by Ralph Peters
“Yes, sir.”
The corporal took off at a run, doing the best he could to bust through the undergrowth.
Oates heard the fateful, expected shout, heralding the onset of a deluge.
Shaaf’s men dashed back. One after another, they leapt over the low barricades their comrades continued to strengthen even now. The captain came in last of all his company.
Oates grabbed him. “Get your hellions gathered back up and wait in that dip yonder. You’re my reserve.”
Out of breath, the captain nodded. He forgot to salute again, but Oates could forgive a great many breaches of military decorum from a man who fought like he meant it.
“My God,” a man said in a voice of wonder. “Oh, my God and Savior…”
Years before, Oates had seen the Gulf shore during a storm. It was like that now. A huge wave rolled toward them, with another right behind it. And other blue waves followed that.
“Stay down,” Oates bellowed as he paced his line. The men were brave, but that went only so far, unless you were crazy. The body did its own sums, overtopping the calculations of the mind, and legs made their own decisions to up and run. Oates had to challenge the men’s pride to whip down their fears. And that meant parading around like a fool until he could let them take solace in pulling triggers. “Stay down now. Nobody fires until I damned well say so.”
If the Yankees behaved as usual, pausing to exchange volleys, he had a chance. If they showed unusual enterprise and came on, he lacked the numbers to do much more than sting them.
Corporal Folger reappeared. Crouching like that Hunchback of Notre Dame, expecting Yankee bullets to ring his bells.
“Sir,” the soldier panted, “the colonel begs you to hold … while he re-forms.”
“Florida Brigade?”
“Just broke to pieces, broke all to pieces. Yankees hit ’em every which way. General Perry’s wounded.”
Oates thought: That didn’t take long.
“All right,” he said. “You stay by me now.”
The Yankees were a hundred paces off. They overlapped his command on either flank. He hoped they weren’t aware of that advantage yet.
Oates turned, quickly, to his runner. “You see where Captain Shaaf’s tucked in?”
The corporal nodded. “Run right by him.”
“Good.”
Oates thought: Lord God of hosts, my mama’s your devoted servant, even if I’ve gone my way apart. For her sake, stop those sonsofbitches short.
His mother, with her gift of the sight: She had foreseen his brother’s death. Had she dreamed of this day and kept her silence?
The Yankees halted. Fifty paces out.
As the Federals shouldered up to unleash a volley, Oates screamed, “Fire!”
* * *
The Yankees just stood there in what passed for open ground, exchanging volleys as if they were in no hurry. Despite their numbers, the Federals were not finding matters to their advantage.
There was a cost, though. Calvin Whatley, who had been with Oates’ old company from the first, took a bullet in the eye, and John Stone, another of the old bunch, was laid out flat, pumping blood and no way to stop it. Plenty of others went down, too.
No longer standing upright, Oates worked his way past a stretch of smoldering brambles to Sergeant Ball, who maintained a delicate trigger finger, despite his brawler’s paws and gutter habits.
“See that Yankee officer there?” Oates asked, half shouting.
“Which’n?”
“Watch now. Kind of weaves in and out. Dozen men left of those flags.”
The Yankees let go another volley. Bullets bit the air.
“Can’t see him. Damned smoke.”
“Keep watching. Left of the flags. Knows everybody’s aiming at the colors, so he set himself off to the side. There. Waving his butter knife.”
Ball’s grip tightened on his rifle. “I saw him. Ain’t there now, though.”
“Just wait. Wait until that sucker pops out again. And you kill the bastard.”
Ball looked up at Oates with a happy smirk. “Know what I like about you, Colonel?”
“Not sure I give a purple damn.”
“You’re not a gentleman.”
“No,” Oates said.
A moment later, Ball dropped the Yankee.
Oates thought: Now or never.
He stood up and shouted, “Bayonets! Fifteenth Alabama! Forty-eighth! Charge!”
* * *
Drifting smoke nagged at Brown’s lungs as he and the men of the 50th Pennsylvania double-quicked forward, following a trail beaten down by thousands before them. They were headed into the depths of the fighting this time, with their cartridge pouches refilled and hearts grown hard. After the shock of the morning’s losses, meanness had taken hold of them, rearing up like that black snake in front of First Sergeant Hill, an appetite for cruelty worthy of Bible stories.
From a distance—just as they started south through the woodlands—they had heard encouraging Northern hurrahs amid the volleys. Closer now, they caught a Rebel yell.
“We’ll have them hollering something else,” Doudle shouted. Others called out their agreement. It never ceased to be a wonder to Brown how war worked on men: Those who had run from the enemy hours before now ran toward that same enemy with their hearts on fire. And Doudle … John was a curious man. He would stand for as long as needed in the front rank, loading and firing, seemingly fearless. But he would not go one step in front of the rest of the regiment: His fear of capture was famed within the company. Doudle seemed resigned to possible death or mutilation, but rumors about Andersonville unnerved him.
Brown dropped back beside Henry Hill.
“No more craziness, all right? Once was enough.”
“All right,” his friend said.
The smoke stuck to their sweat as they hurried forward, greasing their flesh and making the heat still hotter. Lower faces blackened with powder, the men looked as though they wore bandits’ masks askew. Few uniforms were buttoned up, fewer still unstained.
Brown’s crusted undergarments chafed his thighs. For a few paces, but no more, he let himself dream of a bath in a cool, clean river.
The clamor of battle rushed toward them. Wounded men appeared, clutching shattered arms or bloodied faces, some staggering and on the verge of collapse, others not displeased at the nicks they’d received.
“What’s happening up there?” Brown asked a soldier who seemed merely sobered by the damage done to him.
“Same old story,” the private said. “We start out whupping them, they end up whupping us.”
Men in shameless flight came next, a few strays first, then knots and clots of skedaddlers.
Bullets gnawed the treetops. One of the rounds chased a brown snake off a limb. It dropped into the column, slapping the back of one of the Eckerts, who jogged on unaware of what had happened.
“Like goddamned Mississippi,” Bill Wildermuth griped.
The column halted and the front ranks of the 20th Michigan collided with the rear of the 50th Pennsylvania. As junior officers and sergeants sorted things out, the captain waved Brown to his side. Soldiers who had had enough edged past them.
“Stay with the men,” Burket said. “Don’t let them fall out. I’m going forward to see the colonel, find out what I can.”
“He’ll be with Colonel Christ, sir.”
“I know.”
Neither of them said what Brown knew both of them were thinking: They’d seen the brigade commander in the saddle an hour before, working hard on his whiskey flask.
The captain added, “Only two choices. We either shore up the line, or we attack.”
Recalling Christ’s reddened face, Brown said, “We’ll attack.”
The company commander nodded. Then Burket smiled. “It’s all on your head, Brownie. You’re the one who lugged him back in at Antietam.”
They giggled like mischievous boys. There was nothing else to be done.
The
captain hurried along the column of companies, and Brown turned back to the men who were now his charges. Trying to recall each step First Sergeant Hill had taken before an attack, he called out, “Corporal Oswald! If we ground knapsacks, you stand guard. Pick two men for the detail.”
There were fewer packs to watch over now.
Next, he inspected the weapons of the recruits, checking that muzzles weren’t gritty or barrels fouled. When he reached the Eckert boys, he told John the Shorter, “After this fuss, you’re going to wash those stockings good and give them back.”
“Teacher’s pet,” another Eckert muttered.
Brown ignored it. He wanted the boy and the rest of the new men thinking about anything but what waited ahead. It was queer: When men were moving forward toward a fight, especially moving at the double-quick, they acquired a fierceness of outlook that no one had ever managed to explain to him. But let them pause for even a peck of time, and their minds roamed off in all the wrong directions.
The captain returned along with the commanders of the trail companies. Each man’s face was grim.
Before the column resumed its march, the battle approached again. Brown and the veterans understood: They were needed and they’d be going straight into it.
They pushed on for a hundred paces before their officers turned them into the brush. Fighting raged to their front, glimpsed as muzzle flashes and shapes in the smoke. Instead of deploying in two battle lines, the regiment formed four deep. It made sense to Brown: Better chance of keeping the men together in the undergrowth and general confusion.
Between their left flank and the right of the 20th Michigan, a thicket blazed. The heat had become dizzying. Brown hoped the new men had not drunk up their water. It shamed him to think that he had not checked their canteens when he’d had the chance. Overwhelmed by all he suddenly had to do and ruing how much he had to leave undone, Brown was far from certain he could replace First Sergeant Hill.
Dismounted now, Lieutenant Colonel Overton announced, “The Rebs up ahead pushed our boys back, but they’re about played out. We’re going to teach them a lesson.” He raised his sword so every man could see it. “For the good old Keystone State!” he cried.
“Pennsylvania never done shit for me,” Isaac Eckert whispered.
Bill Wildermuth told him, “Guess that makes you and Harrisburg about even.”
The inevitable order came. And the men of Company C, 50th Pennsylvania, started forward. For a small eternity, Brown feared a repeat of the morning’s debacle, with only the 50th and the 20th Michigan making the attack, but as the regiment neared the front line, other regiments rose from behind hasty barricades.
“Let’s go, let’s go!” Brown shouted, just as thousands of men broke into a cheer.
* * *
Oates had driven his regiments as far as they could go, surprising himself with what he had achieved. For his part, Colonel Perry helped worthily, pushing up the 44th Alabama under Major Carey, giving Oates command of a third rump regiment. Together, they had sent maybe three times their number of Yankees reeling backward. But just as Oates meant to bring some order to his strewn command, the Yankees burst out of the forest again, fresh Yankees, as though the sonsofbitches had factories turning out men as quick as a foundry made railroad spikes.
“Rally on the colors!” Oates shouted, voice nearly gone. “Rally on the colors of your regiment!”
His soldiers edged back before the renewed onslaught. Few men on either side would close with bayonets, and rarely when exhausted. The threat of cold steel had worked in his favor for the past half hour, but only New Orleans cutthroats really hankered to gut other men. A soldier might club a head in with a rifle butt and do it merrily, but the bayonet worked differently on the mind. Almost as if men thought, Do unto others …
“Rally, boys!” Oates called. “Fifteenth Alabama, hold this ditch.”
The men nearest him obeyed, and others joined them. They got down in the trough of a drying creek, using the waist-high banks for their protection, and fired into the Yankees as fast as they could.
Oates expected the Federals to halt, as usual, to trade volleys. But this bunch just kept pushing. When they got within thirty paces, Oates pulled his men back, firing as they withdrew. The Yankees seized the creekbed and briefly turned it to their benefit, propping elbows on the bank to aim at withdrawing Confederates. Then the blue-bellies climbed out of the ditch again, on the near side, coming on hot. Another Alabaman toppled backward beside Oates, and a blue-clad flag-bearer clutched his belly and staggered. A ready Yankee caught the flag, yelling words in a dialect thick as molasses.
“Rally on the high ground,” Oates barked. Or tried to. His voice was dry as wood shavings.
He launched Folger with orders for the 48th Alabama, but the corporal dropped before he had gone twenty feet and lay there twitching. Smoke from volleys on the left rode a hot gust into the 15th Alabama. Brushfires thickened the swirls and donated cinders.
“Rally! Captain Strickland, to me!”
It took an eternity, at least thirty seconds, for Billy Strickland to reach him.
“Got a grip on your boys?”
The captain nodded.
“You hold them sonsofbitches up,” Oates told him. “Just give me two, three minutes, till I can get us back where we started and under some shape of cover.”
“Yes, sir.”
If the young captain had doubts, he didn’t show them.
“Fifteenth! Withdraw! Back to the barricades.…” He ran along his broken line to pass the order to the 48th. As for the 44th on the left, Carey had a quick eye, he’d figure things out for himself.
With another hurrah, the Yankees surged again.
Oates wondered whether anything was left of the Florida Brigade, or if the Alabamans were on their own. The rest of the army had as good as disappeared.
The 48th was fighting handsomely, contesting every bit of ground with the Yankees. Oates sent a private back to tell Colonel Perry he meant to try to hold where he’d first changed front, adding that they were under attack by at least one fresh brigade and maybe two.
Cursing, Oates passed wounded men in the uniforms of both armies, all begging to be taken along before the brushfires reached them. Pity was all he had to spare, not time. Not even time to help the men he recognized. He would have let them all burn to death in the bottom pit of Hell if it meant he could whip the Yankees.
* * *
The men of Company C leapt into the ditch the Rebels had defended. Some paused to aim and fire after the Johnnies, but Brown soon had the last of them scrambling up the far bank and back in the chase. Billy Eckert was hit and dropped to his knees, but the other Eckerts kept going. Everyone’s blood was up. And the Rebs didn’t have the numbers they had feared. The morning’s situation had been reversed.
Here and there, a Johnny dawdled too long getting off a last shot and the boys caught up with him. If the Reb didn’t drop his weapon and raise his hands fast, he didn’t fare well. Running ahead in a fit of mean, Isaac Eckert locked rifles with a Johnny inches taller but plank thin. Seconds into their smoke-wreathed duel, Isaac sidestepped and swept his stock up into the other man’s face, stepped back, and thrust his bayonet into the staggering Johnny’s belly. The Reb convulsed and collapsed. Crowing like a rooster, Isaac smashed in his skull.
Sometimes the clashes went the other way.
But the 50th kept shoving through the brambles, slowed only by the patches of crawling flames. Brown could tell that the Johnnies they faced had been fighting awhile. Their moves were tardy and they fired low, forearms quivering under the weight of their rifles. Their shoulders would be bruised and painful, too, no matter how much experience they had.
The puffed-up generals with mighty plans never fired rifles and had no idea what one could do to a man in one hour of fighting. At the very least, a soldier’s aim went off as he coddled his shooting shoulder.
Brown saw Henry Hill advance with an air of determination, judging w
hen it was time to pause and shoot, and taking careful aim before pulling the trigger. He was a model of how a veteran moved. The new men needed talking to, though, since most of them fired before choosing a target, just blasting in the direction of the enemy.
“Keep together!” Brown shouted. A gulp of smoke made him cough and gasp, but he continued giving orders, pausing to fire only when he believed he had his men in hand.
He glimpsed Isaac Eckert’s blood-spattered grin and mad eyes.
The Rebs dug in their heels at a string of barricades, none worth much except as a marker of where they meant to fight. More men in gray and brown rags rushed up from the enemy’s rear, just enough fresh blood to give the defenders hope.
The advance slowed and the firing thickened. At a command, the 50th stopped and formed lines, angering Brown: He was sure they could have run right over the Rebs, even with that handful of reinforcements.
The two sides traded volleys. Killing each other at close range because the officers didn’t know what else to do. Someone had ordered the 50th to halt, because someone else a half mile along had ordered a halt, and the order had just ricocheted down the line.
Walking behind the ranks of shooters and loaders, Captain Burket spun around and tumbled.
Brown froze.
In moments, the captain got back up, holding his side and wheezing. He had lost his cap, but held on to his pistol.
Brown rushed toward him. “Sir?”
The captain grunted. His eyes strained, seeking nothing in particular. Then he came around, at least partway, and declared, “I’m all right. It’s all right. See to the men … the men…”
“You have to go to the rear, sir,” Brown told him.
Clutching his ribs with one hand and the revolver in the other, he shook his head. “They’ll have to do a damn sight worse than that.”
There was no blood in his spittle. That was good.
“See to the men!” Burket snarled. “Damn it, Brown, do your duty.”
Brown turned back to his soldiers. Walking the firing line as the captain had done, patting men on the shoulder, cautioning the new recruits to take time to aim. Stepping over the dead and wounded.