CHAPTER EIGHT
Near Sykesville, Maryland
August 25
3:00 A.M.
'Stop the train, stop the damn train!' Jeb Stuart leaned over the side of the car. Mules in the boxcar up ahead were kicking, screaming in panic. Flames shot out from under the wheels of the boxcar, streaming back.
The train whistle was shrieking, a couple of brakemen running aft, leaping from car to car, clamping down the brakes as the train skidded to a halt. As the train slowed, flames that had been trailing in the wind started to lick upward.
Jeb jumped off the car he was riding on, nearly tripping, regaining his footing and running alongside the train. The mules inside the burning car were terrified. A brakeman was by his side, helping to fling the door open, and the animals leapt out, disappearing into the darkness.
The front left journal box of the car was glowing red hot, flames licking out. The engineer of the train and the fireman came back, lugging canvas buckets which they threw on the box, steam hissing. More buckets were hauled by several soldiers, dousing the side of the railcar.
'What in hell is going on here?' Jeb roared.
'Happens all the time, General,' a brakeman announced. 'That's a journal box. Filled with grease to lubricate the axle of the wheel. Sometimes it just catches fire.'
Another bucket was upended on the box, the water hissing.
'Open the damn thing up.'
'Once it cools, we'll repack it,' the engineer said.
'How long?'
'Once it cools.'
'Just open the damn thing.'
A brakeman with a crowbar flipped the lid of the journal box open, the engineer holding a lantern and peering in at the steaming mess.
'I'll be damned,' he whispered.
'What is it?' Jeb asked.
'Packed with wood shavings and scrap metal.'
'What?'
'Sorry, sir. Someone sabotaged this car. It should have caught fire twenty miles back. Was most likely smoldering and we didn't even notice it in the dark.'
'You mean someone deliberately wrecked it?'
The engineer said nothing, finally nodding his head when Jeb gave him a sharp look.
'Where?'
'Don't know, sir. Most likely back in Baltimore. Should have burned miles back down the track. Lucky we got this far. We're going to have to check every single box on this train now.'
'Damn all,' Jeb hissed, turned away, slapping his thigh angrily.
Looking down the track he saw the headlight of the following train, hauling ten more cars loaded with the pontoon bridging. One of the brakemen was already running down the track, waving a lantern.
'How long?'
'In the dark like this?' the engineer said. 'An hour or two to check all the boxes. Better check the ones on the following trains as well. Sorry, sir, but we're stopped for now.'
Exasperated, Stuart looked around at his staff, who had climbed off the cattle car to witness the show.
'Mount our horses up. How far to Frederick?' he asked.
'Follow the track, another twenty miles or so to Frederick, sir.'
'You wait to dawn, sir, we'll have things ready.' 'I have no time, Custer isn't waiting for some train to get fixed,' Stuart snapped. 'Mount up. We ride to Frederick.'
Two Miles North of Frederick, Maryland
August 25
5.30A.M.
Morning mist clung to the fields flanking the road. To his right George Armstrong Custer could catch occasional glimpses of the Catoctin range, rising up nearly a thousand feet, the ridge-line golden with the glow of dawn.
It was a beautiful morning after an exhausting night. Turning in his saddle, he looked back, the column of his troopers, led by the First Michigan, were quiet, many slumped over in their saddles, nodding. Ever since they gained the pike at Emmitsburg the ride had been an easy one, a broad, open, well-paved road, and not a rebel in sight as they swept southward through the night, taking four hours for men and horses to rest before remounting two hours ago.
He could see the church spires of Frederick just ahead, rising up out of the mist, which was starting to burn off the fields, but still clung thick to the winding course of the Monocacy on his left. ^ A scout, a young lieutenant, came out of the mist, riding fast, reining up and grinning.
'Was just in the center of the town, sir. Not a reb in sight. Talked with some civilians. They said a reb patrol rode through about an hour or so ahead of us and turned east to head down to the Monocacy.'
'How many, Schultz?'
'About a hundred or so. There was some commotion at the telegraph station there. The rebs had that occupied, and then all of them pulled out heading east.'
Most likely Phil, he thought with a grin. The wounded prisoner taken at Carlisle had told him who he was facing: his old roommate from the Point. Usually I could beat Phil in a race and that's what it is now. He had hoped to spring on him during the night but Phil had always stayed a jump ahead.
Well, my friend, now I got you against the river. Will you turn and fight?
And part of him hoped he would not. That he would just get the hell out of the way.
'You know the way to the bridge?' Custer asked Schultz.
'Easy enough, sir. Get to the center of town and turn east. Few blocks, you'll be at the depot for the town. We can follow the track for the spur line that runs up to the center of town. If you just keep heading south through town it turns into a toll road that heads straight down to the river, a covered bridge crossing the Monocacy just south of the railroad bridge. I think that'd be the quicker path. Civilians said that's the route the rebs took.'
Custer nodded, trying to picture it. He had come through here the year before with McClellan.
'I'll take the lead with the First. You go back up the line, tell Colonel Alger to take his Fifth. Once he's in the center of town, he's to pick up the tracks and come down that way to the river. Tell Colonel Gray. I remember the National Road crosses the Monocacy via a stone bridge. Have Gray send a company down to take that bridge, rest of his command to stay in reserve. Mann with the Seventh to stay in town as reserve also. I can be found at the railroad bridge.'
Lieutenant Schultz set off at a gallop.
'Let's move it!' Custer shouted.
He set the pace at a quick trot, buglers passing the signal back up the column.
Out front, as always, he thrilled to the thunder behind him as his troopers picked up the pace. Guidons were fluttering as he looked back. Colonel Town, commander of the First, spurred his mount to come up by Custer's side.
'George, bit impetuous just riding straight in like this, ain't it?' Town shouted.
'No time to feel things out, Charles. Schultz is a good scout. His boys have the center of town already. But it's the bridge we want.'
Cresting a low rise, they passed the last farm flanking the pike. The town was directly ahead. It was so typical of this region, the houses built close together, facing right onto the street. A scattering of civilians were out,
