by Ralph Peters
Across the fields, a Rebel battery limbered up to leave. Were they aware of the impending attack? Had surprise already been lost?
His brigade would go forward, anyway.
He wondered what Lucy was doing at that moment. He hadn’t had a letter from her in days. Had her pregnancy grown troubled? He always feared for her, not for himself. The slightness of his fate, amid all this, seemed a trivial matter.
“Sign me a leave to go home this minute, Colonel,” a soldier called, “and I’ll vote for you in every single election.”
Before Hayes could reply, another soldier added, “Let me go, and I’ll vote for you twice come election time.”
Men laughed. That was good.
“Wouldn’t mind going home myself,” Hayes admitted. “But I’m told we have some pressing business hereabouts.”
These good men.
Thrashing back in the trees. Riders. Colonel Duval, the division commander, and his party.
Time to go in?
Kicking thorns away from his trouser legs, Duval steered his horse through the briars.
“Rud,” Duval said.
“Isaac.” Hayes lifted his hat and settled it again. “Go in?”
Duval shook his head. “Don’t know what’s holding things up. Crook seemed ready. Then he sent McKinley back to find Sheridan.”
“Well, we’re fixed to go.” Hayes canted his head toward his men.
“I know it’s hard, the waiting,” Duval said. “Makes my skin crawl.”
More ride-through-the-canebrake racket rasped toward them. Hayes recognized Will McKinley. General Crook and a few aides followed after.
This was it, then.
Hayes kept his face impassive, the way a sound man waited out the vote count. He admired Crook. Sheridan had the effect of lightning on men who barely knew him, but Crook inspired loyalty in those who knew him well. He was a just man, George Crook, and fairness eluded the common run of generals, all of whom played favorites. Above all, when he made a mistake, Crook took responsibility. He lived by a code Hayes recognized.
Greetings all around, rendered quickly, by sweat-glazed officers striving not to betray their concerns to the soldiers.
“I see that battery turned tail,” Crook said.
“Just pulled off, sir,” Hayes told him.
Crook nodded. “Not sure that’s a good thing, or a bad thing.” He concentrated on Duval. “Your division ready, Isaac?”
“Yes, sir. Been ready.”
Crook glanced at Hayes, then back at Duval. “Rud leads off?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. Rud, as soon as you cross that field—get well across it, well onto their flank—you wheel left, recross the creek, and hit them hard. You understand?”
“Colonel Duval explained things, sir.”
“When you charge the flank, the Nineteenth Corps will renew the attack on the enemy’s front. Thoburn will come up on their right and your left, tie things together.” Crook looked around at the tense, expectant faces. “You boys will have to set this brawl to rights.”
Hayes saluted, triggering a flurry of raised hands. Turning their horses awkwardly in the underbrush, the others left Hayes, Hastings, and two couriers as the only men still mounted before the ranks.
Service in the wilds of West Virginia had convinced Hayes a sword was a bother. He left the blade in its scabbard and raised his hand.
“Brigade!”
“Regiment!”
“Regiment!”
“Regiment!”
“Regiment!”
“Attention!”
That command, too, was repeated down the line, first by regimental commanders, then by junior officers leading companies.
“Forward!”
Again, the word echoed.
“March!”
A grand, many-footed creature, the brigade broke through the last stretch of brush and ducked interfering branches, emerging into the westering light, with the sun still high enough to spare their eyes.
Clear of the trees, the veterans aligned themselves on the move. Color guards snapped out their flags. Officers afoot marched backward, facing their men, inspecting their lines before pivoting toward the foe again.
No one joshed now.
Sharpshooters opened from distant trees and thickets. A first man fell. A soldier from the second line scurried up to fill the gap.
These good men.
Hayes let the first rank pass him, but kept ahead of his second rank. Determined to see that all things were well done.
At least they did not have to assault that battery and face canister. Volleys were bad enough, but attacking guns across an open field was a downright terror.
Marching at quick-time, his soldiers devoured the high field, step by step. Where the Rebel guns had been, the earth was stained black and artillery waste lay about: a useless swab, split crates, a caisson overturned. If the Johnnies had lost any cannoneers, they had carted off their dead.
A shell burst to the front. Hayes tasted grit.
Men coughed.
How far across these fields was far enough? Before it came time to turn the brigade to the left and attack back across that creek? The ground looked different than it had from the tree line, more complex. Across the depression cut by the stream, the Confederates, in their thousands, were hard to spot, masked by trees and shrubbery, crouched behind walls. Wraiths of smoke blinked flames.
Hayes’ brigade advanced through naked light.
The first shell had marked the range. Adjusted shells exploded in rapid succession. One struck near the first rank, downing several men.
The fire could not be returned. Their own batteries, du Pont’s guns, trailed the advance. This ground just had to be crossed.
Sharpshooters felled more of his men. One of his couriers tumbled. The man’s horse bolted.
Nothing to be done. Not now. Go forward. Forward.
“I love you, Lucy,” he muttered. “Know that. I loved you.”
He almost ordered the men to the double-quick, but feared losing control before they made their turn and crossed the streambed. They just had to face the shelling. He had to face it.
Such a terribly beautiful day. For this.
More shells. Men burst, scattering limbs. Bodies spewed innards. Other soldiers sprawled, uncannily still. As comrades stepped around them, the wounded writhed, clutching their changed flesh, bewildered. But every gap in the front rank filled again.
Straight ahead, Reb cavalrymen bolted from a copse like flushed game birds, racing off toward the Confederate rear.
Across the creek, to the south, the greater fight resumed, hungry for flesh and thirsty for blood again.
Hayes longed to walk Cincinnati’s streets in peace. To live to do that, with Lucy on his arm.
Correcting his posture, he lifted his right hand. Holding it high. Letting all the regimental commanders see it. Letting all the sharpshooters see it, too.
He had never thought to bear such weight as this.
Russ Hastings twitched in the saddle and slammed to earth. One foot caught in a stirrup but broke free.
“Russ!”
The adjutant tried to get to his feet, but faltered. Blood marred his coat.
No time. No time to care for good men or for bad. No time.
Hayes turned his eyes to the front again.
Hoping he had gone far enough, that he was not just giving in to fear, Hayes signaled for the brigade to wheel left, to face the creek and the enemy beyond it.
Another battery loosed its guns upon them. Rifle fire spewed from the far bank. A man shrieked—it always amazed Hayes that so few of the wounded screamed.
Different men? Or differing pain? His own wound at South Mountain had been excruciating. But he did not think he had screamed.
Lucy had found him, nursed him. And Doc Joe.
“At the double-quick … forward!” he called to his men. He had to get them out of these open fields. And across the creek.
He spurred his horse lightly, quickening its pace, though not enough to outrace his forward rank: Wanton displays of valor were an indulgence. The important thing was to keep control, not carry on like a laird in Walter Scott.
Then came the great shock. Reaching the edge of the field, where the earth dropped to the creek, his horse pulled up on its own. Snorting, fearful. The ground dropped sharply through brambles and scrub trees. But the worst of it was that the trickling stream they had splashed through a mile back had become a swamp, a morass, a slough, a good twenty-five yards wide. And the far bank required a steep climb to reach the enemy.
Bullets ripped past, an unwelcome bounty of them. The Johnnies had been waiting. It was all a horrible trap.
To right and left, men hesitated. Their officers shouted at them to go on, while sergeants shoved the doubtful down the bank. The attack was in danger of faltering before it had gotten properly under way.
Hayes spurred his horse. Harder this time. A better judge of ground than its master, the beast choose its own course and carried him down. Hayes fought to remain in the saddle.
With the ranks collapsed, a number of soldiers beat him to the bottom. Hastily, they slung their cartridge boxes over their rifles, holding the weapons high as they plunged into shallows crusted with moss and scum.
Slapping it with the reins, Hayes drove his horse into the water. All around, men lost their footing and fell, gripped by the muck of the creekbed. His mount struggled to keep its footing and Hayes had to stab his spurs into its flanks.
A sergeant flopped in the water, sank, and did not reappear. Above the mad splashing and curses of struggling men, Hayes heard Southern catcalls. Concealed high on the far bank, the Johnnies were just shooting targets at a county fair.
His horse thrashed and whinnied, bucking and panicking, as it sank in the mud.
The stream—the morass that should have been a stream—was crowded with his soldiers now, companies and regiments a jumble. Some men tried to return fire, pausing foolishly in midslough, while others floated, facedown.
Hayes didn’t see how he could go forward. His horse was stuck and terror-stricken. He waited for the bullet that would part him from Lucy forever.
Lucy.
He could save these men, some of them. The attack was a disaster. He could at least minimize the cost, preserve some lives, by ordering a withdrawal.
A soldier, halted in midstream, stared up at him. As if reading his thoughts. Waiting for his decision, the command to turn for the rear.
A bullet snapped back the soldier’s head.
Go back. Take them back now. Spare them.
Hayes opened his mouth to give the order.
No.
There was no going back. If these men went back—these men, any men—the war would never end. And if he gave the order to withdraw, he would foul the memories of every man who’d fallen.
Hayes unholstered his pistol and dropped from his horse. Mud grabbed him. Tugging at him as if it were alive and starved for human flesh.
“Come on!” he shouted, battling the emulsion underfoot. His riding boots gulped water, demanding his surrender. Splashed by bullets peppering the surface, he plodded toward the far bank, unsure of each next step, as likely to drown as lead his brigade onward. Even where the bottom firmed, slime tricked a man’s feet.
“Come on! Get through this slop. Come on, boys! We’re going to give those Rebs a whipping, just get to the other side! Come on now!”
As soon as he called to the others, he felt a renewed strength. Drenched to his chest, he plunged ahead, dragging leaden weights instead of feet. He held up his pistol, keeping that one thing dry.
“Rally to me! Ohio! West Virginia! Rally to me!”
Mostly Ohio men, it looked like. No. West Virginia boys, too. All a muddle.
Wonderfully, miraculously, the trapped herd of men surged forward.
Still, when Hayes clawed up into the mud that passed for a bank, he was alone. With bullets hissing and hunting, sniffing close. Soaked and wrapped in slime, he got to his feet and stood with his back to the enemy. Waving on his men.
“Let’s go, Ohio!” Hayes called. “Come on, West Virginia! Come on!”
Miracle after miracle. He had been alone. Now men—muck-covered, wonderful men—crowded around him. Some dropped down, exhausted, but the best of the veterans organized themselves without need of officers, hugging the slope and testing their weapons, drying their hands on the brush before handling their cartridges.
Beside Hayes, a man flopped backward. A wild hand slapped his shoulder and slipped away.
Lieutenant Reasoner, of the 36th Ohio, sat calmly on a rock, drawing off his boots to pour out the water. The action struck Hayes as eminently sensible: Hard to lead a charge hauling gallons of slime.
As quickly as he could, Hayes worked off his own boots, upended them—they gushed—and yanked them back on. Wet grit gripped his feet.
He stood up again, in the open, where the men could see him and he could see their officers. Jim Comly had drawn together some bucks from the 23rd Ohio, but the Rebs were still making sport of their predicament.
“Up that bank!” Hayes shouted. “Come on, boys. Pay them back!”
He scrambled ahead, thorns grazing hands and cheeks. Hoping the men would follow one more time.
They did. Hundreds of soaked and filthy men clawed their way up the south wall of the gulch, rushing to rob the Johnnies of time to reload.
Hayes surprised a big Reb working his ramrod. He pointed his pistol, giving the fellow one chance to surrender.
Deft as a gopher snake, the Johnny swung his weapon as a club. Hayes ducked the blow, reaimed, and pulled the trigger.
The revolver misfired.
Eyes met.
As soldiers in blue crowded up, the Rebel ran.
“Come on, boys!”
Their order may have been lost, but the men were furious. Shooting them down in that morass had been unfair, according to the odd views soldiers held. Of course, they would have done the same to the Johnnies, had the circumstances been reversed. But logic made no difference.
His men had taken the high ground, but the Rebs withdrew grudgingly, pausing to fire back at their tormentors.
Stubborn. Proud.
This whole war was about stubbornness and pride.
One Reb who had lost his rifle dropped his drawers and showed Hayes’ men his ass.
“Officers! Take charge of the men around you,” Hayes called. “Don’t try to sort out your regiments. Soldiers! Rally to the nearest officer.”
Never would have worked with green troops, Hayes knew. But these men had scrambled over mountains together, been bushwhacked, and fought countless, hard engagements that barely got a mention in the newspapers. They knew what to do.
As his men chased the retreating Rebs with a volley, it dawned on Hayes that his brigade was alone. The grand attack had not caught up on his left, nor did there seem to be anyone behind him.
Two hundred yards to the front, Reb cannoneers manhandled a section of guns, turning them to block the interlopers.
Hayes figured the militarily sensible thing to do would be to consolidate his position and wait for Thoburn’s boys—or anyone—to come up. But he was angry, as much at himself as at the Rebs. That moment of weakness, of doubt, down in the creek had been unworthy.
Determined to do his duty, to be one of those “good colonels” among whom he liked to count himself, he wasted no time before leading his soldiers forward, toward the guns. After a brief, bloody interlude, the artillerymen scooted off, followed by the infantry supporting them.
Hayes read the Johnnies’ predicament all too clearly: Those Rebs had been assigned an orphan position, forward of their main line, to protect the flank. Now they were hurrying back to their division to make a stand. Things weren’t over, that was painfully certain.
But the prey had become the hunters. Grim and wary, his men forged on through a mist of smoke. Off to the left, the batt
le had gained such force, it shook the earth. A fight had flared up on the distant right as well. Hayes wondered what that signified.
He wished he could see more of the field, or that someone would tell him what was happening elsewhere. Colonel Duval owed him that much. He needed to know. He didn’t want his brigade to be cut off, perhaps surrounded.…
But he just was not ready to stop. Nor were his men. Each yard gained had been earned with the blood of friends and comrades, of brothers.
His ragged line pressed on until the smoke thinned.
As they came within range of a fine-looking house, a volley flamed out, halting Hayes’ men with its devastating power. This was it, the Rebs’ next line of defense. Officers ordered their men to ground or drew them toward cover. They had gone as far as they could until support came up; each veteran sensed it.
Startling himself with his lust for blood, Hayes longed to go on, to shoot men down, to skewer them.
But he’d learned from the errors of others how alluring folly could be. Charging that position with the handful of men he had would have been an unforgivable sin, a collapse into passion worse than any carnal deed. The remnants of his brigade could not have been more disordered had they been stirred around in a witch’s cauldron. His men had played their part well; now he had to play his own part wisely.
As he panted for breath and weighed the situation, stray Ohioans and mud-caked West Virginians gathered around, taking up positions behind a wall to trade shots with the Rebs. Listening to the ragged exchange, Hayes sensed something new: The Rebs were only trying to hold on. There was no hint of a counterattack, none of that feeling you got from the Johnnies when they were ready to pounce.
Off to the left—still too far to the left—the fighting had become a gale, a storm. Sheridan’s entire army was on the attack.
No reinforcements here, though. Where was Johnson? Where was Thoburn?
Hayes sat down, struggling for clarity. Given that he didn’t have the numbers to rush that house, what else might be done? Anything? Beyond waiting for reinforcement? Once ignited by action, he always found it hard to snuff the flame. He even feared that the day might come when he gave an insane order, maddened by the … the ecstasy.