'What we talked about, sir,' Elihu replied.
For the first time Ely realized the drama he had just witnessed had been planned out long before his arrival. His messages were simply the confirmation the president had been waiting for.
'Elihu, I'll drop by your new office a bit later this morning. I want all the arrangements made for my little adventure.'
'Sir, I still caution against it. Stanton is on his way to the newspapers even now. It will cause an explosion in this town once the word hits. Plus the risk involved.'
'Don't worry, Elihu, I'll have a good escort with me. I think Major Parker will serve as an excellent guide and traveling companion.'
'Sir?' Parker asked, now thoroughly confused.
'I think it's time I paid a little visit to your general,' Lincoln said.
Lincoln looked at the two, his features serious.
'Gentlemen, I think that the crisis is truly upon us now. Lee has outmaneuvered us again. Major, it is obvious that the word you bring to me is that General Grant has launched his attack prematurely, forced to do so because of Sickles's disastrous actions.'
'Yes, sir, that is obviously the case.'
'So the risks are far higher now. I must confer with Grant upon them before giving my own approval. The choice is ultimately mine.'
He lowered his head as if speaking to himself.
'I am now convinced we shall either win or lose this war in the next two weeks.'
CHAPTER TWO
Headquarters, Army of Northern Virginia
Seven Miles South of Havre de Grace,
Maryland August 22, 1863
It was the noonday lull, the cool breezes of morning giving way to a still midday heat. Gen. Robert E. Lee, commander, Army of Northern Virginia, rode in silence. The road before him was packed with troops, men marching at a vigorous pace. He trotted past the troops, edging along fencerows, cutting out into pastures and orchards to make speed.
The men were moving, maintaining a grueling pace of three miles an hour, hunched over, rifles balanced on shoulders or slung inverted, hats pulled down over brows to shield eyes from the noonday glare, faces sweat- streaked, dust kicking up in swirling, choking clouds. Some saw him and gave a salute or shout as he cantered along; others, sunk into the hypnotic rhythm of the march, were unaware of his presence.
These men had marched over a hundred miles in the past week and fought a brutal three-day running battle in killing heat, and it showed. The usual banter of a victorious army on the march was gone; the high spirits that should have echoed after their overwhelming victories over the Army of the Potomac were not showing this day. Exhaustion had overwhelmed exhilaration.
He rode in silence, lost in thought. Walter Taylor, his aide-de-camp, the staff, even the secretary of state, Judah Benjamin, sensing he wished to ride alone to think, trailed a respectful distance behind him.
After the smashing defeat of Sickles he expected Grant to wait, or perhaps even to start transferring his army by train and boat down to Washington, there to assume a defensive posture through the fall and winter.
But to take an aggressive path? To cross the river and move south, perhaps straight at him. No, he had not expected that. After every defeat dealt the Union Army over the last year, his opponents had always retreated, regrouped, and waited several months before venturing another blow.
It was like facing an opponent in chess. The traditional opening of a king or queen's pawn is expected, but then, instead, the man across the table puts his knight out first. That was usually the move of a fool… or could it be that of a master or someone who sensed or planned something Lee could not yet ascertain.
Who was Grant? In that tight-knit cadre of old comrades from West Point, the old professional army of the frontier, of Mexico, or garrison duty in East Coast fortifications, Grant was one man he could not remember. He knew the man had served in Mexico and gained distinction there for personal bravery and leadership, but as an army commander? He had beaten Beauregard at Shiloh, captured an entire army at Fort Donelson and Vicksburg. He was used to victory… perhaps that could be turned against him.
There were the rumors as well about the man's drinking, but then again, the army had always been a hard- drinking lot. In the case of Grant, the few who knew him said it had been brought on by a fit of melancholia when stationed out on the West Coast, separated from his wife and children.
Longstreet, who did know him, dismissed the drinking, saying that it was a demon his old friend would have overcome, especially when he had returned to the army and given the responsibility of command.
All the others he had faced so far, McClellan, the fool Pope, the slow-moving Burnside, the hard-driving but morally weak Hooker, even Meade and Sickles, he could read them, and he could read as well the thinking, the rhythm, the mentality of the Army of the Potomac… reft by internal dissent and political maneuverings, hampered by even more political maneuverings in Washington.
But he was no longer facing the Army of the Potomac, and even in Washington he sensed a change. Halleck was out, and just this morning Judah Benjamin had suggested that perhaps Stanton's days were numbered as well. A staff officer of Sickles's, a prisoner, had bitterly complained that his general had moved without coordination with Grant, and everyone at Sickles's headquarters knew that Stanton had sent out contradictory orders for which 'someone would pay.'
And Grant's corps commanders-Ord, McPherson, Banks, Burnside. He knew the mettle of Burnside, knew the fumbling reputation of Banks, who survived due to political influence. Word on McPherson was his men worshipped him and declared him to be the best corps commander in any army.
And he knew him as well, as superintendent at West Point. The memory of McPherson caused him to smile. McPherson had risen to become the top-ranking officer of cadets. He was a moral man, honest, open-handed, respected by all. John Bell Hood had been his roommate and he loved him like a brother.
Of all the potential opponents this war had forced him to confront, James Birdseye McPherson was the one opponent he wished he did not have to face. There was a deep bond of affection, that of a mentor for a beloved student.
Now I will have to face him, and turn all that was good between us into a tool, a weapon to defeat him in battle.
Edward Ord, new to his rank of corps commander, was a man who supposedly loved a good head-on fight, a man like Hood.
And their troops. These Union soldiers from the West were used to victory; they were used to tough fighting in the scorching heat and bayous of Mississippi, the tangled forests of Tennessee, the swamps of Louisiana. They were fighters-and filled with a belief in themselves. In battle, such belief is often what tips the scale between victory and defeat. Though tough soldiers, the men of the Army of the Potomac seemed to carry an innate sense that defeat would always be their ultimate fate, and that had come true at Union Mills and Gunpowder River.
He wished he had another month, time to evaluate, to maneuver and observe Grant, to spar with him to get a taste of him, before moving in for the kill.
The pasture ahead dropped down into a glen and he welcomed the momentary pause as he loosened Traveler's reins and gave his companion a chance to drink in the shade of the willows lining the shallow creek. There the air was damp and rich, the brook rippling and sparkling with reflected light.
To his left a battery of guns was clattering over a rough-hewn wooden bridge, troops left the road to wade across the knee-deep stream. A few men playfully splashed each other. Sergeants called for canteens, handing them off to details to fill while the column pushed on, the water bearers enjoying their work for a few minutes, some tossing off packs, haversacks, and cartridge boxes and collapsing into the water to cool off, before picking up their gear and filled canteens to double-time back into the column.
More than a few men lay in the shadow of the trees, barefoot, soaking their feet, one of the men gingerly
