Hell or Richmond (79 page)

“Hapgood commands what remains of the Fifth New Hampshire,” Barlow put in. “Some of the men lying out there belong to his regiment.”

“Colonel Hapgood’s corps officer of the day,” Hancock explained. “He’ll see you on your way.” And back to Hapgood: “Don’t get Lyman killed, if you can help it. Meade’s unaccountably fond of him.”

A quizzical look had overtaken Hapgood, who seemed to have been summoned without explanation.

“Flag of truce,” Barlow told him. “That’s why Teddy’s dressed up for the ball. Impress our Southern brethren with our plumage.” His smile was a silent snicker, just showing his crooked teeth. Even to his friends, Lyman knew, Barlow was only intermittently friendly. One accepted it.

“About damned time,” Hapgood said.

“We’re just waiting for the general’s man to find him a white rag. You, Charlie, are to show Lyman and his equally well-attired cavalry sergeant the way.”

Hapgood figured for a pair of seconds. “Have to take him down to the flank. Keep away from the sharpshooters.”

Hancock had enough. “Lyman, don’t shit this up. Those men are dying.” He turned to an orderly who had the gift of making himself nearly invisible in the presence of high rank. “Find Major Mitchell. Tell him to give our imperial emissary two bottles of the best whiskey we’ve got.” Addressing himself a final time to Lyman, he said, “The liquor’s not for Dutch courage, Lyman. It’s for the Rebs, for goodwill. Maybe they won’t shoot you, if you pop out bearing gifts.” He stalked out.

“Really, Teddy,” Barlow said, “you’re the most important man in this army today. Do what you can, old fellow.”

“I have no power to negotiate, of course. Grant—”

“Do what you can,”
Barlow repeated. A trick of the light let Lyman see that his friend’s eyes had grown ancient.

Hancock’s manservant reappeared. He held out a starched pillowcase, a phenomenon as rare in the camp as a petticoat. Hapgood took it, looked at Lyman, and said, “I’ll get this up on a stick.”

Lyman was anxious to go. The air in the tent was nastier than the death-smell beyond the flaps. It smelled like rotten feet. Extremely rotten feet.

As Lyman and his escort went out, Barlow called, “Keep him alive, if you can, Charlie. He’s not entirely worthless.”

*   *   *

Set back a hundred yards from the works, the headquarters of Miles’ brigade resembled a termite colony exposed by a lifted plank. Traverses led back from a trench and officers worked in shallow, canvas-topped pits to right and left that served as workplace and sleeping quarters. Everyone and everything was filthy. The stench would not be endured, yet men endured it.

Officers and men alike found Lyman’s garb amusing.

Hapgood explained the mission to Miles, who nodded, shrugged, and pointed toward the flank.

The two men rejoined Lyman’s cavalry sergeant escort and remounted, nudging their horses through a ravaged grove until the proper entrenchments gave way to rifle pits. Hapgood turned his horse into the sun.

Another colonel, grubby as a tyke who’d been leaping in mud puddles, clambered out of a pit and held up a hand.

“You know where you’re going, Hapgood? I’ve just had two field officers killed out there.”

The New Englander, who wore bullet holes through his hat, trousers, and scabbard, drew himself up, insulted.

“I
do
know where I’m going.” He nodded. “Some bullets may come through here, but none to hurt.”

Lyman was not reassured.

Hapgood led the way through another fringe of trees. Beyond lay open fields.

“You hold that white flag high now,” Hapgood told the sergeant.

They emerged into full light, letting their mounts go slowly. Twenty yards out, to the rear of another, sparser line of rifle pits, Hapgood stopped them.

“Stay here,” he said, and slipped down from the saddle. “This is as good a point as we’re like to find. Let me scare up an officer.”

Another interval of waiting began as Hapgood searched out the lieutenant commanding the pickets. Lyman had thought it all might be simpler, more dignified. As in
Henry V,
although Union straits were not as desperate as those of the French had been. He wanted to get on with the business, first because proximity to the wounded had driven home their need for succor still more strongly, and second, because he felt no fear, surprising himself, and wished to complete his mission before pangs of dread unmanned him.

At last, Hapgood flushed out the lieutenant, who edged up and called to the Johnnies to summon an officer of their own. After a bout of jawing on the Confederate side, someone was dispatched. That, too, took time. The brute sun of afternoon began its long decline into the evening.

A Confederate captain haggled a little, then called out for his men to hold their fire. The lieutenant did the same on the Union side, and Hapgood waved Lyman and his sergeant forward. The sergeant made certain the white flag remained visible.

“Best dismount,” the New Englander said. “Shoot you just for the horse.”

“Are you to come along?” Lyman asked. Tall and flinty, Hapgood gave him confidence.

The colonel shook his head. “Not ordered, not authorized. You’re on your own, here on out. But I’ll stick by, don’t worry. Make sure the boys don’t mistake you for a bear, you come back in.”

“Thank you.” Lyman offered his hand.

Hapgood gripped it hard. “You get this done.”

Lyman led the way across the longest field he had ever walked, aiming at the single Confederate standing erect behind the opposing rifle pits. There had been no more than a cavalry skirmish this far to the south, but the dead horses strewn about smelled as foul as dead men.

The Rebel officer stood with folded arms, watching them come. As Lyman passed the first rifle pit, a Johnny looked up from his rifle, expression frozen between spite and laughter. He and all of the other soldiers in evidence looked like beggars from a Hugo novel. Beggars with ready weapons.

“Jaysus,” the cavalry sergeant muttered.

Before they closed up to him, the Rebel officer turned on his heel and strode to the rear, around a corner of trees. Lyman followed. Late sun buttered a second field and gilded the oaks beyond. Shielding his eyes, he spotted a pair of officers in frock coats. Perhaps twenty soldiers, all in scavenged uniforms, hunkered along a tree line.

The soldiers took their cue from their officers and did not jeer or smile. Nor did they appear sullen. They were men accustomed to waiting.

One of the officers stepped forward. A major, he noted that Lyman outranked him and saluted. Then he extended his hand, as formally as if at a charity ball.

“Major Wooten,” he said. “Fourteenth North Carolina. To whom do I have the pleasure?”

“Lyman.” He accepted the Rebel’s grip, which was strong without taint of bullying. “Army of the Potomac staff.”

“Ah,” Wooten said. “And you carry a message, sir?”

Lyman undid two buttons of his tunic to draw out the letter. “For General Lee, from General Grant.”

The major’s head moved so slightly, it couldn’t be called a nod. He did not accept the letter.

“I await word from my superiors … whether your dispatch can be received.”

Lyman felt a jolt of impatience. Bad enough that it had taken more than two days to move Grant to commit himself to paper …

Mastering his pique, he said, “I suppose things must be done properly.”

“Yes, sir. These days, many a man has little left, beyond the will to see things properly done.”

Viewed close, the major’s once fine uniform told of hardship. But the man bore himself as if he would have chosen no other from the grandest wardrobe. Pride shone through the rags of these men like candlelight through torn curtains.

Lyman recalled a conversation with Barlow, who had remarked, much to Lyman’s surprise, how he preferred the Confederate officers he’d met during his brief captivity at Gettysburg, when all thought him dying, to the manners and characters of his fellow Yankees. Lyman began to see it now. The Confederate major was utterly without pomposity, yet his dignity was as clean and sharp as a blade. He spoke softly.

Invisible, a horse galloped nearby. Moments later, a captain emerged from the trees. After saluting Major Wooten, he turned to Lyman and said, “I’m permitted the honor of receiving your dispatch, sir.”

“Captain,” Wooten said to his comrade, “you’ve forgotten your manners.” He raised his hand a few inches, hinting at a salute.

“Your pardon,” the captain said, saluting.

Lyman gave him the letter.

“There’ll be an answer,” the captain said. “You’re requested to wait on it, sir.”

The evening’s gold had turned to orange around them.

No sooner had the captain departed than Lyman remembered the whiskey. He started, as if to run after the courier, then contained himself.

“Sergeant? Our ‘peace offering,’ if you will?”

It took the cavalryman, who was not at his ease, a moment to grasp the meaning. Then he produced the bottles from his courier bag.

“Compliments of General Hancock,” Lyman said, extending the gifts.

Major Wooten did not accept them. Not immediately.

“General Hancock? Must be right fine whiskey, what I hear of the man.” He looked down at the proffered bottles, not without, Lyman sensed, a certain longing. Then the major’s face brightened. He turned to a man with a sergeant’s stripes on what remained of a sleeve. “Uriah, fetch up our best tobacco, see what the boys have.” And to Lyman: “If you’ll accept an exchange, sir?”

They sat on shot-down leaves on barren ground, the last light phenomenal in its sumptuousness and the air thick as India rubber with the stench of decaying horses. While they waited, Wooten spoke cordially, drawing in two of his subordinates. In a quiet voice not meanly meant, one of them stated, “You can
never
whip us.”

To Lyman’s disappointment, Major Wooten did not open the whiskey.

The Confederates were not unfriendly, but maintained an edge of reserve and a becoming earnestness of manner. It occurred to Lyman how serious—serious beyond mere death—all this was for these men, whose people and homes were threatened by invasion, who now faced hardships on the best of days. His own people lived in plenty, immune to war.

“Starfish,” Wooten said at one point. “Now there’s a thing I never thought to study.”

As darkness fell, firing broke out along the line back beyond the arc of trees. Wooten and his officers leapt to their feet to quiet things.

When he returned, the major said frankly, “I would offer you the hospitality of our camp, but there’s little that suits.” His face was blue in the starlit night. Lyman caught the ghost of a smile, and in a voice still softer, Wooten said, “Times I smell the coffee from over your way, it puts me in mind of home. I do miss coffee.” He smiled gently. “Of course, a man can’t smell nothing but rot these days.”

“If I should come again,” Lyman assured him, “I’ll bring along coffee.”

With a gesture as flitting as a bat, Wooten dismissed the promise. “Thank you, Colonel. But we are not reduced to charity.”

Neither of them spoke of the wounded men, but Lyman chose to believe that this major thought about them with the same humanity he himself applied.

Just after ten, the major sent a courier to the rear to inquire about the answer to the letter. At eleven, a lieutenant delivered a note. Wooten read it by the light of a match, then passed it to Lyman.

It stated that “General Grant’s aide-de-camp need not be delayed further.” A response would be passed through the picket line in the morning.

Eleven p.m.
Headquarters, Army of Northern Virginia

“No,” Lee said.

“Sir,” Venable tried again, “it’s a matter of common decency.…”

Eyes aflame, Lee turned on him. “No, sir! I have said,
‘No!’
Do you fail to understand me? General Grant must acknowledge his defeat.” He gestured toward the letter on the desk. “His wording is shameless, dishonest. He tries to preserve an illusion of parity, when he has disgraced himself.”

“He knows he’s been defeated,” Marshall tried.

Lee aimed his temper in the military secretary’s direction. “He will
admit
defeat. He must not presume upon mercy.” Again, he pointed toward the letter. “Read it, Colonel Marshall. No, let me read it to
you,
sir.” Animated to a degree that alarmed his aides, Lee snatched up the message from Grant and, voice startlingly harsh, repeated, “‘It is reported to me that there are wounded men, probably of both armies, now lying exposed and suffering between the lines.…’” Face heated to a darkling rose, he said, “That … is infamous, gentlemen.
My
soldiers are not lying between the lines. Those are
his
soldiers. If he wishes, after so much delay, to ease their suffering at last, General Grant must send out a flag of truce, not a flag of parley. He must admit defeat, and he must adhere to the protocols of war.”

“Sir—”

“
I will
not
be persuaded!
”
Lee looked about as if surrounded by enemies. “This country … Virginia … has suffered … suffered. I would not be cruel … not cruel, but of necessity. Grant must ask for a formal truce and acknowledge his defeat.”

His aides remained silent.

Remembering himself, Lee straightened his spine and mastered his tone. “Colonel Marshall, take up your pen. I will extend to General Grant the courtesy of a reply. You may send it through the picket line in the morning.”

Marshall waited. Venable brooded. Taylor looked away.

“General,” Lee began, “I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter…”

June 6, seven thirty a.m.
Grant’s headquarters

Call his bluff, Grant thought. He understood what Lee wanted. And he didn’t mean to give it to him. Not for one more day, anyway. He had calculated the time it would take—not long—for the Richmond papers to declare a victory for Lee, then have the rags pass through the lines. Their claims would spread across the North by telegraphic message.

He did not mean to embarrass Lincoln while the political roosters were crowing up in Baltimore. It was hard enough that the New York papers were printing all too accurate casualty reports, early figures of between five thousand and seventy-five hundred men lost since June first.