“But,” Hottel said, “we’re not entirely defenseless. That’s where our Colonel Kemble comes in.”

“Lord, Lam,” Noah said, “I forgot that you told me we are going to work together. Which means, naturally, that I forgot to
ask you how.”

“That’s all right, my friend,” Lam said. “No one ever gave you high marks for memory.

“What I’ve got for you and Captain Hottel is a squadron of cavalry, three troops of approximately thirty-five men that Nathan
Forrest was prevailed upon to give up. You’ve got us for the three weeks it is estimated it will take to transport the locomotives
to Mobile.”

“It’s not a lot to work with,” Noah said.

“But my squadron,” Lam said, “is the best in the world.” His look said he wasn’t completely joking. “General Forrest was fit
to be tied, even though we’ll only be gone from his command for three weeks.”

“I’m eternally grateful to the general for making the sacrifice,” Noah said, “but it’s still not a lot to work with.” As he
said this, however, a notion was beginning to percolate through his mind.

“We could,” Hottel said coolly, his eyes locked on Noah’s, “leave the locomotives alone and grab the ones we know they don’t
have and run.”

“There is no goddamned way that I will allow them to keep my locomotives.” Noah turned to Lam. “There’s no goddamned way I’m
going to do that!”

“I’m with you, Noah,” Lam replied.

“How do you propose to go about it?” Hottel asked.

Noah thought for a while. “I will,” he said, “consider what we have to work with, and I’ll let you know tomorrow.” The notion
had begun to take clearer shape, but he didn’t feel ready yet to bring it into the open.

“All right, then,” Will Hottel said. “We’ve made a beginning, haven’t we?”

“You like me, don’t you, Sam?” Jane Featherstone said. “I want very much for you to like me.”

It was past midnight. Rain beat on the window of the fourth-floor hotel room where Jane and Sam Hawken had made their home
for the past two weeks.

Thunder growled far away. Then for a brief instant it was like daylight, and then a brief instant after that came a long,
tearing crack—as though the whole fabric of the world were ripping apart—followed by deep rolling booms.

The room was only a small single, but it had been all that was available in the Trout House. Indeed, it was the only available
room in any hotel in the city. The room they had obtained had been made available only because of the nature of Sam’s profession;
he was thought to be a minister of the Gospel, newly called to leave his former ministry in Nacogdoches, Texas, in order to
render aid to the poor, sick souls in the heart of the South.

Or something like that.

“What makes you think that I don’t like you, Jane?” Sam Hawken asked without looking up at her. He was busy making notations
in the journal he was keeping, recording the results of his daily—and nightly—observations.

“If you liked me, you’d stay with me tonight,” she said with a smile she meant to be fetching, but which Sam took to be hungry
and needy.

“My liking you has nothing to do with the reason I’m going out tonight.”

“On such a night, Sam? With all the rain and the mud? Really, Sam, darling, I could think of a thousand reasons not to go
out on such a night—a thousand and one, if you add the risk.”

“That’s smart thinking, Jane,” he said. “The very reason why I must do it now. I’m counting on the weather to keep inside
some of the squads of soldiers who patrol the streets. They’re watching for people like me and you, Jane.”

“Do you ever listen to me, Sam?” she asked with a punishing look. “I’ve said to you more than once that there are whispers
in the hospitals.” Jane had volunteered her services as a nurse, because Grenville Dodge had believed that hospitals would
be good sources for intelligence. His assumption was turning out to be as correct as most of his ideas; her information would
add much to the report that both of them were preparing. “There are suspicions that a spy is on the loose in Atlanta. You’ve
been lucky; you’ve managed to handle night watchmen and street patrols. Your luck can’t hold. They are sure to step up their
vigilance, even in this weather.

“And besides,” she brightened, “why go out into certain danger when there’s me here instead?”

“I’m not sure which danger is worse, you or the Rebels,” he said to her with a grin. It was a cool grin; he was half serious.
“No, Jane,” he continued, all business. “I’ve got to go now. If suspicions are growing, it’s best to get the work out of the
way fast.”

“You’re impossible,” she said petulantly.

Sam was seated at the small table he was using as a writing desk, and, save for the hat and the old Mexican poncho he’d use
to fend off the rain, he was dressed to go out in dark boots and clerical blacks. Jane, dressed in a sheer cotton nightdress,
had sprawled out on her stomach. She lay diagonally across the bed, with her feet touching the headboard and her head propped
in her hands. She was lying that way so as to bring her face close to him. But when he showed no inclination to give her what
she wanted, she gathered herself up and moved across the bed, sitting up and placing her back against the headboard. In making
the move, she managed to show large areas of flesh—interesting areas, it seemed to her—but he failed to pay attention. And
so she sat scowling.

This is what he had written during this evening’s session:

Atlanta is abundantly endowed with railroads and the facilities to handle vast quantities of heavy freight and to service
every sort of equipment. Even so, the burden the war has placed on these facilities has proven too great for them to bear.
This is especially true of the single-track Western and Atlantic line running north from Atlanta to Chattanooga. The line
and the Atlanta yards are so choked with traffic that there is often what amounts to a continuous line of locomotives and
cars from Marietta, twenty miles away, to the city.

The scarcity of mechanics and spare parts has resulted in a serious increase in breakdowns and unusable equipment. And this
means that tons of urgent freight such as food, ammunition, weapons, and medicines lie rotting in the rail yards.

Lubricants are also scarce, although some operators have resorted to rendering pig fat. And there is no whale oil to be had
for headlamps.

Most tellingly, thermal efficiency of locomotives operating out of Atlanta has severely declined. In 1861 the lines could
expect to achieve as much as eighty miles per cord of pine. Now they are lucky to get sixty.

Conclusion:

Atlanta was created as a railroad town. It has become the center of distribution and transport of the entire lower South.
Most of the food grown in the lower South passes through here, as well as all the munitions and finished iron from Alabama
and Georgia factories and works, leather goods, cloth, axles for railroad cars, et cetera, et cetera. It has also become the
largest hospital in the lower South for those wounded in battle. The transport of the wounded to the clinics here places an
even larger burden on the already much overburdened facilities.

The entire system is dangerously close to grinding to a halt.

For instance, there are sufficient accommodations in the town for perhaps twelve to fifteen thousand people, at most. The
current population is estimated at double that. Many of the overflow are living in abandoned railroad cars.

The streets and roads are so badly holed, rutted, and pitted that there are times when traffic cannot proceed.

And it costs more money to live here than most people possess. Here is a sample that I have recorded of prices of common items:

Flour……………@$35 per hundredweight

Eggs…………….@$1 per dozen

Coffee…………..@$4 per pound

Bacon…………..@$1.50 per pound

Potatoes..………@$12 per bushel

Sam laid his pen down. “Enough for now,” he said.

“What did you say?” Jane asked.

“Enough,” he said, louder.

“Enough?” she repeated hopefully.

“Yes, Jane,” he said, “I’ve done all I can here for now.”

“Then you’ve given up the mad idea of venturing out into the storm?”

“You are persistent, Jane,” he said with a wry shake of his head. “Where did you learn your pertinacity?”

She smiled. This time her expression was truly fetching and captivating. “It’s inborn,” she said.

“There are times when it’s wiser to surrender,” he said.

“Well then, my darling, do that now. Surrender. Come here and stay with me,” she said with a gesture that could mean only
one thing.

He rose to his feet, still shaking his head—regretfully now, for lovemaking with Jane offered real, though temporary comforts.
He gathered up his journal and carried it to his bag. It was old, a much battered and worn leather valise held together by
a pair of leather belts. It was very obviously a piece of luggage a minister of the Gospel would have toted around for many
years, and thus it was for all intents and purposes invisible. That was the intent, for one of Grenville Dodge’s clever craftsmen
had constructed a false bottom for it.

Sam removed the clothes that he was keeping in the bag, unlatched eight catches that you would miss unless you were aware
of them, lifted the false bottom out, placed the journal in the space the bottom covered, then replaced it and the clothes.

“I don’t know when I’ll be back,” he said to Jane. As he spoke, he moved before the mirror. What he saw was a tall, very gaunt,
hollow-cheeked man with a high forehead, salt-and-pepper hair, and hard-looking hazel eyes. The man in the mirror could have
been fifty. His appearance was another creation of one of Grenville Dodge’s clever craftsmen.

“Stay,” she drawled.

He shook his head. Then he picked up the Mexican poncho and slipped it over his head. It had seen more service than the valise.
Among the many signs of hard use were a dozen holes. These could have come from moths, from wear, from gunshots, or from some
misfortune only God knew. But, like the valise, the poncho did the job.

Next came a revolver, which Sam stuffed into his trousers at the small of his back, and then a knife, which he concealed in
the upper part of his boot. Then a three-inch length of candle and a small box of lucifers; these went in a side pocket of
his black frock coat. Last came his black, wide-brimmed porkpie hat, which he fitted onto his head, and a Bible, an old beat-up
New Testament, which he placed in a breast pocket. Already in that pocket was a pencil he would use later to make notes in
the Bible.

“Go to sleep, Jane,” he said, as he made his way to the door.

“I can’t sleep until you come back to me,” she said in a voice heavy with melodrama.

“Oh, Jane!” he laughed, and left the room.

He moved quickly and quietly down the backstairs, and he was soon outside in the driving rain. Jane was right about one thing,
he thought. Anyone who went out in this dismal stuff was crazy.

Braxton Bragg had declared martial law in the city and suspended habeas corpus a year ago, in September 1862, when Atlanta’s
strategic importance to the South became evident. As the city grew to be increasingly fortified, the number and frequency
of the patrols watching the streets and the comings and goings at the railroad station grew concurrently.