O'hara's Choice - Leon Uris [9]
“They call me ‘Old Fuss and Feathers.’ They can start calling me ‘Old Aches and Pains.’ I’ve reached the time that the aches in your body come to a confluence with the aches in your heart.
“Well, I didn’t recall you from London to exchange bullshit. We either win this war or America will wind up as a fleeting comet in the story of man.”
They stared at each other through pipe smoke and cigar haze. “In the coming months,” the general said in measured words, “the Union is going to go through the painful experience of learning we are not fighting a corrupt Mexican army or chasing down Indians. Half of our officer corps is gone. That has created new openings for Union officers with more ambition than skill and courage. Mr. Lincoln is going to be looking at some terrible incompetence before he is able to get a handle on this war, and no small part of it will be his generals.
“As my last important duty, I feel bound to give the president my best ideas for a Union strategy. There’s a lot of blather about a quick victory, but you and I both know that is unlikely. I want you on my transition team to turn the military over to Lincoln in the best possible shape. I know you’ve been thinking all the way back from London. What kind of grand strategy should we develop?”
“Blockade,” Ben answered without hesitation.
Scott broke into what resembled a smile.
“That’s it, son.”
“You’re most generous, sir.”
“We have to train an officer corps and enlisted ranks to fight a long, hard war. That will take time. The linchpin of this design must be an immediate blockade of the Southern ports along the coast as well as the Mississippi River.
“You’re going to like this part, Boone. Every vessel must carry a Marine unit to board blockade runners on the seas and land and capture Confederate forts. I am going to recommend that we triple the size of the Corps immediately and I want you to remain as my liaison with your commandant.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Good. The Marine Corps will have value, but the war will be won by huge armies fighting titanic land battles. And once the war is over, no one is going to want to fight and the Corps will again have outlived its usefulness. Ben, for God’s sake, resign this pukey little Corps and transfer to the army . . . now.”
“Sir, I can’t agree.”
“Dammit! What will we be saving? An archaic institution? What for? Christmas-tree decorations?”
“Sir, I can’t agree.”
“Fucking tell me why, Lieutenant Boone!”
“When we lifted Texas and California from the Mexicans we did not go from sea to shining sea, sir, in order to rest on our laurels. We were saying, ‘Hello, Monroe Doctrine, here we are, overlords of the hemisphere.’ Since the Mexican War we have landed units in Buenos Aires, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Paraguay, Fiji, the isthmus. When this war is done, the United States will enter as a world power and have a world-power two-ocean navy. As our commerce spreads, along with the idea of democracy, there will be many more landings and expeditions, larger rather than smaller. One day the United States is going to find itself having to land on an enemy beach defended by two brigades. We’d better know what the hell we’re doing. Choke off the Corps and this country, in hindsight, will realize it went and shot off one of its nuts, and not in a pleasant way.”
Brevet Lieutenant General Winfield Scott stared at Boone and then thought, Well, what the hell, nobody can change a hillbilly’s mind.
“The Brits are way ahead of us with their Marine Corps and nobody in England is trying to abolish them. Maybe an old power like the British can see the future more clearly than we can . . . Sorry, sir.”
“Like hell you’re sorry,” Scott answered. “I’ll be briefing President Lincoln tomorrow night. I shall require your presence.”
• 3 •
THE RETURN TO FORT SUMTER
Winfield Scott’s master plan for conducting the war was adopted, giving Lincoln time to shake out his senior officers and create a great army.
Keels of ships of every class were