The Battle of the Crater: A Novel (46 page)

The President finally motioned to the second drawing and opened it.

It was of Garland White cradling the wounded man pulled out of the crater, leg gone, stump swollen, Garland pressing a Bible into the wounded man’s hands … but it was his eyes that James felt he had captured: hollow, wide-eyed, as if staring off into some distant void. Behind him, a line of dead was waiting to be borne away.

“I call that one the
Hundred Yard Stare,
sir.”

“Why that?”

“It was only a hundred yards back to the safety of our lines, but for some, it was an eternity away. That man is a sergeant major I befriended; Garland White, a man of God, as much a minister as he is a damn good sergeant. His courage left me awed, but his compassion impressed me even more.

“I should add,” and James was afraid his voice would break, “that a few minutes later a cry went up from the bottom of that hell pit that a wounded Rebel had been found still alive, and without hesitation Garland slid back down into that hole, stinking of death, to help. War is cruelty unimaginable, but it can also show a near Christ-like compassion, and Garland White is one of those men.”

James looked over sharply at Lincoln.

“Sir, he deserved better; he deserves better, this country owes him that.”

Lincoln could only nod.

And, finally, the third one. It was two sketches on a single sheet of paper. To the left was a portrait of a young black soldier from the waist up, a dozen canteens strapped around his neck and shoulders, his face dripping with perspiration, eyes shut, and one could almost feel the paper trembling with the fear. Under it was printed “I ain’t no coward, sir.” The second was the boy lying dead at the lip of the crater, surrounded by a dozen or so others, all burdened down with canteens. It was titled
The Sacrifice for a Drop of Water.

“I didn’t see that myself, sir. One of the men, the coal miners with the 48th, described it to me, but valor like that was common that day. Apparently a watering party tried to break back to our lines to get water for the wounded. Of the twenty or so who set back out, maybe three or four made it back. Not one man would have condemned them if at that moment they had said they had done enough and stayed within the safety of our lines. Not a man would have condemned them. But all they could speak of was their comrades, their brothers, who needed water, and nearly all the rest died trying to get back to them.

“And, I say,” and now his voice did choke, “may God damn to Hell any who ever dares to say they were cowards.”

“Strong words, James, which I don’t like hearing.”

“Sorry, sir.”

He lowered his head.

“So what do you think I should do?” Lincoln asked after several long minutes of silence, broken only by James’s ragged breathing.

James looked over at him and stared straight into his eyes.

“Refuse to accept the court of inquiry. Demand a renewed investigation and make sure these papers,” he pointed at the documents piled on the table, “are all entered into the record. Ensure that all the regimental commanders of the Fourth Division are given the chance to testify and be witnesses to the gallant behavior of their men.”

He fell silent, Lincoln not replying.

“I will tell you one officer that you can count on for the truth, and that is Brigadier General William Bartlett. He lost a leg two years ago and then returned to service. He went in on the assault and commanded one of the brigades in the first division that went in.”

“He was taken prisoner though? Is that why he did not testify?”

“Yes, because he refused to leave his men, and he couldn’t move after his artificial leg was blown off. Think of that, sir: He lost a leg in the opening months of the war and then is taken prisoner because his leg, made of cork, is blown off in yet another battle.”

James looked off, his own eyes filled with that “hundred yard stare,” and shook his head.

“Surely an exchange could be arranged?” James asked, voice trembling. “For heaven’s sake, why keep him a prisoner now?”

Lincoln nodded.

“We got a report that he is not doing well, having fallen ill, and that an exchange is being arranged even now. I promise to see to it personally. Rest assured, I will see to it personally.”

“Put him on the stand, then. He’ll tell the truth of it all.”

Lincoln sighed and again there was silence. At last he stood up and went over to his desk. He picked up several newspapers and then returned to sit by James’s side, passing the papers over.

“Look at the headlines of all of these…”

James did as requested, the bold type proclaiming: “Atlanta Is Ours!”; “Victory for Our Arms!”; “Sherman Triumphant!”; “End of War Now in Sight!”

Underneath were lurid details of the Rebels fleeing in panic, the city in flames, Atlanta, of course, fired by them before they ran, and the major rail junction of the South taken at last after a brutal campaign of over four months. The newspapers pronounced that the end of the war might be reached in weeks, and a pro-Republican paper already declared that this victory ensured the election of Lincoln and the utter rout of McClellan’s party in the November elections.

Lincoln sat back on the sofa, stretching out his long legs, pant legs riding up to reveal his socks, which had slipped down around his bony ankles.

“Sherman succeeded where Meade failed,” Lincoln finally said.

“Sir?”

“You can still hear the crowd out there, can’t you?”

Lincoln fell silent and indeed James could hear their cheers, their chanting, snatches of songs, and now and then an occasional firework being lit off, bursting over the park in multicolored hues visible beyond the curtain.

“After word of Cold Harbor began to leak out, if I had gone out into that same park, I think they might have lynched me,” he said with a cynical shake of his head. “Now they call for four more years, but has anything really changed?”

“Sir?”

“There will be a lot more suffering and dying before this tragedy is at an end, the worst of it perhaps still ahead. I pray never again, in centuries to come, that anything shall ever drive our country to such madness. If this suffering now is so seared into our souls that we recoil from ever repeating it, perhaps then it is worth the sacrifice of this generation to ensure that those who follow us make not the same mistake.”

He gestured to the drawings.

“What are you saying, sir?” James asked.

There was a long moment of silence, of Lincoln just staring off. He sighed, forced a smile, and looked back at James.

“I will do nothing.”

“Sir?”

And he could not keep the anger out of his voice.

“After all that? After such a chance thrown away?”

Lincoln nodded and leaned forward again, to his characteristic gesture of legs splayed wide, hands clasped.

“I’ve been thinking much of biblical verse of late,” he said softly. “‘Of woe unto thee that cometh with the sword,’ and that perhaps each drop of blood drawn with a lash must somehow now be repaid with that sword.

“Perhaps in the end, it is all part of a greater plan. I can draw but two conclusions out of what you have shown me.”

“And that is, sir?”

“I could take the political one and that will sound the more cynical of me, but yes, James, I must think politically. Let me take all of what you have shown me, go out to that jubilant crowd this evening—that crowd which sees an end to the war ahead now that Sherman has won such a victory at Atlanta. Let me then hold these documents up and demand another investigation into this tragedy. And what do you think would happen?”

James sighed and just nodded abjectly.

“Nothing, at best. At worst, it will give the opposition ammunition to negate Sherman’s victory, divert opinion, drive more wedges, demand hearings, and yet more hearings, which will not change one iota the tragedy that you saw and endured.

“And perhaps even destroy what it was that these men died for, even if at this moment it seems like an act of futility.”

James could not speak.

Lincoln put a hand on his shoulder.

“You know what I wish I could do, but, my friend, I cannot.”

Lincoln sighed, his grasp on James’s shoulder tightening.

“I must see this war through to a successful conclusion, no matter what the cost. Too much has been sacrificed already. You were at Antietam; you saw the price paid and know as well as I do that it could have been ended that day. But McClellan lost his nerve; one man lost his nerve, while an entire army, in spite of their battering, was coiled to spring forward. The same at Gettysburg and now the same here.”

He pointed to the drawings.

“And I find of late, I think of another side to it all.”

“Which is what, sir?”

“Perhaps this must be endured, endured to such depths of sorrow that it is both atonement and a memory for generations yet to come. That in the end this war did not end by, as the soldiers call it, a
coup de main
or a ‘forlorn hope.’ Perhaps it means … what I suspect Sherman will do with torch in hand and Sheridan in the Valley—which he is preparing to do even now. And God forgive me if that is indeed something which will transpire, which I could somehow avoid. For, if that is the case, I shall surely answer for it. Perhaps, as to the cost of such a bloody conflict, not won easily by some sleight of hand, we need to frighten ourselves to forever change us. I do not want it ever to be whispered a generation later by some that they had been ‘deceived into defeat,’ and therefore teach their sons to try it again.

“No stab in the back, no ‘next time we can do it.’ I want both sides to finally lay down their arms and know that it will forever stand as the greatest tragedy in our history and now good men must strive together to ensure that it never happens again.

“Perhaps that is why this happened.”

Though he did not fully agree, having felt and literally smelled and tasted the horror of it all, James could not offer a reply.

“But what of the men of the Fourth? It is a lie being told about them. Don’t they deserve better?”

“Yes, they do,” Lincoln sighed. “But I know no answer for the here and now. Perhaps, when the fighting stops and the hatred cools, all will see the folly of it. Two hundred thousand like them now serve and they at least, as Frederick Douglass has said, have shown to the world their right of citizenship and no one will ever dare to take it away from them.

“We all wish for change; I will be the first to admit that, but a short time past, I was willing to compromise their rights, their very souls, with a promise that slavery could continue so long as the Union stayed together. War brings changes that are unexpected, and that happened in my heart as well.

“We can never go back to what we were, ever again, but as for the future? You’re telling me that some of these gallant men were shot in the back by their own comrades. That is as fearful as anything endured in the heat of battle. I pray that on the day the killing stops, we all look at each other and then ask God for forgiveness for all we have done.

“That is a shallow promise, James, but history, as we know, takes time; change takes time. It took more than four score years for us to come to the conclusion that when the Founders declared that all men are created equal, they did indeed mean all men.”

He sighed again, and his voice was choked.

“I pray it takes less, far less time before we realize that, before God, we are all equal, that all should see that divine spark in the eyes of every man and honor them for that. If that comes to pass, please forgive me from quoting something I already said…”

He gestured to the drawing on the table.

“Then these dead shall not have died in vain.”

He slowly stood, head bowed, and James rose.

“What’s next for you, James?” Lincoln asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“Back to the front?”

“I don’t know. I want to say no, but I know it will finally draw me back until it is done. But for us, after this, I don’t know how else I can serve you.”

“I understand. But if you think you can, just bring that card to the gate as you always have.”

James nodded.

He started for the door.

“Your drawings, James?”

James smiled and shook his head.

“Sir, there’s not a one of them my publisher would ever touch. Could you keep them, store them away some place? Maybe someday, if you see they are saved, someone will see them and understand the truth rather than the lies.”

“You have my promise, James.”

James stepped back and extended his hand.

“See you after the war ends, sir?”

“Yes, James, after the war I am certain we will meet again.”

When the door closed, Abraham Lincoln picked up the drawings, sifting through them one by one. Alone, he allowed himself a luxury rarely seen by others—he wept.

Carefully, he bundled them up, putting them back into the waxed covering, along with the documents he knew would never be seen, at least while this war continued. He tied the shredded cord back in place, rose, and opened the door into Hay’s office.

“I want these properly set aside in the archive.”

“Sir?”

“You heard me.”

“As your papers, sir?”

He hesitated.

“No, just general notes to be opened after I am gone.”

Hay looked at him curiously, nodded, and said nothing. As the door closed he looked over at his assistant.

“Find some place to put these,” he said.

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA
SEPTEMBER 4, 1864
DAWN

It was as he had last seen it: raining, a mist rising off the river, the burial details finishing out the graves, a line of ambulances rumbling across the bridge.

He had stumbled about the field for the last hour, ever since the first light of approaching dawn.

James was beyond exhaustion. He had gone to check in at Willard’s after meeting with the President. He had taken the best room available, but he had skipped the bath and the buying of a change of clothes. Midnight was the deadline for this week’s delivery of sketches to his publisher, and he had gone over to their Washington office. He turned the usual sketches in, the life of soldiers in the trenches playing cards, a grand review behind the lines, bedraggled Rebel prisoners being led to the rear. He had included several sketches of the court of inquiry with the absolutely clear understanding they were not to be released until after the official record was published.