Free The Fateful Lightning by Jeff Shaara Page A

reinforcements, it would be up to Wheeler’s men to strike wherever possible, to delay or disrupt the overwhelming force Sherman was spreading across Georgia. Wheeler’s reports had reached the Confederate War Department, where Sherman’s actions were still being met with surprise. None of President Davis’s advisors could seem to fathom why Sherman had severed himself completely from any support, either from Grant in Virginia or George Thomas in Tennessee. Davis himself continued to insist publicly that Sherman had played right into Confederate hands by “isolating” himself and thus was certain still to be crushed. The strategists in Richmond were eager to agree with their president, loud predictions filling the newspapers that Sherman had made a monumental and possibly fatal blunder. That optimism finally inspired Davis to shift a number of his senior commanders from their far-distant posts, hastening them to Georgia in the hope of organizing a heavy force that would blunt the tide of Sherman’s advance, and possibly destroy it altogether.
    Despite Richmond’s optimism, Governor Brown seemed to grasp that a gathering of generals might add to Georgia’s morale, but unless those commanders were accompanied by great masses of troops, there was little hope of stopping anything Sherman might try to do. If they considered that problem at all, the War Department in Richmond seemed to have no answer.
    By the third day after Sherman’s columns abandoned Atlanta, a new challenge swept over this part of Georgia. The rains came, a soaking, relentless chill spreading over the country roads and woodlands, a blanket of muddy misery that spread through both sides of the fight. The Southern horsemen were forced to ease up on theirexhausted mounts, the soft mush of the trails taking a toll on the strength of the horses far more than it affected the men. But the mud also slowed the Federals, most notably Sherman’s right wing, under Oliver Howard. Howard had reached the west bank of the Ocmulgee River, a formidable obstacle to any march eastward. The Federal engineers set to the task of bridging a turbulent river now swollen from its banks by the addition of so much rain. With Wheeler’s Confederate cavalry keeping a discreet watch, Howard’s men began constructing a pontoon bridge, the only available means of crossing the river. From their perches in distant woodlands, the cavalry quickly learned that Howard’s progress was being slowed considerably, that any crossing of the river would be a tedious affair. It was the first piece of good news the Confederate commanders had heard in the many weeks since Sherman occupied Atlanta.
    It was no surprise to Seeley that his suggestions to General Wheeler had been tossed aside, that Seeley had been ordered to join a far greater force of cavalry that rode more to the south. Though Federal cavalry patrols seemed to appear in every part of Georgia, Wheeler had become convinced that with so much effort being made to cross the Ocmulgee only thirty miles above Macon, that city, with its foundries and armament shops, had become Howard’s primary target. For now, Richmond seemed to agree.
    Along with the greater part of General Wheeler’s cavalry, Seeley had kept up his patrols in the dismal weather by helping to form a tight screen across Macon’s northern perimeter. Should the Federal cavalry shove toward them, the horsemen could at least offer the feeble militia at Macon some warning. Near the village of Planter’s Factory, the troopers continued to observe Howard’s sluggish construction of the Federal pontoon bridge, while west of the river, Howard’s two corps could only suffer in the rain. With so many Federal troops close by, there was little the Confederates could do to stop Howard’s engineers from completing their task. Equally as discouraging, no one in Macon could be certain just what he intended to do once he had made his crossing.
    South of Planter’s Factory, the river