September 17, 1864
Rutherford house, Charles Town, West Virginia
He thought of apples. The day promised to be warm, but autumn’s chill was scouting in the forenoon, preparing for the invasion of cold to come. The cool air called apples to mind, the hard, mouth-puckering treasures of his childhood, attacked with strong teeth and a carefree heart. He liked his apples softer now, best when ladled up as pulp from a pot. Julia made fine applesauce. Her mother had let her learn that much from the kitchen slaves.
Well, if his wife wasn’t one for fancy cooking, that was all right. He wasn’t much for fancy eating. And Julia had made all else in his life bearable. He hoped, in the years ahead, to pay her back.
If Sheridan proved to have matters in hand, he intended to visit New Jersey for a night before returning to City Point and the war’s enormity. Look at the for-rent house his wife had picked and talk out the children’s schooling. Simple chores that war had transformed into pleasures.
Seated in a rocker, he lit another cigar and tossed the lucifer match down from the porch. Even a strong Havana could not defeat the sensations of memory. Those crisp, chill apples had been little glories, each bite sharp, and regret pierced him: He could no longer risk the cherished treats. His years alone in the Northwest had been hard, not least on his choppers. Nor had the years that followed been much kinder. Privilege had come to him too late for some things: He commanded mighty armies, but feared biting into the first apples of fall.
A rare mood of self-indulgence, almost a swoon, seized him that morning. He wanted Sheridan to appear so they might settle the campaign’s course, get the business moving. But sitting alone, unbothered, was a reprieve, reminding him of how strained life had become and of the pains he took not to reveal it.
Amid the clutter and clatter of yet another occupied town in another army’s rear and the dust of streets churned by laden wagons and caissons, he found himself gripped again by the force of memory, banishing for a little while the gore of the past five months and the stink of war, in favor of the scents of buried decades, the sweetly pungent autumn rot—so unlike the reek of rotting flesh—and the clean, cold winds that scoured the Ohio Valley. The master killer of his age, he had learned in a bloody school to value innocence.
A teamster passing the house cursed his beasts and found himself swiftly hushed. The man glanced back toward the porch in terror.
Yes, Grant thought, I am a terrible man. But I will make an end of this.
The two aides he had brought along guarded the front fence, shooing off gawkers and well-wishers. Around the captain and major, the provost marshal’s guards bristled with nerves. Such men, made small by war, saw dangers everywhere: partisans, raiders, assassins.
Grant didn’t worry. The tide had turned; he felt it. It was now a matter of finishing what was under way.
He didn’t know whether to admire the Rebs’ tenacity or to condemn their hopeless waste of lives.
Maybe both.
Bill, his manservant, eased around the side of the house and paused below the porch, smiling. Bill had magnificent teeth, although he was the older of the two of them.
Grant took the cigar from his mouth. “Come to stare now, too?”
“Nawsuh, nawsuh. Not till I sees some cause be worth the staring.”
Grant smiled, almost laughed. “Well, what is it, then?”
“Folks round here claims these Rutherfords be strong Secesh. Darkies ’fraid you going to burn this here house down.”
Canting his head an inch, Grant asked, “You saying they want me to burn it down? Talk straight.”
“Nawsuh, old Bill don’t have him one toe in that creek. Don’t think they’d mind, though. Say these here people Cunfeddrit as Genr’l Lee hisself, and then a mite. Black folk thought you be rememberin’ Chambersburg, what them Rebels done.”
“I don’t believe our hosts had a hand in that.”
“Secesh, all the same. That’s all I’m saying.” Bill shrugged. “Feeling desirous of a nice, hot dinner, Genr’l? Kind Miss Julia trouble you to eat? Share it with that heathen man you come to see?”
Grant laughed. “I don’t think General Sheridan will be staying.” Tapping his cigar, he added, “Neither will we.”
Pained to relinquish his vision of how the day should unfold, Bill shook his head, stamped once, and pawed the banister. “Mighty fine chickens hereabouts, say that. Yassuh. Spite all them soldiers a-lurking and a-looking, wonder a single hen be left alive.” He sighed. “But your mind made up once, it made up good. Learned that much, yassuh.”
“I’ll give General Sheridan your regards. You get along now, see everything’s packed and ready.”
“Should’ve let me shine up them boots. Miss Julia don’t like you looking like no field hand.”
“We go to Washington, you can shine ’em up.” With his cigar, Grant gestured toward the soldiers gathered in small groups along the street, all of them sneaking glances in his direction while pretending to be immersed in doubtful duties. “Last thing those boys need is another general with a high shine on his leathers.”
His manservant went off, muttering. Bill was nigh on the only man left who would always tell him the truth. Even if the truth came roundabout from the darkey’s mouth.
Bill and John Rawlins. Rawlins, too. With his weak lungs and worrisome cough. And Cump Sherman.
Grant flicked the butt into the yard. And there was Sheridan, already dismounted and striding up the street on his tiny legs, long arms dangling and chest thrust out like a pigeon’s breast, with a flat-crowned hat slapped down on his bullet-shaped head. Had the man not been such a priceless killer, he might have done for Paddy the Mug in a traveling comedy show.
Well, neither of us will win any prizes for beauty, Grant thought.
Grinning, Sheridan met Grant’s eyes and offered a gesture midway between a salute and a friendly wave. He came on fast, Little Phil, the way he always did, a man of profane energy, small and explosive. Still, he managed to cajole the loitering soldiers, threatening them gaily with duty in the line and an end to their easy living in the rear. And the soldiers loved him for it, it was the queerest thing. Sheridan excited soldiers so easily it was uncanny, and he made them discover reserves of courage and daring they had never dreamed they might possess. He’d killed Stuart and made the eastern cavalry.
Now Sheridan faced a greater task and had shown a hesitation that was unlike him. It was high time for a reckoning in the Valley: Cump had delivered Atlanta, shifting the political odds in the North, but Phil had to score a decisive victory here, before the election.
There could be no more raids on Washington, no more northern towns reduced to cinders. No more Chambersburgs.
What had Early been thinking? Was it mere spite? Hadn’t he seen that retribution must come?
Sheridan swung through the gate, greeting Grant’s aides by name. He tipped his hat, smoothed his mustaches, and let Grant feel the flash and force of eyes that looked faintly Chinese—eyes that could veer from merry to murderous quicker than a man could pull a trigger.
Spanking dust from his uniform, an instinctive courtesy, Sheridan leapt up the porch steps and said, “Sam, ain’t it fine to see you?”
Grant rose. “Where’s that big black nag of yours?”
“Getting a new shoe. Right foreleg. Month’s been hard.” Sheridan smiled. “You should ride him sometime. You’re the horseman.”
“Might not give him back.” Grant dropped the playfulness. “You’re smart enough to figure why I came up here.” He resisted drawing out the campaign plan buttoned in his pocket. Willing to give Sheridan first say.
The smaller man smiled again, but it seemed an effort now. “Presumably, not for the sake of my Irish charm. Sam, it’s all right. I’ve got him, I’m ready to move.” Sheridan made to unbuckle his dispatch bag. “My plan—”
“Come inside,” Grant told him.
He led Sheridan into a parlor and pointed to a beautifully polished table. “Over there.” It was a handsome room, with a pink-and-white Belgian carpet dirtied by boots. A finer place it was than Grant had ever provided for his wife.
Glancing about, Sheridan asked, “We alone?”
“Provost marshal suggested that the residents have the courtesy to go visiting. Secesh to the core, I’m told.”
Sheridan smoothed a map over the tabletop. Then he stopped and straightened, looking up into Grant’s eyes. There was no shyness, no timidity, in the man.
“Sam, I read the papers, goddamn them. I know what they’re saying. ‘Sheridan won’t fight. Time for a new general.’ Calling me ‘Harper’s Weekly’ because of all the damned jockeying back and forth around Harper’s Ferry. But, Christ, I’ve had Halleck and Stanton—even Lincoln—telling me they’d like me to whip Early, please, but to take no risks, whatsoever. They’d like a victory before the vote, but they positively do not want a defeat. ‘Be careful, be cautious.’ And I’m supposed to protect Washington as my first priority, they make that clear. I know they fought you over giving me this command, but bugger me to Sunday…” A little bull, he grunted. “They want me to perform magic tricks while squatting on the Potomac.”
“Best way to protect Washington is to smash Early,” Grant said.
He looked aside just for a moment, thinking of his own problems with Washington, with Halleck’s meddling and Stanton’s imperiousness. After much persuading, Lincoln had been the deciding vote in trusting Sheridan with the newly organized Army of the Shenandoah, but the president still worried that Sheridan, at thirty-three, was too young. None of them grasped that at thirty-three a man was as good as ancient in this war. The problem wasn’t the young generals, but the old ones.
“I’m sick of people who always take the frights,” Grant added. He bored in. “Phil, I didn’t give you this command so you could ‘cover Washington.’”
“I know that. But Halleck—”
“Don’t worry about Halleck.”
“Stanton?”
“From now on, you answer only to me. Directly. The president’s agreed.”
Sheridan slapped the table so hard, the crystal baubles chimed on the oil lamps. “By God, Sam, by God! That’s better than all the redheaded sluts in Mayo.” Heels rising off the carpet, he added, “I’ve just been waiting for my opportunity. And I’ve finally got Early where I want him. Anderson’s gone back to rejoin Lee, he just marched off. Took Kershaw’s entire division and a battalion of guns. Early clearly doesn’t expect a fight.”
“That’s news.” It told Grant Lee was feeling the pinch at Petersburg.
“I had it from a Quaker girl in Winchester. Anderson and Early weren’t—”
“‘Quaker girl’?”
“Braver than any ten men you’ll find in these parts. A darkey carries the messages, he’s got a pass from the Rebs to cart in vegetables.”
Grant couldn’t help smiling, but his smile did not equal confidence. “A Quaker girl and a darkey potato man…”
“It’s confirmed, though, I’ve had the cavalry out. Kershaw cleared Front Royal yesterday.” Sheridan was almost pleading. “Sam, this is our chance. Early’s strongest division’s gone, with a quarter of his guns. And he spreads out his force, the risks he takes are madcap. He thinks I’m cowed.” Sheridan grinned. “I’m going to eat that bastard raw, one bite at a time.”
“Show me,” Grant said.
They leaned over the map. Up close, Sheridan smelled more of horse than of man, but that never bothered Grant. Engrossed, the Irishman traced converging roads, describing how he would bring his entire army to bear on Early’s extreme right, cutting the Valley Pike at Newtown south of Winchester, which would force Early to attack in turn, at a disadvantage. Then his cavalry divisions would outflank the Confederates and envelop them.
Grant took out a fresh cigar and offered one to Sheridan, who declined.
“Sam, the past month hasn’t gone to waste, believe me. We’ve been skirmishing every day, with a few real fights thrown in. Gave me time to study the ground and get to know this army. Feel out my three corps, get a sense of the strengths and weaknesses.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Wright’s fine. Good, old Sixth Corps. Have to wait and see about Emory. But Crook’s boys are much better than I expected, I must say. George just got himself in a pickle at Kernstown, plain outnumbered. And my cavalry … damn me to blazes, they’re going to give Early’s bunch a royal time.”
Glad to listen, Grant said nothing.
With zeal in his Chinaman’s eyes, Sheridan charged on. “Sam, our cavalry’s been wasted for years, outpost duty, guard the trains … they’re a fighting force, for Christ’s sake. And with Spencer repeaters—remember that first morning at Cold Harbor? Dismounted, they can stop infantry, bloody ’em up.”
“Yes,” Grant said with a passing chill in his voice. He preferred not to think of Cold Harbor in any respect.
“But there’s more to it, much more. Cavalry can attack and beat infantry, too. At least mine can. I believe it with every inch of my soul that I don’t owe the devil.”
The little man had a way of filling every room he occupied, a charisma that made Grant marvel. Sheridan could have sold plain syrup to a medicine show, with a promise to raise the dead.
Now he was ablaze with his ideas: “It’s a matter of getting the combinations right—artillery, infantry, horse—and the timing, the coordination. The different arms have never worked as a team, not really. Not the way they should. This is modern war, the future. Speed, range, surprise. And the mounted divisions are well officered now, the dead wood’s fallen away.”
“Generals?”
“Torbert’s doing fine, he was the right pick to head the Cavalry Corps. Averell may have to go. At his best, he gives the Rebs a nasty time. But he’s not always at his best.”
“Relieve him.”
“Might. Not yet. But the young bucks,” Sheridan pushed on, “Merritt, Custer … Wilson, too. Sam, they’d fight the Rebs bare-handed, I swear to God.”
“Shouldn’t come to that.”
“And the Reb cavalry, they’re little more than rags and reputation. We beat them every time the numbers are even. Haven’t kept up, they’re still a muddle of Walter Scott and the county-fair steeplechase race. They’re poorly mounted, unsteady…”
“Never underestimate an enemy,” Grant said. He thought: The way I did Robert E. Lee. It was a mistake he would always rue, although he had refused to let it stop him.
“Well, I damned well won’t go in fear of Early, either. I plan to move fast now, he won’t know what’s happening until it’s too late. I’ve sent the cavalry raiding across the Opequon every day. He’ll assume any movement of mine’s just more of the same. But this time my whole army will be on the march.” Sheridan placed his fists on the table and leaned in toward Grant. “I can break him, Sam, I’ll whip him and break him.”
This was the Sheridan Grant valued, the slashing, can’t-be-stopped officer he’d brought east from Tennessee. The plan didn’t matter half so much as the man.
Grant chose to keep his own plan in his pocket.
“Phil, you’ll have to move soon. It’s politics now. Can you go by Tuesday?”
Sheridan smiled. “Not Tuesday. I mean to attack on Monday. Before dawn.”
“That’s less than two days out.”
“My army’s ready.”
“All right,” Grant said. “Go in.”
* * *
Accompanying Sheridan to the blacksmith’s shop, Grant paused by an oak tree.
“Don’t hesitate,” he said. “Ignore any orders from Halleck. Whip Early and move south. Far as it makes sense. Then pull back down the Valley, burning every barn, granary, storehouse, and depot behind you.”
Grant paused to choose his next words with precision. The morning cool had been vanquished by summer’s rear guard. Sheridan waited silently, all his joviality tucked away.
“We’re going to put an end to threats from the Valley,” Grant said. “Make sure the Rebs can’t feed off it anymore, can’t even move through it. Leave it so barren a crow flying over will need to carry his own provisions along.”
Sheridan nodded. “Burn a town? Or two? Retribution for Chambersburg? Teach them a lesson?”
Grant shook his head. “Don’t burn their houses. Going hungry will be enough for the worst of them.”
“The bastards need to feel the war. Every man, woman, and child.”
“We need to end the war. And think about what comes after.” Grant considered the first fallen leaves, their mottled yellow. “Bad enough, Rebs blaming Sherman for every struck match down South. When Hood fired those warehouses himself.” He made a barely perceptible sound, cold laughter. “Not that Cump would mind burning out every last plantation in Georgia. But blaming him for Hood’s doings isn’t fair.” Grant reached out, as if to touch the trunk of the tree, but only pawed the air and dropped his hand again. “Only make him meaner, he’s sensitive to the newspapers. Cump gets going again, he’ll make Georgia howl.”
“Speaking of fairness,” Sheridan said, “Wallace still begging you for a division?”
Grant rubbed his beard. “Believe he’s given up. Poor devil. Saved Washington, and Halleck does his best to drum him out. Old Brains does hold a grudge.” He looked at Sheridan with renewed curiosity. “You’re about the only officer who ever got on with Halleck.”
“As long as I filled out the requisitions correctly and all the supplies were accounted for, he didn’t harp.”
Grant nodded. “And you’d still be a glorified clerk. If Halleck had his way.”
Sheridan grinned. “A man has to take matters into his own hands. But about Wallace?”
“Did what I could for him. Gave him back his Baltimore command. For what that’s worth.”
“You know, I’m apt to lose a division commander at some point…”
“No,” Grant said. “It’s not just Halleck. Washburne won’t hear of it. Wallace has political enemies back in Indiana. And Lincoln needs the Indiana men.”
Sheridan’s black eyes glowed with scorn. “And it doesn’t matter what a man does on the battlefield? If he’s on the wrong side of some crooks in a gimcrack statehouse?”
“No,” Grant said. “It doesn’t.”
* * *
Bill enjoyed the adoring eyes as he ate the skillet of chicken. With colored folk crowding the kitchen shanty, half of them field hands new run off to town, he hurried to finish before Grant returned and called for him. Fool man lived on sliced cucumbers slopped with vinegar and cooked-black meat a hound dog wouldn’t eat. Bill preferred a fried-up hen himself. With hot biscuits dipped in grease to burn your mouth.
“Hmmm-mmm. He eat like him a genr’l hisself.”
“Cap’n,” Bill corrected. “Cap’n, that’s all. Man shouldn’t go exaggerating himself.”
“That’s sho’.”
“Why he ain’t got no soldier suit? Him a cap’n?”
“Scare all these white folk round here,” Bill explained. “Genr’l don’t want no trouble, he got enough. I’m traveling in disguise.”
He had gone round the side of the house to show them how he could walk right up on the general, while all the coming-by white men got shooed away. The chicken had been only one of his rewards.
The black folk that hadn’t run off farther north were an embarrassment, though, afraid to do much of anything for themselves, living day to day, as though they were convinced they’d be slaves forever and didn’t much mind. And yet, they had ideas downright fantastical about what might be heading their way in glory and jubilation: fried chicken every single day and a feather bed at night. Made no sense, but what did, anymore?
He knew the other black folk, too. The sort who wore uniforms now, who bowed and scraped around their fine white officers, but longed to stick them a bayonet deep in a white man’s belly. And the truth was that most any white man would do, although a Reb was their preference.
Hadn’t turned out very well at Petersburg. When they blew up that big hole in the ground. Rebs had gutted the Colored Troops like caught fish. And the white Yankee prisoners standing by hadn’t complained, if the telling was right. Even gave the Johnny Rebs encouragement, so they said.
Fool thing, how white folk could have spent going on four years butchering each other worse than hogs and still not understand what hatred meant, real hatred. It was as if they hadn’t read their own Bibles. Some of them were learning it now, though, at long last. Especially the Johnnies, the poor ones who held no slaves. That carried no sense, either, but life was made that way.
Their hearts were grown bitter as wormwood, as bitter as gall, the way the Good Book told.
And walking the streets of the Southron towns the Yankees had took over was near as bad. He had lived long enough to know a thing or two about men of any color, so he recognized the mark of Cain on the white faces in Virginny and he heard their sullen quiet louder than a bobcat’s screech. Wasn’t no kindness left, no Christian feeling, in the set of those faces and those eyes when they saw a black skin come along.
Wasn’t even hatred, tell the truth. Didn’t have the dignity of hatred. It was just the sort of meanness a man might feel toward a dog that had displeased him, that bit him after being given a feed. And that was the thing, the all-wrong part about it: Southron folk looked at a black man as if he bore the blame for all their suffering, as if the colored race had been a visitation, unwanted, unsought, just like the cholera. Bill feared for what the future might hold, once white folks stopped killing each other and started looking around for somebody else to truss up and gut.
Wasn’t no trouble about his personal future, that was a blessing. The general was fond of familiar things and was like to bring him along where his doings took him. Old ’Liss Grant was a good man, not particular. Poor as a nigger himself back in Missouri, before the war took him up like the hand of Jehovah. Even when this war tired itself out, Bill calculated that the general would be all right. Powerful folks had gathered him in, like angels in a chariot swooping down.
“Him eat all that up.…”
They watched him, those kindred-eyed faces of differing darkness, faces of his kind, at once expectant and docile. Reverent, they studied him as he finished a last wing, impressed by the thrall he held over Grant and downright worshipful after they learned that he had seen President Lincoln in the flesh … which was a true-enough thing, although he had fattened the tale a bit, allowing the president to ask his advice about the Negro’s future.
Wiping his chin, Bill smiled and said, “Now wasn’t that fine? Run out of compliments, talking about that chicken.” He produced two cigars, one for himself and one for the man who had been introduced as the pastor of this flock, though he bore no outward sign of it beyond a shabby frock coat and collarless shirt.
“General Ulysses S. Grant’s private stock,” he explained. “Finest cigars in this here country, North or South. ‘An excellent mix of tobaccos.’” Among his own people, he did not affect the toadying minstrel-show talk that even Grant preferred.
The preacher accepted the cigar, but as Bill produced a match to light his own smoke, the old man said, “Shouldn’t we pray first, Cap’n Bill? For the peace of the Lord to descend upon this land, upon this blighted Babylon of our exile, this bleeding Egypt?”
“Don’t you pray for peace to come too soon,” Bill told him.
September 18, 3:30 p.m.
Martinsburg, West Virginia
“You men are drunk,” Early said. He spit tobacco juice at Gordon’s feet.
Beyond the storefront awning, rain slopped the street. Wet uniforms clung.
“Some of them are,” Gordon said. “I’m seeing to it.”
“No goddamned discipline,” Early muttered. “I didn’t march them up here for some Roman orgy.”
“No,” Gordon said. “Not for a Roman orgy.”
Sandie Pendleton and Hennie Douglas, an aide of Early’s, watched from a corner of the boarded walkway, earnestly silent. Gordon stood alone. He had already sent off his entire staff to gather up his men and prepare them to march.
“Damn you, John Gordon. Don’t you get superior with me, up on your goddamned high horse. You were ordered to rip up the B and O, not turn your rabble loose.”
“Work’s done. That railroad won’t be running again for some time.”
Early looked at him with a narrow-of-eye intensity that approximated hatred. The army commander’s beard was particularly filthy with tobacco slop, despite the rain that had soaked them all for hours. Gordon had once overheard a soldier describe that beard as looking like somebody with the trots had shit all over it.
“Well, you just do what I told you,” Early snarled. “God almighty, I never want to see another spectacle like the one I saw this day. Soldiers drunk before noon. I should shoot half of them.” He spit again, into the rain. “You march it off ’em, Gordon. Get ’em on down to Bunker Hill, rest ’em just enough, then you make Stephenson’s Depot by first light. Or you may not have a damned division, hear?”
Gordon held his tongue, drew himself up formally and saluted. The two men glowered at each other, on the outs again. Gordon wondered if the formula for their discord could be found in Newton’s laws. It just seemed that inevitable.
Early turned and stomped off through the street mud, leaving problems great and small behind him. Yes, discipline had broken down. Especially in Gordon’s old Georgia Brigade, his dependables, the men he had once called his “Myrmidons.” The fighting on the Monocacy had ravaged them, snapping some thin twig deep in the men, something hidden. The casualty list bore most of the blame, of course. And the matter of leadership, with so many officers dead or gone to hospital. Clem Evans was on his way back, maybe even in Richmond by now, and Clem was sorely needed. He counted on Clem to take the brigade in hand once he resumed command.
The Louisiana men were a problem, too. No doubt the Virginia Brigade would take its turn. The campaign season, long and uninterrupted, had worn everyone down, from the slaughter in the Wilderness to this forlorn street.
Yes, the drunkenness was inexcusable. It had infuriated Gordon, too, although it wasn’t so stark a blight as the plague described by Early. Someone had gotten into a reserve of whiskey early that morning, even before the columns reached the goal of their raid. As for Martinsburg, it was one of the few Lower Valley towns known for Union sentiment. The men had not been inclined to show restraint.
As Douglas and Pendleton moved to follow their master, Gordon said, “Hold on there, Sandie. Wait a minute, son.”
Reluctantly, Pendleton halted. Douglas continued, striding off as quickly as a boy escaping a spanking.
“What’s going on?” Gordon demanded.
“He just learned about Grant. Meeting Sheridan yesterday.”
“Rumor’s been making the rounds of this town all day.”
“Well, he didn’t hear any rumor. He got it from a Yankee telegraph message.”
Gordon hooked the corner of his mouth. “And now he’s worried.”
“That’s about it. He’s ordered General Rodes to hurry back toward Winchester. He expects you to make haste, too.”
“And make haste we shall,” Gordon said, crossing his arms. “Didn’t need two full divisions to tear up some railroad tracks in the first place.” He curled his mouth again. “General Early still convinced that Sheridan’s got no fight in him?”
Pendleton paused. “He feels Sheridan may be deficient … in certain aspects of leadership. But Grant showing up…”
Gordon shook his head. The rain remained steady, unlike a number of his soldiers this day. “With Anderson and Kershaw gone, Sheridan has us two or better to one. At least, that’s my reckoning. Doesn’t take an excess of courage to strike with that kind of odds.”
“No, sir.”
“And you realize we’re all that stands between those Yankees and many a thousand hearth and home. After Chambersburg.”
“Chambersburg was almost two months ago. The Yankees haven’t done—”
“Sandie, why do you think they slapped together a new army just for the Valley? Biggest force they’ve ever sent out this way? And why do you think Grant picked his own pup to command it?” Gordon sighed. “They haven’t forgotten, Sandie.”
“I don’t think General Early really expected McCausland to burn the town. I really don’t. He expected them to pay up, the way every other town has. McCausland exceeded his—”
“No. He carried out his orders to the letter. I was in the tent.”
“But the general didn’t really mean—”
“Then he shouldn’t have said it. Don’t make excuses for him, Sandie. Not about this. Loyalty has its limits.” Gordon lifted his sodden hat and sleeked back his hair. “Burn down a fat Dutch town in Pennsylvania, and, Lord help us, Atlanta’s only the start.” He reset his hat. “We didn’t give them a cause. We gave them an excuse.”
“Well, they’ll have to fight their way through us.”
“If they don’t start chomping on us, bits and pieces.”
“General Early didn’t expect Grant to come scratching around.”
“Expect the unexpected. As for Sheridan, he may not have been a lion since he took command, but he hasn’t done badly, either. He’s been feeling us, getting his bearings. Hasn’t made one significant mistake, he’s no Sigel or Hunter. And their cavalry scares the hell out of me. Wouldn’t want to be looking the wrong way. Just because I had a bee in my bonnet. Understand?”
Pendleton nodded.
“All right, I’ve had my say. Let’s hope Sheridan’s taking a day of rest this splendid Sunday. Any word on Clem Evans?”
“No, sir.”
Profoundly disheveled, a soldier stumbled down the street, dragging his rifle. He sang with bursts of power, but the melody and words were unknown to man.
“Don’t worry,” Gordon said. As if to himself. “They’ll fight. They’ll fight well enough.”
“Anything else, sir?”
Gordon smiled. One of his Ulysses smiles. “General Early still grumbling about Mrs. Gordon’s presence in Winchester?”
Made uncomfortable, Pendleton said, “Not so much, sir. But you know how moods take him. It’s just that…”
“What?”
“Well, he knows that you and I—”
“Enjoy splendid relations,” Gordon helped him along. “A shared sense of honor. Between gentlemen. What did General Early have to say? Regarding Mrs. Gordon?”
Pendleton looked into the rain, as if counting the drops. “He … did hope I might persuade you … to send Mrs. Gordon back to Richmond. You know how he feels about women around the army.”
Summoning a practiced grin, Gordon took the young man by the shoulder. “Well now, son … if you can persuade Mrs. Gordon to retreat, God bless you. I can’t.”
The soldier braying his nonsense song paused across the street to serenade them. And Gordon lost his temper, appalling himself even as he snapped at Pendleton, who surely would be classed among the innocents.
“Damn Early to blazes! Damn the man! You know about his … his trollop? For want of a harsher word? Surely, you do. Everybody knows about his bitch. Man keeps a poor-white woman in a shack up the hill from the town he calls his home, fathers three or four brats on her, then rants and raves like old King Lear, ‘beneath is all the fiends.’ Looking down on honest women as if they’re tavern whores.” He grunted. “At least, we had the decency to marry.”
In a simmering voice, Gordon added, “Men have needs, and women have theirs, too, don’t think they don’t. No sense pretending otherwise. Wedlock’s all about filling a woman’s belly, not filling up teacups. But those vows keep things decent in society, they keep us all safe.” He shook his head. “Take life’s pleasures, surely, and thank the Lord. But don’t be a damned hypocrite.” Folding his arms, he concluded, “I never have cared for furtiveness in a man.”
The singing soldier flopped on his rear in the mud, and quiet prevailed. The rain eased sharply and the gray sky brightened.
After a moment, Pendleton whispered, “Yes, sir.” The boy had gone pale—deathly pale—which mystified Gordon.
“Oh, you go on now, get along,” Gordon told him. “I’ll get this noble division of mine on the march.”
Sliding lower into the mud of the street, the soldier attempted another musical foray.
“And I’m going to start by lifting that bastard up by his unwashed ears,” Gordon declared.
He plunged into the fading drizzle, straight of back and hard of mien, but thinking, helplessly, of his wife, excited by his own words about desire. At that moment, he would have walked into whatever parlor full of clucking hens he found her in, pulled her out into the hallway, pushed up her skirt, and taken her right there against the wall. And Fanny would’ve wanted it just as badly.
A rainbow graced the sky above the town. Gordon didn’t trust it.
September 18, 6:00 p.m.
Clifton Manor, Berryville, Virginia
Sheridan stood in the plantation’s muddy garden, talking to Crook and avoiding the mansion’s interior. His quartermaster had selected the place for the army’s headquarters, citing its central location between the corps, but comfort doubtless had been the man’s concern. Comfort, and a not-yet-depleted cellar.
Some of the bottles had been put to good use on the newspapermen who haunted the army’s rear, and Sheridan saw that as no small advantage: The general who failed to flatter and court the scribblers was a fool. But nothing else about Clifton Manor pleased him. Southern grandeur, even tattered, repelled him. Too much for his mick blood, he told himself. All the pretensions of the Anglo-Irish, but without the frankness of their greed and bigotry. Here, filth and iniquity dressed in frills.
The South was in need of a lesson, and now the South would learn.
As for that Irish blood of his, he talked it up when it suited him but was not convinced it mattered. His immigrant parents insisted—swore—that he had been born in Albany on their long plod to Ohio, but a hard remark he’d overheard during one of his parents’ all-too-frequent squabbles implied that he had arrived mid-passage, somewhere upon the Atlantic. His father had cried that the blighted brat should have been drowned at once, instead of becoming an anchor around a man’s neck, worse than a wife. Complicating his nativity, his mother once spoke carelessly of a County Cavan birth. The uncertainty annoyed Sheridan, but left him free to choose his own allegiance. And he chose not only the United States, but their Northern half and Ohio, a land of industrious men and sturdy women, the West, the future.
Built on crown grants and nigger blood, the fine houses of Virginia were sordid, proclaiming the pride of dissolute, violent men who never did a day of honest work, the men who’d made this bitter, brutal war. The mansion behind him brought out the peasant vandal in his soul—his people were not of the better breed of Sheridans—and he would as soon have put a torch to its walls as sleep within them.
But the man who meant to master an army had first to master himself. And all else had gone right on this sainted Sunday, with one stroke of luck falling hard upon the other. He swam back up to a surface of good cheer.
“Buck up, George,” Sheridan told his old friend from the Indian frontier. “If you don’t get into the fight tomorrow, we’ll still have to finish the remnants of Early’s army. I’ll let your boys lead the infantry pursuit, right behind the cavalry.” He grinned and lit a fresh cigar. “Glory enough for all, and some to spare.”
Hands clasped behind his back and shoulders a trifle bent, Brevet Major General George Crook said, “It’s not about glory, Phil. You know me better than that.”
Exhaling, Sheridan asked, “Then why the mope?”
Crook looked down the plantation’s lane to the country road beyond. His fellow corps commanders were still visible, though barely, trailed by staff men and aides as they rode back to town. “I didn’t want to fuss in front of the others … but I’m troubled by the plan, the changes. You’re putting a cavalry division and two full corps on a narrow road through a mile-long ravine.” He smiled, not happily. “Local people even call it a ‘canyon.’”
“They don’t know canyons.”
“Maybe not. But even if my corps never crosses the Opequon, even without my boys, you’re still putting a cavalry division and five infantry divisions on a single road. That’s a lot of camels through the eye of a pretty small needle.” He straightened his back. “You’d brace the staff man who suggested that.”
Sheridan tapped his cigar. Beyond the fields and tented camps, a brilliant sunset promised a perfect morning. Rays gilded puddles left by the afternoon’s showers. The rain clouds had swarmed northwest, where Early, unsuspecting, had marched his men.
“I’ve thought that over,” Sheridan said. “Any soldier would. I expect little resistance, that’s the crux of it. Scout reports are encouraging, the risk’s worth taking. Go straight for the enemy’s heart while he’s got himself unbuttoned, don’t waste time. It’s a covered approach, as well, that’s half the beauty. Cavalry screen along the front for a good ten miles, while the infantry moves in a single column of fours. Surprise the hell out of them.”
“Phil, you’re counting on everything going right.”
“And it will go right.” He tasted the cigar again and winked. “When I saw Grant, the old plan was well enough. But to come back and learn that Early’s marched not one, but two, divisions away from Winchester … with another scattered and only Ramseur left … it’s almost enough to make this sinner believe in Providence.” He grinned. “If I can’t swallow Ramseur whole by nine a.m., tie me up and offer me to the Comanches.”
“Well, I’ll be cheering you on. From the rear of the army.”
Sheridan renewed his grin. “Somebody’s sour, after all. Come on, George. I’m keeping you as my reserve because I can count on you. Let Wright and Emory feast on Ramseur—if Emory’s even needed—and we’ll eat up Early’s other divisions piecemeal. Turn the cavalry loose in a great envelopment, it’s a solid plan.” He reached out and clapped the taller man on the shoulder. “Might send you in for the coup de grâce, we’ll see.”
“Speaking of the cavalry…,” Crook said. Along the lane that had taken the other commanders back to their corps, another troop of horsemen approached the plantation, a gay and glittering bunch, with one golden-locked officer waving a floppy hat and trailing a red scarf. Crook muttered, “When you explain the new plan to them, you’d best speak slowly.”
Sheridan laughed.
In their last moments alone, Crook said, “Just keep that road clear, Phil. Through the ‘canyon.’ Even if the provost marshal has to resort to bayonets.”
Sheridan cast off the stub of the cigar. “I’d say you sound like my mother, but the truth is she never worried about me much. A hard lot they were, my people.” He reinforced his grin a final time. “We’ll be all right, George. All wagons and impedimenta have been forbidden the road. Until the last of the infantry has passed.”
“Well, may the Devil be with you. I’m off to tend to my boys.” Crook paused. “Has Grant or Halleck—or anybody—decided on my command’s designation yet? Do I still command the Army of West Virginia, or are we the Eighth Corps now?”
Sheridan tut-tutted. “Still the old-Army stickler.… George, I don’t give a damn what you call your outfit. As long as those mountain-creepers of yours can fight.”
The cavalry generals and a bevy of colonels jingled and clanked into the carriage circle before the mansion, laughing and preening, as if they’d intercepted the Champagne wine Sheridan had sent to Berryville for the newspapermen. He’d dispatched a keg of the season’s first oysters, too, along with deft, dishonest hints about the army’s activities. The trick to dealing with newspaper fellows, Phil Sheridan had learned, was to treat them like kings, but keep them in the dark.
Tomorrow, he’d delight them with a victory.