Gettysburg: The Crossroads Town

by Tim Black

  Through the glass, Victor spotted the 20th Maine’s color sergeant Andrew Tozier. The color sergeant’s job was to hold the regimental colors. Color sergeant during the Civil War was a prestigious post for an enlisted man, and before the day was over, Tozier and Chamberlain would earn their subsequent Medals of Honor, which they would later receive for their heroism at Gettysburg.

  The racket from the rifles permeated the air and Victor heard himself shouting to Bette, who began yelling in response. They couldn’t carry on a normal conversation amid the noise. No matter, their eyes were transfixed on Little Round Top. Shelby Foote and the Alabamians disappeared into the woods of Little Round Top amid of a cacophony of bellicosity only to retreat down the hill after a few minutes. Victor could make out Sergeant Tozier waving the flag furiously to encourage the men from Maine. He was like a cheerleader, Victor thought. As the Rebels retreated back down the hill and the firing paused, Sergeant Tozier shouted so loudly that Victor could hear his voice on Big Round Top. “Them damn Rebs sure like to yell.

  Victor looked through the glass and spotted Lieutenant Colonel Chamberlain walking up to the summit of Little Round Top. In the lull of fighting, Chamberlain’s voice carried well, and he began barking orders. He extended his defensive line with more skirmishers.

  It wasn’t long before the Confederates regrouped and charged Little Round Top again. Victor was surprised by the pinkish yellow tint of muzzle flashes as the soldiers of the 20th Maine fired their weapons at the advancing Rebels. And the smoke that followed the exchange of volleys obscured Victor’s view of the action. As the smoke lifted, Victor could see that the Rebels were once again in retreat.

  The din of musketry had drowned out all other sounds, even Color Sergeant Tozier’s booming baritone voice. While the other soldiers were sanely and safely behind rocks, shooting at the Rebels attempting to ascend the steep rocky slope of Little Round Top, Tozier stood alone, flapping his flag in the air. Minie balls whizzing around him, Tozier courageously waved the regimental colors, oblivious to the mortal danger. Was he brave or insane? Victor wondered. While other soldiers who hid behind rocks were unlucky enough to be hit by direct fire or ricochets, the flag-flapping sergeant remained unscathed.

  But Tozier’s bravery did not deter the Confederates; wave after wave of Rebels charged. Victor realized the Southern boys were close to breaking the Union line, and if they succeeded in breaching the defense of Little Round Top, the Rebels would be able move their cannons atop the hill and fire down on the Union position all the way to Cemetery Hill. Enfilade fire, they called it and enfilade fire was deadly.

  Victor watched, mesmerized. Relatively safe on Big Round Top, he and Bette had boulder box seats, ringside to the battle for Little Round Top. He noticed Bette’s mouth was open; she was in awe of what she was witnessing and in danger of catching flies, he thought with a mischievous smile. And above it all, above the carnage and above the smoke, floated the ghostly presence of historian Bruce Catton, smiling ghoulishly, but delightedly, as the battle clamored on. Just watching the action, Victor’s heart was racing. He could hear it pounding in his chest. He was surprisingly frightened, wondering suddenly if he and Bette were entirely safe atop Big Round Top. Had he taken his classmate into danger? On the other hand, an ambivalent Victor was also excited. For a moment, he experienced a modicum of the adrenalin rush that he sensed the men of the 20th Maine must be feeling. Life or death? Any moment could answer that question for the brave boys on both sides. Victor felt compassion for the Confederates whose noble effort was so futile. They fell by the dozens, cut down by the withering fire from the pinkish yellow muzzle flashes. But still the Rebels came, and just when it looked like the Alabama men had breached the line…

  Sergeant Tozier of the 20th Maine courageously ran to the spot in the Union line that was about to break. He waved his flag frantically in the midst of flying missiles, injecting his courageous persona into the spine of the defensive line of the 20th Maine. The Union men, spurred on by Tozier’s selfless example, rallied, and their resistance stiffened and the Confederates repulsed, withdrew. But it was only a respite. Victor heard some Union men shout that they were running low on ammunition. Others claimed they were out of cartridges,

  In a few minutes the Rebels would assault the hill again, Victor realized. Victor noticed that the Union regimental commander, Lieutenant Colonel Chamberlain, was hobbling; he had been hit in the foot. Victor remembered reading about Chamberlain‘s injury. Oblivious to pain, Chamberlain seemed to be moving up and down the line telling his subordinate officers what he intended. Victor heard Chamberlain shout loudly the term “right wheel forward!” and knew what was about to occur.

  “Bette, watch what happens now. Chamberlain’s men are out of ammunition. There is nothing left for them to do except charge down the hill with fixed bayonets. It is a desperation move by Chamberlain. They have no more cartridges. Watch closely.”

  “I am watching, Victor, for heaven’s sake. How can I not?”

  Chamberlain shouted, “Bayonets!” and the men quickly snapped their bayonets onto their rifles. Tozier and the flag were beside Chamberlain.

  “Charge!”

  Suddenly the men from Maine were screaming louder than the Rebels and running down the hill through the trees directly at the charging Confederates. Victor saw the Rebels panic.

  Surprised by the audacity of the Union soldiers, the Rebels pivoted and ran from the screaming men in blue charging pell-mell down the hill. Victor watched in amazement as the formerly fearless Rebels turned tail and ran.

  “Look at the Rebs skeddaddle, Kromer!”

  “Wow!” Bette commented. “It looked insane…but it is working. Bruce Catton is floating beside Chamberlain!”

  “He sure is,” Victor laughed. “Give them hell, Brucie!”

  “Brucie?” Bette asked.

  Victor smirked and watched.

  A Rebel not five feet from Chamberlain pointed his pistol at the erstwhile college professor but, in a seeming act of Providence, the Rebel’s gun misfired, whereupon the bewildered Confederate immediately surrendered. Colonel Chamberlain had cheated certain death.

  It had all happened so fast and it was all over so quickly, Victor thought, wishing that the bayonet charge had lasted a while longer. But it had a sobering effect on the Confederates. The bayonet charge confused the Confederate officers who concluded there were more troops on Little Round Top than they had assumed.

  Victor’s mind was swimming with images: He had seen men wounded, he had seen men killed, he had seen men deformed, he had seen men mangled, but he had seen heroism that belied the romanticism of Lord Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade. Unlike Tennyson, who relied on the reporting of William Howard Russell of the “Times of London,” the newspaperman who actually watched the Crimean War cavalry charge, Victor witnessed the soldiers’ heroism in person, although he could not put what he had seen into words to rival Alfred Lord Tennyson’s famous poem. It remained only in images and feelings. But the scene was something that Victor thought he would remember for the rest of his life—images that seemed to be burned into his consciousness. The bayonet charge was madness, a result of desperation, but for some inexplicable reason it worked and became a legend of the Battle of Gettysburg. And he and Bette had witnessed the legend come to life first-hand as it happened. Minerva was the one who was crazy, he thought. She didn’t want to be here to see the greatest battle ever fought in the Western Hemisphere. So they had to stay a few months in 1863, Victor mused. What he had just witnessed was worth it. And heck, tomorrow was Pickett’s Charge.

  *

  After the Confederates withdrew, the left end of the Union defense line quieted down, save for an occasional potshot from a Rebel sniper hiding among the rocks in Devil’s Den. But after a few hours even the Confederate sharpshooters gave up their positions and withdrew to the east. Twilight set in and Victor advised Bette they should return to the Weikerts’ farm for the night. A full moon lit their way down B
ig Round Top, and as they descended, Victor saw the 20th Maine ascend the higher hill in an effort to extend the Union defense line. Thankfully, the two teens did not intersect with the Union soldiers, for Victor wasn’t certain that he and Bette might not be mistaken for Rebel spies. What sane civilian would want to risk his neck to watch the battle? Victor thought. What would he say if they were detained, that they were from the future? Victor remembered what historian Bruce Catton had said about John Buford when they first arrived in Gettysburg: The Union brigadier general hanged a spy in Frederick. Stripped him naked and strung him up as warning to others. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain might do the same as well.

  Victor and Bette were down the hill and had crossed the field that led back to the Weikert farm. Victor, who was accustomed to the streetlights of Cassadaga, was amazed at how far he could see in the dark with the aid of the full moon’s light. It reminded him of the time when the power went out in Cassadaga after a hurricane, and he looked up at the night sky to see hundreds of stars that were obscured by the light pollution of the modern town. Victor had read that over three-quarters of modern North America could not see the Milky Way because of 21st century light pollution. But on the battlefield of Gettysburg, the night sky, even with the light of a full moon, reminded him of his first trip to a planetarium, he thought, as walked beside a surprisingly silent Bette, who seemed mesmerized by something. She suddenly stopped. Victor, immersed in his own thoughts, did not immediately see the rifles that were pointed at them.

  “Halt!” commanded a voice. “Put your hands up!”

  Four Union soldiers approached the startled teenagers. Victor noticed the three chevron stripes on the leader’s shirt sleeve.

  “We are staying at the Weikert farm,” Victor began to explain. “Mrs.Weikert can vouch for us.”

  Suddenly Tillie Pierce appeared, carrying a bucket of water and a tin cup. “Sergeant, they are my friends,” she said. “Please don’t shoot them.”

  “Hi, Tillie,” Bette said, smiling.

  Tillie’s intervention satisfied the sergeant, who let Victor and Bette pass. Bette rushed to hug Tillie Pierce. “Thank you,” she said.

  “We were all worried about you two,” Tillie said. “Especially Mrs. Weikert.”

  “We were up on Big Round Top watching the battle,” Bette said. “We even had to duck a bullet.” She then proceeded to tell Tillie all about the brave Lieutenant Colonel Chamberlain. Tillie said Chamberlain sounded ever so romantic.

  Victor grimaced at Bette’s commentary and wondered if he and Bette would someday wind up in Tillie Pierce’s reminiscence. He certainly hoped not. When they had left the Weikerts’ farm that morning there were dozens of wounded men about the farm; now there were hundreds of afflicted, laid out in the orchards and in the fields. So many men, Victor realized. So many casualties. Over 51,000 total, on both sides, if one counted the dead, the wounded and the missing. Gettysburg was the bloodiest battle of the Civil War.

  “We can use your help, both of you,” Tillie said. “Grab a bucket and pump some fresh water and go around and give the boys a drink if they need it.”

  “Gladly,” Bette said.

  “Sure,” Victor echoed.

  Victor and Bette went around the farm for an hour giving water to the wounded soldiers. Finally, the nurses began to blow out the kerosene lanterns and the teens retreated inside the farmhouse to join Tillie, who was looking after a wounded officer. But on the way to the farmhouse Bruce Catton interrupted them.

  “Are you two alright?” Catton asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Victor said. “Are you staying here tonight, Mr. Catton?”

  “No, I am off to General Meade’s headquarters. It is just down the road a bit. The Leister farm, on the eastern side of Cemetery Ridge. It will be shelled tomorrow afternoon pretty badly. Shelby is spending the night at Lee’s headquarters.” And his explanation concluded, the ghost of Bruce Catton floated off down Taneytown Road.

  *

  By the time Victor and Bette arrived back at the safety of the farmhouse, everyone at the Weikerts’ farm had heard about the heroic stand and the bayonet charge of the Union troops on Little Round Top. Indeed, some of the wounded men at the farm were members of the 20th Maine regiment, and still others, stationed at other areas along the Union lines, had witnessed the desperate charge as well. But the mass of wounded men spread all over the farm was shocking. Besides the fields and orchards, the men were laid in different areas of the house, others occupied the barn, and both buildings were overcrowded with the suffering soldiers. Tillie had spent a long day helping the surgeons and the nurses, rolling bandages and bringing bread and water to the wounded men.

  One soldier who was sitting in a doorway had beckoned Tillie to him. He was holding a lighted candle and was watching over another wounded soldier who was lying on the floor. The wounded soldier seemed much older than the other.

  “Would you get my friend a piece of bread, miss?” he asked Tillie. “He is very hungry and hasn’t eaten all day.”

  Bette joined Tillie and the two girls dashed into the kitchen, Tillie fetching the bread and Bette a pitcher of water.

  “Thank you,” the soldier said, giving the bread to his comrade. “Would you stay with him until I return?” asked the soldier.

  “Yes,” Tillie said, taking the candle from the soldier and sitting down beside the wounded man. Bette nodded compliance as well. Victor stood aside watching.

  “Are you injured badly?” Tillie asked the wounded man.

  “Yes, pretty badly, miss.”

  “Have you suffered much?”

  “Yes, but I hope in the morning I will be better.”

  “If there is anything I can do for you, I will be glad to do it.”

  “Will you promise to come back in the morning to see me?”

  Tillie replied, “Yes, indeed.”

  “We both will,” Bette promised.

  The soldier smiled.

  The other soldier returned and Tillie surrendered the candle and stood up. Victor noticed the wounded soldier’s eyes following Tillie, and his last words were, “Now don’t forget your promise.”

  “No indeed,” Tillie said. “I hope that you will be better in the morning. Good night, sir,” she added.

  “Good night, ladies,” the soldier said to the girls. Then seeing Victor, he added, “Good night, boy.”

  “Good night, sir.”

  Emotionally exhausted from the events of the day, the girls easily fell fast asleep in bed. Victor headed off to sleep next to David Weikert. At dawn a rooster, oblivious to the dead and wounded men strewn about the farm, announced the day’s arrival and people in the house began to stir.

  Brushing the sleep from her eyes, Bette suddenly remembered their promise to the wounded soldier.

  “Tillie,” she said. “We must check on our soldier. May I borrow a dress?”

  “Yes, yes,” Tillie agreed. She smiled approvingly at Bette. “Becky has loads of dresses, Bette. Pick a brown one. I have found that brown dresses don’t show the dirt as much,” Tillie advised.

  Bette raided Becky’s closet and retrieved a dark brown dress. It was a good fit. The girls dressed quickly.

  When Bette and Tillie arrived at the room of their wounded man, the compassionate soldier who had stayed with his friend throughout the whole evening and early morning hours looked up forlornly at the girls from the cold, lifeless body beside him. Bette and Tillie, who had seen a lifetime’s worth of death in the past two days, immediately deduced that the wounded man from the night before was deceased.

  “Do you know who this is?” the caretaker soldier asked the girls. Tears rolled down both cheeks of his face.

  “No sir.” Tillie replied.

  “This is the body of General Weed, a man from New York. A good man: My friend,” he added in a halting voice. “He was hit defending Little Round Top yesterday. Everyone thinks he was killed on Little Round Top, but we brought him here. I thought it was a nicer place for him to die, don�
�t you?” the soldier asked wistfully. “I thought he deserved a peaceful death, you see.”

  Both girls, unaccustomed to a man’s tears, felt uncomfortable talking, and just listened. The sorrowful soldier continued. “We ran short of gunners because of the Rebels’ sharpshooters, and General Weed was helping Captain Hazlett who was killed on Little Round Top. We took General Weed down the eastern slope of Little Round Top and reached the Taneytown Road and we found this house. It was the first house we came to that was being used as a field hospital. He was a brave man, ladies,” the soldier added, and turned his head away from the girls.

  Bette sensed that the soldier was going to cry again. Suddenly, he began to sob in earnest, and the girls looked at each other with puzzled faces before Tillie offered, “I am sorry for your loss.”

  “I am sorry, sir,” Bette added and both girls walked away.

  “I never considered that our soldier might die,” Tillie said to Bette. “I never considered it. It doesn’t seem fair.”

  “He was a general, Tillie,” Bette said. “He was an important man.”

  “Yes, an important man,” Tillie agreed.

  “Now he is just another dead body,” Bette added coldly, and then apologized to Tillie for her callous remark.

  Tillie shrugged. “There is no need to apologize, Bette. I was thinking the same thing. Now I understand what they mean when they say, ‘here today, gone tomorrow,’” Tillie said. “This is such an awful war, Bette.”

  “It certainly is, Tillie,” Bette agreed.

  “I hate war.”

  “So do I,” Bette agreed.

  *

  Out in the kitchen, Mrs. Weikert was cooking a skillet full of scrambled eggs. “Good morning, girls, I hope you slept well,” she said to Bette and Tillie in her usual cheery voice. “Sit down and have some breakfast. My girls outdid themselves today,” she said and then, seeing the puzzled looks on the girls’ faces, she explained. “The hens. My hens really produced today. Seems like every one of my girls contributed an egg to the war effort,” she said.