had decided to stand here, men broken up into small units, was beyond him. This was going to be one ugly fight.
Hazner settled down by a window, back pressed against the wall, and then leaned over to look out. Swarms of Yankees were coming down the street, men dropping with every step forward, the column breaking up, an officer out front shouting, waving his sword, the formation disintegrating as they broke and ran toward buildings, ducking into doorways. Within seconds the return fire became intense, bullets smacking into windowsills, tearing across brick fronting. Across the street a man tumbled out of a third-floor window, smacking into the pavement with a sickening crunch.
'Gentlemen, just please remain still for fifteen seconds, that's all I ask!'
Hazner ignored the man, raised his rifle, and joined the fight.
Braddock Heights
5:10 P.M.
Grant stood silent, field glasses trained on the town below. It was turning into one hell of a fight. McPherson had waded straight in. Buildings were ablaze, a church steeple wreathed now in smoke, fire licking up its sides. Beyond, he could see where a large column of infantry was coming over the National Road bridge across the Monocacy, the distant smoke of locomotives barely visible through the haze.
Lee's Second Division was starting to deploy, preparing to sweep into the town from the north side. McPherson had placed his men well. One division was forming to the north to meet the counterthreat, at least another division into the town, and what looked to be a brigade pushing to the south side of the town, fighting what appeared be dismounted cavalry, and steadily moving toward the river.
Now, if only I had more men up, Grant thought. A Confederate division with Lee's army carried almost as much strength as a Union light corps. Though McPherson had fifteen thousand at the start of the day, several thousand at least had fallen out in the forced march. Even now those stragglers were walking past him, small groups, a few men, a couple of dozen being shepherded along by a corporal or a sergeant, more than one stopping to ask one of his staff where the fighting was or where they should go. And always they were directed down the road into Frederick and told to get into the fight.
McPherson had, even by conservative estimates, lost two thousand men taking these heights. Hospitals were already set up on the western slope, the wounded, Union and Confederate alike, being carried in. Grant dared not even to watch that too closely. Unlike many another general, hospitals terrified him, turned his stomach.
So McPherson, at best, had carried nine or ten thousand into the fight and Lee had twenty perhaps twenty five thousand down there closing in. Yes, McPherson was the bait, but now he needed a solid line to hang on to him.
He turned and looked to the west. Only now did Grant see the head of Burnside's column coming over the South Mountains, and the sight filled him with rage. Those men should be up here now, forming up just behind the slope, and ready to sweep forward in mass to catch Lee off guard. He wondered if Lee had realized that. He had conceded the heights too easily. Even as I set the bait, was Lee urging me to cast it in?
No. Never think that. Do that and I start to become like all the others who faced Lee, worrying more about him than what my own plans are.
'I think that's General Sheridan coming up,' Ely announced, pointing to the west.
Indeed he was-coming on hard, lashing his mount, Rienzi, up the final steep slope.
'Damn that man,' Sheridan shouted, even as he reined in.
'Burnside?'
'Exactly. Says he can't possibly push his men any faster.'
Grant looked back to the boiling cauldron of battle down below, Sheridan falling silent by his side.
'My God,' Sheridan said, 'what a fight.'
'It is. I sent McPherson down there to hold Lee in place. If we had dug in here, Lee never would have sought battle and perhaps slipped off.'
Grant turned to Sheridan. 'I will not leave McPherson down there to be slaughtered. I need Ninth Corps and I need Hunt's guns. We've sucked Lee in and a good counterblow right now would hurt him.'
Sheridan did not reply.
'He's got his colored division in the lead, sir. What about that?'
'I don't care which division he's got in the lead. I want them into this fight before nightfall!'
Grant looked around at his silent staff. Ely gazed at him and simply nodded, as if reading his mind.
'General Sheridan. You are to take command of Ninth Corps.' Even as he spoke he motioned for Ely to write out the authorization. 'Relieve Burnside of command on the spot. Tell him he can report to me tomorrow for reassignment. You will take command of the corps and push them forward with all possible speed. Any division or brigade commander who fails in doing that, relieve them on the spot and find someone who can do the job. Send word back to Hunt to push forward even if it takes all night. If we can save McPherson, Lee will surely hang on for a rematch tomorrow, and we need guns in position to meet him. Do you understand your orders?'
'Yes, sir!' Sheridan said with a grin.
Ely finished writing the dispatch, tore the sheet off, and handed it to Grant who scanned it, then signed the document relieving Burnside.
Sheridan snatched it, turned, and, with staff trailing, set off at a gallop.
Frederick
6:00 P.M.
General, they're hitting us from the north!' James McPherson turned to look as a courier came riding in from the north side of town. 'Full division. Robertson's I'm told. Hood's old command.'
'Good,' McPherson said with a grin. 'The more the merrier.'
'Our boys are falling back. They can't hold.'
'Then go back there and.tell them to get into the houses, hunker down, and, damn them, hold. We've got to hold!'
All around him was blazing wreckage. The pleasant town of Frederick had become a battlefield much like Fredericksburg the year before. The entire western end of the town was afire, flames leaping from building to building on the westerly breeze that had sprung up. There was a touch of coolness in the air and he looked up at the dark clouds gathering on the other side of the mountain, filled with the promise of an evening thunderstorm.
It was always said that a battle brought rain, and it was hard to tell at this moment whether the thunder rolled from the heavens, the incessant rifle fire in the center of town, or the burst of artillery streaking through the streets.
Monocacy Junction
6:20 P.M.
Lee stirred anxiously, sipping a cup of coffee, leaning against a fence rail, looking toward the town wreathed in smoke. It sickened his heart to see a church spire collapse in flames, and he whispered a silent prayer that if it was being used as a hospital that those within had been evacuated.
He looked back at the bridge. All the fires were out hours ago, and hundreds of men were now at work. Men were tearing up track from the spur line, bringing it down, along with the ties. A crew of men were tearing at the timbers of a barn, dismantling it piece by piece to get at the precious beams, which would then be dragged down and slung into place to provide bridge supports. A captain with Stuart, who had worked on this same line before the war, said he could get a bridge in place for at least one track by late tomorrow and was now running the job.
Robertson's boys were going in. The volume of fire on the north side of town was clear evidence of that. Now if only Johnson's division was up, he could make a clean sweep of it, envelop McPherson from the left, and close the trap. But the latest dispatches from Baltimore indicated Johnson's men were still on the rail line, twenty miles back.
