The Fateful Lightning (26 page)

SAVANNAH, GEORGIA—DECEMBER 8, 1864

H
e had designed the defensive lines around Savannah himself, semicircles of earthworks and cut trees that spread out for more than ten miles from the center of the city. Adding to his efforts were additional troops, some of those coming in on the rail lines from the north, garrisons in Charleston and Augusta. But still the numbers were woefully inadequate, and even his carefully planned defenses could not be manned with enough force to hold Sherman away.

Hardee had ordered General Lafayette McLaws to take command of a force of some four thousand men, mostly Georgia militia and green troops, mingled with those few veterans McLaws had under a command of his own. It was Hardee’s hope that those men make some kind of effective stand well out from the city, along Ogeechee Creek, a hard defensive line that would at least delay Sherman’s advance, and possibly punch a hard fist into the vanguard of Sherman’s forces. McLaws was a capable veteran who had served under Lee at Gettysburg. But he was first a Georgian, and when McLaws suffered the clash of personalities in Longstreet’s command, an event far too common in the Confederate hierarchy, McLaws had chosen to return
to his home state. Whether or not he got along with his peers, McLaws was an asset to Hardee. But more, once McLaws saw the vulnerability of his position along the Ogeechee, he requested that Hardee allow him to withdraw eastward, to a strongpoint much closer to Savannah. Hardee had no alternative but to agree. He understood what McLaws was observing in the field, that a significant flanking movement by Sherman’s advance might swallow up those troops completely, a loss that would reduce Hardee’s overall strength by nearly half. Hardee had already accepted that the troops he had on hand would likely be all he would be given, even if Richmond or General Beauregard promised otherwise.

As Hardee maneuvered his meager force into a coherent defense, he was given a gift, one of the few strokes of good fortune that the Confederates had received since Sherman left Atlanta. With Wheeler’s cavalry still dogging the heels of Sherman’s flanks, a Federal courier had stumbled into Wheeler’s men. The message the man carried was the first indication Hardee or the rest of the Southern command had received that clarified Sherman’s intentions. The courier carried orders and detailed planning intended for General Slocum, but instead those orders were carried quickly to Hardee. Though Hardee had concluded for himself that Savannah was to be Sherman’s ultimate target, the orders now confirmed that. Word was sent immediately to Beauregard, who had finally arrived at Augusta. Hardee had every reason to expect that Beauregard would now order those ten thousand troops garrisoned there to be sent by whatever practicable route necessary, to strengthen his lines at Savannah.

But the chaos of command still plagued any efforts at coordination. Before Beauregard’s arrival, Braxton Bragg was in command of the overall theater, and in a gesture that Hardee was forced to appreciate, Bragg had allowed a small portion of those troops to travel to the coast, adding to Hardee’s force. But with Beauregard now replacing Bragg’s authority with his own, caution once again prevailed. Though Beauregard had wired Richmond with a detailed report of the desperate situation in Georgia, he had seemed equally as concerned just how his reputation might suffer for what was becoming rabid impatience with John Bell Hood, whose vainglorious campaign in Tennessee was technically Beauregard’s responsibility. Hardee had
no interest in anything happening now beyond his own sphere, and if Beauregard was to understand just what kind of danger Hardee was facing, Hardee knew that Beauregard would have to travel to Savannah himself. The request had gone out, as urgent a call as Hardee had dared offer his superior. To his surprise, Beauregard, who had moved from Augusta to Charleston, agreed to do just that.

The earthworks were still not fully completed, but the labor was ongoing, men who worked their shovels in shifts, aided by every Negro Hardee could secure from surrounding plantations. He knew the outermost lines were indefensible, a loose configuration of artillery posts and rifle pits that spread in an organized pattern well beyond Savannah’s limits. But he had focused more of the work on the positions closer to the city, an arcing defense that extended barely five miles from the center of town. Here earthworks were made stronger by flooded fields, the marshy ground claimed for growing rice. Now those watery plains were meant as a barrier, Hardee’s desperate hope that the Federal forces would be funneled onto the higher ground of roadways and earthen dams, far easier for his limited number of troops and artillery pieces to defend. The final line hugged the perimeter of the city itself, a far stronger position, aided by the massive coastal guns that had once faced the sea. The men seemed to draw inspiration from that, though Hardee knew that once Sherman’s artillery was in range of that line, no response Hardee could offer would keep the Federal army away for long. At the very least, the last line might offer Hardee’s troops valuable time, enough perhaps to allow an evacuation of the city by any passageway that might yet exist.

T
hey cheered him still, men sweating in the cold, some of them shirtless, strong backs to rival the strength of the slaves. He tried to acknowledge them, offering a tip of his hat, or a feeble wave, the most energy he could muster.

He was achingly tired, his eyes heavy with lack of sleep, had ridden along much of the defensive positions for a long afternoon, followed by several aides and a pair of staff officers. He kept pushing the horse, would not stop to chat with any of the officers along the line, felt the
weariness in every joint, knew that this night would be like so many before. It was not just the responsibility, all those civilians and their fears, complaints about shortages or panic over just what kind of army was headed their way. Hardee had been kept awake as much by the torment in his own mind, if there was something more that he could have done, if there was some flaw in his planning, in the strategy that his own instincts told him were utterly futile in stopping Sherman’s advance. As he read the reports from McLaws, from Wheeler, it seemed to engulf Hardee like a terrible dream, the bone-chattering fear that comes from absolute helplessness. In the darkness, his fitful sleep would give way to wide-eyed staring, a frustrating vision of some bizarre contest, a duel where only one participant carried a weapon. When daylight came, he could not just sit in his headquarters without knowing just how much progress the men were making on the earthworks. And so he rode, as he had ridden today, oddly surprised that his presence seemed to give them energy when he had none at all inside himself.

In the waning days of Bragg’s authority, Bragg had kept Wheeler’s cavalry between Sherman’s army and Augusta, still believing that Sherman would make his move in that direction. Hardee hadn’t believed that in more than two weeks, even before his suspicions had been confirmed by the captured courier. But Bragg was no longer any authority at all, and Hardee knew that a newly arriving Beauregard would know little enough about Sherman’s actual maneuvering. Hardee had taken it on himself to move Wheeler where the cavalry might be more effective. Thus far there had been more skirmishes with Kilpatrick’s bluecoats, nothing gained but a scattering of casualties on both sides. And for at least a short while, Hardee had pondered if the Federal courier had been a ruse, if Sherman had sent the man into Wheeler’s troopers with false information. But now Wheeler’s tracking of Sherman’s march had made him confident that Sherman’s columns had put Augusta to their rear, and so there was little need for Wheeler to keep his invaluable strength so far behind where Sherman was now moving.

Hardee pulled the horse back, turned away from the earthworks, looked out toward the tall spires of Savannah’s many churches, made brighter by the glare of the sun setting behind him. He stared for a
long moment, thought of the civilians, knew that the churches had become more than a Sunday destination. They will be gathering there soon, he thought, after their evening meals. Seeking news, information, word of great victories, the foolishness of the newspapers, or anything that comes to us from Richmond. They will seek guidance, inspiration, hope. I can find no fault with that. They cannot know all that I know. They see guns and troops and stacked muskets and believe in us, believe that we bring great power to protect them. He looked down, blinked through the heaviness in his eyes, thought, What might I find there? Is there some priest who will take my hand and assure me that all will be well? It had been a significant change in his life, accepting the doctrine of the Episcopal Church, inspired by his friend and fellow commander, the army’s most notable Episcopalian, Bishop and General Leonidas Polk. But soon after Hardee’s conversion, Polk had been killed outside of Atlanta. That devastating blow had resulted from a single round of artillery, blasting through the man like the fist of God, as though some great price had been exacted from a man who had inspired more religious fervor in this army than any other.

It was a devastating blow to Hardee, as much as to the rest of the army. His military mind agonized to understand how such a thing was allowed to happen, and he could not just absorb his friend’s death with faithful acceptance, as Polk himself might do. He had been angered by it, examined the event by the only tools Hardee had, the mind of a strategist, weighing the mathematics of it, the raw odds of an artillery shell cutting through not just any one man, but
that
man, and if there had been a Hand of God in that, Hardee had convinced himself that for one brief moment, a flicker of time, God had looked the other way. There was no other explanation that satisfied Hardee, and now none was needed. As horrific as that news had been, what he had just learned was much worse, his mind grappling still with the greatest sadness he had felt since the war began. Hardee had learned from Bishop Polk to place his faith in a just God, but now that faith was not just tested, it was nearly torn away.

The telegraph line that ran to Charleston was still intact, allowing information to pass down the coast from Augusta and far beyond. And so word had reached him of an immense fight at Franklin, Tennessee,
more than a week before, the bitter fruit sown by John Bell Hood’s attempt to drive the war northward, deep into Federally controlled strongholds. Franklin had been a disaster for Hood’s army, and Hardee couldn’t help an angry grief that it was a disaster for everything decent in a world growing more indecent every day. Among the dead was Patrick Cleburne.

Cleburne had served Hardee with a tenacious and valiant effort throughout the campaign at Stones River. But Cleburne’s star rose far higher at Chattanooga. He had been the single spot of bright light in a campaign dominated by what Hardee knew to be the unbending incompetence of Braxton Bragg. Despite Bragg’s continuing missteps, a grossly outnumbered Cleburne had held off a number of powerful assaults from Sherman’s own forces, had held out until the darkness silenced Sherman’s guns. It was the only success in a day of catastrophe, the rest of the Federal army sweeping up and over the high ground far from Cleburne’s enormous triumph, wiping away Bragg’s entire army in a defeat as absolute as any of the war. Hardee had seen Cleburne throughout that remarkable day, had silently applauded the man’s heroics. But in the end, Hardee had been forced to order his best subordinate to back off the ground he had won, Cleburne assigned to protect the army as it made good a desperate retreat. Cleburne not only accomplished the task, he bloodied the triumphant Federal pursuit completely at Ringgold Gap, a pass through the north Georgia mountains, which allowed the remnants of Bragg’s army to escape. Even Richmond seemed to recognize what Hardee already appreciated. Cleburne was a true hero, earning an official “Thanks from the Congress of the Confederacy,” a rare accolade in an army where few had earned it.

After Chattanooga, Cleburne had continued to show the kind of tenacity the army had not seen since the days of Stonewall Jackson, serving Hardee as well as anyone in the efforts to prevent Sherman’s capture of Atlanta. But Hardee could not control the whims of Richmond, and so when Hardee had been ordered away to Charleston, he had lost command of what he believed to be the best field officer in the army, and even worse, he lost touch with one of his closest friends. Cleburne had been ordered to continue on with Hood, had been a part of what Hardee had always believed to be an astounding waste
of effort and manpower. Even Beauregard, who could have prevented it, had allowed Hood to venture off on a quixotic quest for redemption, as though by striking out toward Nashville, Hood could excuse his loss of Atlanta. Now, Hardee thought, Sherman is right out here, coming this way, and the only man I know who could hope to stop him…is gone.