Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever by Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard Read Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard
keep the Confederate struggle alive.
CHAPTER NINE
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 1865
JETERSVILLE, VIRGINIA
NIGHT
G eneral Sam Grant is also on a midnight ride. The great hooves of his horse beat a tattoo on the bad roads and forest trails of of his horse beat a tattoo on the bad roads and forest trails of central Virginia. Speed is of the essence. Scouts report that Lee is escaping, marching his men through the night in a bold attempt to reach rations at Farmville. From there it’s just a short march to High Bridge, a stone-and-wood structure wide enough to handle an army. Once Lee crosses and burns the bridge behind him, his escape will be complete, and the dreadful war will continue.
Tonight decides everything. Grant is so close to stopping Lee. So very close. Grant digs his spurs into his horse, named Jeff Davis after the Confederate president, in a gesture uncharacteristically vindictive of Grant, who is usually polite and respectful even to his enemies. Grant knows that he must ride hard. Lee must be captured now. And Grant must capture him personally.
As always, his battle plan is simple: Get in front of Lee. Block his path. How many times has he explained this to Generals Sheridan and Meade? Block Lee’s path, stop him in his tracks, then attack and crush the Army of Northern Virginia. So how is it that Lee came within spitting distance of the Jetersville roadblock and escaped?
It confounds Grant that his top generals are so terrified of Lee,
holding back when they should rush in. The Union soldiers are better armed, better fed, and far more rested than Lee’s men. The generals must be relentless, pressing forward without ceasing until the war is won. But they are not.
So it is up to Grant to lead the way.
The culprit, Grant decides, is not General Phil Sheridan. He and the cavalry are more than doing their part, charging far and wide over the Virginia countryside, harassing Lee’s wagons and skirmishing with Confederate cavalry. Sheridan is Grant’s eyes and ears, sending scouts to track Lee’s movements and ensuring that Marse Robert doesn’t disappear into the Blue Ridge Mountains. Grant would be lost without Sheridan.
The same cannot be said of General George Meade. His force reached Jetersville at dusk on April 5, after a dreary day of pursuit. But rather than launch an immediate assault on Lee’s rear, as Grant ordered, Meade halted for the night, claiming that his men were too tired to fight.
Grant knows there’s more to it than that. The problem, in a nutshell, is the unspoken rivalry between infantry and cavalry—between the unglamorous and the swashbuckling. Meade’s refusal to fight is his way of pouting about the cavalry divisions sharing the roads with his men, slowing their march. “Behold, the whole of Merritt’s division of cavalry filing in from a side road and completely closing the way,” one of Meade’s aides wrote home. “That’s the way it is with those cavalry bucks: they bother and howl about infantry not being up to support them, and they are precisely the people who are always blocking the way … they are arrant boasters.
“To hear Sheridan’s staff talk, you would suppose ten-thousand mounted carbineers had crushed the entire Rebellion … . The plain truth is, they are useful and energetic fellows, but commit the error of thinking they can do everything and that no one else does anything.”
So Meade made his point by refusing to attack.
Sheridan was furious. “I wish you were here,” he wired Grant. “We can capture the Army of Northern Virginia if enough force be thrown to this point.”
Grant reads between the lines. Rather than wait until morning, and the chance that Meade will find another excuse for not fighting, he orders his staff to mount up for the sixteen-mile midnight ride to Jetersville. Never mind that it is a cold, pitch-black night. There is purpose in the journey. They travel carefully, lest they surprise Union troops and be mistakenly
CHAPTER NINE
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 1865
JETERSVILLE, VIRGINIA
NIGHT
G eneral Sam Grant is also on a midnight ride. The great hooves of his horse beat a tattoo on the bad roads and forest trails of of his horse beat a tattoo on the bad roads and forest trails of central Virginia. Speed is of the essence. Scouts report that Lee is escaping, marching his men through the night in a bold attempt to reach rations at Farmville. From there it’s just a short march to High Bridge, a stone-and-wood structure wide enough to handle an army. Once Lee crosses and burns the bridge behind him, his escape will be complete, and the dreadful war will continue.
Tonight decides everything. Grant is so close to stopping Lee. So very close. Grant digs his spurs into his horse, named Jeff Davis after the Confederate president, in a gesture uncharacteristically vindictive of Grant, who is usually polite and respectful even to his enemies. Grant knows that he must ride hard. Lee must be captured now. And Grant must capture him personally.
As always, his battle plan is simple: Get in front of Lee. Block his path. How many times has he explained this to Generals Sheridan and Meade? Block Lee’s path, stop him in his tracks, then attack and crush the Army of Northern Virginia. So how is it that Lee came within spitting distance of the Jetersville roadblock and escaped?
It confounds Grant that his top generals are so terrified of Lee,
holding back when they should rush in. The Union soldiers are better armed, better fed, and far more rested than Lee’s men. The generals must be relentless, pressing forward without ceasing until the war is won. But they are not.
So it is up to Grant to lead the way.
The culprit, Grant decides, is not General Phil Sheridan. He and the cavalry are more than doing their part, charging far and wide over the Virginia countryside, harassing Lee’s wagons and skirmishing with Confederate cavalry. Sheridan is Grant’s eyes and ears, sending scouts to track Lee’s movements and ensuring that Marse Robert doesn’t disappear into the Blue Ridge Mountains. Grant would be lost without Sheridan.
The same cannot be said of General George Meade. His force reached Jetersville at dusk on April 5, after a dreary day of pursuit. But rather than launch an immediate assault on Lee’s rear, as Grant ordered, Meade halted for the night, claiming that his men were too tired to fight.
Grant knows there’s more to it than that. The problem, in a nutshell, is the unspoken rivalry between infantry and cavalry—between the unglamorous and the swashbuckling. Meade’s refusal to fight is his way of pouting about the cavalry divisions sharing the roads with his men, slowing their march. “Behold, the whole of Merritt’s division of cavalry filing in from a side road and completely closing the way,” one of Meade’s aides wrote home. “That’s the way it is with those cavalry bucks: they bother and howl about infantry not being up to support them, and they are precisely the people who are always blocking the way … they are arrant boasters.
“To hear Sheridan’s staff talk, you would suppose ten-thousand mounted carbineers had crushed the entire Rebellion … . The plain truth is, they are useful and energetic fellows, but commit the error of thinking they can do everything and that no one else does anything.”
So Meade made his point by refusing to attack.
Sheridan was furious. “I wish you were here,” he wired Grant. “We can capture the Army of Northern Virginia if enough force be thrown to this point.”
Grant reads between the lines. Rather than wait until morning, and the chance that Meade will find another excuse for not fighting, he orders his staff to mount up for the sixteen-mile midnight ride to Jetersville. Never mind that it is a cold, pitch-black night. There is purpose in the journey. They travel carefully, lest they surprise Union troops and be mistakenly
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