The Day After Gettysburg

by Robert Conroy

They had been called together just after dawn, all the mounted troops. A cavalry colonel—an odd-looking fellow who seemed more like a Mexican or a Chinese than anything else in Thorne’s experience—had ridden amongst them, barking the orders of the day.

  “You are to pursue the Rebel army and harass it . . . Every available unit. Every last horse, every last trooper . . . Follow them, harry them, tear at them . . . Avoid full-scale battles . . . The Rebels are not to reach the Potomac as a coherent, organized force.”

  He paused at last to gesture at the still-blazing ruins of Harrisburg. “You see what those animals did to an American city . . .” He eyed it for a moment, and then turned back to them. “From here to Richmond, the only good Rebel is a dead Rebel.”

  The rest of them had cheered.

  He heard more of the like from up ahead. After a moment, a group of farmers came into sight. They were holding shotguns and standing over a dead butternut as if he was a prize buck. The infantry was waving their caps as they marched past.

  Thorne looked around to see what Willis made of it, but couldn’t find him. They’d argued earlier this morning, when Archie had told him he didn’t think that horseman had trampled the Ohio trooper deliberately.

  He rode on, dozing now and again. He straightened up as he heard more shouting ahead. A group of men were seated atop a fence, calling out to the passing troops. They were well into Maryland by now—Copperhead country.

  “You boys slow down now. You don’t want to catch up with Bobby Lee,” a fat man was shouting. “End up just like the last time . . .”

  His friends were laughing and egging him on. That ceased as a half-dozen soldiers broke from the road toward them. The one in the lead knocked the fat man off the fence with a swing of his musket butt. The other troops hauled the rest of them off their perches and began working them over.

  The troops started cheering. Thorne turned his head and rode on.

  After a moment he shook himself, then raised a hand and sped up to a quick trot. Lee’s army wasn’t that far ahead.

  “Close it up,” Wade called out. “let’s get those horses moving.”

  The artillery teamsters gave him dirty looks, but did what they were told. Nobody wanted to be caught by the Yankees, much as he doubted they were in any shape for pursuit after what had happened at Harrisburg.

  He’d set out this morning to sweep the eastern flank of the line of march, but instead had been ordered to help pull together the army, which was strung out for miles. It wasn’t easy.

  There was a lot of defeatism in this army. A swift change in fortunes would do that. Many of the men still had not gotten over what had occurred in Harrisburg yesterday. Wade could understand that, but all the same, if the Army of Northern Virginia was apt to give up after a setback, they’d have never made it as far as Bull Run.

  He noticed a group of horsemen approaching with that particular air of command. Yep—it was General Porter Alexander, completing his inspection of the guns. Wade saluted sharply as they rode past. He didn’t look worried.

  He thought of Longstreet and a pang of emotion gripped him, half regret, half gratitude. He wondered where the general was now, and what had befallen him. But they still had General Lee, and any army that had that man was, in Wade’s book, well-nigh invincible.

  He spurred his horse and rode on. “Come on now—close it up . . .”

  Thorne didn’t lay eyes on a single person as they rode through Frederick. Perhaps they’d sensed the mood of the army, or, more likely, they’d heard what had happened to Harrisburg.

  They were only a short distance beyond town when a scout appeared, riding hard. He came to a halt before Thorne. It took him a moment to catch his breath, as if it had been he and not the horse who had been galloping. “. . . Rebel column, about three miles on.”

  Thorne led the regiment down the road at a near gallop. They had gone about two miles when they were diverted off the highway to a farmer’s track. Thorne was assured that it ran parallel to the highway for at least five miles.

  A little way in, they passed a wagon stacked high with ammunition boxes and towing what looked like a couple of pieces of equipment torn right off the counter of a general store.

  “What the hell are those?” a trooper asked.

  “Ager guns,” the officer riding next to the wagon told him.

  “How do they work?”

  “They work real good.”

  Only a short distance past that, a soldier waved them toward a copse of trees with a lot of horses within it. The soldiers tending them gestured for quiet as they rode in. One pointed to a ridge a few hundred yards to the west. “Highway’s just past there.”

  “Rebels?”

  “Aplenty, sir.”

  The wagon with those strange coffee-grinder shaped guns pulled in as Thorne led the men to the ridge. “How many ammunition boxes do we take?” a corporal asked the officer.

  “All of ’em.”

  The corporal nodded and turned to a group of soldiers marching in. “Spare privates, come unto me.”

  Thorne made his way to the ridge and climbed to the top. There were already a few troops present. Thorne went past them for a look through the brush, thin and faded this late in the season. There was the highway, there were the butternuts, and there were as many guns as he’d ever seen in one place, trundling slowly down the road.

  A group of officers sat together on the rear side of ridge. Thorne went over to join them.

  “Gentlemen,” a luxuriantly whiskered officer was saying. “I know that we’re all the same rank, but I am regular army, so it seems to me that implies seniority . . .”

  “I don’t give a shit about that,” Thorne told him.

  The officer opened his mouth to respond, but then looked him over and thought better of it. The other officers glanced toward him and shifted uncomfortably.

  “I’m taking my men to cut off the head of this artillery column. Don’t any of you open fire until I do.”

  They looked between themselves but said nothing. Thorne turned away without another word.

  He descended the ridge to find that Willis had gathered the men together. Thorne nodded to him. “All right,” he told the men. “We’re heading down this ridge. Emmet and Kellogg, I want you to climb up there and tell me when you spot the front of the Reb column.” He started to turn and paused halfway. “Make sure your guns aren’t loaded.”

  As they started off, he noticed that the peculiar guns were already well ahead of them, trailing a train of soldiers burdened down with ammunition cases. Thorne had no idea how they’d ever fire that many rounds. In a few moments they had caught up with them. Thorne said nothing as they passed.

  They went through several copses of trees and across one creek before he saw Emmet waving to them. He quickly climbed the ridge. Looking over the crest, he saw the first caisson of the column approaching, followed by several cannon.

  He backed away. “Sharpshooters,” he whispered. As the word passed he spotted the gun crew pulling their weapon up a shallow slope of the ridge.

  “Sir.” The German sergeant saluted him. He had two men with him, both armed with rifles. They seemed to defer to Bauer as if he was some kind of prophet. “These two, very good.”

  “Excellent.” He gestured them to the crest. “Now—I want you to knock down the lead horses.”

  “Ja.”

  “Then wait until the next one tries to get around . . .”

  “And shoot them too. Block them off.”

  “That’s right.” The far side of the highway was rough ground, gullied and scattered with rocks. He doubted anyone could get a wagon across it. “Then start on the officers. Anybody wearing gray.”

  Bauer nodded and turned to the two men. “We’ve got it, Otto,” the older man said, not even sparing a glance for Thorne.

  He left them to finish preparing and went to crouch beside Willis. “We’re going in. As soon as the highway is blocked. Leave only a platoon up here to secure the ridge.”<
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  Willis nodded. Thorne looked back down at the highway. There was at least a regiment of Rebels in sight, both horse and foot, with perhaps a full division within easy supporting distance. He hesitated. “Archie, why don’t you stay up here on the ridge? You don’t have to . . .”

  “You’re talking nonsense, Steve.”

  Thorne opened his mouth to speak again. Willis raised a hand. “No.”

  Thorne nodded at last in response. Willis smiled and went to give the men their orders.

  Wade rode to a low knoll and looked things over. The line of march was sloppy, but much better than it had been. They’d closed it up considerably since this morning. That was about as much as could be expected, under the circumstances.

  He ran his eyes across the ridge that overlooked the highway. Next on the list was riding out to check that flank. He had an uncomfortable feeling that nobody was covering that side of the highway. He could see that the ridge dipped about a mile or so ahead. He’d take the regiment over and ride a few miles north, just to be sure.

  Spurring the horse back to level ground, he set out to look for Mayfield.

  Thorne was thinking about that sash that Cassie was sewing for him. He wished he’d had a chance to wear it at least once. He wished he was wearing it now.

  He looked around him. The men were quiet. A few of them were leafing through their Bibles, others were looking at pictures. Most of them simply stared expressionlessly into space, lost in reverie. They knew the odds. They knew full well what was waiting down there.

  Below him, the lead wagon, pulled by four horses, had just come level to them. He glanced to where Sergeant Bauer crouched with his rifle over one knee. The wagon began pulling ahead. He turned to Bauer just in time to see the rifle rise and speak in one smooth motion, as if he’d practiced this shot a hundred times.

  The lead horse collapsed. The other three began flailing wildly, neighing and leaping on their hind legs, hopelessly tangling the harness. The driver rose, frantically yanking at the reins.

  For a moment that was all. The other wagons and guns continued onward as if nothing had happened. Then all at once, every man down there, teamsters, soldiers, and officers, turned to look up the at the ridge. So compelling was their gaze that Thorne involuntarily took a step back.

  “Hyah!”

  The third wagon pulled out onto the grassy edge of the road as the driver harshly clapped the reins. A moment later, the second wagon made the same move, turning directly into the path of the third. The third wagon’s horses collided with the rear of the wagon ahead, collapsing into a shrieking mass.

  The driver of the second wagon didn’t even look back. He kept clapping his reins right up to the moment that Bauer shot his lead horse down.

  The road was now well and truly blocked. Thorne turned to the other two sharpshooters. “The officers . . .” he said, his voice harsh. They opened fire even as he spoke.

  An officer on horseback riding toward the disabled wagons suddenly jerked erect and fell from his horse. Another, wearing a gray caped greatcoat, was pulling back on the reins when he was hit. He slumped over the neck of his horse.

  “Good,” Thorne whispered. Up and down the highway, butternut troops were firing wildly at the ridge at targets they couldn’t see. The Union troops began cutting them down.

  Below him the Rebels were retreating behind the wagons and caissons. A few, realizing that many of them were filled with barrels of black powder, kept going, to vanish into the brush on the far side. Thorne wondered how long the rest would remain.

  He pulled out his Colt and lifted it high. Around him he sensed the men rising from the brush. He tried to bring Cassie’s face to mind. He failed. He paused to concentrate, but with a roar, the Indianans carried him down the slope.

  Wade had just gotten the men organized when the first shot rang out. For a moment he couldn’t figure out where it had come from, but then a disturbance up at the front of the column caught his eye. He watched two wagons pull out, collide, and come to a halt as more gunshots sounded.

  “Yankees,” someone shouted.

  “None other,” Wade said. He raised a hand to urge the Volunteers on and was turning to shout orders when there was massive thump against his chest. The next moment he was falling.

  ★ ★ ★

  Thorne nearly lost his balance as he reached level ground. He stumbled a few feet from the slope toward the second wagon that Bauer had stopped. The canvas in the back was loose and he could see that it was loaded with cannon balls.

  A figure moved behind it. He opened fire at the same moment as the men around him. The Rebel dropped.

  He waved toward the rest of the wagons but the men were already running in that direction. He saw the Rebels breaking, racing for the brush on the other side, some of them going so far as to toss their muskets aside. The men continued firing at them. He saw several drop, shot in the back.

  “That’s for Harrisburg, you sons of bitches . . .”

  He opened his mouth to tell them to cease fire, but he couldn’t find his voice. Best to ignore it. Ignore it, and it would end eventually. He could think of no other way to get through this. To get to the end, to the other side where none of this would be happening any longer. If such a thing as another side existed.

  He could see soldiers in blue attacking all the way up the column. He took a few steps in that direction. His eyes fell on a pair of cannon being dragged in a circle by a pair of terrified horses. “The guns,” he called out. “The guns . . . cut the horse’s tackle . . . Turn the cannon over. Find some axes. Smash the wheels . . .”

  Knock out the guns. That was important thing. Every one lost now was one less that Lee would have later. Thorne knew that Grant would be arriving with the main column, but he had no idea how soon that would be. One thing he was sure of was that the Rebels would counterattack well before then, and in numbers they would not be able to withstand. The Rebs had better find their guns wrecked.

  Around him the men began hammering and chopping at the cannon wheels. He could see troops in blue doing the same thing up the highway. It looked as if some of them were setting the caissons ablaze as well. He was about to turn away when he spotted a mass of men, butternut and gray, emerging from behind a curve in the road farther up. The yell they gave out sounded as loud as the trump of doom.

  It took a moment for Wade to pull himself together. He was sitting with his back against a wagon wheel. He looked around him. A man in gray was lying only a few feet away, his face half turned, and it took a second glance for him to see that it was Cummins, from Murfreesboro. Cummins was a good fellow. Never complained, always carried out his orders.

  He tried to gather his feet beneath him, but that got him nowhere. He grimaced against the metallic taste that filled his mouth, the leaden feeling in his chest. He looked down to find that the front of his jacket was soaked with blood. Someone had unbuttoned it and shoved in some bandages, but they didn’t seem to be doing much. It looked bad. It looked very bad.

  He rested his head against the spokes, his mind a blank. At last he scrabbled at his waist, finding the chain and pulling out the watch. He opened it up and gazed at the picture within. He favored his mother. That’s what everyone had always said.

  He reached into his case and drew out the inkbottle, his pen, and then the writing pad. He kept them well away from his chest so they wouldn’t get stained. There were things that she should know, about how it had gone with him. That Robert E. Lee had praised him. That James Longstreet had said he was a good soldier.

  He set the bottle down, got it open and carefully dipped the pen inside. Gunfire had broken out again at some unnoticed moment, making it hard to think. He let his head drop back. He would rest a little while, and then the words would come.

  Thorne got the men moving back toward the ridge. The other units were doing the same all up and down the road, stopping to fire as they clambered back up the ridgeline. The Rebels kept on coming, as implacable as the tide.

/>   Thorne looked around. Twenty yards away a trooper was trying to set a caisson ablaze. He lit it, ran off a few steps, then halted and ran back, flicking another locofoco and sticking it into the straw piled beneath the caisson. Thorne was about to call to him when Willis appeared.

  “Start the men back up the ridge.”

  Willis nodded and ran off shouting to the men. Another howl from the Rebels drew Thorne’s attention. They were climbing the ridge in pursuit of the Union troops. He could see men falling as they were shot, a few hand-to-hand affrays at the ridgeline. The rest of them kept on coming.

  The men were all headed toward the ridge. He followed them. That caisson had apparently caught—he could hear the hiss of burning powder.

  At the foot of the ridge he came to a halt. “Indianans, to me . . . . Load up and stand ready.” He checked his Colt and quickly reloaded three cylinders. When he looked up the Rebels were a lot closer. At least they were moving too fast to do any accurate shooting.

  They were well within range. “All right,” he shouted. “Let’s give ’em something to think about.” He levelled the pistol. “Fire!”

  Around him, the muskets roared. A few of the front rank of butternuts fell. Not enough, of course, but he hadn’t been expecting that.

  “Let’s go,” he said to the men. They started up the slope. Once up there, they’d give the Rebs another round, then descend the other side and go straight for the horses. Leave a rear guard to slow the Rebs down. Pick them up with the horses and then head north for the main column and . . .

  He was turning to the slope when a godawful hammering started. It sparked a sense of recognition, as if it was something he’d heard once before, though he couldn’t recall where. It was loud and relentless, a hellish sound, like a dozen devils pounding on anvils. He turned to look for the source, but his gaze became fixed on the enemy troops.

  The Rebel soldiers were . . . melting. That was the only word he could think of. The entire front rank was falling, not one after the other, but in a single wave that seemed to move steadily along the line. Infantry, cavalry, horses, all collapsed soundlessly as the earth around them exploded in small bursts. Thorne gaped at the sight without a thought in his head, unable to grasp what it was he was seeing.