seemed to be staring back at him.
She tweaked at his thinning hair. “What say you, Lord John, once more into the breach?”
Knollys smiled. She knew he wasn't a lord. Minor nobility yes, but not a lord. “Aye wench, but not for a while. The lordly battering ram needs repair. Christ, you've damn near destroyed me.”
She sighed in mock sadness. “So much for the British Empire and every man doing his duty by laying alongside his lady.”
Knollys laughed. He was really quite fond of Rosemarie DeLisle. She was far more educated and interesting than anyone else he'd met, and that included Valerie D'Estaing, who was probably screwing her way across Europe. He'd heard through Lord Lyons's sources that the D'Estaings had been sent back to France in what might have been disgrace.
“Can't we just talk for a moment?” he asked.
“If we must. But not overlong,” she sighed dramatically. Rosemarie did like the fact that he appreciated her mind as well as her full, ripe body. Most men did not think she had a brain, which made Knollys quite unique. Of course, most men didn't think any woman was capable of intellectual discourse, or for that matter, of actually enjoying sexual intercourse. “What are your thoughts on the execution of the slave?”
“Badly handled,” she said. “There are those in the government who are hell-bent on offending people needlessly, and they have succeeded. It could have been done discreetly, done later, or not done at all.”
This was precisely what Knollys thought. “What about a trial?”
She yawned. She had nice teeth and an incredible tongue that she used to drive him mad by having it caress his manhood. “Then you would have to presume that he was human and had inalienable rights. The Negro is not human.”
“Then you condone slavery?”
“Of course. You know that. The Negro is an inferior creature who resembles humankind in many ways, but not in all. Therefore, he needs to be protected from his own base impulses, and from those who would exploit him. The white man was placed here by God to provide shelter and succor for the Negro and to protect him from harm. Where the North and England see slavery as an abomination, we see it as the Negro's salvation.”
“What about where they are worked to death or treated harshly?”
She ran her hand down his chest. “That is a crime, or it should be. People who abuse and destroy property are fools.”
“You are saying, then, that the slaves can never be freed.”
She caressed his manhood with her hand but stopped when she got little response. “Never is such a long time. It will not happen in my lifetime, unless, of course, the Union wins. In which case, it would be a tragedy for the Negro as well as the Confederacy.”
“And if the North does win? What will you do?”
“Then I shall leave here and find a home in another land.”
“But what about the rumors that there is an agreement between Jefferson Davis and Palmerston to free the slaves after the conclusion of the war?”
Rosemarie DeLisle laughed heartily. “If there was such an agreement, it wouldn't be worth the paper it's written on. Davis can't force any state to free slaves. It's part of the reason we exist, this freedom of self- determination that is unique to us. If Mr. Davis signed such an agreement, and I doubt that he did, then it was done under duress and knowing full well that it would never be enforced, could never be enforced. The South will not voluntarily free its slaves in the conceivable future.”
John Knollys accepted her statement as truth. She was privy to the conversations and opinions of the Confederacy's leaders to an extent that neither he nor any other Englishman could hope to be. It upset him deeply that the British army and the Royal Navy might be fighting for a fraudulent cause.
But then, Rosemarie's hand again began caressing him. This time she found life, and she purred. He shifted his head so that an inquisitive nipple found his lips and he began fondling it. He had a great deal to tell both Lyons and General Napier.
Later.
General Scott loved to pontificate, and he seized the opportunity whenever it arose. This time, he was to hear General Grant's general plans for stopping Lee's advance, and he looked forward to pronouncing his opinions on them at great length. Secretary of War Stanton and General Halleck were present, as was Nathan, who stood quietly behind Scott. The old general was fatigued and looked pale. He would not, however, be denied. He would be present at these and other meetings.
Also present was Herman Haupt, a brevet colonel who was the superintendent of the Union's railroads. Like Nathan, Haupt was a West Point graduate, but acted more like a civilian than a man in uniform. He cared little for rank and was only concerned that his precious railroads were ready and able to serve the Union. John Rawlins was present as Grant's chief of staff, and he nodded in a friendly manner towards Nathan.
The meeting was in the dining room of the pleasant two-story house on Seventeenth Street NW that Grant had taken over as his living quarters. It was directly across the street from the War Department. Had Julia Grant been present she might have objected to such goings-on in her house. However, she and the rest of Grant's family were not scheduled to arrive for several days.
Grant, who doubtless knew all that Scott was going to say, was polite and deferential. After all, Scott had been his commanding general in Mexico, and it had been Scott who had acknowledged a very young Grant for bravery in that conflict.
“For military purposes,” Scott said, “the Confederacy is divided into a number of departments, or districts. The idea behind it is that each department will be strong enough to defend itself under normal circumstances, yet be able to aid or be aided by other departments in the case of a major assault. For practical purposes, those departments west of the Mississippi are of no concern to us.
They could not get reinforcements to Virginia in a timely manner even if they started a month ago. Even many of those forces east of the Mississippi will not be able to expedite getting to Virginia because of the paucity of railroads in the South.”
“The South has only about a third of the railroad mileage we have,” Haupt said. He was abrupt and terse: and not at all awed by the power present in the room. “At best rail traffic in the Confederacy is erratic, even though Generals Lee and Jackson have made good use of what was available.”
“In effect,” Scott concluded, “General Lee will have to make do essentially with what he has now, plus what little help he can get from adjacent departments. Again, please remember that several Southern governors want large bodies of troops in their areas to protect against slave rebellions.”
Grant nodded. “Even so, there will be some reinforcements from those nearby districts, as well as the thirty-five thousand British soldiers who are encamped outside Richmond. I wish to take actions that would ensure that no other soldiers do make it to General Lee's army.”
“And what do you propose?” inquired Stanton.
Grant took out a fresh cigar and lit it. The dark blue smoke quickly filled the room. “In the advance on Bull Run and the later advance towards Culpeper, we made no other moves on the Confederacy; thus, the South was able to concentrate as much as it could on our one thrust. I have already directed General Rosecrans to advance towards Knoxville, while General Buell has been ordered to move down the Mississippi and threaten Vicksburg. In each case, I will require very real assaults from their armies and not weak demonstrations or feints. This will distract the Confederacy and might even reward us with success. Right now, we outnumber the Confederates in those areas; if those campaigns are pushed aggressively, it could bring us victory in both Tennessee and Mississippi. At the very least, the rebels will not be able to strip those districts to support Lee.”
Nathan shifted his feet. He was not as confident of success as Grant. Neither Rosecrans nor Buell were the best Union generals. Yet neither were their opponents, Bragg and Pemberton. He did like the idea of pushing the rebels at every point. It was a far cry from McClellan, who saw phantom armies behind every hill and ridge. Grant had espoused his theory in a concise way when he said the rebels didn't have enough armies to stop the North.
“And what will you do with your army?” Scott asked.
“Thanks to the British,” Grant replied, “the Confederates will field a large force, perhaps as many as one hundred and ten thousand men.”
“Great God,” Stanton gasped. “There has never been a host that great on our land.”
