Grant Comes East

Chapter Four

July 17 1863 9.00am

The morning fog was burning off, revealing a slate-gray sky that promised yet more rain. Taking off his hat, General Lee wiped his brow with a handkerchief. The day was already humid, the air still, warm. Mounted skirmishers rode ahead, fanned out to either side across a front of several hundred yards. A company of cavalry rode behind him, ready to spring forward if there was the slightest indication of trouble. He could see that Jeb was being cautious. During the night mere had been several probes by Union cavalry coming out of the city. There was always the chance that a unit could have slipped around the loose cordon of gray-clad troopers.

Cresting a low ridge he could see the forward line, horses tied, men sitting around smoking fires, springing to attention as word leapt ahead of his approach. Orders had been given that there was to be no fanfare, no recognition, but it was hard to contain the troopers that came down to the road, grins lighting their faces, young boys, old men, trim officers snapping to attention at his approach.

"You sleeping in the White House tonight, General, sir?" a wag shouted and a subdued cheer went up. Lee extended a calming hand as he rode past.

"The boys are eager," Jeb offered.

He could see that Most of them had fresh mounts taken in Pennsylvania; they'd been living off good rations for over a month. They had seen victory and in spite of the painful marching in the rainy fields, they were in high spirits, ready for anything. He knew that if he but whispered a few words, ordering them to form up and charge the fortifications, they would do so without hesitation.

Pressing on, he rode down into a tree-clad hollow, the muddy stream, which for most of the year was most likely nothing more than a brook that a boy could leap, now swollen, dark, coming nearly to Traveler's chest as they plunged across.

Several dozen troopers were at work, fashioning a rough-hewn bridge across the stream out of two logs and heavy planks torn from the side of a nearby barn. An ambulance lay on its side downstream, obviously flipped over when its driver had attempted to ford the torrent.

Traveler, slipping, gained the opposite side of the stream and with a quick jump took the muddy slope. The skirmishers, moving ahead, had slowed and Jeb nodded.

"We're there," he announced.

Lee nodded and without comment pressed on. Walter fell in by his side, as did Hood and Hotchkiss, the rest of the staff staying back under the canopy of trees.

"We're inside the District of Columbia now," Hotchkiss announced with a hint of ceremony in his voice.

That close, Lee thought and there was a memory of his home, of Arlington. Not ten miles away now, ten long miles and then it is oven How many hundreds of miles have we marched from Richmond, to Manassas, to Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Union Mills, and now to here? All of that, to gain this moment, at this place. One final lunge and it ends it. This one final lunge.

A couple of the scouts ahead stopped, turned, and came cantering back, the rest of the line slowing to a walk then reining in.

A messenger came up, saluting.

"It's ahead, sir, you'll see their line in a minute. Sir, it's rather close."

Lee smiled at the boy's caution. The message was clear, he'd prefer it if the general would stop now.

"I need to see," Lee said softly. "Lead the way, Captain."

The captain saluted and turned his mount, Lee following, with Taylor, Hotchkiss, and Hood following behind.

He could already see the vague outlines of the fortifications, an unnatural straight line, horizontal, cut like a razor's edge a quarter mile away. Gradually it came into clearer view as he reached the forward skirmish line. Most of the men were dismounted, carbines raised, the troopers looking anxiously toward Lee at his approach.

"Sir, would you please dismount?" the captain asked. "They've got plenty of ammunition over there and they like using it."

As if to lend weight to the argument, there was a flash of light from a gun emplacement, followed a couple of seconds later by the whoosh of a shell passing overhead, to detonate a hundred yards behind them.

Lee nodded but did not get off Traveler, who barely flinched as another shell streaked past

The young captain positioned his mount between Lee and the fort

Lee smiled.

"Captain, you are blocking my view." The captain looked to Stuart who nodded, and the captain moved.

"Sir, if they realize who we are, it means they'll shift troops here," Stuart said.

Lee said nothing, but he knew Stuart was right and, dismounting, he moved down into a shallow ravine, walked up a few dozen paces, and uncased his field glasses.

Stuart and Hood were quickly by his side.

He scanned the fort It was a significant work, a dozen gun embrasures, what looked to be thirty-pounders, perhaps heavier. He caught glimpses of troops along the parapet, Union soldiers curious, looking over the earthen wall in his direction.

A dull thump echoed and he saw the sparks of a mortar shell lazily rising up, trailing smoke, fuse sputtering. It climbed, seemed to hover nearly overhead, then came plummeting down, striking a hundred yards behind him in a splash of mud, the fuse smothered and going out.

Hotchkiss knelt down by his side.

"Fort Stevens. It always has at least one battery of heavy guns, we're told thirty-pounders, rifled. Also a battery of eight-inch mortars as you can see. Garrisoned also with a regiment of infantry. You can't see them in this mist but the forts to either flank are within easy gunnery range, enfilading the approaches with at least one hundred-pound Parrott gun in each. Anyone attempting to cross this field will be hit by guns from at least three fortifications."

Lee nodded, stood up looking to the flanks, but the mist concealed the positions.

"The military road just behind the fortifications links all positions and is well maintained, macadamized in parts or corduroyed. They can easily shift significant reinforcements in and move them back and forth to counter any move. I would assume they are doing so now and will bring up additional troops from the center of the city."

Lee focused his field glasses back on Stevens, ignoring another mortar round as it struck fifty yards to the front, this one detonating with a flash just before striking the ground.

"Good gunners," Hood muttered, "cut the fuse right."

"Might I suggest we move," Jeb said, "they've bracketed you, sir."

That caught him. It wasn't "us," it was "you "

He nodded without comment, cased his field glasses, and walked into the hollow. Seconds later a third round whistled in, striking and detonating within yards of where they had been standing.

He looked over at Jeb and smiled.

"Excellent recommendation, General," Lee said.

"They've been firing away since last night, sir. They're garrison troops but well practiced, at least in gunnery." After mounting up they rode a few hundred yards farther on and, crossing the main road, the group reined in again. Lee raised his field glasses once more, scanning the fort, which was half-concealed in the fog.

Ramparts stood at least ten to fifteen feet high, a dry moat, most likely a muddy swamp now with all this rain, six lines of abatis, sharpened stakes ringing the position like a deadly necklace, earthworks running outward, connecting the position to the next fort to the east, a low blockhouse of logs and rough-hewn barriers blocking the road. It was formidable!

A rifle ball hummed dangerously close and then another. One of his escorts cursed and clutched his arm.

"They might have some sharpshooters over there armed with Whitworth rifles," Hotchkiss said. "Sir, I think we should pull back to safety."

Lee reluctantly agreed, and turning Traveler he regained the road and cantered back into the mists. A parting shot from one of the thirty-pounders shrieked overhead.

Near the stream where troopers still labored to build a bridge over the swollen creek, he stopped, Jeb pointing the way to a tarpaulin spread taut in a stand of chestnut trees, a table and chairs beneath.

Dismounting, the group gathered around the table. Hotchkiss reached into his oversized haversack and pulled out a map on rough sketch paper, folding it out on the table.

"I drew this up last night," Hotchkiss said, "after talking to some of Stuart's men and interviewing some locals who claim to be on our side.

"This is Fort Stevens, which you just saw," he said as he traced out the necklace of fortifications that were like beads on a chain embracing the city.

"Are there any weak points at all?" Lee asked.

Even as he spoke and looked at the map, the moment struck him as strange, tragic. This was once his home. He remembered a Washington without fortifications, lush meadows and fields surrounding the city, blistering in the summer but delightful in autumn and early spring.

Hotchkiss shook his head.

"They've covered every approach. Trees and brush cut back in places for nearly two miles to give clear fields of fire and deny concealment. The Virginia side is even worse."

Lee said nothing. He knew Arlington had been turned into a fortified camp. The approach to Alexandria, where the main military railroad yard was located, was an impossible position to storm.

"It has to be here," Lee said softly. "We must stay in Maryland; to cross back over the river and attempt it from the Virginia side is impossible, if for no other reason than the Potomac cannot be forded."

"It will be the same here or over toward Blandensburg or down along the river. The fortifications will be the same."

He looked over at Hood, who was silent, staring at the map.

"General Hood, do you think you can take that fort?" Hood looked up at him. "When, sir?" "By tomorrow."

There was a moment of silence.

"Sir, I'm strung out along twenty miles of road, my men are exhausted. Pettigrew is in the lead, I could have him up by late in the day, but it won't be until midday tomorrow that I can have all my divisions ready. If it should rain again today, sir, I can't even promise that. You saw the roads."

Lee had sympathy for Hood on this. He had indeed seen the roads, the thorough job that the Union forces had done destroying bridges and mill dams from here halfway back to Westminster.

He thought back to just before Gettysburg, the sense of hesitation in his army in spite of their high spirits, the sense that he was not fully in control. Was that setting in again now that the euphoria of victory was wearing thin because of exhaustion and the unrelenting rains? Am I pushing too hard now, should I wait?

He stood gazing at the map of the fortifications.

This is the only chance we will ever have, he realized. We must take it now. I must push the army yet again.

"It has to be here," Lee said. 'To try and maneuver now would be fruitless. They have the interior lines and maintained roads; wherever we shift, they will be in front of us. That and every hour of delay will play to their advantage."

He looked over at Stuart, who nodded.

"We've had half a dozen civilians get through the lines during the night," Stuart announced. "Reinforcements are starting to arrive in Washington from as far away as Charleston. Their newspapers are reporting that as well. The garrison is most likely at twenty-five thousand now; before the week is out, it could be forty thousand or more."

"Then we have to do it now," Lee replied, "Every hour of delay only strengthens them."

"I can't hope to have any artillery support for at least two days," Hood said, his voice pitched low. "They're stuck in the mud from here clear back to Westminster."

"General Hood, the artillery we have will do little if anything against those fortifications."

"So we are to go in without artillery support, sir?"

"Yes, General, without artillery."

"Sir. Respectfully, sir, you know I'm not one to shy away from a fight," and he fell silent, head half-lowered.

Lee looked at him. I need dissent, I need to listen. It was listening to Longstreet, the first night at Gettysburg, that had set victory in motion.

"Go on, General Hood, please speak freely, sir."

"Thank you, General. Sir, I have a bad feeling about this one.

Hood looked over to Stuart as if seeking support. Lee followed his gaze and could see Stuart lower his eyes. He was troubled as well.

"Why this bad feeling, General Hood?" Lee asked, his voice pitched softly, almost deferential.

"Sir, we won the most glorious victory of the war little more than two weeks ago, but it came at a terrible price. Pettigrew, who will lead off the assault here, took nearly fifty percent casualties. My other divisions, on average, still are down by twenty percent or more."

"Reinforcements are promised," Lee offered and instantly regretted the statement. It sounded like an attempt at justification. Hood was talking about tomorrow, not what Davis had promised and what most likely would not arrive for weeks.

"Go on, General," Lee said.

"Though well fed these last six weeks, the men are exhausted; many are ill from the weather and the heat. If I go in tomorrow, sir, at best I can muster twenty thousand rifles."

"I am aware of that, sir. The question is, with those twenty thousand, can you take those works?" He pointed back toward the city.

Hood looked around at those gathered, the staff standing deferentially in the background. No general ever wanted to admit that he could not do the task assigned. He took a deep breath.

"I can take the works, sir."

"Good. I will leave the details to you, General. Fort Stevens will be the center of the attack; I need this road to move up our following units. General Longstreet's men will push into the city once you have cleared the way."

The look in Hood's eyes made him pause. Yet again it was rivalry, the sensitivity of who would claim what. He offered a smile.

"General, when we take the White House, you will be at my side."

"It's not that, sir." "What then?"

"Sir, I will have no command left to march into Washington." "Sir?"

"Just that, General Lee. I have twenty thousand infantry fit for duty in my divisions. I will lose half of them taking that fort and clearing the way for General Longstreet. The men will be charging straight into thirty-pounders loaded with canister; they throw nearly the same weight as all the guns we faced atop Cemetery Hill two weeks ago. There are some hundred-pounders on that line; a single load of canister from one of those guns can drop half a regiment."

Lee lowered his head, the memory of that debacle still haunting him.

"General Longstreet, sir, has barely twenty thousand under arms as well and, sir, once the outer ring cracks, we might have to fight Washington street by street, clear down to the Naval Yard. I must ask, sir, after that, then what?"

All were silent. Lee looked from one to the other and knew that General Hood had asked the most fundamental question of all. The answer had seemed easy enough two weeks ago; the objective was to destroy the Army of the Potomac, to take it off the field. They had achieved that… but still the war continued.

If we take Washington, then what? For over a year he had fought under the assumption that if indeed Washington fell, the war was over, but now he wondered. The thought of capturing Lincoln, of having Lincoln and Davis then meet, like Napoleon and the czar at Tilsit, to talk and to sign a peace, was that realistic? He rubbed his eyes, picked up a tin cup of coffee someone had set by his side, and sipped from it, gazing at the map, but his mind was elsewhere.

I must keep this army intact. That is what Hood is driving at. If we take Washington but bleed ourselves out, if we have only twenty thousand infantry left, the victory will be a Pyrrhic one. We would be driven from the city and lose Maryland within the month. I must now spend this army wisely. It is all that we have and we cannot form another the way the Union is most likely creating a new one at this very moment.

"General Hood, you were right to ask that, to remind me," Lee said softly, setting down the cup of coffee.

"Our objective is to win this war before autumn. We cannot sustain ourselves at this pace much longer. We must try, however, for Washington. This is the best chance we will ever have to take it"

Hood sighed, then slowly nodded in agreement.

"President Davis will be here within the week. If we can take Washington and present it to him, it will be the fulfillment of the campaign we started a year ago before the gates of Richmond. It will demonstrate to our people, to the North, and to the world that we are a viable nation."

He was silent for a brief moment, then continued.

"But we cannot bleed ourselves to death while doing it"

"Then we attack and pay the price?" Hood asked.

Lee stepped away from the table and walked out from under the awning and back toward the road. The men laboring on the makeshift bridge were still hard at work, struggling to drag the second tree trunk into place. He walked slowly up the slope. The fog was breaking up, swirling coils burning away in the morning heat. The dim outline of Fort Stevens was visible as he reached the top of the low rise.

The ground ahead was clear cut, trees removed; the fields that had once been orderly, planted with corn or wheat, were now weed choked, barren, offering no cover. He could imagine his lines going forward across those fields, the guns of the forts tearing gaping holes into the ranks, the charge hitting the abatis, men tangled up, stopping to cut their way through, stumbling into the moat thick with mud and slime. Even the greenest of troops behind those fortifications would turn it into nothing more than murder, the finest infantry in the world mowed down in a stinking moat by garrison soldiers in spotless uniforms.

He shook his head. Hood was right. His men were too precious for this. Yet he had to do it. If he did not, that in itself would be a victory for the North. Davis would not understand, though that was not his concern at this instant. He had to conceive a victory here, a victory that justified the blood shed at Gettysburg and Union Mills.

He studied the field intently, the open ground free of obstacles, the unfinished dome of the Capitol most likely visible once the fog lifted. It would be lit up with gaslight at night, a beacon, a dream so tantalizingly close, and just beyond that, Arlington and home. How many nights did I sit on the porch, the boys playing in the front yard-not yet soldiers, one of them a prisoner-the lights of the White House just across the river.

He stood there and the plan formed at last.

Looking back over his shoulder he saw Hood and Stuart waiting expectantly, the others standing behind them.

He forced a smile.

"We go in at night, gentlemen. That is how we will take it. At night." He smiled as he gave the order.

"At night, with surprise, we'll be into their works before they know it."

Hood and Stuart smiled and, turning, they left him, already giving orders, leaving him alone with his thoughts and dreams

July 17 1863

7.30pm.

Gazing out the window of the train as it raced across the broad, open countryside of Ohio, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant found his attention wandering for a moment He tried to ignore the pounding intensity of the migraine headache that had bedeviled him since last night. But of course nothing would work except for that oblivion from a bottle, which he most definitely could not indulge.

As the train took a gentle curve, heading southeast, long shadows of the cars, cast by the setting sun, reached out across the open fields. The land was rich, the last of the winter wheat being harvested, fields of corn more than waist-high, weeds and honeysuckle engulfing the split-rail fences that bordered the railroad. The train raced past a barn; a farmer and his two boys driving cows in for the evening milking paused, looked up, took off their hats, and waved.

Thoughts drifted back to his own boyhood as he absently rubbed his temples, to the hardscrabble farm not far from here, and his desire to escape its labors, a desire that had taken him to West Point, an institution that glorified a business that would sicken many a butcher. The army had been, at first an escape, then a burden so intense he had left it Only this war had brought him back into uniform. And now he was in command.

For a moment his mind wandered across the empty years, the war in Mexico, the bitter loneliness of California. He impatiently pushed those thoughts aside. A danger to think of that now; self-pity compounded by the headaches was an almost certain first step back to the bottle, and now was not the time, though the temptation was always there.

"What are you thinking, Sam?"

Grant turned and offered a faint smile.

"Nothing much, Elihu, just drifting."

Congressman Elihu Washburne smiled and said nothing.

He was a good friend. Grant knew that It was through Elihu that he had received his first commission in this war, from a man who was one of the mentors behind the president's rise to power.

Like him, Elihu had come from a farm, up in the bitter cold of Maine. But unlike the Grants, the Washburnes seemed destined from the start for greatness. Five brothers, all of them now in positions of power and influence. One was a general commanding a corps under Sherman, another a captain in the navy, another the governor of Maine.

He envied Elihu for his relaxed, easy air, his nonchalant movement through the halls of power, his urbane manner. He was dressed casually-jacket off, wine-colored vest unbuttoned, linen shirt spotless. Elihu was the type that no matter what the situation would always look and smell clean. And yet he was not a dandy. He had visited Grant during the exhausting winter campaign of the previous year and exclaimed more than once that the rigors of the field were a tonic. He could sit up to dawn with the staff, mount then spend an entire day visiting units, shaking hands, and like any politician, when he came across constituents, make the most of it, passing out cigars and canvassing for votes with vigor.

As Grant looked over at him he realized yet again that he had a true friend in Elihu, an absolute rarity in the game of politics, where too many congressmen would blow with the wind of newspaper coverage and abandon friendship if doing so got them more votes. Elihu had been the one to back him when there was the falling out with Halleck the year before and Halleck's people had openly spread stories about his drinking. The fact that Elihu was one of the men behind Lincoln was a help, not something he had ever deliberately calculated on… but it was a help.

He knew the reasons Elihu was here, riding with him on a train headed east Elihu was an observer from the White House, sent to evaluate him. That didn't bother him. He was also here as a shepherd, to keep an eye on him and the bottle. The last thing the republic needed now was for their new commander to break down. That didn't bother him either. And finally Elihu was just here as a friend, and that was a pleasure. Once he was fully in command, Grant's nature was such that he would take counsel from no man but the president But it was good to have Elihu here now.

Though the president had directed that the war would continue no matter what the cost it was now his job to bring an end to it in the field. Every death, whether it was a death that accomplished something or a death wasted, as so many now were, would be upon his shoulders, and his alone.

As he contemplated this, he reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a battered cigar case, and drew out a Havana. Elihu struck a match on the side of the table that separated them and, nodding a thanks, Grant leaned over and puffed his twelfth cigar of the day to life.

The open window of the car drew out the swirling smoke and flickering bits of flaming ash.

Grant looked around his staff car, actually a railroad president's car that Haupt had "borrowed" for the "emergency." The appointments were rich: red-silk wallpaper, heavy, ornate tables, stuffed leather chairs, and a plush burgundy sofa upon which Ely Parker, a full-blooded Seneca whom he had just "drafted" on to his staff, was fast asleep. He had known Parker casually before the war in Galena. In his mid-thirties, Parker was well educated, a lawyer by training, articulate, and a paragon of organization, capable of keeping the vast mountains of paperwork moving smoothly. Behind his back, some of the men ribbed Parker about his Indian blood, claiming he kept Confederate scalps hidden in his haversack. Parker took it good-naturedly, to a point then his cold gaze shut them down, something Grant admired.

Since leaving Cairo the day before, Parker had not known a moment's rest until Grant finally ordered him to take a break. Within minutes Parker was out, his snoring almost as loud as the rattling of the train as they raced east

Ornate, cut-glass, coal oil lamps with what looked to be real gold gilding lined the walls of the car, the carpet underneath his feet, also burgundy, had been thick and clean, though tracked dirty now with the constant coming and goings of staff from the other cars.

Elihu had laughed when they first boarded, claiming that the car had a certain look to it. Naively Grant had asked what it looked like, and smiling, Elihu said it reminded him of a bordello in Chicago. That had actually embarrassed Grant. He had never stepped foot in such a place, even during the agonizing loneliness out in California, and though Elihu tried to act sophisticated, Grant knew him well enough to believe that while the man might have been in the lobby of such an establishment Elihu never went "upstairs."

There was even a private compartment in the front, with a real bed. He was tempted to try and find a few minutes' solitude there but knew it would be useless, his head throbbing to every beat of the iron wheels. Besides, like many a man who has been in the field for months, he found a soft bed with clean cotton sheets to be uncomfortable, and a reminder as well of other times, when such a bed would be shared.

There had only been a brief moment to spare with Julia before heading east to take up command. She would come along later, and as always the separations from her were an agony. If nothing else, he missed her soothing touch when the headaches came, how she would hold his head in her lap, whisper softly, hour after hour rubbing his brow with a cool, wet cloth until he drifted to sleep.

The door to the privy at the back of the car opened and Herman Haupt stepped out looking a bit pale.

Elihu chuckled softly.

"Still got it?" the congressman asked.

Haupt nodded grimly as he slipped his jacket back on, not bothering to button it

"General, if you don't mind, I think our railroad man needs a little Madeira; it's good for his stomach complaint"

Grant nodded, saying nothing. Around his headquarters the custom of asking if a drink was all right had evolved. It was a subtle reminder, as well, that he should think twice before indulging himself.

Haupt at first hesitated as Elihu opened an ornate, inlaid cabinet set against the other wall and pulled out a decanter and two thick crystal goblets. Elihu poured the drinks himself, handing one to Haupt, who sat down by his side, across from Grant

"Feeling all right Haupt?" Grant asked.

"It'll pass, sir. I've had worse."

Grant actually smiled, remembering the agony of the army in Mexico, when nearly all the men were down with either dysentery or the flux. More than one man had been reduced to cutting the bottom out of his trousers, so frequent and violent were the attacks, and many a man had died, more than from Mexican bullets. He motioned for Haupt to go ahead and indulge himself with the drink.

Haupt settled back in the leather chair, nodded his thanks to Elihu, and downed half the glass of Madeira. He looked over at Grant

"How is the headache, sir?"

Most of his staff had learned long ago to never inquire on that subject His pale features and the cold sweat should be indication enough and it always set his temper on edge. But he indulged Haupt who was new to working with him and obviously not feeling too well himself.

"It should run its course by tomorrow," Grant said quietly, trying to force a smile.

Grant looked down at the reams of paper piled up on the table between them, accounts from nearly every railroad in the North reporting on available rolling stock, supplies, particularly armaments waiting at factories for pickup, locations of nearly every garrison, training depot, and recruiting station from Kansas City to Bangor.

They'd gone over it for hours, and the sheer waste was appalling. Well over a hundred thousand troops were scattered in remote posts and garrisons up north, or wasted on meaningless fronts. Many of these would not be ready for combat, having lived a soft life for too long, but they could still serve a better function than the one they now occupied, and they'd learn combat soon enough.

Elihu had pointed out to him how damn near every governor would howl when their pet units were pulled into federal service, men occupying forts in Boston Harbor, watching supplies in Cleveland, guarding river crossings in Iowa. The men who had these assignments usually had some friends in politics who had arranged a safe berth for them to sit out the war in comfort.

When Parker awoke, he'd pick up the writing of those letters that would set governors howling throughout the North.

Lincoln had tasked him to end the war and now, after two futile years of watching the stupidity, waste, and outright corruption, he would change anything that kept the Union from winning the war.

For the first couple of days after receiving notice from Lincoln, he had been overwhelmed by the responsibility of it all. For two years the republic had waged war to heal itself, to re-create a single nation, but had done so at cross-purposes with itself, and often to its own detriment.

McClellan had been given the best chance to do so the previous year, marshaling close to two hundred thousand men in Virginia and Washington, then had wasted his supreme effort, with only a fraction of those men ever effectively engaged before Richmond.

The president had not helped, hobbling McClellan with orders to keep an entire army stationed near Washington. Yet it had gone far beyond that Officers had plotted against each other, jockeying for power. Congress had played its usual games of maneuvering and deal-making, even while men died in the swamps below Richmond. Never had there been a single unifying purpose, a single will shaping the republic to this war. A war that had to be fought with brutal, direct efficiency.

He had sensed from the very beginning that this war would be profoundly different from any other in history. After the bloody battle at Shiloh he had often talked about it with Sherman, late at night… that Sherman who had been called mad when he declared that in the West alone a quarter of a million men would be needed. A poet named Whitman, whom Julia would often read aloud and whom he hoped someday to meet, had sung of it, of a sprawling, muscular, urban nation of factories, and riches undreamed of. In some ways, like the poet's, his own vision was of a republic stirring, rising, waging a war not of glory, for he loathed that concept, but doing it grimly and efficiently and relentlessly until the job was done.

Here was the new strength, the new kind of war of men and machines to be forged and then used. He had seen it clearly the night Porter ran his fleet down below Vicksburg. Dozens of ships, sparks snapping from boilers, heavy guns firing, shot bouncing off armor, the sky afire, passing unharmed below the Confederate fortifications powerless to stop them. This was the final extension of power created in the smoke-filled factories of Albany, Cleveland, Boston, and New York, directed by men who but a year before were civilians, drawn from factories, fields, counting-houses, and forests to see it through.

He sat back, rubbing his forehead, looking down at the reports, and then shifted his gaze back, out the window, puffing meditatively on his cigar, a shower of ashes cascading down the front of his jacket

The troops stationed in major cities, however, would have to wait. The dispatches picked up early in the afternoon as they stopped for wood and water at Dayton were grim. All telegraph lines out of New York City had been cut, but indications were that the entire city was in anarchy. A New Jersey newspaper had claimed that the entire lower part of Manhattan was engulfed in flames, and ferryboats, packed with panic-stricken civilians, were docking in Jersey City reporting that insurgent rioters had taken the city.

Riots were reported in Philadelphia and Cincinnati as well, and troops in every other city across the North were on alert. The troops deployed to suppress or prevent rioting would have to be held in place for now, and that thought filled him with frustration.

The train slowed as it approached a sharp curve, and dropped down into a narrow valley to rattle across a trestle bridge. There was a glimpse, for a couple of seconds, of half a dozen tents, troops gathered in formation as if waiting for review, the men saluting as the train raced over the bridge.

Here was yet more waste, but until the movement of troops and equipment from Cairo to Harrisburg was completed, every bridge on this vital line had to be guarded, especially here in Ohio and Indiana, where rumors abounded of Copperhead conspiracies and even of Confederate raiders coming up from Kentucky.

This was the core of the problem. Where could he pull troops out, and yet at the same time maintain some level of safety? The motley-looking garrison on the bridge could do precious little if a real force of raiders showed up, but they were still a deterrent against the lone bridge burner or a drunken mob. It was the problem that had bedeviled the Union cause since the first days of the war, exasperated by panicky governors or, worse, selfish governors concerned only with their own state even if it hurt the Union. The thirty men on that bridge, multiplied a thousand times, could be yet another corps facing Lee.

His frustration was compounded by the entire system of mobilization, of state governors responsible for recruiting troops and only then transferring them over to the federal government The regiments recruited for three years were obviously destined for the front but for each of them created, there would usually be a three-month regiment that never left their state capital, and nine-month regiments that barely had time to learn their jobs before being demobilized.

Everyone knew the three-month regiments were a farce, a dodge for those who had political connections to avoid service yet wanted to be able to thump their chests and claim they had served. The hundreds of thousands of men who so briefly wore the blue uniform were worse than useless-in fact a drain on the entire system, taking uniforms, rifles; rations, and pay, while lounging about in garrisons as far north as the Canadian border.

He smiled grimly at the thought of the reaction that would come when those men were indeed called upon to serve.

Though he had never put much stock in the idea when it was first proposed, he found that now, in this crisis, colored troops might very well have a role to play, and he looked back at the pile of papers spilling off the desk, remembering the report stating that enough colored men for an entire division would soon be mobilized out of the northeast and Ohio. He looked back over at Parker, still asleep. Once he was awake, a message would have to be sent to the training center in Philadelphia. A division was a division and to hell with its color, as long as it would fight.

And thus he thought and plotted, a vision of the vast change that an industrial age was creating, a new concept of war, wherein the application of mass upon a single point would transcend the old vision of the past, of lone armies led by an inspired genius fighting but for an afternoon on sunlit fields to decide the fate of nations. He knew that many would claim that this was unfair, but he had nothing but contempt for those who thought thus and had never seen a battlefield the day after the guns fell silent. The job of war was to achieve victory, and in so doing end the slaughter as quickly as possible. How it was achieved, still within the parameters of some basic humanity, was secondary to the final act, the creation of that victory no matter what the cost or how long it took.

Haupt drained the rest of his Madeira and looked out the window. The shadows were gone now, replaced by a deepening twilight. Already the air drifting in through the open window was cooler, a welcomed relief from the hot, blistering day spent crossing the open farmlands of Indiana and Ohio.

"We should be passing through the station in Columbus in about ten minutes," Haupt announced.

Grant said nothing.

Elihu motioned for Haupt to have another glass, and the general, at first reluctant, surrendered and accepted the offer. Reaching into his own breast pocket, he produced a slightly bent cigar and looked at it.

"Have one of mine," Grant offered and Haupt smiled and thanked him.

They were passing the outer edge of the city, transitioning from open farmland to smaller fields of vegetables, a cluster of homes around a church, a blacksmith shop with sparks swirling up into the evening air, several boys, riding bareback astride a heavy plow horse, waving at the train as it passed.

No sign of war here, no burned-out villages, no rotting abandoned farms with bloated bodies lying in the fields-all was neat, orderly, filled with prosperity.

More homes now, streetlights, a large warehouse, a siding packed with cars loaded down with the freshly harvested wheat, civilians out for an evening stroll, the distant sound of a band, growing louder as a shudder from the brakes ran through the train, its bell ringing, whistle sounding.

Elihu leaned out the window for a second to look and ducked back in, grinning.

"Welcoming committee," he announced.

Grant shook his head and said nothing, looking over at Haupt.

"We're scheduled to keep right on rolling," Haupt said, "just slow to pick up dispatches."

Grant offered a smile of thanks. The last thing he wanted now was a waste of time shaking hands, offering some poor excuse for a speech, and then listening to the endless replies, with every city councilman ready to tell him how to win the war. Other generals, he knew, basked in this.

'Too much speechifying and not enough fighting," Sherman had grumbled to him once when they were caught at such an affair, and the memory of it made him grin, forgetting the headache for a moment.

Sherman was furious at being left behind, swearing up a storm right till the moment he had left. But Sherman knew better than anyone that the decision was the right one, and would throw himself into the task of Commander of the western theater with a mad passion to see it through and not let his friend down. It would have been fine to see Sherman by his side, commanding a corps, but far better to have him out west, commanding an army, cleaning up what was left of resistance along the Mississippi and then, when the time was right, heading east into Tennessee and Georgia.

Three- and four-story buildings now crowded in to either side of the tracks, a rail yard opening out to the right, filled with dozens of lattice-like boxcars. Half a dozen locomotives ready to pull trains were in the yard, several of them wreathed in smoke. Haupt pointed them out, mentioning quietly that they were most likely ladened with rations, pork, cattle, freshly made hardtack, ready to be shipped east In a nearby stockyard several hundred horses were waiting to be loaded.

What Lee would give for this one depot, he thought Just for those half dozen locomotives, the supplies, and an open track to move them on.

A mix of smells wafted in, of the barnyard and steam, oil, wood, and coal smoke.

The whistle of their train sounded again, louder, the engineer playing it, easing it in and out so that it almost seemed to carry a tune, counterpointing the swelling noise of the band.

Haupt stood up, buttoning his uniform jacket, went to the rear of the car, paused, and looked back at Grant

"Sir, I suspect there's a crowd of well-wishers out there. Do you want to greet them?"

Grant looked at Elihu and shook his head.

"In spite of the press reports that give my location by the minute, this move is supposed to be secret," he announced.

Elihu grinned and said nothing, pouring another glass of Madeira for himself. He hesitated, then poured half a glass for Grant

"It'll help with the headache, General."

Grant took the glass and downed it in two gulps. It was sticky, far too sweet, but he welcomed it and nodded his thanks.

The train drifted into the station, its platform and the grounds around it packed with a band, dignitaries-several wearing ridiculous red, white, and blue sashes-a line of troops at attention, and, spilling to either side, a crowd of several hundred or more.

He looked back and saw Haupt leaning off the side of the back platform, reaching out to grab a satchel handed up by the stationmaster, and then waving.

The engineer of their train, seeing Haupt's signal, blasted his whistle again; there was a lurch as he poured in steam, and the train edged forward, rapidly picking up speed.

Grant, sitting in the shadows of the car, did not even give an acknowledgment as they sped up, pulling out of the station, the sound of the band receding, the music falling apart as musicians lost their beat in the confusion. Several of the well-wishers ran alongside the train, waving valiantly. Catching sight of several boys racing to keep up, Grant finally waved back. The boys shouted exuberantly.

Rattling and swaying, the car passed over a switch, more stockyards in the shadows, sidings packed with westbound trains waiting for the express to pass. Turning into a curve, the station was lost to view.

It never ceased to amaze him how so many, even now, thought war was a celebration, a party, a time for speeches and bands. They should have been at Chapultepec, Shiloh, or in the stinking trenches before Vicksburg. That would have disabused them soon enough.

Haupt sat down again at the table and pulled open the small canvas bag snatched from the stationmaster. Twenty or more telegrams, simply marked "Grant" on the envelopes, spilled out.

Grant sighed as he looked at the stack of papers and gazed over at Parker, who had slept through the entire commotion. It was just about time to wake him up.

There was also a copy of the Columbus Gazette and Haupt opened it up.

"Sir, look at this," Haupt said. Grant looked down at the paper but the car was dark. Elihu struck another match, stood up, and lit a coal oil lamp, which flared to life, golden shadows bobbing and weaving as the train raced on.

"Lee Sighted at Washington," a headline in the upper-left corner announced.

"Panic in Capital," a second headline declared in the center of the paper.

Grant picked the paper up and scanned it. The report was from Port Deposit, a ferry crossing on the north bank of the Susquehanna in Maryland, dated five in the afternoon. It was the nearest telegraph station to Washington in operation. Most likely the dispatch had been run up from Washington by a fast courier boat.

"It states, that General Lee, escorted by Jeb Stuart and numerous staff, was sighted in front of Fort Stevens this morning," Grant said, looking back up at Elihu as he put the paper down.

"So he's there," Elihu replied after a moment's pause. "Of course he's there. That's what he has to do." He looked away for a moment. 'That's what I would do."

He continued to look out the window, headache forgotten for the moment.

"The president said he'd stay in the city no matter what," Elihu said.

"He has no other choice now. I just wish I had someone in command there other than Heintzelman."

Neither Haupt nor Elihu replied.

The headache did seem to be fading. Whether it was the glass of Madeira or the newspaper, he wasn't sure.

"It's right where I want him now," Grant said softly.

"Who, sir?" Haupt asked.

"Why, Lee, of course."