Death Piled Hard: A Tale of the Confederate Secret Services

by W. Patrick Lang

  In Richmond, Jefferson Davis waited in the upstairs office of his home. In his hand was the telegram he had received from Robert Lee that day. It contained the sonorous words,

  “I have set the army in motion...”

  In his heart the Southern leader could not help but hold foremost the image of his small son who had died in the last week, the victim of a fall from an upstairs window. He could not help but think that now he shared the misery of all those other parents whose children he had sent to their deaths.

  Away to the north, in Washington, Abraham Lincoln also knew the pain of the death of children. He had lost his own son, Willie, this past year. He had many personal problems. There was something unstable and terribly wrong in his wife. Her mental state was becoming more and more unpredictable and capricious. He, himself had been chronically ill for many years with a sickness that never seemed to leave him fully.

  In his hand he held a copy of a letter he had sent Grant. “I am most pleased with your arrangements until now…what I know of them...” Why can’t these damnable generals tell me what they are doing? Well, that’s all right. What is it Meade’s officers say of Grant? Ah yes! `He hasn’t met Bobby Lee and his boys yet...’ We will see if it is different this time.

  What is it I heard one of Meade’s officers saying last month, something about “Bobby Lee and his boys?”

  If only we had Bobby Lee and his boys….

  -------------------------------------------------------------------At their bivouac that night, Devereux shared a meal of canned beef, biscuits and coffee with Hays and his staff.

  John Quick sat nearby meditating on the broad back of the federal commander. He, too, could still see Hays on his big black horse riding in triumph along the crest of Cemetery Ridge.

  A dog walked through the trees towards the smell of Quick’s ration. It was a big dog. It stood a few feet away, uncertain of a welcome from this strange silent man. Quick held out a piece of bully beef from his tin mess plate. The dog approached, smelled his hand and took the meat. After a few more pieces of meat the dog lay at his feet.

  Devereux looked over and seeing the animal asked to whom it belonged.

  A captain on the staff replied that it belonged to no one, that it had haunted their winter quarters and followed them on this march. He picked up a stick to throw at the animal to drive it off.

  “”Don’t do that,” Claude said in a tone that commanded attention. “Don’t do that...”

  “An animal lover,” Hays commented in a way that made it clear that he was not and that he thought those who were to be sentimentalists.

  Claude laughed and looked at the dog. It looked back at him. After a moment he said, “I’ll take him. Give him a name...”

  Quick had been examining the dog. Now he scratched between its ears. “Some sort of hound, sor,” he said, “and it is she, not he. Looks almost like a wolfhound, almost...”

  The captain with the stick nodded, “She started following us when we were settled in near the Irish Brigade. It must have strayed from them.”

  Devereux and Quick awoke the next morning with the wolfhound bitch snuggled up to Quick’s back against the chill.

  Figure 3 - 5 May On the Orange Turnpike southwest of Wilderness Tavern, Major Robert Stiles, commanding an artillery battalion in Ewell’s Second Corps, came upon General Ewell himself.

  It was six o’clock and the sun was rising.

  “Old Bald Head” was standing by the side of the road, watching his troops go by in the growing day. His skinny little body was propped up on crutches, and the buggy he used to get around was parked in the edge of the forest. Staff officers stood near by, but Ewell ignored them as was his custom.

  “Mornin’ Gen’ral,” Stiles said in greeting, touching the brim of his kepi to show respect. His twelve guns continued to roll east and he knew he had only a minute to talk to this august figure.

  Ewell took his eyes off the troops and looked at him. “Good morning, Robert,” he replied. “Heard from your mother lately?”

  They were distant cousins, related by blood or marriage as were nearly all the Virginians in the army’s command structure.

  “Yes, sir. She sends her regards to you and Mrs. Ewell,” Stiles lied gallantly. His mother would never have taken notice of Mrs. Ewell, whom she thought to be “an upstart.”

  Dick Ewell nodded, unimpressed.

  Stiles decided to risk a reproach. “Might I ask, Sir what sort of orders you have today?” He held his breath.

  “Hah! Hah!” cackled the general. “Just the sort I like. Go right up the road and hit’em, just what I like... You’d better hurry, Robert. You wouldn’t want your boys to go in without you. You’d better hurry.” He was smiling at the incongruity of the thought.

  Major Stiles saluted, and spurring his mount to a trot went down the road to catch up with his last gun. It was just disappearing around a bend in the road.

  Chapter 15

  Sander’s Field

  - 8:00 A.M

  One mile away to the northeast, a mounted Union infantry colonel named David Jenkins watched Confederate infantry deploy in line across the grassy meadow in front of him. They were coming out of the woods on either side of the point at which the turnpike crested the rise in the far side of the little valley. As he watched, the formation grew wider and wider as the brown figures emerged from the trees farther and farther from the road.

  He could imagine the process of deployment that had happened after the Rebels came over the rise to see Gouverneur Warren’s Fifth Corps in front of them. The leading regiment had gone from a column of fours to a “line of battle” formation as he had watched. Then the word had been passed back down the Confederate column and all the following regiments had fanned out into the woods on either side. Succeeding brigades went farther and farther out to the flanks and now they came out of the greenwood at a trot, unslinging rifles as they ran.

  Something glinted on the left flank of the enemy formation. The colonel raised his telescope to look. A stocky Confederate officer with a big mustache stood behind the fighting line just inside the trees looking in his direction through binoculars. As he watched, the man swung his free hand from side to side over his head.

  My God, he’s waving at me, the colonel thought. As Jenkins watched, the whole long Rebel line turned and walked back into the forest.

  Looking for shade. Maybe we should do that, he thought.

  - 12:55 P.M. –

  Behind Balthazar, the battalion waited in the wood. The men lay on the forest floor in the cool, shady, dimness. They lay in their fours, chatting with messmates. As became the veterans that they were, they had no desire to see out of the wood. They were acutely conscious of the possibility of a stray bullet or a sharpshooter. Balthazar would come for them when it was time.

  Standing near the road, Balthazar watched the Yankees’ seemingly aimless activity across the meadow.

  What a lovely day, he thought. A shame to die today.

  It was about a quarter of a mile to the other side.

  They do not seem to know what to do next. Timid, that is the word, he thought.

  He could not know that this was the same word that Sam Grant was applying to the inaction of Warren’s Corps. Grant had ordered an attack to clear the enemy force from the Orange Turnpike. The order was issued at nine o’clock. Three hours had passed with no result. He let it be known that either Warren’s Corps would attack or he would take charge of the situation personally.

  As a result, activity on the Federal side of the clearing suddenly increased. A mounted officer rode out of the trees. The horseman turned in his saddle and said something to an aide. He ordered something in a voice that Balthazar heard as an unintelligible sound and then his men stood up, towering above the knee high green of the meadow grass.

  Zouaves! Zouaves! Look at them! Balthazar thought.

  The Northern soldiers were magnificent. They wore short blue jackets adorned with orange piping along the seams. Bagg
y pants of the same blue and red Fezzes with a long tassel hanging to one side completed their dress.

  Balthazar could see that they were part of a column of regiments. Looking closely, he could see that the front ranks of the Zouaves wore a darker shade of blue than those behind.

  Different groups, he thought.

  To the left of the Zouaves, other Union units dressed in standard uniforms were appearing, more every minute. The Zouaves carried New York colors. Balthazar could read the word “Excelsior” on the flags though his binoculars.

  He turned his glasses to the Federal troops to the right of the Zouaves. He looked first at the national color of the nearest regiment and then at the blue regimental color beside it. There was no state named. As he watched, a breeze bellied out the flag. “Second Infantry Regiment” was written in gold across the material beneath the national eagle emblem. You could clearly see the arrows in one claw and the olive branch in the other.

  Regular Infantry, this should be interesting, he thought.

  There were seven more units of regulars lined up to the right of the “Second Infantry.”

  The enemy colonel’s voice was strong and it carried well now across the clearing as he ordered his men forward. “Brigaade! Second Infantry is the Battalion of Direction! Forwaard! Maarch!” The mass of soldiery lurched into motion.

  They started down the slope that led to a dip in the bottom of the valley. The grade was so gentle that the Union troops were under continuous rifle fire from the waiting Confederates as soon as they started forward. Rifle bullets knocked men down in the ranks. Arms and legs flailed in the midst of legs. The green grass was so high and dense that it actually slowed the advancing front rank. Clouds of grasshoppers flew up.

  Behind the infantry, two artillery pieces rolled out of the woods and halfway down the slope. The teams circled to point the muzzles up the slope toward the Confederates. The gun crews dismounted hurriedly as the gunners ran to the limbers for ammunition.

  As he watched, Balthazar saw that a gap was developing between the right flank of the Zouaves and the left flank of the regular infantry. The regulars were moving obliquely away to the left and the Zouaves were not moving with them. Instead, they came straight up the slope, directly at the trees in which the battalion lay hidden.

  The two Napoleon guns opened fire with solid shot. One projectile went high, passing over the Zouaves, missing them by a few feet and flying on to smash and crash its way through the trees to Balthazar’s right. The other shot tore a hole right through the two New York Zouave Regiments in front of the gun. Several gaudily colored bodies lay in the path cleared by the ball.

  One man screamed and ran to the rear holding his intestines in one hand. With the other he grasped the rifle he was using as a crutch.

  Seeing that, the New Yorkers ran uphill as fast as they could. They wanted desperately to reach the trees on the Confederate side of the meadow... There was nothing in their minds but an immediate desire to get out of the valley and out of sight of the men shooting at them from both front and rear.

  With a roar the Southern infantry burst from the trees, running forward to meet them. The Confederates halted once to fire a volley.

  With clubbed muskets and bayonets the two lines closed.

  The two cannons fired again, killing friend and foe indiscriminately.

  The weight of the Northern attack pressed the Stonewall Division back into the woods. The Federal advance threatened to pass Balthazar’s own position by the road. “Roarke!” he roared, looking around for the sergeant major.

  The black bearded figure appeared at his elbow. “Ask Captain Smoot to bring the battalion up, please. I would like a line formation just here and there...” He pointed with his walking stick, indicating a line along the turnpike and another facing the meadow, “We will fire into the flank of the attack and at the guns. You see?”

  Roarke disappeared into the trees.

  Bullets slapped the trees with the “thwack!” sound that tell an “old hand” just how much speed the bullet has behind it at impact.

  “Colonel! Why don’t you stand behind that nice tree to your right!” Joe White’s voice was insistent.

  Balthazar moved, and, remembering that this was White’s first fire fight, looked for him.

  Joe stood behind a nearby oak. He looked anxious, but not unduly so. He cradled a .577 Enfield rifled musket in the crook of one arm. It was the model with which the battalion was armed.

  Balthazar watched the gap between the New York Zouaves and the regulars widen.

  Nature abhors a vacuum, he thought. Someone should fill that one!

  As if in answer to his summons, a double line of Confederate riflemen trotted out of the forest, into the grassy field between the two bodies of Northern troops. Balthazar watched with satisfaction as the column placed itself between the two Federal forces, and at a word of command, faced in opposite directions into the flanks of both the Zouaves and regulars.

  Well, well. Someone has been listening to me, or perhaps watching.

  He spied the major of the 33rd Virginia Infantry standing hatless between the two brown ranks and smiled.

  “At my command! Fire to your front! Fire!” the major cried. The roar of the rifles nearly deadened the mind, but not quite. Confederate bullets from the volley buzzed around Balthazar.

  How stupid it would be to be shot by our lovely Virginians across the way.

  The billowing smoke from the volley could not conceal the terrible effect of the fire on the Zouaves. Blue and Orange bundles littered the ground everywhere in front of the woods.

  The Zouaves rushed forward to close with their tormentors and put a stop to the murderous volley firing.. The fight became hand to hand. The Rebel infantry generally preferred a close fight. There were few in the Northern army who shared this appetite for personal mayhem. As a result the Northern soldiers often sought to use their bayonets in the “fencing” techniques taught in the drill manuals. The Southerners had no use for such “niceties.” They preferred to swing their rifles by the barrels like axes.

  Through the smoke, Balthazar could see the gun butts as they rose and fell. They won’t take this much longer, he thought. He was trying to guess the breaking point of the Zouaves.

  Maybe a little push? “Joe?” he called.”

  “Colonel?”

  “Do you see the tall officer waving his sword over there? The one in the middle of the fight?”

  Joe peered through the smoke. “The red cap?”

  “Yes, shoot him, if you please...”

  If Balthazar thought that this order might prove a severe test for Joseph White, he was mistaken.

  I wish I had my own rifle, but this will do, Joe thought. He braced the weapon against the tree trunk. The range was about 100 yards.

  The report startled Balthazar. He had not expected Joe to fire so quickly.

  The Federal officer pitched to one side, driven down by the heavy bullet.

  Smoot and Roarke arrived at Balthazar’s side panting from running in the afternoon heat. Smoot leaned against a tree. “Where do we go?” he rasped.

  Sergeant-Major Roarke looked exasperated. “Over there!” He yelled over the noise. “I told ye, over there.” He pointed to the area Balthazar had indicated to him.

  “Thwack!” A bullet hit the tree trunk between them. Smoot felt the force of it through the living wood.

  Balthazar was watching them both. He nodded, and turned back to watch the collapse of the enemy attack. He hardly noticed the column of his men as they jogged toward the position he wanted them in.

  The collapse came all at once as the Northern men realized that there was no longer a driving force urging them forward. Heads turned seeking the voice that had become part of their lives. Their colonel lay broken on the green grass. Two men knelt at his side. One of them fell across the body, struck by another bullet.

  Forward motion stopped. The soldiers in blue and orange began to drift backward, away from the murdero
us brown figures at the edge of the wood, away from the killing fire into their right flank. The two Northern guns spoke again from behind them, tearing wide holes in the faltering mass of Zouaves. Then, suddenly, it was over and the Union troops fled down the hill leaving behind bloody heaps of flesh and bone that only a few minutes before had been healthy young men.

  Balthazar was momentarily disappointed. He had looked forward to setting the battalion at the task of chewing the left flank of the Zouaves even as his friend the Virginia major was destroying their right. Smoot, Roarke and the other leaders had just gotten the men into position for this when the Yankees fled, disappearing suddenly from their front in a stampede to the rear.

  This left the two cannons behind, standing in the open, surrounded by their crews, naked to the Rebel infantry.

  Balthazar blew his silver whistle for attention, extended his arms straight out from the shoulders and swung his body to show what he wanted. That was enough for the company commanders. The battalion began to swing in imitation of Balthazar’s signal. “A” Company on the left marched forward and “D” Company’s men faced to the rear and walked that way until they had established the orientation that the Frenchman wanted. In their new formation the two lines faced downhill aimed at the two Yankee guns.

  The whistle blew again. The arm rotated through a circle and pointed at the cannon. “Fix! Bayonets!”

  From the adjutant’s position behind the lines, Lieutenant Raphael Harris watched Balthazar’s battalion perform. He counted silently to himself as he had been taught at West Point.

  One, the right hands went to the grips in the scabbards,

  Two, the long bayonets came shining into the light of a lovely day, Three, the weapons fit with a click into the sockets on the muzzles of the rifles,

  Four, the right hands came back smartly to rest alongside the right leg. Amazing, he thought. Cadets couldn’t do it better... Who would have thought it possible.

  He looked to his left at the 33rd Virginia. They seemed dumbstruck at what they had just seen.