The Titans (32 page)

The Titanseableddc sweetest night of his life; a night which promised years of- Never mind It was over. Not his fault, either. She was the one who'd acted unreasonable-and slammed the door. Let her go hang! He'd never felt so angry at another human being, with the possible exception of his father that night in Washington. He saw a horsecar starting its run back toward the center of town. He raced to catch it, swung aboard and yelled at the driver as he paid his fare: "Give that plug a good slap of the reins! I've got to get back to camp." He slammed into the lantern-lit car and sank down. He realized he was sitting in the identical spot he and Margaret had occupied on then earlier ride. He moved. He stared out the window. The iron tires screeched on the rails. He was glad it was over. She was stubborn and wrong. He was a man, fulfilling a man's responsibilities. If she couldn't understand and accept that, he was better off without her. "Yes, sir," he growled to himself. "Better off." But if that was true, why did he feel so wretched? CHAPTERV With Jeb Stuart A LITTLE MORE than a month later, Gideon Kent's life had changed to such a remarkable degree that the parting in Rockett's sometimes seemed unreal. He still thought of Margaret, and usually with regret But he didn't write her. Nor did she write him. Occasionally he thought of her father as well. But he never seriously entertained the idea that what had happened to the Sergeant could happen to him. Margaret's father had been an old man-over thirty-when he mustered in for the Mexican War. Age had probably slowed him down at Buena Vista. Gideon had confidence in his own youth and strength. Horror stories from the past had no bearing on his future. Sometimes he speculated on whether better control of his own temper might have altered the outcome with Margaret. He doubted it. Such introspection became less frequent as the pace of military operations quickened, and events pushed both sides toward a major confrontation. Douglas was dead in Chicago. Jefferson Davis and his cabinet had arrived in Richmond. The Federals had crossed the Potomac on the twenty-fourth of May and fortified Alexandria. The Union commander, McDowell, had arrogantly appropriated the Lee mansion for his headquarters. General Lee had written him to ask that the property be treated as respectfully as possible.

The Titansbledde McDowell replied that he'd do his best. No one believed it. The Yanks had a martyour now. Some hothead named Colonel Ellsworth had invaded an Alexandria hotel, the Marshall House, to tear down a Confederate banner flying from its roof. In clear weather, the offending flag could be seen in Washington City. Coming downstairs with the flag, Ellsworth was shot- gunned by the hotel owner, who was in turn killed a moment later by one of the colonel's New York Fire Zouaves. The colonel's body lay in state in the presidential mansion. The death heightened Northern hatred. Runaway slaves had arrived at Fort Monroe. General Benjamin Butler refused to surrender them to their owners. Butler's adamant stand against returning "black contrabands" to their rightful owners thrust the slave issue to the forefront again. Virginians seethed and denounced Butler's illegal behavior. Lincoln had issued a call for a special Congressional session to convene on July fourth. Northern newspapers issued a call of their own-for a demonstration of Federal power. The chief agitator was Greeley, whose Tribune reached the Confederate lines from time to time, smuggled across the Potomac by Southern sympathizers. Angrily, Gideon read the New York editor's repeated exhortation: "Forward to Richmond" The sloganeering was understandable, Gideon thought in calmer moments. Letters from his mother in Lexington noted the Confederate Congress would assemble in Richmond on the twentieth of July. Greeley and the other journalistic agitators wanted the city in Union hands by that date. They had a practical reason. The three-month volunteers Lincoln had called out in April would be free to go home by July's end. At Harper's Ferry, Gideon's regiment had been turned over to the Provisional Army of the Confederacy. Term of service-one year. General Joe Johnston 446With Jeb Stuart relieved the peculiar Colonel Jackson and withdrew from Harper's Ferry. He felt the position could not be properly defended, and its hilly setting made it unsuitable for the constant drill needed to sharpen green recruits. Before Johnston pulled out, he burned the railroad bridge over the river. Down the Valley, at Winchester, he established the headquarters of the Army of the Shenandoah. Colonel Jackson was posted some nine miles north, at bucolic Bunker Hill. The army in the Valley was growing; becoming truly representative of the Confederacy. It now included men from both of the Carolinas, and from the deep-South states of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. Tennessee volunteers had arrived; even a Maryland battalion. Johnston was highly visible around the regimental camps. From the first, the soldiers took to him. He was a small, animated man in his middle fifties with a gift for making the lowliest private feel important Often the general paused to ask a question of a young soldier. Where did he come from? How was he getting on? Joe Johnston looked and acted like a commanding officer. He sported a carefully trimmed gray goatee and tended to strut. He was a gamecock, all right. Just wait till the Yanks felt his claws! Johnston was also considered a great improvement over Old Jack, as some of the soldiers had begun calling the odd professor from the Military Institute. Colonel Jackson still refused to dress properly. He went about in worn-out high boots and an old, single-breasted uniform coat. The coat was blue, threadbare and too large. Jackson's headgear consisted of one shabby cadet cap, which he usually wore tilted down over his forehead to hide his stormy, light-colored eyes. Most of the rest of his face was concealed by a bushy beard the color of rusting metal. Men liked the gamecock, but they laughed at old Old The Titansbleddg Jack-probably out of fear. When he was seen, he was never smiling. At Harper's Ferry he'd acquired a reputation as a harsh disciplinarian. It was whispered that because of his religious convictions, he'd probably refuse to fight a battle if it should accidentally falj on a Sunday. Altogether, Gideon and a great many others crossed him off as a fanatical farmer type of whom little could be expected in the way of intelligent leadership. In the first week of June, General Beauregard arrived in Richmond where he received a public ovation and assumed command of the Army of the Potomac on the so-called Alexandria line. The line's center was Manassas Junction, some thirty miles below Washington and sixty miles from Johnston's force at Winchester. Manassas constituted a logical target for the Federal army because of its strategic location near major highways. It was also a junction point for the little Manassas Gap Railroad that linked the Valley's rich agricultural lands with the eastern part of the state via the Bull Run Mountains. If the Federals could seize Manassas, communications and shipments of food between the two regions could be interrupted. It took no genius to guess Federal strategy would probably call for two armies- one to devastate the Valley, another to seize and hold Manassas, thereby preventing either Johnston or Old Bory from using the railroad to relieve the other. With Manassas captured, the Federals would be in a good position to mount a drive to Richmond. As couriers shuttled back and forth through the mountains, Gideon learned that the emerging Union plan was no secret to Old Bory. He read it in the Washington newspapers he received every day. Indeed, the North's intentions were soon widely known in Johnston's encampments. Some papers got there as well, and Gideon read of General Scott's opposition to the whole Federal concept. Piecemeal attacks-a hasty thrust here, another there-ran counter to his own master 448With Jeb Stuart plan. He wanted to spend the proper amount of time in preparation, then enclose the entire South with naval blockades and military advances on fronts as far apart greater-than as Manassas and the Mississippi. He wanted to encircle the enemy like a constricting snake. Scott's Anaconda, the papers called it. But the helpful newspapers said Lincoln was impatient. The special July fourth Congress would share that impatience-and Lincoln's concern about the ninety- day enlistments. The papers claimed Scott was being overruled, and the double thrust into Virginia would be the plan of choice. Time for the attack-an unspecified date in July. In June the Confederates began to see the proof. Pickets brought back word of a Federal force massing in Maryland under General Robert Patterson, a relic whose service dated back to 1812. But each passing day helped the Shenandoah army. By the end of the month, staff officers predicted, it would be up to a strength of ten thousand effectives. Gideon was astonished at the amateurism which seemed to prevail in Washington. He continued to hear that Beauregard knew the specifics of Northern troop strength and tentative dates of departure; Old Bory received daily reports from a Southern sympathizer named Mrs. Rose Greenhow. The Wild Rose was continually wheedling-some said seducing-Federal officers and clerks. Maybe even a Congressman or two. The information she acquired was converted to cipher and slipped across the Potomac by courier. Gideon couldn't believe Mrs. Greenhow would be allowed to continue her spying, but she was. Though under suspicion, she wasn't arrested. No one in power seemed to think it polite to arrest a lady. So Old Bory continued to read the papers and cipher messages, arrange his defense lines and receive volunteer units from all over the South. He issued a proclamation calling on The Titansbleddi Virginians to rally against the unprincipled Federals. Their cry, he said, would be simple and savage. Beauty and booty. Rape and destruction- All of this reached Gideon where he was stationed- Bunker Hill. It was a lovely place. The sweet-smelling meadows and the hazy slopes of the Blue Ridge in the distance created a summery charm that seemed far removed from any danger. Even the few skirmishes that took place had a comic-opera quality. About a hundred of Lieutenant Colonel Stuart's troopers, for example, rode up to the Potomac and repelled an "invasion" by Maryland canal workers. Several of the enemy were killed. No cavalryman received so much as a scratch. Gideon's company didn't take part in the foray, which displeased him. He wanted to fight; others were-and setting enviable examples. The camp had celebrated the news of the June tenth engagement at Big Bethel Church, only eight miles from Butler's outposts at Fort Monroe. Twelve hundred Confederates under the general command of Colonel Magruder-Prince John-had routed nearly twice as many Federals. The Yanks had blundered into Magruder's men and fought like schoolboys, losing eighteen dead. There was one Confederate casualty. Did anyone need further proof one Southerner was more than a match for a dozen Pennsylvania farmers and New York ribbon clerks? The Federals would stop squealing, "Forward to Rich- mondl" after a few more actions like Big Bethel. Gideon just wanted his chance to be part of one of those actions- He was still feeling impatient on a sunny morning in mid-June when the First Virginia Cavalry Regiment again assembled for instruction t greater-than you its commander. The regiment was not yet at full strength. Only ten companies so far. Stuart hoped for at least twelve. But 450With Jeb Stuart the existing First Virginia still made a splendid if motley sight in the damp meadow. The men were mounted on every kind of horse from farm plugs to thoroughbreds. The horses stamped while the troopers exchanged whispers and fidgeted in their saddles. Shortly, the regimental staff-Colonel Stuart and several majors appointed by Richmond-cantered along in front of the assembled companies. The majors looked tired and openly disdainful of the appearance of their men. Stuart, by contrast, seemed in high spirits. He always seemed in high spirits. If he ever slept for more than an hour or two, no one knew it There was something rakish and grand about Jeb Stuart; a personal aura in no way diminished by his ragtag uniform. He wore an old Union Army greatcoat and trousers of blue, and ancient boots whose tops reached to his knees. He'd added personal touches to the shabby costume: spotless gauntlets of white buckskin; a fawn- colored hat panned up on the right and decorated with a white ostrich plume. Beneath the open greatcoat Gideon glimpsed a sash of gold silk that held Stuart's French saber. Small gold spurs decorated his boots. James Ewell Brown Stuart was almost six feet tall, stocky and long-armed. His huge, flaring beard and luxuriant mustachios glinted with bronze highlights as he jogged by on a blood bay hunter with black points. Stuarf s blue eyes were merry but alert. The troopers agreed he looked better riding than walking. When he was afoot, the contrast between his long arms and chunky torso was more apparent His classmates at West Point had nicknamed him Beauty, for the same reason a man of great height was sometimes called Shorty. Stuart and his majors completed their inspection and cantered out to a position in front of the regiment Stuart dismounted. Gideon rubbed Dancer's neck and pressed his lips together to bide a yawn. The Titansbledea Gideon was leaner and more fit than at any time in his life. He was also exhausted. Beside him was First Lieutenant Jack Harris, who looked horrible. Harris had spent the night drinking illegal busthead and playing euchre in the tent, making it impossible for Gideon to sleep. Gideon's eye wandered to Captain Lester Macomb. The company commander had lost about twenty pounds since their first meeting. He'd developed a nervous tic in his cheek-with good reason. A number of volunteer commissions had already been revoked because the regimental officers believed those holding them were incompetent. Jackson had started it in the infantry. Ma- comb was afraid he might encounter a similar fate in the cavalry. As for the Hussars themselves-now I Company- they looked much less presentable than they had in Richmond. Almost to a man, they had discarded the useless rabbit-fur dolmans. A few still wore shakos, but other, more practical types of hats had appeared. Gideon had appropriated a dark, soft-brimmed Union campaign hat from Private Enders. The private had been reassigned to Company Q. "Reassigned" was a euphemism for punishment. Company Q consisted of incorrigibles plus a few men "temporarily without mounts. Like some of the other well-born members of the regiment-including Gideon's lanky, dark-haired friend, Private Rodney Arbuckle -Enders regarded military discipline as an insult to his status as a gentleman. The preceding week, Jack Harris had assigned Enders toThat guard duty. Enders had refused. Harris repeated the order, lacing his language with some of his favorite gutter talk. Enders promptly challenged him to a duel. The duel was fought in a woods well away from camp. Gideon had held his own horse and that of the first lieutenant while the antagonists faced off with re 452With Jeb Stuart volvers. Enders fired first, narrowly missing his superior. Harris" shot went wild. The ball struck Enders' horse behind the right eye. Minus a mount and charged with insubordination, Private Enders was transferred to Company Q before me day was over. Gideon took possession of Enders' hat, as well as a forty-two-inch Union light cavalry saber that Enders had brought from home. Enders had enjoyed displaying the sword at the evening cook fire, even though he wasn't entitled to wear it Gideon still felt a bit guilty about the quasi-theft. On the other hand, until the dud, he was the only officer in I Company lacking a blade. And he doubted Enders would ever be returned to the ranks. The confiscated saber hung from a white sash around his waist. There were no standardized uniforms as yet, and hence no badges of rank. A sash had to serve. He glanced at his friend. Private Arbuckle was examining his fingernails, oblivious to Stuart out in the field. Rodney was almost as bad about discipline as Enders, though not nearly as arrogant Gideon let out a low whistle. Rodney heard it and reluctantly turned his attention to the commander. Stuart addressed the regiment in a loud but pleasant voice: "Gentlemen of the First Virginia, let me say I'm well pleased with your progress. A little more drill is in order, however. We can't be satisfied to be second best We know the resources of the opponent are greater than ours. So we must substitute expertise-and esprit-for numbers. Good training and the spirit of the chase will make the difference in battle." A few cheers broke out among the enlisted men. Stuart held his smile, but his blue eyes ripped from offender to offender, silencing the noise. He knew well the problem of whipping untrained and highly independent men into some semblance of military organization. The The Titansbledec troopers of the First Virginia had the spirit he wanted.