Free Grant Comes East - Civil War 02 by Newt Gingrich, William Forstchen Page A

moment.
    "General Hood, you were right to ask that, to remind me," Lee said softly, setting down the cup of coffee.
    "Our objective is to win this war before autumn. We cannot sustain ourselves at this pace much longer. We must try, however, for Washington. This is the best chance we will ever have to take it"
    Hood sighed, then slowly nodded in agreement.
    "President Davis will be here within the week. If we can take Washington and present it to him, it will be the fulfillment of the campaign we started a year ago before the gates of Richmond. It will demonstrate to our people, to the North, and to the world that we are a viable nation."
    He was silent for a brief moment, then continued.
    "But we cannot bleed ourselves to death while doing it"
    "Then we attack and pay the price?" Hood asked.
    Lee stepped away from the table and walked out from under the awning and back toward the road. The men laboring on the makeshift bridge were still hard at work, struggling to drag the second tree trunk into place. He walked slowly up the slope. The fog was breaking up, swirling coils burning away in the morning heat. The dim outline of Fort Stevens was visible as he reached the top of the low rise.
    The ground ahead was clear cut, trees removed; the fields that had once been orderly, planted with corn or wheat, were now weed choked, barren, offering no cover. He could imagine his lines going forward across those fields, the guns of the forts tearing gaping holes into the ranks, the charge hitting the abatis, men tangled up, stopping to cut their way through, stumbling into the moat thick with mud and slime. Even the greenest of troops behind those fortifications would turn it into nothing more than murder, the finest infantry in the world mowed down in a stinking moat by garrison soldiers in spotless uniforms.
    He shook his head. Hood was right. His men were too precious for this. Yet he had to do it. If he did not, that in itself would be a victory for the North. Davis would not understand, though that was not his concern at this instant. He had to conceive a victory here, a victory that justified the blood shed at Gettysburg and Union Mills.
    He studied the field intently, the open ground free of obstacles, the unfinished dome of the Capitol most likely visible once the fog lifted. It would be lit up with gaslight at night, a beacon, a dream so tantalizingly close, and just beyond that, Arlington and home. How many nights did I sit on the porch, the boys playing in the front yard—not yet soldiers, one of them a prisoner—the lights of the White House just across the river.
    He stood there and the plan formed at last.
    Looking back over his shoulder he saw Hood and Stuart waiting expectantly, the others standing behind them.
    He forced a smile.
    "We go in at night, gentlemen. That is how we will take it. At night." He smiled as he gave the order.
    "At night, with surprise, we'll be into their works before they know it."
    Hood and Stuart smiled and, turning, they left him, already giving orders, leaving him alone with his thoughts and dreams
    July 17 1863 7.30pm .
    Ga zing out the window of the train as it raced across the broad, open countryside of Ohio, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant found his attention wandering for a moment He tried to ignore the pounding intensity of the migraine headache that had bedeviled him since last night. But of course nothing would work except for that oblivion from a bottle, which he most definitely could not indulge.
    As the train took a gentle curve, heading southeast, long shadows of the cars, cast by the setting sun, reached out across the open fields. The land was rich, the last of the winter wheat being harvested, fields of corn more than waist-high, weeds and honeysuckle engulfing the split-rail fences that bordered the railroad. The train raced past a barn; a farmer and his two boys driving cows in for the evening milking paused, looked up, took off their hats, and waved.
    Thoughts drifted back to his own