“Want you to know. Just in case. That I have never served …” He paused to breathe, put out the bloody hand, looked into Chamberlain’s eyes. “Never served under a better man. Want you to know. Want to thank you, sir.”
Chamberlain nodded. Kilrain closed his eyes. His face began to relax; his skin was very pale. Chamberlain held the great cold hand. Chamberlain said, “Let me go round up something medicinal.”
“I’d be eternal grateful.”
“You rest.” Chamberlain was feeling alarm.
Tozier said, “I’ve sent off.”
“Well I’ve seen them run,” Kilrain said dreamily. “Glory be. Thanks to you, Colonel darlin’. Lived long enough to see the Rebs run. Come the Millennium. Did you see them run, Colonel darlin’?”
“I did.”
“I got one fella. Raggedy fella. Beautiful offhand shot, if I say so mesel’.”
“I’ve got to go, Buster.”
“He was drawin’ a bead on you, Colonel. I got him with one quick shot offhand. Oh lovely.” Kilrain sighed. “Loveliest shot I ever made.”
“You stay with him, Sergeant,” Chamberlain said.
Thomas nodded.
“Be back in a while, Buster.”
Kilrain opened his eyes, but he was drifting off toward sleep, and he nodded but did not see. Chamberlain backed away. There were some men around him from the old Second Maine and he talked to them automatically, not knowing what he was saying, thanking them for the fight, looking on strange young bloody faces. He moved back down the slope.
He went back along the low stone wall. The dead were mostly covered now with blankets and shelter halves, but some of them were still dying and there were groups of men clustered here and there. There were dead bodies and wounded bodies all down the wall and all down through the trees and blood was streaked on the trees and rocks and rich wet wood splinters were everywhere. He patted shoulders, noted faces. It was very quiet and dark down among the trees. Night was coming. He began to feel tired. He went on talking. A boy was dying. He had made a good fight and he wanted to be promoted before he died and Chamberlain promoted him. He spoke to a man who had been clubbed over the head with a musket and who could not seem to say what he wanted to say, and another man who was crying because both of the Merrill boys were dead, both brothers, and he would be the one who would have to tell their mother. Chamberlain reached the foot of the hill and came out into the last light.
Ellis Spear came up. There were tears in the corners of his eyes. He nodded jerkily, a habit of Maine men, a greeting.
“Well,” he said. He did not know what to say. After a moment he pulled out an impressively ornamented silver flask, dented, lustrous.
“Colonel? Ah, I have a beverage here which I have been saving for an, ah, appropriate moment. I think this is—well, would the Colonel honor me by joining me in a, ah, swallow?”
Chamberlain thought: Kilrain. But he could not hurt Spear’s feelings. And his mouth was gritty and dry. Spear handed it over solemnly, gravely, with the air of a man taking part in a ceremony. Chamberlain drank. Oh, good. Very, very good. He saw one small flicker of sadness pass over Spear’s face, took the bottle from his lips.
“Sorry, Ellis. ‘Swallow’ is a flighty word. An indiscriminate word. But thank you. Very much. And now.”
Spear bowed formally. “Colonel, it has been my pleasure.”
Here through the rocks was a grinning Tom. Young Tom. Only a boy. Chamberlain felt a shattering rush of emotion, restrained it. Behind Tom were troops of the 83rd Pennsylvania: Captain Woodward, Colonel Rice of the 44th New York. Chamberlain thought: Rice must be the new commander of the whole brigade.
Tom said with vast delight, ticking them off, “Lawrence, we got prisoners from the Fifteenth Alabama, the Forty-seventh Alabama, the Fourth and Fifth Texas. Man, we fought four Reb regiments!”
Four regiments would be perhaps two thousand men. Chamberlain was impressed.
“We got five hundred prisoners,” Tom insisted.
The figure seemed high. Chamberlain: “What are our casualties?”
Tom’s face lost its light. “Well, I’ll go check.”
Colonel Rice came up. Much darker now. He put out a hand.
“Colonel Chamberlain, may I shake your hand?”
“Sir.”
“Colonel, I watched that from above. Colonel, that was the damnedest thing I ever saw.”
“Well,” Chamberlain said. A private popped up, saluted, whispered in Chamberlain’s ear: “Colonel, sir, I’m guardin’ these here Rebs with an empty rifle.”
Chamberlain grinned. “Not so loud. Colonel Rice, we sure could use some ammunition.”
Rice was clucking like a chicken. “Amazing. They ran like sheep.”
Woodward said, “It was getting a bit tight there, Colonel, I’ll say.”
Rice wandered about, stared at the prisoners, wandered back, hands behind him, peered at Chamberlain, shook his head.
“You’re not Regular Army?”
“No, sir.”
“Oh yes. You’re the professor. Um. What did you teach?”
“Rhetoric, sir.”
“Really?” Rice grimaced. “Amazing.” After a moment: “Where’d you get the idea to charge?”
Chamberlain said, “We were out of ammunition.”
Rice nodded. “So. You fixed bayonets.”
Chamberlain nodded. It seemed logical enough. It was beginning to dawn on him that what he had done might be considered unusual. He said, “There didn’t seem to be any alternative.”
Rice shook his head, chuckled, grunted.
Chamberlain said, “I heard about Colonel Vincent.”
“Yes. Damn shame. They think he won’t make it.”
“He’s still alive?”
“Not by much.”
“Well. But there’s always hope.”
Rice looked at him. “Of course,” Rice said.
Chamberlain wandered among his men. Ought to put them in some kind of order. He was beginning to feel an elation in him, like a bubble blowing up in his chest. A few moments later, Rice was back.
“Colonel, I have to ask your help. You see the big hill there, the wooded hill? There’s nobody there. I think. General Warren wants that hill occupied. Could you do that?”
“Well,” Chamberlain said. “If we had some ammunition.”
“I’ll move a train up. That hill’s been unoccupied all day. If the Rebs get a battery there … it’s the extreme flank of the Union line. Highest ground. Warren sends you his compliments and says to tell you he would prefer to have your regiment there.”
Chamberlain said, “Well of course, sir. But the boys are tired. May take a while. And I sure need that ammunition.”
“Right. I’ll tell the general you’ll be up soon as possible.”
Chamberlain squinted. A wall of trees, thick brush. He sighed.
Tom was back. “I count about one hundred and thirty men, Lawrence. Forty to fifty already dead, about ninety wounded. Lot of boys walking around with minor stuff, one hundred thirty for the hospital.”
Chamberlain thought: one hundred thirty down. We had three hundred in line. Almost half the regiment. Kilrain is gone.
He told Spear of the move. He was becoming very tired. But along with the weariness he felt spasms of pure joy. Spear formed the company, Rice took over the prisoners. Rice came by to watch them go.
“Colonel,” Chamberlain said. “One thing. What’s the name of this place? This hill. Has it got a name?”
“Little Round Top,” Rice said. “Name of the hill you defended. The one you’re going to is Big Round Top.”
Little Round Top. Battle of Little Round Top. Well. I guess we’ll remember it.
“Move ’em out, Ellis.”
He went back to say goodbye to Kilrain. The white head was visible from a long way off, sitting stumplike, motionless in the dark of the trees. He had leaned back and was staring at the sky, his eyes closed. He had welcomed Chamberlain to the r
egiment and there had never been a day without him. He would be going back to the hospital now, and Chamberlain did not know what to say, did not know how to express it. Blue eyes opened in a weary face. Kilrain smiled.
“I’ll be going, Buster,” Chamberlain said.
Kilrain grumbled, looked sourly, accusingly at his bloody wound.
“Damn.”
“Well, you take care. I’ll send Tom back with word.”
“Sure.”
“We’ll miss you. Probably get into all kinds of trouble without you.”
“No,” Kilrain said. “You’ll do all right.”
“Well, I have to go.”
“Right. Goodbye, Colonel.”
He put out a hand, formally. Chamberlain took it.
“It was a hell of a day, wasn’t it, Buster?”
Kilrain grinned, his eyes glistened.
“I’ll come down and see you tomorrow.” Chamberlain backed off.
“Sure.” Kilrain was blinking, trying to keep his eyes open. Chamberlain walked away, stopped, looked back, saw the eyes already closed, turned his back for the last time, moved off into the gathering dark.
He moved forward and began to climb the big hill in the dark. As he walked he forgot his pain; his heart began to beat quickly, and he felt an incredible joy. He looked at himself, wonderingly, at the beloved men around him, and he said to himself: Lawrence, old son, treasure this moment. Because you feel as good as a man can feel.
5.
LONGSTREET
The hospital was an open field just back of the line. There were small white tents all over the field and bigger tents where the surgeons did the cutting. Hood was there, in a big tent, on a litter. Longstreet came in out of the dark, bowing under a canopy, saw the face like cold marble in yellow candlelight, eyes black and soft like old polished stones. Cullen and Maury were working together on the arm. Longstreet saw: not much left of the hand. Exposed bone. He thought of Jackson hit in the arm at Chancellorsville: died a slow death. Let us cross over the river. Hood’s black eyes stared unseeing. Longstreet said softly, “Sam?”
Cullen looked up; Maury was tying a knot, went on working. Troops had gathered outside the canopy. A sergeant bawled: Move on, move on. Hood stared at Longstreet, not seeing. There was dirt streaked in tear stains on his cheeks, but he was not crying now. His head twitched, cheek jerked. He said suddenly, in a light, strange, feathery voice, “Should have let me move to ri—” He breathed. “To the right.”
Longstreet nodded. To Cullen, he said, “Can I talk to him?”
“Rather not. We’ve drugged him. Sir. Better let him sleep.”
Hood raised the other arm, twitched fingers, let the hand fall. “Din see much. Boys went in an’ hit the rocks. I got hit.”
Longstreet, no good at talking, nodded.
“Should have moved right, Pete.” Hood was staring at him, bright, drugged, eerie eyes. “How did it go, Pete?”
“Fine, Sam.”
“We took those rocks?”
“Most of ’em.”
“Took the rocks. Really did.”
“Yes,” Longstreet lied.
Hood’s eyes blinked slowly, blearily. He put the good hand up to shade his eyes.
“Devil’s Den. Good name for it.”
“Yep.”
“Worst ground I ever saw, you know that?” Hood laid the back of his hand across his eyes. His voice trembled. “Got to give my boys credit.”
Longstreet said to Cullen, “Can you save the arm?”
“We’re trying. But if we do, it won’t be much use to him.”
Hood said, “Casualties? Was casualties?”
“Don’t know yet,” Longstreet said. And then: “Not bad.” Another lie.
Cullen said gloomily, plaintively, “He ought to go to sleep. Now don’t fight it, General. Let it work. You just drift right on off.”
Longstreet said softly, “You go to sleep now, Sam. Tell you all about it tomorrow.”
“Shame not to see it.” Hood took the hand away. His eyes were dreaming, closing like small doors over a dim light. “Should have gone to the right.” He looked hazily at the hand. “You fellas try to save that now, you hear?”
“Yes, sir, General. Now why don’t you …?”
“Sure will miss it.” Hood’s eyes closed again; his face began smoothing toward sleep. Longstreet thought: he won’t die. Not like Jackson. There was a blackness around Jackson’s eyes. Longstreet reached down, touched Hood on the shoulder, then turned and went out into the moonlight.
Sorrel was there, with the silent staff. Longstreet mounted, rising up into the moonlight, looking out across the pale tents at the small fires, the black silence. He heard a boy crying, pitiful childish sobs, a deeper voice beyond, soothing. Longstreet shook his head to clear the sound, closed his eyes, saw Barksdale go streaming to his death against a flaming fence in the brilliant afternoon, hair blazing out behind him like white fire. Longstreet rode up the ridge toward the darker ground under the trees. Barksdale lies under a sheet. They have not covered his face; there is a flag over him. Semmes is dead. How many others? Longstreet cleared the brain, blew away bloody images, the brilliant fence in the bright gleaming air of the afternoon, tried to catalogue the dead. Must have figures. But he was not thinking clearly. There was a rage in his brain, a bloody cloudy area like mud stirred in a pool. He was like a fighter who has been down once and is up again, hurt and in rage, looking to return the blow, looking for the opening. But it was a silent rage, a crafty rage; he was learning war. He rode purposefully, slowly off into the dark, feeling the swelling inside his chest like an unexploded bomb and in the back of his mind a vision of that gray rocky hill* all spiked with guns, massed with blue troops at the top, and he knew as certainly as he had ever known anything as a soldier that the hill could not be taken, not anymore, and a cold, metal, emotionless voice told him that coldly, calmly, speaking into his ear as if he had a companion with him utterly untouched by the rage, the war, a machine inside wholly unhurt, a metal mind that did not feel at all.
“Sir?”
Longstreet swiveled in the saddle: Sorrel. The man said warily, “Captain Goree is here, sir. Ah, you sent for him.”
Longstreet looked, saw the skinny Texan, gestured. Sorrel backed off. Longstreet said, “T. J. Want you to get out to the right and scout the position. No more damn fool countermarches in the morning. Take most of the night but get it clear, get it clear. I’ve got Hood’s division posted on our right flank. Or what’s left of it. I’ve put Law in command. You need any help, you get it from Law, all right?”
The Texan, a silent man, nodded but did not move. Longstreet said, “What’s the matter?”
“They’re blaming us,” Goree said. His voice was squeaky, like a dry wagon wheel. He radiated anger. Longstreet stared.
“What?”
“I been talking to Hood’s officers. Do you know they blame us? They blame you. For today.”
Longstreet could not see the bony face clearly, in the dark, but the voice was tight and very high, and Longstreet thought: he could be a dangerous man, out of control.
Goree said, “You may hear of it, General. I had to hit this fella. They all said the attack was your fault and if General Lee knowed he wouldn’t have ordered it and I just couldn’t just stand there and I couldn’t say right out what I felt, so I had to hit this one fella. Pretty hard. Had to do it. Aint goin’ to apologize neither. No time. But. Thought you ought to know.”
“Is he dead?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, that’s good.” Longstreet meditated. “Well, don’t worry on it. Probably won’t hear another thing if you didn’t kill him. Probably forgotten in the morning. One thing: I want no duels. No silly damn duels.”
“Yes, sir. Thing is, if anything bad happens now, they all blame it on you. I seen it comin’. They can’t blame General Lee. Not no more. So they all take it out on you. You got to watch yourself, General.”
“Wel
l,” Longstreet said. “Let it go.”
“Yes, sir. But it aint easy. After I saw you take all morning trying to get General Lee to move to the right.”
“Let it go, T. J. We’ll talk on it after the fight.”
Goree moved out. There goes a damn good man. Longstreet felt the warmth of unexpected gratitude. He swung the black horse toward Lee’s headquarters back on the road to Cashtown. Time now to talk. Good long talk. Watch the anger. Careful. But it is true. The men shied from blaming Lee. The Old Man is becoming untouchable. Now more than anything else he needs the truth. But … well, it’s not his fault, not the Old Man. Longstreet jerked the horse, almost ran into Sorrel. They came out into a patch of bright moonlight. Longstreet saw: The man was hurt.
“Major,” Longstreet said harshly. “How are you?”
“Sir? Oh, I’m fine, sir. Juss minor problem.”
“That’s a godawful piece of horse you’ve got there.”
“Yes, sir. Lost the other one, sir. They shot it out from under me. It lost both legs. I was with Dearing’s battery. Hot time, sir.” Sorrel bobbed his head apologetically.
Longstreet pointed. “What’s the trouble with the arm?”
Sorrel shrugged, embarrassed. “Nothing much, sir. Bit painful, can’t move it. Shrapnel, sir. Hardly broke the skin. Ah, Osmun Latrobe got hit too.”
“How bad?”
“Just got knocked off the horse, I believe. This fighting is very hard on the horses, sir. I was hoping we could get a new supply up here, but these Yankee horses are just farm stock—too big, too slow. Man would look ridiculous on a plow horse.”
“Well,” Longstreet grumbled vaguely. “Take care of yourself, Major. You aint the most likable man I ever met, but you sure are useful.”
Sorrel bowed. “I appreciate your sentiments, sir. The General is a man of truth.”
“Have you got the casualty figures yet?”
“No, sir. I regret to say. Just preliminary reports. Indications are that losses will exceed one third.”
Longstreet jerked his head, acknowledging.
Sorrel said carefully, “Possibly more. The figures could go …”
“Don’t play it down,” Longstreet said.
“No, sir. I think that casualties were much worse in Hood’s division. Won’t have an exact count for some time. But … it appears that the Yankees put up a fight. My guess is Hood’s losses will approach fifty percent.”
The Civil War Trilogy: Gods and Generals / the Killer Angels / the Last Full Measure Page 80