Grant Comes East - Civil War 02 (5 page)

It was obvious now, however, that the near destruction of the Army of the Potomac had not swerved Lincoln from his path. Lincoln had endured th
e frustrating repulse of McClel
lan in front of Richmond, the destruction of Pope at Second Manassas, the bloodbath of Union soldiers in front of Fredericksburg, and now the crushing defeat of the Army of the Potomac along the Pipe Creek line between Westminster and Gettysburg.

Somehow Lincoln had this ability to focus on the positive and to endure no matter what pain was inflicted on the Union forces. Now he was clearly pointing to Vicksburg as proof that the Union could win despite the failures in the East. He was a hard man and forcing him to negotiate was going to take extraordinary effort

In the last fight, it was the mind and spirit of General Meade and of his generals that I had to probe, to analyze, to defeat. The opponent is different now. Grant? Not for at least two weeks or more, most likely a month before he will become a factor. No, my opponent now is Abraham Lincoln, it is he I must break.

That meant Washington. If the city fell and Lincoln was forced to abandon the city, where would he go? New York? Out of the question, with that city ripped by anarchy. Philadelphia? Yes, most likely there, a symbolic move to the birthplace of the United States. But according to the paper before him, rioting had broken out in the City of Brotherly Love as in its bigger cousin to the north. A president fleeing to a city that would need to be placed under martial law would be a crippling political blow, one he could not recover from.

He looked at the map but by now there was no need to do so. Every detail was memorized, burned into his mind, every approach, every possible avenue of attack thought out, and thought out yet again.

It was indeed, as Stuart put it, "a hard nut to crack." Yet it had to be done and done swiftly.
We must force Lincoln out while the northern cities still burn, while a nation scans its newspapers, reads the tightly packed rows of fine print, recognizes names of the fallen, and asks, "Why?"

He thought of the night of June 28, his epiphany as he realized that the army was not completely under control, under his direct hand, and from that realization, he now knew, had come the victory at Union Mills. He had driven his army beyond the brink of exhaustion, but that driving had taken them to heights undreamed of.

I
must do that again, in spite of all, in spite of the weather, in spite of the fortifications and that waiting garrison.
This was a test of nerves and the target this time was not the Army of the Potomac, it was the mind of the president of the United States.

He remembered his military history, how after Cannae Hannibal had inexplicably hesitated, giving Rome time to prepare, so that when the Carthaginian army finally did march up to the gates of that city, it could not be taken. Thus the fruits of that great victory were in the end squandered; the war had dragged on for another decade and led to ultimate defeat and finally to the destruction of Carthage.

I
must strike now, it must be one solid blow, every available man must be brought forward. The cost will be horrific, a frontal assault straight in, most likely on Fort Stevens. How many will I lose? Five, perhaps ten thousand, upward of a quarter of my men in half a day. One final, terrible price. With luck the garrison will panic once the outer shell breaks and the city itself can be taken then without the grim prospect of a street-by-street fight.

Lincoln? Any dream of capturing him was remote. He would remove himself, take ship, and escape. It would not be the act of a coward. It would be a political necessity, though the abandoning of the capital would spell his doom nevertheless.

He knew that was yet another reason why President Davis was coming north, with the hope of a triumphal march into the White House, there to receive the ambassadors of every European power.

That would be the deciding moment, when word of the fall of Washington was passed on to Europe. Recognition, at least by France and the Hapsburgs, would be certain and, as it was in the winter of 1777 after the British surrender at Saratoga, so it would be in the late summer of 1863. Military victory would lead to diplomatic recognition and support that would then lead to the final victory.

England would not join the others. The antislavery movement in England outweighed any economic or balance-of-power considerations.

He knew that
with the perception of victory
now so close,
any suggestion that the South co
unter the Emancipation Proclamation with its own announcement of some form of manumission would fall upon deaf ears. But to do so at this moment of victory would strengthen their hand, and perhaps sway England as well. Then it truly would be a final blow.

This is not my arena,
he realized.
This is a political, a social question; I must focus on the military
—and he pushed the contemplation aside.

Take Washington, then let Grant come east to that news. With good fortune there would be no fight with him, for the war would already be over.

Lee blew out die candles, left the table, and knelt on the hard, rough plank floor, lowering his head in silent prayer.

"Thy Will be done," he finally whispered and, curling up on the sofa, he drifted into exhausted sleep.

The White House

July 16 1863

It
was nearly midnight. President Lincoln stood alone, gazing out of the second-floor office window. The grounds of the executive mansion were a garrison this night, artillery pieces positioned at the four corners, a second battery positioned and unlimbered on Pennsylvania Avenue, along with four companies of regular infantry encamped on the lawn facing Lafayette Square. Stanton had actually wanted the troops to dig in, to build barricades, an indignity to the building and to the position. The president had refused.

Across the street the lights of the Treasury Building were ablaze, couriers riding up with a clatter of hooves, muddy water splashing. Officers came and went, each one with purposeful stride, as if the entire fate of the nation rested upon them this night as indeed it might.

He looked back over his shoulder. John Hay, his twenty-five-year-old secretary, was asleep, curled up on a sofa. The house was quiet. Mary had insisted, earlier in the evening, that at least Tad should be evacuated, and there had been a row. It had dragged on for nearly an hour, her in tears, sayi
ng
that he didn't care for the well-being of Taddie and was only thinking of what the newspapers would say.

She had finally settled down, calling Taddie in to sleep beside her, and now there was peace.

In part she was right and he knew it, the realization troubling. Every paper would scream a d
enouncement if he did evacuate h
is family, ready to point out that while he worried about his own kin, tens of thousands of others had died.

Evacuation was out of the question, and besides, if it ever did come to capture, he knew that Mary and Tad would be treated with the utmost deference by Lee.

An outrageous report had just come to him this morning, that Lee's son, taken prisoner last month, was languishing in a dank cell in Fortress Monroe, nearly dead from his wound. He had sent a sharp reprimand to the commandant, and ordered that the prisoner be slated for immediate exchange as a wounded officer. It was not to curry favor. It was simply the civilized thing to do. He knew Lee would do the same without hesitation.

Strange that the two of us are enemies. I did offer him command of all the Union armies in 1861. A tragedy he turned me down. With his leadership the Union would have been restored quickly and decisively.
From the west-facing windows of the White House, he could see Lee's old home, inherited through his wife and now confiscated by the Union, dominating Arlington Heights. Though they were of different backgrounds and social status, he felt an affinity toward the man. He sensed that Lee wished this thing to be ended as well, while across the street there was more than one officer this night who
revelled
in the power and in the sheer destruction, the opium-like seduction that war could create, the smoke of it seeping into the lungs to control and to poison the mind.

McClellan was like that, so was Hooker, they loved it, the power, the pageantry, the shrill dreams of glory. Perhaps in another age that illusion might have been real, in the time of Henry V, or of Julius Caesar. At least it seemed that way upon the stage and in pai
ntings. But he remembered Antie
tam, the first battlefield he had ever walked upon, the air thick with the cloying stench of decay wafting up out of shallow graves, soldiers still burning the carcasses of dead horses, the hospital tents overflowing with wounded and hysterical boys struggling before the final fall into oblivion.

He had seen it in the eyes of so many women, young girls, vacant-eyed fathers dressed in black. No longer would the gay tunes of a martial band bring a smile to their faces, only the memory of a son, a husband, a boy who had heard that music and marched off
...
never to return.

"God, will this ever end?" he whispered.

"Sir?"

It was Hay, stirring, looking up at him, ready to return to his desk to write down another memo, another order.

Lincoln shook his head and made a soothing gesture with long, bony hands, motioning for his loyal secretary to go back to sleep.

He went back over to his desk and sat down, absently sifting through the pile of papers, documents, and newspapers awaiting his attention. The flow was far heavier than usual, a pile awaiting him every morning, and no matter how fast he attempted to clear it, yet more came in throughout the day and night He pushed the papers back, tilted his chair, and rested his long legs up on the desk.

The entreaties from members of Congress, those few still in the city and the rest from around the country, would have to be answered, but that could wait The majority were simply doing the usual posturing for the home press, so they could thump their chests and announce how they had advised the president most carefully on this latest crisis.

The implied threat in more than one letter from Congress was clear. Some were already seeking a way to disenthrall themselves from support of the war, so they could claim all along that they knew the effort to save the Union would be a failure. Others were thundering about who was responsible for the disaster at Union Mills. Several members of the Committee on the Conduct of the War had announced that hearings would be held.

There was even the issue of who was now in command of the Army of the Potomac. Meade was dead; Dan Butterfield had just made it back through the lines this morning, Hancock barely surviving. In his own mind he wondered if that army even still existed or should be quietly disbanded, survivors shifted into other commands. Troops were scattered from Harrisburg to the Chesapeake; the only thing protecting that broken remnant and the cities of the North from Lee was the flooded Susquehanna. Nominally, Couch, who commanded the twenty thousand militia hastily gathered at Harrisburg, controlled the district, but the job was far beyond the capability of a general who had asked to be relieved of field command only two months ago.

Secretary of State Seward was reporting requests from a dozen ambassadors for interviews. Already dispatches were winging to the courts of Europe, with lurid details of the collapse of the Army of the Potomac, and tomorrow more would go out, announcing that the capital was under siege.

How long?

Stanton, puffing and wheezing, had arrived earlier in the evening, announcing that Stuart had been spotted in front of Fort Stevens, and then predicting that rain or not, Lee would strike tomorrow.

He looked back out the window. The steady patter of rain had eased, a damp fog was beginning to roll in from the flooded marshland just below the White House.

If
he attacks, will Heintzelman be able to hold?

The general was confident, but then again, nearly all of them showed confidence until the shock of battle hit Still, the positions were strong, the men within them dry, well fed, rested, ammunition in abundance. Though they were inexperienced compared to the battle-hardened men of the old Army of the Potomac, his sense of them was that they would fight. They had endured two years of jibes and, when they came into the city on furlough, even brawls
with the men of the field army,
who denounced the heavy-artillery units as garrison soldiers afraid of a fight.

Dug in as they were, they'd fight, but there would be precious few reserves, with every fort on a perimeter of thirty miles having to be manned.

He stood and walked back to the window.

He wondered how President Madison had felt, standing here, watching as the couriers came riding in, announcing the disaster at Blandensburg, the fact that the British would be in the city by nightfall.

And yet the republic had survived that. There was never a question of surrender then, nor with George Washington after the fall of Philadelphia, when Congress moved to the frontier outpost of York.

For Washington in 1777 and Madison in 1814 it had been a question of will. It was the same challenge for him this night

Tonight, he knew that in a fair part of those states still loyal, will was evaporating, burning away under the heat of this war. As the horrific tally from Union Mills was tapped out to distant telegraph stations across the land, the victory at Vicksburg would be washed away in a sea of mourning and recriminations.