by Ralph Peters
The captain looked dumbfounded. Clearly, the answer was “No.”
“Meade ordered Pleasanton to send out a relief,” Hunt said. “I was there, I heard him.”
Sickles decided to turn the matter around. “You see how it is, Henry? Nothing gets done the way it should. Meade’s a good enough fellow, but he ain’t up to this. And here I am, with no cavalry watching the ground beyond my flank. I could be surprised, if I stayed in that low ground. Up here, at least I could see the enemy coming.”
Hunt shook his head. “I don’t see it. Oh, the battery positions are fine, you’re right about that. Excellent lines of fire. Although there’s a bit of dead ground down on the left. But look here, General Sickles…” Hunt’s horse shied at nothing, then settled again. “This position’s impossible, under the circumstances. You told me yourself your line’s already too long. Were you to advance your corps this far, then stretch back to those hills … why, the length of your line would double. And you’d be out here on a salient, exposed on two sides. You could never defend this ground against a serious attack.”
“I could, with enough artillery. You could send me a few extra batteries from your reserve. I really was thinking of the example you set us all at Malvern Hill—what a triumph that was!” He paused to let his praise sink deep. “Couldn’t your men do it, General Hunt? You’d be the hero of the day again.”
Hunt was having none of it. “Artillery works best with infantry.” The gunner pointed westward. “If the Confederates emplaced batteries along that treeline, this position could not be sustained, sir. Nor could artillery hold it without infantry. Not if the Rebels popped out of those trees in even brigade strength.”
“But you admit this is a fine artillery position. In and of itself.”
“We have no quarrel there.”
“So … if Meade could be made to see reason…”
“He has his reasons. Look, Sickles, I know you haven’t been assigned the most desirable position … but you drew the short straw this time. That’s just how it is. Someone has to grasp the dirty end of the stick. Next time, it could be Hancock.”
Sickles resisted the impulse to say that Hancock never seemed to get the short straw. The favoritism in the army was abominable.
“And speaking of Hancock,” Hunt continued, “if you advanced your corps this far, you’d leave a gap of nearly a mile between your right and his left. And your own left would have no anchor until it reached that round hill. If you had enough men left to get there.”
Sickles had hoped that Hunt would be blind to anything beyond the excellence of the battery positions the peach orchard provided. But it was the same damned story as ever: The West Pointers would not break ranks. They’d rather lose a battle than admit that a fellow Academy man might be wrong.
Determined to have his way, Sickles tried again. “All right, then. Look back to the east, toward the position Meade expects me to hold. What if the Confederates gained this ground right here? They’d be firing down on a good portion of my line. Their guns could even reach Hancock on that ridge.”
“And Hancock’s guns could reach them,” Hunt replied. “Really, I’m not sure either side could hold this position long. It’s an in-between sort of place, trick ground.”
“You like it as an artillery position, though?”
“Merely in a classroom sense. The army’s line must be kept as compact as possible.”
“General Hunt, let me put this bluntly … as one Union man to another…”
Artillery fire broke out on the far right flank, at the other extreme of the Union army’s position. Hunt alerted. Ready to ride off to see to his duty.
Sickles grasped the reins of Hunt’s horse midway back from the bit. His voice grew impassioned. “Hunt, will you or will you not agree that I had best advance my corps to this position?”
The artilleryman looked dumbfounded. “We’ve just gone through this … why, reserves couldn’t even reach you promptly out here. You’d be isolated from the rest of the army, it would upset the entire plan.”
“You won’t back my movement?”
“Not on my authority.” But Hunt was no tin tyrant like George Meade. In a more comradely tone, he added, “I’ll report your views to the general commanding. That’s all I can do for you.”
The cannonade on the army’s right quelled itself again: The battle just refused to recommence. Still, it was clear that Hunt wanted to be off. To play with his precious guns, his hoarded reserve, his private army. Sickles turned to reviewing Hunt’s words for possible justifications for what he intended.
About to ride away, Hunt paused. Both men looked eastward, toward Sickles’ waiting corps, most of it hidden by copses or the low ridge.
“I’ll put you another argument against moving forward,” Hunt told him. “Those groves you complained about … and that marshy ground in front of your position … if you advanced your corps, you’d have to fall back through all that, if pressed. With the Rebel guns up here firing down on you. As you just pointed out yourself. In my professional judgment, withdrawing from this line could become a debacle.”
Disgusted with the West Pointer’s timidity, Sickles said, “The Third Corps will not withdraw.”
THIRTEEN
July 2, Afternoon
Major General Lafayette McLaws rode at the head of his division, gnawing on a chicken leg. He ate when he was unhappy, and he ate when he was mad. Now he was mad and unhappy. Longstreet had handled him as he might a schoolboy. In front of at least a dozen fellow officers, to say nothing of General Lee. Such behavior was not merely ungentlemanly, it was unforgivable.
As his mount bore his bulk forward, flanked by the horses of Captain Johnston, Lee’s scout, and General Kershaw, who commanded his leading brigade, McLaws yearned to get at the Yankees. He felt plain cussed toward his West Point classmate Pete Longstreet, who was a bigger humbug than any Mormon out in the territories. But Longstreet could not be touched, so the Federals would have to do. For now. But Longstreet would get his comeuppance, in good time.
When he finally came down to give the order to march, Longstreet had taken pains to behave civilly. He knew damned well that he had been in the wrong. But making up wasn’t that easy: The damage was done. Laff McLaws was not a forgiving man.
At times he wished he’d just stayed home with Emmy.
He’d taken one small revenge on Longstreet, though. He’d defied the order not to conduct his own reconnaissance and had ridden as far as he’d dared toward the Union flank. Now Captain Johnston had led them past that point and McLaws wished he had gone farther on his own. He didn’t like the look of the ground, it broke all wrong. He felt the weight of the column stretching behind him, his own division hurrying along—after a string of infuriating delays—and Hood’s bunch hard on his rear. Alexander had gotten his guns out early, which kept down the dust, but the batteries had been swallowed by the earth. McLaws could only hope they’d appear where they were meant to be and when they were meant to be there. The afternoon fled like a thief.
Riding through a shallow valley, he couldn’t see much at all. And he didn’t like it. Lee’s young engineer looked full of confidence, but McLaws didn’t share it. Probably another damned Virginian, he told himself. Then he corrected his judgment: If Johnston had been a Virginian, he’d be a damned general.
They passed a shut-up tavern. The engineer paid it no mind.
McLaws would have complained about the meandering to Longstreet, but the humbug was back with Hood, whom he always favored. McLaws felt badly treated and half-abandoned. And this flank march was interminable. The landscape seemed to weave like a battered pugilist.
He tossed the sucked-out bones into the dust and licked his fingers. Captain Johnston led the way up a ridge, but McLaws was determined to head his own division. Just as they reached the crest, he overtook the engineer.
They both stopped. Mortified. Riding up behind them, Kershaw spoke for all:
“Jesus Christ almighty.”
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br /> Like Barksdale, another politician jumped up to brigade command, Kershaw had the gift of loading the briefest exclamation with a stage actor’s emotion.
McLaws raised a hand to halt the staff men crowding up behind him. And he turned to Captain Johnston.
“You low-down sonofabitch, you look at that! You just goddamned look at that, and you tell me what the holy hogshit you see out there, boy.”
Abashed by the view before them, the captain shriveled. “I swear, I didn’t—”
“Damn it to Hell, boy, they can see us. Those goddamned Yankee signal sonsofbitches on that goddamned hill over yonder would goddamned well see every one of us, if we marched over this ridge. And we’re still two miles from their lines.”
Craving another morsel of chicken, McLaws turned his horse into the field on the ridgeback. He had a mind to draw out his pistol and shoot Lee’s worthless toady right out of the saddle. What the Hell were they going to do now? Might as well have sent George Meade a telegram.
Tracks swirled into the oats from caissons and gun carriages, but they made little sense to McLaws. Alexander had come the same way, then turned around. But where the artilleryman had gone next was a riddle.
Kershaw’s orders to his brigade to halt echoed down the line of march. Captain Johnston rode over the artillery tracks on the other side of the field, searching for the long-lost key to paradise. McLaws shook his head and cursed the world again.
Kershaw rejoined him and said, “Best go gentle, sir. That boy’s one of Lee’s pedigreed hounds.”
“I know that, damn it.”
Despite his fighting record, Kershaw was a politician still. He added, “Old Pete seems fond of him, too.”
“I don’t give a wet shit.”
The two men heard hoofbeats coming on—and knew what the sound portended.
“That’s all I need,” McLaws told the brigade commander.
Longstreet galloped up to them. “What the devil’s the holdup?”
McLaws cocked his head toward the crest. “Go up and have a look for yourself. This here secret route ain’t much of a secret. We march over that ridge, and the Yankees waving their signal flags on that hill will be counting up the buttons on our uniforms.”
Longstreet rode on to the crest, followed by two of his minions. As if he didn’t trust his subordinate’s eyes. Captain Johnston rejoined McLaws as he waited. The engineer had become a meeker man. McLaws ignored him.
Longstreet came back down cursing. When he got his temper reined in, he turned to Johnston: “Why, this won’t do. Is there no way to avoid it?”
“Sir … I don’t know. I swear it wasn’t—”
Longstreet held up his hand for silence, shaking his head in disgust.
Even if it meant revealing that he’d disobeyed an order, McLaws was glad of the chance to show up his superior: “I spied out a better route myself. This morning, after we talked. It’s back a ways, though. We’d have to countermarch.”
“Then countermarch, man.”
“It’s the better part of a mile to the rear.”
Calculations played out on Longstreet’s face. “Would you allow General Hood to take over the lead? To save time?”
McLaws straightened in the saddle, marshaling every pound of his thickset dignity. “You granted me the privilege of leading this corps forward, sir. I will not surrender that right of my own free will. I protest any alteration. As a matter of honor.”
Longstreet opened his mouth to give a direct order, then apparently thought better of it. He tempered his tone. “You’re sure you know a way? Where we won’t be seen?”
McLaws enjoyed the tension as his lips formed into a smile. “A little more certain than Captain Johnston, I think.”
“Then march. It’s almost three o’clock.” Longstreet grimaced. “I’d like to get this attack under way before the month is out.”
The corps commander yanked his horse around and rode back toward Hood.
* * *
As Longstreet cantered up, the Kentuckian was pointing hither, thither, and yon. When McLaws’ men came to a halt, Hood’s boys had gotten tangled with their rear brigade. A passel of generals and colonels sorted it out, while the majors and captains lay low.
Spotting the corps commander, Hood broke from the muddle and trotted over. Grinning darkly, ready to take a few scalps.
“What’s the holdup?” he asked. “Laff’s horse give out on him?”
When he saw how Longstreet glowered, Hood slew his grin.
“Route’s bad,” Longstreet said. “Yankee signal station can see the crest up ahead.”
“Goddamn.”
Longstreet nodded. “Laff’s countermarching. Claims he knows another way. You’ll need to get your lead brigade off the road, he’s headed back here.”
Hood’s brows pulled in. “Hadn’t I better take the lead? He could send me a guide.”
“Got a corncob up his ass. ‘Point of honor.’ I promised him he could lead the march today.”
Hood put on a warpath face as he gathered his next words. Longstreet understood that Hood was about to declare that, as their corps commander, he could damned well order Lafayette McLaws to do anything he wanted him to do.
Longstreet spoke first. “Not worth it, Sam. I don’t have time to argue points of honor with Sir Lafayette of Augusta.” He made a rare decision to confide in a subordinate. Nudging his horse closer, he said, “You’ll be on your own, once the attack goes in. General Lee has ordered me to stick by Laff, once the shooting starts. There’s some concern he might need a helping hand.”
Hood’s ready-to-scalp expression took on a glow. “I can manage, I guess.”
Longstreet laughed. “What you mean is ‘Good riddance.’ I’ll be out of your hair.”
The Kentuckian permitted himself a rare, wry smile. “I suppose a high general such as yourself might look at things in that peculiar way.…”
“I’m depending on you, Sam.” Hood’s nickname made him think fleetingly of Grant. “I need you to go as far to our right as you can without losing contact with McLaws. Get in behind them, if you can. Just don’t lose touch with Kershaw on Laff’s right.”
“Glad to hear it’s Kershaw,” Hood remarked. No need to say more.
“How are Law’s men?” Longstreet asked. “Footsore, I imagine.”
“Not sure they can feel their feet well enough to call ’em sore. But there’s not a man in that brigade would stay behind today.”
They spotted the head of McLaws’ column doubling back toward them. A half-dozen more riders had joined the division commander. The group looked ragged, emanating frustration.
Still well beyond shouting range, McLaws turned off again. In the general direction of the Army of the Potomac.
“I hope the Hell he knows where he’s a-going,” Hood said.
“I’d better get on up there,” Longstreet told him.
He spurred his horse toward the rising dust.
* * *
Longstreet and McLaws rode along together, neither saying much. Longstreet sensed the division commander’s peevishness and was tempted to tell McLaws to act like a man. With battle ahead.
He let it go. Given that he felt downright peeved himself. Resigned to doing his duty, Longstreet still believed the attack was foolish. But Lee had made it clear as all ugly that he intended to fight.
A lieutenant spoke as they neared another ridge. “Just over that crest, sir. That’s where we’ll break cover.”
They turned their mounts aside to let Kershaw’s men pass.
“How are you going in?” Longstreet asked as the horses quieted. Hoping for an answer that would not require his personal amendment. Sweat drenched his back, but he knew it was many times worse for the men on foot. How many of their canteens were already empty?
“That will be determined,” McLaws said coldly, “when I can see what is in my front.”
“There’s nothing in your front, damn it. You heard General Lee say it himself. You’ll be
entirely on the flank of the enemy.”
Haughty as a Charleston belle, McLaws said, “Then I’ll continue my march in columns of companies. After arriving on the flank as far as is necessary, I’ll face to the left and march on the enemy.”
“That suits me,” Longstreet said. For all of his tootling about honor, McLaws was a good, stubborn fighter. Just not the man to cope with too many surprises. “We need to get this attack under way before Christmas.”
Longstreet rode back toward Hood, to hurry him forward.
* * *
Satisfied that he’d held his own with Longstreet, McLaws watched Kershaw plunge ahead to lead his men through the treeline atop the ridge. Everything had to go crisply now, his brigades would have to quick-march toward the Union flank before deploying into battle order. Surprise was everything.
As soon as the lead troops in gray disappeared from McLaws’ line of sight, cannon fire exploded to their front. Seconds later, shot screamed overhead.
McLaws galloped up the slope and dismounted behind the crest. His staff hurried after him. Still on horseback, Kershaw was ablaze with the fire of command, ordering out skirmishers and telling his forward regiments to deploy behind a stone wall that marked a field line.
“Ride back to the other brigades, tell them to rush on up,” McLaws shouted to an aide. Then he stumped forward, wheezing, toward the battle sounds.
Penetrating the narrow band of trees, he saw a sight that wasn’t supposed to be: A line of Union batteries awaited his division, spitting fire at Kershaw’s vanguard. Between and behind those smoking muzzles, regiments of Union infantry had taken up positions around an orchard. Their refused flank sat astride his line of attack.
As General Lafayette McLaws tried to figure out what to do, more Federal troops hastened over the fields to extend the Federal line.
Where Lee had promised an undefended flank, Meade’s army stood waiting.