The inquiry went all the way to Sherman, to whom he said, "I was running to stop my men. To stop the rout."
"The allegation of some witnesses," said the general coldly, "is that you were among the first to break."
"I did not break, sir. I was attempting to stop those who did. If you wish to convene a general court-martial, I will repeat those statements to that body — and to any witnesses called to accuse me. Let them step forward. The regiment to which you assigned me consisted of men never before in battle. Like many others at Shiloh, they ran. I ran to stop them. To stop the rout."
"God above, will you spare me, Colonel?" Cump Sherman said, and leaned over to spit on the ground beside his camp desk. "I don't want you in any command of mine."
"Does that mean you intend —?"
"You'll find out what it means when I'm ready for you to find out. Dismissed."
Bent saluted and hobbled out on his padded crutch.
His nerves hurt worse than his wound. What would the little madman do to punish him?
On the peninsula southeast of Richmond, McClellan was sparring with Joe Johnston with little result. In the Shenandoah, Stonewall Jackson was maneuvering brilliantly, whipping the Yankees and expunging some of the shame of Shiloh. Down the Mississippi, Admiral Farragut ran past Confederate batteries to New Orleans. Virtually unprotected, the city surrendered to him on April 25. Within a week — almost a month after his thorny meeting with Sherman — Bent was reassigned.
"Staff duty with the Army of the Gulf?" said Elmsdale when Bent told him the news during a chance meeting. "That's principally an army of occupation. A safe berth, but it won't do much for your career."
"Neither did this," Bent growled, pointing at his trouser leg. Some seepage from the dressing stained the fabric.
Elmsdale shook his hand and wished him well, but Bent saw a smugness in the colonel's eyes. Elmsdale had taken a shoulder wound at a section of the battlefield christened the Hornet's Nest; he had received a citation in general orders. Bent had been plunged into new ignominy, for which he held others responsible, everyone from Sherman, the little madman with the scrubby beard, to the drab, drunken architect of the Shiloh victory, Unconditional Surrender Grant.
Elkanah Bent felt his star was descending, and there was little he could do about it.
54
"Bring those wagons up," Billy yelled. "We need boats!"
In mud halfway to his boot tops, Lije Farmer bumped the younger man's arm. "Not so loud, my lad. There may be enemy pickets on the other side."
"They can't see me any better than I can see you. How wide is this benighted stream anyway?"
"The high command does not favor us with such information. Nor do they issue topographical maps. Just orders. We are to bridge Black Creek."
"Hell of a good name for it," Billy said, a scowl on his stubbled face.
The bridging train — pontoon wagons, balk, chess and side-rail wagons, tool wagons, and traveling forge — had labored along gummy roads as rain started at nightfall. It had slacked off a while but was now pouring down again, and the wind had risen. Billy surveyed the unfinished bridge by the light of three lanterns swaying on poles planted in the mud. It was risky to reveal their position that way, but light was necessary; the creek was deep, the water high and swift.
The bridge extended halfway across the broad creek. Pontoon boats spaced by twenty-seven-foot balks were anchored on the upstream side, and every other one by a second, downstream, anchor. Work parties were running out chesses and laying them on the balks while others placed and lashed the side rails where the cross planks were already down. It was rough work, made more difficult because the whole structure heaved under the push of a wind approaching gale force.
No one answered Billy's hail, nor could he see any more boat wagons in the darkness. "I suspect they are mired," Farmer said. "I suggest you go see. I'll handle matters here." He snugged his old musket down in the vee of his left elbow. The infantrymen detailed for this kind of duty were responsible for guarding the construction area. But those in the Battalion of Engineers, Army of the Potomac, had more confidence in themselves than in greenhorns, and they seldom worked without a weapon. Billy's revolver rode in a holster with the flap tied down.
Covered with mud and growing numb, he slopped up the bank past a tool wagon. He was not certain of the date; the tenth of April, maybe. General McClellan's huge army, said to outnumber the combined Confederate forces of Joe Johnston and Prince John Magruder two to one, had come down by water to Fort Monroe at the low-lying tip of the peninsula between the York and James rivers. The embarkation began March 17, six days after Little Mac was stripped of his duties as general-in-chief. To explain the demotion, some cited his refusal to move against Manassas. Others merely mentioned the name Stanton; the generals now reported directly to him.
Though McClellan's command had been reduced to the Department and Army of the Potomac, he fought on for what he wanted: more artillery; more ammunition; McDowell's corps, which was being held to defend Washington. When the administration refused most of the demands, McClellan decided to besiege Magruder instead of attack him, a decision to which some, including Lije Farmer, had objected.
"What is wrong with him? They say he takes the number of enemy troops supplied by his Pinkerton spies and doubles it — but even then, our forces are superior. Of what is he so afraid?"
"Losing his reputation? Or the next presidential election maybe?" Billy said, not entirely in jest.
The campaign against Yorktown began April 4. The tasks of the Battalion of Engineers included corduroying roads and bridging creeks so men and siege artillery could advance toward Magruder's line, which stretched almost thirteen miles between Yorktown and the Warwick River. Scouts brought back reports of sighting many big guns in the enemy works.
The peninsula was a maze of unmapped roads and creeks. Movement in the maze became increasingly hard as rainy weather set in. But the engineers were prepared. When Billy left Washington so hastily that winter night, the battalion had been sent up the Potomac to test the training of their seven-week recruits. The successful test, construction of a complete pontoon bridge, had renewed the engineers' almost arrogant pride. Now Billy felt none of it. Nights sleeping in damp tents and eighteen-to twenty-hour stretches of work in ceaseless rain had beaten it out of him. He merely existed, pushing himself and his men through one minute, then the next, to complete one job in order to move to another.
He reached the line of pontoon wagons, stalled a good half mile above the bridge. Each wagon carried one long wooden boat and its gear: oars and oarlocks, anchors and boat hooks and line. As they had suspected, the problem was mud; the first wagon sat hub deep in it.
He surveyed the situation by the light of a teamster's lantern. He suggested unhitching the oxen, moving them forward, and running lines from their yoke over a thick overhanging limb and down again to the wagon to provide a lifting action. The lines were rigged, and the teamster hit his oxen with his quirt. Instead of pulling straight ahead, they headed away at the right oblique. The limb cracked ominously.
"Slack off!" Billy shouted, jumping to knock the teamster out of the way moments before the limb broke and dropped onto the prow of the boat, smashing it and snapping the wagon's front axle with its weight.
Furious with himself, Billy climbed from the mud. The wrecked wagon would prevent the others from coming up; there was no room to pass on the muddy road. "All right, you drivers — I'll send you some men, and we'll carry the boats to the launching site. We're behind schedule."