Grant Comes East - Civil War 02 (16 page)

The young man said nothing, eyes a bit unfocused, obviously still drunk.

Dan turned away and looked at the lieutenant.

"If he were an honorable soldier of the South, like those my comrades and I faced openly on the battlefield, I would risk my own life if need be to save him if he were wounded."

He looked at the men of his escort, who were now watching the drama.

"You there, Sergeant," he nodded toward a veteran, beard flecked with gray, an ugly crease across one cheek from a bullet that had almost killed him the night before.

"Should this man be treated the way we treated prisoners after Antietam or the other battles we were in, where we shared our canteens with wounded rebs?"

The sergeant glared at the captured man, chewing meditatively on a wad of tobacco.

The dazed man looked at him hopefully.

"Hang the son of a bitch," the sergeant growled and spat, the juice striking the man's boots.

Sickles turned away with a dramatic flourish.

"Hang them all."

"Sir?"

"You heard me, Lieutenant. They are insurrectionists not in uniform. The rules of war are that they are to be hung."

Without waiting for a reply Dan started to walk away, ignoring the young man who, stirring out of a drunken stupor, began to hysterically scream for mercy.

He did not even bother to look back and, scrambling over the barricade, pressed on south. The
Tribune
reporter came up to his side.

"Isn't that rather harsh, sir? Resistance is collapsing."

Dan pulled a cigar out of his pocket and offered it to the reporter, who refused. Dan then bit off the end and paused to strike a match against a lamppost.

"Harsh?"

"The rioting is all but finished, sir. Isn't it time now for some mercy?"

"Riot? Sir, this was not a riot, it was an insurrection in support of the Confederacy. I wish you reporters would get it right. The size of it, the sheer destructiveness—no unorganized mob could do what was done here to our city, three hundred miles away from the front lines. You see around you the hand of the Confederate government and their secret agents. New York has become just as much a battlefield as Union Mills or Washington."

The reporter did not reply.

"Write that down if you please, son."

The reporter complied

The screaming of the young man was suddenly cut short, and they looked back up Fifth Avenue. At the corner of Thirty-fourth Street, a body seemed to leap into the air, half a dozen men pulling on the rope, the young man kicking and thrashing. A rifle shot exploded, one of the other three trying to escape, scrambling up over the barricade, collapsing, then half a dozen more shots, the soldiers deciding to dispatch the rest without the ceremony of a hanging.

Dan turned away and continued to walk.

"It doesn't seem to bother you," the reporter said, his features now pale.

Dan took off his hat, which was rain-soaked and covered with greasy soot He looked up at the morning sky, breathing deeply. It did smell like a battlefield; the smoke, the faint whiff of rotten eggs from the volley just fired, a distant thump of a cannon counterpointed by more musketry.

"You ever seen a battle, son?"

"No, sir."

"You should. Young man your age." "Are you going to hang me, sir, because I didn't join the army?"

Dan looked over at him and laughed. "You think that's it? Why I hanged that scoundrel back there?"

"I think it contributed to it."

"At Union Mills I saw the ground carpeted with our dead, and we lost. I saw the same at Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, where the bodies froze into the ground. Dead, wasted dead, and still the war continues."

He fell silent, the memories sharp, crystal clear. The stench of the field at Chancellorsville, bodies bloating in the heat Waste, all of it waste. Back here it was just numbers, names in fine print filling page after page of the papers. He had seen it and felt the anguish as men,
his
men,
died. They were his men being wasted, and if ever there was a chance to change all that, it was now.
By
God,
the
republic
had
to
be saved,
and
the
saving
of
it
would
start
right
here,
in
the streets
of
New
York.
Set
the
example
here
that
traitors
stabbing
the
army
in
the
back
will
not
be
tolerated
And
then
let his
men
who
fought
here
return
back
to
the
Army
of
the
Potomac
and
spread
the
story
of
what
he
accomplished.
That will
affect
the
morale
of
all
his
men
for
the
better.

"If I had but one day in command," he whispered, "and fifty thousand more men, men even like that slacker back there, who I could have turned into an honorable soldier, the war would be over."

He puffed on his cigar for a moment, still looking at the dark-gray sky.

"These are hard times, son. Hard times. We've lost two hundred thousand men in this war and still it goes on. I want what happened here to be a message to our nation. The times have changed forever, the traitors down South forced that on us, and now I shall finish it"

"You, sir?"

He looked back over at the reporter and smiled.

"After today? I saved this city, son. Saved it from becoming a wasteland."

As he spoke, he gestured up and down Fifth Avenue. The refuse of the riot was everywhere—broken storefronts, gutted buildings, bolts of cloth trampled into the filth, smashed-in barrels, broken bottles, torn-up pavement dead horses, and, from a lamppost at the comer of Thirty-third Street, two more bodies dangling, one with trousers burned off to the knees, the skin blackened.

"If we had lost New York we would have lost the war."

"Isn't it lost already? There's reports that Lee will take Washington today."

Sickles took the cigar out of his mouth and blew a ring in the still air.

"I don't like that kind of talk, son."

"Sir?"

"Just what you said. 'Reports,' you say? Who filed these reports? The government, or some newspaper?" The reporter was silent

Not wanting to antagonize this important mouthpiece to the public, he smiled.

"Son. When we see an official dispatch from the government declaring mat the capital has fallen, then print it, but not before. Such talk might only lend encouragement to the rebels here in this city. That girl who gave me a flower back there. Do you want her to fall into their hands?"

"Of course not"

"Fear is the enemy here this morning. We've got it under control; let's leave Washington out of it for now and wait until there is official word."

The reporter said nothing.

"And if by chance, if by remote chance the capital does fall, I will lead the Army of the Potomac, in its fury, across Maryland and teach Bobbie Lee a lesson he will never forget"

"Sir, what Army of the Potomac?" another reporter interjected, coming up to join the two. Sickles smiled dismissively.

"That, young man, is a military secret Believe me, the Army still exists, I know, for even while here, I am working to rebuild it You will see it crowned with the laurels of victory before all is done."

Before another question could be asked, he walked away, continuing his inspection tour. Inside he was seething. If Lincoln did allow the capital to fall, there was more than a good chance that peace would be the end result, and then his own aspirations would be dashed. The capital had to hold out so that ultimately he could march into it as its liberator.
Of course he had to be the one th
at was in command.

At first there had been rumors that the Army of the Potomac would be folded into Grant's new Army of the Susquehanna. Congressional pressure was putting a stop to that Grant was bringing Westerners in to fill up his new army. Eastern congressmen and senators weren't about to have the East's contribution to the Union cause submerged in a western command.

Lincoln was being forced to accept that
.
There would have to be a reconstituted Army of the Potomac which, yes, would serve under Grant, but which must have its own commander. Now Lincoln was considering whom to appoint to that position.

That hash would be settled before the week was out, of that he was certain. In the end Lincoln would have to turn to him to command the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln needed the War Democrats more than ever, and Dan was their candidate to command the Army of the Potomac.
Yes,
he thought to himself with satisfaction,
in
the
end
it
will
come
out
just fine
and
I
will
command
the
army.

Once he was in command and the army reconstituted, the stage would be set for him to whip Bobbie Lee
...
that would end the war as it should be ended.

Reaching Twenty-third Street and the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway, he saw a knot of men, infantry, a section of guns, two bronze Napoleons, a troop of cavalry, and an ornate, black-lacquered, four-horse carriage, curtains drawn, a militia colonel leaning against the side of it, talking with someone inside. At his approach the colonel stiffened, saluted, and whispered a comment.

The door to the carriage popped open and Dan stepped in, the carriage swaying slightly as he settled in across from Tweed. The carriage was filled with cigar smoke and the scent of whiskey.

"Have you seen the reports?" Tweed snapped angrily, waving a sheaf of papers.

"Which reports?"

"My God, Dan, it states here that over two thousand bodies have been picked up for burial. They're getting hauled over to Brooklyn, even loaded into barges to get dumped at sea."

"Fine. Two thousand less ruffians terrorizing the streets."

"This will cost us a hundred thousand votes, Sickles. They'll blame us!"

"Not when I'm done," Sickles replied calmly.

"The war was a Republican war. We could always hang that on them. But now?"

"We can still do that. I was acting under orders, Tweed. Did my military duty."

"But two thousand dead. The entire Five Points burned to the ground. And what's this about military executions?"

"I wouldn't call it that. Military executions are for soldiers. These were secret agents, insurgents hiding in civilian garb."

'Two thousand of them?"

"Goddamn it, Tweed, what the hell would you h
ave me do? Slap th
em on the wrist? Give mem a nursery bottle filled with brandy and send them home to their mommas? This is a war, damn it A war."

He shouted the last words, and Tweed, slightly intimidated, fell back into his seat.

"You don't see the broader picture. Back up on Fifth Avenue a girl gave me a flower."

"Channing sentiment, did you get her name?"

"You don't see it. To those Uptown I'm the savior this morning. Not a Republican, just a general doing his duty. Besides, we broke the back of the gangs that have terrorized this city for too long. They're on the run now and I plan to drive them straight into the East River and the Hudson. The average citizen of this town will turn out a week from now and offer us a victory parade. The times are changing, Tweed; this is a new age, an age of power, of industry, of the men who drive them. We saved their hides and they will remember that; I will be certain to remind them when the time comes."

Tweed said nothing.

"We can still play the lower classes, and the best way to do that is to bring this war to its conclusion without the draft. Hang that on the Republicans, that they let it drag on too long, they created the draft while lining their pockets from it and all the wartime graft. We will end the war and then see who is in the White House after the next election."

Tweed puffed on his cigar.

"You heard about Washington?"

"That Lee is attacking."

"That's the word."