Assassins of History- Transference Read online

  Once in the town of Harpers Ferry, Jargunn utilized his cloaking device and traversed the whole town undetected by the humans. Even though the locals couldn’t see him, Earth 3 animals could detect him. More than once, he had to vacate an area due to their irrational and erratic behavior.

  Jargunn waited well into the night for the streets to clear of the populace and their animals. He was able to suspend his cloaking mode and, using his scent tracker, checked the majority of the town for the imposter. However, there was no scent recognition anywhere in the town. It was getting close to dawn when he finally suspended his surveillance and piloted his ACV back to Axeylon 5 to make his report.

  

  I awoke at dawn to a bell being rung, which I instantly surmised was the call to breakfast. I looked around the room and comprehended that my supposed roommate had not made it back from his foray into the licentious side of town.

  I quickly poured water into a wash basin and washed my face. I smelled of my shirt and it didn’t have too bad a fragrance so I dressed, ran my fingers through my hair and sought the dining room. I was ready for a good breakfast.

  Well the good breakfast didn’t pan out. It definitely didn’t meet the standards of the breakfasts I’d gotten at Hattie’s table. The Widow Hawkins provided some kind of sludge they called mush. I got a bowl of it and had to add a lot of honey to get a passable taste and I mean that figuratively and digestively. I also procured two biscuits that were about four-fifths done, which means that the middle parts were still doughy. I added a slug of butter and many spoons of honey to kill the taste of the unsavory items of supposed nutrition.

  For a beverage, a pitcher of cool milk graced the breakfast table. It had an unfamiliar taste. However, thinking back to Pine Bluff when I was a teenager, I remembered drinking unpasteurized milk provided for the noon meal by some farm family friends. Their milk was fresh, which is more than I could say for the Widow Hawkins’ brew.

  With my guts growling due to the alien food I had ingested, I got my poke sacks, went to the livery stable, had Beau saddled up and rode east to Harpers Ferry. Beau was sort of used to me by now and we meandered for only an hour before we reached our destination.

  I checked Beau into the Harpers Ferry livery stable, which was on Bolivar Heights. This is a ridge on the southwest part of town that looks directly down on the town proper. Standing on this prominence I viewed a majestic site. Below and to the east of town, the Potomac River and the Shenandoah River converge into one mighty confluence. The convergence then poured between two jutting elevations: Maryland Heights on the north and Loudoun Heights on the south. It was a breathtaking vision. I stood for twenty minutes looking at the mighty Potomac River, reinforced by the Shenandoah River, as it rushed through the crevice created by two mountains and flowed headlong to empty into the Chesapeake Bay and ultimately the Atlantic Ocean. The beauty of this image devoid of any 21st century encumbrances was awe-inspiring. At long last I was able to tear myself away from this dream of Mother Earth and tend to my information-gathering agenda.

  The livery owner had given me directions to the local newspaper office. It entailed that I walk down a road with a steep incline from the top of Bolivar Heights to the bottom of the hill where the road dead-ended into the main thoroughfare of Harpers Ferry. Once at this junction, I was to turn left and walk two blocks to the newspaper office.

  I followed the directions and, once I entered the newspaper office, asked to see the owner. A man came forward and said he was Mr. Matthews, the owner.

  I introduced myself and asked if he had any back issues of his paper from the previous year up to today’s date. He suspiciously asked why I needed to look at them. I stated that I was the new school teacher in Shepherdstown and wanted to have the correct information when I taught current history for my class in the fall.

  He seemed to accept my answer and directed me to a back room of the office which had stacks of newspapers by year from 1857 to the present. The newspaper was printed on a weekly basis except for special editions, which dealt with startling national news events.

  I dug into the papers beginning with 1860 and only perused the articles that dealt with the presidential election of 1860, the secession of the southern states and the forming of the Confederate States. I concentrated on the war from 1861 to the present. It was most illuminating. Amalgamating the printed information, I was able to construct an outline of events from 1860 to the present.

  The election of Lincoln, the secession of the Deep South, Lincoln’s call for quotas of troops to put down the secession and the secession of the rest of the slave states, except for Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland, were just about parallel to our universe’s history with Delaware’s secession being the exception.

  However, as I had gleaned from the newspaper in Shepherdstown, the man I had met on the road to Harpers Ferry and the Widow Hawkins in Halltown, 1861’s history in this universe differed in some important aspects from my universe. The Harpers Ferry newspaper gave an even clearer picture of what had happened in this 19th century parallel universe than the word of mouth information I previously received. Some of the historical differences described were definitely interesting.

  For instance, Union General-in-Chief Winfield Scott had not been replaced by General George McClellan. Also, “The Anaconda Plan”, which was a blockade strategy to strangle the Confederacy’s maritime trade, was proposed by General Scott and implemented in both universes. The big difference was that Scott got to hold his military position and conduct the course of the war for the Union, including “The Anaconda Plan.”

  I had never really researched the naval battles or the closing down of the Confederate coastal ports and river ports in my universe other than the taking of New Orleans and Vicksburg. The only significant Union Army advancement made from occupied Confederate ports and Atlantic coastal islands in my universe was the Virginia Peninsula Campaign of 1862. So, the following historical events in this Universe that led to an inland Union invasion were totally different.

  In this universe, General Scott organized his “Anaconda” system of blockade into four navy/army coalitions:

  The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron;

  The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron;

  The East Gulf Blockading Squadron; and

  The West Gulf Blockading Squadron.

  An army of 60,000 soldiers supported by navy flotillas was assigned to occupy the Confederate forts and ports, which were initially to be taken by the Anaconda Blockading Squadrons. For this plan to work, the Union Navy needed a succession of ports for coaling of their steam ships along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. So, the first order of business was to take Confederate ports that could provide coaling locations and at the same time start to close down Confederate shipping and trade.

  Beginning in August, 1861 and continuing until February, 1862, the North and South Atlantic Blockading Squadrons took and occupied enough Confederate coastal ports and forts to open up the Pamlico Sound and Albemarle Sound off the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina to Union gunships. This began the eradication of harbors that could cater to the Confederate blockade runners.

  The next big joint Union navy and army expedition in the East was to land an invading Union Force in the heart of the Confederacy. This historical event in my universe was the Virginia Peninsula Campaign of June, 1862, but in this universe it began further south.

  Union General George McClellan, in the first week of March, 1862, was assigned the task of landing ten thousand men at Beaufort, North Carolina, marching inland and capturing New Bern, North Carolina, building up his army and moving south toward Atlanta, the Confederate Capital.

  It seems that Union General George Brinton McClellan had the same propensity for whining for more reinforcements in both universes. True to form, McClellan landed his troops at Beaufort, North Carolina, but indicated to Lincoln he needed another twenty-five thousand troops before he could march the thirty-five miles necessary to take New Bern, North Caroli
na. Lincoln and Union Secretary of War Stanton were adamant that McClellan should advance toward New Bern with the forces he already had. After much coaxing and placating with the promise that he would be supplied with a much larger army once New Bern was taken, McClellan advanced on New Bern, which capitulated with hardly a fight.

  McClellan then asked for the needed rearmaments, resupplies, and reinforcements needed to begin a campaign to take the Confederate capital at Atlanta.

  The wide mouth of the Neuse River at New Bern, North Carolina was a perfect port for the Union buildup so Lincoln and General Scott complied with the request for more troops and supplies. The buildup lasted through April and May of 1862.

  The Confederates quickly learned of McClellan’s presence and began a buildup of their own at Goldsboro, North Carolina located seventy-five miles northwest of New Bern. The stage was set for a confrontation that rivaled the Virginia Peninsula Campaign in my old universe.

  By the end of May, 1862, Union General McClellan had over ninety thousand troops, three hundred cannon and two thousand cavalry. He named his force the Army of the Atlantic. However, he still stalled and wanted more. Lincoln stated there were no more troops to send without stripping the army protecting Washington City from the twin threats of Confederate Generals Joe Johnston and Thomas Jackson.

  The Confederate army commanded by Confederate General Robert E. Lee, who was in charge of the defense of the Confederate Atlantic coast, had advanced to Kinston, North Carolina, which was about thirty miles from New Bern with an army of fifty-five thousand men. Lee had his army dig rifle pits and breastworks on the north bank of the Neuse River.

  McClellan took over a week to move his army toward the dug-in Confederate position and, once he had deployed his army south of the Neuse River, began a three-day bombardment of the Confederate positions. The Confederates would simply move out of the range of the Union cannon during the day, reoccupy the positions during the night and make any needed repairs to their breastworks.

  Finally, McClellan began crossing the Neuse River on June 18, 1862. As usual, he had not used his cavalry as a scouting force and didn’t know the extent of the Confederate positions waiting for him. Confederate artillery cut the advancing Union brigades to pieces. A large Confederate infantry blocking force was in the breastworks to hold the main Union advance at bay, while two Confederate divisions had earlier secretly crossed the Neuse River and attacked each of the Union flanks once the battle had begun. It was a disaster for McClellan. He had two divisions chewed up. To make matters worse, the Confederate Cavalry under Ashby Turner circled the Union army and caused havoc by attacking the Union supply trains in the rear. Then the Confederate blocking force, utilizing prefabricated bridge sections, quickly crossed the river and attacked the front of the Union line. Numerous units of the Union army were routed. However, enough Union regiments gave ground grudgingly to allow the Union army to retreat back to New Bern, North Carolina without being completely annihilated.

  By the end of July, 1862, McClellan’s Army of the Atlantic had not progressed any further than New Bern since the disastrous defeat outside of Kinston, North Carolina. McClellan refused to move without more reinforcements, horses, mules, rations and equipment. Lincoln and Scott had gotten so sick of his complaints that they relieved him of command and sent General Ambrose Burnside to take his place.

  On August 15, Burnside arrived in Beaufort, North Carolina via a naval flotilla along with two corps of reinforcements, which consisted of about twenty-five thousand men, ninety-six cannon, six thousand horses and mules plus much needed supplies and equipment. It was sort of asinine that Lincoln and Scott had not sent the reinforcements and equipment to McClellan but did convey them with his replacement. McClellan no doubt became enraged because he didn’t even greet Burnside when he arrived. McClellan simply got on his personal boat and set out for Washington City. He was never heard from again and must have been absorbed into the matrix of the army.

  Burnside had apparently been told to meld the additional reinforcements into McClellan’s force and attack the Confederates as soon as possible. Needless to say he did not have the organization acumen that McClellan had. However, McClellan had already worked on the reorganization of the Army. So, Burnside didn’t have to do too much to bring his Army of the Atlantic up to speed. At the present time, he was in the process of getting all the new equipment issued, the men drilled and the horses and mules distributed.

  So what happened out in the west? Of the following nine chronological events and or battles, items one through five plus item nine occurred with the same exact outcomes as they did in my universe. Items six through eight did not.

  One: In August 1861, the Confederates won the Battle of Wilson’s Creek near Springfield, Missouri.

  Two: In November 1861, General Grant captured Belmont, Missouri.

  Three: In February 1862, Confederate Fort Henry and Fort Donelson were captured by a Union army and navy joint venture under General Grant and Naval Flag Officer Foote. This caused the Confederates to pull back from north central Tennessee to Corinth, Mississippi, located just south of the Tennessee border.

  Four: Nashville, Tennessee fell to Union forces on February 25, 1862.

  Five: In March 1862, the Confederates lost the Battle of Pea Ridge in northwest Arkansas, which eradicated the threat of the Confederacy taking Missouri.

  Six: The Battle of Shiloh, however, had a totally different outcome in this universe. On April 3, 1862, Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston surprised a Union Army under General William T. Sherman and General Ulysses Grant at Pittsburg Landing (Shiloh) and defeated it. The Union army retreated north into Savannah, Tennessee, where it held a line of hastily prepared breastworks. During the night of April 4th, the battered Union army was ferried to the east side of the Tennessee River, where it joined Union General Carlos Buell’s force on April 6th. Buell had proceeded from northern Tennessee to reinforce Grant, but had arrived too late to be of any help.

  Seven: Another very important outcome of the Battle of Shiloh in this universe was Confederate General Albert Sydney Johnson was not killed.

  Eight: After its mauling at Shiloh, the Union army in the west pulled back to Camden, Tennessee, which is about seventy miles north of Savannah, Tennessee and seventy-five miles west of Nashville. Camden is on the west bank of the Tennessee River and is a good spot for a supply depot and staging area. The Union Army of the West, now dubbed the Army of Tennessee, had been taken away from General Grant after the debacle at Shiloh and offered to Sherman, who refused it. It was then given to General Rosecrans, who refitted the Union army at Camden and was presently marching his men down the west side of the Tennessee River toward Savannah, Tennessee, the Confederate stronghold in southwestern Tennessee.

  Nine: The last important historical event, which took place in my universe and in this universe, occurred on April 24, 1862. Union Flag Officer David Farragut ran his naval flotilla past Confederate Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip at the mouth of the Mississippi River and captured New Orleans. The great trade center of The South was now closed to Confederate commerce.

  After an all-day reading and note taking, I had finally collected all the vital historical information I needed. So, I thanked Mr. Matthews, the newspaper owner, for access to his files. I also asked if there was a good place to bed down for the night. He recommended the Stephens Hotel on Shenandoah Street, which was a few doors down from the newspaper office. I thanked him again, and throwing my poke sacks over my shoulder, proceeded toward the hotel.

  I had spent a lot of time in the newspaper office. It was fully dark when I began walking to the hotel. As I ambled down the wooden sidewalk, I came to an alley between buildings. When I walked down the sidewalk steps to traverse the alleyway opening, a big man stepped in front of me and asked, “Whar ya a-goin’ on this beautiful night?”

  For some reason, I was immediately drawn to the distinctive coloring in his beard. Then I felt another man slink in behind me. I began to
turn around to see who had cutoff my rear escape route, when the man behind me put his left arm around my neck in a choke hold to keep me in place.

  Chapter 6

  I don’t know why I reacted the way I did. It must have been a reflex Aikido move learned years ago. But I turned my head and body 90 degrees to the left and just sat down with all the force I could muster. Moving my body unlocked my chin from the top of my assailant’s forearm and allowed my head to slide down between his forearm and chest. He still had hold of the very top of my head, but my neck was no longer in jeopardy of being broken when I sat down.

  In fact, my move catapulted the man who had me in the headlock forward over the top of me. He abruptly let go and tried to use his hands to break his fall. However, his head and shoulders crashed into the knees of the man in front of me. It was a perfect linebacker block. Both men went down in a heap. I wasted no time in scrambling to my feet, grabbing my hat and sacks and running toward the hotel less than two doors down.

  I entered the small lobby at a run. The clerk behind the desk was startled when I yelled between gasps of breath, “I’ve just been mugged.”

  This produced a quizzical expression so I further explained,” I been attacked by two men just two doors down.”

  A man sitting in the lobby who had been reading a newspaper stood up and approached me. “Could ya describe tha men who attacked ya?” he asked.

  “Yes, but I really only got a look at tha man who was in front of me. He was about 5 feet 10 inches tall with a black beard. I could smell whiskey on his breath when he spoke. But one feature that stood out was a white streak in tha middle of his beard,” I explained.

  That last remark made the clerk and the newspaper reader perk up and really take notice. The clerk pulled out a pistol from under his desk and laid it on top of his ledger. The newspaper reader said, “I’ll go out tha back door and get tha town marshal.”