Gettysburg, page 34
The men were near to exhaustion, breathing hard, several obviously on the edge of sunstroke.
Looking around, he wasn’t impressed. The shallow valley did drop down forty feet or so, the land open, marshy, obviously a place where cattle would loll on hot summer days. The only animals down there now, though, were several dead horses from yesterday’s fight, swelling up in the heat.
He looked to the opposite side. The ground rose up higher, by at least thirty to forty feet more, about four hundred yards away. Not enough for an infantry advantage, but if they got artillery up there it would be hell.
The land below would be hard to traverse, but that was all. He thought of yesterday, where they were camped, the hill he had climbed shortly before dusk, the position held by Sickles. That was good ground. A regiment could hold up an entire brigade atop that hill. This would be different, a damn sight different. No great advantage to the defense here.
He turned and looked back at his men, who were now in double line, deployed in a shallow curve following the bend of the creek.
“Dig in! Get fence rails; get some men into that woodlot behind us; drag out anything that will stop a bullet. Company commanders, get water details together.”
He looked down at the creek and grimaced, blocking out the thought of the bodies piled into it a half mile back.
“Just find a clear spot above the dead horses and do it quick!”
The men sprang to work even as Vincent came up and dismounted.
“Hot day, Lawrence.”
“Damn hot.”
The rare use of a profanity caused Vincent to smile. “Wish you were back at Bowdoin?”
Joshua forced a smile and shook his head.
“Nor I to my law office. Lawrence, you know your position here.”
Joshua nodded. “I was at the staff meeting this morning. Sykes said that if need be we would sacrifice this corps, if by so doing we could save the Union.”
“Sounds nice as a speech,” Joshua offered dryly.
Vincent looked past Joshua and pointed. “You can see them stirring.”
Joshua followed his gaze. The low crest ahead blocked the view, but the rising plumes of dust were evidence enough that something was coming.
“They get past you, Chamberlain, the entire corps gets rolled up.”
“I know.”
Vincent hesitated, and then lowered his head. “I think this is our place today, Chamberlain. For a while I thought it would be yesterday, back up where we were at Little Round Top. Fate decided differently.”
He smiled awkwardly.
“I’ll see you at the end of the day, Lawrence.”
Joshua grasped his hand.
He could feel the nervous tremble, the clammy coolness of Vincent’s grip. The man before him outwardly showed no fear, but Joshua could well imagine the turmoil within, for he felt it as well. Not so much the fear for self—he had settled that with God long ago—it was for all the others, the men of the command, the fate of the corps as Vincent now said, not to make a mistake, not to waver, not to doubt. That was the thing that was frightening: not death but dishonor was the compelling fear.
“God be with you,” Joshua replied. Vincent’s hand slipped away. He mounted and was gone.
Joshua turned back, the swirls of dust building on the horizon.
3:00 PM, July 3, 1863
Taneytown
“Texans! Are you Hood’s Texans?”
General Lee blocked the middle of the road heading south out of Taneytown as a stream of soldiers swarmed toward him. The town was a cauldron of battle, buildings on fire, artillery fired at near point-blank range sending hot blasts of canister down the street, terrified civilians fleeing, the hospital area set up in front of his headquarters at the Antrim, now under direct fire.
The heat, as well, was oppressive, so much so that he felt dizzy, weak, after two hard days with little sleep and the endless stress of this campaign. And now the center of the line was giving way, peeling back, hundreds of exhausted troops staggering from the fight, some without weapons.
The leaderless mob pouring down the road slowed at the sight of Lee advancing toward them.
“Texans? I do not believe this!”
One of the men, a sergeant, a bloody bandage wrapped round his head, stepped in front of Traveler, reaching up to grab the horse’s bridle.
“Sir, General Lee! You’ll get killed!”
He was near hysteria, voice high-pitched, cracking.
Lee jerked Traveler’s reins, his horse shying away from the man.
“Men, my men, you must not run from those people.”
“Sir, get back!”
As if to add emphasis to the sergeant’s words, a corporal by his side doubled over, shot in the back, sprawling into the middle of the road. His death set off a panic, dozens of men breaking into a run.
“I am ashamed of you!” Lee cried.
Many of them slowed, looking back, lowering their heads like schoolboys caught by the local preacher in some sinful act.
More troops were pouring out of the town, some in rough formation following a regimental standard, others singly, in pairs and small knots of half a dozen, many of them dragging along wounded comrades.
“Rally to me. Form line here!” Lee cried.
The men directly around him looked up, incredulous.
“We’re out of ammo, water,” the sergeant replied, his voice shaking.
“You must hold, men. Hold just a few minutes more. Pickett’s Virginians are coming up.”
“Then, General, you go to the rear,” the sergeant exclaimed. “We will hold, but only if you go to the rear.”
The cry was picked up.
“Lee to the rear. Lee to the rear!”
He felt his heart swell, a momentary flutter that was almost frightening, wondering if something was giving out inside. If so, not now. Please, O God, not now.
The tightness lingered, and he felt as if he just might lose control, dissolve into tears at the sight of these men, and yet there was a fury of the battle within him as well. They had been pushed far beyond what mere mortals could be expected to endure. Five hours of hell, most without ammunition, most with wounds, some of which would prove mortal or crippling. Yet now they started to gather round, men and boys pushing in front, shouting for him to retire.
He looked up. The center of town was only several hundred yards away. Surely they were noticed by now. He saw flashes in the dim smoky light, sharpshooters up in buildings. Another man nearby went down.
He looked to the west. The left flank, what was left of Johnson’s division, bowing back out of the town, driven from the road. Beyond them, nothing.
Where was Pickett?
A bullet snapped past. He felt a cold rush of anger.
“I am with you!” Lee cried. “Now forward. Forward!”
He started to edge up the road, pushing his way toward the town. As if a flood tide had reached its crest and now fell away, so did the rout. By the hundreds men turned, some with a fire in their eyes, many with reluctance, but determined nevertheless. Their throats so parched they could no longer break forth with the eerie shriek of their battle cry, they went back in to the fight.
Lee tried to force his way forward, but the sergeant and half a dozen others blocked his path.
“Out of my way.”
“No, sir.”
“Out of my way. That is an order, Sergeant!”
The sergeant held Lee’s gaze.
“You can shoot me after this is over, General Lee,” the sergeant cried, his voice breaking with emotion. “But I ain’t gonna see you killed this day. The boys will hold.”
“Out of my way, Sergeant. Do it now!”
“Sir, you’re the spirit of this army. You die and we lose. I’ll die making sure you live to carry on.”
The men with the sergeant gathered round, hemming Traveler in, silent, looking up at him.
“General Lee!”
He looked back. His staff was coming up, riding hard, obviously frightened that he had slipped from their grasp.
The few hundred who were left of Hood’s old Texan Brigade were back into the town as the staff swarmed around Lee, putting themselves between him and the line of fire.
The sergeant who had so defiantly stood against Lee now seemed to shrink as one of the staff angrily shouted for the sergeant to let go of Traveler.
Lee, tears in his eyes, shook his head.
The sergeant let the reins drop and bracing his shoulders looked up at Lee. Their gaze held for a minute, and it shook Lee to the core. The man was true to his word. He expected to be shot for insubordination, an insubordination of trying to save his general from a foolish act. It was one thing to ride along a volley line wreathed in smoke, another to lead a charge into a town. If the sergeant had not intervened, Lee realized, he’d most likely be wounded or dead by now. He looked back up, and the Texans who had turned about were dropping by the dozens as they pushed back into the town.
“Your name, Sergeant?”
“Sgt. Lee Robinson, sir, Third Texas.”
Lee, in an uncharacteristic gesture, leaned over and extended his hand. The sergeant nervously took it, holding the grasp for just a second before stepping back as if the touch of a god might scorch his hand to the bone.
“I shall pray that you return safely to your family when this is over, Sergeant Robinson. God be with you.”
The sergeant saluted, then lowered his head.
Lee looked back to the west. Where was Pickett?
3:10 PM, July 3, 1863
West of Taneytown
“Virginians! This is our moment! Forward for Virginia!”
Standing in the stirrups, George Pickett raced in front of his advancing line, a battlefront three brigades wide, from left to right half a mile, six thousand rifles flashing and gleaming in the hot, murky, afternoon sun. Four batteries of artillery advanced with him, bronze Napoleons glinting, gunners running alongside their pieces. Red battle flags, the square Saint Andrew’s cross of the Army of Northern Virginia, held high, marking the advance.
He wept with joy at the sight of it. The chance, at last, to lead a charge across a sunlit field of glory, battlefront sweeping forward relentlessly, marching to the sound of the guns. It might have taken an extra half hour to form everyone into line of battle, but by God, it was worth it for this moment. We are ready. We are doing it in style, Pickett thought. It was good, so good to be alive on this afternoon in July, the dream of all things possible before him.
3:20 PM, July 3, 1863
West of Taneytown
“They’re coming.”
The cry raced down the line. Joshua, intent on strengthening his front, urging the men to dig in, pile up logs and fence rails, anything that could offer shelter on this bare slope, paused and looked to where many were now pointing.
His heart swelled at the sight of it. The flags were visible, held up high, materializing beyond the shallow crest, now rifle tips, and then the men. He gasped at the sight of it. A division advancing as if on the parade ground, line of butternut and gray, their right flank overlapping the road, the left arcing far beyond his own right.
Skirmishers, who had been visible for several minutes, darted forward, coming into long rifle range. From out of the center of the advance, he saw something that he had often read about but never witnessed on the field, a battalion of their artillery advancing with the attack, as in the days of Napoleon, one battery of guns actually galloping ahead of the line and then swinging into position atop the low crest four hundred yards away.
He looked back. The corps artillery was enmeshed in a fight for the town. There was not a single piece here to reply. He knew where that fire would be focused: It would be a cauldron of hot iron against human flesh, and it would be his men who bore the brunt.
Unsheathing his sword, Joshua stepped to the center of the line. He was not one for dramatics but felt that if there was a time for it, it had to be now.
He climbed atop a small boulder that studded up out of the thick pasture grass. “Men of Maine!” he cried. “We are the right of the line. We must hold.”
The men looked at him. They were veterans. They did not need the false theatrics that some officers indulged in, and they knew better than to expect it of him.
“The fate of the Republic might rest on what we do now,” he said, with a passionate, heartfelt intensity. “Let us resolve to stand and, if need be, die for the Union.”
The men were silent, but he could see the glint in their eyes, the nods coming from a few. He stepped back down and turned to face the approaching attack.
Rifles that had been stacked while the men dug in were snatched up, uniform jackets put on, the regiment hunkering down behind the flimsy barrier thrown up in the few precious minutes given to them prior to the attack. The watering party came running up from the creek, twenty men burdened down with the canteens of the regiment. Most were still empty, the others covered with mud and green slime. The men grabbed for them anyway.
A lone wagon came up behind Joshua, a welcome sight as half a dozen boxes were offloaded, six thousand more rounds of ammunition. The driver, seeing the rebel advance, lashed his mules, continuing down the line.
The boxes were torn open, packages of cartridges passed down the line, men stuffing the packets of ten into pockets and haversacks.
The first shell screamed in, air bursting just behind the line, shrapnel lashing into the grass. Another shot, then another, and in a couple of minutes it was a virtual storm as four batteries concentrated their shot on the Twentieth.
The rebel battlefront came relentlessly in, the center brigade breaking to the south of the batteries, the other brigade to the north. Once sufficiently downslope and below the muzzles of the artillery, they started to edge back in to form a solid front.
Joshua watched, impressed by their cool, steady advance, their relentless professionalism. It was obvious the enemy brigade to his right would outflank him by several hundred yards. He looked down his line. There was not much he could do other than refuse the right. He passed the word.
The gunners had found the range. Several times he was washed with clods of dirt and scorched grass from shell bursts; men were collapsing, wounded beginning to stagger back.
It was down to two hundred yards, the Confederates now coming down the slope into the shallow valley of death.
Joshua stood up tall, raising his sword high. “Volley fire present!”
The men stood up, rifles rising up, held high.
“Take aim!”
The three hundred rifles of the Twentieth Maine were lowered. The Confederate advance did not falter, a defiant cry bursting from their ranks.
“Fire!”
The explosion of smoke cloaked the view. To his left the other three regiments were already engaged, tearing volleys ripping across the line.
“Independent fire at will!”
He started to pace the line, crouching down low at times, trying to see what was happening. The charge was still advancing, slowed by the marshy ground but coming on hard. The artillery fire slackened, and he caught a glimpse of their guns, moving up, coming in closer to extreme canister range.
A volley suddenly tore through his line, men to either side pitching down. The sergeant holding the national colors aloft staggered backward, collapsing, a color guard prying the staff loose from dying hands and hoisting it back up.
His men were down now, crouched behind their cover. Shooting, tearing cartridge, kneeling up to pour the powder in and push the bullet down into the muzzle, charge rammed down, then sliding behind their cover again while capping the nipple, taking aim, and firing.
Flash moments stood out, a man endlessly chanting the first line of the Lord’s Prayer while loading and firing, a young soldier screaming hysterically while cradling the body of his brother, an older sergeant laughing, cursing as he coolly loaded and took careful aim, all wreathed in smoke, fire, sections of piled-up fence rails disintegrating, the men behind torn apart with splinters as a solid shot smashed in.
The smoke eddied and swirled, parting momentarily to reveal a surge of rebel troops coming up the slope, stopping and firing a single volley, men in gray and butternut dropping, then slowly falling back…and then surging forward again.
He heard wild shouting, looked to his left and saw a red flag right in the midst of the Eighty-third, a mad melee of clubbed muskets, men clawing at each other, the charge falling back.
To his right the enemy attack had already overlapped, a couple of regiments across the creek angling up the slope into his rear. Grabbing Tom, he sent him down to the end of the line, ordering him to refuse the right yet again, to turn a thin line back at a right angle. He lost sight of his brother.
How long it had gone on it was hard to tell. The sun shone red, dimly through the smoke. Men were standing up, pouring precious water from their canteens down their barrels, the water hissing, boiling, then running a quick swab through in a vain effort to clean out the bore enough so they could continue to fight. Some were tossing aside their rifles, clogged with burnt powder, picking up the weapons of the fallen.
The Confederate artillery relentlessly pounded away. In several places the dry pasture grass was burning, adding to the smoke.
“Chamberlain!” He looked up. To his amazement, it was Sykes in plain view, his mount bleeding from several wounds.
“Are you Chamberlain?”
Joshua instinctively saluted. “Yes, sir.”
“I’m retiring the corps!” Sykes shouted, voice drowned out for a moment as a shell exploded directly above them. For a second he thought Sykes had been hit; the man seemed to reel from the shock and then recovered.
“Chamberlain,” and Sykes’s voice was low-pitched, the general leaning over, staring straight into Joshua’s eyes.
“Sir.”
“I need twenty minutes, Colonel. Your regiment is staying behind.”
“Sir?”
“The corps is flanked here. They’re counterattacking in the town. The Fifth is fought out. I have to save what is left, Colonel. As this brigade begins to fall back, you are to retire, slowly forming a defensive line. Then, sir, you must hold. You must give me twenty minutes to save what is left.”
