FOUR

Six p.m., March 31, 1865

Adams Road, north of Dinwiddie Court House

“Well, Fitz,” Pickett sang, “ain’t this delightful?”

Fitzhugh Lee did not share his fellow Virginian’s gaiety. It had been a good day. Wasn’t over, though. More deeds needed doing, a last few. Before the light went.

Rifles cracked sporadically: the lull between attacks.

“Always said Sheridan was a little man hiding behind a big man’s reputation,” Pickett went on. “Wonder how he likes the feel of a licking? The whupping he just got?”

Sweated, chilled, and tired, Lee said, “Time to finish him.”

Whenever he came this close to crushing the Federals, Lee seethed with vengeance. He did not possess his uncle’s gift of forbearance.

“Watch now. Down there.” Pickett pointed with a gloved hand—like Stuart, he wore yellow gloves, something no Lee ever would have done. “My boys are about to bust up that last line.”

Pickett’s mount shied at a spook. Lee watched as his fellow major general mastered the horse with an almost womanly gentleness.

“He’s put in his last reserves,” Pickett resumed, “it’s all up now.” He pushed his oiled hair behind an ear. “We’ll be in that tavern off the courthouse yard, eating Sheridan’s supper while it’s hot.”

Well, many a fine cavalryman wouldn’t have supper this night. Nor ever again. The fighting over Fitzgerald’s Ford had been long and costly, if decisive in the end. Lee had needed to all but thrash Cousin Rooney and near took a strop to Barringer, but the North Carolina troopers had gone in with a will, with the 1st North Carolina dismounted to wade the chest-high creek under well-aimed fire. Then the 2nd dashed across mounted and ended it, chasing Yankees who just ran out of grit. It had all been gallant and necessary, but those who had fallen could not be replaced. So this was an hour for pride, perhaps, but not for Pickett’s jollity.

The rain had quit that morning and the sun had reported for duty. Even the weather gave men cause for hope. But Fitz Lee remained wary.

As he watched, Pickett’s infantry rose from a swale and swept over open ground toward a blue line of cavalrymen deployed to fight on foot. A few Union guns showed their rancor, but the source was a light artillery battery positioned too far to the rear.

As Pickett’s doubled lines broke into a charge, the Union troopers started to withdraw, working the levers of their Spencers hard but unwilling to stand. A Rebel yell went up, their tribal clamor.

Credit to Pickett, it had been quite a day, Lee had to admit. They’d outflanked Sheridan’s dispersed brigades one after the other, driving them fiercely and nearly encircling two of them, keeping them all off balance. Except at that ford, where blood had stained fast water. They’d had to fight for another ford, too, but the price had not been so dear.

Pickett’s men overran the knoll the Yankees had not tried very hard to hold, leaving George as merry as a bridegroom, eyes bright and poor teeth showing.

“See that, Fitz? See that? Ain’t it the grandest?”

Yes. It was grand. But when he raised his field glasses, Fitz Lee saw that the Federals hadn’t dissolved, but had only withdrawn to join a stronger line on a low ridge.

“Still work to do,” Lee noted.

George raised his glasses, but his glee persisted.

“Whip them, too,” Pickett said.

Six thirty p.m.

Dinwiddie Court House, last Union line

Mud-spattered and happy, Custer steered his horse behind the line of troopers throwing up barricades. His two fresh brigades were tied in now that Pennington had pulled back, with one spread on either side of Adams Road. Remnants from the battered brigades that had fought through the day had rallied on his flanks, refusing the line. It was a fine position, and he did not intend to vacate it for the Confederates.

His spirits had soared when Sheridan’s message found him. Leaving one brigade with the trains, he’d ridden forward as hard as he could without blowing the horses. He loved to be summoned to rescue other men, and Phil, when Custer had spotted him in front of the shabby courthouse, had been so glad to see him that he’d failed to conceal it. Custer had never seen Sheridan so relieved, not even at the conclusion of Cedar Creek.

He’d dragged up a light artillery battery, placing the guns himself, and he chose the ground that would form the final line. Fitz Lee was out there, a fellow he’d already thrashed at Opequon Creek, along with Pickett, rumored to be a rival in flamboyance.

“That’s it, boys! Sweat now, and kill ’em easy.” He delighted in the power of command, the ability to give orders and have them obeyed by violent men. A good fight was the second-best thing on earth.

“They’re coming, General!”

“Bless my soul, I feared they wouldn’t come,” Custer announced. His voice was pitched for many a man to hear. “Would’ve hated for our little ride to be wasted.…”

Men laughed: the grim and the nervous, the hard and the doubtful, and, dearest to him, the carefree who liked a scrap.

The battery opened again. Custer spurred his horse along, calling, “Any man fires before the Johnnies step inside of two hundred yards, I’ll feed his stones to the wild pigs for breakfast.”

Dismounted horsemen with Spencer carbines made a fine killing machine, but that machine required a firm hand. Otherwise, men would empty their magazines before they had the least hope of hitting a Johnny.

“Best dismount, sir, don’t you think?” a green staff officer asked. Earnest but unsteady, the boy was the son of a helpful politician.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Custer told the lieutenant. “Couldn’t see the circus half so well.”

He did guide his mount a few dozen yards to the rear, though: time to let his field officers show their mettle.

From the tidbits he’d gleaned off tired, begrimed comrades, it seemed that Phil had indeed had a wretched day. Nearing Five Forks, he’d been ambushed, flanked, and turned out of one position after another. But if he knew Phil Sheridan, the Rebs had better be on the lookout tomorrow. Another man might have slipped off to lick his wounds, but once he’d had a few hours’ rest, half a pot of coffee, and a shit, Sheridan’s only thought would be revenge.

Probably why Grant liked him so much, Custer reckoned.

A stray round punched the shoulder of a flag-bearer, the corporal entrusted with the national colors. The man twisted out of the saddle. Custer caught the banner.

“It’s all right, I’ve got it,” he called, making his horse rear to draw still more attention. He figured he’d hold up the flag for a few minutes, long enough for plenty of men to admire him. Then he’d hand the colors off again. Battle was a peerless stage, and leadership was drama: Men followed him into danger because he performed, in every sense. Rivals accused him of shameless stunts, but men died gladly for less.

Orderlies carried off the bloodied corporal.

Custer watched the Rebs advance, a brigade of them at least, guiding along the road and maintaining their alignment surprisingly well. At three hundred yards, their officers gave the order for a charge and their caterwauling yip-yip cut the air.

His officers knew their business. They let the Rebs come on. Custer didn’t believe he heard a single premature shot. Only the light fieldpieces bit the gray ranks.

At two hundred yards, the deadly commands echoed and the Spencers began their work, pouring rapid fire into the Johnnies. The battery shifted to canister.

Rebs dropped like sacks. Others twirled when struck. Colors toppled and rose again. Canister fans turned men into ribbons of flesh and splinters of bone.

The Johnnies broke. They pretended to stand their ground for a few moments. Then they drew back slowly, pausing defiantly to return the fire. Next, some trotted off. And then men ran.

As cheers went up from Custer’s line, skirmishers pursued the withdrawing Rebs. Blood-happy veterans paused to aim their shots, but most men fired on the move, ramming fresh magazines into their carbines.

“Sound the recall,” Custer ordered. As the bugle rose, he said, more quietly, “They’ll try us once more, at least.” He imagined a grimace on Fitz Lee’s mug and a crestfallen look on Pickett’s. “Thought they’d won, poor devils. Now they’ll be cross as can be and they’ll foul it up.”

Nine forty p.m.

Mrs. Wilson’s house

Headquarters, Fifth Corps

“How long will it take?” Warren begged.

“Three hours,” Captain Benyaurd, his staff engineer, told him. “If we tear down that house and use the boards.”

The room smelled of mildew, unwashed feet, and coffee. Fresh rain stung the roof.

“Tear it down, man! Get it done. Sheridan needs help.”

The weary, mud-slapped officer said, “Have to work by torchlight, risk the Rebs looking in. It’s pitch black down there. Now the rain, too. It’s going to take a forty-foot span, at least. Gravelly Run’s flooded over, worst I’ve seen it.”

“And there’s no place it can be forded? None? You’re certain?”

“General, it’s running ten feet deep.”

“Well, get going. Tear down the house, I don’t care who it belongs to. Tear down ten houses. Use all the torches you need. Just get that bridge up.”

Benyaurd saluted and took himself off, a good man.

Major General Gouverneur K. Warren did find the prospect of rescuing Sheridan tasty. After all of that blarney-boy’s insults and lies.

He planned to be gracious, though.

Warren’s corps, too, had been roughly handled that day, along White Oak Road. And Grant had witnessed the worst of it, sad to say. But Charlie Griffin had put things right, as usual, with Chamberlain heading his lead brigade—despite his latest wound—and knocking the Johnnies right back into their ditches.

Little Phil had not fared so well. Warren had interviewed various officers of Merritt’s command who’d been cut off and had needed to work their way east to the Fifth Corps lines before they could dogleg back to Dinwiddie Court House. It sounded as though Phil had made a proper mess of it.

It was only as darkness fell that Warren had realized how great an opportunity lay before them: The Rebs’ success against Sheridan would undo them. It bewildered him that no one else seemed to see it.

All evening, the telegraph lines had blazed with messages between Grant and Meade, between Meade and Warren and the Lord knew who else. Shock at Sheridan’s reverse had excited no end of confusion. Warren didn’t know precisely what Sheridan had reported, since the telegraph lines didn’t stretch as far as Dinwiddie, but spirits seemed to have fallen all around, the loss of heart made manifest by a torrent of hasty orders crossing each other. At times, modern communications seemed a plague to Warren, with everyone meddling from a distance, certain they had the facts.

Ever methodical, Warren had taken pains to verify what he saw before submitting his recommendation. Meade had grown sensitive to his suggestions about the army’s management, but this … this was the chance they’d been waiting for.

The planks underfoot groaned like a tormented prisoner, and his ever-clean-shaven brother-in-law appeared. Roebling was empty-handed.

“No response?” Warren asked. He heard the plea in his voice, but couldn’t help it.

“Just the same back-and-forth, sir. Looks like Grant still means to pull Sheridan out. And us.”

Warren all but wanted to weep in frustration. “It’s the worst thing we could do. I wouldn’t have expected Grant to panic.” He clasped his hands, but his long fingers still writhed. “I should send another message.”

Roebling looked doubtful. “Wait a few more minutes?”

“Wash … this is the best chance I’ve seen since Sheridan fouled up royally at Todd’s Tavern. We can cut off a shank of Lee’s army and eat it up.” He unclasped his hands, made fists, and punched his knuckles together. “That gap, it’s fatal. If we show some fight. It’s not Sheridan who’s exposed, it’s Pickett. He’s chased Sheridan so far that he’s lost contact with Lee’s army. We could gobble up every man he’s got in his ranks. Cut the railroad, too.”

“Maybe wait a few more minutes, though,” Washington Roebling counseled. “Meade has to present it to Grant, sir. You know how that can go, the debating society.”

Warren hid his hands behind his back. “There just isn’t time, Grant must be made to see reason. I need the authorization to move this corps.” His hands reappeared and fingered the air at his belt. “One division to Sheridan, the other two smack behind Pickett. There’d be no escape. The Rebs opened the door themselves, and they don’t even feel the draft. Bartlett went out as far as the Boisseau house without a challenge. We could stroll into their rear.”

The prospects for the morrow were so grand, Warren couldn’t still himself.

“If Pickett has any wits, he’ll pull back tonight,” Roebling said. “Far as Five Forks, anyway.”

Warren lifted his paws as if giving a sermon. “Five Forks won’t be far enough, he’d still be too far out for Lee to save him. That’s the beauty of it. Even if we can’t surround him completely, we can envelop him. Withdrawing now won’t help, unless he leaves Five Forks, too. And he can’t, they’d lose the rail line. They needed to smash Sheridan, then scoot back to their lines. But they only did half the work, now Pickett’s stuck. And, whatever he does, that gap’s still there. We only need to step into it.”

A clerk delivered a new telegraphic message, but it only modified a minor order.

G. K. Warren yearned to end the war at a high point. They’d all lose their brevet ranks, of course, and suffer reductions in grade in the Regular Army, but as a corps commander who’d fought to the end, he might at least expect a decent posting. Something in Washington, perhaps. Or even in New York City, the harbor works. Given the Roebling family’s endeavors, an appointment to New York would be more than welcome.

He and Em had never had a home. The war that had brought them to marriage had kept them apart. At times, his longing for her felt unbearable. Oh, he felt nostalgia, now and then, for the prairie or for the fineness of the Black Hills, where he’d had such adventures, but the time had come for a quieter life with his darling, with sensible hours and engineering problems to fill his days.

He ached to hear from Meade, to receive the order that would let him finish the war as a hero.

The telegraph fell silent.

Ten p.m.

Field headquarters, Army of the Potomac

Meade looked up at his waiting chief of staff. He extended the corrected draft, then hesitated.

Rain slapped the tent. It was a bad time to be under canvas again, given the persistence of his cold.

Letting Webb take the paper at last, he told him, “Before you send it, scratch out the bit about Warren putting this up. Grant’s sour on him. Partly my fault. Just never took to the man, though. And I don’t want Grant or Rawlins to scorn the idea just because it originated with Warren. I believe G.K.’s right this time.”

“Anything else?” Al Webb asked. Meade understood that the prospect of yet another night of issuing and revising orders appealed to the chief of staff as little as it did to the rest of the headquarters. Or to the corps commanders, who would receive their orders even later and curse the powers that issued them. Or to the couriers blundering through the dark and all the thousands of hard-sleeping men who would feel the boot of a sergeant to get them stirring. That was as much a part of war as giving battle itself.

Meade wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He still missed Humphreys, that was the long and the short of it. As chief of staff, Humph always grasped the politics of the matter. But Humph had his corps now, and well deserved it was. Meade had valued their late-night conversations: a couple of old Philadelphians and Regular plugs, they could finish each other’s sentences. Webb was a solid soldier, but a New Yorker. A hero of the third day at Gettysburg, he’d proven an able staff officer as well. Nor did Webb complain of the wounds that pained him. Webb was a very good man. He just wasn’t Humphreys.

Still, Humph had built a staff so crisp that Webb only had to avoid doing any damage. Not that this evening had seen the staff at its best, as scribbling majors struggled to respond to Grant’s changeable moods.

“No, nothing else,” Meade said. “Send it.”

The chief of staff tightened his rain cape and strode off toward the telegraphers. Meade sat back. He was weary not just to the bone, but to the marrow. And the damned cold wouldn’t quit; he felt as though he had needles stuck in his sinuses. When he lay down on his cot, he gasped for air.

He just wanted the war to be over. So he could rest. Sleep for a week, if Margaret allowed it.

He had to credit Warren for clear thinking. They’d all been so engaged by Sheridan’s troubles that they’d nearly stumbled past this opportunity. Pickett and Fitz Lee were cut off as surely as Robinson Crusoe and Friday. It wasn’t Phil who was threatened: By getting himself knocked back to Dinwiddie Court House, he’d drawn his enemies fatally far from their lines. It was yet another of war’s endless ironies.

If only Grant issued the order, April Fools’ Day would break Robert E. Lee.

Ten p.m.

Adams farmstead, north of Dinwiddie Court House

“We don’t have a choice,” Pickett told Fitz Lee. “Damn, though. Damn Warren. Anderson was supposed to knock him back on his heels. Damn Anderson, too.”

“Fortunes of war,” Lee said.

His tone miffed Pickett. “That’s taking things lightly. I feel as though I’ve been robbed. Both pockets.”

“We had a good day. Just not good enough.”

“He’s gotten behind our left.”

“You’ve told me. Twice.”

“They came out as far as Boisseau’s place. At least a brigade of them. And where there’s a brigade, there’s a division. Warren doesn’t take chances like Sheridan does. Old Bird-face is set to cut us off.” Pickett lipped his tin cup. “Ain’t there any hot coffee in this army?”

No one replied. Eyes averted, staff officers kept a-bustle, scrawling reports or scraping mud from high boots. Pickett let it go. They knew him, he knew them. He’d just felt the need to holler.

As for Fitz Lee, it didn’t do to quarrel with him. Or with anybody name of Lee. But it did seem to Pickett that guarding their flanks had been the cavalry’s job. And that job had been neglected.

But no Lee ever apologized. Not really. Not the younger ones. Or if they said the words, they didn’t mean them. Fellow might take them for royalty, way they behaved.

Pickett looked at the larger man, a proper bear, with his uncle’s manly form somehow degraded. Despite the veneer of manners, Fitz always seemed the most brutish of the Lee clan. And all of the Lees were as closed and unforgiving as they were proud. Robert E. Lee had never pardoned him for Lee’s own mistake on that third day at Gettysburg. So it wouldn’t do to sour things any worse. Better to be as friendly as cream on pie.

It did go hard, though. In Pickett’s view, the Confederacy had far too many generals named Lee, five blood-kin at last count.

Rooney was the most tolerable. At least he could squeeze out a laugh. Didn’t even pain him to tell a joke. Unlike Fitz, who was a thing of darkness, way McGowan put it.

“No choice I can see,” Pickett repeated. “Have to slip past Warren, fall back to Five Forks. Get into the entrenchments, build them up. Sheridan won’t attack an entrenched line, not after all we put him through today. He burned his fingers right back to the knuckles.”

“General Lee hoped for more.”

Pickett kept his temper, sighed, and said: “I can whip Sheridan, Fitz. Or I can whip Warren. But I can’t whip Sheridan and Warren. Not out in the open and half-surrounded.”

“Five Forks doesn’t leave much distance between us and the railroad.”

“Sheridan and Warren won’t assault entrenchments. They know what that would cost them.”

“I’d rather stay here and attack. First thing in the morning. Pull back after, if it doesn’t work out.”

Exasperated by the entire world, Pickett struggled to remain a gentleman. “All I know is that General Lee wants us to hold Five Forks. That’s the strategic point, Fitz. Nothing more important to him than that.” He summoned his amiability, but that dog just wouldn’t come. “We’ll see what tomorrow brings. Sheridan’s played out, and Warren wouldn’t dare step off by himself. Give the men a couple of hours and Five Forks will be a fortress.” He conjured a smile at last. “Tell you the truth, I expect a quiet day.”

Ten forty p.m.

Dabney’s Mill

Grant’s headquarters

“He’ll be all right come morning,” Grant said. “Phil’s just rattled. Not used to taking a whipping.”

“I’d say we were all a bit rattled,” Rawlins noted.

Grant crushed out the stub of his cigar. “Be the death of me, these things. Never could afford a decent cigar, now they send me crates of them. Courier get off?”

“Two couriers, with duplicates. Best riders we’ve got, they’ll get to Sheridan. Did catch them in time to hold back that note of yours. Which, apparently, even an old friend and chief of staff’s not trusted to read.” He cleared his throat, a ghost cough. “Damn this rain.”

“Thought the matter over,” Grant said. “No need to have it in writing. Babcock can ride out there in the morning, talk to Phil in person. Or maybe I’ll write it down, after all. Don’t want Sheridan mulling it over tonight, though. I just need him to get his Irish up.”

“Well, you’ve got me wondering. Oh, I got the order off for Mackenzie, too,” Rawlins reported, used to Grant’s ways and untroubled. “The one reinforcing Phil. Fresh cavalry division ought to lift his spirits.”

Grant knew his body had been awake long enough, but the day’s events had left him too quickened to sleep. Julia would scold him, and Bill would rebuke him with silence. He said:

“All credit to George Meade. For spotting an odds-on chance. When we were all set to hang crepe.”

“Really expect much to come of it?”

Grant rubbed his beard, then fingered a persistent itch. “I’d bet a box of my best cigars that Phil will be up on his hind legs, come first light. He’ll be embarrassed by those messages he sent, he’ll want to clear things. If something can be done, I believe he’ll do it.”

“And if not?”

“We’ll try something else.” Grant looked down at his unpolished boots. “Just can’t let this drag on much longer.”

Rawlins coughed again. “And Warren? He’s not going to like being put under Sheridan.”

“I don’t care what Warren likes,” Grant said with unusual harshness. “That message for Phil? I’m authorizing him to relieve Warren of command, if he don’t measure up.”

Eleven p.m.

Mrs. Wilson’s house

Headquarters, Fifth Corps

Didn’t they know that Gravelly Run was impassable? That he had to build a bridge? He’d sent messages.…

Warren stood bewildered at Meade’s orders. There would be no retreat, Warren’s views had been accepted to that degree. And he would join Sheridan for a broad assault. All that was fine. It annoyed him to be placed under Sheridan, but he had to admit that he’d expected as much. Sheridan was Grant’s pet, and Grant would want to protect his protégé. That was all right, too, although it galled more than a bit.

But the order of march and timetable Webb had designed and Meade had approved was a mess. Hadn’t they bothered reading his reports? He’d been moving brigades all evening, readying his three divisions, but even if Gravelly Run could be bridged by one—which was optimistic—it would be dawn before a division reached Sheridan. And that was if his soldiers got no sleep.

“Good God,” he said to Roebling, “they’re asking the impossible of me.”

He wondered what promises had been made to Sheridan. He hoped they were sane and that Little Phil would have rational expectations. He didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot again.

“You should get some rest,” Lieutenant Colonel Roebling recommended. “Could be a rough day tomorrow.”

“Order up my horse.”

Four a.m., April 1

Edge Hill

Headquarters, Army of Northern Virginia

Lee woke reluctantly and bitterly.

“What is it now?”

Taylor stood by the bed. Holding a candle and a dispatch.

“General Pickett has ordered a withdrawal. To Five Forks.”

Lee was flummoxed. “I … thought he had Sheridan on the run … had every advantage…” Lee forced himself to sit up.

“The message states that his left flank was under threat. By infantry, well to his rear. He felt that his position was untenable.”

Lee pawed his face, rubbing awareness into his flesh.

“And he’s withdrawing to Five Forks?”

“I believe he’s already withdrawn, sir. Given the time of the message.”

“My spectacles…”

Taylor found them on the bedside table.

His adjutant held the candle close. When Lee finished reading, he closed his eyes.

“I regret that. I regret that exceedingly.”

“Shall I reply, sir?”

A number of intemperate responses filled Lee’s mind. But he only said:

“He must hold Five Forks at all hazards. Tell him that.” Then he gathered himself. “Wait, Colonel Taylor. I’ll write to him myself.”