Stars and Stripes in Peril (7 page)

As General Sherman turned away his glance fell on the other officers who had come to witness the test firing of the Gatling gun. One of them looked familiar—very familiar. Where...? Of course!

"Captain Meagher of the New York 60th." He glanced at the man's shoulders and smiled. "Or Colonel Meagher, I should say. And how is the wound?"

"Fit as a fiddle and raring to go. Sure but the Englishman that's able to kill this Irishman has not been born yet, General."

"And a good thing too," Sherman said, frowning at the memory of that day's battle when an overwhelming force of British soldiers had all but destroyed the Irish regiment. "They wiped out your regiment, didn't they?"

"They tried, General, they certainly tried. But killing Irishmen, why that's like the old Greek story of cutting down one man and a hundred growing in his place."

"That's right—you have an Irish Brigade now—"

"In which I am most happy to serve. If you want to see professional soldiers you must see us on parade! Almost all of the men are veterans, proud fighters, transferred in from almost every regiment in the army—both north and south. And we have plenty of young volunteers, all of them yearning to join in with other Irishmen. And we've trained them hard, until I do believe that the recruits are as good as the veterans. They're a fine lot and eager as spit to be let loose on the English. And we're stationed close by, part of the Army of the Potomac now. You must come around to our mess and have a drink of some good poteen. All of us are sons of Erin, but now good Americans to a man."

"I might very well do that, Colonel Meagher, I might very well." He started away, then turned back. "Have you seen the reports—the new troubles with the British?"

"Seen them, sir—why I've memorized them! When the time comes to start shooting at the English again, you must never forget that you have an entire brigade of volunteers ready and willing for your command."

"Most commendable, Colonel," Sherman said, smiling. "Take my word—I shall not forget that."

WE SHALL NOT FORGET

"Are you coming then, Tom? For I have an almighty thirst that is near to killing me."

The words were clearly heard through the thin canvas of the army tent. Colonel Thomas Francis Meagher finished pulling on his boots as he called back. "I'm coming, Paddy, you can be sure of that."

He went out and joined his friend and they strolled to the Officers' Mess together. Captain P. F. Clooney, like many of the officers of the Irish Brigade, was a veteran soldier even before he had joined the American army. He had served in an earlier Irish unit, the Irish Brigade of St. Patrick, which had fought in defense of the Papal States against Garibaldi. When the hostilities ended, torn by his loyalty to the Papacy and sympathetic to Garibaldi's cry for freedom, he had turned his back on both of them and had emigrated to the United States, where he had enlisted in the American army.

The Officers' Mess was in a sturdy building that had been a farmhouse standing on the grounds where the Irish Brigade now pitched their tents. When Meagher and Clooney came through the front door they discovered that the meeting of the other officers was already under way when they arrived. It was the first Sunday of the month when all of the members of the Fenian Officers' Circle met together. This was the focal point of the revolutionary group in the army that supported the Fenian movement in Ireland. Men who were dedicated to the liberation of Ireland from British rule. But today they had another problem to consider. Captain O'Riley called out as they entered.

"Tell us, Francis, is the rumor true that we are to have new uniforms?"

"Not a rumor but a fact, my old son," Meagher said. "It's the new recruits you see. During the war we were a Northern regiment and proudly wore the blue of our country. Now that the war is over we are no longer just a regiment, but have grown to be a brigade. Lots of good soldiers have joined us from what was the Southern army and the mixture of uniforms in our ranks has been something wicked to see. The War Department, in its wisdom, has been considering uniform changes for some time. In the new kind of war that we are fighting, with new and more accurate guns, a more neutral sort of color of the uniform is very much in order. We have all seen what lovely targets the red British uniforms provide!"

There were shouts of
"hear, hear"
and some wild whistling. Meagher held up his hands for silence.

"Khaki, a sort of grayish brown, has been chosen. It may look a bit like mud, which is not a bad idea when you are lying down in the stuff. I, for one, am in favor of it. Anything that does not make a soldier stand out in the battlefield is a good thing. Of course we will keep our dress uniforms for important occasions, and dances and suchlike."

"When do we get our mud duds?" someone called out.

"A week or two. They'll let us know."

The door slammed open and Captain John Gossen came in. His expression was black, his mien angry when he hurled his coat onto a chair.

"Betrayal!" he said as he glowered around at the other officers.

The usual air of good cheer and friendliness seemed to vanish in an instant.

"What's wrong?" Meagher asked.

"Death and betrayal," Captain John Gossen said bitterly, his manner now so different from his usual lively self. He had served previously with the Seventh Hussars of Austria, a dashing Hungarian regiment. "That miserable schoolmaster, Nagle, is in the pay of the British. Luby, O'Leary and Rossa have been arrested. The
Irish People
suppressed." He was talking about the Fenians in Ireland, and their official newspaper.

"They never!" Meagher cried aloud.

"They did," W.L.D. O'Grady said darkly. "I heard the same news myself, but I couldn't believe it. I'll believe anything about the English. I know the bastards. They'll try them in a kangaroo court—then shoot them." He did know the English very well, having once served in the Royal Marines.

"Is there nothing we can do?" Clooney asked.

"Little enough," Meagher said, chewing over the bad news. "Send them money—they'll need it for lawyers if there is a trial. And we will have to find a way to reorganize from the ground up. Our newspaper is suppressed, everyone taken I imagine—or on the run. If there is one informer in the organization there are bound to be others. Betrayal is in the air."

"Aye—and right here in America, in New York City as well," O'Grady said. "Red Jim MacDermot, him with the flaming beard, there is good reason to consider him an informer as well. Yet John O'Mahony who runs the office won't hear a word said about him. But I have had a letter, from someone I can trust, that says he was seen coming out of the British Consul's office."

"I believe it," Meagher said, "but you'll never sell it to O'Mahony. Which means as long as he runs the New York office of the Fenians, the British will know everything that we do. Which means in turn that we must find a better way to further the cause. The first precaution must be to separate our Fenian Officers' Circle here from the group in Ireland. There is no other way. With all of the leaders now captured we have a body without a head. I feel that we must start again from scratch. We must forget all of them. We'll draw on the Irish-American community here for money. There will be no more recruiting in Ireland, for it seems we have recruited as many informers as we have loyal Irishmen."

"And then what do we do?" Clooney asked.

"We must put our thinking caps on," Meagher said. "And find a way to do it right for a change. But enough of that now! For the moment let us drown our sorrows. Is the milk punch ready?"

"It is indeed!"

With serious matters put aside they turned their attention to this lethal drink. The Fenian milk punch was concocted of whisky and condensed milk, seasoned with nutmegs and lemons, then stirred with a little hot water. Surgeon Francis Reynolds was the bard of the brigade and when they raised their glasses and mugs he cheered them on with a song.

"See who comes over the red blossomed heather,

Their green banners kissing the pure mountain air,

Heads erect! Eyes to front! Stepping proudly together...

Out and make way for the bold Fenian men."

This was well received. So much so that Surgeon Reynolds went on with all the rest of the verses hailing the fame of the Fenians. In the midst of all this jollity no one at first seemed to notice the two men who had entered and stood quietly by the door listening to the singing. It was only when Meagher went to refill his glass from the punch bowl that he noticed the newcomers and called out cheerily.

"Is that Gus Fox himself who has come to join us in our festivity? Come in, come in! Gentlemen of the

Fenian Circle

, meet the honorable Gustavus Fox, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy."

He used that title, rather than any other that would explain their relationship. In truth, with his Fenian and other Irish contacts, Meagher had long been part of Fox's intelligence-gathering organization.

"A glass of punch, now, that's a good man. No, make it two, one each for Gus and his friend."

They took the glasses, but before they could drink Fox raised his hand for silence, then took an official-looking envelope from his pocket. "I have just come from the War Department where, as you all undoubtedly know, they rest not nor do they sleep."

There were catcalls and laughter at this. Fox waited for the sounds to die down before he held out the envelope. "This is for Colonel Meagher. Since I was on my way here I volunteered to act as messenger. Here you are, sir."

Meagher read it through slowly, then climbed to his feet and called for silence.

"Boys, I want you all to hear this. You know that I have been in command of my regiment while we wait for General James Shields to arrive and assume command of the entire brigade. He's Irish-born and a fine officer, or so I have been told. Unhappily for us the general has turned down command of the Irish Brigade. Sore news indeed."

Meagher's expression belied his words for he was smiling from ear to ear.

"Now I have even worse news for you. That good-for-nothing, lollygagging, Colonel Meagher has been appointed brigadier general and will take command at once."

The news was greeted with great enthusiasm, more milk punch was poured, and Meagher was carried around the room on the shoulders of his officers. When the noise had abated slightly Fox added to the congratulations, then drew Meagher aside, towards the young man who had waited quietly by the door sipping his drink.

"Jim," he said, "I want you to meet an associate of mine who has just returned from a fact-finding trip to Mexico. Jim Meagher, this is Ambrosio O'Higgins."

"That's a divil of a name for a good Irish lad. Welcome Ambrosio, welcome to the Fenian circle."

"It is my pleasure to meet such a renowned officer," O'Higgins said.

They shook hands and Meagher looked at those pale Irish eyes set in the lad's well-tanned face, but forbore asking any questions. The rest of the officers were quiet now, intrigued by this mysterious stranger. It was Fox who broke the silence in a manner that instantly drew their attention.

"One of the things that O'Higgins recently found out was the fact that there are English invaders once more on our American shores."

There was absolute silence now and the smiles were gone. Replaced by an intensity of feeling that emanated from these warriors' faces.

"I have been in the south of Mexico," O'Higgins said. "In the Mexican states of Vera Cruz and Oaxaca. I found there that there are many divisions of British troops that have been landed on the Pacific shore, theoretically invited into that country by the Emperor Maximilian. Who is himself a usurper, kept in power by the French invaders, who have driven into exile the legitimate government of Benito Juarez. They have even forced him to flee his country."

"But—what are the British troops doing there?" Meagher asked, speaking for all of them. Fox answered first.

"They say they are building a road there in the jungle, nothing more. O'Higgins will tell you about it."

"It is a tremendous mighty bit of work. For this purpose they have employed troops of many races. There are Indian regiments with the strangest of names. Dogras and Sepoys, and wee men from Nepal called Gurkhas who are the fiercest fighters in the world, or so I have been told. All of these, some English troops as well, are sweating and slaving in the jungle to build a road between the oceans. From the Pacific to the Atlantic."

Meagher drank deep—then shook his head with befuddlement. "Now what in God's green earth would be the need for a road across Mexico?"

O'Higgins gave a very Latin shrug. "They say it is to help the French collect the money that is owed to them."

"Pull the other one!" someone shouted from the audience and they all called out in agreement. O'Higgins looked puzzled.

"The English are pulling your leg," Meagher said. "Meaning that they are lying out and out about this road."

"In that you are very right," Fox said. "We know that this road is being built, because O'Higgins here has been to Mexico and watched them doing it. Here in Washington we think differently about the reason for its construction. All the evidence leads us to believe that the British are preparing for another invasion of this country."

There was a roar of anger at this news, followed by a number of oaths in both English and Irish. They pressed more punch upon "Andy" O'Higgins—there was no way they could get their mouths around an outlandish name like Ambrosio—and called for more details. O'Higgins told them what he seen, and overheard, while Fox fleshed out the facts with the conclusions he had reached about what the road would be used for.

"What I have told you here is most secret, and is known to very few outside this room. I have taken you into my confidence because you are all good soldiers, good Americans—and Irish as well, which is of great importance. We in the military know that you still have the contacts in Ireland and England and that is why we need your help. There are warships being built now, in Ireland, England and Scotland. If I am correct there will soon be a great fleet assembled. I call upon you for aid in discovering the British plans—"