Michael Shaara - The Killer Angels

by The Killer Angels(Lit)

Lee mounted in pain, but the hot sun would heal the old bones. They rode out into a space in the great gray bristling stream. Another band played; men were shouting. It was lovely country. They rode through soft green rounded hills, a sunny mom, a splendid air, moving toward adventure as rode the plumed knights of old. Far back in the woods there was still fog in the trees, caught in the branches like fragments of white summer, and Lee remembered:

  Bow down Thy Heavens, O Lord, and come down, Touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.

  He closed his eyes.

  Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my fingers to fight and my hands to war.

  Amen.

  They rode several miles before they heard the first thunder.

  Lee reined to a stop. Silence. Motion of ragged white clouds. He said, "Did you hear that?"

  Longstreet, who was slightly deaf, shook his head.

  "It might have been thunder." But Lee waited. Then it came: low, distant thumping. Ominous: angry. Longstreet said grimly, bright-eyes, angered, "I don't hear too well any more."

  "That was artillery," Lee said. Longstreet gazed at him with black marble eyes. "You don't think..." Lee began, then stopped. "I'd better ride forward," he said. Longstreet nodded. Lee looked at his watch. Not quite ten in the morning. He left Longstreet and rode toward the sound of the guns.

  2. BUFORD.

  Just before dawn Buford rode down the line himself, waking them up, all the boyish faces. Then he climbed the ladder into the white cupola and sat listening to the rain, watching the light come. The air was cool and wet and delicious to breathe: a slow, fine, soaking rain, a farmer's rain, gentle on the roof. The light came slowly: there were great trees out in the mist. Then the guns began.

  A single shot. He sat up. Another. Two more widely spaced. Then a small volley, a spattering. A long silence: several seconds. He stared at white air, the rounded tops of smoky trees. Men were moving out in the open below him.

  An officer paused on horseback in the road. The firing began again. Rebel guns, farther off, but not many. Buford was cold. He shuddered, waited.

  The first attack was very short: a ragged fire. Buford nodded, listening. "Yes. Tried to brush us off. Got a bloody nose. Now he'll get angry, all puffed up like a partridge.

  Now he'll form up a line and try us for real, and he'll hit the main line." The mist was lifting slowly, the rain was slackening, but Buford could not see the line. He felt the attack come and turned his face toward the sound of the guns, judging the size of the attack by the width of the sound, and he sat grinning alone in the cupola, while the Rebel troops pushed his line and drew back, bloody, and tried again in another place, the firing spreading all down the line like a popping fuse, and then there was another long silence, and Buford could feel them reforming again, beginning for the first time to take this seriously. The next assault would be organized. He looked at his watch.

  Reynolds should be awake by now. They will have eaten their breakfast now, the infantry, and maybe they're on the march.

  There was a silence. He climbed down out of the cupola.

  The staff waited whitefaced under dripping trees. Buford asked for coffee. He went back inside the Seminary and waited for the firing to begin again before sending his first word to Reynolds. It took longer than he expected. If whoever was out there attacking him had any brains he would probe this position first and find out what he was attacking. Buford listened for the scattered fire of patrols coming in, moving along his flanks, outlining him, but there was nothing. A long silence, then a massed assault.

  Buford grinned, baring fangs. Damn fool. He's got a brigade in position, that's all. He's hitting me with one brigade, and I'm dug in. Lovely, lovely He wrote to Reynolds: "Rebel infantry attacked at dawn.

  Am holding west of Gettysburg, expecting relief. John Buford."

  The fire was hotting up. He heard the first cannon: Calef's Battery opening up down the road, grinned again. No Reb cannon to reply: not yet. He sent the messenger off into the mist, climbed again into the cupola.

  The light was much clearer. He saw speckles of yellow fire through the mist: winking guns. The road ran black through misty fields. He saw one black cannon spout red fire at the limits of his vision. On the far side of the road there was a deep railroad cut-an unfinished railroad; he had not noticed it before. He saw horsemen moving behind the line. Then he heard that ripply sound that raised the hair, that high thin scream from far away coming out of the mist unbodied and terrible, inhuman. It got inside him for a suspended second. The scream of a flood of charging men: the Rebel yell.

  It died in massive fire. There was still no cannon on the other side. Calef's Battery blasted the mist, thunder among the lighter fire. The assault began to die away The wounded were beginning to come back off the line.

  Buford went down from the cupola, restless, found Bill Gamble in the field by Calef's Battery, checking ammunition. There was blood on his left sleeve. His nose was still running. He grinned wetly at Buford.

  "Hey, General. That was quite a scrap."

  "How are your losses?"

  "Not bad. Not bad at all. We were dug in pretty good.

  We got 'em right out in the open. Really got a twist on 'em.

  Arrogant people, you know that? Came right at us. Listen, we got some prisoners. I talked to 'em. They're Harry Heth's Division, of Hill's Corps. That's what I've got in front of me."

  Buford nodded. Gamble was talking very quickly, head moving in jerky twitches.

  "Sir, as I remember, Heth's got near ten thousand men.

  They're all within sound of the fight, back that road, between here and Cashtown."

  Buford squinted. The rain had quit but the sky was still low and gray. He could see a long way off through the trees, and there were ragged bodies in the fields, groups of men digging, cutting trees for cover.

  Gamble said, "Sir, he'll be back with all ten thousand."

  "It'll take him a while to deploy," Buford said.

  "Yes, but he's got Hill's whole Corps behind him. Maybe twenty-five thousand. And Longstreet behind that. And Ewell in the north."

  "I know."

  "Thing is this. When John Reynolds gets here, he won't have the whole army with him, only a part of it. Point is-" he sniffled, wiped his nose-"as I see it, the Rebs will be here this afternoon with everything they've got."

  Buford said nothing. Gamble sniffed cheerily.

  "Just thought I'd mention it. Now, what you want me to do here?"

  Buford thought: if it was a mistake. God help us.

  "Heth will be back in a bit," Buford said. "If he's got any brains at all, and he's not stupid, he'll know by now that he's got a brigade in front of him. Don't think he'll wait to get his whole Division in line. That would take half the morning."

  "He doesn't need his whole Division."

  "Right. Does Devin report any activity on his front?"

  "Not a thing."

  "All right. I'll have Devin pull some of his people out and leave a cover in the north and have him dig in alongside, lengthening your line. When Heth comes back he'll run into two brigades. That should hold him until Reynolds gets here."

  "Right," Gamble said. He peered up at the sky. "Glad the rain is gone. Don't want anything to slow up Reynolds"

  "Take care of yourself."

  "You know me: the soul of caution."

  Buford moved off toward the north. He sent a second message to Reynolds. He pulled Devin out of line in the north and brought him in alongside Gamble: two thousand men facing west. All that while whenever he came near the line he could see enemy troops moving in the fields across the way, spreading out as they came down the road, like a gray river spreading where it reaches the sea. If Heth was efficient and deliberate he had the power to come straight through like an avalanche. Buford could hear the artillery coming into place on the far side, heard the spattering of rifle fire from probing patrols. He looked at his watch; it was after eight. Reynolds had to be on the road. The
infantry had to be coming. He rode back and forth along the line, watched Devin's men digging in, heard bullets clip leaves above him as snipers crawled closer. We cannot hold ten thousand. Not for very long. If Heth attacks in force he will roll right over us, and we lose the two brigades and the high ground too, and it will have been my fault. And the road in the north is open; they can come in there and they'll be behind us, on our flank.

  There was nothing he could do about that; he had no more troops. But he pulled a squad out of Devin's line and put the young Lieutenant with com-silk hair in charge and gave him orders.

  "Son, you ride on out that road to the north about five miles. You squat across some high ground, where you can see. First sign you get of enemy coming down that road, you ride like hell this way and tell me. Understand?"

  The squad galloped off. A cannon shell burst in the air nearby, raining fragments in the wet leaves around him. The first Reb cannon were in position, limbering up easily, casually, getting the range. Now Buford had a little time to think. It all depends on how fast Reynolds comes. It all depends on how many men he's got with him and how fast Lee is moving this way. Nothing to do but fight now and hold this line. But he kept looking at his watch. There ought to be some word. He galloped back to the Seminary and climbed the cupola and gazed back to that southern road, but there was nothing there. A short while after that he saw the enemy come out in the open, line after line, heard the guns open up, dozens of guns, watched his own line disappear in smoke. The big attack had come.

  Gamble was down. The first report was very bad, and Buford rode over and took command, but it was only concussion and Gamble was back on his feet in a few moments, ragged and dirty. There was a breakthrough on the right but some junior officers patched it. Lone infantry began bending around the right flank. Buford mounted some men and drove them off. There were moments in smoke when he could not see and thought the line was going; one time when a shell burst very close and left him deaf and still and floating, like a bloody cloud.

  On the right there was another breakthrough, hand-to-hand fighting. He rode that way, leaping wounded, but it had been repulsed when he got there. One by one Calef's guns were being silenced. No one had yet broken away, no one was running, but Buford could feel them giving, like a dam. He rode back to the Seminary, looked down the road.

  Nothing. Not much more time. He felt the beginning of an awful anger, an unbearable sadness, suppressed it. He rode back to the line. The fire was weakening. He stood irresolute in the road. An aide suggested he go to cover. He listened. The Rebs were pulling back, forming to come again. But the Reb cannon were pounding, pounding. He heard the great whirring of fragments in the air, saw air bursts in bright electric sparks. He rode slowly along the smoking line, looking at the faces. The brigades were wrecked. There was not much ammunition. They were down in the dirt firing slowly, carefully from behind splintery trees, piled gray rails, mounds of raw dirt. They had maybe half an hour.

  Pull out before then. Save something. He rode back toward the Seminary. He climbed the cupola, looked out across the field of war. Wreckage everywhere, mounded bodies, smoking earth, naked stumps of trees. He could see a long way now, above the rolling smoke which had replaced the mist, and the road coming down from the faroff mountains was packed with soldiers, thousands of soldiers, sunlight glittering on jeweled guns. He looked toward the south-and there was Reynolds.

  He was coming at a gallop across the fields to the south, a line of aides strung out behind him, cutting across the field to save time. No mistaking him: matchless rider gliding over rail fences in parade-ground precision, effortless motion, always a superb rider. Buford blinked, wiped his face, thanked God. But the road behind Reynolds was empty.

  The General rode into the yard below, dismounted.

  Buford waited in the cupola, weariness suddenly beginning to get to him in waves. In a moment Reynolds was up the ladder.

  "Good morning, John."

  An immaculate man, tidy as a photograph, soft-voiced, almost elegant. Buford put out a hand.

  "General, I'm damned glad to see you."

  Reynolds stepped up for a look. Buford explained the position. In all his life he had never been so happy to see anybody. But where was the infantry? Reynolds swung, pointed a gloved hand.

  The blue line had come around the bend. Buford saw with a slight shock the first column of infantry, the lovely flags. Reynolds said softly, "That's the First Corps. The Eleventh is right behind it."

  Buford watched them come. He leaned against the side of the cupola. Reynolds had turned, was surveying the hills to the south. There was a set, hard, formal look to him, but a happiness in his eyes. Buford thought: he has brains to see.

  Reynolds said, "Good job, John."

  "Thank you."

  "This is going to be very interesting."

  "Yes," Buford said.

  "They seem to be forming for another assault. That's Harry Heth, isn't it? Very good. He'll come in here thinking he's up against two very tired cavalry brigades, and instead he'll be hitting two corps of fresh Union infantry."

  Reynolds smiled slightly. "Poor Harry," he said.

  "Yes, sir," Buford said.

  "You can start pulling your boys out. As soon as we set up. Well done. Well done indeed. You can put them out on my flanks. Keep an eye on that north road. I expect Dick Ewell to be coming in shortly."

  "Yes, sir."

  They went down out of the cupola. Reynolds mounted a beautiful black horse. Buford came out into the open, saw his staff tidying itself up, combing hair, buttoning buttons.

  Shells were falling on the ridge nearby and bullets were slicing leaves, but Reynolds sat astride the horse in a motionless calm, looking out toward the fight, picture of a soldier, painted against the trees. Reynolds called in one of his officers. He said slowly, somewhat delicately, pronouncing each word in turn, evenly, machinelike, "Captain, I want you to ride as fast as you can to General Meade. Tell him the enemy is advancing in strong force and that I am afraid they will get the heights beyond the town before I can. We will fight them here inch by inch, through the town if necessary, barricading the streets. We will delay them as long as possible. I am sending messages to all my commanders to come to this place with all possible speed.

  Repeat that."

  The Captain did, and was gone. Reynolds sent messages to other commanders: Doubleday, Sickles. Then he said, to Buford, "I think I'll move over and hurry the boys along."

  "Obliged," Buford said.

  "Not at all." He wheeled the horse gracefully, still something of that elegant quality of display in the fluid motion, and rode off. In the direction he took Buford heard music. A blue band was playing. Buford issued his own orders. The great weight was off him. Now it belonged to Reynolds. And there was no regret. Through most of his life he had resented the appearance of higher command. Now it came to save him. A new thing. He did not mind at all.

  Must be the age. Well, you have gone to the limit, lad. You have reached your own personal end.

  Tom Devin was up. He was annoyed to be pulled out.

  Buford looked at him, shook his head. In a moment Reynolds was back, leading blue troops at double time through the fields, tearing down rail fences as they came.

  Buford's heart was stirred: the Black Hats, Simon Cutler's Iron Brigade, best troops in the Union Army. An omen. They began to move out onto the road by the Seminary, regiment after regiment, moving with veteran gloom, veteran silence, steady men, not many boys. One man was eating cherries hurriedly from a mess tin; another had a banjo on his back, which was bothering him, and he swung it around to cover his front and banged the man in front of him, who complained, to peculiar laughter. One man asked one of Buford's aides loudly which way was the war and offered to go the other way, and an officer turned and began sending them into line along the crest Gamble had held.

  Then Reynolds was back.

  The Rebel shells were beginning to pass overhead. They had seen new troops coming
and some of the fire was falling now on Gettysburg. Reynolds summoned another aide.

  "Lieutenant, get on into town and tell these people to stay in off the streets. There's liable to be a fair-sized dispute here today, and give anyone you meet my compliments, along with my suggestion that every person stay indoors, in cellars if possible, and out of harm's way. Especially children." He peered at the aide. "Joe, how do you see with those things on?" The aide wore glasses that were very muddy. He took them and tried to clean them and smeared them with jittery fingers. A shell hit a treetop across the road and splinters flickered through the grove and spattered against the brick wall. Reynolds said pleasantly, "Gentlemen, let's place the troops."

  He motioned to Buford. They rode out into the road.

  Buford felt a certain dreamy calm. Reynolds, like Lee before him, had once commanded the Point. There was a professional air to him, the teacher approaching the class, utterly in command of his subject. Reynolds said, "Now, John, he's got a good fifteen thousand men out there, wouldn't you say?"