The Day After Gettysburg

by Robert Conroy

  He eyed the sunlight glimmering on the ripples of the stream. It looked like summer. It truly did, even with the autumn chill in the air. It was as if he could throw his coat off and plunge right in.

  He’d felt the same sense of disgust at Gettysburg, watching Longstreet’s men get chewed up making that vast wild charge on the third day. That fool with the hat—who had that been, he wondered? Waving it on the end of his sword, as if to say, shoot me, shoot me, shoot me . . .

  Well, they’d shot him all right. The very Pennsylvania boys that were seated around him right now. Along with a few thousand others. And for what, exactly? Here they were, only months later, doing the same damned thing. That’s what this war was turning into—one side marches into the maelstrom, gets torn to pieces, and then the other takes its turn. Keep it up until there’s nobody left.

  A groan rose from the men around him. He looked over his shoulder to see that the blue tide had broken. The troops were streaming back toward the treeline, leaving behind a carpet of wounded and dying men.

  He walked back to Archie Willis, who handed him the binoculars. “Pretty bad,” Willis said under his breath.

  The last of the Union troops were vanishing into the trees while the Rebels hooted and hollered from the ridgetop. “So I see,” Thorne said.

  “Casualties?”

  “Heavy,” Rawlins told Grant.

  With a harsh slash, the general sliced off a long sliver of wood. For a moment Grant stared blankly ahead. “Sedgwick,” he said at last. “As we discussed.”

  “Attempt to flank Lee’s left.”

  Grant nodded wordlessly. Rawlins turned away. Behind him, Grant peeled off two more slices and then broke what remained of the stick over his knee.

  Wade saw that the next attack was going to strike the far left of the line. That too, was a hopeless gesture. Longstreet was commanding that end, and it would take a lot more than a gaggle of Yankees to chase him off.

  He listened for a moment to the distant shouting, the nearer roaring of the guns.

  “We may have an easy day of it,” Mayfield said.

  Wade looked down at him. “Don’t you jinx us now.”

  ★ ★ ★

  “Look there,” Willis said.

  Thorne nodded. “I see them.”

  About four hundred yards into the field, someone was crawling toward them. There was an object on his back that might have been an oversize knapsack, but a glance through the binoculars told Thorne that it was another man. “There’s two of them.”

  “I’ll go out there,” Willis told him.

  “Hold on a second . . .”

  “I’m going, Steve.”

  He moved off, selected three volunteers, and headed out into the field. Thorne glanced at the ridge. He doubted that anyone would take a shot at them, but you never knew with the Rebs.

  They reached the two men. Thorne watched through the glasses as one trooper, an oversized country boy, threw the topmost man over his shoulders. The other two picked up the man who had been crawling and slung him between them. The made slow progress across the field, the distant battle roaring behind them. Thorne glanced once again at the Confederate line. They seemed to be watching. Nobody had opened fire. Good for them.

  At last they crossed the road. The two soldiers set the one man down while Willis helped the big lad with the other. Thorne crouched in front of the first man. “You made it.”

  “So we did,” he gasped. Someone handed him a canteen and he gulped half the contents down. He’d been hit in the arm just above the elbow. It looked pretty bad to Thorne. He glanced at the other man. Willis was just then rising to his feet. He looked over at Thorne and shook his head.

  The man before him squeezed his eyes shut. For a moment it looked as if he was about to collapse and Thorne reached out to steady him. But then he opened his eyes once again and gave him as beatific a smile as any he’d ever seen. “Least I brought my brother back. That’s what counts.”

  Across the distant field, the bluecoated troops began to fall back, pursued by gunfire and cannon shells.

  Rawlins was turning back to Grant to report that the second charge had failed when he saw the reporter. He was approaching Grant from behind, a notepad clutched in his hand. He was wearing a cheap checked suit and a derby hat.

  Rawlins quickened his pace. He’d told those people to keep their distance. How had this man been allowed to reach Grant in the first place? Everyone was too enrapt in the battle, evidently.

  The man bent confidentially over the trunk and said something in a low voice. Grant gave no sign that he had heard.

  “Sir,” Rawlins called out. “If you please . . . We’re in the midst of a battle here . . .”

  The reporter ignored Rawlins. “Well, it seems that you’re having something of a bad day.”

  Grant gave a last slash at the stick in his hand and tossed it away.

  “How about some kind of explanation?”

  Rawlins paused beside the reporter. He smelled of some kind of pomade. “Sir . . .” Rawlins said.

  The man ignored him. “General McClellan doesn’t think much of you. He says you’re a butcher. Seems to me he’s right.”

  Stepping forward to take hold of the reporter, Rawlins gestured to two of junior officers. “Let’s go . . .”

  The man shook him off. “Who the hell are you . . . ?”

  The two lieutenants gripped him from behind and started to drag him off. The man dropped his notepad and pencil as he struggled against them. “What the devil . . .” He tried to go slack but he didn’t help him any. “Hey, Grant,” he shouted. “How does it feel to be whipped by Bobby Lee?”

  Rawlins picked up the pencil and pad and tossed them after him. The man was lucky it hadn’t been General Sherman. He loathed reporters worse than a preacher did sin. He turned back to Grant. The general sliced at yet another stick, totally unconcerned.

  “Sedgwick’s attack has been repulsed.”

  Grant nodded.

  “They did give the Rebels some rough handling before they repelled the flanking effort.”

  “Good.” Grant was silent for a moment. His knife and the half-carved stick rested on either knee. “The right,” he said at last. “We need that road open.”

  Rawlins nodded and turned away.

  The barrage lasted considerably longer this time. Wade spent at least fifteen minutes with his nose pressed into the damp soil of the trench, hands over his ears as the shells burst around him. Someone started howling right in the middle of it, wordless shrieks that went on without pause or variation. The voice continued for several seconds after the last explosion.

  Wade hoisted himself up, shaking off dust and clumps of earth. To his right two troopers were helping a man dig himself out of a collapsed stretch of trench. Past them he could see another with his hands over his face, blood trickling through the fingers. A soldier slid into the trench beside him, carrying a damp cloth.

  He turned to the front, knowing what he’d see. He was just in time to catch sight of the first Union troops emerging from the trees. He watched them in silence for a long moment as their numbers grew, a blue mass that seemed to spring out of the earth itself, coming from nowhere and having no end. He swallowed deeply and shook himself.

  “Well, you were right.”

  He smiled at Mayfield. “So I was. That’s why they put me in command, Junior.” He nodded toward the right-hand end of the trench. “Head down there and take charge, Alex. Keep ’em braced up. I don’t want us embarrassed in front of those Arkansas boys.”

  “Yes, sir.” He paused a moment. “Don’t let no mules kick you, Corey.” He was gone before Wade could reply.

  He turned to face the field. The mass of troops seemed to be heading straight for his stretch of trench and no other. A burst of smoke erupted as one of them took a wild, unaimed shot. He thought of his college history readings—the campaigns of the great Khans, the Golden Horde roaring across Asia with none to stand against it.

&
nbsp; But that was nonsense. These were nothing more than Yankee peddlers and office clerks, not a single Mongol warrior among them.

  “All right,” he shouted. “Everybody hold your fire until I give the order. Don’t waste your powder and shot, understood?” The answers were no more than mutters. All eyes were on the approaching troops. He glanced back at them. A shell exploded, too far to the rear. “I know they look fierce, but you know something? Half of ’em are from Ireland, and the rest from Massachusetts.”

  That got a response—shouts, laughter, one hat thrown in the air. Wade smiled. The bluecoats had reached the halfway point. Another shell, better aimed this time, struck amongst them, cutting a large hole in that mass.

  Wade pulled out his Colt and checked the cylinders. Fully loaded. He glanced skyward. The sun was high. It looked to be well after the noon hour, as difficult as that was to believe. He took out his watch. Yes—it was one-thirty. He studied the tinted Melainotype of his mother on the inside of the cover and then clicked it shut. He shifted to make himself a little more comfortable. It was uncanny how swiftly time passed on occasions like this.

  They stood straight and unmoving as they watched the advance, even though some of Rebel shells were landing uncomfortably close. There weren’t many of them anyway. Thorne supposed that they were running short of powder.

  The troops were only a couple of hundred yards away, almost close enough to make out their faces. Beyond them, the ridge appeared to be gigantic, a great, looming wall stretching to the far horizon.

  They looked on in silence, a mixture of his own horsemen and the infantry. No one was cheering or waving their arms, or saying so much as a word. They just stood staring, as at a massive natural catastrophe unfolding at some vast distance, with blazing lightning and roaring thunder denoting forces no man could control. An act of God, beyond reckoning or comprehension.

  He clenched his fists as the first line of troops reached the foot of the ridge. It seemed impossible they could ever break through to the top. Just a short ridge, that you could climb in matter of minutes on an ordinary day. But today, it looked taller than the Matterhorn.

  They climbed it all the same. Falling one by one and in clusters, the banners and guidons that led them disappearing and then rising back into sight as they were transferred from dying hands to those still living, if only for a moment more. Thorne took an involuntary step forward as they reached the top.

  He ran his gaze across the line. The battle was general, one single ribbon of fighting men at the crest of the ridge. His eyes were arrested at one particular point, where the men in blue seemed to be entangled in a stretch of brush. His raised his glasses for a closer look. No—it was some kind of obstacle made out of tree branches. He’d heard of it—an aba something. He watched the men struggling amid those branches and then falling one after the other as long as he could stand it, then let the glasses fall.

  A shell went off no more than forty yards away. Not a single man moved as the earth and rocks pelted among them.

  Wade gave the order to fire when the Yankees were about fifty yards short of the ridge. The first fusillade took down most of leading line. It slowed the rest of them not at all. They kept coming, a few stumbling over the bodies of those who had fallen.

  Around him the men were reloading. “Fire again,” he shouted, unnecessarily. They were lifting the carbines to their shoulders and firing as soon as they were ready.

  The Yankees seemed to pause at the foot of the ridge as if to gather their forces, then threw themselves at the slope at as close to a dead run as they could manage. Their mouths were wide open, but Wade couldn’t hear a thing.

  Wade raised his pistol. He hadn’t fired a single round yet. He was going to wait until he could make it count. He spotted a man wearing a broad-brimmed hat. An officer, more than likely. Taking careful aim, he fired. The Yankee clutched his shoulder and fell on one knee.

  Then the fever was on him. He fired the next rounds without thinking about it. They were about halfway up and closing fast. Most of them had fired their muskets already, although a few rounds hissed over the trench here and there.

  The hammer clicked on an empty chamber. He set the hammer at half cock and reached into his ammunition pouch, grabbed the horn and quickly powdered up the cylinders. Looking out over the trench he saw that they were fifteen yards down, if that. “Keep firing,” he shouted at the men.

  He grabbed a handful of wads, dropping several, but that wasn’t unheard of. He shoved them into the cylinders, followed by the balls. He levered them in, one, two, three, then jammed the caps in place with his thumbnail. He looked up just a Yankee trooper gripped a tree branch and tried to haul himself over the top. Wade shot him in the chest.

  Around him the men rose from the trench to shoot down into the mass of men entangled amid the branches. A few of the Yankees made it to the top, only to be shot down or beaten back with clubbed guns. There was no time to reload. After a moment, the gunfire stopped, and all he could hear was the cries and shrieks of men, the thud and clatter of weapons.

  He found the highest spot he could to get above the fog of gunsmoke. To his left a Yankee grappled with one of his men, trying to pull away his carbine. Wade fired at him. The man pitched back into the mass trying to break through the branches.

  The abatis was holding . . . But there, to his right . . . The bluecoats had pulled apart the trees to create a gap. Two of them climbed through it, the man in the lead gripping the throat of the soldier at the edge of the trench.

  Wade dropped down into the trench and ran toward them, leaping over a man in butternut clutching a bloody arm. The Yankee soldier had been dragged back into the trench and was being beaten to the ground with musket butts. Behind him rose another, holding a gun tipped with a bayonet. Wade raised his pistol and fired. He wasn’t sure that he hit him, but the Yankee fell back all the same, brushing against another trooper who dropped out of sight.

  A shriek arose above the rumble of battle. Wade pulled himself to the lip of the trench. Below him, the fallen Yankee was impaled on one of the sharpened branches. Wade had a clear view of his face. He was clean-shaven, wearing glasses, his mouth gaping in agony.

  Wade lifted the pistol and fired. The smoke cleared, revealing that face still howling. He fired again, unable to control himself, and went on pulling the trigger until all he heard was clicking.

  Someone touched his arm. “He’s dead, sir.”

  Wade looked over at the man, not recognizing the face. He nodded wordlessly before finding any words to say. “Yes . . . yes, so he is.”

  He looked up the trenchline. Everything seemed to be holding together. No other breakthroughs or weak points that he could see. The Yankees . . . Well, what do you know . . . As he watched they began falling back. First the odd man, then in twos and threes, then whole masses of men turning to race back down the slope.

  He watched them go, pistol resting on his shoulder, glorying in the fierceness of his expression. He was about to call out to his men when a mass groan arose farther down the line.

  He looked to his right. The 3rd Arkansas had begun to collapse.

  Thorne shook his head as he saw that the attack was being thrown back. Beside him, Willis shouted and pointed. He shifted his gaze to the see blue-clad troops breaking through the nearest point of the Confederate line, on the slope stretching down to the road. He lifted the glasses, but could not keep them steady. He let them fall against his chest. He could see it clearly enough—the men in butternut had broken, half of them racing up the slope while the rest were overwhelmed by the federal troops.

  A sudden uproar drew his attention. To his right, a dozen or more of the infantry, Pennsylvanians from their tight jackets and chasseur trousers, had broken out and were racing toward the ridge, shouting to beat the devil. Their commander stood staring after them, mouth wide open.

  Thorne shook his head. Damn fools—it was over a thousand yards to that ridgetop; they’d never get there in time to do any good.<
br />
  He bit his lip as he regarded the unfolding fracas atop the ridge. But mounted men . . . Mounted men could.

  Without another thought he turned toward his men. “6th Indiana,” he shouted. Saddle up!”

  They gazed back at him for a moment before letting out a shout that drowned out the roar of battle, then broke for their horses. It took Thorne a moment to find his mount amid the brush. He swung himself into the saddle, checked his pistol and carbine, then trotted out into the open where the men were gathering. He swung his horse around to face them and was about to speak when someone gripped his arm.

  He turned to see the impeccably turned-out officer he had spoken to this morning.

  Wade raced down the slope toward the melee, not looking back to see if his men were following. He instinctively grabbed for his sword, clean forgetting that he’d left it with his horse. His mouth was open in a long wordless howl.

  He was lost in the fighting, surrounded by brawling men. He turned to wave his troops on. They roared past him, guns held high. He took a step forward. A man in blue was gaping at him. Wade shot him down where he stood.

  Two wild-looking figures in butternut tried to make their way past him toward the rear. He grabbed the nearest and shoved him into the other one. “Get your asses back there! Now!”

  A gun roared just behind him, nearly deafening him. He swung around. No shooter was evident, but there . . . Three steps away, a bluebelly was beating a man with his musket. Wade raised his gun and pulled the trigger. The Colt misfired. He clubbed the pistol and stepped toward the Yankee, but just then a butternut trooper appeared and ran him through with his bayonet. Wade recognized one of this own men.

  Someone barged into him, nearly knocking him off his feet. “Excuse me, sir,” a voice said.