Killing Lincoln/Killing Kennedy by Bill O’Reilly, Martin Dugard Page B
Authors: Bill O’Reilly, Martin Dugard
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actually there this time. Looters have not touched it.
The plan is for Lee’s men to fill their empty bellies in Farmville this morning, then march over the great span known as High Bridge, which towers over the Appomattox River, separating central and western Virginia. Lee will order the bridge burned immediately after they cross, preventing the Union from following. The Carolinas will be reached in days.
Lee’s escape is so close.
But then grim news arrives. A flying column of Union cavalry galloped through Rice an hour ago. They are now ahead of the Confederates. Longstreet’s scouts report that 800 bluecoats on foot and on horseback are headed for High Bridge. Their goal, obviously, is to burn the bridge and close Lee’s escape route.
General Lee quietly ponders Longstreet’s information. He knows he has no way of stopping this Union advance.
For one of the few times in his adult life, Robert E. Lee is stymied.
Lee hears the thunder of approaching hooves. General Thomas Lafayette Rosser, a gregarious twenty-eight-year-old Texan, gallops his cavalry into Rice’s Station. Rosser’s classmate at West Point was the equally audacious George Armstrong Custer, now a Union general involved on the other side of this very fight.
Longstreet approaches Rosser and, warning him about the Union plan, screams, “Go after the bridge burners. Capture or destroy the detachment, even if it takes the last man of your command to do it.”
Rosser salutes, his face stolid. Only afterward does he grin, then bark the order. His cavalry, enlisted men and officers alike, gallop toward High Bridge. The quiet morning air explodes with noise as hundreds of hooves pound into the narrow dirt road.
When the war first broke out, Thomas Lafayette Rosser was so eager to take up arms for the Confederacy that he dropped out of West Point two weeks before graduation. Starting as a lieutenant, he
distinguished himself at more than a dozen key battles, among them Manassas, Bull Run, and Gettysburg. Though wounded several times, Rosser never altered his daring approach to combat. In January 1865, as the Army of Northern Virginia huddled in its Petersburg defenses, Rosser selected 300 of his toughest riders for an impossible mission. They crossed the Allegheny Mountains in the dead of winter, seeking to destroy the Union infantry headquartered in the town of Beverly, West Virginia. Thunderstorms drenched them their second day on the march; then the temperature plummeted below zero, freezing their overcoats stiff. But those hardships actually helped Rosser, making the attack a complete surprise. The daring nighttime raid yielded 800 Union prisoners.
So Longstreet knows that Rosser is the sort of man who will not be afraid of the “kill or be killed” order. Rosser will not let him down.
After Rosser departs, there is nothing to do but wait. As Longstreet directs his men to strengthen their impromptu defenses in Rice’s Station, Lee can only wonder how long it will take the rest of his army and its wagon train to catch up. With every passing second, the danger of Grant’s scouts finding his army grows. Lee cannot let this happen. He must get over High Bridge by the end of the day.
Overcome with exhaustion, at last the fifty-eight-year-old general instructs his orderly to find someplace for him to nap. It is midmorning. Lee will close his eyes just long enough to feel rejuvenated. Then he will begin perhaps his last campaign. If he doesn’t get over High Bridge, Lee knows, he will be defeated.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 1865
FARMVILLE, VIRGINIA
MIDMORNING
T he Union force racing to burn High Bridge consists of the Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry, the Fifty-fourth Pennsylvania Infantry, and the 123rd Ohio Infantry. The cavalry comprise 79 soldiers on horseback, who can fight either in the saddle or as dismounted foot soldiers. The two infantry regiments comprise almost 800 fighters who can wage war only on foot.
If the entire
The plan is for Lee’s men to fill their empty bellies in Farmville this morning, then march over the great span known as High Bridge, which towers over the Appomattox River, separating central and western Virginia. Lee will order the bridge burned immediately after they cross, preventing the Union from following. The Carolinas will be reached in days.
Lee’s escape is so close.
But then grim news arrives. A flying column of Union cavalry galloped through Rice an hour ago. They are now ahead of the Confederates. Longstreet’s scouts report that 800 bluecoats on foot and on horseback are headed for High Bridge. Their goal, obviously, is to burn the bridge and close Lee’s escape route.
General Lee quietly ponders Longstreet’s information. He knows he has no way of stopping this Union advance.
For one of the few times in his adult life, Robert E. Lee is stymied.
Lee hears the thunder of approaching hooves. General Thomas Lafayette Rosser, a gregarious twenty-eight-year-old Texan, gallops his cavalry into Rice’s Station. Rosser’s classmate at West Point was the equally audacious George Armstrong Custer, now a Union general involved on the other side of this very fight.
Longstreet approaches Rosser and, warning him about the Union plan, screams, “Go after the bridge burners. Capture or destroy the detachment, even if it takes the last man of your command to do it.”
Rosser salutes, his face stolid. Only afterward does he grin, then bark the order. His cavalry, enlisted men and officers alike, gallop toward High Bridge. The quiet morning air explodes with noise as hundreds of hooves pound into the narrow dirt road.
When the war first broke out, Thomas Lafayette Rosser was so eager to take up arms for the Confederacy that he dropped out of West Point two weeks before graduation. Starting as a lieutenant, he
distinguished himself at more than a dozen key battles, among them Manassas, Bull Run, and Gettysburg. Though wounded several times, Rosser never altered his daring approach to combat. In January 1865, as the Army of Northern Virginia huddled in its Petersburg defenses, Rosser selected 300 of his toughest riders for an impossible mission. They crossed the Allegheny Mountains in the dead of winter, seeking to destroy the Union infantry headquartered in the town of Beverly, West Virginia. Thunderstorms drenched them their second day on the march; then the temperature plummeted below zero, freezing their overcoats stiff. But those hardships actually helped Rosser, making the attack a complete surprise. The daring nighttime raid yielded 800 Union prisoners.
So Longstreet knows that Rosser is the sort of man who will not be afraid of the “kill or be killed” order. Rosser will not let him down.
After Rosser departs, there is nothing to do but wait. As Longstreet directs his men to strengthen their impromptu defenses in Rice’s Station, Lee can only wonder how long it will take the rest of his army and its wagon train to catch up. With every passing second, the danger of Grant’s scouts finding his army grows. Lee cannot let this happen. He must get over High Bridge by the end of the day.
Overcome with exhaustion, at last the fifty-eight-year-old general instructs his orderly to find someplace for him to nap. It is midmorning. Lee will close his eyes just long enough to feel rejuvenated. Then he will begin perhaps his last campaign. If he doesn’t get over High Bridge, Lee knows, he will be defeated.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 1865
FARMVILLE, VIRGINIA
MIDMORNING
T he Union force racing to burn High Bridge consists of the Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry, the Fifty-fourth Pennsylvania Infantry, and the 123rd Ohio Infantry. The cavalry comprise 79 soldiers on horseback, who can fight either in the saddle or as dismounted foot soldiers. The two infantry regiments comprise almost 800 fighters who can wage war only on foot.
If the entire
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