by Ralph Peters
“Hard part’s going to be holding the center, General. Even with that church there and the rifle pits, it’s wide open, no meat on that bone. And the Yankees got plenty of fat to throw in the pan.”
“Just hold the shoulders, gentlemen. Any Yankees push through that gap, we’ll close in behind ’em once the others run off.” He smiled again and looked around at faces that shone with sweat. “Unless you object to taking a herd of prisoners.”
“No, sir. Never did have no objection to that.”
Wilcox released his colonels to see to their men. He was confident he could give the Yankees a time of it. But he knew he couldn’t hold forever, not once the Yankees cottoned to the trick and brought up more men.
It was all about that gay deceiver, time.
His life had not been a bad one. More fair things than foul. But he never had witnessed a miracle. Until that minute.
A small party of horsemen cantered up from the rear, banners trailing. As they closed on the hillock that hosted the church and his guns, Wilcox spotted the bearded bulk of McLaws. He waved to show his position.
A big man fond of his vittles, McLaws swung his bulk from his horse to punish the earth. Sweat-sheathed and grinning, he tugged off his riding gloves and whewed at the heat.
“Now what the devil you been up to, Cadmus? I hear you been having yourself a party and didn’t send me an invite. So I came anyway.”
“Invitation must have gone astray. How far back are your men, sir?”
McLaws gestured rearward. “See ’em any minute.”
“If I may ask a favor, sir … do what you can to keep them out of sight, hold them back of the woods. Extend the flanks on both sides, but lay low and no flags up. Let the Yankees run into a fine surprise.” Wilcox caught himself: McLaws outranked him, it was his fight now. “Not trying to tell you how to suck eggs, General,” he added. “I’m under your orders.”
McLaws reinforced a grin that had welcomed many a chicken and ham in its time. “Good old Cadmus … no, brother Cad, this is your fight, you know the ground. Consider me under your orders. And let’s whip us some blue-bellies.”
* * *
Thought it was over. Thought it was dogged out and done. Thought it was all wrapped up with a bow atop it.
Now this. Sweating like a pig in an overcoat. Rushing back over all-too-familiar fields because there wasn’t enough road to go around, not just marching but nigh on to running, with General McLaws shouting orders to Little Billy, and Mahone, all sass and lightning, passing them on to Lieutenant Colonel Feild and the jump-to-it others.
Cannon pounded up ahead. Not many, but enough.
Only a few hours earlier they’d been cheering Robert E. Lee and victory, certain the 12th Virginia and its neighbors had earned a respite after the morning’s fuss. Now Bill Smith and his messmates knew plain as day and dark as night that their troubles weren’t over.
At least his comrades were too heat-burdened to resume their teasing that all of this was his fault, that if he hadn’t built a bridge just for the Yankees, they wouldn’t have come calling this-away. It wasn’t true, every man knew it. But it stung.
Just ate at him like termites under the porch, knowing that his work served filthy Yankees.
Heat had him on the verge of the dizzies, too, but he would not falter.
Little Billy himself came trotting along, the biggest little man in Confederate gray, with a beard fit to tickle the ground when he took him a squat.
“I don’t want any cheering,” Little Billy called, voice bigger than his chest. “I want doing, not hollering. Y’all move right along and go where you’re told, you step out now. Don’t want to hear any jabbering. Let your rifles talk. Now you step out.”
He rode on to the next regiment.
“Don’t mean it in an insulting way,” John Wagoner said, “but that man is the downright meanest underfed rat-terrier I ever saw.”
“You ain’t seen his wife,” a voice declared.
* * *
“Go for them, Upton!” General Bartlett ordered. “I can’t wait for the others to form, the Rebs are already running, their artillery’s pulling off. Guide left of the road, left of that church, clear them out of the trees. I’ll send these slow-bottomed sonsofbitches forward as soon as I can, you’ll be supported.”
Emory Upton’s 121st New York had all but finished deploying into line, its well-drilled movements precise and, to the colonel, beautiful.
“Yes, sir,” was all he said. His salute was practiced and perfect.
He felt unleashed. Before Bartlett could add another word, the colonel bellowed:
“Regimennnt!”
Company captains repeated the command.
“Fowarrrrd…”
Another echo.
“March!”
He ordered his staff to dismount but remained in the saddle himself and drew his sword.
Upton had left West Point as an artilleryman, and he’d found gunnery enjoyable, the admixture of mathematics and inspiration. But nothing rivaled the thrill of men by the hundreds responding at once to his voice. And promotions were far swifter in the infantry—he’d leapt from captain to colonel at one stroke. Upton intended to end the war as a major general.
He guided his mount to the center of the regiment’s first line, calling:
“Officers, guide your companies on me.”
He fixed his attention ahead, on his probing skirmishers, as they covered the last open stretch to the wood line. Another hundred paces and those men would face a volley, he was certain.
Just to his left, the regiment’s colors sagged in motionless air. But the blue lines that stretched out to the flanks were as polished in their movements as if on parade. Their uniforms were dusty, but his men bore themselves as soldiers.
He was glad of Bartlett’s order to advance straight on and to do it without delay. For troops who’d never seen the elephant, simplicity was best.
The boldest skirmishers passed the mark where Upton had expected the first volley. The Reb’s own skirmishers had long since disappeared.
Were they running?
Don’t assume.
Be ready.
The foremost skirmishers had almost reached the wood line.
He still expected a volley.
None came.
Upton sensed the high nerves of the skirmishers as they eased into the brush, slowing like watches running down. Delaying. Wary. Eager for the regiment to close the distance between them, to offer a fictive safety.
Upton glanced back over his horse’s rump. To his right rear, the 23rd New Jersey appeared ready to step off.
A few shots cracked through the trees. Just enough firing, Upton realized, to slow his skirmishers further. He was tempted to gallop forward and order them to drive hard into the woods. But he had a regiment to lead, he had to maintain control. And all discipline began with self-discipline.
He did not pray. Not now. But he had prayed mightily the night before and again in the morning. Now the day’s result was up to the Lord, whose reasons were beyond men’s comprehension.
If he were to fall—he did not believe he would—his soul was clean and his cause had been noble and just.
Surely the Lord wished all men who might heed the call of Christ to be free of bondage, no matter their color. When he had studied at Oberlin College, preparing himself for West Point, had there been any difference between the white students and the Negroes who read and worked problems beside them? Only, perhaps, that the coloreds took greater pains to be neatly dressed, even when threadbare, and to sit upright and demonstrate good manners. Were they meant to live in shackles? Men and even women versed in Latin and trigonometry? How could an entire race, in all its mortal variety, be subjected to slavery by Christians?
His front rank neared the tree line, the bafflingly innocent grove.
“Colorrrrs … trail,” he ordered. He wanted only rifles to the fore.
The skirmishers had barely penetrated fifty yards into t
he trees, their jagged line detectable despite the foliage.
Upton’s horse neighed and balked. He applied the spurs and the beast plunged into the thickets.
As his men battled briars and low-hanging limbs, officers and sergeants urged them forward, touching backs with the flats of swords or using a well-judged fist when necessary. The noise of their progress, of man against nature, warned all Creation: The regiment sounded like cows spooked in the canebrake.
Upton peered ahead, into the tree gloom. Thorns cut the oiled leather of his boots and vines snaked over his stirrups. The air stank of condensed heat.
“Forward … steady the lines … forward…”
He glimpsed the end of the grove ahead, a golden glow. Jacob’s ladders of sunlight dusted the greenery.
The shock of the Reb volley, the blaze, made the forest quiver. Men cried out. Upton’s horse revolted, squirting blood.
He jumped clear. Thumping against the trunk of a tree, he felt a bolt of pain. His horse collapsed at his feet. Ordering a private to save his saddle, he collected his sword and drew out his revolver.
“Fix bayonets!”
His men obeyed. Steel grated on steel.
“At the double-quick … forward … charge!”
Sword in his right hand, Colt in the left, Upton led the way, undaunted by a second volley unleashed almost in his face. With a hurrah, his men dashed for the Rebs, their bravery heedless, surprising. It was hard to keep up.
“Officers … forward, forward!”
He heard cheers—Union cheers—to his right. That would be the fight for the church, he figured. The New Jersey line had not been slowed by undergrowth, they’d faced open ground and had all but overtaken him.
But they were not going to overtake him.
As he emerged from the trees, face stinging, dozens of his men were out ahead of him, pursuing fleeing Confederates.
Well-trained, his company officers forced the men back into ranks and chased the Rebels with volleys.
“Re-form! Colors up! Re-form!”
It had not been three full minutes since that first volley in the woods. That quickly, things turned again.
From the right he heard a rising Rebel yell. Seconds later, a powerful volley tore into his men from the left. Instinctively, the soldiers drew together into packs, only making them into easier targets.
Untroubled by the bullets ripping and striking, Upton strode among his confused soldiers.
“Officers … form your companies, form your companies…”
To their credit, his officers tried. But his men were falling, spurting blood, clutching heads, shoulders, thighs, bending double, shedding scraps of blue cloth, bone, and red meat.
As another volley struck from the left, a swarm of Rebs, demonic, appeared on the right, charging into his flank.
Bullets dropped his soldiers so quickly the sight briefly paralyzed Upton.
Breakaway New Jersey men fled before the gray swarm, unnerved, undone and screaming at Upton’s soldiers, “Run, you damned fools!”
His soldiers wavered. Officers looked toward him.
He saw the soon-to-be-inevitable.
“Withdraw. By company. Withdraw!”
Men bolted back into the woods before their officers could obstruct them. Following after, Upton found soldiers standing dumbfounded amid the undergrowth.
Bullets tore off leaves and smacked into tree trunks. Rebs screamed like harpies, touching close.
“Go! Just go! Get through the trees, re-form on the other side!”
He pushed ahead himself, intending to intercept his men in the open, to rally them. But soldiers accustomed to marching were swifter than a man used to riding a horse.
The Rebs continued to fire into their backs.
When Upton’s men regained the shape of a regiment, the 121st had lost over half its 450 officers and men. In seven minutes.
Emory Upton wasn’t the sort to weep. But the trained artilleryman did resolve that he would never again lead a frontal attack in regimental lines, nor would he heed advice from “veteran” officers, the sort of men who had assured him that this was how things were done.
As he wiped his sweat and other men’s blood from his forehead, Emory Upton made the drastic decision to think for himself.
* * *
Corporal Bill Smith knew he should give thanks, but he couldn’t help feeling resentment. All that step-out marching had gotten them to the fight five minutes ahead of a bushel of nothing. Whipped with a big gray strap over by the road, the Yankees hardly fussed with the 12th Virginia—except for stray rounds and one timid advance swiftly reversed, a fellow might not have known blue-bellies were present. Smith and his comrades just waited in a ditch behind a hedge, doing their best to avoid the poison ivy extending its tentacles. It put everyone in mind of a sergeant of theirs who’d been able to roll up poison ivy leaves and eat them, but he’d been killed a time back by the typhoid.
If one thing didn’t do a man in, another something lurked. Smith knew soldiers who’d decided that they were as good as dead and acted accordingly, light-stepping past the troubles of the day and sleeping soundly. But Smith had taken a liking to being alive.
Billy Mahone came along on foot, the size of a boy still years from his first shave, dispensing orders to colonels and cursing like a bargeman run aground.
Beyond the preacher-curdling epithets, Smith heard only “should have” and “tomorrow.”
* * *
“What now?”
“Pardon, sir?”
Sedgwick grumped his face and said, “Nothing. Just muttering like some old fool.”
“The orders are out,” his chief of staff continued. “Can’t defend the penmanship, but it’s legible and the meaning’s clear enough.”
Sedgwick hardly listened. The day had been nothing but a succession of damned-fool mistakes by everyone in a blue uniform, with himself atop the list of malefactors. First, he’d delayed to bring up Brooks’ division. Then he’d encouraged Brooks to drive forward, to strike the Rebs and not wait for the other divisions to come on line. Then Brooks had sent his own brigades in piecemeal, with the brigade commanders only making things worse. It was as if every officer in the corps had taken laudanum. Or gotten stone drunk. It was an excellent corps, but today its performance had been abysmal, if brave.
Hooker wasn’t guiltless, either. Not by a country mile. Joe certainly hadn’t kept Lee occupied, let alone come to the Sixth Corps’ support. His men hadn’t faced Reb scraps at that church, but ready divisions.
All Joe’s grand planning and bluster, all the marching and jockeying, had left Lee with interior lines and the Sixth Corps isolated from the army.
Uncle John Sedgwick had no doubt as to what Lee would do in the morning. He’d “entertain” Joe while bringing a crushing weight to bear on the Sixth Corps, bent on destroying it entirely.
So much for grinding Lee between two millstones.
The sole bright spot—and there wasn’t much shine to it—was that Banks’ Ford was open to him now. Should he be forced to withdraw, he would not have to pull back to Fredericksburg first.
He had sent successive messages to Joe, asking for further orders. In the meantime, with Lee breathing death in his face, his immediate priorities were clear: Prepare the corps to repel the next day’s inevitable attack, and hold on to Banks’ Ford at any cost.
Turning to his waiting chief of staff, Sedgwick said:
“I feel like I’ve been shit on by a sick dog.”
* * *
Tomorrow. He would destroy them tomorrow, annihilate their Sixth Corps. He would strike them with Early’s regathered division, with McLaws and Anderson. His men would cut them off from Fredericksburg then from the local fords, trapping them in their thousands and their pride. Sedgwick could take his choice: surrender or perish.
An entire Union corps erased at one stroke. It would not be a poor result, but a fair consolation for this day’s disappointment, for his inability to renew t
he attack north of the crossroads and drive Hooker’s legions back into the river, to complete his task and, perhaps, finish the war.
And should he fail to recross the Rappahannock with good speed, Joseph Hooker himself, a barking scoundrel, would not go unchastised. After concluding the business with Sedgwick, he would turn back to a reckoning with Hooker, a whoremonger and drunkard. Surely the Lord would overthrow such a man.
Robert E. Lee only wished Jackson were with him.
* * *
He dreamed as if under opium, pressed into the blanket by cascading visions, by impossible combinations of people and places, by time ruptured and disordered.
He wished to awaken, to rise. But inner flames, white flames, scourged and scorched his skull. His brain felt too big for the encompassing bone, throbbing to burst through its shell.
Joseph Hooker plunged back toward the darkness.
“No!” he cried, warding off a bygone menace. “Don’t! No!”
A hand gripped his shoulder.
“What is it, Joe? What’s wrong?”
He couldn’t answer. He did not know what was wrong. He must get up. The cot was a trap, a witch’s cauldron in which he was drowning. He had to save the army.
Time bent again. He lay on a blanket in the open air. They brought him brandy.
“No!”
He fell back into taunting fantasies. The woman. So beautiful. Her. Turning away. Exquisite.…
His eyelids had the weight of marble slabs.
Scarlet flowers. His mother, mute. A torchlight parade. A bell. His farm, the withered crops. Hounding bankers. Eager whores. A trumpet.
“Water.”
His army.
* * *
“No,” Couch said. “I can’t assume full command, that would be mutiny. He just needs rest, you heard the surgeon yourself. He was perfectly lucid an hour ago, on his feet much of the day.”
That was an exaggeration. Both men knew it. But Couch did not want responsibility for the army, not now.
Van Alen’s lamp-lit face was too worn for emotion.