The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War

by Michael Shaara

  He limped among the men, passing each one like a warming fire. He shared with them all the memory of yesterday. He had been with them to that other world; they were in it now, the high clear world of the last man in line, and all the enemy coming, Tozier on the rock with the flag in his hand, Tom plugging the gap, bayonets lifted, that last wild charge. He looked down smiling as he passed, patting shoulders, concerned with small wounds. One boy lay behind a rock. He had been shot through the cheek yesterday but had not gone to the rear, had charged, had come all this way to the top of the hill. Now he was down with a fever, and the wound in the face was inflamed. Chamberlain ordered him to the field hospital. There were several signs of sickness, one possible case of typhoid. Nothing to do but detail the men down the hill. But none of them wanted to go, some deathly afraid of the hospital itself, some not wanting to be away from men they knew, men they could trust, the Regiment of Home.

  Chamberlain began to grow restless for food. He thought: we’re forgotten up here. Nobody knows what these men did yesterday. They saved the whole line, God knows, and now I can’t even feed them. He was becoming angry. He clambered back up the hill and tore open the wound inside his boot, which began again to bleed. He sat down at the top of the hill, listening to the cannon fire and musketry raging in the north, momentarily grateful that it was over there, and took off the boot, bound the foot, wished he could get something to wash it down with, but what water there was was dirty and bloody. There was a creek down below: Plum Run. Choked with yesterday’s dead. Good to be high, up here; the smells of death don’t seem to be rising. Wind still from the south, blowing it away. You know, the regiment is weary.

  That thought had taken a while to form, had formed slowly as he moved up and down the line. Just so far you can push a man.

  He thought: a little food. A little rest. They’ll be right again in a bit. Fewer than two hundred now. And there on the rock, sitting staring down at the long line of dark men shapeless under dark trees, he felt for the first time the sense of the coming end. They were dwindling away like sands in a glass. How long does it go on? Each one becoming more precious. What’s left now is the best, each man a rock. But now there are so few. We began with a thousand and so whittled down, polishing, pruning, until what we had yesterday was superb, absolutely superb, and now only about two hundred, and, God, had it not been for those boys from the Second Maine … but the end is in sight. Another day like yesterday … and the regiment will be gone. In the Union Army that was the way it was: they fought a unit until it bled to death. There were no replacements.

  He shook his head, trying to shake away the thought. He could not imagine them gone. He would go with them. But if the war went on much longer … if there was one more fight like yesterday …

  The sound of the battle in the north grew steadily in intensity. Chamberlain, alone, wished he knew anything at all about what was happening. He could not even talk to Ellis Spear, who was down in the woods with the other flank of the regiment, where it joined the 83rd. He waited, alone, staying awake, listening. After a while there was a courier from Rice. He saw a puffing lieutenant staggering up among the rocks.

  “Colonel Chamberlain? Sir, that’s some climb.” The lieutenant paused to gasp for air, leaned upon a tree.

  “My men need rations, Lieutenant,” Chamberlain said. He stood up on his bloody foot, boot in hand.

  “Sir, Colonel Rice instructs me to tell you that you are relieved, sir.”

  “Relieved?” Men were gathering around him. Sergeant Tozier had come up, that big-nosed man, towered over the lieutenant, gloomed down at him.

  “Colonel Fisher’s people are coming up, sir, and will take over here. Colonel Rice informs me that he wishes to compliment you on a job well done and give your people a rest, so he wants you to fall back, and I’m to show you the way.”

  “Fall back.” Chamberlain turned, looked around the hilltop. He did not want to go. You could defend this place against an army. Well. He looked at his tree, from which he had watched the dawn.

  He gave the word to Tozier. The 20th Maine would stay in position until Fisher’s brigade came up, but in a few moments he heard them coming—extraordinary, he had not expected anything quick to happen in this army. The lieutenant sat against a tree while Chamberlain moved among the troops, getting them ready to move. Chamberlain came back for one last look around. For a moment, at least, we were the flank of the army. From this point you could see the whole battlefield. Now they were going down, to blend into the mass below. He looked around. He would remember the spot. He would be back here, some day, after the war.

  The men were in line, all down the hill. Tom and Ellis Spear were waiting down below.

  “You’ll guide us, Lieutenant.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The lieutenant moved off, downward into the dark. Chamberlain said, “I’ll be wanting to go back to Little Round Top as soon as possible. The regiment will bury its own dead.”

  “Yes, sir, but I’m to lead you to your new position first, sir, if you don’t mind.”

  Chamberlain said, “Where are we going?”

  “Oh, sir—” the lieutenant grinned “—a lovely spot. Safest place on the battlefield. Right smack dab in the center of the line. Very quiet there.”

  2.

  LONGSTREET

  Goree was back in the gray dawn. The move to the south was still possible; the road to Washington was still open. But Union cavalry was closing in around Longstreet’s flank. He sent orders to extend Hood’s division. He sat in the gray light studying Goree’s map, smelling rain, thinking that a little rain now would be marvelous, cool them, cool the battle fever, settle the dust. Wet mist flowed softly by; dew dripped from the leaves, pattered in the woods, but the morning was already warm. The heat would come again.

  He drank coffee alone, dreaming. Scheibert, the Prussian, chatted with him about the Battle of Solferino. Longstreet could hear the laughter from Pickett’s boys; some of them had been up all night. They were moving into line in the fields behind Seminary Ridge, out of sight of the Union guns. He was curt with Scheibert. The Prussian was not a fool; he bowed, departed. Longstreet studied the map. Rain would be a great blessing. Rain would screen our movements.

  Lee came out of the mists. He was tall and gray on that marvelous horse, riding majestically forward in the gray light of morning outlined against the sky, the staff all around him and behind him, Lee alone in the center, larger than them all, erect, soldierly, gazing eastward toward the enemy line. He rode up, saluted grandly. Longstreet rose. Lee rested both hands on the pommel of his saddle. The mist thickened and blew between them; there was a ghostly quality in the look of him, of all his staff, ghost riders out of the past, sabers clanking, horses breathing thick and heavy in thick dank air.

  Lee said, “General, good morning.”

  Longstreet offered him coffee. Lee declined. He said, “If you will mount up, General, I would like to ride over in that direction—” he gestured eastward “—some little way.”

  Longstreet called for his horse, mounted. He said, “I’ve had scouts out all night, General. I know the terrain now.”

  Lee said nothing. They rode toward the high ground, an opening in the trees. Longstreet looked out across a flat field of mist, fence posts, a ridge of stone black against the soft white flow of mist, then across the road and up the long rise toward the Union defenses, high out of the mist, fires burning, black cannon in plain view.

  Longstreet said again, “Sir, I’ve discovered a way south that seems promising. If we would move—”

  “General, the enemy is there—” Lee lifted his arm, pointed up the ridge in a massive gesture “—and there’s where I’m going to strike him.”

  He turned and looked back at Longstreet for one long moment, straight into his eyes, fixing Longstreet with the black stare, the eyes of the General, and then turned away. Longstreet drew his head in, like a turtle.

  Lee said slowly, face to the east, “The situatio
n is basically unchanged. But you have Pickett now, and he is fresh. I want you to move your corps forward and take those heights, in the center, and split the Union line.”

  Longstreet took a deep breath. Lee said, “I have sent word to Ewell. He is to attack when you do, keeping the enemy pinned on that flank. Yours will be the main effort. Hill will be the reserve. You will have all our artillery preceding you, fixed on that one point. A pont au feu.”

  He was watching Longstreet’s face, gazing at him without expression, the eyes set far back under white brows, dark, touched with the cool light of the morning. Longstreet said, “Sir.” He shook his head, groping for words. Lee waited.

  “Sir, there are some things I must say.”

  Lee nodded, again without expression, immobile. The staff had moved back; the two generals were alone. Longstreet said, “Sir. My two divisions, Hood and McLaws, lost almost half their strength yesterday. Do you expect me to attack again that same high ground which they could not take yesterday at full strength? With so many officers lost? Including Sam Hood?”

  Lee was expressionless. The eyes were black and still.

  Longstreet said, “Sir, there are now three Union corps on those rocky hills, on our flank. If I move my people forward we’ll have no flank at all; they’ll simply swing around and crush us. There are thirty thousand men on those heights to our right. Cavalry is moving out on my flank now. If I move Hood and McLaws, the whole rear of this army is open.”

  Lee’s head shifted slightly, imperceptibly; his eyes shifted. He had been set, now he turned, looked away, looked down at the ground, then east again.

  After a moment he said, “You say there is cavalry moving on your right? In what force?”

  “Two brigades, at least.”

  “You have that from Goree?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lee nodded. “Goree is accurate,” he said. He sat pondering.

  “General,” Longstreet said slowly, “it is my considered opinion that a frontal assault here would be a disaster.”

  Lee turned, frowned; the dark eyes flared for a moment. But he said nothing. Longstreet thought: I do not want to hurt this man. He said slowly, “They are well entrenched, they mean to fight. They have good artillery and plenty of it. Any attack will be uphill over open ground. General, this is a bad position. Have you ever seen a worse position? Here we are in a long line, spread all around them, a line five miles long. How can we coordinate an attack? They’re massed all together, damn near in a circle. Anywhere we hit them they can bring reinforcements in a matter of minutes. And they can move up reinforcement behind those hills, out of sight of our cannon. But if we try to move in support it has to come from miles off, and their cannon can see every move. Hell, their cannon are looking down at us right now. General Lee, sir, this is not a good position.”

  Lee said, “They will break.”

  He said it very softly. Longstreet barely heard him. “Sir? Sir?”

  “They will break,” Lee repeated. “In any case, there is no alternative.”

  “Sir, I do not think so.”

  I am making him angry. Lee turned and looked at him, but there was a difference in the face now; the weariness was suddenly apparent. The old man had lost control for a moment and the pain was there; the exhaustion dulled the eyes. Longstreet felt a surge of emotion. He wanted to reach out and touch the old man, but that was impossible. You could not show affection here, no place for it here, too many men will die, must think clearly, but all the while he felt an icy despair, a cold dead place like dead skin. And then the guns began, cannon booming off to the left, where Ewell was. Longstreet swung in his saddle, saw A. P. Hill coming up, chatting with Pickett, and heads all turning at the sound of the guns. And now Lee’s face was aflame. An anger Longstreet had never seen before contorted the old man’s face. He pulled his horse savagely, almost snarled.

  “What is Ewell up to? In God’s name, can he follow no order at all?”

  Lee galloped off to the left. Longstreet remained behind. Pickett came up, good cheer in his eye, babbling that his boys had been up for hours, and what was the plan? Longstreet said: nothing, and they recognized the mood and left him alone. Fits of weariness began to pass over Longstreet, as clouds pass over and dull the heat.

  Colonel Marshall came back, from Lee. The word was that the Federals had opened an attack on Ewell, just as he was getting set. So. At least Ewell hadn’t gone off half cocked. No. But what does Lee expect? How can we coordinate across all these miles? And now Meade is attacking. Good, very good. Meade begins to stir himself. Now that’s excellent indeed. Given a bit of luck now, we can lure him down out of those damned bloody rocks. He’s moving on my flank now. Good, very good. Let him come, let him come, and then when his arm is out far enough, when his nose is extended, I will chop it off with a chop they’ll feel in London.

  Lee was coming back. The sun was beginning to break through, the mist was rising. Lee rode slowly up, slouched a bit, no longer quite so trim. He smiled a haggard smile. Longstreet thought: He got mad at Ewell, now he’s embarrassed.

  Lee said, “No need for hurry now. General Ewell is engaged. General Meade has made a move. I must confess, I did not expect it.” He pointed. “We’ll ride forward.”

  They moved out toward the lines. Lee was thinking; Longstreet kept silent. The heat came slowly, steadily. They rode down to the Emmitsburg Road, in clear view of the Union lines. There were smells flowing up from the hospital. Out in the fields the dead lay everywhere in the litter of war. Here and there surgeons were moving, burial parties. Above them, on the Union lines, a cannon thumped, the ball passed overhead, exploded in an open field among dead bodies. Two of Lee’s aides rode up, insisted that the Union gunners could see them much too clearly. They dismounted. Lee walked forward across the road into the peach orchard, where Barksdale had streamed to his death the day before. Lee cautioned Longstreet to keep his distance so that if a shot came down it would not get both of them at once. They were nearing the lines now; men began rising out of the ground, ragged apparitions. The aides quieted cheering, which would draw Union fire. The men stood awe-stricken, hats in their hands, whispering kind words, words of hope, words of joy. Longstreet looked into lean young grinning faces, bloodstained clothes, saw bodies bloated in the fields, dead horses everywhere. Ewell’s fight in the north was stiffer, but down here the sound was softened; the wind was in the south, blowing toward the battle, blowing up between the lines. They were walking now in Wofford’s line. Wofford came out to greet General Lee.

  Wofford’s Brigade had pushed up the ridge almost to the top the day before. Lee listened to him tell of it, then Lee said, “General, you went up there yesterday. Surely you can do it again.”

  “No, General, I think not,” Wofford said. He seemed embarrassed to say it.

  Lee said, “Why not?”

  “Because yesterday we were chasing a broken enemy. They’ve been heavily reinforced. They’ve had all night to entrench. And my boys … lost many friends yesterday.”

  Lee said nothing. Longstreet saw him clamp his jaw. He was walking slowly, hands clasped behind him. He said suddenly, “Well, but Pickett is here. And Stuart. Don’t forget Stuart.”

  A sharpshooter’s bullet shirred by overhead. Longstreet looked for it curiously. Shooting downhill, snipers always overshoot. They were moving into the front of the line, the bloody wheat field. Longstreet saw a battery being moved, guns being pulled back. He saw young Porter Alexander, his chief of artillery, in personal supervision. Good, he thought absently, very good, Alexander is seeing to it himself. The technical commander was Parson Pendleton, but Pendleton was a fool. There was high ground at the peach orchard. Alexander was posting some Napoleons there, waved as he rode by. Lee saw, approved wordlessly. He took his hat off, gazing upward at the long rise toward Cemetery Ridge. The sun gleamed on his white hair, the dark ridge along the brow line where the hat had pressed the hair down. Longstreet thought: he was not all that white-haired a ye
ar ago. He remembered yesterday: “I’ll tell you a secret: I’m an old man.”

  I wish we could take the hill. Could flood right on over it and end the war, wipe them all away in one great motion. But we can’t. No matter how much I wish … or trust in God …

  Lee turned back. His face was again composed; he put the soft black hat back on his head. He called an aide: Venable, then Taylor. Longstreet waited to the side. Soldiers were drifting up to stand happily by, gazing with paternal affection at Lee, at Longstreet.

  “Mornin’ to ya, General. You look pert this mornin’, sir.”

  “General, beggin’ yer pardon, sir, I’d like to complain about the food, sir.”

  “We’s back in the Union now, General.”

  They were ready. That superb morale. Lee touched his hat to the men. They moved away from the line. The sun broke through at last and poured heat on the roadway; the mist was gone. A rider came up from Hood’s division, commanded now by General Law. Law reported Union cavalry moving in force across his flank, suggested strengthening his line with Robertson’s brigade. Longstreet agreed, Lee listening silently. Then they rode back toward the ridge where Pickett’s men waited.

  Ewell’s fight was going on. They could see smoke blowing now across the top of the hill. Ewell reported that Johnson was being compelled to fall back from the trenches he had won the night before. Lee sat alone for a while, Longstreet a small way away. A slowly growing swarm of aides and other officers, reporters, foreigners, musicians, began gathering a respectful distance away. A band began playing “That Bonny Blue Flag,” in Lee’s honor. Skirmish firing broke out in the fields below Seminary Ridge; musketry popped in patches of white smoke as the lines felt and probed.

  At last Lee turned, summoned Longstreet. Longstreet came up. Lee said, “General, we will attack the center.”

  He paused. Longstreet took a long breath, let it go.