Hell or Richmond (53 page)

What stunned Barlow most was the swiftness of the action. He had not been able to keep up with his own men and still direct the following brigades to their proper places. The corps had made a brilliant, unexpectedly brilliant, start. But it was only a start, and he worried about preserving cohesion sufficiently well to keep his men driving forward. With the artillery threat behind them, the risk now was a collapse of unit discipline amid the chaos.

He rode through a gap in the abatis and leapt from his horse onto a berm, tossing the reins to an orderly. When he looked down into the trench, he found a snake den of tangled bodies, most of them gashed bloody, many gut-ripped, and almost all in gray or some rough approximation of a uniform. Trapped under corpses, wounded men struggled to free themselves. The stronger cried for help.

A long, filthy hand clutched the air, searching for a grip.

His staff surrounded Barlow, pistols ready. The ditch was too wide to leap, and he thought it tasteless to scramble over the casualties. He walked the berm until he found a traverse wall, then made his way into the smoke and confusion. He found himself in a queer, twilit world, with the noise of the heaviest fighting hundreds of yards on ahead, but little quarrels of fists or clubbed muskets still erupting in the assault’s rear.

As word spread that he had come forward, soldiers and officers brought him flags, over a dozen in the first few minutes, ready to lay them at his feet, as though he were Caesar himself. He ordered them sent to the rear.

Some of his soldiers had paused to loot the meager Reb possessions, a practice Barlow despised. But he hadn’t time for it now.

His party was nearly trampled by another mass of Confederate prisoners, shock-faced, bitter-eyed, bleeding, gap-toothed men, in wet rags, skeletal, but bearded like the Patriarchs, some weeping, some defiant, their wild pride humbled, even as they sought to hold their heads high. The better of them stared at him as though, left to their own devices, they would tear away his flesh with their bare hands.

He jostled his way through men already separated from their units and pushed through briars and military wreckage, discovering corpses in unexpected places, their bodies contorted, some comically. Wounded men from both sides sat dumbfounded, or staggered, or crawled. One Reb pulled himself along, leaving a trail of intestines behind his bare feet.

As he came up behind the crowded regiments alternately pressing and chasing the Johnnies toward the heart of Lee’s army, Barlow collared every officer he spotted and ordered them to get their men under control and keep them under control, to maintain their organizations and drive on. But he sensed that his inflamed men were growing uncontrollable, that their bloodlust trumped discipline now. He felt it in himself. Men of every rank had the taste of raw flesh in their mouths: This was revenge for the terrible week behind them, and for every humiliation and loss suffered over the past three years. His men would fight on with fury, but responding to orders was another matter.

The fog grew thicker again, while the rain spit on and off. He couldn’t see far enough ahead to give detailed commands, but his division had an intelligence of its own, grinding into the Rebels. His men stormed past a second line of entrenchments, a supporting line that had done the Johnnies no good. More prisoners moped rearward. Just ahead, the noise of the fighting grew uncanny, a summation of rage and terror expressed in voices, with remarkably few shots.

Today, men preferred the bayonet.

He found John Brooke. The brigade commander’s face was streaked with powder, and the eyes of this coolest of officers blazed wildly.

“We’re driving them … damned well crushing them.” The hate released in each word startled even Barlow.

“John, you’ve got to get your men into some order. Lee’s bound to counterattack. Control your men, for Christ’s sake.”

Brooke shook his head. Eyes utterly mad. As if even his commander might be an enemy. “All tangled up. My men, Birney’s. Damned mess. But we’re cutting the bastards to ribbons.”

“Brooke, you
must
control your men.”

The tone seemed to penetrate. At least partway.

“I’m doing my best, sir. But the men … I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s all I can do to stop them from killing prisoners.”

“Listen to me! Push on. Yes. Drive on. But think, man! Be ready for a counterblow. Lee isn’t going to simply fold up and run.”

“Counterblow,” Brooke said.

He snapped to, suddenly alert, aware. “Yes, sir. Certainly. But I can’t work miracles. Brown’s new to command, he’s got regiments coming in all over the place, crowding my men. It’s not an army up ahead, it’s a bloody mob.”

“It’s your job,” Barlow told him, “to make it an army again.”

Barlow turned away. Just in time to see a not quite familiar regimental flag cutting through the mist.

Gibbon’s men. Committed far too soon. They were only going to worsen the confusion.

There were still more prisoners, though. The advancing, still unbloodied Federals jeered at them.

As he strode through the wreckage, human and matériel, Barlow saw, hardly ten yards off, a kneeling Johnny begging for his life, surrounded by taunting men in blue. The man bent to kiss their boots and they clubbed him to death. Laughing.

He would have had those men court-martialed, lashed, and imprisoned. Any other day but this.

There was no time.

He scrawled another brief note to Hancock and sent it back with a runner. It was difficult to see much of anything, even to keep a proper sense of direction. In the wake of an advancing blue line, he found himself amid a donnybrook of clubbed muskets and angry Rebel resistance. Jim Beaver’s Pennsylvania boys were beating the daylights out of a brave and hopeless bunch of Johnnies.

Beaver tapped him from behind, almost getting a taste of saber.

“Sir, it’s a splendid day! I do like going forward better than playing rear guard.”

“You have your men under control?”

Beaver gestured toward the fray. “It’s a struggle. But yes, I think.”

“Be certain.” There was more firing now and the smoke had grown choking thick. “Lee’s going to counterattack us, as sure as fish drink tea in Boston Harbor. And I don’t want to be rolled up and shoved back to where we started.”

“Sir, we captured General Steuart.” Beaver grinned. “
George
Steuart. When he introduced himself to surrender, all snoot in the air, I thought he meant Jeb Stuart. I was ready to piss my pants and dance a jig.”

Barlow couldn’t help smiling at the image. Pissed pants, maybe. But he really couldn’t envision the sober Beaver dancing a jig.

“I sent him back to General Hancock, I believe they knew each other.”

“Everybody knew Win Hancock,” Barlow said. “He was probably on a first-name basis with Jesus and the Disciples.”

That went a bit too far for the straitlaced Beaver. His expression made a prune seem like a fresh-faced girl in May.

“Get back to your men, Beaver. And remember what I said. Those buggers will be coming, as quick as they can.”

Five fifteen a.m.
Grant’s headquarters

Grant sat outside the headquarters tent, wrapped in a greatcoat against the rain’s rear guard. Couldn’t hear much. No artillery, that was the likely reason. Sound of guns carried, rifles not so much. Wind wrong, anyway.

He took an easy breakfast, a cucumber split and splashed with a pucker of vinegar. Around him, men drank coffee in the smoke of a poor fire, unwilling to take shelter while the general in chief remained outside. Everyone was impatient for news, skittish. John Rawlins looked starved in body and soul, and his cough was back. Grant had a mind to tell his chief of staff to go on in the tent, but didn’t want to shame him. Anyway, the rain had soaked the canvas to a sagging weight, and there was probably as much risk within as without.

A courier ran up, waving a piece of paper.

“From General Hancock!” he shouted.

Telegraphic message. Rawlins intercepted it. After scanning it quickly, he announced, “Hancock’s men have the works! Hundreds of prisoners…” Rawlins stared at the paper, making out another scrawl. “He’s in their
second
line of works.”

The staff men cheered, slapped each other’s backs, and spilled a good bit of coffee.

When Rawlins looked over to him, Grant just nodded. And took a bite of cucumber. He didn’t know where Bill got his special vinegar, but it bit all the way down to a man’s knees. Kept his drain open, too.

Another courier arrived.

“Over two thousand prisoners!” Rawlins shouted. He looked around the assembly, so excited he appeared downright astonished. “He’s captured two generals.”

“Who?” Grant asked.

“E. Johnson and G. Steuart, it says.”

Grant nodded. Cucumber was all up. He flicked his hand dry.

The dispatches came in an avalanche after that: The Confederates were broken. Barlow and Birney continued to advance. Hancock was sending in Gibbon and Mott to maintain the attack’s momentum.

There was even a message from Cy Comstock, who had been sent over to put some backbone into Burnside. The Ninth Corps, too, was attacking. And almost on time.

A fresh message estimated three thousand prisoners. Dozens of flags had been captured. At least sixteen guns.

Hancock was a quarter mile past Lee’s second line of works.

“By God, they’re done, they’re whipped!” Rawlins hollered. “Hancock’ll drive them to Hell.” His face looked almost mad, his eyes fevered.

Grant let his friend and all the rest take their pleasure in the goings-on. Smoke from the damp firewood was a bother to him. And the rain was picking up again.

Rawlins strutted up and stood before him.

“Well, General! Isn’t this just grand?
Over
three thousand prisoners. Lee’s done for.”

“Kind of news I like to hear,” Grant said, willing to please his friend. “Hancock’s doing well.” Damned smoke burned his eyes right through. He added, “Ain’t finished, though.”

NINETEEN

May 12, four forty-five a.m.
Gordon’s headquarters, base of the salient, Spotsylvania

Gordon was up and dressed, but still waiting for a cup of the glorious coffee looted in the Wilderness. In all the chronicles of war, not the Sabine women, not Helen herself, had been so cherished a capture as the sacks of beans the Yankees had forsaken. The prisoners he had gathered in meant laurels for the ages, but the value of the coffee beans was immediate.

Light rain spit through the trees.

He turned to Bob Johnston, commander of his North Carolina Brigade, four days back a peer, now his subordinate. The brigadier had left his reserve position in search of news, but Gordon had none to offer. Everyone waited for what the Yankees would do or what Lee would decide to do himself.

“I do believe,” Gordon said, “that the side that figures out how to boil up coffee quicker is bound to be the side that wins this war.”

“I don’t know,” Johnston said, “if I’d be inclined to stake the war on it. Yankees tend to figure out things like that. Probably come up with some infernal contraption.”

“‘Rude mechanicals,’” Gordon said. He smelled the morning coffee now, rich as sin in the silken harem of Darius. “Men up?”

Johnston nodded. “Not that they like it much. Can’t really sleep in this, but they don’t mind trying.”

“Hear that?” Gordon said suddenly.

“Hear what?”

“Thought I heard something.” He wiped the morning crust from his eyes. “Wouldn’t object to a longer visit from Morpheus myself.”

“Heard from Fanny?” Bob Johnston asked.

“Not for days. Yankee cavalry between here and Richmond.”

“Hell with ’em. Stuart’ll give ’em a licking they won’t forget.”

“Any news from your folks?”

“Crops are poor, people are poorer,” the young brigadier said. “If I was back lawyering, doubt I’d have a client come by a week. Folks too poor to have their wills done proper.”

Gordon laid a hand on his comrade’s shoulder. The gesture was meant to be kind and reassuring, but it was too early in the day for rich feelings.

“Be different after the war. Everything’s going to be different,” Gordon said.

“That’s what worries me.”

Gordon cocked his head. “Tom Jones! Where’s that glorious nectar of Olympus, son?”

“Sir, you know you don’t like it cooked up weak.”

“I do not desire Stygian mud, either, son. Why don’t—”

One of Johnston’s lieutenants rode up, reckless in the fog.

“General Johnston! General Gordon!”

“Here now, boy. What’s the to-do?”

The rider dismounted, flustered, without a hat. “General, I think there’s something wrong. Down in the woods. Where Alleghany Johnson’s men are.”

“And what, exactly, do you believe is wrong?” Bob Johnston asked. He had summoned his no-nonsense courtroom voice.

“Hard to tell, sir. Can’t say exactly. But something’s gone all queer.”

“‘A dagger of the mind…,’” Gordon said.

Bob Johnston’s voice shifted to annoyance. “Damn it, Bartlett, an army runs on facts, not fantasies. If anything that mattered was going on, we’d surely hear something.”