“As General Forrest has said upon occasion, war means fighting, and fighting means killing. But there is a distinction to be drawn between killing on the battlefield, where foes face one another man against man and army against army, and killing helpless prisoners after the fighting is done. It is the distinction between man and beast, sir, and if it is a distinction you find yourself incapable of drawing, I shall pray to God for the salvation of your soul,”
“I believe in my heart, General Lee, that God has established that white men are to rule over blacks,” Rhoodie said, and Lee, no mean judge of character, discerned nothing but sincerity in his voice. The Rivington man went on,” As for General Forrest, his men didn’t take any high moral tone when they captured Fort Pillow last month. They found kaffirs in arms there, and they disposed of them.”
Lee’s mouth twisted in a grimace of distaste; the report of the Fort Pillow massacre had come to his notice. For a moment, he wondered how Rhoodie had heard of it. Then he shook his head, annoyed at himself. In one sense, Rhoodie had known about Fort Pillow for a century and a half. Lee said, “General Forrest is not under my command. I would never deny his abilities as a soldier. Of his other qualities, I am less well qualified to speak.”
In point of fact, most of what he’d heard about Nathan Bedford Forrest was unsavory. Much of the fortune the man had amassed before the war came from slave trading. Less than a year ago, he’d been shot by a disgruntled subordinate, whom he’d proceeded to stab to death with a penknife. He would never have fit in among the Virginia aristocrats from whose numbers Lee sprang, But only Jeb Stuart deserved to be mentioned in the same breath as a Confederate cavalry commander.
Rhoodie said,” America Will Break is happier with Forrest’s performance than with yours, General Lee. I tell you again, if you do not rescind that general order, we will be forced to cut off your supply of cartridges.”
Lee thought about swooping down on Rivington with a couple of brigades. That would assure the Confederacy of however many cartridges were there. But how many was that? As Secretary of War Seddon had said, the place seemed more a transshipment point than a factory town. And for all Lee knew, the Rivington men could disappear into the future and never come back. He rather wished they would, though what point to a raid on them then?
He said, “As I told you, Mr. Rhoodie, do as you feel you must, and I shall do likewise. For now, I wish you a good morning.”
“You will regret this, General Lee,” Rhoodie said. Though he held his voice low and steady, he could not keep angry blood from mounting to his cheeks. He jerked his horse’s head around, hard enough to draw an angry snort from the animal. He rode off at a fast trot, looking neither right nor left.
The staff officers rejoined Lee as soon as Rhoodie had gone. Charles Marshall looked after the Rivington man. “Am I to construe that he did not gain of you that which he had hoped for?” he asked with lawyerly curiosity.
“You may construe it if you like, Major,” Lee said drily. “Before too long, the whole army may well construe it. Nevertheless, we shall proceed.”
All his aides looked curiously at him when he said that. He said no more. If Rhoodie did indeed cut off the flow of AK-47 ammunition, it would soon become obvious—perhaps not so soon as it might have under other circumstances, for the retreating Federals had wrecked the railroad between Catlett’s Station and Manassas Junction, which left the Army of Northern Virginia dependent upon horse-drawn wagons for supply, but pretty soon just the same.
The aides had learned better than to push Lee when he did not care to be pushed. Everyone in the army knew better than to push him, save occasionally James Longstreet. That made Rhoodie’s blunt demand all the more startling, and all the more annoying. Lee angrily tossed his head to one side, as if snapping at his own ear. No matter how sweetly the Rivington man framed that demand, he would have refused it.
What if no more cartridges were forthcoming? Lee thought about that. He did not care for any of the conclusions he reached. Reequipping his army with repeaters had taken a couple of months. If he required that much time to go back to rifle muskets, the Army of Northern Virginia was done for. The Army of the Potomac would never leave it alone long enough to make the changeover, not in spring.
He reproached himself for not having had his men pick up the precious brass cartridges they’d expended in the fighting thus far. Even if Colonel Gorgas and Colonel Rains had to load them with ordinary black powder and unjacketed lead bullets, they’d keep the AK-47s in action a while longer. He thought about sending men back to Bealeton to glean such cartridges as they could—in the miserable tangles of the Wilderness, the brass was likely gone forever.
He decided to hold off. He had succeeded in imposing his will upon Federal generals throughout the war; even the capable, aggressive, and determined Grant now moved to his tune—thanks in no small measure to Andries Rhoodie’s repeaters. Now to learn whether he could outlast Rhoodie, a man nominally an ally, in strength of purpose.
The army continued past the dormered cottages of Middleburg, on toward Leesburg and Waterford. Stuart’s cavalry slashed up to seize a stretch of the Alexandria, Loudon and Hampshire Railroad and keep Grant’s men from using the train to get to Leesburg first. Lee ordered the troopers to hold the Federal infantry as long as they could. He would never have given such a command to soldiers with single-shot rifles. But one man with an AK-47 was worth a fair number with Springfields…and by now, the Federals knew that as well as Lee did.
The lead elements of the Army of Northern Virginia went through Leesburg the next day, tramping past the elms and oaks that shaded the white-pillared buildings of the courthouse square. Lee rode back to check on the ammunition supply and learned a new wagon train had just come in, up from the end of the Warrenton railroad spur.
“Excellent,” he said softly. “Excellent.” A few minutes later, he saw Andries Rhoodie riding along beside the long gray files of Confederates. He gave no sign he’d noticed the Rivington man, but affectionately patted the side of Traveller’s neck with a gloved hand. He’d called Rhoodie’s bluff, and got away with it. Rhoodie needed him as much as he needed Rhoodie.
Rain in his face, rain turning the roadway to muddy soup. Nate Caudell slogged on. When the weather was fine, he’d wished for rain to cut the dust. Now that he had it, he wished for dust again. Mud was worse.
The road, already chewed up by countless feet, disappeared into water ahead. White’s Ford had steep banks; two years earlier, Stonewall Jackson had had to dig them down before wagons and artillery could cross. Caudell held his repeater and haversack over his head as he splashed into the Potomac. The river was waist-high. He did not mind. He was already soaked. He knew only relief that the rain hadn’t made the water at the ford rise any higher.
Regimental bands played on the northern—here, actually the eastern—bank of the Potomac. The downpour did nothing to improve their musicianship, but Caudell recognized “Maryland, My Maryland.” As it had the previous two summers, the Army of Northern Virginia stood once more on Northern soil.
Thanks to the rain, that soil clung to Caudell in abundance. Similarly bedraggled, Dempsey Eure observed, “If this really was my Maryland, I’m damned if I’d go boasting about it.”
“Doesn’t look like much, does it?” Caudell agreed. The wet weather kept him from seeing a great deal in any case; even the long, low bulk of South Mountain to the west lay shrouded in mist and rain. But he remembered Maryland as distinctly poorer country than the fat farms and houses farther north in Pennsylvania.
And, though Maryland was a slave state, its citizenry did not gather at White’s Ford to greet the Army of Northern Virginia. Not a civilian was in sight. Somewhere out there, Caudell was sure, Federals scouts and pickets waited to catch their first glimpse of the men in gray. That could not be helped. Caudell knew more fighting lay on this side of the Potomac.