Two days after the beginning of Grant's arrival at Detroit, concerned and frightened Canadians awoke to realize that the artillery battery on Belle Isle had been enlarged overnight. Instead of a half-dozen guns, more than twenty were aimed at the Canadian emplacements.
While this message was being relayed to Cardigan, the cannon began to roar. Their shells chewed up the Canadian fortifications and damaged many of the civilian homes and businesses in the area. Fires burned and civilians fled. It was New York in miniature and in reverse.
As the bombardment raged, three steamers pulled into view from where they had been hidden behind Belle Isle. The flat-bottomed stern-wheelers were jammed with blue-coated Union soldiers, and each ship trailed at least one barge filled with infantry.
From Belle Isle to Windsor is only about half a mile, and the distance was covered quickly. The steamships nudged against the shore and disgorged their human cargo, which scampered up the gentle slope from the river. The embankment was quickly churned into mud: but it was no deterrent. Those soldiers were followed by the men in the barges. Within minutes: a full regiment had been landed and a perimeter established. Observers on the U.S. side clearly saw Union skirmishers moving unopposed through Windsor and beyond. The Canadian militia, outnumbered and totally outgunned, had prudently departed.
As the steamships returned for more human cargo, scores of smaller boats moved from Detroit to Canada, again loaded with soldiers. Within an hour a brigade was ashore and. within two, a division.
From the fire watchtower on the east side of Detroit. Nathan Hunter watched through his telescope. He was well away from General Grant, who, like McClellan at Culpeper, had far more important things to do than speak to a civilian observer.
Nathan laughed when he thought about it. He was no longer quite the civilian he had started out as. Grant had been adamant that no civilians would accompany his staff. “It^’ s bad enough that I have to have reporters tagging along, but I will not have other civilians cluttering up the place. I don't care what you did with McClellan, you will go as an officer or not at all.”
As a result, Nathan wore the uniform of a full colonel in the Union army and was attached to Grant's staff. This made him one grade senior to Rawlins. who was surprised at first, but soon got over it. Nathan carried papers supporting his appointment, and Grant had assured him of a prompt discharge, should he want one, when he wished to return to Washington. Nathan was no longer so certain that he wished such a discharge.
When he had mentioned it, Grant had laughed. “Hell, it might not matter. I don't know if it's legal for me to make you a brevet colonel in the first place, much less discharge you.”
By nightfall, construction was well apace on the first of a couple of pontoon bridges. They would be completed the next day. after which the steamers would depart for Cleveland. Grant had future plans for them.
All in all it had been a breathtaking lesson on military efficiency. Grant had utilized the extensive American rail system to transport his army and its equipment quickly, far too quickly for the British to react and respond. Then his move across the Detroit River had been as well choreographed as any dance could be.
Nathan clambered down from the tower and found Colonel John Rawlins, who yelled at him. “Damn it, Hunter, you ready to go or not? We're not going to wait for you to get your ass over here.” Irascible and profane, Rawlins was excited and in fine form. Nathan happily ignored the outburst and followed him.
Both he and Nathan clambered aboard a ship with Grant and the rest of his staff. It was time to change the army's headquarters.
It was dark when they finally crossed, and the only light came from the stars and the moon, along with a little help from hundreds of campfires, pipes, and cigarettes. The fires in Windsor had either gone out or been put out. Grant's ever-present cigar was a dim glow in the bow of the steamship.
There was a slight jarring as the steamship grounded. A long board was dropped from the steamer to the muddy riverbank. Grant ignored it and jumped in. The water was up to his knees, and the rest of his staff followed, laughing and swearing.
“You need help?” Rawlins asked in reference to Nathan's bad leg. Grant had made a point of asking about it and Nathan was surprised that Rawlins had remembered it.
“Nope.”
Like Grant's drinking, constructive activity and doing something useful seemed to drive away the pain in his leg. It had been disappearing for a long while, and now it seemed totally gone.
Nathan slipped once in the mud, but climbed the few feet up the damp and slippery embankment, where he clearly saw the destruction wrought by the bombardment. It was extensive, although he saw no sign of any casualties. Perhaps they'd been removed. Perhaps, he hoped, there hadn't been that much in the way of human suffering. He hoped not.
All around him, ships were unloading while still more units moved inland. There was no resistance, and no one could recall whether the Canadians had even fired at the invaders. A few handfuls of Canadian civilians watched stoically. Their expressions did not betray the anger they must have been feeling.
Messengers raced up to Grant, and Nathan quietly moved as close as he could to hear their reports. Fort Maiden had fallen without resistance. To the north, a small Union detachment had crossed the St. Clair River south of the American city of Port Huron and had taken the Canadian city of Sarnia.
The landings had been a complete success. There was a sense of pride and exultation in the air. The United States was taking the war to goddamned Great Britain. There would be vengeance for New York and Boston.
Alan Pinkerton crept slowly through the overgrown field towards the country house that Valerie and Henri D'Estaing called home. It was a large, rich-looking farmhouse and, since his sources in the State Department had said that Henri D'Estaing had been ordered back to France by Seward, it was a possible source of corruption and spies. It certainly had never been used as a farm recently. While the house was well kept, the fields were a collection of weeds.
He was further intrigued by the fact that, while Henri D'Estaing was not at home, his amoral wife was, and that strange widow Rebecca Devon was her guest.
In a city where human spiders spun webs of intrigue, the relationship between General Winfield Scott and Nathan Hunter led to Rebecca Devon, and then to Valerie D'Estaing and her corrupt husband. It was a path that needed to be explored. At the least, Pinkerton thought he would find that Rebecca Devon, a woman whose late husband had been as rotten as a long-dead and sun-ripened pig, was somehow involved in influence peddling. At the most, Pinkerton hoped to find information that would destroy Winfield Scott and bring General George McClellan back into favor. The country needed McClellan. He would end the war on honorable terms for the Union.
On a personal note, Alan Pinkerton, too, needed to be returned to power by McClellan, his mentor and, hopefully, his savior. Once a very important man, Pinkerton now found himself on the outside and not taken seriously. It wasn't his fault that his estimates of Confederate numbers were considered inflated and ludicrously unrealistic. He had done what McClellan had asked of him and now ridicule was his reward.