Grant Comes East

ultimately forcing him to battle.'

'Thank you for that analysis, Haupt, but there is another consideration that carries far more weight, and that is the political consideration of maintaining Washington no matter what the cost.'

'Mr. Secretary,' Grant interjected, glad that Haupt had offered a moment's diversion with a very pointed and cogent argument, 'I think it is fair to state that Washington is secure now.'

'Are you certain, General Grant? We've had reports that a massive Confederate column, maybe upwards of fifty thousand strong, is already marshaling in Richmond; advance elements even now are moving into the Shenandoah Valley, coming up to reinforce Lee or to act as an independent striking force.'

'And who commands this?'

'Our agents report it is Beauregard.'

Grant said nothing. He had faced Beauregard once before, at Shiloh, and did not hold him in the high regard that others did.

'I would think they are destined to merge with Lee's forces,' he finally offered in reply.

'Whether with Lee or not, such a force could very well tip the scale and take the capital.'

'I would not place this new force in the same caliber as the Army of Northern Virginia. They are scraping the bottom of the barrel. Chances are many of the units are state militias, about as useful as our ninety-day regiments. It could take them weeks, a month or more, before their numbers will even be noticed.'

'Sir,' Haupt said, pressing back in to the conversation. 'The Confederate railroad system is a shambles. Several different gauges on their lines hinder any transfers when moving long distances. They have to stop and transfer men and equipment between trains every time they encounter a new gauge. Last winter, when the Army of Northern Virginia was encamped in front of Fredericksburg, they could barely move half a dozen supply trains a day, forcing Lee to scatter his forces across hundreds of square miles for forage. The task of moving that number of men north, if that is indeed the number, will strain them to the breaking point.'

'The number is valid,' Stanton snapped.

'As reported by whom?' Grant asked.

'I've sent Pinkerton agents into Virginia.'

Again Grant did not reply. Some of the agents were good, obviously the one who had sent the message to him about Davis was doing his job, but most of them were amateurs when it came to doing field reconnaissance. It was similar reports, early in 1862, claiming the rebels had two hundred thousand in front of Richmond, that had crippled McClellan. In his own mind, he cut the numbers in half. At most Lee would get twenty-five thousand.

'I think, General Grant, that you should stay in Washington, establish your headquarters here, and make this your main base of operations. Sickles, up on the banks of the Susquehanna, is even now reorganizing the Army of the Potomac. Between your force and his, Lee can be trapped.'

'Sickles? Dan Sickles?'

'Yes, Dan Sickles. I signed the order this afternoon promoting him to command of the Army of the Potomac.'

He felt his face flush at this news.

'Sir, as commander of all forces in the field, I feel I should have been consulted on this.'

'General Grant, you've been incommunicado ever since this debacle unfolded. I was forced to act and act I did.'

Before I could countermand it, Grant thought

'Why General Sickles?' he finally asked.

'I don't like him any more than you do, Grant,' Stanton replied. 'But he has powerful friends in Congress. We need the continued support of the Democratic Party and he is firmly in their camp and now their hero of the hour. His after-action report for Gettysburg and for Union Mills has been printed up and circulated, even the newspapers have it.'

'I've yet to see this report, who was it forwarded to?' Grant asked.

'It came straight to me. With Meade dead, he had the excuse to bypass proper channels. Copies were leaked as well. I do have to admit mat the man had a point about Gettysburg. If Meade had allowed him to go forward on July 2, he would have plowed straight into Lee's flanking march and perhaps destroyed it. He argued as well that if he had been allowed to march to the support of Fifth Corps in front of Taneytown, rather than ordered to proceed to Union Mills, he could have turned Lee's left flank and forced the rebels to withdraw. It's causing an uproar. He was scheduled to appear before the Committee on the Conduct of the War to testify.'

'But if he was appointed to command of the Army of the Potomac that hearing would be canceled?' Haupt asked.

That ploy was something he had never considered, and Grant shook his head. Yet again, the political maneuverings. Command in the East was clearly much more political and complex than command in the West Distance from Washington might have been a bigger advantage than he had thought.

'Yes, something like that He won't have time to testify now.

'Besides, he suppressed the rebellion in New York City and even the Republican papers are hailing him as the savior of the city.'

Grant looked at the crushed cigar in the ashtray, wishing he could relight it.

'You are stuck with him, Grant' Stanton said.

'But nevertheless he will still answer to my orders,' Grant said softly.

'In proper coordination with this office,' Stanton replied.

Even though Grant's thinking rarely turned to outright guile, he could see that Stanton was trying to outmaneuver and box him in. He wondered if perhaps his old foe, Halleck, licking the wounds of public humiliation at his dismissal from supreme command, was even now lurking in a room down the hallway, waiting to rush in once this meeting was over.

The doorway opened and he almost cried out with relief. Elihu was there with President Lincoln behind him.

Obviously a bit flustered, Stanton stood up as Lincoln came in. His features were pale, eyes deep-set with exhaustion, black coat rumpled as if he had been sleeping in it, trousers stained with mud.

'Mr. President, General Grant and I were just discussing the forthcoming campaign.'

'Yes, I can well imagine,' Lincoln said.

He looked over at Grant and a genuine smile wrinkled his face.

'General, so good to see you,' and he extended his hand.

His contacts with Lincoln, up to this moment, had been only remote. He had never stood like this, so close, almost a sense of the two of them being alone. He looked straight into the man's eyes and liked what he saw. Homey, down-to-earth, the prairie lawyer without pretense.

The handshake was firm, strong, with a touch of an affectionate squeeze just before he let go.

The colonel in the outer office came in, dragging two straight-backed chairs, hurriedly deployed them, and left, closing the door.

Lincoln went to the window and looked out. Dawn was breaking, wisps of fog curling up, the sky overhead visible now with streaks of pink and light blue.

'A long night, gentlemen,' Lincoln said, and then turned back, 'but hopefully a better day now. General Grant, I'm delighted to see you at last'

'I am honored to be here, sir.'

'Tell me of Vicksburg and your journey to here. I need to hear some good news for a few minutes.'

Grant briefly reviewed the climax of the campaign and his hurried journey east, Lincoln smiling and nodding as if all other cares had disappeared for the moment.

'Remarkable, when you think of it gentlemen. When I first came to Washington almost twenty years ago, the trip took weeks. When I was a boy, my trip to New Orleans, traveling with a raft of cantankerous hogs, took well over a month. And now we can all but leap across the country in a matter of days.'

'After this war is over, sir,' Haupt said proudly, 'we'll go from Chicago to San Francisco in less than a week.'

'Think of it,' Lincoln said with a smile. 'I read in Scientific American just a few weeks back how some tinkerers are talking about balloons powered by steam engines that will traverse the skies, perhaps even crossing to England in a matter of days. I would love to see that.'