"You West Pointers," Sickles announced, as if launching into a speech for the benefit of the men who were digging in to either side of them, only a few feet away, "and I'm not part of your club. You West Pointers, I'm passable as a commander of a brigade of volunteers, but a corps? You just don't feel comfortable with that"
Henry looked pointedly to the infantry, who had stopped their work and were enjoying the confrontation, many of them grinning.
"These are my men, Hunt," Sickles announced with a flourish, the hand holding the glass of brandy sweeping out as if he were about to launch into a speech. "Best damn corps in this damn army. I don't care if they hear what I've got to say."
"I do," Henry replied, his voice pitched low.
'Take Hooker, for example," Sickles continued. "Wouldn't listen to me at Chancellorsville, the stupid son of a bitch. But then again, there was no love lost between the two of you either."
"We saw differently on a few things," Henry replied non-committally.
Henry slid off the rock he had been perched on and
walked down the slope a couple of dozen feet Sickles followed.
"Sir, such a conversation around the men is not in the best interest of morale," Henry said quietly.
Sickles laughed. "Part of the game at times" Sickles replied, but this time his voice was as low as Henry's. 'Troops like it when they feel their commander stands up to the high muckety-mucks. I know these men, Hunt They're tough soldiers, but they're citizen-soldiers, volunteers, not professionals. They fight for different reasons than you and I. If only someone on top really knew how to lead them, we'd've ended this war months ago.
"You weren't there at the Chancellor House when Hooker got knocked out by that artillery round. All of them, all those damn West Pointers standing around like a herd of sheep, hemming and hawing, no one with the guts to take over. I'd of taken command if I thought the others would have followed, but I didn't have that little date of graduation behind my name. We could have won that damn fight, smashed Lee up good that day rather than the other way around. Then Hooker, his brain all addled, stands back up and everyone starts saluting like goddamn puppets on strings. Puppets, Hunt, we're led by puppets."
Henry said nothing, raising his field glasses back up and focusing on a distant ridge. Actually Sickles was right If someone had seized the moment before Hooker regained consciousness, had shown a little guts, they might not be sitting atop this hill in Pennsylvania this day, but instead be in Richmond.
"Nice quiet place up there on the Hudson, like some papist monastery," Sickles continued. "But I didn't go hide in some monastery, Hunt I learned my business on the streets of New York with the likes of old Clinton and Tweed.
"You don't hesitate in that game. You jump in with both feet grab hold, and thrash your opponent till he begs for mercy and crawls on the floor, and then you kick him in the ass for good measure. That's just as much war as what you learned. Don't let go and always know what the other man is thinking, whether he's your friend or your enemy. That's leadership, Hunt learning how the other man thinks; then use that to get him with you or get him the hell out of the way."
Henry sighed, trying to keep his field glasses focused, but his eyes hurt not enough sleep. He lowered the glasses and wiped his face. Already the day was getting warm.
Draining off the rest of the brandy, Sickles set the glass down on a rock. Smiling, he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a thick cigar, a Havana, and offered it Henry nodded a thanks, bit off the end, and then fumbled in his pockets for a Lucifer. Dan reached into his breast pocket produced a match, and Henry puffed the cigar to life.
"I was stationed at Fort Hamilton, New York Harbor, for five years," Henry finally offered. "Even met you a few times at various functions, Fourth of July parades, receptions at City Hall, though I doubt you'd remember."
"Nice place, Fort Hamilton. Right in the harbor, out of the stink of the streets," Sickles replied. "That's when Lee commanded it?"
"Yes."
"I remember him from those times. Elegant distant a bit too pious for my blood. Understand you used to pray with him, studied the Bible together."
"Yes, we did." He was surprised that Sickles knew that bit of information.
"A good politician, a good general for that matter, knows such things about his friends and his enemies. You liked him, didn't you, Hunt?"
"Yes, I did."
"And now?"
Henry puffed on his cigar, and Dan chuckled softly.
"It's all right I'm not one of those damn fire-eating Republicans; you say a good word about that old man on the other side, and next thing you know you've got some damn congressman screaming for your hide before those witch-hunters with the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War."
‘I respect Lee. Anyone who doesn't is a fool, sir."
Sickles laughed. "Would never want to play poker with him. He had that look."
Henry could not help but laugh softly in reply and took another puff on the cigar. It was a good one, the best he had smoked in months. The image of Lee playing poker. No, chess was more his game; poker did not fit with Lee.
"It's always about Lee, isn't it?" Sickles offered. "Always we're wondering what he is thinking, what he is doing, chasing his tail. Politics, Hunt, is like war. The moment you start chasing the other man's tail, you've lost You've got to keep him off balance, make him dance to your jig. That's why we keep losing. Lee picks the song, and we dance to his tune.
"Chancellorsville, damn it to hell! Hooker knocked out like a cold fish, everyone staring wide-eyed, twittering like a bunch of harem eunuchs."
Henry could not help but smile at the analogy.
"Everyone kept looking at that map, saying we were flanked and Hooker knocked out cold. No one was looking at the map thinking maybe we've got them bastards flanked instead, not just flanked but divided in half, by God. We could of smashed them up good. Meade's entire corps was poised above Jackson's left flank. All that was needed was someone with the guts to go in. Meade lacked the stomach then, orders or no orders, and now he's the one running the show today."
Henry said nothing.
"Meade hates me. I could point to the sun and say it is in the east and he'll tell me to go to hell, it's in the west"
"I don't think it's that bad," Henry replied.
"I know. Nothing would please him more than me getting a bullet in the head or my leg blown off."
Henry said nothing, shifting his cigar and raising the field glasses back up. Typical of most politicians, Sickles talked too much. Yet he did have guts, there was no denying that and even some damn good sense about battle. Though an amateur, he had led his Excelsior Brigade well during the Seven Days and handled a division at Fredericksburg and Third Corps at Chancellorsville. Before Jackson hit the flank, Sickles repeatedly warned Hooker that something was up, first suspecting that the troop movement to his front was a retreat then just before they got hit judging it to be an attack about to be unleashed. His troops fought like demons trying to hold back the tide throughout that terrible night of May 2nd, with Sickles on the front line throughout
It was the other side of him, though, that was unsettling. Though Henry held little truck in how some rambled on about officers having to be gentlemen, nevertheless, Sickles was rather unsavory on many counts. He was a ward heeler out of New York, the kind who used the waves of foreigners pouring into the city as a political army to advance his own power. It was the scandal regarding his wife, however, that had shocked the entire nation.