"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 men 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 die 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 men, 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"
Joshua nodded. The world seemed to be floating. He felt a strange distant detachment from it all. This man was ordering the annihilation of his regiment and all he could do was nod in agreement
"You understand what I am ordering, Chamberlain. No retreat. You stand until overrun. You must stop this charge."
"Yes, sir."
Sykes sat back up in the saddle, his staff gathered nervously around him, ducking low as a shot screamed past
"Strong is dead, Chamberlain. So are Barnes and Crawford."
The words seemed to float through him. He knew he should feel remorse, anguish over the death of a trusted comrade. But he found himself still trying to fully comprehend Sykes's order.
Sykes extended his hand, and Joshua took it
"God be with you. I hope we meet again someday."
"Thank you, sir."
Sykes spurred his mount and galloped off.
Joshua dwelled for a moment on the absurdity. That man had just ordered him to near certain death, and he had thanked him for it The madness of war.
"Company officers!"
The men came in, only half a dozen; the rest were down, or did not hear the order. One of them, thank God, was Tom.
He squatted down, the men crouching around him. "The Eighty-third is falling back!" one of them cried, half standing and pointing. "I know; that doesn't matter."
They looked at him, focused, some already sensing what their corps commander had just ordered.
"We're staying behind. The corps is pulling back. We're the sacrifice to buy time."
"Goddamn!"
Joshua fixed the swearing captain with a sharp gaze. Embarrassed, the man lowered his head.
"We start to fall back, slowly, spreading out to fill the line and try to draw that entire division in on us. Don't lie to the men. Tell them what we must do. We hold until overrun. I'm not ordering any of you to die. You feel you can't hold anymore, that it is meaningless, then try and get out with what you can."
"Lawrence, you're staying, though?" Tom asked. Joshua nodded.
"Begging your pardon, sir, but I'll be goddamned if I run," the profane officer announced.
Joshua smiled and slapped him on the shoulder. "Good luck to you."
He stood back up. "Twentieth Maine. Form skirmish line. Guide on me!"
The company officers raced down the narrowing front, passing the word. Several men looked at Joshua, incredulous; one of them stood up, threw aside his rifle, and ran. A sergeant started after him, but Joshua called him back.
"I want volunteers this day!" Joshua cried. " 'The rest of you who have not the stomach for this fight, let him depart'"
The men looked one to the other, several of the more literate grinning at his theft of a good line from Shakespeare.
The men began to spread out into open skirmish order, extending their front as the other regiments gave way.
To either flank, the enemy division surged forward, wild exuberant shouts marking their advance.
Joshua continued to back the line up slowly, men firing, loading as they fell back a dozen paces, firing yet again. The flanks were overlapped, some of the Rebs surging on, particularly along the road that was too far away for him to cover, but in the center, and on the right, the Confederate charge curled in on this last defiant regiment
Several minutes passed, and then a blizzard of shot began to sweep the line as entire regiments fired volleys into this final knot of defiance. He had a moment of grim satisfaction, realizing that in the smoke and confusion shots that were missing his men were slamming into the opposite flank of the enemy.
Joshua, bent low, came up to the flag bearer.
"I don't want our flag captured. Cut it up!" he shouted.
The men nodded, grounding the staff. One pulled out a bowie knife, and tears streaming down his powder-blackened face, he cut the national colors from the staff and with violent slashes began to tear the flag to ribbons. Several of the color guard gathered around protectively, the men tearing off parts of the stripes, cutting away the stars; and then racing down the volley line, they paused by each comrade, slapping a piece of the precious fabric, so proudly borne in battle, into the hands of those who had stood beneath the symbol of all that they fought for.
This action triggered a final, convulsive ringing in, like an animal trapped in a fire, which finally, in its agony, begins to curl up on itself to die. The men came in around the bare staff, fragments of flag passing to outstretched hands, many of which were trembling, covered with blood.
Joshua reached out. The color bearer, weeping unashamedly, handed him a small patch of blue emblazoned with a gold star. Putting the fragment of flag in his breast pocket, then with sword in his left hand, Joshua drew a revolver with his right
He began to dissolve into tears as well. They were down to less than a hundred men, the regiment, now almost in a circle, firing to nearly every point of the compass. Thousands of Confederates swarmed around them, closing in.
He saw an officer coming toward him, sword held high, shouting something, a wall of men behind him, coming on at the double.
Joshua raised his pistol, lowered it to take aim.
The blow staggered him. He slammed the point of his sword into the ground, to act as a crutch. He felt numbed from the waist down, his legs uncontrollable. He dropped the pistol and, reaching out with right hand, grabbed the flag staff. The color bearer stared at him, and a second later the boy silently collapsed, the life gone from his eyes.
That final volley seemed to drop half of those who were left For a moment there was no sound, only the terrible blow against his hip, the fear then of falling, of failing now in front of his men.
"Lawrence!"
It was Tom. Cheek torn open, blood streaming down on to his chest, wrapping an arm around him. "Cease fire! Hold your fire!"
He had not given the order. Incredulous, Joshua looked around.
"Who gave that order!" He tried to speak the words, but they wouldn't come, only a soft groan of terrible anguish from the pain.
An officer was before him, Confederate, with hat jammed strangely down on to the hilt of his sword.
"For God's sake, sir," the Confederate said, "please surrender."
Joshua looked around. They were hemmed in tightly, the few men still standing in a knot around the empty flag staffs. "How much time?" Joshua asked woodenly. "Sir?"
"How much time did I buy?"
"More than enough," the Confederate whispered. "Now let me help you."
The man extended his hand. Joshua tried to reach out, but couldn't The world was growing dim, the rebel officer standing a great and terrible distance away. There was a moment of darkness, and then he was on the ground, looking up.
"Can you help my brother?"
It was Tom, voice that again of a boy.
"My brigade surgeon is one of the best; I'm having an ambulance brought up."
"Thank you," Tom gasped.
Focus returned. He was looking up at someone kneeling by his side. Others were gathered around, his own men and Confederates mixed in.
"You are my prisoner, sir. And, by God, sir, I will see that you survive this." Joshua could only nod. 'Two hundred of you defying a division. My God, I wanted it to stop before you all got killed, but you wouldn't stop!" the Confederate exclaimed. "This damn war! I'm sorry for what we did to you here. You have the soul of a lion, Colonel." Joshua smiled and tried to reach up. The Confederate took his hand. "I don't believe we have been introduced," Joshua whispered. "I am Colonel Chamberlain, Twentieth Maine." "General Lo Armistead at your service, Colonel." "My brother, my men," Joshua whispered, "don't send them to Libby Prison. All that I ask." "You have my word."
Joshua fumbled at his breast pocket, touching the torn fragment of blue and gold.
"Then I can sleep now," Joshua sighed, and he slipped into darkness.