Darkness at Chancellorsville

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by Ralph Peters


  The only matter pestering his conscience was his lack of eagerness to return to duty. He was obliged to return to the war the moment he felt himself capable. That was as clear as the Lord’s own admonitions. Yet he craved a little time apart from those dreadful seductions, the elation of blood-bought victories and the trap of earthly renown.

  He wished to go home.

  All his days, he had needed to be strong for himself and for others, and now he bore the weight of tens of thousands. And he was tired. He longed for a brief dispensation, for permission to be weak for a little while, to rely on the strength of others, on his esposa, to be caressed.

  He thought now that the Lord had chastised him not only for his pride, but for the sinful pleasure he took in war. Even in prayer, he had lied to the Lord about the ecstasy he’d come to crave, his lust to slay his enemies and the transfiguring joy he felt at a foe’s defeat.

  Joshua had done his duty, some of its biddings terrible, but he could not recall the Bible portraying Joshua as delighting in cruelties. Joshua was obedient to and fearful of the Lord, not jubilant amid massacre. His deeds might have brought him satisfaction at doing the work of the Lord, but not pleasure, never pleasure.

  He had sinned. And the Lord demanded repentance.

  If only he might have a little time, some weeks apart …

  They told him little of the battle’s course and that much only upon his insistence. He gathered that things had been going well but that matters were not yet resolved.

  They did not wish to excite him. They wished him to rest. But the rest he needed was not merely of the body.

  The body would heal, he was certain. The flesh was the slightest matter. Pain passed, as did pleasures. The body was a transient’s habitation.

  What was the difference between regret and repentance? How could a man be certain that his faith was true and pure, and not an attempt to bargain with the Lord, to bribe Him with hosannas?

  A cardinal, a male, perched on the windowsill, a perfect creature, vivid and wonderful.

  Yes, he was thankful to the Lord. For that flitting bird. For everything.

  With a quick knock, Dr. McGuire came into the room. The Chandlers had been generous, providing him with a little house apart, with privacy, while their own home ached with the suffering of the wounded.

  “You’re awake, sir?”

  “Resting. As ordered.”

  McGuire drew a chair to the bedside. “The pain in your side … it’s gone? You’re feeling better?”

  “Yes,” Jackson lied.

  * * *

  Robinson Crusoe. That’s who he’d damned well felt like. Robinson Crusoe, bereft even of his Friday. Nominally the chief of artillery for the Army of the Potomac, Brigadier General Henry Hunt had found himself in charge of just about nothing. Left behind to stew and fret and watch.

  In his reorganization of the army, Hooker had pushed not only the batteries but full control over them down to corps and even divisions, maintaining only a grudging army reserve. Hunt had warned him: In a crisis, there had to be one central authority able to shift guns around a battlefield without dickering with generals who didn’t want to release a single tube. Hooker hadn’t listened and paid the price.

  Hooker had even ordered him to remain north of the river. To keep him out of the way, to prevent him from interfering.

  Even so, Hunt had stayed busy, shifting batteries up and down the north bank as they were needed, in the saddle so constantly he’d lamed one horse and just about used up another.

  Oh, he’d gotten his authority back, returned to him in a panic, but too late. Hunt had foreseen what the Southern guns could do—even though his army had better artillerymen, better cannon, and better ammunition. All Hunt had been able to accomplish was to cover the last withdrawal from Fredericksburg and to shield the flight of Sedgwick’s corps from the lunatic mess into which Uncle John had led it.

  Now the rest of the army was retreating, with teamsters already crowding the three bridges and a general order issued for a withdrawal after dark—another development he’d anticipated. Indeed, Hunt already had over forty guns in position above and below the crossing site, prepared to protect the army as it returned.

  Still, the situation remained a disgraceful mess, and Hunt took it personally. He knew what his guns could have done, had he been trusted. Artillery, well-handled, could decide a battle before either side grasped that its fate had already been determined.

  Instead of supporting advances and repelling attacks, he’d been consigned to passivity and embarrassment.

  Henry Hunt swore that if ever he was allowed to employ his batteries and battalions as he saw fit, he’d show every last damned infantry officer what massed guns could do.

  * * *

  Again, the afternoon declined while his soldiers moved too slowly. As Lee watched the head of Anderson’s column pass by on a march barely begun, he fought an urge to dismount and shove the officers along.

  A courier had informed him that McLaws had closed on his new position at Chancellorsville, enabling Heth to join Stuart on the left. But Anderson had been slow yet again at gathering his command and starting his march.

  Anderson had excuses, of course. Everyone had excuses. And plans came to naught.

  Nor did the weather look promising.

  He had hoped to launch an attack on both of Hooker’s flanks by two p.m. Now the hands on his pocket watch neared four and it would be at least two more hours before Anderson was in place and set to attack.

  But attack they would. Lee didn’t care if it would be after midnight and dark as Hades. His army was going to strike. And Hooker and his army would be destroyed.

  Nothing was going to stop him.

  * * *

  George Meade continued to hope that Lee would attack while the army was still in place. If Lee proved fool enough to assault the heavily fortified lines, it might yet redeem the campaign, at least in part.

  His men waited. He waited. Nothing happened.

  Crowding in from the west, the clouds remained swollen. If they didn’t pass by, if it rained, the crossing was going to be a wretched affair.

  His corps had been ordered to serve as the rear guard. Meade understood the taunt, but if Joe Hooker had meant to punish him, it hadn’t worked. One corps or another had to bring up the rear, and Meade believed his men would give Lee a thrashing, should the old traitor interfere with the crossing.

  Those clouds, though …

  * * *

  Corporal Bill Smith had a presentiment. No more, really, than an unsettling feeling, it nonetheless worked on his nerves. He’d never believed in hocus-pocus doings before the war, but he’d seen too many deaths foretold to rule out the strangest things.

  He did not want to attack. Not this time.

  But the 12th Virginia stood in line, behind a parapet of earth and logs, waiting for the order to go forward.

  As they’d relieved the ragtags of Heth’s division, their fellow Virginians had warned them that the Yankees had built themselves a position that passed for a downright fortress, a line of defenses that promised the massacre of any hayseed idiots who approached it.

  Normally, Bill Smith allowed for a generous degree of exaggeration from his fellow soldiers, but this time he believed every word of warning.

  He did not want to go forward.

  But the mood was of inevitability. All that day, he had not seen one officer of rank who hadn’t gone mean as a water snake, and the junior officers just put one foot in front of the other, staying quiet.

  This was it, then. This was it.

  He found himself praying. Without thinking to do it, without deciding.

  He had the jumps, no question. His guts felt queasy and watery. He’d never been so shaken.

  Didn’t want to bust out crying, him wearing corporal’s stripes.

  Oh, Lord, oh, Jesus, please don’t. Just don’t. Please don’t.

  The clouds exploded with rain, as if a dam in Heaven had collapsed.<
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  * * *

  Lee waved off Taylor’s attempt to spread his oilskin cape across his shoulders. He preferred to let the deluge soak him through, rather than cower. The weather had played him a vicious trick, but he would spite the weather. His men would advance the moment the tempest ceased.

  The rain fell with a weight that threatened to bruise flesh. Still, Robert E. Lee’s expression never changed. Even though the world had gone dark and no man was positioned to see his face.

  Strength of character mattered. Even when no man saw it. Especially when no man saw it.

  The rain slashed in to blind him.

  Hurricanes in Mexico and Texan thunderstorms could not compare. Sheets of lightning bleached the sky and the heavens roared. The rain fell with force enough to knock down a child, to fell a woman. Fields became ponds, and ponds became lakes, and the world closed in and blackened to stop hearts. Then fingers of lightning, the broken bones of the universe, made men gasp again. Lee felt the primitive impulse to take shelter, it was almost overpowering, but he remained in the saddle, fiercely upright. He would not be moved. He would not be defeated. His will would not be weakened. This rain would cease and then he would attack.

  * * *

  Back in his bad years, Hooker had once passed out on the floor and a pair of sluts had overturned a tub of bathwater on him. He’d never known how heavy water could be, not until that rude, aquatic morning.

  This rain was harder, heavier. It threatened to play the devil with all of his plans. Already, the engineers had warned of a six-foot rise in the river, with worse to come. It seemed increasingly possible that the army would be cut off.

  Ordering Dan Butterfield to follow, the general commanding the Army of the Potomac led his escort to the bridges and hurried to safety on the northern bank.

  * * *

  Private Benjamin Farmer lay in the mud beside the others who’d suffered the gravest wounds. Rain punched his face, but he could not turn his head to keep the water from clogging his nose and forcing its way into his mouth and throat. He gagged. And he gagged again.

  He wanted to live.

  He yearned with heart and soul to rise from the slop, but his arms and legs no longer obeyed his commands. Men lying near cried out for help, but Farmer did not dare open his mouth, afraid of choking on the gush of water.

  Men cursed or called for their mothers. Others begged, “Help me,” over and over.

  And all of them waited.

  Water cascaded from the cabin’s roof and the wounded served as gutters. More water raced down a slope behind the shack, engulfing the patch of yard. All around, water pooled and rose, as if to float men off, but the mud held them fast where hurried hands had left them.

  Those who could sit up or at least incline on their elbows were blessed: They shivered and hoped.

  Benjamin Farmer could not rise an inch. And no one moved to help him. He wanted to be home, back in New York, warm within walls he knew. They could cut off his arms and legs, if only they sent him home.

  Surgeons had not been seen for hours and the orderlies had slipped away, after scouring the pockets of helpless men. Farmer had nothing of material value: He’d already been robbed as he lay on the battlefield.

  Still, a man in a bloody smock pocketed the picture of his sweetheart, sealed in a tin frame, the last of his possessions. Even the battlefield thieves had spared him that.

  Well, Clara would not have him now, it didn’t matter. What woman would ever want him? He would give her up, release her from her vows. If he could just live.

  His Clara faded, dismissed in his mother’s favor.

  Familiar walls beckoned again, the flowered wallpaper and a bright lamp on the table: home.

  I’ll be a good boy, Mother, I’ll be a good boy always. I’ll be such a good boy.…

  The gathering water reached his ears and continued rising steadily. Lips sealed, he prayed in wild fragments and broken words imagined.

  The water smoothed onto his cheeks. Then it lapped the corners of his mouth.

  He willed his body to rise, with all the might a man could ever muster. But nothing happened.

  Even now, he could not believe that he would not be rescued, that he could be abandoned to die like this.

  Wouldn’t anyone help him?

  The water closed over his mouth and flooded his nostrils.

  * * *

  Persuaded at last to take shelter, Lee turned to Marshall, to all of his gathered staff, and told them, “Prepare new orders for an attack in the morning.”

  * * *

  Gouverneur Warren finally located Hooker in a house on the north bank, a mile from the crossing site. Heavy with mud and soaked through despite his rubber cape, Warren felt an immense, almost unmanageable resentment upon finding Hooker dry and dozing before a fire, but there was no time to indulge in selfish emotions.

  Jostled by Dan Butterfield, Hooker opened his eyes.

  “We need to suspend the crossing,” Warren told him, dripping on a dirtied, poor-man’s rug. “The bridges are ready to tear loose, the water’s over their tops. They can’t take any more stress, the cables won’t hold.”

  “Well, do something. You’re the engineer.”

  Warren ignored Hooker’s tone, the implied insult. “The engineers are doing their best, they all know what’s at stake. But the crossings need to stop, at least for an hour or two. Until they can shore things up.” After a flush of doubt, Warren decided to explain the effort under way. “There’s no hope of maintaining all three bridges. We’re taking the weakest one down and using the pontoons and deck to extend the remaining two. It’s the only chance.”

  “We’d only have two bridges. The army needs three, it’s all been calculated.”

  Warren’s temper seeped into his voice. “The choice is two bridges, or no bridges. It’s been raining like this for, what, seven hours? Eight? The truth is no one can promise even two bridges that will hold. The river’s banks are collapsing. But those men out there in the rain are doing every goddamned thing they can.”

  Hooker stared at him. As if the rain and all else were Warren’s fault. Then the stare drooped to a vacancy.

  Butterfield stepped in, telling Warren, “We’ll signal Couch. If the damned torches will stay lit.” He looked down at Hooker, seated and gone distant. “Just a pause. Until the problem’s solved.”

  Butterfield made a discreet sign for Warren to leave.

  * * *

  Captain Bill Folwell felt the bridge give way beneath him. Losing his balance, he toppled toward the river, too startled to react. He fell between two barely tethered pontoons and smacked the water.

  The cold and the current hit him a double blow. Stronger than any muscle, the flood gripped him and pulled him away.

  By a miracle, he managed to grasp a rope. Hoping it was attached at the other end.

  Normally drowsy, the river had awakened to a rage. It took all of his strength just to cling to the line, he could not pull himself back toward the bridge.

  The current twisted his body and forced him under, into a heavy darkness, into panic. When he resurfaced, choking, torches dazzled his swamped eyes. He was closer to the bridge than he’d believed. Or the bridge had come to him.

  Barely audible in the tempest, a voice called:

  “Hang on, sir. Hang on, we’ll pull you in.”

  He gripped the rope to skin the flesh from his palms, hacking up water, fighting.

  The river wanted him.

  After the longest minute of his life, big hands grabbed his collar then clutched an arm. His soldiers, his engineers, hauled him out of the water, wary themselves of tumbling off the bridge but far more skilled at their labors than was Folwell.

  He coughed up more foul water.

  “You all right, sir?” one of his sergeants asked.

  He had no idea. He supposed so. He nodded.

  “Right, boys,” the sergeant said, “back to work.”

  Tarred against the rain’s onslaught, the tor
ches moved away, leaving a lantern to sputter on the planks. The rain fought to get at the tiny flame.

  Voice made quiet—as much as the storm allowed—the sergeant told him, “Captain, you’d best go back up on the bank now. And do what officers do.”

  Finding his voice, Folwell gasped, “I want to help. Times like this … everyone has to pitch in, even the officers. I … want to help.”

  “Well, sir,” the sergeant told him, “you’d help a great deal by not falling back in the river.”

  * * *

  To Meade’s astonishment, Couch had had yet another change of mind. As the senior general remaining south of the river, Couch was in command in Hooker’s absence. Voice raised against the rain, he repeated:

  “You were right, George. We needed to make a fight of it. I didn’t have my head attached last night.”

  “Well, we still can. That ‘pause’ in Joe’s signal, it’s going to last all night, I’d bet a gold piece. And when the morning comes—when Lee comes—we’ll still be here.”

  Cascades of water bent the shoulders of the two generals and forced down the heads of their horses. Neither man complained. And after ten hours of the deluge, a soldier just adjusted to the misery.

  “Three corps,” Couch mused. “That’s not bad. Mine, yours, Reynolds’.”

  “We could hold this bridgehead until doomsday. Warren laid out a line that’s close to perfect. A single corps could hold it. And with three … and the Johnnies slowed by the mud…”

  “Warren wants command of a corps, you know,” Couch commented.

  “If it were in my power, I’d give him one.”

  “All right. I’ll send a signal to Joe. Or try to. I swear to God, Judas Iscariot must have come back as a Signal officer. I’ll tell him that we mean to fight it out.” He snorted, loud as a horse. “Damned well won’t surrender, that’s for certain.”

 

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