"We're going in!"
The cry was like a shock from a galvanic battery. Joshua Chamberlain, half dozing in the midday heat, back against a lone elm tree in the corner of a field, was instantly awake and standing up, as one of Vincent's staff officers galloped through their ranks, waving his hat
The struggle for Taneytown, less than half a mile away, continued to rage, the battle lines that had surged into the edge of town wreathed in smoke, soaring pillars of smoke and fire marking where part of the town, including a church, burned. The air pulsed with the roar of battle; and yet amazingly, here in reserve, only hundreds of yards away, he had actually dozed off, ignorant of the occasional bullets slapping into the tree branches over his head, the men of his command hunkered down behind a low barrier made from a split-rail fence. It wouldn't stop the random shells that winged overhead, but it could at least absorb the stray bullet
The staff officer raced down the line of four regiments, men standing up as he passed.
"Is this it Lawrence?"
Joshua looked over at his brother, Tom, now a company commander. The boy was all eagerness, nervously fumbling to button his uniform up so that he looked "proper" for what was to come.
"We wait for Colonel Vincent" Joshua replied calmly.
The men of his command looked over anxiously at Joshua. He extended one hand in almost a soothing gesture. Several of the men sat back down.
The heat was oppressive, the air thick with humidity made worse by the choking clouds of smoke, which slowly twisted and coiled on the field. The place they were resting had been hotly contested only a couple of hours ago, and the field around them was littered with the dead. In the area where they had halted, at least half a hundred wounded of both sides were piled around the broken-down fence.
Joshua had ordered the dead moved to one side and laid out in a row, the regimental surgeon coming up to help with the wounded, both Union and Confederates from Johnson's division.
That bit of intelligence had been disquieting. They were supposed to be facing Hood. He had talked briefly with a captain from the Twenty-seventh Virginia, the old Stonewall Brigade. The poor man was gut shot, obviously dying, and yet still game, boasting that this time Lee had the ground and then begging for a drink of water, which Joshua gave him before stretcher bearers from his regiment carried the casualties to the hospital area in the rear.
'Here comes Strong!" Tom cried.
Joshua fixed Tom with a chilling gaze. "Officers do not get excited in front of their men, Tom," Joshua said coolly.
"Sorry, Lawrence."
"Just go to your company, Tom. I think we're moving out now."
"Yes, Law… yes, sir." "And, Tom."
His brother looked at him carefully, caught off guard by the suddenly solemn tone in his brother's voice. "Keep back from me today." "Why?"
"A shell. Well, if we both got hit, it'd be a hard day for Mother."
Tom hesitated then extended his hand. "Luck to you, Lawrence." "God be with you, Tom."
Strong rode up to the edge of the fence farther down the line, shouting orders; and within seconds the other regiments started to fall in, forming a column by companies.
Without waiting for Vincent, Joshua shouted the command. His men, coming out from the shelter of the low fence, raced to fall in. Company A, in two lines, led the way with the colors out front, Company B behind them, and so on back through the ten companies of the regiment Three-hundred-odd men forming a column fifteen-men wide and twenty ranks deep. It was a formation that in less than a minute could go from column into line of battle facing any direction.
Joshua, mounting, rode down the length of the column, saying nothing, ignoring the inferno ahead, the tearing thunder of volleys, the steady stream of walking wounded heading to the rear and the lolling heat that made him feel lightheaded.
'Twentieth Maine!"
Joshua turned and saluted as Strong came up to his side.
"Hell of a fight in the center. They're into the town, and it's hand-to-hand in places, but ammunition is running low. We're ordered in on the right Warren came in a few minutes ago. Reports that Confederate troops are deploying on the flank."
"How many?"
"Don't know. He tried to go forward, heard he almost got killed, lost most of his cavalry escort" Joshua nodded.
"We advance by column; Warren will show us where to deploy. You're last in the line, Chamberlain, so you'll be on the right flank."
Joshua nodded again.
"Nothing beyond you. You're the end of the line. Do you understand that?" "Yes, sir." "Let's go then,"
Vincent reined his mount around and galloped off, waving for the brigade to follow. First off was the Sixteenth Michigan, followed a moment later by the Fourty-fourth New York and then the Eighty-third Pennsylvania. Joshua ordered his small column to move out on the double. The men surged over the low wall and started across the open field, the inferno of battle engulfing Taneytown now on their left as they raced on the oblique to the right.
Men from the column ahead started to drop, falling out of the ranks, in most cases hit by random shots that plucked into the field. Joshua spared a quick glance over his shoulder. So far, at least, discipline was holding. The shirkers had been weeded out long ago; all that was left now was the solid core of steel.
A massive explosion thundered across the field. To his left he caught a glimpse of a battery, a caisson going up in flames, gunners scattering.
They dropped down into a shallow valley, the stream simply a dirty rivulet in the summer heat The land was carpeted with the wounded of both sides, seeking shelter from the storm, desperate for a drop of moisture so that the muddy trickle of water was tinged with pink from the blood of men who had crawled into the cooling bottomland and then died
Imploring hands reached out, men crying out for water, accents of New York, Midwestern twang, and deep Louisiana bayou blended together in one hideous howl of pain and anguish.
The column crested up out of the nightmare dell. They were beyond the town, and there ahead and to his left he could see the main pike, the road from Taneytown back to Emmitsburg. The heavy post-and-rail fences bordering the road were still up in most places, festooned with bodies dangling over the rails. A line of Union infantry crouched behind the fence on the south side of the road, ghostlike in the smoke, shooting at unseen targets beyond.
The men running with Joshua were bent over, chins tucked in against throats, the instinctive pose, it seemed, of troops going into a storm, or a battle. The regiment was beginning to take casualties, fire coming in on their flank as they advanced. A bad moment Troops hated to be caught thus, without a chance to strike back.
Joshua moved from his position on the flank of the column straight up to the front swinging in before the colors, trailing a couple of dozen yards behind the column of the Eighty-third Pennsylvania.
The march at double time continued, running across the fields two hundred yards to the north of the road. He saw Vincent again, stopped now, sword out pointing. The head of the column swerved, swinging down to the road, shifting from march into line of battle. Warren suddenly appeared, as if rising up out of the ground. The road ahead, Joshua realized, dropped down into another creek bed.
Joshua spurred forward, passing around the men of the Eighty-third coming up to join the two.
"It's not good!" Warren announced. "A division down by the bridge, just as I feared."
Vincent looked back at Joshua. "On the right, Chamberlain. We're forming a right angle here to the main line!"
Joshua offered a quick salute, turned about, and, waving his sword, he caught the eye of the lead company, motioning for them to follow.
They swung out from behind the Eighty-third.
The ground ahead sloped down gently into marsh and yet another muddy creek, most likely the same one they had crossed minutes before, Joshua realized.
He spurred up to a swift canter and rode along the bank for a couple of hundred yards. The creek bed curved back, turning from a north-south to an east-west direction.
This was the place, he realized. Chance to refuse the right He watched as the Eighty-third fell in on his left. Good. They were occupying enough of the ground so he could concentrate on the bend here.
The men rapidly fell out from column into line, Joshua directing the company commanders to their places, with A Company and the colors in the center.
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.