still the Irish advanced, screaming through wide-open mouths. Their ancient enemy was in their sights, and their blood was up.
Cleburne reached the British, paused, and hurled the Legion's flag over the ranks of redcoats like a spear. “After it!” he shrieked. Then he began to hack at the redcoats with his sword.
The insane howling of the Legion's men reached a keening peak as they raced the last few yards to the British ranks. There, they grappled with bayonets, rifle butts, knives, fists, and teeth. It was a battle from the days before the dawn of time as vengeance, justified or not, was taken for centuries of abuse, murder, burnings, persecution, and starvation,
The British outnumbered the Legion, but hundreds of battle-crazed Irish surged through the thin British line like a sharp knife through soft meat. The Irish were beyond fear and many later said they felt no pain from wounds that should have stopped them in their tracks, They didn't care if they died, They had become berserkers, They just wanted to kill English soldiers,
The British soldier was as brave as any man and more disciplined than most, They were, however, humans of flesh and blood, They were hungry, cold, and tired, and had already been retreating, which further sapped their morale. Almost as one, those who could turned and began to pull back from the awful carnage and their insane enemy. The Irish moved towards them and the British walk became a trot, and then the rout was on. Lord Napier and other officers waved their swords and cursed as the British infantry streamed past them. Then, confronted with the reality of defeat, they. too. moved away from the field of death as quickly as they could.
Attila Flynn had not advanced with the army. Although far from a coward, he was not a soldier and saw nothing to be gained by putting himself in jeopardy. The cause of Ireland needed him, and his death in battle would solve nothing.
As the sounds of fighting diminished in the distance, Flynn walked across the field over which the Legion had advanced. A great victory had been won. Victoria's army was shattered and running away. But what a price had been paid! The Union newspapers had referred to casualties in other battles as the “butchers bill.” which was an apt description. Human meat carpeted the field. These were the dead: as the wounded had been dragged to the rear. Some of the dead were whole and lay as if sleeping, while others, equally whole, were contorted and twisted in their final agonies. Worse were those who'd been blown to bloody parts by the British cannon. Limbs, heads, and torsos lay scattered like a child's broken toys.
He found the pile of flesh where red uniforms were mixed with blue. It gladdened him to see so many English lying dead. The Legion had fought the finest infantry on the face of the earth and had driven them away.
The Irish Legion had won an epic victory that would ring through the ages, and the anniversary of this day would be toasted by Irishmen forever. But the Irish Legion had been destroyed.
Someone had taken the Legion's pennant and jammed it into the ground by a corpse. With a sinking heart. Flynn approached the body. It was Cleburne. The general's jaw had been blown off and he had bled to death into the earth of his adopted land.
Attila Flynn sat on the ground and wept for the future. The men who would have formed the core of an Irish army of liberation lay dead on a field in Maryland. The charismatic and ferocious general who might have led them to victory was a lifeless husk. Irishmen had paid for acceptance in the United States with copious amounts of their blood, but there would be no freedom for Ireland this day, this year, this century.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lord John Russell entered his old friend's bedchamber and looked sadly on what lay on the bed. It was the ruins of what had once been a vital and intelligent human being, a man who had compared himself to the Caesars.
“How long has he been like this?”
The doctor, an old friend who'd attended Palmerston for decades, was grief-stricken. “His servants found him this morning when they tried to waken him. We believe it was a stroke and it obviously occurred sometime during the night.”
Palmerston^’ s eyes were closed and his mouth was open. He breathed deeply but each inhalation was a croaking strain. “He will recover?” Russell asked hopefully.
“I doubt it,” said the doctor, recovering his professional demeanor. “Miracles have happened but none that I have seen. You'll notice the slackness of his mouth. That and the fact that there is no response to our probings on the left side of his body indicate that a degree of paralysis has set in. Once that occurs, there is little hope of recovery. He may open his eyes and he may try to speak, but no one will understand him. Even if that does occur, he will likely forever remain a prisoner of his own body.”
Russell shuddered at the thought. The Americans have won another battle, he concluded. Only yesterday, they had received the grim news that Lee's foray into Washington had finished as an utter disaster. In a series of battles to the north and west of Washington, the Anglo-Confederate army had been mauled and Lee critically wounded. As a result, the command of the army had fallen to a nonentity named Beauregard, who had retreated back below the Potomac as quickly as he could. The Union general George Thomas was on his heels and Grant was coming up quickly with the main force. The newspapers were castigating this Beauregard, but he did appear to have saved as much of the army as he could have under the appalling circumstances confronting him.
Even worse than the Confederate defeat was the crushing of Napier's British contingent by the Union army and culminating in a savage attack by a horde of crazed Irishmen. Almost half the British soldiers who'd marched north at the beginning of the campaign were killed, wounded, or missing. The missing were the most perplexing as. while many had been captured in battle, a large number seemed to have just walked away. British soldiers don't desert, Russell told himself. Something was terribly wrong.
Each report of a new disaster had struck Palmerston almost physically. His old body and heart could no longer take it. causing his collapse. Palmerston still breathed, which made him technically alive, but there was little doubt that he would never return to his duties.
Gladstone had entered the room and was given the same briefing by the doctor. “What now?” he asked bluntly.
“Poor Pam,” Russell said, using the prime minister's nickname. “He wanted nothing more than to strengthen the empire against its enemies, yet he appears to have weakened it.”
“Not fatally. I trust.” said Gladstone.
“Not if we can stop the bleeding soon enough. I think yesterdays news was enough to sway even the staunchest opponent of peace. We must end this thing, and the sooner the better.”
Gladstone nodded. “Will you be prime minister?”
Would you rather it be you. Russell thought? Ambitious, aren't you? “No. at least not for a while. We must permit enough time to pass to be sure that Palmerston won't recover. With Parliament's permission and Her Majesty's acquiescence, I shall take on much of the responsibilities of prime minister without assuming the title. I shall need help and will be calling on both you and Mr. Disraeli for assistance. May I count on it?”
“Of course, and I'm certain I speak for Disraeli.”
With whom you have probably already spoken, thought Russell. “We must find a way towards peace that will preserve at least a semblance of our honor. Our political lives depend on it.”
“Indeed,” said Gladstone. “Have you any thoughts as to how this might be achieved?”
Russell smiled thinly. “One or two. Though nothing that will serve to end a war by themselves. We need something more dramatic.”
General Napier was puzzled. “Why on earth would a Negro woman wish to see me?”
The general had been at his headquarters outside Richmond for little more than a day, and most of his time had been spent catching up on the maddening paperwork that London seemed to think was more essential to the war effort than defeating the enemy that was massing for a push on Richmond. Thomas's army had been merged into Grant's and had established bridgeheads on the southern bank of the Rappahannock. This meant that no significant body of water lay between the Union armies and Richmond. A major thrust, or thrusts, was expected almost momentarily. Grant was no McClellan, and his subordinates, such as Thomas and Sherman, were at least
