or three more days to rest and refit his men, but the Lord had willed differently. So perhaps this was now the moment after all. One more swift victory, to drive Grant back, and surely Lincoln would be forced to negotiate or collapse.
Monocacy Junction
7:30 A.M.
George Armstrong Custer crawled up on to the roof of the depot, standing up, using one of the two chimneys as a brace. Balanced precariously, he took out his field glasses and scanned the opposite bank.
A column of rebel troopers were coming up along the track that clung to the side of a hill on the other side. Men were dismounting, pulling out carbines, horses then being led back. He saw guidons of at least two regiments, hard to tell which.
He braced himself, leaning field glasses on top of the chimney. A bullet zipped by, another smacked the chimney in front of him.
There! He caught a glimpse of him and smiled. It was Jeb, Jeb Stuart over there, plumed hat, gold braid, a group of men standing about his horse as he pointed, the men saluting and running off.
So I've got Jeb on me. How many men? A brigade? No, not Jeb. He'd come on with everything he had, two brigades, maybe three, but it will take time for tliat column to come up the rail tract He turned to look north. He couldn't see the stone bridge of the National Road, but the morning was still, the last wisps of fog burning off the stream, and it was impossible to miss the plumes of dust to the north. More rebels coming that way?
Infantry? No, he doubted that. They had obviously caught the rebs by surprise here. It would be cavalry first.
Another bullet slapped a shingle by his foot, bits of wood flying up.
He looked back to the rail bridge. Reb skirmishers were on the other side, puffs of smoke. His study of the bridge confirmed his first impression. It was a temporary affair, made of wood that had been soaked with pitch and tar, smeared with grease and oil from passing trains. If not for the rebs on the other side, he'd have it aflame within an hour, but old Jeb, of course, made that all but impossible.
Another puff of smoke, another bullet zipping dangerously close.
The rebs on the far side of the bridge were hunkered down behind support beams, a few sprawled on their stomachs on the tracks, others down in brush along the stream embankment. The volume of fire was beginning to pick up as the first of their reinforcements sprinted along the track, spreading out, finding cover. For an instant he thought he could catch a glimpse of Phil, waving his arm, standing up, pointing out a position, then quickly ducking down as a volley rang out from his own side.
He looked to his left, at the covered bridge for the toll road. On the far side reb skirmishers were already deploying. The bridge was double-wide. A column would take casualties but could indeed storm it if he didn't act quickly.
Taking a deep breath, he slid down the roof, leapt to the awning, and ducked through a window, bullets pocking the wall around him.
'Sir, I think that was rather bold of you,' a sergeant quipped, looking up at Custer as he landed in the room, 'and frankly, sir, damn stupid.'
Custer gazed at him for a second then broke into a grin.
A bullet slammed through the room, passing clean through the plank siding and plaster interior.
Cursing, the sergeant knelt, aimed through the window where Custer had just entered, and fired back.
Custer looked around the room. A dead reb lay in the comer, two more of them, wounded, sitting by the body. The face of one of the rebs was a smear of blood, eyes swollen shut.
He ran down the stairs and out behind the depot. Men of the Fifth Michigan were swarming across the spur line, dropping behind stacks of railroad ties, woodpiles, anything that could offer protection.
Colonel Town was already waiting for him, as was Alger of the Fifth and Colonel Gray of the Sixth. He had already sent orders back to Colonel Mann to take his entire command to block the National Road bridge.
'It's going to get hot,' Custer announced. 'I saw Jeb Stuart over there. A brigade is coming up. I suspect he'll have another one or two up shortly.'
'Let 'em come,' Town growled. 'We got this side now and we'll hold it.'
Custer grinned, then shook his head.
'If I knew we had infantry coming up, I wouldn't worry, but we don't know. Colonel Town, get a couple of your troopers, ones with the best mounts. Send them west on the National Road toward Hagerstown. Have them report to whoever is at the head of the infantry column they should find. Tell them we're holding the west bank of the Monocacy and will attempt to burn the bridge, but we need support.'
'That thing? We can burn that in no time,' Town said, leaning around the side of the depot for a few seconds to point at the bridge. A bullet whacked into the clapboard siding beside his face.
Custer laughed softly when he pulled back.
'See what I mean? We have to do it under fire, and it's going to get worse. We just can't send men out there with kindling and coal oil, they'll get mowed down.'
The three colonels around him nodded in agreement.
'Mann is to hold the north flank. Alger, you hold the center here with your Fifth. I doubt if they'll try and rush the bridge, but they might get desperate and try it. Gray, for the moment you'll be in reserve. Move your boys back to that woodlot behind us, keep them mounted, though, and ready to move quick to where I need them. Town, your boys get the right flank. And I want that covered bridge burned as well before they try and get a column across. It should be easier than burning the rail bridge.
'I sent some men up to Frederick. There's a couple of locomotives there. Check with your own men, anybody who has railroading experience, detail them off to go back to town and help out. We're going to take those two trains, get them on the bridge, and blow them. That should take things down.'
'Should be fun,' Town said.
'Unless you're on the train,' Gray replied.
Monocacy Creek
7:45 A.M.
'Jenkins, Jones, we cannot let the Yankees burn that bridge!' Jeb Stuart, with his two brigade commanders, stood pointing out the window of the top floor of the mill just south of the railroad track and north of the toll road on the east bank of the Monocacy.
The volume of carbine fire was rapidly increasing as the first of Jenkins's men, of the Fourteenth Virginia, dismounted and pushed down to the river's edge. Behind them the men of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth were dismounting as well, forming up to go in.
'We keep it under fire,' Jenkins offered, 'and there is no way in hell they can get out on to it and set it ablaze.'
'From what I've heard so far about this Custer, he's impetuous,' Jeb said. 'Remember, he did fight his way out after Union Mills. He might try anything.'
Jeb walked to the other side of the top floor of the mill and looked over at the covered bridge just south of the railroad. With his field glasses he could see Yankees deployed across the front of that bridge and along the riverbank. He studied them intently and saw that some of them were bringing up armloads of wood, kindling. So they were going to burn that first. Good move, he'd have done the same.
'Jenkins, think you can storm that bridge?' Jeb asked.
Jenkins looked out the window, studying the double-spanned bridge for a long moment.
'It's over a hundred yards long, sir. We try to charge that, we'll have four men across inside the bridge, but one volley and our boys will get tangled up.'
'I want that bridge,' Jeb said. 'We take it, we flank Custer, then drive him back from the depot.'
'Sir, do it on horseback, I don't know. Two or three wounded horses inside a covered bridge…' His voice trailed off. They were all experienced enough to know that inside a covered bridge a few downed horses could stop an entire charge.
