Bernard Cornwell - The Bloody Ground

“I do not celebrate, young Faulconer. My God, I do not. We gave McClellan a hundred thousand men, shipped him to the Virginia peninsula, and ordered him to take Richmond. And what did he do? He took counsel of his fears. He havered, that’s what he did, he havered! He dithered while the rebels scraped together a handful of rapscallion soldiers and trounced him straight back out to sea. Yet now the ditherer is to be our commanding general again, and do you know why, young Faulconer?” This question, like the rest of Thorne’s words, was directed at the windowpane rather than toward Adam.

“No, sir,” Adam answered.

“Because there is no one else. Because in all this great republic we cannot find one better general than little George McClellan. Not one!” Thorne spat into the cuspidor again. “I admit he can train troops, but he doesn’t know how to fight them. Doesn’t know how to lead. The man’s a humbug!” Thorne snarled the last word, then abruptly turned and glared at Adam once more. “Somewhere in the Republic there’s a man who can beat Robert Lee, but on my soul we haven’t found him yet. But we will, Faulconer, we will, and when we do we shall pulverize the so-called Confederacy into bone and blood. Bone and blood. But until we do find that man then it is our duty to mollycoddle the Young Napoleon. We have to pat him and soothe him, we have to tell him not to be frightened of ghosts and not to imagine enemies where there are none. In short, we have to wean him off Pinkerton. Do you know Pinkerton?”

“I know of him, sir.”

“The less you know, the better,” Thorne growled. “Pinkerton isn’t even a soldier! But McClellan swears by him, and even as you and I stand here talking Pinkerton is being given command of all the army’s intelligence once more. He had that same command in the peninsula, and what did he do with it? He summoned rebel soldiers out of thin air. He told the Young Napoleon that there were hundreds of thousands of men where there was nothing but a huddle of hungry rogues. Pinkerton will do the same again. Faulconer, mark my words. Within one week we shall be told that Lee has two hundred thousand men and that little McClellan dare not attack for fear of being beat. We shall haver again, we shall dither, and while we piss our collective pants Robert Lee will attack. Do you wonder that Europe laughs at us?”

“Do they, sir?” Adam, confused by the tirade, asked the question feebly.

“Oh they do, Faulconer, they do. American pride is being humbled by a rebellion we seem powerless to defeat and Europe takes pleasure in that. They pretend not, but if Robert Lee destroys McClellan then I daresay we’ll see European troops in the South. The French would love to join in, but they won’t jump till Britain decides, and Britain won’t join the game until they know which side is winning. Which is why Lee will attack us, Faulconer. Look!” Thorne strode to a map of the eastern seaboard that hung behind his desk. “We’ve made three efforts to capture Richmond. Three! And all have been defeated. Lee now controls all of northern Virginia, so what’s to stop him coming further north? Here, Faulconer, into Maryland, and maybe farther north still, into Pennsylvania.” The Colonel demonstrated these threats by sweeping his hand across the map. “He’ll grab our good harvest for his starving men and beat up little McClellan and so demonstrate to the Europeans that we can’t even defend our own territory. By next spring, Faulconer, there could be a hundred thousand European troops marching for the Confederacy, and what will we do then? Treat for peace, of course, and so the Republic of Washington and Jefferson will have lasted a mere eighty years and North America, Faulconer, will be fatally weakened for the next eighty years.” Thorne leaned over his desk and glared at Adam. “Lee cannot be allowed to win, Faulconer. He cannot,” the colonel said in a grave voice, almost as if he were charging Adam with the personal responsibility for saving the Republic.

“No, sir,” Adam said, and felt it was a weak response, but he was being swamped by the sheer force of Lyman Thorne’s personality. Sweat trickled down Adam’s face. The night was oppressive, and the rain had not diminished the humidity at all, while the gasoliers’ flaring mantles only added to the room’s stifling heat.

The colonel waved Adam toward a chair, then sat down himself and lit a cigar from a gas flame that burned from a tabletop gas jet connected to a long rubber extension cord that snaked down from the nearest gasolier. Once the cigar was lit he pushed the gas jet and papers aside, then leaned back and rubbed his face as though he was suddenly tired. “You’re a scalawag, right?” he demanded.

“Yes, sir,” Adam said. A scalawag was a Southerner who fought for the North, the opposite of a Copperhead.

“And three months ago,” Thorne went on, “you were a rebel on Johnson’s staff, am I right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And back then, Faulconer, our Young Napoleon was marching on Richmond. No, that is the wrong verb. He was crawling toward Richmond, while Detective Pinkerton,” Thorne mocked the description with his tone, “was convincing little George that the rebels had two hundred thousand troops. You sent information that would have corrected that misapprehension, only the news never got through. Some clever bastard on the other side replaced your dispatch with one of their own devising and so Richmond survived. I almost stopped that clever bastard, Faulconer, indeed I broke a leg trying, but I failed.” He grimaced, then sucked on his cigar. The smoke hung in the room like the lingering skein of a rifle shot.

“Back then, Faulconer,” Thorne continued, “I was working for the Inspector General’s Department. I did the jobs no one else wanted. Now I am more exalted, but still no more popular with this army than I was when I inspected their damned latrines or wondered why they needed so many clerks. But now, Faulconer, I have a measure of power. It is not mine, but belongs to my master and he lives in that house there.” He jerked the cigar toward the White House. “You follow me?”

“I think so, sir.”

“The president, Faulconer, believes as I do that this army is largely commanded by cretins. The army, of course, believes that the country is ruled by fools, and perhaps both are right, but for the moment, Faulconer, I’d put my money on the fools rather than the cretins. Officially I am a mere liaison officer between the fools and the cretins, but in reality, Faulconer, I am the president’s creature in the army. My job is to prevent the cretins from being more than usually cretinous. I want your help.”

Adam said nothing, not because he was reluctant to help, but because he was astonished by Thorne and his words. He was also cheered by them. The North, for all its power, seemed to be wallowing helplessly in the face of the rebellion’s energy and that made no sense to Adam, but here, at last, was a man who had a vigor to match the enemy’s defiance.

“Did you know, Faulconer, that your father has become Deputy Secretary of War for the Confederacy?” Thorne asked.

“No, sir, I didn’t.”

“Well, he is. In time, maybe, that will be useful, but not now.” Thorne pulled a sheet of paper toward him and in so doing toppled another pile that spilt close to the gas jet. A corner of paper burst into flames that Thorne slapped out with the air of a man forever extinguishing such accidental fires. “You left the Confederacy three months ago and joined Galloway’s Horse?” he asked, taking the facts from the paper he had selected.

“Yes, sir.”

“He was a good man, Galloway. He had some bright ideas, which is why, of course, this army starved him of men and resources. But it was still a damn fool idea for Galloway to get mixed up in battle. You were supposed to be scouts, not shock troops. Galloway died, yes?”