No Spot of Ground Read Free Page A

the offensive tomorrow,” Sorrel said, “thank the lord.” He gave a thin smile. “Grant’s got himself on the horns of a dilemma, sir, and General Lee intends to see he’s gored.”
    Poe’s temper crackled. “No one’s going to get gored if division commanders don’t get their instructions!” he snapped.
    Sorrel gave him a wary smile. “That’s why I’m here, sir.”
    Poe glared at him, then deliberately reined in his anger. “So you are.” He took a breath. “Pardon my display.”
    “Staff work, as I say, sir, has been a mite precarious of late. General Lee is ill, and so is General Hill.”
    Poe’s anxiety rose again. “Lee?” he demanded. “Ill?”
    “An intestinal complaint. We would have made this attack yesterday had the general been feeling better.”
    Poe felt his nervousness increase. He was not a member of the Cult of Lee, but he did not trust an army without a capable hand at the top. Too many high-ranking officers were out of action or incompetent.
    Stuart was dead, Longstreet was wounded, Lee was sick− great heavens, Lee had already had a heart attack——
    Ewell hadn’t been the same since he lost his leg, Powell Hill was ill half the time. And the young ones, the healthy ones, were as always dying of bullets and shells.
    “Your task, General,” Sorrel said, “is simply to hold. Perhaps to demonstrate against the Yanks, if you feel it possible.”
    “How am I to know if it’s possible?” He was still angry. “I don’t know the ground. I don’t know where the enemy is.”
    Sorrel cocked an eyebrow at him, said, “Ewell didn’t show you anything?” But he didn’t wait for an answer before beginning his exposition.
    The Army of Northern Virginia, he explained, had been continually engaged with Grant’s army for three weeks− first in the Wilderness, then at Spotsylvania, now on the North Anna; there hadn’t been a single day without fighting. Every time one of Grant’s offensives bogged down, he’d slide his whole army to his left and try again. Two days before, on May 24, Grant had gone to the offensive again, crossing the North Anna both upstream and down of Lee’s position.
    Grant had obviously intended to overlap Lee on both flanks and crush him between his two wings; but Lee had anticipated his enemy by drawing his army back into a V shape, with the center on the river, and entrenching heavily. When the Yanks saw the entrenchments they’d come to a stumbling halt, their offensive stopped in its tracks without more than a skirmish on either flank.
    “You’re facing Hancock’s Second Corps, here on our far right flank,” Sorrel said. His manicured finger jabbed at the map. Hancock appeared to be entirely north of the swampy tributary. “Warren and Wright are on our left, facing Powell Hill. Burnside’s Ninth Corps is in the center− he tried to get across Ox Ford on the twenty-fourth, but General Anderson’s guns overlook the ford and Old Burn called off the fight before it got properly started. Too bad——” Grinning. “Could’ve been another Fredericksburg.”
    “We can’t hope for more than one Fredericksburg, alas,” Poe said. “Not even from Burnside.” He looked at the map. “Looks as if the Federals have broken their army into pieces for us.”
    “Yes, sir. We can attack either wing, and Grant can’t reinforce one wing without moving his people across the North Anna twice.”
    General Lee had planned to take advantage of that with an offensive against half Grant’s army. He intended to pull Ewell’s corps off the far right, most of Anderson’s out of the center, and combine them with Hill’s for a strike at Warren and Wright. The attack would have been made the day before if Lee hadn’t fallen ill. In the end he’d postponed the assault by one day.
    The delay, Poe thought, had given the Yanks another twenty-four hours to prepare. Confederates weren’t the only ones who know how to entrench.
    Plans already laid, he thought. Nothing