A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [298]
When he learned that no wagons had been dispatched because the commissary officer in Kentucky had been on a drunken spree for several days, the best and worst aspects of De Courcy’s character came to the fore. “What is to be done?” he wrote to a member of Burnside’s staff on September 7. “My men will begin to get sick before many hours for want of bread. Little corn here, and I have only ammunition enough to bluster with and persuade the enemy to evacuate or capitulate if he be so inclined but I cannot make a serious attack.”3
De Courcy’s first instinct was to telegraph his resignation. But as he thought about his predicament, he realized that the Confederates had no means of knowing the state of his forces. This gave him the idea of deceiving the Confederates into thinking his brigade was four times its actual size—by having his men march in a continuous loop within earshot of the fort. Thus heartened, he made the fatal mistake of falling in love with his cleverness, and when help arrived in the form of a cavalry brigade under General James M. Shackelford, De Courcy became fearful that he would interfere. He should have dispatched a messenger to explain his intentions. Instead, he sent a letter asking Shackelford to stay out of the Gap because “I fear you have not been made acquainted … that I am fully acquainted with all the roads and locations on both sides of the gap, and further that I have been in the military profession almost continuously since my sixteenth year.” Shackelford ignored De Courcy and sent a message to General Frazer ordering him to surrender, which he refused to do.
Between his furious telegrams to Kentucky and his tactless behavior with Shackelford, De Courcy was leaving a trail of ill will.4 On September 8, De Courcy sent a polite communication to General Frazer. The situation was hopeless, he said. The fort was surrounded, and any attempt to fight their way out would only result in “a cruel loss of life.” All this time, the same Federal regiments had been marching around and around, making it seem as though the Confederates were facing several thousand men. De Courcy naturally hedged when Frazer replied asking to know the number of Federal troops opposing him. For twenty-four hours the Confederate general held firm, but after a day of absolute stillness—De Courcy would not even allow the men to load their rifles in case one of the new recruits accidentally pulled the trigger and started a firefight—Frazer’s nerve started to buckle. De Courcy thoughtfully sent back the Confederate go-between with a gift of two gallons of good whiskey. He followed up with a note: “It is now 12:30 P.M., and I shall not open fire until 2 P.M., unless before that time you shall have struck all your flags and hoisted in their stead white flags in token of surrender.”5
During these tense negotiations, General Burnside had marched up from Knoxville, Tennessee, with an additional infantry brigade. He, too, sent a demand for surrender to General Frazer. By now the Confederate had received three orders in three days from three separate forces. As far as he knew, tens of thousands of Federal troops were poised to blow his position to pieces. Frazer drank De Courcy’s whiskey and considered his options. In the meantime, an irritated Burnside tried to assert his authority over the situation. He was incensed to learn that De Courcy had ignored Shackelford’s command. Ignorant of the colonel’s plan and the reasons behind it, Burnside regarded his action as veering close to insubordination.
At three o’clock on September 9, Frazer ordered his staff to run up the white flag. De Courcy’s troops fell into line and marched into the fortified camp, singing “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” The Confederates were unaware that their Federal captors were carrying unloaded rifles. The soldiers looked at the small force