“What I have in mind getting is the little chunk of southeastern Kentucky the Confederates still hold,” Roosevelt answered. “Lord knows it’s not worth much as far as land goes, but having the whole state in our hands will make life simpler after the shooting stops. The Confederates won’t be able to keep Kentucky in their Congress then, or to go on electing senators and a congressman or two who’ll spend all their time speechifying about how the Confederacy needs to take back their home state. I want it gone from their minds, altogether gone, and that will be that.”
“That makes a…good deal of sense,” Dowling said slowly. Because of his bulldog aggressiveness, Roosevelt didn’t get the credit he deserved either as a politician or as a statesman. “The Germans had no end of trouble from France when they took part of Lorraine after the Franco-Prussian War but let the froggies keep some, too. Better they should have grabbed it all, to make the break clean.”
Roosevelt beamed at him. “The very example I had in mind, as a matter of fact, Major.” Dowling beamed, too; looking smart in front of your boss never hurt. The president went on, “Our allies will correct that omission in the forthcoming peace, I assure you.”
Custer coughed, one of those coughs loosed for no other purpose than to draw attention to oneself. “This is all very well, your Excellency, I have no doubt, but why do it at the expense of what First Army has achieved? If you must trade the Confederates land for land, why not give them back some of the vast worthless stretches we’ve captured west of the Mississippi, in Arkansas and Sequoyah and Texas and Sonora?”
“Not all that land out there is worthless, General,” Roosevelt answered. “The stretch of Arkansas we hold puts Memphis under our guns, which emphatically is worth doing. Sequoyah is full of oil and gas, and we can use them: motorized machines grew ever more important as this war moved along. And as for the land that is largely worthless-that being so, why would the CSA want it back?”
“It still strikes me as unjust that my forces should be singled out for this halt,” Custer said. “We deserve better than that.”
I deserve better than that, he meant. Dowling had no trouble understanding as much, and neither did Theodore Roosevelt. He blew air out through his mustache before replying, “General, would you not say that, in your long and distinguished military career, you have already been treated better than you deserve?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you are referring to, Mr. President,” Custer said, bristling, “and I resent the imputation.”
“Resent all you like,” Roosevelt growled. Abner Dowling did his best to seem a large, corpulent fly on the wall. He listened avidly as Roosevelt continued, “When we were taking our position north of the Teton, you were the one who wanted to move back the Gatling guns that chopped the British infantry to dog-meat. If we had moved them, the limeys probably would have overrun us. The only reason you ever got to be a hero, you pompous fraud, is that Colonel Welton and I talked you out of it.”
“That’s a damned lie!” Custer shouted.
“The hell it is!” Roosevelt shouted back. “And if your brother hadn’t got himself shot, he would have said the same thing.”
“Another lie!” Custer turned a dusky shade of purple that had to, surely had to, portend an apoplexy. “Tom and I were two sides of the same coin.”
“Both tails, or maybe blockheads,” Roosevelt said.
“Damn you, you know why I always wanted to lead in Canada. You’ve always known, and you’ve always ignored my requests for transfer. Is it any wonder I resent that?” Custer said.
Instead of answering, Roosevelt shrugged off his coat. Custer cocked his fist and glared a challenge. The two men, one nearing sixty, the other nearing eighty, looked ready to swing at each other. “Gentlemen, please,” Dowling said, reluctantly reminding them of his existence. Even more reluctantly, he stepped between them. “If the two of you quarrel, the only gainers live in Richmond.”
Roosevelt recovered his temper as fast as he lost it. He’d always been volcanic, but his eruptions quickly subsided. With a nod-almost a bow-to Dowling, he said, “You’re right, of course.” He also nodded to Custer. “General, I apologize for my hasty words.” As if to prove he meant it, he put the coat back on. “I also assure you that, as I said before, I accepted this cease-fire for reasons of state, ones that have nothing to do with personal animus against you, with the memory of your brother, or with disrespect for the sterling fighting qualities the men of First Army have displayed.”
“Slander. Nothing but slander,” Custer muttered under his breath. Unlike Roosevelt, he stayed angry a long time. But, when the president affected not to hear him, he muttered something else and then said, “I must accept the assurances of my commander-in-chief.” From him, that was an extraordinary concession.
It wasn’t what most interested his adjutant, though. For years, Dowling had heard whispers about the combat in Montana Territory that said what Roosevelt had said out loud. It did not strike him as improbable. Where sound military judgment required pushing straight ahead, Custer could be relied upon to exercise such judgment. Where sound military judgment required anything else, Custer could be relied upon to push straight ahead.
“General, we’ve won the damn war,” Roosevelt said. “As your adjutant so wisely put it, Richmond laughs if we disagree among ourselves. I do recognize what you have done here. To prove it, when I get back to Philadelphia I shall propose to Congress your elevation to the rank of full general, and I am confident Congress will confirm that promotion.”
Where minutes before Custer had been ready to punch the president, now he bowed as deeply as his years and his paunch permitted. “You honor me beyond my deserts, your Excellency,” he said. By his expression, though, he did not for a moment believe he was being too highly honored. Dowling was inclined to agree with the modest self-appraisal Custer gave to Roosevelt, but then wondered if he might not be promoted, too. A rising tide lifts all boats, he thought, and the U.S. tide rose higher day by day.
TheGreatWar: Breakthroughs
Chester Martin was no longer in command of B Company, 91st Regiment, and did his best to feel resigned about it. Out of some replacement depot had come Second Lieutenant Joshua Childress, who might possibly have been nineteen years old, but might well not have, too.
“We hit the Rebels one more good lick tomorrow morning,” he declared to the weary veterans in the hastily dug trench north of Stafford, Virginia. “That will take us all the way down to the Rappahannock. Won’t it be bully?” His voice broke with excitement at the prospect.
Corporal Bob Reinholdt chuckled softly. “Somebody better oil the lieutenant, Sarge,” he whispered to Martin. “He squeaks.”
“Yeah,” Martin whispered back. “We’ve got to keep an eye on him. He’ll get some good men killed if we don’t.”
“Ain’t that the sad and sorry truth?” Reinholdt said with a nod. If he still resented Chester for taking over his section-and for coldcocking him-he didn’t show it. Too much water, to say nothing of blood, had gone under the bridge since.
“We must finish the punishment we have given the Confederate States since 1914,” Childress was saying. “We are all heroes in this fight, and we must not fear martyrdom in our country’s cause.”
Reinholdt and Martin both rolled their eyes. This couldn’t be anything but Childress’ first combat duty. Firing had been light in the couple of days since he’d come down to the front. People who’d served longer were apt to be less enthusiastic about the prospect of martyrdom when the war was visibly won. People who, like Martin, had won Purple Hearts were apt to be least enthusiastic of all.
“Be bold,” Childress said. “Be resolute. Be fearless. Now when the enemy totters is the time to strike the fiercest blows.”