Never Call Retreat

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The War Office Washington, D.C.

August 29, 1863 4:00 A.M.

'The line is still down," Elihu Washburne announced, standing in the doorway of his office where Lincoln had spent the night, anxiously pacing back and forth. There was no need during the late morning and early afternoon of yesterday to be told there was a battle on. The rumble had been steady from the northwest until the rain finally came, buffering the sound.

And then the telegraph-line had gone dead. Rumor of that had spread through the city within minutes, anxious crowds gathering again around the White House, the War Department, and the Treasury Office, which was the hub for all the telegraph lines.

Lincoln had stayed in the War Office, not wishing to confront the crowds out in the street.

His pessimism had taken hold during the night. The line had gone down shortly before two in the afternoon. If it was only a temporary break, it should have been up again within minutes. The long hours of silence now told him but one thing. Grant had lost Frederick and was in retreat. The silence could only mean that.

What do I tell the nation now? He wondered. Be disciplined and wait for the facts, he counseled himself.

Dawn Gen. Ulysses S. Grant stood silently, then stretched and looked out over,the plains surrounding Frederick, Maryland.

He had not slept at all. The migraine, the sounds coming from every house in the town and from the surrounding fields, the horrid memory of the Confederate major, head blown off, connecting to the nightmares that still haunted him of a comrade dead in Mexico.

Phil Sheridan wearily came to his side, emerging from the gloom, the smoke, the fog wrapping the field, rising up from the Monocacy and the rain that had fallen throughout the night.

The battle fury was out of Phil; exhaustion was etched in his face and in the way he walked, shock overtaking him as well.

"It's a nightmare down there," Phil said softly, nodding a thanks as Ely handed him a cup of coffee, which he took in both hands. They trembled as he raised it to his lips.

"How could he do it?" Phil asked.

"Who?"

"Lee. My God, sir, he drove his men in relentlessly. It was madness, absolute madness."

"He had this one final chance," Grant said, "and felt he could grab it. If the shoe was on the other foot, we might have done the same."

"I've never seen anything like it before."

"We don't end this now, we might see it again," Grant replied. "It's finished this week or they could regroup across the Potomac and hang on for years."

Phil, still holding his coffee with trembling hands, looked over at Grant.

"I want pressure put on him."

"With what, sir? My corps is gone, McPherson's, Ord's. Sir, I never thought I'd admit something like this, but the army is fought out."

"I'm not talking a full-scale attack," Grant replied. "Even if I wanted to, the men are finished, at least for today. But we still must find a way to keep pressure on Lee, no matter what."

He looked away from Phil.

In one sense Phil was right. The Army of the Susquehanna was indeed fought out. Three out of the four corps that had marched with him only days ago were hollow, burned-out wrecks. McPherson's had taken the worst of it. Down to less than fifty percent after the first day, more than half of those surviving becoming casualties in repulsing Lee's final charge.

Yet, was it not at least as bad or even worse on the other side of Monocacy Creek this morning? Ord in his sacrifice had all but destroyed Early and part of another division. Phil's stand in what all now called the Hornets Nest had shattered Robertson, one of Lee's elite divisions, and savaged parts of two other divisions. Of the three divisions Lee had launched in the charge against Frederick, at least half of those men still littered the fields.

Grant had gone back into the town shortly before dawn. The grisly task of dragging out the Confederate dead was still going on. Fourth Street, for two blocks, was unlike anything he had ever seen, and he prayed he would never see the like again.

Every house in the town was a hospital or a morgue. Several hundred of his men, and all the available civilians, were already at work at the edge of town, digging mass graves.

In one frightful case, a woman had discovered her own out in the street, her husband and son, both with a Confederate regiment. She dragged them into her house and was found a half hour later in her bedroom, having hanged herself.

An argument had ensued when the men who discovered her and found her suicide note had gently removed her body, found the bodies of her husband and son in the parlor, and carried them out to be buried together. A town minister presiding over the burials refused to bury her in what he said was consecrated ground. One of the soldiers leveled a revolver on him, and the service continued.

It was the talk of the men this morning. Strange how one such tragedy became a metaphor for all the madness and tragedies. A delegation of citizens had sought Grant out, demanding that the soldier be found and arrested for having threatened a man of the cloth. He said he would. He watched them leave, and did nothing. The soldier who drew the revolver was right; she was a casualty of this war the same as her husband and son.

He had received word Ord was a prisoner; more than half of his division and brigade commanders were dead or wounded, but this army still had to fight. That had always been the mistake of the Army of the Potomac in the past. The Army of the Potomac had fought battles but had never been able to sustain a campaign. A battle can go on for a few very hard, bitter days, but then it dies out from sheer exhaustion. A campaign is not just one day, or two, or three… a campaign is a continuum until either one side or the other can no longer stand up… and he still had enough men standing to press the issue. Battles had proven they were indecisive and could not end the war. But a campaign pressed home with sufficient resolve just might get the job done and end the killing once and for all.

Phil finished his cup of coffee, and an enlisted man came up, offering him a plate with some fried salt pork. Phil paled and shook his head.

"I need you to keep the pressure on Lee," Grant said again.

"I realize that, sir," Phil finally replied. "I can still muster maybe three thousand out of the Ninth Corps."

"What's left of Ord's is in your hands as well," Grant said. "Yes, sir."

Grant had essentially promoted him again at this moment, but Phil showed no reaction.

"Hunt is resupplying the guns he has left; they will resume their old position and bombard the line. If an opening develops, we push it. We also captured ten of their guns, Napoleons. Hunt is incorporating them into his command. Call on him if you need close-in support."

Phil said nothing, finally put his cup down, and saluted. "I better get back to the men I have left," he said and walked off. "Sir?" It was Ely. "Yes?"

"Sir, I have some returns," he said quietly. He held up a sheaf of papers in his hand. "Just tell me," Grant said.

"Sir, we might have upward of twenty-five thousand casualties for the last three days."

"What I figured," Grant replied, looking over at Ely.

The men of his staff were all silent. Nearly half their own men had fallen in the melee yesterday; all were in shock at the horrific losses. He wondered at this moment whether Ely, in presenting the returns, was offering a suggestion, that it was time to break off the fight.

Grant turned and looked at him.

"How many do you think Lee lost?" he asked.

"I'd judge as many or more. The Hornets Nest, we might have lost more than them, but it absolutely shattered Robertson's command. It was up here, though, that Lee was really pounded. The estimate is we lost somewhere around three thousand repulsing the attack; estimates are he might have lost eight to ten thousand."

Grant could not speak.

He did not want to say more. If he dwelled too long on just how much suffering had been created, and, yes, created by his own hand, he'd break. There was many a bottle to be found in town. It would be easy enough to say no fighting today, to find a bottle, get good and drunk, and try to get some sleep.

He sighed, pulling his hat brim low against the steady drizzle.

"Push him," he finally said. "I'm taking over Banks's Corps personally. After Sheridan feels better, I'll cut orders for him to consolidate his command with that of Ord while I incorporate McPherson in with Banks. That should give us two light corps for maneuver. No one is fit to move today, but I want Lee to know we are still here." "Yes, sir," Ely replied quietly.

"Look, Major Parker," Grant said softly, so quietly only Ely could hear. "The question now is simply this: Who will decide to quit? I can turn this army around today and retire over the mountains, and every man in it will then believe that we were fought to a standstill and lost.

"But if I stand this ground, if we continue to stare Lee in the face, if tomorrow we advance, those same men will march believing they have achieved victory. Yes, a victory bought at a terrible cost, but victory nevertheless, and they will march and fight as victors. If we stand and then move forward while Lee is forced to retreat, his men will reach the opposite conclusion, and they will withdraw from Frederick as a defeated force. That, in its simplicity, is often the essence of war. That will set the groundwork for the next step in this campaign."

Ely said nothing. Grant was slightly embarrassed that he had felt it necessary to explain himself.

"Go about your duties."

"Yes, sir."

"Ely, is the telegraph connection back up?" "No, sir." "Why not?"

"The telegraph wagon for headquarters was smashed in the fighting. The wire from town to halfway up the pass was cut in hundreds of places. Several hours ago, when I realized how long it would take to get service back up, I did send a courier back with news to Hagerstown."

"I wish you had done that sooner," Grant said, and there was a slight note of chastisement in his voice. "The president must be worried sick by now. Besides, our other commands must have clear news of what happened here."

"Sorry, sir," Ely replied. "It's just that with all that had to be done, I let it slip. I'm sorry."

"Too late now. How long for another telegraph wagon to get up?"

"It should be here by late morning. Ten miles of wire are to be brought up." "Thank you, Ely." "Sir."

He stood silent, hands in pocket, and wondered what was being said in Washington now. Was Sykes continuing to advance, or had something gone wrong there? Were the fortifications at the fords strong enough to hold if Lee should turn that way? As he looked across the rain-soaked battlefield, he felt that never in his life had he been so lonely as now.

9:00 A.M.

General Lee rode across the field parallel to the road down to Hauling Ferry. It had been a hard choice, one he had agonized over ever since rising shortly after midnight.

Upon awaking, his first temptation was to reverse his decision and keep the army in place for the day, to see if Grant just might counterattack.

But the realization that his rear was now threatened had settled the question. Jeb had come to him shortly after one in the morning with a report that Yankee cavalry was astride the Baltimore and Ohio, nearly cutting Armistead off. Behind the cavalry it was believed additional Yankee infantry was moving, possibly only the militia that had fooled them a week ago into thinking Grant was coming due south, but fresh troops, nevertheless.

Lee could sense that a vise was beginning to close. If I wait, Grant will indeed wait in response until I'm hit from the rear.

His hand forced by events, he and his men, the veterans of Hood's and Beauregard's Corps, had set out before dawn. Hood had indeed lost his arm and was out of the fight. Beauregard was now complaining that he was sick and could not move.

Ahead, skirmishing began to flare, Jenkins's cavalry, probing down the road to Hauling Ferry.

The men marching on the road, as he gazed over at them, filled his his heart with anguish. They were what was left of Beauregard's two divisions in the attack. Their ranks were painfully thin, around more than one regimental flag barely fifty men now marched. They were numbed, shocked, shuffling through the mud, heads bent low. He thought of but two weeks before, the march north from Washington, toward Gunpowder River. Though the heat was terrible they were at a floodtide of youth, of enthusiasm, of belief in victory, heads held high as they marched forward.

And now this.

One more fight, that is all I need out of them this day. One more fight. Surely they will rally to that if I lead them. Secure the crossing, Longstreet comes down tonight slipping out of the trap, and we are across the river. From there all things again become possible. Though Grant was not driven from the field, Lee still believed he had beaten him. If I have lost my offensive power, so has he. He came on arrogantly, but if allowed to stay in command, he will never do so again.

The Yankees will have to reorganize, recruit, and how can they recruit after three such stunning blows delivered against them in less than two months? Surely Lincoln will collapse now or at worst they will stop on the banks of the Potomac and wait till spring. Time enough for the wounded to heal, the ranks to be replenished, perhaps France still to come in and break the blockade.

We can still win this, he whispered to himself, even as he rode toward the distant rattle of gunfire coming from the Potomac crossing.

The Road to Hauling Ferry, near Buckeystown Ford 10:00 A.M.

When the column stopped again, Cruickshank rode wearily forward. The road was getting muddy and one of the huge wagons had skidded off to one side, a wheel sinking into a culvert. The dozen mules hooked to the wagon were clawing at the ground and braying as the driver, swearing furiously, lashed at them.

"Stop it," Cruickshank said, his voice barely above a whisper, having long since shouted himself hoarse.

"Goddamn stupid bastards," the driver shouted. "Hate goddamn mules."

"Lashing them won't change it," Cruickshank replied. He felt little pity for the beasts; years out west before the war had burned mat sentiment out of him, but still, the poor animals in the traces now were straining, the wagon not moving. Behind them twenty more wagons with their load of pontoon bridging were backed up for almost a half mile.

It had taken nearly an entire day to round up the animals needed to haul the wagons, half the teams having been commandeered from an artillery battalion on direct orders from Longstreet. The gunners had been less than happy with thus being rendered immobile and had tried to pawn off the worst of their nags. It had taken several hours of screaming and threats to get the necessary teams, lead them back to the track, off-load the wagons, and hook them up.

A column of infantry, men bent double, hats pulled low against the rain, staggered by on either side of the road. In another time a mere request would have sent an entire regiment to his aid. He spotted an officer and rode up to him. The man at first actually averted his gaze at Cruickshank's approach. "Colonel, I need your help," Cruickshank said. "Sir?".

"Your help," and pointed back to the wagon, tilting over, pontoon boat atop it leaning precariously.

"My boys are just beat," the colonel said. "Besides, we've got orders to move as fast as possible to the ferry."

"If we don't get these boats down to that ferry to make the damn bridge, you ain't going nowhere," Cruickshank replied.

The colonel sighed, turned, and called for a sergeant.

"Robinson."

The sergeant major came up without comment. The colonel pointed to the wagon and Robinson sighed. "Yes, sir."

It took several minutes for him to gather up thirty men. Some of them, once stopped, simply went to the side of the road and collapsed into a nearly instant, exhausted sleep. Cruickshank directed them around the wagon, and a couple of ropes were run out for the men to grab hold of.

Meanwhile, behind them the convoy of wagons was stalled; order of march was breaking up as troops stopped, men just going to the side of the road to lie down.

Finally, with a lot of whip cracking, cursing of men, and tragically one man having his foot broken when a wheel ran over him, the wagon was back on the road.

The infantry walked away without comment, the sergeant major shaking men awake, shaking hands with the injured soldier left behind, and the column starting back up again, rain coming down, mist rising from the creek, mules braying, an elderly captain sitting by the side of the road crying, head bowed, no one stopping to ask why.

"General Cruickshank, sir!"

He turned and looked back.

God damn! Another wagon had just stalled in the same place as the first one. He wearily turned and rode back.

Monocacy Creek

10:45 A.M.

The sharpshooting back and forth was constant, but Sergeant Hazner could sense it was a halfhearted effort by the other side, as much as it was halfhearted by his. Here and there a few men, the type that took a perverse delight in such things, banged away as ordered. But most of his surviving men were sitting in the bottom of the mud-filled trench, soaking wet, miserable, exhausted.

"Think I got one," a sharpshooter announced. The men to either side of him said nothing, a few looking at him with disgust.

"Ain't you had enough killing?" Hazner asked. The sharpshooter looked over at him and grinned while reloading.

The man stood up and a second later pitched over backwards, slumping down into the trench, dead, shot clean through the forehead. No one spoke for a moment. They just stared at his body.

"Someone wave a white handkerchief," Hazner said.

One of the men pulled out a dirty piece of cloth, held it up over the lip of the trench, and waved it back and forth for a minute.

"OK, push the dumb son of a bitch out," Hazner said.

Several men grabbed the body, hoisted it up, and rolled it over the rear of the trench. As they did so, Hazner risked a quick look.

The landscape below him and on the other side of the creek was blasted, like a painting of hell. The ruined bridges, the raw slashes of earth from trenches, and bodies everywhere, one of them hanging inverted from a tree that had been split in half by a shell.

The area around the Hornets Nest was a nightmare of bodies lying in the rain, heaped up around the sides of the railroad cuts. A party carrying a white flag, and followed by several ambulances, was at work, pulling wounded out of the tangle.

A minie ball zipped high overhead, and he sensed it was nothing more than a warning shot, that the Yankees on the other side of the creek had allowed the little truce for them to get rid of the dead sharpshooter but now it was back to business. He waved and slid down to the bottom of the trench, and squatting in the mud he fell asleep.

Three Miles East of Monocacy Creek on the Baltimore and Ohio Line Noon 'I want the ammunition off of these trains now!" Pete Longstreet shouted. He thought they had been off-loaded during the night. Three million rounds of rifle ammunition and ten thousand rounds of artillery, enough to sustain the army through another pitched battle if need be.

Organization was breaking down, that was becoming obvious. Some of the boxes of rifle ammunition were stacked up beside the track, out in the rain. Eventually the water would soak through the wood siding and ruin it. A few wagons and ambulances had been pressed into the service, men loading up, but there was no real effort here, no efficiency. Some batteries had sent their limber wagons back, others, especially the new batteries made up primarily of infantry volunteers, had yet to show up. They were short of horses as it was. They had organized for this battle to fight mainly in place, and now they just didn't have the transport to get their supplies up to the righting men.

Lee should have stayed here, he thought. In one day the general of the army had gone from near victory to field commander of a battered, makeshift corps in retreat. He should have stayed here to organize and he sent me instead.

A courier came up the line from the east, riding fast, and Longstreet saw the man, who had just about ridden past without stopping. He stepped out into the middle of the track and waved him down.

The courier reined in.

"General Longstreet?"

"Yes, that's me."

"Sir, a report from General Armistead, sir." "Go on."

"Sir, he reports he must abandon his movement along the railroad track. At least a brigade of Yankee cavalry has flanked him; in fact, sir, they almost got me right after I started out. They are linking up with General Sykes, whose men are advancing along the National Road. General Armistead reports, sir, that he will continue his withdrawal marching to the southwest toward Urbana and attempt to link back up with the army that way."

"Where is he now?"

"Sir, about ten miles back from here, at Marysville." "Do the Yankees have trains?"

"Yes, sir, damnedest things. Big heavy guns mounted in front of the locomotives. We were breaking up the tracks and slowing them down good yesterday, but when their cavalry started coming in, that pushed us off the tracks."

They could be here in a couple of hours, Pete realized and looked over at the ammunition trains.

"Did you see any of Stuart's men?"

"A few patrols, sir, along the track. I warned them as I rode past."

"Fine. Get back to Armistead, tell him to push hard to link up with us."

He didn't say anything else about the army evacuating. The courier turned about and rode off, angling southeast, away from the rail line.

I have to get this ammunition off the train and up to the line, Pete realized. Behind him, back toward the front line, he had passed dozens of locomotives, hundreds of cars, all frozen in place, the boilers having gone out The three ammunition trains were the last to get out, all the stalled trains now a barrier that wagons had to squeeze around to get through for a load.

There was the equivalent of a hundred and fifty wagonloads of ammunition on these trains, and so far he had moved less than fifty of them. That and a hundred double-caisson loads for the artillery.

At the rate it was going, he sensed they'd never get it all off in time.

He turned to his staff.

"One of you get back to headquarters. Tell Walter Taylor I need more wagons sent back here now, anything, ambulances^ anything. Another of you track down Alexander. Tell him we have enough ammunition to resupply one hundred guns…"

He hesitated.

"And tell him to prepare to abandon any of his pieces that cannot get together full teams by nightfall."

The two couriers galloped oft, and Pete stood alone in the rain, looking east, wondering if at any minute he might see an armored train coming down the track.

A major was supervising the off-loading, and he called him over.

"Major, post some sentries down the track a few miles. The Yankees are coming in on us from that way. The moment you see them, blow the rest of this up."

"Sir?"

"You heard me, blow these trains up. Then as you pull back, set fire to every train on these tracks."

"Hard to do sir, nearly all the locomotives are cold, their fires out."

"Be ingenious, son," Pete said, trying to smile. "I'm giving you the chance to put the damned B and O out of business for a long time; you can claim to be the biggest train wrecker in history."

The major smiled back.

"We'll find a way, sir."

Pete mounted and rode off, weaving his way around the long strings of boxcars, flatcars, hoppers, and locomotives.

He passed the spot where Lee had almost been killed, wreckage still strewn across the track, and to the empty flat-cars where Cruickshank had finally managed to get the damn pontoon bridges unloaded and moving.

Ahead there was a distant thumping, occasional muffled rattling of rifle fire, just when he had assumed there was nothing serious going on. Grant was just waiting them out now.

Headquarters, Army of the Susquehanna

12:15 P.M.

The reassuring click of the telegraph sounded behind him, the replacement crew sending out the first test signal a half hour ago, and now forwarding a full report of the battle and a coded signal by Grant, indicating his belief that Lee was moving his forces toward Hauling Ferry.

Treasury Office Washington, D.C.

12:40 PM.

The cost, merciful God," Lincoln sighed as he sat down, holding the tear sheet just handed over by the telegrapher. "The cost."

Elihu was by his side, reading over his shoulder. "Grant held, though," Elihu said. "He held." There was a touch of exuberance in Elihu's voice, but for the moment Lincoln could not react.

"Estimate our losses at twenty-five thousand or more." He kept rereading that one line.

The signal had been sent directly from Grant, to Hagerstown, from there to Harrisburg, then repeated down to Port Deposit. With the recapture of Baltimore, a victory heralded on the front pages of all newspapers across the country, the telegraph line had been restored directly back to Washington.

That number, twenty-five thousand, was now public knowledge. He could picture by this evening hundreds of thousands gathering at telegraphy stations across the nation, anxious parents, wives, children, all waiting for the first casualty reports to come through, names, more names, and yet more names, each one tearing a tragic hole into a family that would never heal.

"Sir?"

It was Elihu, lightly touching him on the shoulder.

Lincoln stirred from his thoughts and looked up.

"Sir, Grant held at Frederick. In fact he reports Lee is retreating, trying to flee Maryland and get across the Potomac to Virginia. That is the coded part which just came through. We have Lee on the run."

Lincoln could only shake his head and sigh.

"Yes, I know, Elihu. As we did last year after Antietam. He slipped the net then and the war continued."

Lost in gloom, Lincoln stood up and walked out of the room. A moment later Elihu heard a clamor out in the street as a cavalry detachment pushed the waiting crowd back, reporters shouting questions, as Lincoln slowly walked across Lafayette Park to return to the White House.

Elihu watched him disappear into the rain, his heart breaking at the sight of the man, who appeared, like Atlas, to be carrying an impossible burden upon his shoulders.

Elihu turned back to the telegrapher.

"A message to Hancock, coded. Inform him to expect a full attack by Lee before the day is out."

Hauling Ferry

2:45P.M.

Mr. Bartlett?"

Jim was asleep, heading resting on the table. He stirred. It was a white officer.

"Yes, sir?"

"General Hancock wishes to see you, Mr. Bartlett." "Of course."

Jim stood up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, taking a few seconds to wipe his spectacles with a dirty handkerchief. Like so many who fall asleep at midday he was surprised by the bustle of activity around him even as he had dozed. Men were setting up awnings to protect boxes of ammunition being off-loaded from a canal barge, a company of a hundred men, shovels and picks on their shoulders, were coming off the line to eat their noonday meal. They were all covered in mud, soaked to the skin, but their spirits were still high, a team of a hundred moving from the kitchen area back up to replace them, gibes about the food awaiting the returning crew being exchanged.

Jim followed the officer out from under the awning, glad when one of his assistants came up and offered him an army poncho and an army slouch cap to cover himself. The immaculate clothes he wore as a butler at the White House, black coat, trousers, boiled shirt, black cravat, were now filthy, most likely beyond any hope of repair.

He mounted his old swaybacked nag and fell in with the officer by his side.

"Your men, Mr. Bartlett. I never seen such workers," the officer said. "They just don't stop."

Jim smiled at the compliment.

"Thank you, sir. These boys have a reason to be here. Mr. Lincoln gave them that, Mr. Lincoln and you soldiers. We'll dig till we hit China if that is what you need."

The officer chuckled and shook his head.

"Maybe get a few million of them to help us, is that it?"

"I heard say those working out in California on the railroad are mighty fine workers."

"How the country is changing," the officer said.

"How is that, sir?"

He reddened slightly and shook his head. "Oh, nothing." "You mean us colored, the Chinese, and such?" "No offense, Mr. Bartlett."

"None taken, young sir. Yes, the country is changing."

They crested the top of the slope and Jim smiled with satisfaction. Little more than a day ago this had been open fields, woodlots, and just the beginnings of a trench. The entire landscape had been transformed by the terrible needs of war and he smiled because he had had a hand in achieving what needed to be done.

A rectangular bastion was before him, a hundred feet long and about fifty feet broad. The earthen ramparts were eight to ten feet high, all sides around it dug out into a moat. On a raised platform in the center was one of the huge cannons, what the officers were calling a Parrott gun. Four other smaller guns were inside the bastion as well. The entryway was a rough-hewn bridge made of logs split in half.

"Be careful," the officer said, "it's a bit slippery."

Not too sure of himself on horseback Jim decided to dismount and walk in.

Sentries were posted at the entryway. Just behind them, inside the fort, was a stack of logs that he realized could be thrown across the entrance to block it if the fort was surrounded. Within, hundreds of men, all of them soldiers, were forming up, some already positioned at the guns. The officer led the way for Jim as they walked across the muddy ground and up a sloping ramp, paved with logs, to where the great gun rested. Hancock, leaning heavily on his cane, was standing by the muzzle of the gun, field glasses raised, looking toward the road that headed north.

The ground before them was completely transformed. Everything had been cut back for several hundred yards. Trees dropped, brush cleared, sharpened stakes driven into the ground, entrapments dug. Looking north and south Jim saw where long zigzagging entrenchments had been dug in each direction. The one to the left sloped down to the Monocacy. The stream itself was now blocked by a half dozen barges, each mounting a light artillery piece; a rough-hewn bridge, now spanning the creek, was wobbly, and looked as if it would collapse if more than a few men were on it at any time, but it gave them a means of moving men across the creek without relying on the barges and canal.

On the far side there was another bastion, another of the great guns within, more entrenchments, connecting to yet another bastion. Men were still out in the fields forward, working, cutting down trees, even trampling down the corn to deny concealment.

To the south the line continued for over a mile before finally sloping back down to the canal and the Potomac behind it. The position was firmly anchored by two more bastions on this side of the river.

Hancock turned, looked at Jim, and, releasing his cane, eagerly extended his hand. Jim shook it.

"Mr. Bartlett, I felt you should see what your men have done while you slept."

Hancock smiled.

"Sorry, sir. Guess exhaustion caught up with me." "I told everyone not to disturb you. I know you were up most of the night." "Sorry, sir."

"Mr. Bartlett, how old are you?"

"Not rightly sure. Maybe sixty."

"Men half your age have dropped doing less work. I must say, this would have been impossible without you."

Hancock extended his hand, pointing to the defensive line, swayed a bit, and clutched his cane again, using his other hand to brace himself against the iron carriage of the Parrott gun.

"And now we shall need it!"

"Sir?"

"I guess you didn't hear," Hancock said excitedly. "The telegram just came in from Washington. Lee has been defeated at Frederick and is believed to be retreating this way."

"My God," was all Jim could say. His feelings were now so mixed. His son and grandson were up in Frederick, what of them? Yet if Lee was defeated, perhaps that might mean all this was coming to an end. It would also mean he was coming this way.

As if reading his mind, Hancock nodded.

"Lee is undoubtedly coming straight here. Skirmishing just a couple miles up that road is getting heavy. Infantry has been reported. I think he will try to force this position by the end of today."

"Then we keep working till he does show up."

"No, Mr. Bartlett. I think it's time I sent your people out. You've done a magnificent job. I'm convinced we can hold this place now. I wasn't so sure yesterday, but I am today. But still, you are civilians, and I guess I must add, colored civilians. I don't want you and your men here if things turn bad."

"We are staying, sir. No disrespect intended, but we are staying."

Hancock looked at him, not responding.

"Sir, how many cooks in your army? How many stretcher bearers, how many wagon drivers, how many men hauling boxes of ammunition once the fight starts?"

Hancock smiled.

"Quite a few."

"Put rifles in their hands, put them on the line, my men will do whatever is needed. We can fight that way, and we will keep digging right up until the bullets begin to fly."

Hancock hesitated, and then nodded.

"It's against my better judgment sir," he said, and Jim was startled by that one word-"sir." Few whites had ever called him that before.

"Keep your men well organized. Detail off reliable ones to do the tasks you've suggested. The rest of you I want back behind the canal when the shooting really starts."

"Yes, sir," Jim replied with a smile.

"It won't be long now," Hancock said, and he motioned to the north.

In the distance there was a muffled thump, followed seconds later by a crackling sound.

"They're coming up," Hancock said.

He turned away and Jim walked back out of the fort, mounted his old swaybacked horse, and rode back to his own "headquarters." His assistants were gathered round, waiting anxiously.

"We staying?" one of them asked.

Jim nodded.

There were exuberant shouts and Jim held up his hands for silence.

'This will be no picnic," he shouted, and all fell silent.

"A lot of men are going to be dying soon. A lot of men are dying for us. Some of us are going to join them in the dying."

He thought of his own son, his grandson, but forced that thought aside. I can't dwell on that now, he realized.

"We have to get organized to do our part. Here are your assignments."

He detailed men to find and assign drivers, hospital workers, cooks to bring up hot food to the troops. He then fell silent for a moment.

"And the rest of the men?" someone asked.

"Behind the canal embankment. Every man with a shovel, axe, or pick. They'll know what to do if the rebels break through."

In Front of Hauling Ferry

4:30 P.M.

Robert E. Lee pushed forward, watching as his men to either flank deployed out into line of battle. Phil Duvall, former captain, now colonel, rode up to his side.

"Sir, the news I've got isn't good," he announced as he came up to Lee's side. "Go on, Colonel."

"They extended their fortifications during the night. Nearly a mile now farther south than what they had yesterday."

"It was to be expected, Colonel."

"Sir, I must warn you, the fortifications ahead, it's like a week or more of work done in just a day. I don't see how they did it."

"Their numbers?"

"I counted six regimental flags, sir, maybe three or four thousand, and a lot of colored." "What?"

"Workers, they're still digging." "That explains the fortifications." "What I thought, too, sir."

Phil hesitated. Two weeks ago he was just a lowly captain on outpost picket at Carlisle, now he was leading the forward edge of a desperate attempt to seize this river crossing. But he had to speak out "Sir, assaulting this position looks like desperate work to me. Give me to tonight, sir, and I'll find some flanking lanes that can put us down between here and Edwards Ferry."

Lee shook his head but smiled at the offer of this young officer.

"In other times and places, perhaps, Colonel. But would those roads be wide enough for our pontoon bridges? I doubt it. We crossed this ground last year, and I know it well. We'd have to march ten miles south to Poolesville then back west again to the next crossing down. In the meantime they have the canal to move their troops and laborers.

"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."