Chapter 4
A lfred Von Schlieffen rode toward the long bridge, the most important bridge from Washington, D.C., down into Confederate Virginia. He had no trouble making his way south from the German ministry: many, though far from all, of Washington's civilians had fled north when war broke out, and so traffic was less oppressive than it would have been before the crisis.
Boys still hawked newspapers on the street. From their frantic shouts, some U.S. officer named Custard-Schlieffen didn't think that could be right, but it was what he kept hearing-had singlehandedly massacred a division of Confederates and a whole tribe of Indians somewhere out beyond the Mississippi. In a leap of logic that escaped the German military attache, the war was as a result supposed to be as good as won.
As yet, the war had not made an appearance around Washington. The Confederate States could have pounded the capital of the United States to bits, but had not fired a shot hereabouts. Neither had local U.S. forces; despite big talk, President Blaine was proving more circumspect when it came to action.
But the Confederates had let it be known they were sending an officer across the Long Bridge under flag of truce at noon today. Schlieffen noticed he was not the only military attache heading toward the bridge. He nodded to Major Ferdinand Foch, his French opposite number. The Frenchman coolly returned the courtesy; like Schlieffen, he had fought in the Franco-Prussian War. Schlieffen wondered how long Foch would be welcome here.
The British military attache was not in evidence, but before long his assistant, a captain still on the eager side of thirty, rode up alongside Major Foch and began trying to converse with him in French. Unfortunately, the Englishman knew less of the language than he thought. The pauses in the conversation grew longer and longer.
"Get out of our country, you damned redcoat!" somebody shouted at the assistant military attache, who was indeed decked out in his dress reds. He tipped his hat to the heckler. Schlieffen nodded slightly, admiring his panache if not his skill with languages.
Almost but not quite in a group-Schlieffen hung back-the three foreign officers rode south through the Agricultural Grounds west of the Smithsonian Institute, then west along Maryland Avenue toward the Long Bridge. Now Schlieffen could see the positions of the Confederate guns trained on the capital of the United States. He had also seen, in amongst the trees, U.S. guns ready to reply. More U.S. guns were positioned on the high ground north and west of the city, and elsewhere around it. If the Confederates tried to seize Washington, those guns could make it an expensive business.
At the U.S. end of the Long Bridge waited Captain Saul Ber-ryman-General Rosecrans' adjutant-a few soldiers, and Hannibal Hamlin, the U.S. secretary of state. In his black suit, the jacket unbuttoned in the humid heat to expose a large expanse of white shirtfront, Hamlin resembled nothing so much as a roly-poly old penguin.
Captain Bcrryman nodded to Schlieffen as he dismounted. He did his best to pretend the British and French military representatives, servants of unfriendly powers, did not exist. They took up positions where they could see and remain inconspicuous.
Church bells on both sides of the Potomac began announcing noon. As they did so, a Confederate officer on a black horse rode north over the Long Bridge carrying a small white flag. As he drew near, Schlieffen saw by the red trim on his uniform that he was an artilleryman. "I am Colonel William Elliott," he announced, "and I bear a proposal from President Longstreet and General Jackson seeking to avoid the needless effusion of blood."
Captain Berryman and Secretary Hamlin introduced themselves. Hamlin said, "Say what you will, Colonel. The United States do not and shall not condemn unheard any such proposal." Hamlin's accent was different from Elliott's, almost as different as a Bavarian's from a Berliner's: like President Blaine, the secretary of state came from Maine, as far from the border of the Confederacy as any place in the eastern USA.
"Thank you, sir," Elliott said. "Believing it obvious, then, that the United States cannot hope to defend Washington, D.C., against the sanguinary bombardment the Confederate States have it within their power to unleash at any time, the president and the general-in-chief ask in the name of humanity that you declare Washington an open city and permit its peaceable occupation by Confederate forces. Otherwise, they cannot answer for what will ensue."
"I can speak to that," Captain Berryman said quickly, almost treading on the heels of Elliott's last words. "General Rosecrans has ordered me to reject categorically any such proposal. If you want Washington, Colonel, you arc going to have to fight for it, and that's flat."
"I am sorry to hear you say that, Captain," Colonel Elliott said. "I had hoped to be able to avoid visiting destruction on this lovely city."
"You'd hoped to get it for nothing," Berryman replied. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but that's not going to happen."
"Colonel," the British captain said, "do please remember that legations of powers friendly to your nation are located within this city." With his upper-class accent, he swallowed more syllables than the U.S. secretary of state and the Confederate colonel put together.
"We shall make every effort to strike only military targets," Elliott said.
Hannibal Hamlin said, "In any case, this is irrelevant. Due to the outrageous and unacceptable nature of the notes President Blaine received this morning from the ministers of Great Britain and France, the government of the United States is declaring all diplomatic personnel of those two nations to be personae non gratae in this country; arrangements to return the lot of you to your own nations are already under way."
"As a neutral power, the German Empire may be well suited to arrange those transfers in both directions," Schlieffen said.
"Thank you, sir," Hamlin answered. "I believe one of my assistants has an appointment with the German minister to discuss that very arrangement." Schlieffen inclined his head. He had exceeded his authority by making the suggestion, but you never could tell what the Americans might overlook.
"This is your final reply, Captain?" William Elliott asked. When Berryman nodded, the Confederate artillery officer rode back toward his own country. As soon as he was off the Long Bridge, Berryman walked over to a telegraph clicker Schlieffen hadn't noticed and rapidly tapped out a message.
A couple of minutes later, an explosion smote the air. Flame and a great cloud of black smoke sprang from the U.S. half of the Long Bridge, which crashed down into the Potomac. Moments after that, other explosions rang out to the east and west, no doubt severing the rest of the bridges linking the USA and CSA.
"We've already burned our bridges behind us," Captain Berryman said with a jaunty smile. "Now we're blowing them up in front of us. Captain, Major"-he spoke to the British and French officers-"I request and require you to return to your ministries at once, that you may be evacuated with your fellow nationals. My men will accompany you to see that this is done. Colonel Schlieffen, I impose no such order on you, but you might be wise to return to the German ministry anyhow. Surely the Confederates will not make it a target."
"No doubt you are right," Schlieffen said. He clambered up onto his horse and rode back toward the red brick building on Massachusetts Avenue. The Prussian Army had shelled and starved Paris into submission. Then he had been on the giving end of the bombardment. Now he might learn what he had given out.
A column of wagons heading east along G Street held him up. U.S. cavalrymen guarding them made sure they had the right of way. General Rosecrans rode in a buggy near the head of the column: heading for the train station, no doubt. Had the Confederate gunners chosen that moment to open up, they could have beheaded the U.S. Army. Whether or not that would have made it stupider than it was already, Schlieffen was not prepared to say.