Dire Shenanigans (The Making of a Man Series, Book 2) Read online

  “At least one half of the men do not permit their lips to be contaminated by the Demon Rum, Major Burke. Most of them actually enjoy sermons.”

  “The British commonly imagine America to be ‘England-Over-The-Water’; they really are wrong, you know.”

  They laughed, commented that the Americans probably had as many mistaken illusions about the English.

  “Will England join in our conflict, Major Burke?”

  The question was asked repeatedly, by Southerners imagining they shared aristocratic links, by Northerners fearing an attempt to reconquer the Colonies.

  “I am not privy to the workings of government, sir, but would be utterly amazed was there to be any armed intervention by Whitehall. Leaving aside matters of morality – and the contempt for slave-holding runs deep - the English must raise another half a million of soldiers and sailors to go to war in America. Two shillings more on the Income Tax to pay for them! You would hear the wails of outrage across this side of the Atlantic, gentlemen!”

  “Have you not a sufficiency, of sailors especially, Major Burke?”

  “A fleet in Home Waters, another in the Mediterranean; flotillas and squadrons in the West Indies and the African ports and especially in India, and patrolling the trade routes and pirate-hunting in Chinese seas and keeping an eye out for Australian interests. The navy says it has too few ships and men for the tasks it performs now. The army, of course, is concerned to garrison and subdue the one hundred million or more who dwell in India, and to keep every colony safe. An Empire is a very good thing in many ways, sir, but it don’t come cheap!”

  They laughed again, and were relieved to accept his logic.

  “What of the failure at Antietam, gentlemen, what happens now?”

  “McClellan goes, just as soon as his replacement is decided upon. The word that comes down the line from Washington is that the President is finally, wholly out of patience with him. McClellan received certain information that the Southerners had divided their armies; he knew where they were ordered to be, who had command and what they were to do next. Yet still he refused to commit his whole army to the fight! He dithered, he dallied in the rear, he discovered an imaginary one hundred thousand poised to entrap him; he committed forces piecemeal when a joint attack must have ground Lee to dogmeat! He took casualties that are the greatest ever known, and all for nothing, for he let Lee escape with a fighting army. Seventeen thousand men died at Antietam, which means as many crippled and broken in all probability, and for what? Fifty thousand orphans mourn, their fathers wasted by McClellan. I am told that he is not a coward – but if he is not then he is a goddamned lunatic, Major Burke!”

  The stories coming from Antietam were probably exaggerated at each telling, but there was little doubt that McClellan had never approached within sight of the killing ground. It was a certainty that he had kept a division in the rear surrounding his headquarters, and that he had never released them to fight. Some called him a fool for listening to the wildly inaccurate intelligence reports supplied by the detective Pinkerton; others said he was a coward for wanting to believe in hidden hundreds of thousands of rebels waiting to pounce – almost every Union soldier wanted now to see the back of him.

  “There is an insistent rumour, Major Burke, that you are making reports to the British government.”

  General Grant sat back from his Spartan dinner table, a glass of water to hand, his harrowed, haunted face showing no out of the way expression.

  “I am an Englishman, General. I became involved in American affairs when Southerners chose to attack me in Kansas and I concluded that Border Ruffians who tried to kill me were my enemy. In any case, sir, I have an Englishman’s contempt for slavery and slaveholders. I accepted a uniform in a Kansas militia, and soon became an officer, and I have behaved loyally, I believe. I can assure you, sir, that I have never given comfort to the Union’s enemies. But, that said, I am English and cannot refuse my own government’s demands upon me while they remain consistent with my honour. I have been asked to give my opinion on a number of matters, and will comment to my government on my observations of ironclad gunboats and of the rifle in modern warfare.”

  “Long-winded, but not unreasonable, Major Burke. What are your observations, sir?”

  “The wooden ship is dead, sir – every wooden-walled line-of-battle ship became obsolete the moment Merrimack met Monitor. That is important news for the government of Queen Victoria and I only hope they will believe it.”

  “The largest navy on Earth.”

  “Firewood, sir!”

  “And the rifle?”

  “Breech loading and, soon, magazine fed and making the open line obsolete, sir. No battalion can be expected to charge across one hundred yards of open field where there are rifles facing them. Big guns, sir – cannon of greater size than any yet seen, made of steel, one presumes – will neutralise the rifle, but it will still be impossible to take ground in a charge. War will become a matter of blockade and alliance, and the side with the greater industries and bigger coal mines will win. That, of course, can only make the navy more important.”

  “You make an interesting argument, sir. Was I ever, God forbid, to become President, then my military policy must be to encourage industry, you say?”

  “Coal, iron and steel, steam railways first of all, sir. Then great farms and ranches – food for the whole country and for those nations that cannot produce their own. The bread-basket of the world will very easily become its master, I believe. Wealth, sir, at any and all costs, must be your guideline.”

  “Adam Smith at his most extreme, Major Burke.”

  “Even so, sir. Machiavelli, as well, I understand.”

  “America must become a great Christian nation, Major Burke, united and rich. That can only be achieved by giving freedom to those who create wealth, you say.”

  “I do, General. The creation of industries, of jobs, of the goods we all require, must be seen as the noblest pursuit of mankind; the sole purpose of the politician is to remove every hindrance in the businessman’s way.”

  “Justice; Liberty; Happiness – are not those three aims more important?”

  “Only the rich can be held to aspire to any of those three, sir. Poverty is an injustice in itself and creates further tyranny; the Confederacy is poor and uses the ignorant, uneducated, unwashed, half-starved peasantry as its tools in battle. Was the hard-scrabble farmer of the back hills to have the opportunity to live more comfortably and to gain education, then he would no longer fight for those who oppress him. Liberty? What is that to a man who cannot put food in his children’s mouths? The pursuit of Happiness – how can man on the breadline be happy?”

  Grant was taken aback – these were the sentiments of the revolutionary, he feared.

  “Not at all, General. Revolution will not benefit the poor man, as the events in France so clearly show. The opposite, in fact – in 1789 the French had a government of fools and the beginnings of manufacturing on their coalfields. Twenty years later they had the benefit of Napoleon’s wisdom and every single enterprise gone bankrupt, every employed industrial hand out of a job. The ordinary man does not need Danton and Robespierre, he needs a job in a factory or mill or yard or mine and food on his family’s dinner-table.”

  “Many of these new manufacturers seem little better than criminals, Major Burke; certainly, they are not moral men!”

  “There is no greater crime than poverty, General!”

  Colonel Gaines, a thoughtful staff officer, looked up from the cup of coffee he had been savouring, the bean frequently being in short supply.

  “We have won, almost, our campaign on the River, sir – it is a matter of time now till its end. The armoured gunboats have done much of the work. The rifles from the new factories will finish the rest. Parrot guns and Dahlgrens have driven the Rebels from the field and emptied their forts. The campaign against Slavery is the greatest Crusade our nation has known – and the manufacturer has made it successful, sir. Crimin
als they may be – it is hard to deny that – but they seem to be criminals who are doing the Lord’s work.”

  “The steam engine as the Sword of the Lord and Gideon, Colonel Gaines? We should offer the concept to our many divines to debate – and then step back and leave them to it!”

  Grant managed a laugh, possibly the first Dick had heard from him.

  “England is the home, the birthplace of industry, Major Burke – you have had longer to consider these weighty matters. The criminal as the saviour of mankind is a little much for me to swallow, but you make an interesting argument. What will you say to your government if they ask about me, sir?”

  The question was unexpected, had to be answered.

  “You mentioned the possibility of becoming President, sir. If my government should wish my advice, then it will be to welcome such an event. I might add, sir, that I was engaged in a very brief discussion with some of the lesser denizens of Whitehall and made a very opposite assessment of another Union general.”

  Grant nodded his understanding; he would not tolerate denigration of McClellan from his staff, on the grounds of military courtesy, but he could find no respect for him.

  Dick strolled to the breakfast table in the morning, fully expecting to be intercepted by a squad of provosts and sent on his way from the headquarters. Instead Colonel Gaines was there and begged his company on a tour of the army, or of those parts of it in close contact with the enemy.

  “The General was very impressed with all you had to say yesterday evening, sir, and wishes you to be free to observe.”

  “I shall be honoured to do so, Colonel.”

  The Union soldiers were still amateurs, their officers especially so. Dick was no career military man, but he had read much and had picked up the basics by observation of what not to do. It was clear to him that war was about killing – the side that killed the most, and kept its strength to do the same again, was the side that would win in the end. Taking ground from the enemy was almost irrelevant – the most important thing was to kill so many of them that they could fight no more.

  It was regrettable, but killing the enemy could only be achieved by setting one’s own men in peril – the officer had to accept that he might lose eight or nine of his own men to destroy ten of the other side. The Union outnumbered the Confederacy, could win on those terms.

  The great bulk of the Union troops were wartime volunteer units – battalions from the same town or county, men who had grown up together, lived in the same streets, worshipped in the same congregation. Their officers were sometimes elected from their ranks, were always known to them; in the rural areas a lieutenant or captain might be cousin to half the men in his company, could well have two or three or four brothers subordinate to him. It was natural for the officers to try to protect the lives of their men.

  Too often, that natural wish to keep their men alive led officers to pull back from fights they could have won at great cost. The Union army took casualties to place itself in a position where with one last, bloody push there could be victory – but then found the price of winning to be more than its officers were willing to pay and pulled back, the dead men wasted.

  “The Southerners are more willing to die, it seems to me, Colonel. Maybe they’ve got less to lose than your well-fed Union boys.”

  “You may be right, Major Burke. What would your answer be?”

  “Use artillery more and infantry less, in the first instance, sir. Kill at a distance, where you can. That is more of a defensive strategy, of course. Where you must attack, then use soldiers who know they must win at all costs. Release all the slaves you can lay your hands on, put them in uniform and train them hard and then send them forward. If the Southerners take them they will kill them rather than make them prisoners – so they will know they must win and will fight far harder than your white boys.”

  “Impossible, sir – the black man is inferior to the white. He does not know how to fight. Certainly, you couldn’t never teach a black how to fire and clean a rifle!”

  “Ah! Being English, of course, I had not been aware of these realities, sir.”

  Dick saw no reason to argue – common sense and fact were wasted in such a cause.

  He watched and observed and saw the Union army to be well-fed, to have medical services, generally to be treated humanely, but he saw little evidence of any fighting spirit. The men were obedient to command but showed no overwhelming desire to put their heads up and lead the charge on the enemy lines. They had a great respect for General Grant, but all expected him to win his battles without killing his own men.

  “They are good men, Colonel Gaines, but they ain’t soldiers. They’re just hometown boys out to do a nasty job and get it over with, preferably very cheaply. Have you tried offering a bounty on Confederate heads?”

  Colonel Gaines hoped he was joking.

  “Very few of them think the cause is worth dying for, sir. Sure, they’re willing to take a risk or two, and they know that blood must be spilt, but they are too much concerned that it should not be their own blood. They need an incentive – bring the profit motive into war, sir!”

  It was unacceptable; the prospect of cash rewards for efficient fighting was quite appalling; it was immoral; it could not be done.

  “How many die of sickness, sir, or are incapacitated at least?”

  “Three or four for every man wounded or killed in battle. A siege, such as this at Vicksburg, will cost more men lost than a dozen battles. I know what you are about to say to me, Major Burke, but it cannot be done!”

  An assault on the walls, made at night, would cost massive casualties, ten thousand and more dead to achieve success – but six months of siege would cost twice as many from illness alone.

  “There is always the chance that they will realise that they can never be relieved and will surrender, Major Burke. We cannot waste lives on an assault today that might have been unnecessary next week.”

  “I fear, sir, that in your anxiety to save ten lives today you will throw away hundreds tomorrow. I am well aware that the British Army’s performance in the Crimea was one of almost unmitigated incompetence – that men’s lives were wasted through callous stupidity – and that you may feel me to be in no position to preach. But, sir, I do most sincerely believe that your officers must become more willing to lead their men into death’s jaw, if only to save more of them!”

  “It is not our way, Major Burke. Our officers will live among the men for the rest of their lives. Yours in England come from a different order of society and will never have to dwell among the widows and orphans they have created.”

  They heard a sudden swelling of small arms fire as they rode behind the line of trenches and breastworks surrounding the town, pointed their horses towards the sound. They dismounted at the edge of thick woodland, left their horses in the care of the colonel’s orderly and made their way towards a shallow scrape trench surmounted by a barricade of tree trunks. A blue-coated company was stood to, firing at will. Dick took the Sharps from his shoulder and slipped a percussion cap onto the nipple.

  A quarter of a mile away, across a swampy valley, they could see another breastwork and a track leading in from the east.

  “Foraging party coming in, Major Burke. Tried to make a run for it – must have been delayed and unable to make it in darkness.”

  There were horses on the track, thirty or forty at a guess, most carrying packs. Covering fire from the other side of the valley was spattering about their own breastwork and none of the Union soldiers were exposing themselves long enough to take proper aim.

  Dick stood up and leaned against the barricade, aimed at a horse towards the front of the line coming in, shot and watched it fall and block the track to the narrow access to the Confederate line. He reloaded, still watching, and shot a second pack animal before stepping down into cover. He walked twenty paces before taking another aimed shot.

  A lieutenant and sergeant were crouched down low; neither showed any intent to em
ulate him.

  “Reckon you goin’ to live forever that way, Lieutenant. So’s the Rebels, mister!”

  Firing died down as the last of the Confederates disappeared and they returned to their horses.

  “War’s no place for men who want to live a long life, Colonel Gaines.”

  “Seems to me you don’t care how long you live, Major Burke!”

  Dick shrugged, started to agree with the colonel; then he thought for a second - he had started to enjoy life in recent months. Perhaps he was not quite so cavalier about his existence now... What a nuisance! He would have to start worrying, possibly even think before he acted in future.

  Book Two: The Making

  of a Man Series

  Chapter Five

  Mr William Williams smiled his very best as he accepted his cup of tea from Miss Robinson’s hands; she simpered and bowed her head to the tea tray, pouring for her brother. She possessed the fair hair of her family, fortunately not thinning as her brother already was, washed out blue eyes and a face that could, at its kindest, be called pretty; she compensated with a more than respectable figure, wasp-waisted and broad on hips and shoulders in truest Victorian style. She was not unintelligent, when she could be persuaded to be so unladylike as to admit to the possession of an intellect. She could make a businessman a good wife, one who could converse with his competitors’ other halves and pick up surprising amounts of information.

  Tea was insipid, Sergeant Bill thought, and not improved by too much of milk and sugar; the young lady made a very good Dundee cake, however. Mr Robinson had told him that she kept household for him, he being still a bachelor, and that she was a very fine cook. She was a year or two older than Robinson, just on the safe side of thirty at a guess, and was obviously only too pleased to meet an unmarried gentleman.