The Battle of the Crater: A Novel by William R. Forstchen, Newt Gingrich, Albert S. Hanser Read Free Book Online

duration. At Fredericksburg it had taken eight hours to pile up such a casualty list; now it could be done in a matter of minutes.

    He did not need to ask what the nation would say to this. Grant had ordered censorship from the front lines, arguing that revealing the casualty rate would provide useful intelligence to the enemy.
    The argument was, of course, as hollow as a dried-out gourd. The enemy could count the bodies easily enough. And so could the reporters who were slipping back to their publishers with the truth. It was devastating news that could not be contained much longer.
    At the cabinet meeting this morning, with rumors already swirling in the streets outside this very building, he could sense the mood. Stanton was melancholy. There was animosity between Stanton and Grant, the man who now commanded all Union armies in the field. The asthmatic lawyer was biding his time, waiting for the public outcry to reach a thunderous roar. Then he would make his move against Grant. If by some miracle Grant did take Richmond, Edwin would, of course, be the first to lay claim to that victory.
    And then there was the little Napoleon, George McClellan. Even while leading the army to defeat—on nearly the identical battlefield two years ago—the press had hailed him, blaming the administration. McClellan’s agents and supporters launched a whisper campaign that a sure victory had been thrown away by the President, an amateur at war, who had interfered with the carefully laid out battle plans and thus triggered a disaster—a disaster that was now bleeding the nation to death two years later.
    In two months McClellan would, without a doubt, clinch his party’s nomination. Though McClellan claimed he would support the war’s continuation after winning the election, the party platform—which was being written at that moment by Copperhead Clement Vallandigham of Ohio—demanded an end to the conflict; a conflict led, the Peace Democrats claimed, by the abolitionists and “King Lincoln, the Butcher.”
    His personal secretaries, Nicolay and Hay, tried to conceal the worst of it from him; however, all he needed to do was walk down Pennsylvania Ave., to the corner by the Willard Hotel, and chat with “Ole Moses,” a black man who ran the corner newsstand. There he could get the latest papers from New York and Chicago and learn the truth about public opinion. As he opened the papers, Moses would stand silent, head lowered, perhaps whispering, “Never you mind that, Mr. President, it ain’t nothing to fret about, we are with you.”
    What would Moses’ papers say tomorrow? Surely this news could not be kept hidden forever.
    He looked back out to the river. Steam tugs were busy marshalling ships in and out of the docks at Alexandria.
    Stanton had mentioned at the meeting this morning that a convoy of troop ships, actually empty hospital ships, would leave this evening. More troops were being stripped out of the garrison of Washington, over his personal objection, to be sent up as replacements, to feed the voracious appetite of war. In this case, however, Stanton was not very upset, because it was nine regiments of USCT who had filed into the city over the previous month.
    “Mr. President?”
    He turned. It was his secretary, John Nicolay, the door half open.
    “Your guest is here, sir.”
    Lincoln nodded, returning to his desk, dropping the dispatches.
    “Show our friend in, John.”
    Even Nicolay, trusted as he was, did not know the reason this visitor had appeared at a side entrance to the White House, presenting a note in the President’s hand stating: ADMIT THIS BEARER WHENEVER HE SHOULD CALL AND BRING HIM TO ME AT ONCE REGARDLESS OF THE HOUR.
    Nicolay opened the door wider and stood curious for a moment. The man entering wore a battered officer’s jacket. It had been brushed clean, but it bore the well-worn look of a man who had been up on the front lines for some time.
    “Thank you, John, and please close the