"No, Colonel, we must strike them right here. We go forward, seize the ferry. The river will act as a shield to our right flank and then we put our bridge across. We must do this now, tonight."

  Phil sighed and nodded.

  "Sir, let me show you a good vantage point."

  Lee followed the colonel as he trotted down the muddy road. Troops ahead were falling out, forming up into lines of battle. Three batteries of guns, still limbered, waited in the middle of the road under a canopy of trees dripping moisture.

  He turned and rode off, following Duvall up the slope to where he reined in.

  The battlements were before him, half a mile away, skirmishers out, already firing from long distance, a scattering of shots from the fortress line coming back.

  If this was an open-field fight, he thought, I'd have the crossing in half an hour. I have more than ten thousand of my best with me; they can't have more than three to four thousand here. One solid charge would have swept them aside.

  Now, at best, with all those entrenchments and heavy artillery, it's an even chance.

  He took a deep breath.

  "Order the artillery forward," he said.

  The order was passed and a few minutes later a cheer went up from the road, the batteries racing forward, reaching the crest. They did so with their usual elan and precision, turning at right angles at the full gallop, mud and dirt spraying up, two batteries to the south of the road, one to the north. Even before the last gun had appeared three shots ranged out from the bastion line, thirty-pound shells winging in, well aimed, most likely already practiced, one of the shells blowing directly over a double limber wagon, the two caissons of ammunition exploding in a fireball.

  The guns swung about, dismounted, and in less than a minute opened up, pounding the bastion with solid shot and case shot.

  And then the heavy hundred-pounder erupted. There was a brilliant flash, four seconds later a thunderclap roar as the shell hit the ground just forward of the slope, sending a geyser of dirt and mud a hundred feet into the air, dropping several gunners.

  In the fields behind the slope the first wave of infantry was beginning to advance. There was no cheering, just grim determination.

  He could no longer contain himself. Turning about, he raced down the slope and reached the left flank of his advancing line, the few battered men of Hood. Standing in his stirrups, he drew his saber.

  "Come on, boys, come on!" he roared. "Win this one and we are back in Old Virginia. Virginia, boys, covered with glory for all that we have done. Do this and victory is still ours!"

  There was a desperate tone to his voice, conveyed to the men.

  "I am with you, boys."

  He turned about, taking the lead, as the battered battalions, fifty to a hundred men behind each flag, swept forward, and for some the dream was still alive. Win this one and we are across the water, safe, to live another day, perhaps to still win this war.

  4:45 P.M.

  Sergeant Major Robinson was at the fore of his regiment. Seventy-two men left, according to roll call just before going in. Seventy-two men gathered round one tattered flag. But at the sight of Lee their hearts were full. If Lee was before them, then victory was still before them. They marched up the slope, guns silhouetted at the top of the crest, wreathed in smoke, pounding away, every few minutes a terrible explosion erupting along the line. Robinson looked to his right. Other regiments were coming forward: He saw the men of the Fourth Texas, not more than a hundred, a few score with the Second Texas. Next to them men of a brigade he didn't know, most likely some of Beauregard's men.

  Gone were the days when Hood's Texans went forward in their glory, thousands of them, their wild cheer, the knowledge that when they went forward all would flee before them.

  But Lee was in the front. What waited ahead, after the nightmare of yesterday, could not be anywhere near so bad.

  "Come on, boys!" Robinson roared. "Do you want to live forever?"

  5:00 P.M.

  The first wave of the charge crested the slope and Win-field Scott Hancock stood silent, field glasses raised. If what was coming forward was a beaten army, it most certainly did not look so at this instant.

  Though ragged, their lines were coming forward. He looked about the bastion. Gunners were in place, orders shouted to shift fire from the enemy guns to the infantry, fuses cut to two seconds. The bastion on the far side of the Monocacy was opening with enfilade, thirty-pound shells bursting in air. "Stand clear!"

  Hancock stepped back and covered his ears. The hundred-pounder lit off, its heavy shell screaming down-range, bursting in the air two seconds later, dropping several dozen of the advancing infantry.

  "Reload with canister!"

  He was about to shout a countermand, but then realized these men knew their business. The heavy monster took minutes to reload, and by that time the waves of infantry would be in range. Four twenty-five-pound bags of canister and grape were loaded into the barrel, over a thousand iron balls, propelled by thirty pounds of powder. One gun with the firepower of two batteries of Napoleons.

  The charge was coming closer, still out of rifle range. He caught a glimpse of an officer mounted on a gray horse, turned his field glasses on him. My God, it was Lee himself. He was surrounded by a half dozen cavalryman, who were forcibly pushing before him, holding him back.

  That revealed much. Lee was here, and he was desperate, wanting to lead this mad charge.

  All the guns were loaded with canister, and they waited.

  The charge was down to three hundred yards and then started to hit the edge of the entrapments, men tripping into spider holes, falling, lines breaking apart as they pushed through rows of sharpened stakes and tangled piles of brush.

  Three hundred yards. "Stand clear!"

  He stepped back again and the hundred-pound Parrott recoiled with a thunderclap.

  The hurricane of iron swept through the ranks of the Texans. Dozens dropped from the blast of the great Parrott.gun. It looked as if the entire Fourth Texas went down from just that single blast.

  Lee was no longer in front of them. A cavalry colonel and his men were forcing him back in spite of his protests.

  They were down to two hundred yards and something spontaneous now happened up and down this line of hard, bitter veterans. They knew that the next two minutes would decide their fate forever.

  They had been in enough charges to know that moment when, if but one man wavered, if a foolish officer shouted for them to stop, to return fire, they would be slaughtered. Their only hope was to charge! To charge with mad abandon, the way they had at Gaines Mill, Groveton, Sharpsburg, Chancellorsville, Taneytown, Gunpowder River. To stand out here even for a few minutes longer was death. "Charge!"

  The cry was picked up. It wasn't the officers, it was the men, the veterans, the final chosen few, who knew that if there was any hope of personal survival, any hope of getting back across the river, any hope of their cause surviving, it had to be now.

  Robinson was in the fore, looking back, screaming for his men to charge, to run straight at them, to get over the wall and into the fort.

  The wavering line took strength and set off in a wild run. Spontaneously, driven by no one mind, but imbued with the spirit of the general who watched them, whose face was streaming tears, they sprinted across the open field, dozens dropping, falling into the spider traps, knocked over by volleys fired from the battlement walls.

  And then he saw the heavy guns rolling forward in their embrasures, barrels cranked down. "Texas!"

  The four thirty-pounders and the hundred-pounder recoiled-and hundreds dropped.

  Robinson was jerked off his feet, thrown backward, his left side numb. He looked to his shoulder, his arm shredded, nearly gone. Beside him was the flag bearer of the First Texas, colors on the ground beside him, the man dead.

  His flag, his beloved flag. The one he had carried for a few minutes at Fort Stevens, the one in his hand when he had stopped Robert E. Lee at Taneytown. His flag… his beloved flag.

  As if in a dream he stood up, picked up the flag from the mud.

  'Texas!"

  He wasn't sure if any were behind him now. The crest of the bastion was ablaze with fire. 'Texas!"

  He went down into the muddy moat and crawled up the slope of the fort, using the flag as a staff to keep himself upright.

  My God, give me the strength to do this today. All other thoughts were disappearing, of his wife, of his young son Seth, at fifteen wanting to join the army, of his three-year-old baby girl, of his home. It was now just the flag he carried, praying that someone, anyone, was still behind him.

  He reached the top of the slope, planting the flag atop the crest.

  There was a brief, an all-so-brief moment when he looked down the length of the battle, dreaming that dozens of flags like his, from Arkansas, Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas crowned the heights, the way they had so many times before.

  His was the only one.

  "Sergeant!"

  He looked down. A Yankee officer, a general leaning on a cane, had pistol raised, pointed straight at him. "It's over, Sergeant."

  He collapsed inside the wall of the fort, colors falling over with him as he clutched the staff.

  Several men rushed to pull the flag from Robinson's hand, but the general holstered his pistol and knelt down by his side.

  "You can keep your flag, Sergeant. You're one of the bravest men I've ever seen. You got farther than any other man in your army, but for you the war is over."

  Sergeant Major Robinson looked up at him, unable to speak. All he could do was nod.

  "My surgeon will tend to you, and I'll make sure you get home."

  General Hancock patted him on his good shoulder, then stood up and limped off.

  5:15 P.M.

  Lee stood silently, head bowed. The charge was over before it had barely begun. He knew in his heart he had asked far too much of these men. Rest, ranks replenished, officers replaced, the men well fed, perhaps it might have been different.

  The beaten survivors were falling back, not many of them. Out in the field, to his horror he saw many with their hands up in the air, casting aside rifles. The heavy artillery which had so frightfully decimated the charge, perhaps dropping a thousand or more in a matter of seconds, now resumed fire on the light batteries brought up in support. A gun was dismounted, fragments flying in a deadly spray. Around to the south, come dawn, he now wondered, still not ready to give in. He could catch a glimpse of the canal, which was filled with barges coming up, many of them loaded with additional troops.

  The door this way was closed. He would have to find another way out. That realization, he knew, had just cost him several thousand more men as he surveyed the stricken field. I am bleeding out by the minute.

  He looked over at Colonel Duvall, who was silent, a bit red-faced, for only minutes before Lee had threatened him with a court-martial if the colonel did not release Traveler's reins and let him go forward.

  "My apologies, Colonel," Lee sighed. "You were doing your duty."

  "Thank you, sir. It was your safety, sir. The army needs you."

  "Yes, son, I guess it still does," Lee said.

  "Scout that road down to Poolesville," he said softly. "See if we can move that way. Send a courier up to General Longstreet as well. Inform him of our failure to breach the line here. He is to abandon his position tonight and move down here. We must find a way across this river tomorrow. I will need him with me."

  7:00 P.M.

  Grant read the telegram and sighed with relief. Hancock had held. The fight, according to the report, was over in a matter of minutes and Lee was already withdrawing.

  Grant looked over at the map Ely had spread on the table.

  It had to be Poolesville. That was the only other way out now. Strike for Edwards Ferry or a crossing in between. But moving the bridges over that road would be a nightmare.

  "Ely."

  "Here, sir."

  "Orders to General Sheridan. General advance along the line the hour before the dawn. I suspect General Longstreet will abandon the line here during the night. Orders to Hancock to move the Edwards Ferry garrison up to Poolesville to block that road. Also to bring down the garrisons at Point of Rocks, they are no longer needed there. Sykes to now turn due south."

  "Yes, sir."

  Grant sat back down in the chair he had occupied most of the day, looking out across the Frederick plains. The air was heavy with the cloying stench of bodies rotting. It would be good to leave this terrible place.

  Behind him, an endless train of supplies was coming down the mountain pass, priority now given to medical supplies. The first of the wounded who could be moved were being sent back to Hagerstown and from there to hospitals in Harrisburg.

  To the east the sky was beginning to glow and he knew what that meant. He lit a cigar and watched the glow begin to rise, punctuated by distant explosions.

  On the Baltimore and Ohio All over, goodbye, now blow it to hell!" Pete shouted. Men were running down the tracks, throwing torches into boxcars, tossing in cans of coal oil, loose straw, anything to get them burning. Fires had been lit in several train boilers, steam was up, and the locomotives were now rolling down the tracks, crashing into burning cars, or tumbling off where rails had been severed.

  One full ammunition train, a half mile away, went up with a tremendous roar, fireball rising hundreds of feet into the air. He watched it with grim satisfaction. Enough ammunition to keep an entire corps in action for a day, but he would be damned if the Yankees would have it now. And as far as the wreckage to the Baltimore and Ohio- the hell with them. If we have lost this war, it was their blame as much as anyone's. He was in no mood to be forgiving now.

  He caught the eye of a colonel, leading a detail of men and an ambulance.

  "Ammunition's gone," Pete said. The colonel shook his head.

  "Damn sir, I'm down to maybe twenty rounds a man." "Just get your men formed up. We're marching at midnight." 'To where, sir?" Pete smiled sadly.

  'To Virginia if we can, but to hell if we must."

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The White House

  August 30, 1863 1:00 A.M.

  How are you, Mr. President," Elihu asked as he came into the office. Lincoln, sitting behind his desk, looked up, offered a weak smile, and set down his pen.

  "Just a minute more, Elihu. Why don't you sit down and relax."

  Elihu went over to the sofa and collapsed. He had not slept in a day and a half. He felt as if he had been trapped in a small boat, tossed back and forth by waves coming from opposite directions. There would be moments of exultation, followed minutes later by contrary news that plunged all into gloom.

  Renewed rioting had broken out in New York when it was reported in the Times that Grant had sustained over thirty thousand casualties and was retreating.

  The Tribune, in contrast, was reporting victory, but its headlines were ignored and the rioting had swept into city hall, the building torched by the mob.

  Sickles was up to his usual destructive behavior, denouncing the removal of Stanton, calling for Lincoln's impeachment, and demanding that both he and Stanton be returned to positions of authority, in order to "save our Republic from a dictator who has led us to the brink of disaster."

  The news had fueled protests in Philadelphia and Cleveland and many other cities of the Midwest, particularly those that had provided so many regiments to Grant's army.

  Yet the waves would then rush in from the other direction. Sherman had just reported a sharp victory against Bragg about thirty miles north of Atlanta; if he could now beat Bragg in a race to secure Kennesaw Mountain, he'd be in a position to take Atlanta under siege within a matter of days.

  Elihu closed his eyes, glad for the momentary respite. He heard Lincoln scratching away with his pen, a sigh, the sound of paper being folded.

  "Elihu?"

  "Yes, sir?"

  "Asleep?"

  "Wish I could, sir."

  Lincoln was looking over at him. He seemed to have aged another decade within the last few weeks. He had lost weight, his eyes were deep-set, dark circles beneath them, hair unkempt, bony features standing out starkly in the flickering light of the lamp on his desk.

  Lincoln stood up, walked over, and sat down in a chair next to Elihu, handing him a sealed envelope.

  "I need you to do this for me now."

  "What is it, sir?"

  "I want you to personally deliver this memo to General Grant."

  Elihu took the envelope. "Now, sir?"

  "Yes. The railroad line has been restored to Baltimore. I've already sent a message down to the rail yard, and a car is waiting for you. You should be able to get a little sleep on the way up. From there proceed as far as possible west on the B and O, then find Grant and deliver this message. It is absolutely crucial that you do so."

  "Yes, sir," Elihu replied wearily.

  "Elihu, this is important. Once aboard the train, feel free to open the envelope and read it. You will then see why. Once you have linked up with General Grant, you are to stay with him." Lincoln spoke with a deep sense of urgency and almost foreboding. "Sir?"

  "Stay with him until it is decided one way or the other." Elihu nodded.

  "It's still not certain, sir," Elihu said. "Hancock repulsed Lee, but he has escaped us before. He still might slip back across the Potomac, and if so, the war will drag on for another year or more."

  Lincoln nodded.

  "I know that. The country knows that. And I am not sure the country can take another year of this kind of bloodletting without achievement."

  He sighed, stood up, and walked over to the window, as Elihu noticed was his habit when thinking. He gazed out over Lafayette Park, the crowd gathered there, the ring of sentries.

 

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