Hell or Richmond

by Ralph Peters

  “Keep looking out ahead of you,” Brown told the new men. “Keep your eyes open.”

  For all that, canal men didn’t like getting their feet wet. The mud tried to steal Brown’s shoes.

  He just didn’t want the Rebs to pop up while the company was stumbling through the stretch of muck. If he had to fight, he wanted firm ground under him.

  Bowing and splitting, the line moved slowly forward. As men splashed and stumbled, curses profaned the silence. When they reached the end of the slop, the regiment re-formed amid the thickets and pushed forward another two hundred yards or so.

  Light. Up ahead. Bright light, sharp and raw as a bought woman. That meant open ground.

  “Close up now,” Brown said.

  Thirty paces. Maybe. Then a field.

  That’s where they’ll be. He glanced at Henry Hill. Grim-faced now, his friend knew what was coming.

  “You new men, listen up,” Brown said. Just loud enough to be heard. “You hear an order, you do what it says. Don’t go to thinking.”

  Fifteen paces … ten …

  After the gloom in the brush, the sunlight dazzled.

  Confederate cannon opened fire as the regiment broke from the trees.

  “Steady now … close up.”

  They marched into the field. The Rebs were less than a quarter mile away, atop what passed for a hill in Virginia’s lowlands.

  Lieutenant Colonel Overton ran to the front of the ranks, holding up his sword, its grip in one hand, the tip of the blade in the other, signaling to his officers and sergeants to dress the ranks.

  The Rebs had only two cannon pointed their way, but they did immediate damage. Captain Burket called the first sergeant forward, but as he dashed up a shell burst at his feet.

  Blood splashed as far as a man could throw a rock.

  One of the new men shrieked and spun around. A long piece of bone, the first sergeant’s bone, jutted from his face.

  There’s no time to form, Brown wanted to shout, just charge, if we’re going to charge. The colonel needed to shit or get off the pot.

  Brown glanced toward Henry Hill to see if his cousin’s death had shaken him.

  Hill’s face remained impassive.

  Lines far from perfect, the regiment advanced. An order to charge rang out.

  A round shot struck Sam Martz, cutting him in two in a flash of red. Freed of its cage, Sam’s heart hopped along the ground.

  “Look to your front,” Brown shouted. “Look straight ahead!” He reached out and slapped John Eckert on the back of the head. “Move! Let’s go, boys. Charge!”

  The Reb infantry loosed a volley. The advancing lines shivered, then pressed on, leaving a claim of bodies.

  If there was some clever plan, Brown couldn’t see it.

  More men fell.

  They reached a streambed, all but dry. Some men sought shelter in the small depression, while others paused, as though at a wild river, firing up the slope at the Confederates.

  “Let’s go, let’s go!” Brown shouted.

  Company C pressed forward. Mike Reilly, a veteran, toppled. Brown realized that only his company had pushed beyond the creek.

  The Reb cannon blew more holes in the regiment’s lines. The brigade was even weaker than Brown had feared. At most, two regiments had made the charge, far too small a force. He recognized the flag of the 20th Michigan to the left, but the field beyond was empty.

  Without waiting for orders, soldiers began to fall back. Brown looked about for an officer and spotted Captain Burket behind the creek, arguing with Lieutenant Colonel Overton. Overton stalked off, shouting words few men could make out.

  Company C had stopped of its own mind. The men fired gamely up at the Confederates, but their feet were done moving forward. Isaac Eckert, always trouble in the rear, stood ahead of the rest, leading a charmed life, the fastest reloader and shooter in the regiment.

  The Rebs had got up low barricades, but hadn’t had time to really set themselves in. For a long few minutes, men on both sides just shot one another.

  The new men were firing. That was good. Brown doubted they were hitting anything, unless by dumb luck, but just getting them to stand and shoot was a start.

  He spotted at least a few companies of Rebs working down the wood line to their right, trying to encircle them.

  They had to pull back, it was the only thing that made sense. Get back in the trees and organize a fighting line. But he didn’t have the authority to order anything that big. For once, he wished he wore an officer’s shoulder boards.

  What remained of the attack was going to bits. On the left, the Michigan boys began withdrawing, some of them running, and through the smoke Brown saw Johnnies on that flank, too.

  The order came down—from God knew where—to retreat. Captain Burket appeared at Brown’s side, shouting to the men to stay together, to keep fighting as they withdrew. Brown fixed his eyes on the men he thought might run.

  “Sergeant Brown?” the captain said. He was greased with sweat and panting, beard wet as a mop. Some of the wet was the blood of other men.

  “Sir?”

  “You’re first sergeant now.”

  “I don’t have rank.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Help me get these boys back.”

  The captain lunged to the side, catching a new man who’d caught the panic. Burket made him stand straight, load, and fire. Then he let the boy join the retreat.

  It became a rout. Aware at last of how badly they were outnumbered—and nearly surrounded—even good men ran. Brown had to give up. All he could do was try to reach the trees himself.

  Men dropped with bullets in their backs. Henry Hill caught up and ran beside him.

  “You’re first sergeant now. I heard him.”

  “Henry, I’m sorry.…”

  “Don’t matter.”

  A soldier dashing past threw down his rifle. Brown grabbed him by the collar, snapping him back.

  “You pick up that gun.”

  Mad-eyed, the boy did as he was told. Then he took off running again, but held the rifle to his breast the way a man in a flood clutched a floating board.

  Brown was in a fury. The attack made no damned sense. Where was the rest of the brigade? The division? Fighting was one thing, stupidity another.

  Gaining the trees, he shouted for his men to stop. But the companies were intermingled, just mixed up as Hell, and even some of the officers were running. The goal now was just to avoid being taken prisoner. The regiment had never broken like this.

  He saw the hopelessness, even the foolishness, of his effort, and he called instead for the men to rally behind the marsh they’d crossed a fair stretch back. He hoped the officers would grasp that the ground behind the swamp was the place to hold.

  Brown turned a last time to see if any wounded men were struggling along behind him, anyone he might have time to help, or just any lost souls.

  All he saw was Henry Hill standing beside one of the few proper trees, firing toward the approaching lines of Rebs.

  “Henry, for God’s sake … come on.”

  Hill finished reloading, picked a target, fired, and began to reload again.

  “Henry—”

  His friend looked at him. “I’m not of a mind to run today,” he said.

  Brown took up a position behind a tree a few paces away. Picking a target, a flag-bearer, he fired, too.

  The man dropped. Brown wasn’t the world’s finest marksman, but sometimes things went right.

  Hill stepped into the sunlight, aimed, and shot. Then he dodged into the shade again.

  The Johnnies stopped cold. Brown heard the orders given for a volley.

  “Henry!”

  But Hill had already made himself as small as a big man could behind his tree. Brown turned sideways, too, and closed his eyes.

  The ragged crack of the volley left them standing amid flying bark and falling branches.

  Hill took aim and fired again. Brown did the same.

 
; It was the craziest damned thing. The Rebs, a regiment or more of them, had just stopped dead.

  They were reloading.

  “Get ready,” Brown warned.

  Hill nodded.

  Miraculously, the second volley spared them, too. The only harm done came from a wood splinter that drove through Brown’s trousers. He yanked it out and felt warm wet on his leg. Not a gush, just slime.

  “Surrender, you Yankee sonsofbitches!” a Reb called. Other Confederates took up the shout, chanting, “Surrender, surrender…”

  Brown wanted to do something bold, perhaps shout, “You surrender,” back at them. But his mouth, tongue, throat, and just about every other body part refused to take his orders.

  Henry Hill leaned out and shot a Rebel officer off his horse.

  That was a mistake. An outraged howl rose from the Rebel ranks. They weren’t interested in exchanging polite volleys now. Brown could feel them about to charge, whether ordered to or not. Mercy would not be included in their behavior.

  “Henry, we have to go now.”

  Hill looked at him, jaw still set. But he nodded his agreement.

  The two of them took off on the wildest footrace of their lives. Hundreds of rifle balls chased them through the greenery, and loyal Virginia briars tried to hold them. But they burst through every obstacle, each man faster than he thought he could go.

  Furious shouts and flurries of bullets pursued them. Once, Brown heard a voice all too near snarl, “Get those sonsofbitches!”

  They reached the marshy ground, where Virginia mud went to war with Yankee shoes again. And a mighty cheer went up. To their front this time. Blue uniforms rose from the earth and hats came off.

  “There they are, there they are!” Brown recognized Bill Wildermuth’s voice. There was pure joy in it.

  Perhaps it was the sound of Yankees cheering up ahead, or just sensible orders to re-form, but the noise of thrashing Rebs behind them faded.

  Brown and Hill scrambled up an embankment and blue-clad arms embraced them. Men cheered and slapped them heavily on their backs. Captain Burket was there. And Lieutenant Colonel Overton.

  When the celebration had calmed enough for a man’s voice to be heard, the colonel spoke for everyone to hear.

  “Your stand … that stand was about the bravest thing I’ve seen.…”

  The two friends looked at each other and started to laugh.

  * * *

  Men from the 1st Michigan Sharpshooters established a picket line along the marsh, and the remnants of the 50th Pennsylvania plodded back to the trail. For all the blood spilled and the brethren lost, the veterans were delighted to see their knapsacks where they had left them. A soldier’s life was one of small consolations.

  As he set about re-forming the men, Brown mourned First Sergeant Hill. They had been together since the company’s first muster. September 9, 1861. He remembered the day had still been August hot. Apples burdened the trees behind the field where they tried and failed to march in step before the eyes of forgiving spectators. Even the town’s bad boys had kept their mouths shut. Bill Hill had taken the volunteers in his grip, putting them through their paces again and again. Brown recalled the innocence, the enthusiasm, even the silliness he had shared with his comrades, young men freed from their drudgery on the canal and thrilled at the prospect of a grand adventure.

  So many were dead now, so many. Less than three years, and it seemed at least a lifetime.

  He felt overwhelmed and uncertain of himself, struggling to remember all the things he had known the first sergeant to do after a fight. Order up ammunition, that was number one. Call the roll, mark the known casualties, record the names of those who had witnessed the deaths or wounding or capture of men left behind, write down the names of the wounded sent to the rear … see about water …

  Lieutenant Eckel helped him. Eckel was a decent man, a Dutchman from Tremont who had been promoted from quartermaster sergeant back in March.

  “I feel spitted up and turned over the fire,” Brown said. They sorted through the first sergeant’s pack for the roster Hill kept wrapped in oiled cloth.

  “You’ll do fine, Brownie,” Eckel told him. “Just let them know you’re in charge right off, and you’ll do fine after that.” He added, “I’ll see to the ammunition for you.”

  Calling the roll was painful. But he got through it. Then he called together all of the new men. He wanted to talk to them apart from any heckling from the veterans or smart-mouth from Bill Wildermuth or the likes of Isaac Eckert.

  “Crowd around,” he said, putting beef in his voice, “I’m not going to shout.”

  The new men closed in obediently. Authority, even newly conferred, still impressed them.

  “All right,” Brown began. “You’re all veteran soldiers now. You’ve been in a battle, you know what it’s like. The way things went wasn’t your fault, you did your duty.” He searched for words. “We just got put in a bad way. That happens sometimes. Not so often, but it happens. War’s a messy business, not like some picture book. And the day isn’t over. Don’t make faces. The day isn’t over, and we’re like to go in again. Whether back there, or someplace else. And when we do, it’s going to be our turn. We’re going to pay the Johnnies back. That’s how it works, we’ll get our turn. You’ll feel better then.” He didn’t know how to end his speech, so he continued, “Well, you’re alive, be glad of that. It means you followed orders. Following orders is the best way to stay in one piece.” That didn’t quite work, either, so he decided to finish up on the practical side. “If you need to take care of your private business, you go do that now. But don’t stray off, I want to see your heads above the bushes when you squat. Then be ready to move. You’re dismissed now.”

  When he finished speaking, Brown realized that he was swimming in sweat, as if he had been through another charge. He turned and found Bill Wildermuth waiting in ambush.

  “First Sergeant,” Bill said, grinning, “that was one steaming pile you fed those boys.”

  “Kiss my backside, Private.”

  But he couldn’t help smiling: Wildermuth was right.

  A bit later, Captain Burket called him over. The way he used to summon First Sergeant Hill. It felt strange, the way a dream could feel false and true at the same time. The captain led him a few steps away from the men.

  “Well, First Sergeant,” he said to Brown, “it’s been a Hell of a morning.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The new men didn’t do badly. Under the circumstances.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Everything all right?”

  “Yes, sir. As much as it can be. After…” He opened his hands before him, releasing an imaginary bird.

  The captain sighed and looked into the underbrush. “After that bloody damn mess. I feel the same way, Brownie, a captain’s bars don’t change that.” Burket fooled with the end of his long black beard. It was still matted with the blood of others, as was the man’s tunic. “I suppose I shouldn’t tell you this … but … oh, damn it all. Our attack? It was a mistake. General Willcox just wanted us to push out a little and guard the division’s flank.”

  Across the woodlands, the battle swelled again.

  Two p.m.

  Brock Road

  Hancock couldn’t understand why Lee had stopped. Confederate troops still pecked at his reorganizing lines, but Longstreet’s men had been rolling him up like a wet carpet, sweeping from south to north to stunning effect.

  Then they just stopped. On the cusp of inflicting a catastrophe on him and a third of the army. It wasn’t like Lee, and it wasn’t in Longstreet’s nature to halt like that. For whatever reason, they had spared him, though, giving him time to rally disintegrating regiments and brigades, even broken divisions. Wadsworth had been reported mortally wounded, if not already dead, and left in Confederate hands. Getty had been carried off the field. And Baxter was wounded, too. Carroll was bleeding, but clinging to his command. Winfield Scott Hancock had been within a half
hour of suffering one of the war’s ugliest defeats, a fact he would have had to live with for the rest of his life. And the Confederates stopped.

  He could think of no explanation for it. Despite his losses, Lee had men enough to keep driving forward. Longstreet had not committed his last brigade, if reports were true. And Hill’s men would have regrouped well enough to add weight to the attack. Was it possible that Lee and Longstreet didn’t know how close they had come to smashing him? Had they, for some madcap reason, lost their nerve? Had they judged the day victory enough? Had he bled Lee that badly earlier on?

  It wasn’t their way, it wasn’t their way.…

  If Hancock lacked answers, he wasn’t short of anger. Once again, Burnside had not come in when he was supposed to attack. The blustering stoat had learned nothing since Fredericksburg, the man couldn’t lead a temperance procession. And now Meade expected him to support Burnside’s belated attack, if it ever came off.

  Worse, he had put Gibbon in charge of his left wing, and Gibbon, of all people, had disobeyed orders. And that snot Barlow. Had he brought his entire division forward as ordered, Longstreet would never have been able to pull off his goddamned stunt. Instead, Barlow had sent him one brigade, and Paul Frank’s brigade at that.

  His thigh hurt. Awfully. He longed to dismount. But it would be hours before he could leave the saddle. The Rebs would come again. Surely. He looked out past his barricades and the hastily made abatis, past grimy, surly soldiers, and into the smoke and wreckage of the day. You could almost walk on the bodies, they had come that close. Now the woods were burning between the armies, and wounded men shrieked as they roasted in broad daylight.

  Careful to keep his expression firm and confident, he watched regimental officers putting men back to work, trying to make up for their earlier failures, deepening entrenchments, felling trees, and piling up more wood in front of their rifle pits, working—at his insistence—on a second line of earthworks behind the first. Lee had had his chance. Hancock did not mean to grant him another one.

  But damn Gibbon! And damn Barlow! With his lines taking proper shape again, it was time to deal with those two. He fantasized about relieving them on the spot, imagining their shocked faces. Gibbon, with that Philadelphia snootiness he shared with Meade, the two of them men for whom Norristown wasn’t close enough to Rittenhouse Square. And Barlow, that little prig. Wouldn’t they be surprised if he ripped off their stars?