by Ralph Peters
It was the hardest thing he had ever done.
Riding from one point of crisis to another, he twice had guided brigades to plug holes in the defense, unable to find the commanders of their divisions. The concentric attacks against his left had constricted Sickles’ lines like a noose on the army’s neck. Meade had begun by calling up the Fifth Corps, then, as regiments broke, brigades collapsed, and divisions began to dissolve, he had ordered up units from every corps in the army, save the broken Eleventh, thinning his lines elsewhere to the point of grave vulnerability. Chains of command were a shambles and there had been no time for niceties. Minutes had been purchased with hundreds of lives, entire regiments sacrificed to gain a quarter hour. Amid the mounting troubles, he had called on his generals to give up what men they could from their own lines. To their credit, they complied unstintingly. Every man felt the terrible weight of the moment.
Little Round Top appeared safe, although Sickles’ forward line had been broken everywhere. The valley below the Round Tops was a butcher’s yard, and the rugged ground to the west had all been lost, while a misshapen wheatfield sprouted corpses from a dozen regiments. The fighting continued in thickets and gloom on the left, but it now appeared that those lines, at least, would hold.
Elsewhere, though, the Rebels kept on coming, pouring in fresh troops in what seemed a brilliantly organized oblique attack of the sort taught at West Point in homage to Frederick the Great. None of the cadets had listened, of course, because their wars were all to be frontier scraps.
Now, from where Meade sat upon Old Baldy—who had suffered a few nicks—he saw a vacuum before him. The center of his line had emptied, except for fleeing men unsure of the shortest route to safety. Humphreys’ division had collapsed and there had been nothing behind it.
Any moment now, Meade expected to see gray lines emerge from the smoky twilight. And the force remaining by his side consisted of himself, two junior officers, and two orderlies. Every other member of his staff and even his cavalry bodyguard had been dispatched to hurry on reinforcements or to bully fleeing regiments to make a stand.
His final call for help had gone out to Newton, the general he had picked to command the First Corps on losing Reynolds. The corps had been bloodied badly the day before, but Meade had no one left to whom he could turn. Newton would have to pull his men off line, and far more quickly than good practice dictated. If he failed to come up swiftly, the path to the army’s rear and its trains lay open. The Confederates could walk there unopposed. And the Army of the Potomac would split in two.
This was the struggle’s climax. And all he could do was wait.
It seemed an age ago that he and Newton had stood by the cemetery, surveying the fields and the town. But it had not been twelve hours. The confidence Meade had felt in the morning had shrunk to a nugget of hope.
Face impassive, the general burned within. He had done his best to stage an engineer’s defense, to teach Lee’s army a lesson, only to find himself betrayed by a politician’s ambition.
Now Sickles was somewhere in the rear, under a surgeon’s knife. Which just might save the villain from a court-martial. The blessing of getting him off the field was worth it, though: Sickles had lost control of his corps early on, then did little to wrest it back. Upon learning that Sickles had been wounded, Meade had sent Hancock to rally the Third Corps’ scraps. Win had done everything that was humanly possible. It had not been enough.
Massive and constant, the din of battle sounded left and right, refusing to break off as night enveloped them. Only to Meade’s immediate front did there seem to be a corridor of silence. He peered through the smoke and faint light.
He had done all he could. He did not believe any general could have achieved more, under the circumstances. Drained of his last resources now, he could only pray what was done had been enough.
Then he saw them. Their uniforms showed darker in the gloaming, but the advancing lines were unquestionably Confederate. The flags waved by triumphant bearers confirmed it. Not six hundred yards away, across undefended fields, they marched straight for him.
Those Rebel battle lines were uneven now, marked by hard fighting. Not all of Sickles’ men had run away. Men had fought for their homes, for the Union, and for the friends beside them. The Confederates had suffered, too.
There was precious little comfort in the thought. The Rebels were there, coming on. And Meade had no one left to whom he could turn.
He swung around in the saddle, scanning the world behind the crest of the ridge. Looking for Newton’s men. Or for anyone.
To his rear, he saw only night.
The advancing Rebels may or may not have spotted the cluster of horsemen in their path, but they certainly saw the emptiness around them. They sent up a Rebel yell. It was hoarse and much diminished now, but still bloodcurdling.
Was this how it was to end?
Meade glanced rearward a last, urgent time: Ghosts of smoke, no flesh.
The gray ranks loomed, picking up their pace, souls ablaze with the victory in their grasp.
Perhaps this would be the final battle Lee wanted. Perhaps the war would be decided here. And the South would go its way. Because he, George Meade, had failed.
The thought was wormwood and gall.
No! I will not be beaten.
With the Rebel line spreading out to fill the horizon, Meade straightened in the saddle.
He drew his saber.
Without a word, the four horsemen at his side drew their own swords. They aligned their mounts with his, ready to charge and die beside their chieftain.
As Meade began to extend his saber, ready to spur his horse into the foe, an orderly shouted:
“Here they come, General! Here they come!”
Meade was about to snap that, damn it, he had eyes in his own head and could see the Rebels. But the words were stopped by cheering to his rear.
He turned.
General Newton came galloping toward him with his staff, his lead regiments pouring over the ridge, with their country’s flag held high in the pale night.
Tears welled in George Meade’s eyes, but he restrained them. It would not do for a Philadelphian to weep.
Doubleday’s division was coming on, with Robinson’s following. Thousands of hurrying footfalls thickened the dying light with dust.
Newton rode up and reined in beside Meade. In splendid spirits.
“With your permission, General, we’ll go right at ’em.”
Meade nodded. And sheathed his sword.
“I was wondering what you were going to do with that butter-knife,” Newton said. Grinning. He waved his men forward, past the relieved horsemen. Newton was a cool fellow, on the whole. But he was enjoying the moment. He drew out a flask and passed it over to Meade.
Meade accepted it. Gratefully. His hand trembled, but he refused to be ashamed. It was enough that the soldiers in blue rushed past him, full of fight.
It was enough, it was enough.
A shell burst close enough to splash the generals with dirt. Meade hardly noticed. Such trivialities didn’t matter now.
Arriving in close column by division, Newton’s men streamed past at the double-quick. Surprised at the sight, the Rebels had slowed their own progress. The First Corps soldiers deployed into line as crisply as if drilled on that very field.
Meade looked to the rear in wonder and saw more blue columns coming. Those would have to be from Slocum, who must have decided he could spare even more men from his line than he’d already sent. Meade’s brothers-in-arms had not let him down. Starved of troops five minutes before, he now had a feast of plenty.
The line was going to hold.
He handed the flask back to Newton and, with brandy burning his throat, he spurred Old Baldy forward. For once in his life, Meade felt unalloyed exuberance.
He guided his horse into the gap between two advancing regiments, urging the men along with a youth’s enthusiasm and smiling like a child given boiled sweets. Delighted.
Soaring. Joyous.
It was all right now. It would be all right.
“Come on, gentlemen,” Meade called to his troops, “come on!”
For the first time, the Army of the Potomac cheered him.
* * *
Longstreet called them back. He knew they would protest, he knew they would blame him. They had come so close, only to be ordered to withdraw. In their recollections, they would have been on the cusp of an unprecedented victory, when that damnable Dutchman Longstreet ordered them to withdraw, leaving the field of glory to the Yankees.
He would have to live with that.
But Longstreet was not a man to purchase fame with the blood of others. He had never seen men fight better than his soldiers had fought this day. But their courage had not been enough. Numbers mattered, and the Federals had the numbers. Now they even had superior ground, driven onto it by his own men’s early successes. There simply was no point in going on.
Through the veiled light he could see what the men on foot below him, down in the fields and gulleys, could not or would not: Their moment had passed. From a low ridge, he bore witness to the deluge of Union troops flooding onto the field. Lines that had been threatened were reinforced, then bolstered again. Fresh guns rolled up, a seemingly endless supply of them. On the far ridge, officers clustered confidently, no longer alarmed by the progress of their enemies. And still more Union regiments came on.
Perhaps, if he had had Pickett, he might have carried the ground to the left of the round hills, splitting Meade’s line. Before the Federals had time to recover. But he had lacked the reserves to lend the final, decisive weight to his attack when he had the chance.
Now time had run out.
How his men had fought, though! He had been unspeakably proud of them, had never seen soldiers go forward so handsomely. Now he saw their corpses, and the wounded and maimed struggling to the rear. Up at the sharp edge of the fight, stubborn men still damned every Yankee to Hell: They didn’t know when to quit. That was his responsibility.
His men had nearly won. But nearly didn’t count. And the odds against them now were insurmountable.
They had taken ground, a great deal of it. But that ground was worthless. They would hold it out of pride, but the Federals had kept both of the round hills. They would not be dislodged, not this day, not the next.
The attack had been misconceived from the very start. And no amount of valor could redeem it. Had he, James Longstreet, done his best this day? He could recall a dozen things he might have done more wisely. Later, he would remember even more. It was always that way. Battles were fought by men, not omniscient gods. From comfortable vantage points, historians always saw what should have been done. But perfection existed only in their books.
He had played the hand he drew, but lost the round. And that was that.
Tom Goree found him.
“Sir, Law’s men don’t want to quit. They want to give it one more go, try one more time.”
Longstreet shook his head. “Look over there. Wait for the smoke to clear. Tell me what you see.”
Perhaps … if he had had Pickett. Or if Hood had not been wounded and Hill had come in earlier on his left. If Ewell had attacked when the old fool was supposed to. If the afternoon march had not gone astray. If … if … there was nothing but damned ifs now.
He knew his men had hurt their enemies badly. Meade had not had a merry day, that was certain. But the Union would replace its fallen soldiers, while the South’s blood was running out.
The smoke cleared and Goree saw what Longstreet had seen.
“Christ almighty. Where’d they all come from?”
“Ride back down there, Tom. Tell the boys it’s over for today.”
Goree saluted and yanked his horse about. Angered by all the world. He was a hot-tempered man, who would have gone at the Yankees with a knife. And he, too, would have died.
Whether Longstreet’s order to pull back to the nearest ground fit for defense had been received, or if the quitting light had slowed things down, the firing thinned. The men were exhausted. Even if their spirits were willing, their bodies were worn out.
He wished he could tell every one of his soldiers still alive how proud he was of the way they’d fought that day. Pride was all the survivors were going to have, he saw that now. The bitter truth was that they had been defeated, their key objectives untaken. He, and they, had failed. He would not tell them so and would put a good face on it. But this had been their only chance to pry Meade from his position.
And Lee? He already knew what Lee would have to say. This wouldn’t be a defeat, but an incomplete victory, with the fight to be resumed on the morrow. The old man could not bear to leave it at this. They would attack again, with as many men as the bloodied army could muster. They would attack into a Union position that Longstreet now saw was formidable.
Lee would fight again tomorrow, and Longstreet would fight for him. Because that was what soldiers did. Lee would reason that Meade’s men had been battered worse than his, that they would break at one more determined blow. Longstreet could hear the old man’s voice speak the words: “We must attack them. Those people will not withstand another attack.” And the men in gray, from Georgia and the Carolinas, from Virginia and Tennessee, would go forward again, all gallantry and fire and homespun chivalry. And Meade would be waiting. Up there.
Longstreet would go through the motions, try again to talk Lee into maneuvering around Meade. But he knew it would avail nothing. He would do it to ease his conscience, not because he expected results. Lee didn’t know how to do anything but fight, once he had been bloodied. His pride would be injured now. He would not quit.
Lieutenant General James Longstreet had lost faith.
SIXTEEN
July 2, Night
Sweat and waiting filled Schwertlein’s hours, as the battle stormed on elsewhere. The survivors of the 26th Wisconsin had wedged into the line below the cemetery, where Krzyzanowski’s stricken brigade held a position that would have suited a robust regiment. The morning had straggled into afternoon, annoyed by sharpshooters hidden in the town. Bands of men seeped out from unscathed brigades to refresh the skirmish line, only to return bearing wounded comrades. A detail from the 26th had been sent forward, but the men, including Schwertlein and broken-toothed Bettelman, no sooner reached a contested fence than they were ordered back into reserve at the edge of the cemetery.
A lone wagon brought up food at last. The commissary sergeant, bellowing, “Mahlzeit!” from his bench, had expected to feed twice the number of those who remained alive at their posts, so they had salt beef aplenty: The meal was envied by all those who had scorned them.
Their chewing was serenaded by a barrage on the far left flank, a devil’s opera of booms and blasts in the dragging afternoon. The men paid it little mind: The gunnery was sufficiently distant to be the affair of others. Enterprising sharpshooters were of greater concern, but even they had nearer, finer targets. Now and then, a man turned his head at the insistent cannonade, but others would take their turn at dying now.
The mockery making the rounds of the army, the excoriation of the “Flying Dutchmen,” filled the men with an impotent fury that left them blistered and listless. Bled out and humiliated, the regiment had never gobbled a meal with so little talk, without a single debate over social reform, abolition, natural rights, true democracy versus a republic, the relative merits of poets and cooks, or the virtues of Rheingau wines versus those of Baden. The men curled into themselves like salted snails.
On the left, a battle bloomed. Nerves tightened along the lines. As the cacophony edged nearer, smoke aged the evening light. In far fields, lone figures and bunched soldiers retreated.
“Sieht nicht gut aus,” a soldier, Theo Fenstermacher, remarked.
“Na, gut. Lass die Englisch-sprechenden Herrschaften was schönes vom Lee erleben.”
“Du Arsch! Meinst Du denn, dass wir nicht hinein müssen, wenn das alles schiefgeht?”
&n
bsp; Schwertlein said nothing. He understood the anger toward their fellow soldiers in Union blue, but speech seemed pointless. What must come, would come. He watched Bettelman instead. The broken tooth plagued his comrade, who struggled to reduce a shred of meat and get it down.
Cannon barked on the right flank now, back among the hills behind the cemetery. But the real fight remained the contest on the left. Down the ridge, a brigade formed in haste and headed toward the gun-lightning. The column disappeared into shrouds of smoke, a premature darkness under the still-blue sky.
Still gnawing his dinner, Bettleman gasped in misery. “Fritz,” he moaned to Schwertlein, “you have no idea what pain is, no idea.…”
It was true, Schwertlein supposed. Pain was a queer thing, private and unique. Despite all the carnage and horror they had witnessed, none of it lessened the pain from Bettelman’s tooth.
During the long day’s thirsty, fly-bothered wait, Schwertlein had thought how pain might have done him some good, had it stemmed from a wound a bit greater than the nick that stained his uniform. His limb itched, that was all. A luckier wound might have sent him home, at least for a few months.
He never had allowed himself such cowardly, shirking thoughts in bygone days. But something had changed within him. He had always been able to reason himself into a semblance of bravery, into a numbing belief in a greater cause. Even Chancellorsville had barely shaken that soldierly knack. But this … War struck him as no more than a slaughter now. What cause could be so great as to merit this?
He was a born believer, but his fine beliefs had failed him. He regretted the loss of his friends, of the dead and missing, of Hannes with his faith in laws and Josef with his poetry … but he was glad that they had fallen, not him. He knew he should feel nobler emotions, but could not. He was satisfied to remain alive, no matter the cost to others. He felt no guilt, only dread at the thought of perishing himself, and he did not like himself for it. He yearned to live with a lust he had never known.