“Accept my premise that I know what I’m talking about,” said Vick. “At least till you hear me out. Lieutenant, I was born in the South, my ancestors were Southerners from long before the Civil… the War for Southern Independence… and I want to change the way things are going to happen and see that the South does win the war.”
Jem stared at the man.
“By killin’ Grant? With that gun of yours?” he asked.
“With that gun.”
Jem was impressed by the man’s earnestness. He looked down the table at Prudence. There was a mixture of concern and amusement in her blue eyes. Pru was a level-headed young woman. She would make him a right wife.
Pru always brought that song to Jem’s mind: I dream of Jeannie with the light brown hair…
“As I see it, Mr. Vick, all you’re so sure’s goin’ to happen is just guesswork, because it hasn’t been decided yet,” he said tolerantly. “Why Fort Donelson, particularly?”
“Fort Henry didn’t fall through any failure of Southern arms but because it was built on such low ground the Tennessee River flooded it out and its troops were armed with shotguns and 1812 flintlocks,” said Vick. “Donelson’s on high ground and strong enough to hold. But when Grant brings his forces against it in the next few days it will fall because of indecision on the part of the Confederate generals there. Nashville and all of western Tennessee will follow.”
Vick paused to take out his handkerchief and wipe his brow. With the fire, the room was rather warm.
“Even with Grant deep in northern Mississippi and Lee failing in his invasion of Maryland,” he went on, “by the end of next year there’s going to be such widespread weariness with the war in the North that so influential a force as the Chicago Tribune will urge that a boundary be set by armistice and the Confederacy recognized as an independent nation. If Donelson could hold and western Tennessee be kept, that peace movement could succeed and leave the South free.”
Again Jem was impressed in spite of himself. Conquest of West Tennessee? Lee’s invasion of Maryland? Vick was pretending to a knowledge of the general military picture that Jem, in active military service, lacked.
“My goodness!” interposed Prudence, almost crossly. “Jem, I wish you gentlemen could find a better subject to discuss than the war, at dinner! I’m tired of hearin’ about it.”
“Honey, the war’s here and it’s something we have to live with till it’s over, whether we like it or not,” said Jem.
He studied Vick’s face, down the table. Vick was something past middle age, with short-clipped grey hair, but he appeared in good physical shape for his age. And Jem thought he had Vick figured out now.
Both the North and the South had secret agents all through each other’s territory—it was easy, since they shared the same language and basically the same culture. These agents were civilians—spies—but they reported directly to the military and operated under military orders. Vick was evidently a Confederate spy and with Grant’s movement southward through Kentucky he had been assigned to gather information on the Union forces’ movements and plans.
Through his spy work Vick apparently had discovered this minor general, Grant, was more important than the South realized, indeed was the linchpin of a broad Western strategy by the Union. Vick had been assigned to make his way to Fort Donelson and assure that the fort hold out if possible… and he must be a top-flight agent if his assignment included an effort to assassinate Grant, with a special weapon.
They finished dinner and the house servants began clearing away their plates.
“I don’t know anything about your gun,” said Jem, “but assassinatin’ a Yankee general ain’t all that simple or I reckon we’d’ve been doin’ it all along. We can talk about it some more alter supper. We’re pretty informal here, Mr. Vick, and Pru’ll join us in the parlor while we have brandy and cigars. Aunt Jessie’ll have the house servants fix up one of the sleepin’ rooms for you tonight. You can’t go on in the cold, a lost stranger in the night.”
They had sweet potato pie for dessert, then repaired to the little-used parlor, where another wood fire burned in a wide fireplace, keeping the room pleasantly warm. Rich brought the men peach brandy and cigars, and Tammie served coffee to Prudence.
“Now then, the problem with your plan is, you’re not likely to get anywhere close enough to Grant to get a shot at him,” Jem opened. “Tarnation, man, if these Yankee generals weren’t well guarded in the middle of their outfits don’t you think our cavalry’d have picked off a few of them by now? We been try in’.”
“Your cavalry doesn’t have advance knowledge of where they’re going to be. Six days from now Grant’s going to leave his headquarters in front of Fort Donelson to ride downriver and meet with Commodore Foote, who’ll have been wounded the day before in an unsuccessful gunboat attack on the fort. There’ll be only one orderly with him.”
Now that had to be pure fantasy! There was no way Vick could know in advance that a Yankee admiral would be wounded or that Grant would choose to go to a conference with him without adequate protection. It was hard to sift the fire from the smoke in the things Vick said.
“There’ll be Yankee troops in the area, if they’re plannin’ an attack,” Jem pointed out.
“The 20th Ohio, moving into position from the river landing. We can be in the woods a good distance from the road and get him. Up to twelve hundred yards away.”
“Twelve hun… what kind of musket you reckon you’ve got there, mister? And you said ‘we.’ ”
“You know the country and I need a guide.”
Jem squirmed.
“Mr. Vick, you talk like you know a lot about troop movements,” he said, “but I don’t reckon you know much about actual fightin’. If you turn out to be right and Yankee troops move on Fort Donelson, patrols from both sides are goin’ to be out. One thing don’t make sense to me in what you just said is that Yankee general’d have to be tetched in the head or drunk to ride out by himself. There’ll be Confederate scouts prowlin’ through them woods… and Yankee scouts too, and some of them could pick us off.”
“I don’t know if he’ll be drunk—they say he likes his liquor—but Grant’s going to take that risk,” said Vick confidently. “I tell you, I know that. And I’m willing to take the risk to knock him off—if you’ll show me the way up there.”
Jem looked him over, swirling the brandy in his glass. It was good peach brandy from his own trees, clear as water.
He considered Vick’s request. The man’s insistent claim to foreknowledge defied good sense. But Jem was a fighting man and he didn’t know much about the spy business. Maybe the Confederacy had such an efficient organization it had an agent on Grant’s personal staff and was privy to the way the general operated in intimate detail.
“We-e-ell, I am used to striking sudden-like, with Forrest’s riders,” he decided, “and I got nothin’ against turkey-shootin’ a Yankee general. I’m prob’ly makin’ a mistake but I’ll go along with you and see what happens. When you figure on goin’?”
“We have to get up there day after tomorrow and wait for him,” said Vick. “Grant and the federal troops will be moving into the area the next day and the way north from here’ll be blocked.”
“All right, then. We’ll rest here tomorrow and give my leg one more day of healin’, then we’ll get an early start the next day. The ground up there’s flooded and the roads’re in pretty bad shape.”