by Ralph Peters
“There’s something you can do,” he told the chaplain. “Comfort Billings, help him to the rear.”
But Beaudry was already on his way, rushing to alleviate the burden of the quick and the nearly dead.
He was a remarkable man, Hammond had to admit. The chaplain had convinced over two hundred cavalrymen to sign his Temperance Union pledge. Nearly as many had signed a pledge not to curse. The piety of the Fifth New York Cavalry had given General Kilpatrick no end of amusement, before the general was removed by a higher hand—not the Lord’s, but General Meade’s, which came close enough.
Helping to lug the wounded man along, Beaudry bellowed: “Show them, boys! Show those heathens how Christian soldiers fight!”
Hammond got considerably closer to the ground and told the sergeant, “McManus, I’m going forward to see what the devil’s the matter with Company K. Try not to shoot me. And send a man to tell the horse-holders to pull back a hundred yards.”
“May you fly on the wings of the angels, sir.”
“I’ll settle for my horse, if no relief comes.”
Clutching a fallen trooper’s carbine, Hammond set off at a run. The regiment’s major was off to the rear, and he had no couriers left. Each of those men had been sent to the rear to beg for a relief force. He was losing troopers right and left, and even repeating rifles could not keep off the swelling hordes that came screaming down the road and through the brush.
A round tore the air so close to his eyes, it briefly stole his vision. He stumbled, failed to catch himself, and plunged into the scrub growth.
Terrifying moments of dizziness froze him where he fell.
After seconds that seemed a small eternity, his vision came back in a blink. Two troopers lay on their bellies in front of him, staring. When they realized he had not been shot, one held up an empty magazine and said, “We’re out of rounds, Colonel. We can’t do no more without no ammunition.”
“Fall back and rally at Company H’s position. Wait there for your officers.”
He knew the two men. He knew each man in the regiment and could readily put a first name to nine out of ten. But in battle only the wounded were addressed by their Christian names.
“Get out of here. Go!”
The troopers dodged to the rear and Hammond thrust himself forward through the brambles. His uniform was torn like a beggar’s rags and his flesh burned with scratches from hours of scrambling through this foretaste of Hell, but he’d call it luck if that was the worst that happened.
Arriving at the heart of the forward position, he shouted, “Captain O’Connor? Where’s Captain O’Connor?” Ripples and crackles of rifle fire competed with the raw voice that remained to him.
“Here, sir! Over here!” O’Connor was on the firing line on the other side of the road, but the Rebels were too close now for a man to survive a dash across the open ground. “They’re coming around on both flanks,” the captain added.
“I know. Pull your men back.” He waved: Withdraw. “Get out of here.” He almost said, “Get the Hell out of here,” but the chaplain’s spirit hovered.
“We got a prisoner. One of Hill’s boys.”
That meant a Confederate corps was on that road.
“Just get out of here,” Hammond shouted. “Rally on Company H. Tell Barker I expect to pass Company D through in twenty minutes.”
Wretched with dust, his throat was parched and torn. His canteen was not only back with his horse, but long since emptied. The heat had begun early and gotten worse. He tasted powder and smoke, mixed with belly acid. “If Barker doesn’t hear from me, he’s to take command and hold as long as he can.”
The captain was already moving, shouting to his troopers. Hammond wondered how much the man had heard.
He risked a look straight down the road and saw gray-clad soldiers, at least a hundred, preparing to charge. And on they came, with a maddened Rebel yell.
He hoped the withdrawing troopers had some rounds left. They were going to have to fight their way to the rear.
Hammond knelt by the roadside, aimed, and fired, then went on firing until the weapon had emptied. Around him, the rapid report of other Spencers chattered and bit the oncoming Rebels. Company K still punched. The impromptu attack faltered.
But the problem of withdrawing hadn’t been solved. Hammond understood that the charge had been a display to draw their attention away from the flanks.
“Out of here! Now!” he shouted.
His voice didn’t count for much against the racket.
The men ran pell-mell. Hammond raced off, too. A boy fell at his side. The colonel swooped to help him, but the lad—Private Timothy Owens—had been shot in the back of the head. Blood and brains clotted the dust.
Inserting his last magazine tube as he ran, Hammond sensed a fusillade and threw himself back into the trees. Massed rounds ripped the air.
How could a man know such a thing would happen? And why didn’t every man know? Even the chaplain would have no answer to that. Unless he pleaded destiny, which was the Presbyterian excuse.
“Keep going, keep going!” Hammond yelled. He fired three rounds toward the approaching Confederates, then ran again.
He just wanted to buy more time, a little more time. Until someone at some headquarters came to his senses.
As soon as they could safely do so, the troopers with Sergeant McManus put out covering fire. Even with the carbines, it was no more than a plinking compared to the Secesh volleys.
The good thing, if there was one, was that the Rebs were tired, too, and weren’t aiming closely. Hammond could tell: They were just laying down fire, a mechanical act.
Instantly, he prayed he hadn’t doomed himself by thinking that. He could almost feel a bullet in his back.
It was time to stop playing captain and become a lieutenant colonel again. He had to organize further defensive positions, to command what remained of his regiment, not just a stranded company. And he had to send yet another message to the rear. What did he have to do, write it in blood?
Didn’t they see? Didn’t they understand? His dying regiment had hardly another mile at its back before it was pushed past the crossing of the Plank Road and Brock Road. Hammond didn’t know everything about the army’s plans, but he had become enough of a cavalryman to recognize that the crossroads was the key to the army’s position. If the Confederates took it, they’d split the army in two.
This war of fighting dismounted with repeating rifles was ugly and new, a far different business from drawing sabers to cut through Confederate horsemen at Orange Courthouse or playing cat and mouse with the villainous Mosby. They had gone from a certain glory, if a grim one, to grinding murder.
Hammond dropped to his knees beside Sergeant McManus. Gasping.
“I suppose them angels skedaddled on you, sir,” McManus said. “You’d best catch your wind.”
“McManus, I may court-martial you. Just to remind my officers how to hold one.”
The sergeant grinned. “As long as I don’t have to take me no temperance pledge, sir.”
McManus went back to firing, choosing his targets coldly. He was far from a godly man, but a very good one.
Still out of breath, Hammond rose and scurried back to where he’d left his horse in a private’s care. He needed to ride at a gallop now, to choose more fighting ground amid the brief stretch between his firing line and the crossroads. And he needed a count of the remaining ammunition.
What had Wilson been thinking? Hammond had known that his regiment was too small a force to be left to cover a prime route for the enemy. Worse, the new general from out in the West had left the northern road, the Turnpike, completely uncovered. It was no way to screen an army.
He calculated that Wilson had his hands full himself now, though. Cannon had been sounding to the south, away from the main army, but just about where the general and his horsemen would be.
It was all a mess. A damned one.
At least his mount was waiting, his lovely
black stallion. Restless and nickering, the horse seemed about to explode with animal energy. When it saw him, it tried to pull away from the horse-holder and come to him.
Before he could lift himself into the saddle, Hammond spied the chaplain hurrying up the road again. In blunt defiance of Hammond’s orders, Beaudry led a detail of dismounted troopers. They lugged the small, heavy crates that held rounds for the carbines.
As Hammond approached the sweating men, three things happened:
First, another Rebel yell went up, a powerful one this time.
Second, a corporal blurted out, “’Tis the last of it, sir. I told the chaplain, didn’t I? This is it.”
And third, the preacher laid his hands on the nearest wooden boxes, raised his eyes to Heaven, and cried, “Lord, let it be as with the loaves and fishes!”
“Amen,” Hammond said.
FIVE
Ten a.m.
Tapp Farm
Lee and Hill rode past the bodies of two more Union cavalrymen. A wounded mount grazed nearby, favoring a hind leg. The sight of the horse pained Lee. Not because of the ugly gash on its hindquarters, but thanks to its evident health in other respects. The animal had been well fed, and the gleam of its coat was more than the sheen of sweat. His army’s cavalry mounts and the teams that drew his guns were lean and weakened. Half-starved themselves, the men who rode or drove those horses would have to make up their deficiencies with courage.
How much could valor do?
Skirmishing rattled the morning and light smoke marred the sky. Hill had Kirkland’s men deployed ahead, pushing along the Plank Road toward the crossroads, while Ewell’s soldiers watched the Federals to the north, along the Turnpike. A struggle here would contest the roads, Lee knew. The terrain between his two forward corps was a low forest mad with brambles, a grim place that warned men away. He could not ignore it, but lacked the numbers or the inclination to fight in it. The essential thing now was to divert those people from a movement south, without getting caught in a grip he could not escape.
“Just up there,” Hill said, pointing. “Up by that shanty. Best spot to place your headquarters for now, sir.” As they turned their horses into the rising field, he twisted his scarecrow’s shoulders to face Lee. “Can’t see much, but it’s better than seeing nothing. My people call this ‘poison land.’ Don’t even like passing through.”
The generals dismounted near the crest, at the edge of an unkempt field, and walked into the shade. Staff officers scurried about, while enlisted men led off the horses to cool them down. Walter Taylor brought Lee his binoculars.
Lee scanned the horizon. And saw nothing. Where the trees began, several hundred yards away, a realm of secrets waited.
He heard a swell of firing well to the north. If the maps ran true, Ewell’s men were nearly three miles away, with only a few vague trails linking them to Hill’s corps. There would be no swift reinforcements, should the fighting explode. Each corps would fight on its own. Until Longstreet came up.
With handsome timing, Sandie Pendleton appeared. Whenever he saw the young man, Lee felt a twinge. The long-faced, graceful major sparked thoughts of Jackson, who had favored the lad.
Pendleton dismounted, saluted, and approached Taylor first. The adjutant nodded, authorizing the major to speak to Lee.
Saluting again, Pendleton said, “General Ewell’s compliments, sir. The Federals are gathering to his front. It’s the Fifth Corps, General Warren’s. General Ewell believes they’ll attack. Our position is sound, sir, but more Federals have been moving to the south and southwest, into the forest. General Ewell awaits your orders, sir.”
“My orders stand,” Lee told him. “I prefer that General Ewell not become inextricably engaged. If he can maintain his position without discomfiture, he should do so. If he finds himself pressed, he may withdraw to Mine Run.” Lee glanced at Hill, whose long hair clung to a cadaverous face. He feared Hill’s illness was haunting him again. “Any such movement will be coordinated with General Hill and his corps, of course. We must act in unison.”
“Yes, sir.” The young man saluted and turned toward his mount.
“Major Pendleton?”
The boy pivoted. “Sir?”
“You may not need a rest, but I recommend you grant your horse a few minutes. He will be hard used this day.”
As we all may be, Lee told himself.
Lee and Hill had ridden ahead of the main body of the Culpeper native’s corps. Hill knew the ground as well as any of Lee’s generals. Which was to say imperfectly. The Wilderness was not a place to hold men’s interest in better times, and past campaigns had rushed through it, gripping the roads. Even Jackson had only pierced its edges, leaving these brambles and swamps an unknown world.
Lee consoled himself that the generals in blue suffered ignorance worse than his own. He counted on that to render them wary and slow.
If Longstreet was still many miles to the west, another welcome face appeared in his stead. Waving his hat and its long widow’s plume, Stuart encouraged his mount to prance up the slope toward Lee and his staff. The man was incorrigible. But his theatrics tricked a faint smile out of Lee.
With the grin of a naughty child, Stuart dismounted, saluted all present, and strode toward Lee and Hill.
“My compliments, gentlemen.” Instead of saluting, he tipped his hat. “General Lee, sir, General Hill. Lovely day. Bit warm. Hot, actually. D’you know that Wilson? Grant’s new boy? Not Sheridan, the other one. Engineer fellow they gave a division of cavalry? Insult to the mounted arm, as far as I’m concerned. Well, we just gave young Master Wilson a spanking he’ll remember. Fellow had the nerve to stand and fight. He’ll learn, I s’pose.” Stuart laughed merrily. “Oh, it was splendid!”
Lee suspected that it had not been splendid at all, but deadly and ugly. The Federal horsemen had improved much over the years, and their numbers were daunting. But Stuart was Stuart. The man would laugh at his funeral. And call for a banjo tune.
“I’ve got cavalry to my front,” Hill told Stuart. “New York boys. Scrappy.”
“Like me to see to ’em?”
“Oh, I expect we can handle them. Just wondering why your boys didn’t run ’em off earlier.”
Lee felt compelled to enter the discussion. “Perhaps,” he told Hill, “we might press them a bit harder now. Since General Ewell reports troops moving southward. We must possess the crossroads.”
Alert to every gradation of Lee’s tone, Hill said: “Yes, sir. Kirkland hasn’t been slouching, I didn’t mean that. The Yankees have been giving a fair account of themselves.” He glanced at Stuart. “Up here, at least. But I’ll see to it that we finish things up right now.” He strode off to give orders to an aide.
It was always a difficult thing, finding the correct words and the precise tone to make men do what had to be done without exciting their tempers or wounding their pride. A hint that a man had faltered turned bravery spendthrift. And men had a genius for hearing what they wished to hear, be it for good or ill.
But the crossroads up ahead had to be seized and held, if the army was going to fight upon this ground. Hill had been too slow, content to await the arrival of more men. Should they be forced to withdraw to Mine Run before Longstreet arrived, the crossroads could be held by a rear guard, preventing those people from mounting a strong pursuit and creating disorder.
Time, it was always about time. It was the factor in war that had no give.
Grant and Meade just needed to allow him a little time now. If he could fix them, hold them passively before him, until Longstreet appeared …
Around him, staff men who had not slept lay in the shade to rest. Orderlies groomed horses, while others started a fire for the coffee Lee no longer dared to drink in quantity.
At least his bowels had been merciful this day. And his heart beat painlessly.
Good omens? He prayed the Lord would let him survive to see his duty through.
Stepping from the shade into the sunlight, yearn
ing to see more of the fight than the undergrowth allowed, Lee asked: “What other news have you brought us, General Stuart?”
Belatedly drawing off his riding gauntlets, Stuart said, “Hancock’s down on the Catharpin Road. Same as earlier, sir. Sedgwick’s back between Warren and the river, just plain crawling along the road down from the ford. His men are packed thick as fleas on an old shuck mattress, I’d love to have a few batteries up there.”
“General Burnside?”
“He’s across the Rappahannock, but still well north of the Rapidan. He won’t be worth much until tonight.” Stuart smiled. “Maybe not then, either.”
Lee’s mien grew earnest. “I need you close now, General Stuart. Parry their cavalry, blind them. The southern flank must be held open for General Longstreet. His approach must not be detected.”
“I was thinking, General, that I might have a go at their trains in the meantime. Fitz could do it. Just another brigade or so, bring up his numbers a little.”
“No. Not now. I need you to safeguard our flanks. And to keep me informed. We must not be embarrassed by General Grant in our first encounter.”
“Man’s a famous drunk. He won’t get any farther than Joe Hooker.”
Lee let the remarks pass, but he was tired of such flippancies. He knew too well the cost of underestimating an opponent. As he had George Meade at Gettysburg.
Eastward, along the Plank Road, the firing expanded. Hill’s aide had delivered the general’s message forcefully. The crossroads soon would be occupied. And they would see to the next order of business.
Hill rejoined Lee and Stuart. Pretending mortification, he said, “Jeb, you’re sweating, boy. I didn’t think a cavalryman ever broke a sweat.”
Stuart doffed his hat and bowed. “You will note, General Hill, that I am dismounted at present. Thus—to my immeasurable sorrow—I must be counted among the infantry. And I have observed that infantrymen sweat copiously, sir. Indeed, their perspiration is extravagant.”
Hill shook his head and his grin showed a broken front tooth. “Stuart, I swear. This war ends, I’m going to stuff you for a peacock and charge admission.”