Gettysburg, page 6
Henry didn’t need to be told where to look. Smoke was boiling up from Gettysburg, ten miles away. Uncasing his field glasses, he leaned against the railing and focused. The church spires of the town were clearly visible, the smoke just to the west. A dull rumble was echoing down, thumping, building, then drifting off.
The day was becoming hot, the morning scattering of showers giving way to a dull sky, not quite clear, not quite hazy, the type of weather that could clear or brew up into an afternoon of fierce storms. The air was heavy, humid, and oppressive.
Turning his field glasses to the west, he clearly saw the Catholic school and convent over at Emmitsburg. Dust was swirling up from the road in front of the school.
“Whose men are those over there?” he asked, looking to one of Meade’s staff, who were all silently clustered to either side of the general.
“Dan Sickles’s Third Corps.”
“Are they moving up?”
“The Eleventh Corps is on the same road and should be in Gettysburg by now,” Butterfield announced, not looking back, attention still focused to the north. “We’re holding Dan in place for the moment, waiting to see what develops.”
Henry nodded and said nothing. He had fairly well memorized the maps of the region over the last couple of days. It was clear that Lee was coming over the South Mountain Range, but was the main thrust toward Gettysburg or was that a diversion and would he hit toward Emmitsburg instead?
He knew the answer without even having to ask it. Lee would move on Gettysburg. It was a better road connection, allowing him to thrust in nearly any direction. Holding Sickles in reserve at Emmitsburg might be prudent in order to cover the left flank, but Henry sensed it was a waste. Push toward the sound of the guns.
“You hear about Reynolds?” Butterfield asked, turning back at last to look at Henry.
“John Reynolds, First Corps?” He felt a sudden tightness. The old professional army was small, and with every action the rank of comrades thinned.
“Word just came in. Killed a couple of hours ago.”
“Damn.”
John had always led from the front; it was only a matter of time. He had been Commandant of Cadets at West Point, and many an officer in the army today had first served under him there and worshipped him. Everyone believed John was destined for greatness and that corps command was simply a stepping-stone. It had been, right into a grave.
Henry looked at Meade, who was still hunched over the railing, field glasses trained on the hills to the north. It was Reynolds who was supposed to be commanding this army now. That’s who they had really wanted back in Washington. For once the politicians had been right. Meade was good, but John would have been better, a mind perhaps capable of matching Lee’s.
But John was dead. He lowered his head, turned, and moved to the other side of the widow’s walk, leaning over the side, looking down. Couriers, staff, cavalry escort waited in the open yard below. Dust stirred from farther south and east; columns of troops coming up, Fifth Corps and Second Corps, strung out along twenty miles of road. The entire army was on the move. By tomorrow they’d be concentrated. He looked back to the north, the rumble of fire growing for a moment.
Fight them there or here?
It was a meeting engagement up there, us and them, racing to bring up reinforcements. We win the race, hold the good ground, we roll them up. It was a chance, a roll of the dice, but against Lee that was how things had to be played.
“Hunt.”
He stirred. Meade was looking back at him, and Henry stiffened.
“Your report, Hunt.”
“I surveyed the ground along Pipe Creek as you ordered, sir.”
“Warren has already given me the map.”
Henry nodded. Warren had ridden on ahead while he had turned aside for a few minutes to check his batteries parked just outside the town.
“It’s a damn good position, sir. Everything you thought it might be. Solid protection on the flanks, clear fields of fire along the entire front, good roads behind the lines to move men, and a rail line just seven or eight miles back at Westminster, linking us back to Baltimore.”
“If we can lure Lee down into it,” Meade replied. “I’m sending out a circular to the corps commanders that it still might be our position, but it looks like things are being decided differently up there.”
Meade pointed toward the north and the distant clouds of smoke.
“You hear about John Reynolds?” Meade asked.
Henry nodded, not saying anything.
“He was in command up there. Now it’s General Howard who’s senior on the field,” and as he spoke Meade gestured toward the dark smudge of smoke rising up into the heavy air.
Henry didn’t let his feelings about General Howard show. It wasn’t wise to do so when generals were discussing other generals. Some now considered Oliver to be a jinx. He had done well early in the war, losing an arm in a gallant charge at Fair Oaks; but the disastrous rout at Chancellorsville only eight weeks back, when he allowed his entire corps to be flanked and his men panicked, sat squarely on his shoulders. He could be sanctimonious, too, not inspiring confidence when things got tense.
“I’ve decided to stay here for now,” Meade continued. “I’ve got people spread out from here halfway back to the outskirts of Frederick. John Sedgwick’s Sixth Corps is still thirty miles off. The dispatches are coming here, and I’m stuck in this town for now.”
Meade leaned back over the railing, gaze fixed on the northern horizon. “I just sent Winfield Hancock forward to take command until the rest of the army comes up.”
Henry could not help but let something slip, a nearly audible sigh of relief, and Meade nodded. “Hancock will put backbone into the fight up there. You head up there as well. You might catch Winfield on the road if you move quickly; he left just a short while ago.”
“My orders, sir?”
“Organize the artillery. You know your job, Hunt. Put yourself at Hancock’s disposal. If it’s Gettysburg, and Hancock decides that’s the ground to fight it out on, I’ll come up later in the day. If not, you help cover the retreat back to here and the line along Pipe Creek. Until we’re certain, keep the rest of your Artillery Reserve here in Taneytown, but you are to go forward.”
Henry nodded and felt a cool shiver. The long months of exile, of pushing paper, were over. He was being cut loose to fight.
Meade turned away without waiting for a reply, and Henry bounded down the stairs, racing through the broad open corridor of the house and out onto the porch. A young orderly from his staff stood jawing with Henry’s headquarters sergeant-major, the two of them relaxed in the shade of the porch. At the sight of Henry’s approach, the two stiffened.
Henry pointed at his sergeant. “Williams, get back to my headquarters. Tell them to come up to Gettysburg. You’ll find me up there, most likely near where General Hancock is. The Artillery Reserve is to concentrate here, at Taneytown, and await my orders; but get the batteries ready to move at a moment’s notice. You got that?”
The sergeant grinned as he swung into the saddle. “Good fight coming, sir?”
“Sure as hell looks that way.”
“Don’t get yourself killed, sir,” and the sergeant was off.
Henry mounted, spurring his horse, orderly falling in behind with guidon. Leaving the grass-covered yard, Henry weaved his way through the town, which was clogged with troops, supply wagons, and, annoyingly, dozens of civilian buggies and wagons filled with curiosity seekers, the vermin who seemed to think that a battle was an event for their amusement. Several called out, asking what was happening, but he ignored them. One local had had the audacity to set up a stand selling lemonade and cider. Henry made no comment as several men, having drunk their fill, walked off without payment, the proprietor shouting for Henry to arrest them. The man looked healthy enough and should be toting a rifle rather than making a few pennies off men who might be dead by nightfall.
The day was getting hotter, and he reached for his canteen even as he rode, cursing himself for not having filled it at the well back at the house. The lieutenant trailing behind him was new, the boy he replaced having broken a leg in a fall from a horse the day before.
“What’s your name, son?” Henry asked.
“Joshua Peeler, sir.”
“Where you from?”
“Indiana, sir.”
Henry nodded and then let the conversation drop. Never get too close to them. Boys carrying guidons drew bullets, lots of bullets.
Henry gained the road heading out of Taneytown to Gettysburg. Coming up to a low crest just north of town, he could again see the smoke billowing up on the horizon. The field sloping down before him was already beginning to fill with the signs that he was approaching a battle. Skulkers lingered at the edge of the pasture. At the sight of his approach, they ducked back into the woods. The hay in the field was trampled down, fences torn apart, dozens of small, coiling circles of smoke indicating where a couple of regiments had taken a break and built fires to brew up a quick cup of coffee and fry some salt pork before marching on. Half a dozen men were resting under the shade of an elm, and at his approach one of them held up a provost pass, indicating they had been given permission to fall out of the march. They were obviously played out, done in by the heat and the pace of the advance. Several exhausted horses, cut loose from caisson or wagon traces, wandered freely along the road, one of them collapsed in a ditch, gasping for breath.
It was something about the damn war that always affected him. As a boy the sight of an animal in pain had always bothered him. He had once shot a rabbit and not killed it clean. The poor thing started to scream, sounding just like a baby in agony. He couldn’t bring himself to kill it, his father having to do it instead. The memory had haunted his childhood nightmares for months. In a world where animals were slaughtered without thought, Henry had been a curiosity, avoiding open mockery only by the strength of his fists.
And yet he had chosen the bloodiest of professions and the bloodiest of arms within that profession. He had seen entire caisson teams, six horses, cut down by a single burst, animals with legs blown off still running, trying to keep up with their harness mates. After Chapultepec, they had burned the carcasses of fifty horses from his battery after carving off the choicer cuts of meat for dinner.
He rode past the collapsed horse, which looked up at him wide-eyed, as if asking forgiveness for being old and weak. He pressed on.
The road dipped down into a hollow, the air pleasant, cool. Fording the calf-deep stream, Henry tossed his canteen to his orderly, who dismounted, went upriver a dozen paces, and filled it.
The shaded glade was peaceful, water swirling around the legs of his horse, who lowered his head to drink. For a moment he could almost forget the war. There was a flash memory of childhood, of playing in the creek on a hot summer day, building dams and little watermills out of sticks and pieces of wood. The lieutenant filling the canteen knelt in the water, splashing some on his face, childlike and innocent, looking as if he were about to challenge Henry to a water fight.
He wanted to forget everything for a minute, to linger here, soaking up the peace, the cool in the midday heat, the quiet without fear of what was to come.
A clattering stirred him from the peaceful moment, and he looked back to the ford. An ambulance was crossing and came to a stop. The driver jumped down, letting the horses drink, and started to fill canteens. At Henry’s approach, the driver stood up and saluted.
“From Gettysburg?” Henry asked.
“Yes, sir.”
One of the wounded was painfully climbing out of the back of the ambulance, a lieutenant of cavalry.
“Are you with Buford?”
The man, cradling the stump of an arm, nodded. Henry dismounted, took the man’s canteen, and knelt down to fill it.
“What’s going on up there?”
“Hell of a fight,” the lieutenant whispered, “hell of a fight.”
“Who were you facing?”
“I got hit early. Kilmer in there,” and he nodded to the ambulance, “leg got blown clean off. Mina, he’s dead. Died a few minutes ago. Shot in the head; kept calling for his wife.”
Henry handed the canteen back to the battle-shocked lieutenant, who was trembling as if the day was icy cold. “What were you facing, son?”
“I heard it was Heth, rest of A. P. Hill’s corps behind him. Quinn, I tried to stop the bleeding, but that damn driver wouldn’t pull over. Kilmer just needs a drink, and he’ll be alright.”
Henry spared a glance into the back of the ambulance. It was obvious that the lieutenant’s traveling companions were dead, and the boy wasn’t far behind. The tourniquet on his arm had slipped.
Henry called the driver over. The driver looked into the back, sighed, and then guided the lieutenant over to the bank of the stream. Sitting him down, he started to reset the tourniquet, the boy feebly struggling to get back up to give a canteen to Kilmer.
“Hospital area’s just to the south of town, a few miles back,” Henry offered.
Henry’s orderly came up and, mounting, Henry started off, looking back at the lieutenant, who was crying like a lost child.
Riding up the slope from the creek bottom, he had to yield the road several times. Ambulances raced past, followed by a lone, panic-stricken rider crying out that the Rebs were into Gettysburg and everyone was dead.
Long experience had taught him that the rear of a battle always looked like a battle lost, and this was no exception. The closer he came to Gettysburg, the more disastrous things appeared. Dozens of exhausted soldiers, collapsing in the July heat, lined the sides of the road, lingering with them the men who had simply collapsed morally and were finding anyway possible to get out of the fight.
A scattering of men were drifting down the pike, obviously having been in a fight. All were dirty, faces looking like they had escaped from a minstrel show, smudged black from tearing open bullet cartridges with their teeth. He caught glimpses of corps badges, the First and the Eleventh. There was no sense in asking them about the fight. These were men who were getting out, and their litany would be the same, that the battle was lost. Things must still be holding up front because there was only one true sign of a general retreat, when the guns fell back.
A dead horse was sprawled in the middle of the road, covered in lathered sweat, next to it an overturned supply wagon filled with rations. A couple of small boys were poking around inside, obviously delighted with all the excitement. Anxious civilians lined the road, all of them asking for reassurance, news. The healthy-looking young men in civilian garb caused his blood to boil, and when several shouted questions he was tempted to pull over, grab them by the collar, put guns in their hands, and push them forward.
Off to his left he caught glimpses of a high, tree-clad hill flanked by a lower rise, and he almost pulled over to climb it but decided to push straight on. An old woman standing by a crossroads held up a small basket with fresh-baked bread at his approach, and he reined in for a moment, grateful for the offering.
“My boy’s with the army?” she said, looking at him hopefully. “Jimmy Davidson, Fifty-third Pennsylvania. Do you know him?”
“No, ma’am, I’m sorry I don’t.”
“He’ll be all right, won’t he?”
He reached out and touched her arm.
“I lost my youngest at Antietam. You’ll see that Jimmy is all right, won’t you?”
“I’ll see what I can do, ma’am.”
She smiled.
“How far to Gettysburg, ma’am?”
“Only two miles or so. The road comes up behind the cemetery where my husband’s buried.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” and he rode on, not looking back as she called out for him to take care of her precious boy.
It was strange but the sound of battle had drifted off, and he half wondered if the engagement had ended and it had, in fact, been simply a diversion. Was Lee up to one of his usual tricks? He felt a vague uneasiness. The entire army was streaming toward Gettysburg, and to turn it about now would be a nightmare.
Along a ridge to the left he caught glimpses of some troopers, mounted, a Union guidon fluttering fitfully in the hot afternoon breeze. Stragglers by the dozens were coming over the ridge, most of them wounded, moving woodenly, slowly, helping each other. A man collapsed and several comrades gathered around to try to bring him back to his feet.
Henry pushed on, caught sight of a rise ahead crested with a graveyard, and felt his pulse quicken. Some guns were up there, the crews digging in, dirt flying. He urged his mount to a swift canter and came up the slope.
There was no need to ask for General Hancock. It was plain to see where he was, marked by his corps guidon and a knot of orderlies and staff. Winfield was in the middle of the road atop the crest, standing out in silhouette like some ancient god of war, wreathed in billowing smoke. He was one of those naturals, Henry realized. You could not help but like him, listen to him, be ready to follow him, even though he was six years younger and not so long ago inferior in rank. War propelled some men forward, and Winfield was one of them.
At his approach Hancock turned, an orderly pointing back down the road, calling attention to Hunt. Winfield smiled and Henry gave a casual salute.
“Good place for your guns here, Henry,” Winfield announced, nodding to the cemetery to the left of the road. Henry, saying nothing, appraised the ground. The hill was a clear circular slope, with excellent fields of fire, except for a knoll that extended off to the northeast that would be hard to cover. Ring the upper slope with guns, put a battery or two out on the knoll to secure the flank. Typical of cemeteries, the trees were cut back, well trimmed, the open area beneath the branches offering clear fields of fire for canister. A cemetery makes a damn good killing ground, he thought. He barely considered the irony of the thought.
“Are things simmering down?” Henry asked.
