Love and War

Charles laughed. 'Why?'

' 'Cause I don't like you plantation nabobs and your godless high life down on the coast. You dragged us into this muss. There's a few of you who are all right, but not many.'

'Do you own slaves, Ab?'

'No, sir. Never have, never would. I can't say I 'specially favor the black folk, though if you pressed me, I'd prob'ly say no man ought to be chained up against his will. I know some judge said Dred Scott and the rest of the darkies wasn't persons, but I know some who are fine persons, so I'm not sure how I feel about the nigra question that's a part of all this. I do know which folks I like. You. Major Butler. Hampton — I could tell he din't think I was enough of a gentleman to be in one of his regular troops when I signed up, but he didn't say that and make me feel bad. He just acted real happy that I'd scout for him. I'll take him over that flashy Jeb Stuart any day.'

'So will I. Beauty's an old West Point classmate of mine, but I don't have the regard for him that I once did. I share your feelings about Hampton. About most of the planters, too, matter of fact.'

Ab Woolner smiled. 'I knew there was a reason I liked you, Charlie.'

In his journal, Billy wrote:

The general is a paradox. He requires us to emplace his siege artillery, all seventy-two pieces, to bombard a position many feel could be taken in a single concerted attack. The derrick and roller system required to unload the guns would take a page to describe. We must fling up ramps to move each gun into place. A layman would be led to believe that here is a siege destined to last a year.

Questions are asked. Why is this being done? Why is Richmond the objective and not the Confederate Army, whose defeat would force a surrender beyond all question? Be it noted that such questions, though common, are not voiced within hearing of any of the ultra-loyal officers the general has gathered about him.

The paradox of which I wrote is this. The general does little, yet is loved greatly. The men molded by his hand into the most superb fighting force ever seen on the planet lie idle — and continue to cheer him whenever he comes into their sight. Do they cheer because he keeps them safe from the hazards of a conclusive engagement?

Brett, I am becoming bitter. But so are the factions in this army. Some call the general 'McNapoleon.' It is not meant as praise.

When the Confederates pulled back from the Yorktown line early in May, the engineers were among the first into the empty fortifications. Billy raced to a gun emplacement, only to curse what he found. The great black fieldpiece jutting into the air was nothing more than a painted tree trunk with a dummy muzzle cut in one end. The emplacement contained five similar fakes.

'Quaker guns,' he said, disgusted.

Lije Farmer's white beard, grown long, snapped in the May breeze. ' 'Thou has deceived me, and I was deceived. I am ill derision daily — every one mocketh me.' '

'Prince John's a master artillerist. Loves amateur theatricals, too. A deadly combination. I wonder if there are more of these?'

There were. Compounding the insult, a deserter said Magrudei had paraded a few units up and down at Yorktown to convinct the enemy that he was holding the line with many more than the thirteen thousand he had now withdrawn. While Magruder held his foes at bay with tricks and nerve, the main rebel army slipped away to better defense positions being secretly prepared farther up the peninsula. McClellan's huge guns, three weeks in the placing, were now trained on worthless targets. Little Mac's dallying had given Johnston a second advantage — additional time to summon reinforcements from the western part of the state.

'This blasted war may last a while.' Billy said. 'Our side may have more factories, but it strikes me the other side has more brains.'

For that, Lije had no ready Scriptural reply.

In May, on the Pamunkey River, Billy wrote:

Last night I saw a sight that will stay with me until I die.

Shortly after tattoo, duties took me on a course leading back across one of the low hills close by. There before me, unexpectedly, spread the whole of the Cumberland Landing encampment beneath a sky shedding light red as that from any furnace at Hazard's. Struck dumb with wonder, I knew at last what Lije means when he says, ever paraphrasing the Bible, that we have come here with an exceeding great army.

I saw below the hill rows of Sibley and A tents numerous as the tipis of some migratory tribe. I smelled the smoke of cooking fires, the homely stinks of the horses, the worse one of the sinks. I heard the music of war, which is more than song or bugling; it is a varied strain of courier horses and artillery; the lowing of our great cattle herd; the hails of pickets, the called-back countersigns; arms rattling and clicking as they are cleaned and stacked; and voices, always the voices, speaking of homes, families, sweethearts, in English, Gaelic, German, Hungarian, Swedish — the many and varied tongues of man. Two units of our 'aeronautic corps,' tethered for the night like beasts, rode the air above the holy of holies — the tents of those who lead us, surrounded by the chosen of the headquarters guard. Adding brightness were the flags — our own, whose integrity we fight for, and all the regimental banners, rainbows of them, handed to so many proud colonels by so many pretty girls at so many martial gatherings in so many cities and hamlets. All the arrayed flags I saw, and watched their hues all melting to the scarlet of the sundown, and then to gray.

There is much of this war I am not clever enough to understand — and much I do not like. Nor do I refer solely to physical hazards. But as I stood watching the May wind snap the flags and ripple the white tops of five hundred wagons in their park, I had a sense of our purpose. We are here engaged in something vast and noble, and things will change because of it, though exactly how, I have not the wisdom to predict. Overcome by this feeling of epochal time and place, I lingered a while and then moved on. I soon came upon a civilian seated on a stump completing a sketch of our boys at bayonet drill. He introduced himself as Mr. Homer, said he had observed the drill earlier and was touching up his artwork for inclusion in a composite picture he will later prepare for Harper's, which sent him here. He commented on the beauty and majesty of the evening scene. He said it made him think of the migration of the children of Israel.

But we are not many tribes bound to dwell peaceably in some promised land — we are many regiments bound to Richmond, to burn and kill and conquer. Behind the evening scene lay that truth, of which I said nothing to Mr. Homer as we  walked down from the hill in companionable conversation.

The May woods smelled of rain. Charles, Ab, and a third scout, named Doan, sat motionless on their horses, hidden by trees, watching the detachment pass on the country road: twelve Yankees in double file, moving at a walk from the direction of Tunstall's Station toward Bottom's Bridge on the Chickahominy. Johnston had withdrawn to the other side of the river. Pessimists in the army were given to observing that at several points the watery demarcation line was little more than ten miles from Richmond.

The three scouts had been on the Yankee side of the Chickahominy for two days, with inconclusive results. They had checked, the Richmond & York rail line for signs of traffic, found none, doubled back, and were heading for the low, boggy land near the river when they heard the Yanks approaching. The scouts immediately hid in the woods.

A yellow butterfly darted in and out of a shaft of sun a yard to Charles's left. He had his .44 Colt drawn and resting on his right thigh and his shotgun within reach. He wanted a fight far less than he wanted to know the identity of these Yanks and their purpose on this road.

'Mounted rifles?' he whispered, having seen that the pair of officers in the lead wore orange pompons on their hats.

'Not likely 'cept for them two shoulder straps,' Ab answered. 'If any of the rest of them boys has been on horses more than two hours in their whole lives, I'm Varina Davis.'