The Smoke at Dawn: A Novel of the Civil War (54 page)

It was close to midnight, and he had dismissed most of the staff, kept a handful of aides nearby. He stood staring at the stone hearth, the last few logs crumbling into embers. Thomas stood in the doorway, and behind him, Rawlins seemed to wait, as though wondering if Grant would toss the man out of his headquarters.

“Might as well come in.”

“Thank you, sir. My staff is preparing for bed, I see yours is mostly in their quarters. I just thought I would confirm your orders for the morning.”

Grant avoided looking at him, kept his eyes on the fading fire. “Why? Something unclear?”

“Not at all.”

Thomas moved inside the room, and Grant pondered another cigar, felt too weary for that now. Thomas sat on the small chair with a heavy grunt, seemed to adjust himself, struggling as he always did with the discomfort in his back.

“Are you ill, General?”

“Certainly not, sir. I’ll manage. Getting used to it. No choice, really. Could be worse, you know. Oliver Howard’s got one arm. Can’t imagine that.”

Grant knew that Howard had come into camp earlier that evening, a surprise to Grant, since Howard was protecting Thomas’s left flank, had positioned his men exactly where Grant ordered, acting as a valuable reserve for Sherman should events to the north go badly.

“Not sure I wouldn’t have ordered Howard to ride back up there. He should be with his men.”

Thomas nodded. “Told him that. He’s pretty adamant that he’s not really doing anything helpful where he is. Seems to believe you and I have sat him on a shelf, keeping him out of the fight. He’d rather have been leading the way on Lookout Mountain. Insists he’s pretty useless behind Sherman. He did leave one of his colonels in command up there.” Thomas paused. “I get the impression he is not terribly impressed with General Sherman.”

“After today? How can anyone not be impressed with the accomplishments of today?”

Thomas twisted to the side, stretching. “If Sherman’s report is accurate, Howard’s right. His troops won’t be required. Likely, I won’t need his support, either. I hope Sherman’s appraisal of his position is sound.”

Grant couldn’t ignore the flicker of doubt in Thomas’s words. “Why wouldn’t Sherman’s report be accurate?”

“Would never suggest that, sir. But those maps Baldy has … they’re no good. He knows that, and I recall Sherman hearing that. Baldy says he didn’t have time to prepare new ones.”

Grant had a flicker of annoyance, thought, You would plant that seed in me? You would inflict your doubts about Sherman on me? Grant looked again to the fire, measured his words, kept his voice as calm as he could. “I have no reason to doubt General Sherman. He says his troops have advanced to the railroad tunnel and are preparing
to move along the creek and down the ridge in the morning. Nothing complicated about that.”

Thomas scratched his forehead, seemed to hesitate. “I mean no disrespect to General Sherman. But we know how badly chopped up that ground is. We know Bragg sent a number of troops up that way. Surely Bragg knows what Sherman’s trying to do. Forgive me for saying so, General, but I’ve learned that confidence does not ensure success. I offer my congratulations to anyone who succeeds, but only when the campaign has concluded. This campaign has not concluded.”

Grant was too tired to entertain Thomas’s pessimism. “General Thomas, your orders were made clear, were they not?”

Thomas hesitated, seemed to understand he had trod into a sensitive place. “Yes, sir. We will maintain readiness until we are called upon.”

Grant didn’t want the tension between them yet again, looked at Thomas, saw a flash of pain in the man’s face, another slight twisting in the chair.

“I disagree with you on that, General. I offer my congratulations to you and your men for the exceptional work taking Orchard Knob. I am grateful for your efforts. Your men will be of service again when called upon, and that could be at any moment. This war cannot be fought by any of us alone. This strategy is my own, and since General Bragg has obliged us by holding his army along that ridge, this plan shall be employed as I intended.”

Thomas pulled himself painfully to his feet. “I understand completely, sir. I do hope that General Bragg does not use this beautiful moonlit night to withdraw from that ridge. He suffered a serious defeat today on the mountain. There are no doubt commanders in his camp who believe he should withdraw his army to a more formidable position. He surely understands how badly outnumbered he is.”

“I don’t have any idea what Bragg understands. Except … he knows for certain that your army occupies this enormous swath of ground directly to his front. He cannot maneuver anywhere without expecting you to respond. My job, General, is to create a situation he cannot respond to effectively. That is why Sherman will punish his right flank tomorrow morning. Should Bragg respond to that by
weakening his center in any substantial way, you must be prepared to take advantage.”

“I am prepared, sir.”

“Thank you. Good night, General.”

Thomas left without speaking, and Grant felt a nervous stirring, couldn’t keep the anger away. He reached for another cigar, fumbled with the matches, the small flame flickering, the cigar lit. He tossed the matchbox aside, felt his heart beating heavily, was fully awake now, stared at the embers. He thought of Baldy Smith, the image of perfection, efficiency. Baldy said the maps were wrong. Sherman knows that. He would not go into a fight without knowing the ground he has to cross. The ground he
did
cross. I am far more concerned that Hooker will do something incredibly stupid up on that mountain, give away his success.

Grant turned, paced across the small room. Give Thomas some benefit, he thought. Perhaps he is carrying more weight on his back than I appreciate. His men lost a fight at Chickamauga that could be one of the worst defeats of the war, certainly the worst defeat suffered by the Army of the Cumberland. He has to answer for that, and so he has been ordered to keep his army in line, while others on both his flanks carry the campaign. That is my doing, those are my orders. I cannot worry about the weight on anyone else’s back. If we are successful, the weight will be lifted from us all. It is but one fight, after all. One campaign. There will be others, and if Thomas believes he must fight for some kind of personal honor, he will have his chance. If it does not happen, if this war ends too quickly for that … am I to care?

He tossed the cigar into the hearth, scolded himself for his sour mood. Get some sleep, Grant. You will need your wits tomorrow. And by tomorrow evening, we shall know a good deal more about Bragg’s army, and what kind of fight they can make. We shall accomplish our goals, or we shall suffer mistakes. I care not a whit for any man who believes his own “honor” matters as much as the blood of the men who will make this fight.

Hardee had come late that afternoon, and Cleburne had made it very clear just how vulnerable he was, that the gap between his own division and Walker’s, down the ridge, meant that any defense between them would be so thin as to be virtually useless. Hardee had responded as Cleburne hoped, had authorized Cleburne to shift even more of his strength to the northern tip of Missionary Ridge, promising to march other troops from the south to fill in the open ground behind Cleburne’s left flank.

Hardee also brought him the news he dreaded, but it was no surprise. Lookout Mountain was now mostly in Federal hands. Cleburne knew that the loss of the army’s left flank was a defeat Bragg would have to take seriously, that the way could now be open for Yankee troops to swarm all down through the valley that divided the mountain from Missionary Ridge. As darkness came, Cleburne stayed up close to the summit of Tunnel Hill, sent aides probing southward, testing whether Hardee had fulfilled his promise, or if Bragg had reacted to the loss of the mountain by issuing a completely different order. The more Cleburne pondered that, the more convinced he became that, with Sherman’s overwhelming numbers to Cleburne’s
front, the best decision Bragg could make would be to withdraw completely from the ridge, pulling back to a new strongpoint somewhere to the south and east, perhaps back toward the same ground along Chickamauga Creek where the brutal fight had taken place in September.

He had stayed in the saddle well after dark, moving slowly among the men, ensuring that the officers were putting their troops where he expected them to be, the dispositions Hardee had heartily approved. Along the face of Tunnel Hill, Yankee artillery shells pounded and thumped at random, the sight of Cleburne’s troops digging in too tempting for Sherman’s gunners to ignore.

As Cleburne rode along the narrowing spur to the north, he chewed on a hard piece of stale bread, a remnant in the bottom of his pocket of a better meal the day before. But the men around him were eating nothing at all, their attention focused on the labor of constructing some kind of defensive line against the attack Cleburne knew was coming. The shelling came mostly on the larger hill itself, his men taking advantage of the relative calm farther down along the spur, many of them hidden by tufts of thick brush. The ridge here was no great barrier, nothing like Lookout Mountain, and the farther north he went, the closer he was to the dense, thorny brush, only a slight rise above the ravine Sherman’s men would have to push through. The ground was still a challenge for any troops who faced harrowing musket fire, small comfort for Cleburne as he glanced out toward the mass of troops camped now on and around Billy Goat Hill. He thought of Shiloh, the ground just as nasty, brutal fighting against Yankees who, on that ground, had the advantage of shooting downward. But the Confederates there pushed on through, fought the vines as they fought the Yankees, and when they made the last few feet of their climb, it was the Yankees who had broken. It was all the more reason to expect the withdrawal order from Bragg, that this position, no matter the thickets and high ground, would be only a temporary stronghold.

He climbed back toward the crest of the ridge, kept the horse along the backside, avoiding the chance encounter with exploding shrapnel. He saw the speck of light, moved that way, halted the horse, dropped down, felt immediate relief of standing on hard ground. The
staff had gathered close around a single lantern, hidden down in a thicket well behind any view from Billy Goat Hill. Cleburne moved close, said to Buck, “Show me the map again.”

Buck complied, unrolled the rough paper, and Cleburne knelt low, the light spreading across the sketchy pencil lines. He stared at the one detail he already knew, the winding sweep of the creek to his north and east.

“Sherman should send a good many men by that route. It is far simpler than pushing his people right up to this long ridge. He must know we are here, preparing. If he has no other information, he can hear the axes. That should tell him everything. He may not know how limited our strength is here, but he will know we are making ready for whatever he brings us. If I was in Mr. Sherman’s boots, I would keep most of my people closer to the creek, push farther across our north end, forcing us to extend our lines. We are already extended like a blooming fishhook. If Sherman can drive his men through Polk’s position, there is little to stop him from moving around behind this ridge completely.”

He looked up at the faces, saw the cavalry scout, Kingman, a rugged, filthy man Cleburne respected. Kingman had a talent for crawling through whatever kind of ground lay between the lines, could recite the list of units he saw if Cleburne required it. Right now, Cleburne required only the most basic facts.

“Do we know their strength, Major? Are they still bringing people across the river?”

Kingman was staring at the map, shook his head slowly. “He has three divisions between us and the river right now. Supplies are coming across the pontoons, a few wagons, but they’re being careful with their long bridge. We attempted to ram it with a makeshift raft, but they’ve run ropes or something across the river just above the bridge, catching anything we float down.” Kingman pointed to the map, where the creek entered the river. “They put up a pontoon bridge across the creek, not too far off the river. They’ve got people on both sides of the creek, and that bridge links them together. Guess their engineers are smarter than we thought.”

Cleburne focused again on the map. “It isn’t about
smart
, Major. It’s about mathematics. If the enemy stays to the creek, he will run
straight into Polk, and one brigade will not stop even a single division, no matter who is ‘smarter.’ ”

Mangum stood to one side, pointed out over the crest of the hill. “Sir, there’s a considerable force right out there. Must be a hundred campfires out to both sides of Billy Goat Hill, and those are just the ones we can see. I didn’t study General Hardee’s book or anything, and I don’t know if it’s ‘smarter’ for Sherman to try to drive right past us along the creek. But I’d be wagering that
those
folks out there are making ready to come right up here.”

Cleburne stood. “Extinguish the light.”

The aides obeyed, the darkness complete, Cleburne staring into the woods below, trying to regain his vision. He was surprised now by the glow off the treetops, and to the right, toward the far end of the ridge, in the tops of distant trees, the white orb of the full moon. He walked out away from the others, heard the footsteps behind him, knew it would be Buck keeping close to him. He looked up toward the crest of Tunnel Hill, and between the impacts from Sherman’s artillery, he could hear the axes, shovels, the low voices of the officers, the work ongoing. Buck walked up beside him, stared at the full moon, rising higher, clearing the tree line to the southeast.