Gettysburg, page 26
“Come on, you sons of bitches!”
He cracked the whip over the ears of the lead mule, and the six whip-scarred beasts lurched forward, squeezing between two parked wagons, heading out across the field, weaving their way around hundreds of other wagons.
“What the hell are you doing?”
The cry echoed and reechoed across the field.
“Army’s beat, Rebs are coming here by dawn, and we’re pulling back to Baltimore. You all better get moving right now!”
And the panic began.
11:30 PM, July 2, 1863
The Antrim, Taneytown
“General Longstreet, it’s General Lee.”
Sprawled out on a sofa in the front parlor, Longstreet came awake. Someone had draped a comforter over his body, and he pushed it back. Embarrassed, he sat up.
I wasn’t supposed to do this, Pete thought. Not with men still on the march. All he could remember was coming into the house, speaking to the owner for a moment, assuring him that his property would be respected and all that was needed was the parlor.
He had sat down, just to take a moment to collect his thoughts.
“How long have I been asleep?” Pete asked.
“About four hours, sir. We kind of figured you needed a bit of a rest.”
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Sir, you needed it.”
It was Alexander, his young acting chief of corps artillery, leaning against a table brought into the middle of the parlor, several of his staff gathered around the maps spread out on it. There was the smell of coffee in the air and fresh baked bread.
“Good hosts,” Alexander said, coming over, offering Longstreet a fine china cup filled to the brim with coffee and a piece of buttered bread.
Pete nodded thanks, drank down a mouthful of the scalding brew, and then consumed the bread.
“Where’s General Lee?”
“He’s in the town, sir. Someone just rode in to report. I sent an orderly up to guide him here.”
Pete nodded, standing up, suppressing a groan from the ache in his back and lower legs.
“What happened while I was asleep?” Pete asked.
“Nothing to worry about, sir. A rider came in from McLaws about a half hour ago. He’s halfway to Westminster, reports no resistance. Hood’s division is here; they’re deployed out north of town blocking the road from Gettysburg. A bit of skirmishing there a couple of hours ago, a few cavalry stragglers. A report that some Yankee infantry is on that road on the other side of a creek a couple of miles north of town.”
“Infantry? How much. Who?”
“Not sure, sir. It was dark. But they’re there.”
“Hill?”
“Head of his column is coming in now. Pettigrew, he’s commanding Heth’s division. They’re filling in on the right of Hood and going into camp. Pender is behind them.”
A commotion outside stilled their conversation. Pete looked out the window. It was General Lee, staff trailing behind him, dismounting.
Pete stepped out of the parlor. The wide double doors of the mansion were open, torchlight outside casting a warm light on Lee, who stiffly dismounted, patting Traveler on the neck before letting an orderly take his beloved mount away.
Pete went out onto the porch and saluted as Lee ever so slowly came up the steps.
“General, it does my heart good to see you,” Lee said.
The way he said it caused a flood of emotion inside of Pete. He had always respected Lee, admired his audacity, even though he had not agreed, at times, with how that audacity was played out. But the way he said, “It does my heart good,” touched him. He knew it was real.
Pete extended his hand, helping Lee up the last step. The clasp held for a second. Lee, several inches shorter, looked up into Pete’s eyes. “You should be proud, sir, in fact the entire South will be proud of what your boys did today.”
“You were the one who gave the orders,” Pete replied, suddenly embarrassed.
“A day ago, at just about this time, I was ready to attack at Gettysburg yet again. I realized, though, that your words, your advice, were correct. If ever someone writes a history of this army, they will cite this march as one of the great feats of this war, sir.”
“Ewell and Stuart?” Pete asked, features red, wishing to change the subject.
“I received a report an hour ago from Taylor. Two of Ewell’s divisions were on the road after dark. The last is to pull out by midnight. Stuart will stay in the Gettysburg area through tomorrow, demonstrating to their front and right.”
“We need to concentrate our army now, sir,” Longstreet said. “We are in a dangerous position at the moment. Those people are concentrated and rested. We are strung out yet along thirty miles of road and tired. We must bring everything together tomorrow.”
As they spoke, the two walked into the parlor, Pete’s staff respectfully coming to attention. Lee gazed at the map for a moment, nodding approvingly, asking about the Union deployment north of Taneytown and the latest report from McLaws.
Finally he went over to the sofa that Longstreet had been dozing on and sat down.
Nothing needed to be said. The staff withdrew out into the corridor, the last man out extinguishing the coal-oil lamp on the table. Before they had even closed the door, General Lee was asleep.
The men looked at Pete, and he could see they were gazing at him in “that way,” the look usually reserved for Lee or for Old Jack.
Longstreet nervously cleared his throat and walked back out on to the veranda. Fishing in his breast pocket, he pulled out a cigar and struck a Lucifer, puffing the cigar, exhaling softly.
The almost full moon was high in the Southern sky. It was a good night, a very good night.
11:45 PM, July 2, 1863
Headquarters, Army of the Potomac, Gettysburg
“We move starting at four in the morning,” Meade repeated, looking up bleary-eyed at Henry and Warren.
“But, sir, by then they’ll be in Westminster.”
“I just got the latest dispatch from there sent up by Haupt. It gives no indication of that, other than some cavalry from Buford drifting in, reporting the action at Monocacy Creek.”
“And that dispatch was dated three hours ago, about the same time we were in front of Taneytown. A lot can happen in those three hours.”
Meade sat back in his chair, taking another sip of coffee. “Sedgwick’s men are in no shape to march. They covered damn near thirty-five miles today. The only other unit in reserve is Fifth Corps. I’ve already dispatched one division; the other two will join them by seven in the morning.
“We’re leaving First and Eleventh here. They’re fought out anyhow, and besides, there’re over five thousand wounded here to cover. And someone has to watch Stuart and Ewell, our own cavalry is in such disarray. That leaves Second, Third, and Twelfth Corps, which I’m sending down the Baltimore Pike toward Westminster, and they have to be pulled off the line and shifted over. Try to do that in the middle of the night, and it will be chaos.”
He looked down again at the map. “No, no, we try to move them now, they’ll be exhausted come dawn and not more than five miles on the road anyhow, with twenty more to go. Let them rest; they’ll need it.”
Henry could almost feel a sense of pity for this man. He knew that something inside was tearing at him, the realization that if he had reacted immediately, when that first courier had come in, an entire corps could already be approaching Westminster, with Fifth Corps hitting Taneytown.
What would history say of those lost six hours? Wasted, wasted on a damn staff meeting that had dragged on for over two hours of bitter arguing. One of Hancock’s orderlies had filled him in on it. Hancock shouting that they should move now, Sickles arguing that his corps should storm straight across that ridge he had been obsessed with all day, Howard saying it was a trap for them to stay put, and Sedgwick so exhausted he had fallen asleep in the corner.
By the end of the meeting, a couple of dozen stragglers from Buford had come in, grim evidence of what was going on to the south. At that point it was already getting dark, and yet, in spite of the evidence, Howard kept pointing to Seminary Ridge, the hundreds of campfires flaring to life, and there had been more hesitation.
Finally he had decided, at nine, that the army would move, its primary axis dropping back on Westminster, with a secondary thrust toward Taneytown, but to do so at first light. Seventy-five thousand men, hundreds of wagons, over two hundred artillery pieces were concentrated on just a few square miles of ground. Moving that in the dark would be madness; starting it six hours ago, it could have been done.
And those six hours were gone forever, wasted, and Meade knew it.
“If they take Westminster, we’re cut off from Washington,” Meade whispered. “They’ll go insane down there. Halleck, Stanton, the president, all of them will be screaming for me to attack.”
“Lee won’t turn on Washington,” Warren offered, “not with us in his rear. He’ll have to face us.”
“Will he?”
“He wouldn’t dare make that move. We’ve still got over twenty thousand troops garrisoned in Washington behind the heaviest fortification system in the world. He’d never go up against that, not with us coming down behind him.”
“So he’ll dig in along Westminster?” Meade asked.
The tone caught Henry off guard. He was not used to Meade asking for advice, for support. He was obviously rattled, ready to drop with exhaustion, suddenly frightened by the prospect of all that was unfolding. It frightened Henry. That kind of mood is contagious. It starts with the commander, and then spreads like a plague down the line. It was like that at Chancellorsville and at Second Manassas, the last hours when Pope fell into a panic.
“It’s a tough position,” Henry offered. “There’re two things to hope for though.”
“And that is?”
“Get there fast, sir. They most likely will attack Westminster by dawn.”
Meade lowered his head.
“Herman Haupt is in command down there,” Warren offered. “He’s got somewhere around ten thousand men. He might very well put up a hell of a fight. If he does and the lead column pushes hard enough, it can still be retrieved.”
“Put Hancock in the lead,” Henry offered. “His troops are almost astride the Baltimore Road. Get them moving now.”
“That will leave the center open,” Meade replied.
“It’s no longer the center,” Warren responded forcefully. “Put Hancock on the road now, then Sickles as planned, followed by Twelfth Corps; Sixth in reserve ready to move either toward Westminster or Taneytown. The Fifth hits Taneytown, perhaps severing their line of advance.”
“And if Haupt can’t hold Westminster?”
“The second hope,” Henry interjected, “is that if they have taken Westminster; it will most likely only be a division at most. They’ll be exhausted, troops strung out from Emmitsburg to Westminster, with the head at Westminster. They might not have time to survey the ground up around Pipe Creek. Hancock forces the creek and deploys. We cut off their head at Westminster. We’ll then be astride our base of supplies, with Lee strung out. We then start pushing west, rolling him up, and meeting the Fifth Corps in Taneytown.”
“You think we can do that?”
Meade was indeed exhausted, Henry realized. No sleep for two days, suddenly overwhelmed by the full realization that Lee had again done the unexpected. He needed sleep.
I do too, Henry thought. I can barely stand.
Worn down and demoralized, Meade could only nod.
“Fine then. All right, send someone up to Hancock. It’s almost midnight now. Tell him I want his corps to quietly pack it up, to start moving at two in the morning. Tell Howard to then detach a brigade, push them down to fill in along Hancock’s line.”
Warren and Hunt looked at each other. They’d won their point.
“Get some sleep, sir,” Warren offered.
There was no need to give the advice though. Meade’s head was resting on the table. He was out.
The two stepped out onto the porch and spotted a young orderly sitting on the steps. It was Meade’s son, new to the staff.
“Your father,” Henry said softly, “get him into bed and make sure he gets at least four hours’ rest.”
The boy, who had been dozing, came awake, nodded, and went inside.
Henry pulled out his watch. By the light of the moon, he could read it…midnight.
“I’ll take the orders up to Hancock,” Warren offered. “Get some sleep, Henry. Tomorrow’s going to be a tough day.”
Henry didn’t need to be told. He stepped off the porch. His orderly had unsaddled Henry’s horse and spread out a blanket, the saddle as a pillow.
Henry nodded his thanks and collapsed on the ground.
The last minutes of July 2, 1863, ticked down for Henry; and in a few minutes he was fast asleep, falling into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.
11:50 PM, July 2, 1863
Near Taneytown
John Williamson sat down on the cool, damp ground with a stifled groan, leaning back against the trunk of an ancient oak. The campfires around him were beginning to flicker down. The men had been given a few hours to cook a hurried dinner, a short rest, and then orders to be ready to march long before dawn.
Hazner was by his side, curled up on the bare ground, a tattered quilt his blanket, haversack a pillow. He was snoring away contentedly, and John envied him his oblivion.
The march had been grueling, John and Hazner assigned to the rear of the regimental column to prod the men along, and when necessary to sign off permission for men too exhausted, or sick, to fall out of the line of march. Between yesterday’s battle and the stragglers, the regiment was down to less than half of what it had been only three days ago.
He tried to close his eyes, to sleep as Hazner did, but couldn’t. Finally he reached into his haversack and pulled out a small leather-bound volume. Elizabeth had given it to him on the day he left for the war, and the mere touch of it made him smile, remembering how she had kissed the book before handing it to him, asking him to write often, that it would be the way in which they could still touch each other. She had fancied him to be a writer, and the thought of it made him smile. She who loved Scott, Hugo, and Dickens fancied that perhaps he would become such as well.
He opened the volume up and skimmed through it. The first months of his journal were filled with pages of neatly written notes, vignettes when the world still seemed so young and innocent…a snowfall in camp and how the boys from the hot bottomlands of Carolina had frolicked…the first shock of battle before Richmond…the strange night after Fredericksburg when the Northern Lights appeared—a sign of the Norse gods gathering in the souls of the slain—and then long weeks of nothing, just blank pages.
He fumbled for a pencil in his haversack and rested the volume in his lap, looking off across the fields, the shadows of men covering the ground, the warm, pleasant smell of wood smoke and coffee, so reminiscent of a world of long ago.
“My dearest Elizabeth,” he wrote, hesitated, then scratched the line out. No, this is just for myself.
“I am in Maryland tonight,” he began again, now writing for himself. “At least I think that is where we are. It gets confusing at times with all the marching. A long one today, twenty miles or more. Tomorrow there will be another fight; if not tomorrow, then the day after.
“Why I am here I can no longer say with any certainty. There was a time, long ago, when I believed, but in what I can no longer say. All I long for is for this to end, to go home, and to somehow leave behind all that I have seen, to forget all that I have felt. I feel a shadow walking beside me, filling my nights with coldness. If I live, perhaps there will be a day when we will speak of these times with pride, but will I be there? And if not, what will be then said of me? What will you say, Elizabeth, if I do not return? Will you remember me? Will you wait for me across the long years of your life, or will memory fade and one day you will seek warmth, seek love with another?”
He stopped for a moment, pencil raised, ready to scratch out the last line. What if I die, and she reads that?
No, let her. Fine for others to hide their fears with noble sentiments, but this is my life, the only one I shall ever have. There is no romance in this agony, and those who speak of glory rarely have seen the truth of it.
He looked back down at the page.
“I wish I could fool myself into believing that what I do matters,” he wrote. “But does it? Why did this war have to come into my life? Why now? Elizabeth, I would trade, in an instant, all of this for just a day, a night, as it once was, as it should have been for us. I care not for what others speak of, of all the things we now say caused this war. I just long to go home…but I cannot…and I fear I never will.
“I just want to live. If I should survive this, all I ask is for you to stay by my side, for us to grow old together in peace.”
“Writing in that book again, sir?”
John nervously looked up. It was Hazner, half sitting up, looking over at him. John hurriedly closed the book.
“Yeah.”
“Ruin your eyes, John, writing by moonlight.”
John laughed shyly but said nothing.
“Writing to her?”
“Not really.”
“Why don’t you get some rest, Major. We’re goin’ to need it come morning.”
“Can’t get to sleep.”
George sat up, stretched, and looked around. “Everything quiet?”
“Yup.”
“John, you shouldn’t think so much.”
“Can’t help it.”
“Like I always said, if your name’s on the bullet, your name’s on the bullet. Nothing can change that.”
“Wish I had your Presbyterian view of life.”
“What? You know I’m Baptist.”
John laughed softly and shook his head.
George grinned softly.
“Do you think we’ll ever get home?” John asked, and then instantly regretted the question. Though they had been friends since childhood, still, out here the social division between officer and sergeant should have stopped him from ever asking that. And yet, though surrounded by these thousands of men, never had he felt so lonely and haunted.
