“We’ll pay in Confederate Union notes,” Stuart’s quartermaster was telling the stables owner. “They’re as good as gold.”
“About as good as the horse dung around here as far as I’m concerned,” answered the livery stable owner, “and I’ve already got more of that than I know what to do with.”
“You’re taking Abe Lincoln’s banknotes, and they’re phony as snake oil,” retorted the quartermaster “If you can take Old Abe’s money you can take ours.”
“Old Abe’s money is like him, honest as the day is long! Your Confederate notes look like they were drawn by a child.”
Jeb could tell that haggling with the man would be futile. He pulled his quartermaster aside. “We don’t have time to argue with these jokers. Tell them we’ll take the horses we need and pay $100 in Confederate Union notes. That’s the deal, no more. Now get those horses!”
“Some of our men are not up to trading with these Yankee Rebels,” Stuart acknowledged to McClellan and Butler. “They’ll have us up to three hundred dollars a horse if I don’t put a lid on it. Well, I’d best keep making the rounds to make sure these Yankee traders don’t bankrupt the Confederate Union by charging us a king’s ransom for their spavined horses.”
25
Cleveland, Ohio, October 17, 1861
“The Confederates are landing at Boston, Portland, and Portsmouth,” reported Secretary of War Simon Cameron. “We’re successfully contesting their landing at Portland, but they are ashore at Boston and Portsmouth. In Boston the Statehouse has been destroyed by Confederate naval bombardment. Governor Andrew and most of the State Legislature were inside at the time. They are presumed dead.”
“My God!” gasped several among Lincoln’s Cabinet and the Executive Committee of Congress. All of the President’s men were here except for Secretary of State Seward who was back in Quebec to resolve some points over integrating the Free States’ trade with the Canadas.
“After landing, the Confederates sent cavalry raiding parties inland to attack the Springfield Armory and the Colt Works at Hartford,” Cameron continued. “Those manufactories have been heavily damaged, if not totally destroyed.”
“Boston occupied. The armories destroyed. Governor John Andrew and the legislators dead,” exclaimed Vice President Hamlin. He lowered his head. “God rest their souls.”
“The Confederates diddled us good out there, didn’t they?” commented Lincoln after a long moment of silence.
“I’m afraid we diddled ourselves,” replied Speaker of the House John Sherman. “We convinced ourselves that after Gettysburg all we had to do was sit back and wait for Horace Greeley to broker a peace on our terms of independence. We didn’t ask ourselves if it was realistic to believe that the Confederates wanted peace. We should have anticipated that they wouldn’t.”
“How were they able to run their ships past the harbor defenses at Boston and Portsmouth?” asked Senator Charles Sumner.
“As the President said, they ‘diddled’ us,” answered Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles. “We’ve been at peace with the British, so we never appropriated the money to strengthen the forts, other than the ones guarding Portland, which is where the Confederates are having their difficulties getting ashore. We garrisoned the forts with second-rate troops and didn’t allocate the funds to train them sufficiently in gunnery, which after all is their purpose. The Confederates led us to believe that they had all their efforts aimed toward Philadelphia. So we put all our eggs in that basket.”
“Hmmm,” said Senator Zach Chandler of Michigan. “But I don’t think we should rush what we have in Philadelphia up to New England just yet. That may be exactly what the Confederates want us to do. They may be trying to divert us to New England before getting on with their main push in Philadelphia.”
“I wouldn’t doubt that for a minute,” agreed Hamlin. “They’re sneaky bastards. We’ve got to make a proportional defense of Philadelphia and New England so that we don’t hand over either place to the Confederates.”
“What I want to know is where they’re getting all their men,” said Thad Stevens rapping his cane on the floor in his style of thoughtful agitation. “How do they manage to field an army in the Northwest, an army around Philadelphia, an army around New York, and still have men left over to field yet another army in New England?”
“I may be able to answer that to your satisfaction,” said Cump Sherman who had been standing by the bookcases, away from the circle of politicians reclining on the chairs and sofas. All eyes turned toward Sherman.
“I was Superintendent of the Louisiana Military academy when their mobilization began. You have to remember that at the commencement of hostilities they had one hundred fifty thousand men under arms in one hundred fifty regiments. Those were the volunteers enrolled in the Southern State militias in preparation for Douglas’ scheme to invade Mexico.”
As he warmed to the subject he became animated. He walked to the center of the parlor and began gesturing emphatically to garner the politicians’ attention.
“McClellan planned a mobilization to augment those forces to five hundred thousand men in sixty days. We’ve learned from the officers we captured on the Wabash that they divided the officer staffs of their original one hundred fifty militia regiments in two, giving them another one hundred fifty skeleton regiments that they filled with an intake of volunteers during the mobilization. That’s how they were able to double their number of militia regiments so quickly.”
“Seems they went about it the right way,” interjected Lincoln. “That’s what I’d do if I wanted to get the largest number of men in the field as quickly as possible.”
“The Confederates also made good use of the Regular Army men who sided with them,” Sherman added. “We’ve learned that instead of keeping them all together, they dispersed them into the officer corps of their ‘National Army.’ They filled out their National Army with another intake of volunteers that may have created as many as two hundred additional regiments. Those are most likely the men they are moving into New England.”
“We need to apply these methods to the raising of our armies,” thundered Thad Stevens with an ear-bursting rap of his cane. “We’re in a race to the death with the Confederates to see who can raise the largest armies and get them into battle. And they’re winning.”
“Pinkerton has been forwarding us their newspapers,” added the Secretary of War. “It’s perhaps the most useful service we pay him for. The Confederate papers show that their national government is coordinating the mobilization of all their resources. They’ve organized their railroads under government receivership for the duration of the war. They’ve chartered every shipping line between New York and New Orleans to move their men up the East Coast and the Mississippi Valley. They started printing paper currency to fund their wartime purchases the same week we did. Their commissary agents have been levying taxes in kind since the commencement of hostilities.”
Cameron looked at the group with an ironic smile. “Some of their papers have started fulminating against the ‘Consolidationist’ tendencies of their national government in taking so much control over the war. So much for their States Rights Mumbo Jumbo.”
Lincoln laughed. “Mumbo Jumbo appears to the common language of the Fuzzy Wuzzies of the Dark Continent and of leaders of the Confederate Union of America!” The Cabinet members and Congressmen laughed too.
“The Confederates are strange birds,” said Hannibal Hamlin. “They talk ‘States Rights’ all the time, then call upon their Federal Government to come up here and search every house to see who’s harboring their runaway slaves. Then they make war on us when we exercise our right to state sovereignty, the very same right that they’ve been championing lo these many years.”