The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War

by Michael Shaara

  Longstreet backed off. The white head bent down over the papers. Longstreet stood there. All his life he had taken orders and he knew the necessity for command and the old man in front of him was the finest commander he had ever known. Longstreet looked around at the faces. The gentlemen were chatting, telling lively funny stories. Out in the smoky night a band was mounting another song. Too many people, too much noise. He backed out the door. Come back later. In the night, later, when the old man is alone, we will have to talk.

  He moved out into the crowd, head down, mounted his horse. Someone pulled his arm. He glared: Marshall, red-faced, waving papers, cheeks hot with rage.

  “General Longstreet! Sir. Will you talk to him?”

  “Who? What about?”

  “I’ve prepared court-martial papers for General Stuart. General Lee will not sign them.”

  Longstreet grimaced. Of course not. But not my problem. Marshall held the reins. He was standing close by and the men nearby were backed off in deference and had not heard him. Longstreet said, “When did he finally get back?”

  “This evening.” Marshall, with effort, was keeping his voice down. “He was joyriding. For the fun of it. He captured about a hundred enemy wagons. And left us blind in enemy country. Criminal, absolutely criminal. Several of us have agreed to ask for court-martial, but General Lee says he will not discuss it at this time.”

  Longstreet shrugged.

  “General. If there is not some discipline in this army … there are good men dead, sir.” Marshall struggled. Longstreet saw a man closing in. Fat man with a full beard. Familiar face: a Richmond reporter. Yes, a theorist on war. A man with a silvery vest and many opinions. He came, notebook in hand. Longstreet itched to move, but Marshall held.

  “I’d like your opinion, sir. You are the second-ranking officer in this army. Do you believe that these court-martial papers should be signed?”

  Longstreet paused. Men were closing in, yelling more congratulations. Longstreet nodded once, deliberately.

  “I do,” he said.

  “Will you talk to General Lee?”

  “I will.” Longstreet gathered the reins. Men were close enough now to hear, were staring up at him. “But you know, Marshall, it won’t do any good.”

  “We can try, sir.”

  “Right.” Longstreet touched his cap. “We can at least do that.”

  He spurred toward the cool dark. They opened to let him pass. Hats were off; they were cheering. He rode head down toward the silent road. He was amazed at the air of victory. He thought: Got so that whenever they fight they assume there’s victory that night. Face of Goree. They can’t blame General Lee, not no more. But there was no victory today. So very close, the old man said. And yet it was not a loss. And Longstreet knew that Lee would attack in the morning. He would never quit the field. Not with the Union Army holding the field. Three Union corps on the hills above. Lee will attack.

  Longstreet stopped, in darkness, looked back toward the light. A voice was calling. Longstreet turned to ride on, and then the voice registered and he looked back: a grinning Fremantle, hat held high like cloth on the arm of a scarecrow, bony, ridiculous. He looked like an illustration Longstreet had once seen of Ichabod Crane.

  “Good evening, sir! My compliments, sir! Marvelous evening, what? Extraordinary! May I say, sir, that I observed your charge this afternoon, and I was inspired, sir, inspired. Strordnry, sir, a general officer at the front of the line. One’s heart leaps. One’s hat is off to you, sir.” He executed a vast swirling bow, nearly falling from the horse, arose grinning, mouth a half moon of cheery teeth. Longstreet smiled.

  “Will you take my hand, sir, in honor of your great victory?”

  Longstreet took the limp palm, knowing the effort it cost the Englishman, who thought handshaking unnatural. “Victory?” Longstreet said.

  “General Lee is the soldier of the age, the soldier of the age.” Fremantle radiated approval like a tattered star, but he did it with such cool and delicate grace that there was nothing unnatural about it, nothing fawning or flattering. He babbled a charming hero-worship, one gentleman to another. Longstreet, who had never learned the art of compliment, admired it.

  “May I ride along with you, sir?”

  “Course.”

  “I do not wish to intrude upon your thoughts and schemes.”

  “No problem.”

  “I observed you with General Lee. I would imagine that there are weighty technical matters that occupy your mind.”

  Longstreet shrugged. Fremantle rode along beamily chatting. He remarked that he had watched General Lee during much of the engagement that day and that the General rarely sent messages. Longstreet explained that Lee usually gave the orders and then let his boys alone to do the job. Fremantle returned to awe. “The soldier of the age,” he said again, and Longstreet thought: should have spoken to Lee. Must go back tonight. But … let the old man sleep. Never saw his face that weary. Soul of the army. He’s in command. You are only the hand. Silence. Like a soldier.

  He will attack.

  Well. They love him. They do not blame him. They do impossible things for him. They may even take that hill.

  “… have no doubt,” Fremantle was saying, “that General Lee shall become the world’s foremost authority on military matters when this war is over, which would appear now to be only a matter of days, or at most a few weeks. I suspect all Europe will be turning to him for lessons.”

  Lessons?

  “I have been thinking, I must confess, of setting some brief thoughts to paper,” Fremantle announced gravely. “Some brief remarks of my own, appended to an account of this battle, and perhaps others this army has fought. Some notes as to the tactics.”

  Tactics?

  “General Lee’s various stratagems will be most instructive, most illuminating. I wonder, sir, if I might enlist your aid in this, ah, endeavor. As one most closely concerned? That is, to be brief, may I come to you when in need?”

  “Sure,” Longstreet said. Tactics? He chuckled. The tactics are simple: find the enemy, fight him. He shook his head, snorting. Fremantle spoke softly, in tones of awe.

  “One would not think of General Lee, now that one has met him, now that one has looked him, so to speak, in the eye, as it were, one would not think him, you know, to be such a devious man.”

  “Devious?” Longstreet swung to stare at him, aghast.

  “Oh my word,” Fremantle went on devoutly, “but he’s a tricky one. The Old Gray Fox, as they say. Charming phrase. American to the hilt.”

  “Devious?” Longstreet stopped dead in the road. “Devious.” He laughed aloud. Fremantle stared an owlish stare.

  “Why, Colonel, bless your soul, there aint a devious bone in Robert Lee’s body, don’t you know that?”

  “My dear sir.”

  “By damn, man, if there is one human being in the world less devious than Robert Lee, I aint yet met him. By God and fire, Colonel, but you amuse me.” And yet Longstreet was not amused. He leaned forward blackly across the pommel of the saddle. “Colonel, let me explain something. The secret of General Lee is that men love him and follow him with faith in him. That’s one secret. The next secret is that General Lee makes a decision and he moves, with guts, and he’s been up against a lot of sickly generals who don’t know how to make decisions, although some of them have guts but whose men don’t love them. That’s why we win, mostly. Because we move with speed, and faith, and because we usually have the good ground. Tactics? God, man, we don’t win because of tricks. What were the tactics at Malvern Hill? What were the tactics at Fredericksburg, where we got down behind a bloody stone wall and shot the bloody hell out of them as they came up, wave after wave, bravest thing you ever saw, because, listen, there are some damn good boys across the way, make no mistake on that. I’ve fought with those boys, and they know how to fight when they’ve got the ground, but tactics? Tactics?” He was stumbling for words, but it was pouring out of him in hot clumps out of the back o
f the brain, the words like falling coals, and Fremantle stared openmouthed.

  “God in Heaven,” Longstreet said, and repeated it, “there’s no strategy to this bloody war. What it is is old Napoleon and a hell of a lot of chivalry. That’s all it is. What were the tactics at Chancellorsville, where we divided the army, divided it, so help me God, in the face of the enemy, and got away with it because Joe Hooker froze cold in his stomach? What were the tactics yesterday? What were they today? And what will be the blessed tactics tomorrow? I’ll tell you the tactics tomorrow. Devious? Christ in Heaven. Tomorrow we will attack an enemy that outnumbers us, an enemy that outguns us, an enemy dug in on the high ground, and let me tell you, if we win that one it will not be because of the tactics or because we are great strategists or because there is anything even remotely intelligent about the war at all. It will be a bloody miracle, a bloody miracle.”

  And then he saw what he was saying.

  He cut it off. Fremantle’s mouth was still open. Longstreet thought: Very bad things to say. Disloyal. Fool. Bloody damned fool.

  And then he began truly to understand what he had said.

  It surfaced, like something long sunken rising up out of black water. It opened up there in the dark of his mind and he turned from Fremantle.

  The Englishman said something. Longstreet nodded. The truth kept coming. Longstreet waited. He had known all this for a long time but he had never said it, except in fragments. He had banked it and gone on with the job, a soldier all his life. In his mind he could see Lee’s beautiful face and suddenly it was not the same face. Longstreet felt stuffed and thick and very strange. He did not want to think about it. He spurred the horse. Hero reared. Longstreet thought: you always know the truth; wait long enough and the mind will tell you. He rode beneath a low tree; leaves brushed his hat. He stopped. A voice at his elbow: Fremantle.

  “Yes,” Longstreet said. Damn fool things to say. To a guest.

  “If I have disturbed you, sir …”

  “Not at all. Things on my mind. If you don’t mind, Colonel …”

  Fremantle apologized. Longstreet said good night. He sat alone on his horse in the dark. There was a fire in a field. A boy was playing a harmonica, frail and lovely sound. Longstreet thought of Barksdale as he had gone to die, streaming off to death, white hair trailing him like white fire. Hood’s eyes were accusing. Should have moved to the right. He thought: Tactics are old Napoleon and a lot of chivalry.

  He shuddered. He remembered that day in church when he prayed from the soul and listened and knew in that moment that there was no one there, no one to listen.

  Don’t think on these things. Keep an orderly mind. This stuff is like heresy.

  It was quieter now and very warm and wet, a softness in the air, a mountain peace. His mind went silent for a time and he rode down the long road between the fires in the fields and men passed him in the night unknowing, and soldiers chased each other across the road. A happy camp, behind the line. There was music and faith. And pride. We have always had pride.

  He thought suddenly of Stonewall Jackson, old Thomas, old Blue Light. He could move men. Yes. But you remember, he ordered pikes for his men, spears, for the love of God. And the pikes sit by the thousands, rusting now in a Richmond warehouse because Jackson is dead and gone to glory. But he would have used them. Pikes. Against cannon in black rows. Against that hill in the morning.

  They come from another age. The Age of Virginia.

  Must talk to Lee in the morning.

  He’s tired. Never saw him that tired. And sick. But he’ll listen.

  They all come from another age.

  General Lee, I have three Union corps in front of me. They have the high ground, and they are dug in, and I am down to half my strength.

  He will smile and pat you on the arm and say: go do it.

  And perhaps we will do it.

  He was approaching his own camp. He could hear laughter ahead, and there were many bright fires. He slowed, let Hero crop grass. He felt a great sense of shame. A man should not think these things. But he could not control it. He rode into camp, back to work. He came in silently and sat back under a dark tree and Sorrel came to him with the figures. The figures were bad. Longstreet sat with his back against a tree and out in the open there was a party, sounds of joy: George Pickett was telling a story.

  He was standing by a fire, wild-haired, gorgeous, stabbing with an invisible sword. He could tell a story. A circle of men was watching him; Longstreet could see the grins, flash of a dark bottle going round. Off in the dark there was a voice of a young man singing: clear Irish tenor. Longstreet felt a long way off, a long, long way. Pickett finished with one mighty stab, then put both hands on his knees and crouched and howled with laughter, enjoying himself enormously. Longstreet wanted a drink. No. Not now. Later. In a few days. Perhaps a long bottle and a long sleep. He looked across the firelight and saw one face in the ring not smiling, not even listening, one still face staring unseeing into the yellow blaze: Dick Garnett. The man Jackson had court-martialed for cowardice. Longstreet saw Lo Armistead nudge him, concerned, whisper in his ear. Garnett smiled, shook his head, turned back to the fire. Armistead went on watching him, worried. Longstreet bowed his head.

  Saw the face of Robert Lee. Incredible eyes. An honest man, a simple man. Out of date. They all ride to glory, all the plumed knights. Saw the eyes of Sam Hood, accusing eyes. He’ll not go and die. Did not have the black look they get, the dying ones, around the eyes. But Barksdale is gone, and Semmes, and half of Hood’s division …

  “Evening, Pete.”

  Longstreet squinted upward. Tall man holding a tall glass, youthful grin under steel-gray hair: Lo Armistead.

  “How goes it, Pete?”

  “Passing well, passing well.”

  “Come on and join us, why don’t you? We liberated some Pennsylvania whisky; aint much left.”

  Longstreet shook his head.

  “Mind if I set a spell?” Armistead squatted, perched on the ground sitting on his heels, resting the glass on his thigh. “What do you hear from Sam Hood?”

  “May lose an arm.”

  Armistead asked about the rest. Longstreet gave him the list. There was a moment of silence. Armistead took a drink, let the names register. After a moment he said, “Dick Garnett is sick. He can’t hardly walk.”

  “I’ll get somebody to look after him.”

  “Would you do that, Pete? He’ll have to take it, coming from you.”

  “Sure.”

  “Thing is, if there’s any action, he can’t stand to be out of it. But if you ordered him.”

  Longstreet said nothing.

  “Don’t suppose you could do that,” Armistead said wistfully.

  Longstreet shook his head.

  “I keep trying to tell him he don’t have to prove a thing, not to us,” Armistead brooded. “Well, what the hell.” He sipped from the glass. “A pleasant brew. The Dutchmen make good whisky. Oh. Beg your pardon.”

  Longstreet looked out into the firelight. He recognized Fremantle, popeyed and grinning, rising awkwardly to his feet, tin cup raised for a toast. Longstreet could not hear. Armistead said, “I been talking to that Englishman. He isn’t too bright, is he?”

  Longstreet smiled. He thought: Devious Lee.

  Armistead said, “We put it to him, how come the limeys didn’t come help us. In their own interest and all. Hell, perfectly obvious they ought to help. You know what he said? He said the problem was slavery. Now what do you think of that?”

  Longstreet shook his head. That was another thing he did not think about. Armistead said disgustedly, “They think we’re fighting to keep the slaves. He says that’s what most of Europe thinks the war is all about. Now, what we supposed to do about that?”

  Longstreet said nothing. The war was about slavery, all right. That was not why Longstreet fought but that was what the war was about, and there was no point in talking about it, never had been.

  Armistead said
, “Ole Fremantle said one thing that was interestin’. He said, whole time he’s been in this country, he never heard the word ‘slave.’ He said we always call them ‘servants.’ Now you know, that’s true. I never thought of it before, but it’s true.”

  Longstreet remembered a speech: In a land where all slaves are servants, all servants are slaves, and thus ends democracy. A good line. But it didn’t pay to think on it. Armistead was saying, “That Fremantle is kind of funny. He said that we Southerners were the most polite people he’d ever met, but then he noticed we all of us carry guns all the time, wherever we went, and he figured that maybe that was why. Hee.” Armistead chuckled. “But we don’t really need the limeys, do we, Pete, you think? Not so long as we have old Bobby Lee to lead the way.”

  Pickett’s party was quieting. The faces were turning to the moon. It was a moment before Longstreet, slightly deaf, realized they had turned to the sound of the tenor singing. An Irish song. He listened.

  … oh hast thou forgotten

  how soon we must sever?

  Oh hast thou forgotten

  how soon we must part?

  It may be for years,

  it may be forever …

  “That boy can sing,” Longstreet said. “That’s ‘Kathleen Mavourneen,’ am I right?” He turned to Armistead.

  The handsome face had gone all to softness. Longstreet thought he was crying, just for a moment, but there were no tears, only the look of pain. Armistead was gazing toward the sound of the voice and then his eyes shifted suddenly and he looked straight down. He knelt there unmoving while the whole camp grew slowly still and in the dark silence the voice sang the next verse, softer, with great feeling, with great beauty, very far off to Longstreet’s dull ear, far off and strange, from another time, an older softer time, and Longstreet could see tears on faces around the fire, and men beginning to drop their eyes, and he dropped his own, feeling a sudden spasm of irrational love. Then the voice was done.

  Armistead looked up. He looked at Longstreet and then quickly away. Out in the glade they were sitting motionless, and then Pickett got up suddenly and stalked, face wet with tears, rubbing his cheeks, grumbling, then he said stiffly, “Good cheer, boys, good cheer tonight.” The faces looked up at him. Pickett moved to the rail fence and sat there and said, “Let me tell you the story of old Tangent, which is Dick Ewell’s horse, which as God is my final judge is not only the slowest and orneriest piece of horseflesh in all this here army, but possibly also the slowest horse in this hemisphere, or even in the history of all slow horses.”