by John Jakes
Weather is better—rains over, though roads & stream banks remain very muddy in some places; we will earn our pay planking the worst spots.
Among the army’s current complement of vols, about half are replacements for deserters or the dead, wounded & sick; most of the greenhorns are foolishly excited at the prospect of battle—much happier to march forward than stay behind with those corps which will apparently demonstrate against Lee’s works in Fredericksburg, or below the town. One such corps is Howard’s XI, the Germans, almost universally detested as radicals, revolutionaries—fugitives from the trouble of 1848 whether they be so or not. Almost without exception, the Dutchmen swear by Old Abe and his proclamation, while the rest of the army swears at them. We have not much tolerance—and I point the finger of conscience first at myself. Yesterday I saw two Negro teamsters in army blue and confess to being unsettled by the sight. Lije prayed twenty mins. longer than usual tonight. At supper, while a band played “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” I asked why. He replied, Do not forget who is over in Fredericksburg. Two of the best—Bob Lee & Old Jack. Lije said he had implored the Almighty to confuse their minds and impair their judgment, though he stated this was done with regret, as both generals are staunch Christians. Wish I were, Brett. It might ease my soul. I am sick of the dirt and killing, and cannot take any joy in what’s to come, as the vols do. But they are boys yet. They will be something else before this spring’s over.
Late the next day, Billy and a detachment of twelve volunteer engineers found a farmhouse with a sturdy barn and a smaller outbuilding from which the breeze brought the powerful odor of chicken droppings.
“What d’you think, sir?” asked the senior noncom with the group, a youth from Syracuse named Spinnington. He had been appointed corporal because he seemed less lazy and stupid than the other replacements; no positive traits recommended him.
From the roadside Billy studied the neatly kept buildings surrounded by a small orchard of peach trees. The detachment had fallen out around a wagon commandeered from another farm. Other detachments, with wagons similarly obtained, were roaming the countryside just above the Rapidan. Screened by Stoneman’s horse, the army had marched with great secrecy and encountered no difficulties until reaching the chosen ford. The rain-swollen river could still be crossed, but its near bank was a bog where it should be solid.
“Sir?” Spinnington prodded. Billy continued to stare at the farmhouse, wishing he could give the order to move on. He felt tired enough to drop. He knew that had little to do with the forced march from Fredericksburg and everything to do with the task at hand.
Billy’s beard had grown out during the winter; it was carelessly trimmed, and matted in places. Despite a natural stockiness, he had a curiously shrunken appearance. Seen with his brother George, he might have been picked as the older—or so he thought on those increasingly rare occasions when he saw himself in the scrap of polished tin he used as a mirror. The reflected face had a saggy look, as if it were made of melting candle tallow.
Spinnington fidgeted. Billy said, “All right.”
There were whoops as the new replacements charged the house, the low-lying sun gilding an ax blade, the face of a boy with a crowbar. Their elongated shadows climbed up the side of the house.
The front door opened; a man came out. A tiny man with a white tuft of beard but huge strong hands.
Billy approached the porch. Before he could speak, a woman appeared behind the man. She weighed three times what he did and stood a head taller.
“Mr. Tate,” she said, “get back inside. General Hooker’s men who came by said we’d be shot if we stepped one foot in the open.”
“It’s a bluff,” the old farmer said. “They’re afraid we’ll slip over the Rapidan and warn Bob Lee. I wouldn’t do that. I have to protect this place. That’s why I must talk to these boys.”
“Mr. Tate—”
“What do you boys want?” the old farmer called over his wife’s continuing objection.
Billy pulled off his kepi. “Sir, I regret to inform you that we’ve been sent to forage for lumber and siding. We need them because the Germanna ford is a mire and must be planked so General Hooker’s forces can cross the river. I’ll be obliged if you and your wife will go back inside and permit us to do our work.”
“What work?” the old man cried, his white tuft twitching in the twilight breeze. “What work?”
He knew. Ashamed to look him in the eye, Billy bobbed his head at Spinnington. “Get them to work, Corporal. Take the barn first, and maybe we’ll get enough to fill the wagon. Maybe we can leave the chicken house alone.”
“It’s taken me all my life to build this place,” the old man said, clutching the porch post, angry tears squeezing from the corners of his eyes. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“I’m sorry, sir. Truly sorry.”
A nail squealed, a raw, screaming sound. Two volunteers pried off the first piece of siding. Another ran it to the wagon.
The old farmer lurched off the porch. Billy drew his side arm. The farmer hesitated, sat down on the steps, and gave Billy a look he would never forget. Then the farmer stared at his shoes as the engineer volunteers tore the barn apart. They brought out crosscut saws for the pillars and beams. They had it all down by dark, leaving the unpenned milk cows and plow horses wandering around the chicken house. Billy sat on the seat of the wagon as it rolled away and didn’t permit himself to look back.
An entry in his journal, made sometime between sunset that evening and dawn on April 30, read:
I hate what I am becoming because of this war.
“It’s the Dutchmen,” Spinnington snarled. “The fuckin Dutchmen caved in.”
“Shut up,” Billy said, naked to the waist, swinging the ax two-handed and bracing for the shock when it bit into the five-inch trunk of the elm.
It was just daylight. An hour ago, while the Wilderness burned, set afire by shells, Billy’s detachment had been rushed from Slocum’s Twelfth Corps to the relatively clear ground at the Chancellorsville crossing. To judge from the heavy presence of headquarters guards and all the couriers riding up and galloping away again, General Hooker was holed up inside the white manor house. No one professed to know what he was doing, but on thing appeared certain: Fighting Joe’s great scheme had come to nothing.
Hooker had gained his planned position in the Wilderness, been poised to smash Lee from the rear—and had thrown away the advantage. Why? Billy thought, timing the ax blows to reinforce the raging repetition of the question. Why?
Yesterday Fighting Joe had started his men forward to a more advantageous offensive position—higher and more open ground beyond the edge of the Wilderness. When his men encountered enemy fire, he called off the advance. Corps commanders had not concealed their fury. Billy had heard what General Meade said; it had spread everywhere, like the fire in the woods: “If he can’t hold the top of a hill, how can he expect to hold the bottom?”
But now they were preparing for precisely that. Swing; why? Swing back; why?
“Stand back,” Billy yelled, pushing men as the elm swayed and tilted. The men scattered, the tree crashed, the volunteers leaped forward, stirring the raw, smarting smoke that came partly from the unseen cannon, partly from the fiery forest.
Yesterday, while Hooker shilly-shallied and lost his chance at a superior position, Bob Lee and Old Jack had been busy outfoxing lim. Jackson had led his men on one of their famous lightning marches, this one a damnably risky flanking movement. But he had pulled it off without discovery and by nightfall stood ready to savage the Union right. Howard’s Dutchmen were at ease there, enjoying their supper. Old Jack’s whooping, screaming farm boys took them totally by surprise.
That was the start of the end of Hooker’s great plan. Now the rebs were on the offensive throughout the second-growth forest. God knew where they would appear next—which was the reason Union soldiers were frantically preparing rifle pits to defend the open ground at the crossroads, whil
e axmen, including Billy and his detachment, felled trees in front of the lines.
They slashed off branches, bound others together with ropes and vines, sharpened still others and fixed them to point toward the smoke where the rebs might be lurking. The abatis was a defensive fortification, not one employed by troops who meant to march ahead and win. Perhaps Fighting Joe had lost the advantage at the same mysterious spot where he had misplaced his nerve. Even rumors that a stray reb ball had wounded or killed Old Jack last night didn’t lift the army’s gloom, any more than daylight had lifted the choking smoke.
Chop and chop. Spinnington worked on Billy’s left, Lije just beyond. On his right, bent over so as to minimize exposure in case of a sniper attack, was a volunteer whose name he didn’t know. The man’s posture didn’t permit much work. Billy had an impulse to split the coward’s head with his ax, but he supposed Lije would object.
White beard gleaming with sweat drops, Lije lifted his heavy ax with his right hand, as if it weighed no more than a straw. He pointed the ax at a tree larger than most, an oak about a foot in diameter.
“That one next, lads. She will fall to the right if we cut her properly. We may then turn her ninety degrees and fix points on some of those topmost branches to torment the enemy.” Billy managed an exhausted laugh. What a rock Lije was. Every remark to his men was round and complete as a sermon sentence. Lije also spoke loudly, which was necessary because of the continual noise: drumming and bugling, men shouting, small arms crackling, strays from the beef herd mooing as they ran down the narrow turnpike or got snared in the forest vines and bled from thorn pricks. Catching a nap at three in the morning, Billy had had his stomach stepped on by a wandering cow.
Now, renewed artillery fire increased the din. The firing came from south of Chancellorsville. Inexplicably, Sickles had been withdrawn from another piece of high ground, a place called Hazel Grove. Had the rebs moved fieldpieces into that favorable position?
Billy and Lije attacked the oak from opposite sides. Lije met his eye, smiled in a weary, fatherly way. Chop and chop. Billy wished he had the older man’s faith. If God stood with the Union, why did Old Jack surprise and whip them every time?
They had notched a white vee into the trunk when, above the noise of men, horses, wheels, guns, Billy picked up a more ominous one: the scream of a shell. “Put your heads down,” he shouted to those nearby. “That one’s coming in mighty—”
The earth blew up around him, hurling him off his feet in a cloud of dirt and grass. He landed on his back, dazed. He breathed the heavy smoke, then coughed. Something lay on his bare chest: a large yellow-white wedge of heartwood blown from the trunk of the oak.
Blinking, he focused on the tree as it started to topple, stirring the smoke. Men as dazed as he struggled to their feet. Lije stood well beyond the tree, and he, too, saw it coming down, directly on Spinnington. Knuckling his eyes, the corporal failed to hear the creak; the bombardment was too loud.
“Spinnington, get out of there,” Billy yelled. Spinnington turned, dull-faced, still not comprehending. The rest happened very fast. Lije bowled forward and hit the corporal with his shoulder, intending to push him to safety and fall on top of him. Lije’s left boot tangled in a vine. He slammed on his chest, raised his head, clutched handfuls of weedy earth, and said, “Oh,” an instant before the oak fell on the small of his back.
“Oh, Lord,” Spinnington whispered, standing unhurt a yard beyond Lije’s open mouth, closed eyes, fists clenching grass. Billy ran forward, shouting Lije’s name. Men hit the ground again; another shell struck twenty yards away. The concussion threw Billy on his rump and hurled bits of earth and stone into his face. Something grazed his left eyeball. Something else cut his cheek.
Up again, he staggered to the fallen oak. Slowly, Lije’s eyes opened. Another shell hit to the left and well behind them. Pieces of a man rose up and fell back to the unfinished rifle pits. Cries and moans added to the other noise. Billy knew the pain Lije must be feeling, but only a slight moisture in the older man’s eyes betrayed it.
“I’ll get you out, Lije.” He leaped for the tree, slipped his hands under, pulled. Pain shot through his back. The oak trunk didn’t move.
He twisted around. “You men help me!”
“Fruitless,” Lije murmured. He closed his eyes, licked his lips, repeated the word, then said, “Withdraw, Lieutenant. The enemy fire is growing too heavy. Withdraw—that is my direct—order.”
Though badly frightened, several of the volunteers ran up and attempted to lift the oak. The trunk rose about two inches. Then the hands of one man slipped, and the oak fell again. Billy heard Lije’s teeth clench and scrape.
“Withdraw,” he whispered.
“No,” Billy said, his control breaking down.
“William Hazard, I order—”
“No, no.” He was crying. “I can’t leave you to die.”
“‘What man is he that liveth—and shall not see death?’”
“Don’t spout Scripture at me,” Billy yelled. “I won’t see you left here.”
“I will not be.” Though Lije’s voice was faint, he articulated each syllable. “I trust the Master’s promise. ‘He that heareth—my word’”—in the shell-struck rifle pit, men shrieked like children, without cease—“‘—and believeth in Him that sent me—shall not come into condemnation but—is passed from death unto life.’ I was—meant to fall here. You are—meant to live and—take these men—”
Another shell hit in the forest, shredding vines, blasting earth into the smoke, blurring Lije’s faint voice with its roar.
“—to safety. I order you.”
“Jesus,” Billy wept. “Jesus Christ.”
“Do not—blaspheme. I order you. Live and—fight on. I—loved you like a son. This was—ordained.”
It was not, Billy cried in secret places. It isn’t God’s will but chance and your stupid Christian sacrifice—
“Come on, sir.” Hands tugged. “He’s dead, sir.”
Billy looked down from the smoke to which his gaze had drifted. Lije’s eyes were closed, his face smooth. A silver line of saliva trickled from the corner of his mouth nearest the ground. A grasshopper hopped onto his beard and sat there, as if curious about the dead giant.
“Come on, sir,” Spinnington repeated. With surprising gentleness, he and another beardless volunteer took hold of Billy’s arms. He was dazed, muttering to himself. “We’ll come back for his body, don’t you worry,” said a faraway voice he didn’t recognize. He ground a dirty fist into his wet eyes and let them lead him.
Near the headquarters encampment, a surgeon offered a bottle of whiskey. Two swallows jolted Billy awake, made him able to function again. He knew something he hadn’t known earlier. God did not rule a war such as this—if indeed He ruled anywhere.
It was dismal to face that truth. Against it, Lije had worn the armor of his faith. It was good armor; it had protected him. Billy felt himself flawed—mean and weak—because he could not don the same armor. But he couldn’t. Not after his sojourn in the Wilderness, where the treetops burned through the night, pyres for the dead and dying. Where Billy had watched Lije die. Where Fighting Joe had turned advantage to stalemate, stalemate to defeat.
The retreat to the river began in midmorning, soldiers, cannon, ambulances all pulling out in a mad melee as the reb infantry advanced while the reb artillery kept pounding. Billy, Spinnington, and two others stole forward into the shell-blasted area to retrieve Lije’s body. But the guns at Hazel Grove had poured in so much heavy fire and so many trees had ignited and the flames had spread so fast that Lije’s body resembled nothing human. None of them, not even Billy, could stand to touch it or look at it for more than a few seconds. They left the charred thing and withdrew.
A realization struck Billy in the midst of the retreat. Well, at least he went to his rest on Sunday.
77
THROUGHOUT MONDAY NIGHT, THE military telegraph remained quiet for long periods. Tired men came and
went at the War Department, some keeping vigil for an hour, others intending to stay until some news arrived. Stanley was among the latter, part of a small group whose status permitted waiting in Stanton’s office. The President was there for a while, stretched on his favorite couch but turning restlessly every few minutes.
“Where is Hooker now? Where is General Stoneman? Why in thunder don’t they send word?”
Stanley held his temples and worked two fingers down to rub his itching eyes. He was sick of the Chief Executive’s impatient rhetorical questions. So was Stanton, evidently; his voice rasped as he replied, “They will break silence at the opportune moment, Mr. President. I imagine the generals are busy consolidating our victory.”
It was Tuesday, nearly sunrise. For the past twelve hours, as they received only the sketchiest reports and casualty figures on the wire, an unsupported consensus had spread like a bad cold. Hooker had won a victory, though at a high price.
Not everyone had caught the cold. Welles, the bearded curmudgeon who held the Navy portfolio and had once been a newspaperman in Connecticut, had not. “Perhaps they’re silent because there is nothing but bad news. If we’d had success, the reports would be coming in volumes, not paragraphs.”
The secretary gave him a long look. Lincoln, too, though his, sorrowing, contrasted sharply with the spleen of Stanton’s. “I am beginning to believe you’re right, Gideon.” Lincoln rose, wrinkled and unkempt, and put his plaid shawl around his shoulders. “Send a messenger the instant we have definitive news.” The military guards in the antechamber snapped to attention as he shuffled through the door.
Falling asleep even though he had deliberately chosen a hard chair, Stanley hung on till half past eight, by which time the department’s daily routine was well started. With permission from the secretary, Stanley entered Stanton’s private dressing closet, splashed his face with tepid water from a basin, then some of Stanton’s cologne. He stumbled out into the spring morning in search of breakfast.