Harry Turtledove - American Front

Prelude

1 October

Outside Camp Hill, Pennsylvania

T he leaves on the trees were beginning to go from green to red, as if swiped by a painter's brush. A lot of the grass near the banks of the Susquehanna, down by New Cumberland, had been painted red, too, red with blood.

A courier came galloping back to Robert E. Lee's headquarters, his face smudged with black-powder smoke but glowing with excitement beneath the minstrel-show markings. "We have 'em, sir!" he cried to Lee as he reined in his blowing horse. "We have 'em! General Jackson says for me to tell you D. H. Hill's division is around McClellan's left and rolling 'em up. 'God has delivered them into our hands,' he says."

"That is very fine," Lee murmured. He peered through the thick smoke, but piercing it was impossible, even with the polished brass spyglass that lay on the folding table in front of him. He had to rely on reports from couriers like this eager young man, but all the reports, from just after the rising of the sun when the battle was joined till now with it sinking in blood- more blood, he thought-behind him, had been what he'd prayed to hear.

Colonel Robert Chilton, his assistant adjutant general, was no more able than the courier to contain his excitement. "Very fine, sir?" he burst out. "It's better than that. With Longstreet holding the Yankees in the center, McLaws outflanking them on the left, and now Stonewall on the right, they're in a sack Napoleon couldn't have got out of. And if there's one soldier in the world who's no Napoleon, it's the 'Young Napoleon' the Federals have."

"General McClellan, whatever his virtues, is not a hasty man," Lee observed, smiling at Chilton's derisive use of the grandiloquent nickname the Northern papers had given the commander of the Army of the Potomac. "Those people"-his own habitual name for the foe-"were also perhaps ill-advised to accept battle in front of a river with only one bridge offering a line of retreat should their plans miscarry."

"I should say they've miscarried," the courier said. "Some of General Jackson's artillery is far enough forward, it's shelling that bridge right now."

"We do have them, sir," Colonel Chilton said. He stiffened to attention and saluted General Lee.

Lee glanced back over his shoulder. "Perhaps an hour's worth of light remaining," he said, then turned to the courier once more. "Tell General Jackson he is to exploit his advantage with all means at his disposal, preventing, as best he can, the enemy's retreat to the eastern bank of the Susquehanna." Better than any other man alive, Jackson knew how to turn a vague order like that into the specific steps needed to destroy the foe before him.

"Yes, sir," the lieutenant said, and repeated the order back to make sure he had it straight. Wheeling his bay gelding, he galloped off towards General Jackson's position.

"The Army of the Potomac cannot hope to resist us, not after this," Colonel Chilton said. " Philadelphia lies open to our men, and Baltimore, and Washington itself."

"I'd not relish attacking the works those people have placed around Washington City," Lee replied, "but you are of course correct, Colonel: that possibility is available to us. Another consideration we cannot dismiss is the probable effect of our victory here upon England and France, both of whom have, President Davis tells me, been debating whether they should extend recognition to our new nation."

"They'll have the devil's own time not doing it now," Chilton declared. "Either we are our own nation or we belong to the United States: those are the only two choices." He laughed and pointed toward the smoke-befogged battlefield. "Abe Lincoln can't say we're under his tyrant's thumb, not after this."

"Diplomacy is too arcane a subject for a poor simple soldier to vex his head over its niceties and peculiarities," Lee said, "but on this occasion, Colonel Chilton, I find it impossible to disagree with you."

4 November

The White House, Washington, D.C

Both horses that brought Lord Lyons' carriage to the White House were black. So was the carriage itself, and the cloth canopy stretched over it to protect the British minister from the rain. All very fitting, Lord Lyons thought, for what is in effect a funeral.

"Whoa!" the driver said quietly, and pulled back on the reins. The horses, well-trained animals both, halted in a couple of short, neat strides just in front of the entrance of the American presidential mansion. The driver handed Lord Lyons an umbrella to protect himself against the rain for the few steps he'd need to get under cover.

"Thank you, Miller," Lord Lyons said, unfurling the umbrella. "I expect they will make you and the animals comfortable, and then bring you back out here to drive me off to the ministry upon the conclusion of my appointment with President Lincoln."

"Yes, sir," the driver said.

Lord Lyons got down from the carriage. His feet splashed in the water on the walkway as he hurried toward the White House entrance. A few raindrops hit him in the face in spite of the umbrella. Miller chirruped to the horses and drove off toward the stable.

In the front hall, a colored servant took Lord Lyons' hat and overcoat and umbrella and hung them up. John Nicolay stood waiting patiently while the servant tended to the British minister. Then Lincoln 's personal secretary- Lincoln 's de facto chief of staff-said, "The president is waiting for you, sir."

"Thank you, Mr. Nicolay." Lord Lyons hesitated, but then, as Nicolay turned away to lead him to Lincoln's office, decided to go on: "I would like the president to understand that what I do today, I do as the servant and representative of Her Majesty's government, and that in my own person I deeply regret the necessity for this meeting."

"I'll tell him that, Your Excellency." Nicolay sounded bitter. He was a young man-he could hardly have had more than thirty years-and had not yet learned altogether to subsume his own feelings in the needs of diplomacy. "When you get right down to it, though, what difference does that make?"

When you got right down to it {American idiom, Lord Lyons thought), it made very little difference. He was silent as he followed Nicolay upstairs. But for the personal secretary and the one servant, he had seen no one in the White House. It was as if the rest of the staff at the presidential mansion feared he bore some deadly, contagious disease. And so, in a way, he did.

John Nicolay seated him in an antechamber outside Lincoln 's office. "Let me announce you, Your Excellency. I'll be back directly." He ducked into the office, closing the door after himself; Lord Lyons hoped he was delivering the personal message with which he had been entrusted. He emerged almost as quickly as he had promised. "President Lincoln will see you now, sir."

"Thank you, Mr. Nicolay," Lord Lyons repeated, striding past the secretary into the office of the president of the United States.

Abraham Lincoln got up from behind his desk and extended his hand. "Good day to you, sir," he said in his rustic accent. Outwardly, he was as calm as if he reckoned the occasion no more than an ordinary social call.

"Good day, Mr. President," Lord Lyons replied, clasping Lincoln 's big hand in his. The American chief executive was so tall and lean and angular that, merely by existing, he reminded Lord Lyons of how short, pudgy, and round-faced he was.

"Sit yourself down, Your Excellency." Lincoln pointed to a chair uphol stered in blue plush. "I know what you're here for. Let's get on with it, shall we? It's like going to the dentist-waiting won't make it any better."

"Er-no," Lord Lyons said. Lincoln had a gift for unexpected, apt, and vivid similes; one of the British minister's molars gave him a twinge at the mere idea of visiting the dentist. "As Mr. Nicolay may have told you-"