by Ralph Peters
Turning toward the Union lines, the old man raised a fist.
“The enemy is there,” Lee said, “and I am going to strike him.”
Longstreet’s gut refused to welcome his breakfast. Lee bewildered him. He could not understand how any man—let alone one of Lee’s experience—could fail to see the folly in attacking across that mile of open fields. Longstreet had pushed out his scouts in the night, then ridden out on the enemy’s flank himself. There were multiple opportunities to outflank Meade. Even now.
Lee refused to hear him. Upon his arrival at Longstreet’s position, he had flared at the lack of preparations for a dawn attack, at the realization that Pickett’s men had not yet come up on the line. But Longstreet had had no inkling that an early attack was intended. He had been with Pickett the evening before when a message arrived from Lee telling Pickett to hold in place, that he would be called upon when he was needed. But Lee had not called upon Pickett, or on anyone else thereafter. Then the unsettled old man had wanted McLaws and Law—now commanding Hood’s division—to attack alongside Pickett the instant he marched up. That had sparked another bitter argument, with Longstreet pointing out how battered the two divisions were in the wake of yesterday’s fight, along with the danger of the Federals striking his flank, if Law and McLaws were to move out of position. Only when he drew Lee out into the open to see the terrain for himself had Lee relented regarding McLaws and Law. But the grand attack, with Pickett at its heart, would still go in.
Longstreet had then pleaded for Hill to attack as well, with the bulk of his corps. He believed that Meade’s current position would not yield to fewer than thirty thousand men. Lee insisted that half the number would do.
Finally, at sunrise, Fairfax shot the crippled horse and Longstreet made his final, desperate plea. It failed. He felt half a wish that Fairfax had shot him, instead of the stallion.
Longstreet had never been less confident of success, never so burdened by the thought that thousands of men would be wasted—the flesh-and-blood lives of soldiers who put more trust in Lee than they did in God.
How could Lee fail to see it?
Behind them, the Army of Northern Virginia rose from its uneven rest. Most of the birds had fled the groves, yet a few trilled their daily greetings to the world. The aroma of campfires pierced an array of stenches. Regiments groaned and rustled, awaiting a boiled treat of captured coffee. Orders snapped.
Lee softened his posture. But not his resolve. Taking Longstreet’s arm, he told him, “We must pull together, you and I. The men must not believe we are divided. They must have confidence.”
Longstreet nodded.
Light gripped the fields and colors fought clinging shadows. Off to the left, on the high ground where the blasted orchard stood, Porter Alexander shifted a battery. The artilleryman had more energy than anyone else in the army. Longstreet had already decided that the young man would command all the corps’ guns that day. No one else was as capable. Certainly not fussy old Pendleton. And the artillery would have the devil’s own work to do.
“Let us go forward a little,” Lee said, almost gently. “Toward the road, the better to see. You will have many labors this morning, General.”
They mounted and rode out, trailed by their retinues. Nearer now, Alexander busied himself with another section, laying each gun himself.
Riding beside Longstreet, Lee said, “The artillery will have to prepare the way, of course. To silence the batteries in the center. If the artillery does its work, I do not think it will be so very difficult. Meade has been weakened to the breaking point.”
Longstreet did not reply.
They dismounted on another of the low crests that rippled the fields and examined the Union lines through their field glasses. They had entered the realm of the dead now, ground upon which both sides had bled, only to abandon it. The cluster of horses and officers presented a splendid target, but the Union cannoneers declined to open.
Lee took his time, shielding his lenses from the rising sun with a hand that was not quite steady. The old man had not yet been this far forward, but Longstreet knew the ground from the thick of battle. He sensed that Lee was only now discovering the topography’s disadvantages. The old man said nothing.
A Yankee corpse in blood-crusted Zouave dress stared into the sky. His shoes had been taken, along with his stockings. His naked feet seemed ridiculous and obscene. Close on his toes, a bearded corpse in homespun had spilled its brains. Beyond lay more, far more, whose lives had stopped suddenly.
Toward the town, skirmishers pecked at the morning.
A cavalcade broke from the wood that concealed the army. Gaunt Powell Hill took the lead, instantly recognizable, followed by Harry Heth, the latter’s head white with bandages. Staff officers and escorts completed the little troop. Hooves thumped the earth as the riders made for Lee.
There was plenty of bad blood between the corps commanders Longstreet and Hill. As well as the bad blood in Hill’s veins, Longstreet told himself. He did not believe that Hill was the man to command a corps. But the Virginian had been Lee’s choice.
Longstreet was sorry now that he had ordered Hill’s arrest the year before. The action had been petulant, but could not be undone. The dislike and resentment had been there on both sides, though, with Hill hounding after glory undeserved and Longstreet behaving poorly, as he realized now. He did not believe that Hill was an honest man, or a good one. Possessed of bravery, Hill was also capable of malice, his style of command a brew of impulse and indolence. But they were thrown together now, and would have to make the best of it.
The riders pulled up. Hill looked somewhat recovered from his latest indisposition, but Heth was hard to read. For that matter, Lee also seemed healthier, sounder, than he had been for days.
Longstreet turned away to scribble orders for Tom Goree to carry to Pickett, who was to bring up his men and find a sheltered spot in the army’s center. Sleek as a Comanche, Goree galloped off with the message.
Bemused that no Union gunners had opened on the henhouse gathering of generals, Longstreet stepped back into the command circle in time to hear Lee tell Hill and Heth, “General Longstreet will, of course, command the attack. General Hill, you will provide a division to cooperate with Pickett, as well as any brigades wanted as supports.”
Longstreet caught the look from Hill: half jealousy and half relief that the responsibility for the day would not be his.
“I believe,” Lee said, “that General Heth’s division is well positioned to join Pickett.”
Hill and Heth exchanged a queer look, but Lee appeared not to notice. Longstreet wondered what that was all about. Something had gone unsaid.
Longstreet caught Heth watching him. Discovered, Heth looked away, showing Longstreet the stain on the bandage wrapping his head.
“I believe it best,” Lee said to Heth and Hill, “to allow General Pettigrew to continue to lead the division for today’s attack.” Attempting a smile—a facial contortion Lee had never mastered—he turned to Longstreet. “Our friend General Heth must be allowed time to recover.”
“I’m all right,” Heth said, by way of excusing himself. “Just not all right enough. Things don’t look right, not half the time. Wouldn’t do, I suppose.”
“Pettigrew will serve all right,” Hill put in.
Longstreet knew Pettigrew just well enough to worry. His brigade’s attack on the battle’s first day apparently had not been quite as refined as the gentleman himself. Now the embroidered cavalier was to lead a division he had commanded for barely one day in a near hopeless charge.
But who else was left? That was the damnable thing: Glorious attacks were killing and maiming generals and colonels faster than a new crop could be grown. Yet, they went on squandering their best, as if good leaders were cotton or tobacco and could be replaced by another bale from the warehouse.
Pettigrew was universally acknowledged to be a brilliant man, but Longstreet wondered if his lauded genius mightn’t get in
the way of sensible soldiering. He’d heard that, at New Bern, Pettigrew had made a knightly show of attempting to limit the bloodshed, with the result that he and his men received a whipping. Soldiers had to think, but they also had to know when to stop thinking and just plain do. Pettigrew struck Longstreet as a wellborn gentleman whose valor belonged to his role as a cavalier, public bravery of the sort that cost other men their lives. If that judgment was unfair, Longstreet told himself, it was no more unfair than giving inexperienced men the charge of attacking divisions.
For all that, there wasn’t a damned thing to be done about it.
Barricades of clouds resisted the sun’s assault, but the breakthrough was coming, Longstreet could feel it with the certainty of a man who had lived much out of doors. The day would be Texas hot by noon, and the temperature would side with Meade as Pickett’s men and Pettigrew’s crossed those fields.
A scrap developed around a cluster of farm buildings short of the town, the sort of fight that was ugly enough if you were caught up in it, but that hardly counted to anyone who wasn’t.
After dismissing Hill and Heth, Lee turned to Longstreet and interrupted his thoughts. “General? Shall we show ourselves to the men? And greet General Pickett?”
* * *
As soon as Lee left them, Longstreet took Pickett forward to see the fields he had to cross and the deadly slope his men had to climb. Ordering their staffs to hold at the tree line, Longstreet led the way into the open. He wanted—needed—to hear Pickett speak frankly: In the company of others, George would feel obliged to pose as fearless.
He had known Pickett since they were lieutenants in Mexico, in the 8th Infantry. At Chapultepec, Longstreet had carried the regiment’s flag until shot in the thigh. George had taken it from his hands and planted it on the ramparts of the citadel. They had been hardly more than boys then, exuberant in victory, still unaware that life held more than laurels.
Longstreet had gone on to a happy marriage and four children, until scarlet fever robbed him of three and cast a pall over a love he’d thought indestructible. Still, he had been granted happy years, unlike George Pickett. Standing on that parapet in Mexico had been a high point for George. Not long thereafter, his much-loved wife had died. The Army sent him off to Indian country, where he took up with a squaw and fathered her child. He had served in dull eclipse until his defiance of the British up in the Washington Territory revived his name at last.
In this war, his performance had been dashing, if not always wise. His valor at Gaines’ Mill had earned him a bad wound and promotion to divisional command. But the army murmured that his convalescence—under the care of a willful girl who was hardly more than a child—had made him wary of danger for the first time in his life. And Pickett made no secret of his attachment to his Sallie: He was downright tetched with moon-calf love, wearing ribbons begged from her hand without the least embarrassment. If others cast themselves as cavaliers, Pickett was a knight in gray-wool armor.
Longstreet found himself hoping that the worst of the slanderous gossip would prove true. If the prospect of those fields daunted George Pickett, they could go together to Lee and petition the old man to stop the attack. Longstreet knew he was out of credit with Lee, but Pickett was like a darling, indulged son whose voice might catch the old man’s ear in time.
Well forward of the batteries being readied, Longstreet reined in his horse and suggested dismounting. He noted how Pickett took his time, eyeing the Union lines from up in the saddle. George never quite broke his stare at the ground he must cross and the lines he had to capture.
Longstreet let him look.
At last, Pickett said, “My, oh my … ain’t that a sight?”
“What do you think, George?”
Pickett shook his head, oiled ringlets tossing below the cap he wore at an angle. “Looks like those boys are expecting our company, don’t it? Can’t say old Meade’s done himself any harm settling in.” His face was downright grave by Pickett standards.
“The position’s formidable,” Longstreet said carefully. “Can it be taken, George? I need your honest view. Between us.”
Pickett hesitated, staring across the broad expanse that led to the Federal lines. Lifting a hand to extend his cap’s visor, he slowly shook his head.
Longstreet began to hope. Perhaps, even now, Lee could be made to see reason.
Pickett changed in an instant. Dropping his hand from his cap, he turned out of the sun, smiling as grandly as if about to dance with his beloved Sallie.
“My boys can do it, Pete. It’ll be hard, ain’t saying it won’t be. But damn, if we won’t do it.” He cocked his head, almost forty years of age and still as much a boy as he’d been in Mexico. His grin widened. “Only good manners to take a stroll up there, in my opinion. With Granny Meade expecting us to call, we’d be downright rude to decline the invitation.”
Longstreet felt betrayed. They’d known each other for so long, why did George have to put up so much front? Pickett thought his prospects were grim, that much had been evident from his long look at the lines. Couldn’t any of them be honest, with so much at stake?
The infernal problem was that there wasn’t a man in the army who would risk dishonor by saying a thing could not be done or didn’t make sense to do. If the Confederacy died, it would perish of pride.
“Take a good look, George,” Longstreet said, locking up his emotions. “Take a good, long look. Then get your men ready.”
* * *
James Johnston Pettigrew watched Longstreet approach with a surge of anger he knew he dared not reveal and with trepidation that must remain equally hidden. The division placed in his hands was in no condition to match Pickett’s fresh men in a grand attack and his reputation might suffer in comparison. The carnage of the battle’s first day had gutted the best of his regiments, their valor confirmed by their grimly shrunken rolls, and he could rely upon only two reduced brigades of the four he now commanded. All would go forward, but what each brigade would achieve was rather in doubt: His own, under Marshall now, had been severely bloodied, but would fight, and Fry would do well enough leading Archer’s men, who were hardy veterans. Brockenbrough’s troops were worthless, though—no matter who led them—and Davis had a brigade only because he was the president’s nephew. It was folly to send these men in, when General Hill had others fresh and ready.
It was an honor, of course, to lead the division in an attack that must decide the battle. But he’d already found that controlling four brigades was rather a different thing from commanding one. Errors today could savage his reputation. Nor did he think the prospects especially good for the planned attack. He even suspected General Heth of using his wound to avoid responsibility.
He continued to smart from the general’s earlier insults, after he had followed Heth’s orders to the letter and declined to engage the Union regulars encountered in front of Gettysburg—only to have it suggested that he had lied about their presence, while revealing cowardice through his behavior. Heth had not used the monstrous word, but the implication had been clear to everyone present. It had driven Pettigrew to press home his attack on the first day of battle, to show the stuff of which he had been made, but even that gallantry had not cleared the blemish. He could not show the least weakness this day.
Longstreet dismounted, passed off his horse, and stumped up the slope toward him. Pettigrew always found the man uncouth. Except for Lee, few former regulars were men of social distinction.
He had much preferred the company of the French officers in Italy—wellborn men who behaved with savoir faire—and the charming villages of Piedmont or the Veneto ran more to his taste than this odorous Dutch town. But he had not received the desired commission in time to fight at Magenta or Solferino, after which there had been no point in pursuing one: Only the glory of war ennobled soldiering, which was, in peacetime, rather a dreary affair. Now, of course, he was fighting for his own land, which gave matters a colorful patriotic dash, allowing a gentleman to m
ake the best of things. Yet, the soldier of fortune’s romantic cast retained a certain Byronesque appeal.
It struck James Johnston Pettigrew that the man would have looked an ass in a fine French uniform.
“How are you getting on, General Pettigrew?”
“Well enough, I think, sir. Although one regrets General Heth’s indisposition.”
“Indeed,” Longstreet said, considering him with eyes that belonged to a grizzly bear. “Indeed.”
“I trust General Heth’s convalescing satisfactorily, sir?”
Longstreet raised an eyebrow. “He hasn’t been down here?”
“Not this morning, sir.”
“Well, don’t worry about Harry Heth. Wound isn’t serious. Just gave him a hangover won’t quit. How’s your division?”
Pettigrew feigned surprise at the query. “The men are splendid, sir. As always. And honored that you’ve selected us to participate in your attack.”
Longstreet didn’t seem a man of nuance, but his face was hard to read.
“I didn’t select you,” the corps commander said. “General Lee did. With General Hill’s acquiescence.” He snorted. “More’s the honor, I suppose.”
“Yes, sir. Supremely so.”
“You had a hard day of it Wednesday.”
“The men won through, sir. Their performance was simply inspiring. They covered themselves in glory.”
“I’ve heard that said.”
“Hard fighting, sir. But we’ve had our day of rest. The men look forward to avenging their fallen comrades.”
“Do they now?” An unmistakable smirk disfigured Longstreet’s mouth above his beard. “General Pettigrew, have you had a look at the fields your men are to cross? Have you seen what’s waiting on the other side?”
He had. The prospect was mortifying. In his brigade’s attack two days before, the distance had been short and the landscape partly wooded. This attack would cross a mile of open fields, every step of it under the Union guns. It seemed nothing short of murderous.