by Jeff Shaara
Lee nodded, looked now out in the darkness, to the far trees. “He should have hit us here. We gave him an opportunity. God … gave him an opportunity. The rains slowed us, kept us here. Now, God has taken his opportunity away.”
Lee paused, and Longstreet waited.
Lee said, “I don’t understand His ways.… I thought it would never be like this. The Almighty was with us, the fight was ours … we should have won the day. But it was not to be. I thought … I understood. But now, He is allowing us to go back home.”
Longstreet looked at Lee for a long moment, said, “I thought Meade would end it. He is making a mistake letting us escape. I suppose … there will be another day.”
Now there was the sharp sound of another gun, a brief flash of light in the trees far downriver, then another gun, closer, the reply. Lee watched, sat up straight.
Longstreet said, “No musket fire. They’re just playing … probably firing at the wind. Meade’s cavalry is moving around, but no infantry. They’re still in place.”
Lee shook his head. “He dug trenches. He came right at us, and then dug trenches.”
Longstreet said, “The scouts have been bringing in some numbers.… Word is, he’s pretty beat up. Maybe worse than us. They lost some good people.… John Reynolds is dead, that’s for certain. I heard Hancock was down, and Dan Sickles. Meade’s still new to command, doesn’t want to make any mistakes. He won the fight, he knows it. Let those folks in Washington absorb that. They haven’t had much to cheer about.”
Lee looked at Longstreet, ran the names through his mind. “General, he has not lost what we have lost. We cannot replace what has been taken from us, and this fight has taken too much. I do not understand why we have been … punished so. We could have ended the war, right over there, if we had prevailed on that ground. The pressure on Washington … we took the fight to them, it was the only way. And we have paid a terrible price.” He paused, said quietly, to himself, “I would have thought … surely God does not want this to go on.”
Longstreet watched the troops again, said, “There were many mistakes.”
Lee did not answer, thought again of Jackson, closed his eyes, fought the image. But it would not go away. The image stared hard at him, and Lee knew that Jackson was there, had seen the great fight, the great bloody disaster. Lee thought, If you had been here … if you had led them … it would have been very different.
From down below, one of Longstreet’s staff moved up the hill, said, “General, excuse me. The last of the corps is on the bridge, sir. General Hill’s column is forming on the road, behind those woods.”
Longstreet turned, nodded. “Thank you, Major. We’ll move across in a minute.” He turned to Lee, paused, saw Lee’s eyes closed, said quietly, “General Lee? With your permission, sir, I will take my staff across the river. I expect General Hill should report to you soon. I’m sure he wants to get across this river as much as we do.”
Lee looked at him now, and Longstreet suddenly felt foolish, knew it was the wrong thing to say.
Lee looked into the shadow of Longstreet’s face. He felt a small tug of anger, but he would not say anything of it, would not lay blame on anyone. “General Longstreet, you may accompany your corps.”
Longstreet bowed slightly, saluted, pulled the horse away. Lee watched him, the staff gathering together, the horses moving in slippery steps down to the bridge head.
Longstreet was right, there were many mistakes. But he would not think on that now, would not see the faces, the commanders who had not done the job, would not think on troop movements and poor cooperation, could not even recall his own orders, the horrors of what he had seen, what they had all seen in those three days. He had tried to understand it, to sort it out, but it was too soon, and he knew the memories would come back in time, and the images would be as sharp and painful as so many of the memories he carried from the fights long before.
Even the great victories held vast horror, but he could not even recall those, the days when you knew you had beaten those people, had driven them from the field, commanders like Pope and Hooker, who by their bluster and profane arrogance invited nothing less than total defeat. And the incompetence of Burnside, who threw his very good army against an impossibly strong position, and so sent his own men to a senseless slaughter. Lee tried to recall the feeling, standing on his hill behind Fredericksburg, hearing the bright yells and joyous shouts from below, his men looking out at the bloody fields in front of them, understanding how utterly complete their victory had been. He tried to remember the chaos at Chancellorsville, the complete destruction of the Federal flank, how Jackson had nearly crushed the Federal army in a panic so complete that had the daylight not run out … it could have ended the war right there. But Jackson would not be stopped by nightfall, kept moving forward, even when his men could not, and in a dark and terrifying night his own men had panicked at the sound of horses, had fired at silhouettes in the moonlight.
Lee saw the face again. He had not been to see Jackson after he was wounded, but the reports from the doctors, from the staff, were optimistic, just an arm, he would recover. Then suddenly the bright blue light was gone, and not from the wounds, but from pneumonia. And it was only … He tried to think. Two months ago. Or an eternity.
Already now there were letters, reports beginning to move through the army, commanders deflecting the blame they knew was yet to come. There would be the newspapers, of course, and the letters from home, questioning. Some of the officers had already made protests, angry challenges, hot criticisms of the generals Lee trusted so much, men he had to trust. But those men had not performed, and in the maze of faces and names and mistakes, he knew that ultimately no one could be held responsible but him.
Now there was fresh motion on the road, reflections from a new line of troops. It was the Third Corps, A. P. Hill’s men. They moved out of the woods, marched down toward the angry water, and again Lee watched, sat quietly on Traveller as his army moved silently through the wet misery of the retreat, knowing once again the war would roll on in a bloody wash of men and machines back into Virginia.
AUGUST 1863
HE HALTED THE ARMY SOUTH OF THE RAPIDAN RIVER, NEAR ORange Court House, and as they slowly gathered together, many of the stragglers and men with light wounds began to return. In the weeks since the start of the retreat, it was the first time Lee could see his army for what it had now become, how badly the impact of Gettysburg had changed the strength, how deep were the wounds.
The fields around the Rapidan were bare now. No farmers worked the land, the homes and barns were empty, most of the big trees were gone. The war had long since claimed this part of Virginia, and Lee hardly recognized this countryside. He stood at the edge of a wide field of dried mud, knew that this land, this fertile and beautiful ground, had once borne the bounty, the tall corn, the vast green oceans of grain. Now it was gray and barren, wagon tracks cutting through in all directions, the former campsites of both armies, and for now it was his again.
The men were spread out around him, secure in the new camp, and Lee rode along the hard road, away from his own tents, where the staff worked with the papers, sorting out the problems in the regiments, the brigades, the endless fight for supplies.
Taylor had encouraged him to slip away, and Lee was grateful, knew this young man with the boundless energy could handle the business of headquarters, the vast clutter of details. He rode slowly away, did not look back, did not see Taylor watching him, peering past the lengthening line of soldiers, officers, men with complaints or “urgent” business.
He moved down the hard road, past the troops who now stopped to watch him. There were shouts, calls of greeting, and even now, even with the hard wounds of the great defeat, the men still rose up and gathered, still called his name. He reined the horse, lifted his hat, a small salute, looked at the faces and then beyond, saw the numbers, the wide field spread with the men who were still there, still with him. They did not look to him for comfort or pity,
and he did not see pain or defeat. They still made the cheerful calls, faces bright with the look that says, We are still your army, and we will fight again.
There had been desertions, many stragglers who were captured or simply disappeared. The muddy roads out of Pennsylvania had swallowed up many who had lost the strength, the energy, for the fight. The casualties were staggering, over twenty thousand men, nearly a quarter of his army gone. But as much as he mourned the loss of the fighting men, it was their commanders, the brigade and regimental officers, who would have to be replaced. As the war flowed into its third year, the men who knew how to lead, the capable commanders with an instinct for battle, were becoming more and more scarce.
He thought of the names, saw the faces: Lew Armistead, Barksdale, Pender, Garnett, Pettigrew. They were gone, and there were none better. He thought of young John Bell Hood, the huge blond-haired man from Texas whom he had known so well in the old cavalry, the man who loved chasing Comanches all through the misery of the frontier. Lee had always thought Hood was indestructible, but he was down too, a severe wound, might still lose an arm. And old Isaac Trimble, the man who brought him the news of Ewell’s failure to take Cemetery Hill, a catastrophic mistake in a fight with many mistakes. Trimble was a fierce and disagreeable man whom Lee knew he could trust absolutely, but Trimble had been wounded as well, had to be left behind, and so was captured.
You could not train new leaders, you could not replace what a man had brought with him from the battlefields in Mexico. There was no fresh class from West Point or VMI. The new officers were young, very young, and if a man did not have the gut instinct, could not take his men forward with absolute command of himself and his situation, there was no time to teach him, to show him his mistakes. Now, when mistakes were made, the men did not come back.
He spurred the horse again, moved beyond the camp, saw the road turning through a small grove of thick trees. It was hot, growing hotter, and he looked to the shade, moved that way. He heard the sound of water, saw a small stream snaking its way in the dark coolness, flowing close to the road. He reined the horse, watched the thin stream of water rolling over polished rocks, was suddenly very thirsty. He climbed down, and Traveller moved to the water with him. Lee bent low, cupped his hand and took a deep cold drink. He stood, wiped at his face with a wet hand, watched the horse now nosing the edge of the stream. He could still hear the men, the sounds of the camp carrying beyond the fields, and there was even music, a banjo, and he smiled at that, felt a sudden pride. Yes, he thought, they are not beaten. I should take a lesson from that.
He reached into his pocket, felt for the letter, pulled it out. It was the reply, the inevitable response from Jefferson Davis. Lee understood that in this army, in any army, it was the commander who must bear the responsibility. If he did not dwell on that, the newspapers did, great ponderous prose from the fat men in their clean offices in Richmond, Charleston, Atlanta, the men who had built up the expectations of their nation with the move northward. They gave their readers the first reports of the glorious invasion of the North, reported outrageous rumors as fact, the defeat of Meade’s army, the imminent capture of Washington.
Lee had not seen the papers until after the battle, then read the absurd reports with deep dread, because he knew that when the truth came out, when the reports of the fighting became real, the impact would be far worse. So with the first major accounts from Pennsylvania, the papers that had given the people grand headlines of their mythic victory, the victory that would surely end the war, now gave them the story of crushing defeat. The papers had provided the power behind the myth, and many had come to believe that his army was invincible. Now they had to accept that it was not always so, and many would not accept it. Even the reasonable, moderate voices could not temper what many were saying. Lee had lost the fight. As he absorbed the anger, the reckless calls from the papers, the voices of those quick to place blame, to seek the simple explanation, he responded in the only way he could. In early August his letter of resignation had gone to the president.
The letter had been as much a response to the papers as to the president personally, an effort to relieve any criticism of the army, the men who had done the fighting. And if Lee accepted responsibility for the failure, he also began to accept that his health was becoming an issue, and for the first time he had wondered if his heart problems might have clouded his judgment. So, at least he had provided Davis with an excuse, a reason for accepting his resignation, which would preserve his honor.
Now, as Lee stood beside the big horse in the cool shade, he held Davis’s reply in his hand. He opened the letter, read it again. If Davis had become fragile, even suspicious and secretive in his dealings with his other commanders, he could still show Lee the warmth that many never saw, that Lee had often forgotten. He scanned the page, paused at the words “my dear friend,” smiled, then read silently.
To ask me to substitute you by one in my judgment more fit to command, or who could possess more of the confidences of the army, or of the reflecting men of the country, is to demand an impossibility.
He looked back toward the sounds from the field, thought, The confidences of the army. He knew Davis was right, he had just seen it again in the faces of the men. He put his hand out, touched Traveller’s neck, said aloud, “Well, if they want me to lead them still, then I will lead them. After all, my friend, what else can I do?”
He climbed up, considered moving farther away, exploring the road deeper into the shade of the trees, but before he could tug at the reins, the big gray horse turned its head and began to carry him back to his men.
2. CHAMBERLAIN
BRUNSWICK, MAINE, AUGUST 1863
HE HAD SEEN HER FROM THE WINDOW OF THE TRAIN, MOVED toward the doorway, and when the train slowed enough he jumped down to the platform. The pain from the wound in his foot shocked him, and he staggered, fell forward, caught himself with one hand, then stood again, and the twist in his expression told her he was hurting.
Fannie moved toward him now, and he reached for her, and the pain was gone. She lifted her hands to him, and he saw the look, that same dark sadness, the look she had when he’d left her a year ago. He hugged her, and they stood for a long moment, said nothing. He could feel her arms pulling hard at him, and he did nothing to end it, would feel her pressing against him as long as she would have it go on. As people moved from the train, filling the platform, there were glances, discreet stares, a few children began to point, hushed by embarrassed mothers. As she kept him tight to her, he began to sag, to feel the weakness, leaned against her more, and still she held him, said quietly, “Oh God … oh God …”
She was crying now, and he moved slowly, lifted her away and saw the tears. She smiled then, said, “How do you feel?”
“Not very well. It was a rough trip. I feel like … bed.”
They began to walk. She held his arm as they moved away from the train. He still leaned against her, and they climbed down the short steps. As she guided him toward the carriage, people began to recognize him, saw more than just the blue uniform, saw the familiar face of the professor, the man many of them had known before. People began to move closer, there were greetings, hands came toward him. He tried to smile, to be gracious, but the weakness was overwhelming, and the smile faded and he could only nod. He climbed slowly up into the carriage, and Fannie moved around, sat beside him.
Chamberlain saw now the young man sitting up in front, watching them, holding the reins, and he looked at the smiling face, thought, Yes, it’s … He tried to clear his head, staggered through names, said, “Yes, Mister … Silas. The rhetoric class.”
The boy was beaming now, flattered at the recognition. “Yes, sir, Colonel Chamberlain. Welcome home.”
Chamberlain remembered he was in uniform, had forgotten all about that, how the people here saw him, what it was like for him to come back home from such a different place. And he knew now what they all knew. He was not a professor anymore.
Chamberlain
looked at Fannie now, who was watching him, questioning him silently with hard concern.
“We should get you home. Mr. Silas asked if he could drive me to the station. Many of your … the students have been calling on me every day. The word did get out, I’m afraid … that you were coming home.”
He glanced out toward the small crowd, saw the people staring at him with a look of sorrow, dread. She waved a hand and said, “Thank you, he’s all right. We’re taking him home now.”
Chamberlain looked at the faces, the sadness, did not understand. He saw a man, familiar, and the man removed his hat, gave a small bow, said, “God bless you, Colonel. We pray for you, sir.”
Chamberlain looked at the man, the others, suddenly wondered if they expected a speech. He said, “Thank you. I’m only here for a while … please, do not be concerned for me.” He looked up at the boy, who was staring at him intently, and he suddenly felt confused, embarrassed.
Fannie said, “Mr. Silas, we should proceed.”
The boy slapped at the horse, and the carriage rolled into the wide street, the boy holding the horse to a slow walk. People were still gathering, pointing, but Chamberlain began to sag again, leaned weakly against Fannie, closed his eyes, heard his name in small faint voices. He was suddenly very sleepy, and the gentle lurch of the carriage rocked him against her side, his head resting against her shoulder. Fannie put her hand softly against his face and felt the hot sweat of the fever.
The malaria had been coming on slowly, during the weariness of the long marches, the summer heat beating him down. What the marches had not taken from him, the battlefield had—the small wound in his foot, the shock of the fight on Little Round Top. But it was afterward, the slow and miserable march, the sluggish pursuit of Lee’s army, the mud and the wet chills, that had weakened him, left him prone to the sickness. And since there had been no fight, with Lee escaping across the Potomac, he’d been granted leave, two short weeks, much of it in a long train ride home to Maine.