“You say that Grant will perhaps defeat the enemy,” Lincoln said. “I cannot believe that you would idly indulge in defeatist talk because I know that is not your way.”
“In that you are correct, Mr. President. We must treat the Mexican invasion and the harassment of our ships as diversions from our main objective.”
“Which is?” Stanton asked.
“Winning the war against the enemy. War is all hell and the British must be taught to believe that. We must take the war to them and impress our will upon them. They must lose — and lose so badly that they will no longer consider these kinds of military adventures against our sovereign nation. By force of arms they must be compelled to abandon all thoughts of future conquests.”
There was more than one indrawn breath as the men around the table considered the impact of Sherman’s statement. Lincoln spoke for all of them.
“General Sherman — are you suggesting that we take the war to the enemy — that we invade Britain?”
“I am not suggesting that, sir, although that may very well be one of our options. What I am saying is that we must no longer dance to their tune. They invaded this sovereign nation once before and we repelled them. Now they resume this war and threaten invasion a second time. They must be stopped now.”
“But how?”
“That is what you must decide here in this War Room. The best military minds that our country possesses are now assembled here. They must find a way out of this impasse. And while you are deciding I want you to confer with General Robert E. Lee. He is here today at my personal invitation. A fact, that we all recognize, is that he knows how to win battles against superior forces. He knows how to outwit other generals, to attack where he is least expected, to out-think and out-fight his opponents. He might very well be the man who will find a way to take the battle to the enemy.”
“Will you do this, General?” Lincoln asked.
Lee had fought — and won — so many battles that he had lost count. And he was still recovering from severe illness; the lines in his face and the pallor of his skin bore witness of that. Despite this he did not hesitate a single second. He answered the President the instant the question had been put to him.
“I feel obligated to, Mr. President.”
“Good. You did a mighty fine job of winning battles for the Confederacy. We will be most obliged if you use those same skills to confuse and defeat our common enemy now.”
For Thomas Meagher this was a moment of very mixed emotions. It had been over twenty years since he had last looked on the green hills of Ireland. But there they were now, the Dublin Mountains rising into the bright blue sky ahead. It was twenty years since he had left Dublin in a military transport, shackled and chained like a wild animal. Sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered for his activities as an Irish revolutionary. A sentence that had been reduced to transportation for life, in a prison camp in Tasmania on the other side of the world. He had never thought he would see Ireland again, even when he had escaped the prison, and Ta
smania itself, and made his way to America. Now he was a soldier, the general in command of the Irish Brigade in the American army. Quite a rise for a convicted revolutionary. America had been good to him — but his Irish blood, and the country of his forefathers, still tugged at him. It was somehow very apt that now he was returning to the land of his ancestors. Ireland. Looking across the ocean, seeing the land of his birth, he became aware of a strange satisfaction, a lessening of a yearning he had scarcely been aware of. He was back. He was home.
“ ’Tis a grand sight, ’tis it not, General,” said Color-sergeant William H. Tyrell who stood beside him at the rail of the mail boat.
“That it is indeed. And it’s Mr. O’Grady to the likes of you — unless you want to see me transported again.” He dare not use his own name here unless, even after all this time, it might stir unwanted memories in the authorities’ minds. Instead he had letters and papers on his person addressed to W.L.D. O’Grady, who happened to be a fellow officer in the Irish Brigade. O’Grady had also been an officer in the Royal Marines and had coached him well on its history and battles.
The ship’s whistle sounded as they passed the Martello tower at the forty-foot and entered Kingstown Harbor. It had been a most roundabout trip for them. First they had gone from New York to Le Havre in France, where an American agent had met them. He had tickets for them, tickets that would take them all the way from France to Ireland.
“We don’t want anyone to hear your accents,” he had said. “Just present the tickets, grunt a bit, keep your mouths shut and overtip everyone. You will get a good bit of British humble servitude that way — and no questions asked.”
Their nameless guide had been right. The ferry had taken them across the Channel to Southampton, on the south coast of England, where they had boarded the train at the station there. Many a forelock was pulled as the silver shillings changed hands. The same thing was true when they boarded the mail boat in Holyhead. This roundabout route was necessary since anyone sailing directly from the United States to Ireland would be suspect, questioned, possibly searched. This way was longer but safer.
“Tell me again where and when you and I will meet,” Meagher said.
“Thursday week, right over there in the First Class waiting room at the train station. The Kingstown station. Before that — why I’ll be home with the family! I can taste it now, boiled bacon and cabbage. Fresh-baked soda bread. Me auntie was always a dab hand at baking.”
Tyrell had been chosen to accompany the general on this first trip because he was a Dubliner, a real jackeen who, to hear him speak, had so many relatives in Ringsend that they populated the entire neighborhood.
“Eat all you want,” Meagher said. “But stay off the drink, at least in public. Watch out whom you talk to. The Fenians have been betrayed once too often.”
“It won’t happen to me, that I swear, sir. My uncles, cousins and brothers, they’ll be the only ones I’ll speak my mind to.”
They moved apart when the ferry tied up, separating before they joined the other passengers going down the gangway. Meagher ignored the two soldiers by the exit doorway from the wharf; he had no reason to believe, after all these years, that he was still being actively looked for by the authorities. He walked out and crossed the road to the train station. There was the sound of a distant whistle and shortly afterwards the little train puffed into the station. He purchased a ticket — his accent was certainly no handicap here! — and climbed aboard. It was a short trip, the train stopping only at Sandycove and Glenageary, before pulling into the Dalkey station. He took up his carpetbag and joined the two other disembarking passengers on the platform. He studied the train timetables that were posted outside the station, until the other passengers were out of sight. Then he turned to look and yes, there it was, just a few paces down the hill was the pub he had been told about. He took up his bag and strolled down to it and pushed open the door. The publican, in a striped blue apron, was serving groceries to a customer in the little shop at the far end of the bar.
“Just sit yourself down,” he called out. “I’ll be with youse as soon as I’ve finished serving Mrs. Riley.”
Meagher looked around at the dark interior, the coal-oil lamps and the beer engines, scattered sawdust on the floor. He smiled; it had been a very, very long time.
“Been away have you?” the publican said as he brought over the pint of stout. “Never saw a suit of that cut in Dublin.”
“Sheep farming — in New Zealand.”