'And if my corps commander recalls my unit General? Damn it all. There's a fight brewing, and we're stuck down here staring at a bunch of goddamn mules.'
As if to add weight to his argument a team of mules, frightened by a blast of steam from the locomotive, took off, braying madly, dragging a wagon up onto the tracks behind the train, the wagon tipping over, mules still tied to their harnesses kicking and screaming.
'You're with me, Colonel. I want the regiments from the various corps rounded up. I'm going to need men here, a couple of thousand at least to off-load trains that will be coming up shortly. I want a defense established around this town. I was up at Hanover earlier today and damn hear became a guest of General Stuart'
At the mention of Stuart's name, the other officers started to whisper excitedly.
'That's it exactly. If the Rebs figure out what we have down here, we'll have company soon enough; and as it looks right now an old lady could shoo us out of here with a broom. So get to work. Your men can start by off- loading the hospital supplies I just brought up.'
He turned away without waiting for a reply and spied more supplicants, complainers, and the annoyingly curious closing in. Swinging around the back end of the train he had just ridden up from Baltimore, he headed toward a row of parked wagons half-filled with rations and climbed up into the nearest one, drawing the back cover closed.
He was tempted to simply stretch out on the pile of cracker boxes and try to catch some sleep. It had been a mad, impetuous five days. When word had first come in that Lee was across the Potomac, he had gone from headquarters in Washington up to Harrisburg, there to examine the rail lines in case the Army of the Potomac should find itself campaigning along the Susquehanna. As the rebel army approached the capital of Pennsylvania, it was finally decided to drop the. bridges spanning that broad river, the one directly in front of the city burning even as Confederate raiders swarmed upon the opposite bank. Leaving Harrisburg, he had routed back through Reading, there stopping to confer with the governor, then to Philadelphia, then back to Baltimore and up to Hanover, nearly running into Stuart's cavalry on the way.
Hanover as a base of supply was out, with nearly twenty bridges destroyed by the raiders. Back to Baltimore once more and now here to Westminster, with rumors swirling that action had been joined at Gettysburg.
His sojourn of hundreds of miles in just five days did not strike him as anything unusual. The locomotive had changed everything. A journey that would have taken Napoleon, or even Scott in the war with Mexico, weeks to complete, could now be done in a day. This war ran on railroads, and it was his job to make sure it ran smoothly, at least up to the point where the railroad ended and the mule-drawn wagons, as ancient as the wars of Caesar, began.
Finding a lantern up at the front of the wagon, he struck a Lucifer on the side of a box of hardtack, lit the wick, and hung the lantern up. Reaching into his oversize haversack, he pulled out a small hand-sketched map of the region and spread it out on a box.
Gettysburg, of course, would be the place they'd collide. He had surmised as much back on June 28th while still in Harrisburg. A beautiful place, rolling hills, rich farmland, a good place for a defensive fight, and with its road network, a natural draw for both armies.
Once the bridges across the Susquehanna went down, Lee would inevitably turn southward, not wanting to get pinned against the west bank of the river. He needed to keep his line of communications open down the Cumberland Valley but at the same time seek out the Army of the Potomac. It would have to be somewhere between Carlisle and Westminster that the two sides would slam into each other, and Gettysburg fit the bill.
Strategy, however, was not his concern. It was railroads, the pulsing arteries of this new kind of war, that he must be concerned about; and that was why he was here at Westminster. Harrisburg as a supply depot was out now that the bridges were down. Hanover was out as well, thanks to the rebels burning most of the bridges along that line. And besides, Hanover was only twelve miles from Gettysburg and not truly secure. Only this morning he had discovered that fact when the train he was on nearly stumbled into a detachment of Confederate cavalry.
That was always the point of vulnerability for a railroad. A regiment of cavalry, in an hour, could wreak havoc that could take days to repair, even a lone bushwhacker with a crowbar could loosen a rail and take a train off the tracks. A depot, and the line behind it, had to be secure. He had to set up that secure base now. At best, the Army of the Potomac could operate for three days, perhaps five at the most, without a supply depot; but beyond that, it would get dicey.
The way this railroad was set up, it would be impossible. Impossible, however, was just the type of challenge he secretly enjoyed facing. Pulling a notepad out of his haversack, he began to jot down what was needed, ideas that had been forming on the gut-churning ride up here.
Given enough time, he'd love to put a thousand men from his Military Railroad command to work grading this line; a couple of weeks' work, however, and by that point the issue would hopefully be decided. No, focus on what can be done now.
There's not enough firewood here. Sending men out to bring in seasoned lumber for the locomotives would be problematic. A lot of good wood had most likely already been emptied out of farmers' woodpiles by the passing armies. Take it from the stockpile in the main marshaling yards for the Military Railroad at Alexandria; a couple of trainloads should see us through for the next several days. Water. There was no tank here, let alone a pump to bring the water up from the stream. We'll need to man haul it up from the creek below the depot Better get canvas buckets; a thousand should do it. He chuckled at the thought of the fat civilian hauling buckets up out of the creek. No, they'll all disappear once that kind of labor starts.
He began to jot down his list of priorities.
No telegraph to signal trains moving up and back on this single-track line. It'll take at least four to five days to string the necessary wire.
Without the telegraph and with no sidings, each train would tie the track up for hours. We must bring up extra locomotives and cars from the army depot and then put them on this line in convoys. Five trains, each with ten cars, four hours up, an hour to off-load, then three hours back. As soon as they clear the line, send up the next convoy of five trains. That will give us 150 carloads a day, 1,500 tons of rations, uniforms, ammunition, boots, fodder, grease, coal oil, leather harnesses, horseshoes, bandages, ether, crutches… all of the offerings to war produced by a thousand factories from Chicago to Bangor.
The bridges along this line will have to be surveyed, just in case Confederate raiders do get astride the line and bum them. Once measured, replacement timbers can be cut and loaded back at Alexandria, ready to be rolled up for repairs.
It will take eight hours to turn the trains around, if I can get enough men to unload them once here in Westminster. Too slow though for messages. And though it hurt his pride as a railroad man, he made a note to the War Office to retain the services of the Adam's Express Company. They had the fastest horses in the region, with riders trained to handle them. Ship a dozen horses and riders up here by the next train and use them to run messages and orders back to the nearest telegraph station outside of Baltimore and up to Meade at Gettysburg.
Ironic, he thought I actually lived there for a while, teaching college. He wondered if the battle had damaged the college or injured any of his old friends.
Next he drew up a quick report to the War Office, outlining what he had done over the last day, the damage observed to the rail line up to Hanover, and his decision to establish Westminster as the primary depot for the Army of the Potomac.
He double-checked the list of material requested, mentally comparing it to what he knew was stockpiled in the warehouses at Alexandria, already loaded aboard boxcars and flatcars.
What he was doing did not strike Herman as being all that unique. It was simply how war was now fought or should be fought with cool efficiency and the application of a nation's industry to a single goal, something that America, perhaps more than any nation in history, was now ideally suited for.
If the enemy burns a bridge, haul out the prefabricated replacement and drop it in place, and then keep the trains moving. If they burn a depot, set a new one up, as we did after Second Manassas. Just keep the tidal wave of supplies moving until finally they give up… or, he thought grimly, we lose our will.
That was impossible. He had come from a Europe that was divided, perpetually at war with itself. No, this place had to be different And once this was finished, I can go back to other things, other dreams, to run a rail line clear across the continent and then see a hundred new cities spring up in its wake.
A locomotive whistle shrieked, disturbing his thoughts. He pulled back the canvas cover of the wagon and
