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The Metropolitan Clan, Ch. 28
July 26th, 1864
HQ, Army of the Potomac
You are Hiram Grant, whom all men call Ulysses.
Honestly, you're not sure this scheme of Burnside's will work. It sounds like a brilliant gambit, but brilliant gambits so often fail. Mine warfare can be powerful, in a siege, but can go horribly wrong in so many ways. The Turks tried it at Vienna, two hundred years ago, and made only a modest impression. The Allies tried it at Sevastopol, ten years ago, and achieved only little.
Your instincts, usually though not always trustworthy, give you good and bad feelings about the plan at the same time.
At least the digging operation and the training have been a way to keep some of the men occupied.
You look over the map stretched out across a trestle table outside your tent one more time, then look up as a glint of light off a brass buckle catches your eye. It's General Meade.
George Meade is a good man- your right hand, for this year of bloody warfare. He's as precious to you as Billy Sherman has been, though he has an angry, choleric mood to contrast with Sherman's melancholy and nervous fits. You thought highly of him after reading of the victory at Gettysburg. Higher still, after the day you came to his headquarters, when he calmly offered to step aside and let you pick the right man to run the Army of the Potomac without trouble from him. It's humbling, the integrity that must have taken. You decided to keep him on the job.
He looks thoughtful, and a bit grim, obviously having thought over whatever is on his mind carefully. You straighten up, turning away from the map.
"Hello, George. What's on your mind?"
"The assault. And the election coming up." He paused, as if collecting his thoughts. "We only have the one division of colored troops. if we put them in front for the attack, and it should prove a failure, what will they say? They'll say, not without cause, that we shoved these people ahead to get killed because we didn't care anything about them." He shakes his head. "But they won't say that if we send in a more experienced unit of white troops, who've faced a few battles before, instead." [1]
You think about that, long and hard, stroking your beard idly for a moment. George gives you a bit of time.
"You have a point. You want Burnside to send in a different division for the first wave?"
"I do."
"Go ahead." You trust Meade's instincts.
July 27, 1864
IX Corps Headquarters
You are Ambrose Burnside, an unlucky man with his share of regrets.
You've lost battles. Important battles. More than one of them. You told them you weren't fit to command an army of a hundred thousand. You refused those laurels twice, like Caesar, and at last only took the job to keep it from Hooker, who couldn't do it either. You warned them you couldn't fill Little Mac's shoes properly. And you were right. And they blamed you.
You've had to cope with the realization that your ex-fiancée, whose cry of "No, sirree Bob!" at the altar has humiliated you in your nightmares for many years, was a spy for the Confederates. Also engaged to the Confederates. Several of them. At least you caught her.
You invented a fine new carbine, that solved very real problems with breech-loading firearms, and got a huge military contract just before the war broke out… then another man bribed the War Department to drop the contract.
And your factory burned down.
And your campaign for the House of Representatives fell apart.
Besides which, now everyone thinks of your carbine as third-best. No one talks about the Burnside carbine. Spencer Spencer Spencer, they say.
You are famous, but mainly for your facial hair, the ease of your smile, and how you always remember everyone's name.
Sometimes you wonder why it always seems to go so wrong. You mean well, you truly do. You're reasonable. Modest, if you do say so yourself- aware of your limitations. You never stab your comrades in the back, the way some generals do. And you always do your best. But things just… don't work out.
You uncomfortably rub the scar left on your neck by an Apache arrow, from the time your cavalry unit was passing through Las Vegas in the '50s.
You've spent much of the war in charge of IX Corps. You were promoted to command of the Army of the Potomac from it, and you were demoted from the army back to it. You are hard pressed against the Rebels on the front lines. The enemy is close at hand, their activities are dangerous, and they've gotten all the more aggressive since Ferrero's division rejoined you. The presence of black soldiers on the front lines of the war seems to enrage the Confederate army.
With the aid of your man Pleasants, and those same black troops, you had a plan to pay the rebels back for everything they've done to humiliate you… but now the plan is having to change. You've called your division commanders, told them of the change. The colored division will be held back for the second wave. One of your other divisions will make the first attack.
"Any of you care to volunteer?" You glance at Potter, Ledlie, and Wilcox.
No reply.
"Well then, we'll draw straws!" You beam. A fair solution!
Metropolitan Library
Reading Room
199X
General Ledlie proved a very poor choice for the attack. He had risen to command of his division only a month ago, and the promotion had been a serious mistake. Whereas General Grant's alcoholism occasionally caused him to drink during quiet periods of his military campaigns, the overall commander of Union forces never allowed himself to become inebriated when battle loomed. By contrast, Ledlie's attraction to the bottle was a stronger and less controllable matter. He had consumed large amounts of alcohol during the Battle of the North Anna. Burnside had mistaken his drunken recklessness had been mistaken for fighting spirit and determination, though. He was promoted to fill the role of General Stevenson, a division commander who had recently been killed in battle.
Ledlie had been a disappointment at the recent Battle of Cold Harbor, remaining in the trenches and seeking cover from Confederate fire while his men rushed forward and exposed themselves to terrible danger on one of the bloodiest days in American military history. Burnside had either overlooked this, or never became aware of it in the first place. Ledlie's men did not have high faith in his willingness to lead, or even accompany, them in battle.
To make matters still worse, while the U.S. Colored Troops commanded by Ferrero had been training for weeks to exploit the unique conditions that the explosion of Pleasants' bomb would create, Ledlie did not bother to provide his men with any detailed plan of action. Nor did he coordinate with Ferrero, nor ask Ferrero how he had planned to handle the situation. Ferrero and the black soldiers had prepared special bridging equipment to cross trenches; Ledlie would have none.
Excerpt, Metropolis at War, by Simon Sejret
[1] This is taken from Grant's testimony before a Congressional committee.
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