‘Hold your fire, boys, hold it!"
Longstreet rode back along the line concealed in the woods. Hundreds of Pickett's men were still passing through. He caught a glimpse of Pickett, face ashen, riding past, then Lo Armistead, limping, helped along by a huge enlisted man who pushed him up over the fence, the two collapsing on the other side. "Steady!"
From the slight rise within the woods he could see them coming, a relentless wall, corn being knocked down by their advance, bayonet points sticking up, flags rising above the corn. To his left a volley erupted where one of Robertson's brigades, on the far side of the woods, was engaging. In the woods all was strangely quiet for a moment, officers hissing commands, a gunner screwing up the rear screw of a field piece, dropping the muzzle lower, loaders already standing ready with double canister alongside the muzzles of the guns, a few officers looking north, a man up in a tree shouting that the Yankees were only fifty yards off, then jumping down. Rifles were leveled over the fence, hammers back, here and there a man firing, foul oaths shouted at the nervous to hold fire, hold fire, hold fire!
Blue legs appeared in the cornfield, bayonets above the corn, a last few stragglers running, heaving themselves over the fence, some still in the com seeing what was directly ahead, knowing they would not reach safety in time, flinging themselves to the ground.
The surging wall of blue appeared, shouldering the corn aside, shouts echoing, huzzahs, officers waving swords, someone on horseback shouting.
"Fire!"
He did not give the order, he did not need to. Regimental commanders did it on their own, judging the moment. In those last few seconds the advancing Yankees, so exuberant, had slowed, seeing something, seeing the fence, the dark forms hunkered behind it, the muzzles of Napoleons and ten-pounders, rifles poised as if each was aimed straight at them.
There was a moment, a second or two, of shouted and confused orders, to halt, to take aim, to charge, to keep moving.
"Fire!"
The volley burst from the wood line, a thousand or more rifles at point-blank range, bursts of double canister from six guns. Five hundred or more dropped; it was impossible to miss, so dense was the Union line. The frightful canister, nearly a thousand iron balls, tore into the corn, shredding stalks high into the air in the split second it took from when the burst of canister left the barrel and traversed the twenty to thirty yards into the advancing line, mowing the corn down as if someone had worked with maniacal speed to cut every stalk off inches above the ground.
A groan cut through the cacophony of noise, the screams of hundreds of men, wounded, men who would die in a few seconds as hearts beat out a last pulse. Shattered rifles, body parts, blood literally rose into the air and tumbled back in a blizzard of destruction.
"Reload!"
The rebel infantry stood up, ramrods already drawn and stuck into the ground, cartridges laid out along fence rails; gunners leapt to their pieces, swabbing out bores, then ramming in yet another charge of double canister.
The men of Vermont, staggered by the blow, could barely respond. Here and there a desperate few leveled their rifles, men who but seconds before were pursuing a defeated foe now were out in the open being slaughtered. But some would still die game, would fire back.
'Take aim!"
Again the mechanical-like motion, a thousand rifles raised then lowered, the men behind them now standing. "Fire!"
Another volley swept into the cornfield, hundreds more fell, and seconds later a second blast of canister tore in from the battery, some of the rounds crashing into the reserve brigade, struggling to get forward over their own dead and wounded Vermont neighbors.
Again reload, even as the reserve brigade, among them survivors of the old Iron Brigade, pushed into the confusion, men screaming, cursing, some from Vermont already falling back, comrades to their rear pushing forward.
'Take aim! "Fire!"
Another volley.
The sheer momentum of the reserve brigade of the Second Division, Sixth Corps, actually pushed the charge forward to within ten yards of the fence. These hardened veterans, filled with rage, would not break in spite of the surprise, the terror that had met them in this cornfield. It was Antietam again, and as one of them had once said, after Antietam, nothing would frighten them ever again.
In turn, without orders, they leveled rifles, took aim impossible to miss, and fired. A hundred or more Confederates tumbled back from the fence, most of the gunners down.
"Charge!"
The reserve brigade pushed the last ten yards into the fence, even as their opponents prepared to deliver yet another volley, and what ensued was the nightmare of hell, the unleashing of all that this war had created. Boys from Indiana and Wisconsin slammed into boys from Texas, jabbing, thrusting, clubbed muskets raised.
For the first time in the war, Pete actually drew his own revolver, leveled it, and dropped a man who came over the fence, bayonet poised, racing straight at him. He lost sight of the battle as his staff pushed around him and then forcibly drove him back from the line, Venable cursing as he took a bayonet thrust to the leg.
A sickening, mad melee unfolded, the split-rail fence collapsing under the weight of Union troops. Hood's men staggered backward, giving ground a foot at a time, thrusting, parrying, those with a few seconds reloading and firing at point-blank range.
A desperate hand-to-hand fight erupted around a flag of the old Iron Brigade, the flag bearer pushing forward, then cut off, a wild cry going up from his comrades-"Our flag, our flag!"-and by the dozens they dropped as they fought to retrieve their colors. A Texan flag bearer, a red-bearded giant, Sergeant Robinson, the same man who had stopped General Lee from his suicidal gesture to lead a charge at Taneytown, waded into the melee holding his own flag aloft, clubbing the Union flag bearer with his staff, then snatched the colors of the Nineteenth Indiana from the dying man's hands.
Longstreet, pushed fifty yards back from the fight, turned viciously on his staff, swearing at them, caught up in the madness of the moment. The heat, the terrible hours of volley fire along Gunpowder River, the memory of Union Mills, all the dreams, all the hopes, all the bitter frustrations were now played out along this nameless fence row bordering a nameless cornfield in Maryland.
Neither side would give, and both sides fought with passion, with abandon, all the causes of this insane conflict forgotten except the desire to win regardless of cost.
And then behind him, coming out of the smoke-filled gloom of the woods, Longstreet saw a wall of men advancing, colors to the fore, Jubal Early in the lead. Hood's corps was coming up.
Jubal, spying Longstreet, rode up and saluted.
"I'm coming in," Jubal announced triumphantly.
And for the moment, all the rivalry between the two was forgotten. Longstreet reached out and grasped Jubal's hand.
"You know what to do!"
Jubal grinned.
"Hell of a march and now a hell of a fight!"
Jubal reined his mount around, even as the horse whined and writhed in pain, a minie* ball striking its neck, blood spraying out.
"Louisiana, charge!"
Hays's Louisiana brigade leapt forward, baying like wolves at the scent of blood. It was only fifty yards to where the Texans struggled with the Sixth Corps, and the collision of wood and steel with wood, steel, and bodies reverberated, staggering the Union line back. The Louisiana brigade charged with rifles loaded, and as they pushed past the Texans, they leveled their weapons and fired at point-blank range; hundreds of Union troops dropped from the onslaught, and within seconds, they broke, streaming back into the cornfield that was now leveled for most of its width.
Regardless of pride, of memory, of all that they fought for, in that hundred-degree heat they could no longer withstand this arrival of fresh brigades, where only minutes before they had been pursuing a beaten foe.
The Texans and the soldiers of the bayous began to swarm over the shattered fence in pursuit.
"Hold, hold your position!"
Longstreet's command was already being shouted by Early, Robertson, and brigade and regimental commanders. "Load!"
Men feverishly drew rammers; the Texans, many driven back from where they had stuck ramrods in the ground, tossed weapons aside, picking up the Springfield rifles of the Yankees piled around them.
The retreating men were now a hundred yards back, some disappearing back into the corn that was still standing, some turning, defiant, ready to renew the exchange.
'Take aim!"
With that, as rifles were leveled, the will of the Union troops broke, some flinging themselves to the ground, others falling back, but a brave few, the tragic remnants of the Iron Brigade, still remorseful over the loss of a precious flag, were trying to regroup, and many a rifle turned in their direction.
"Fire!"
The volley cut across the field, cornstalks going down, men going down, and what was left of the elan of that confident Union charge broke as the survivors fell back into the corn and disappeared.
A defiant cheer erupted from the rebel line, men from neighboring states slapping each other on the back, yelling, laughing, even as they drew cartridges and reloaded. Some fired blindly into the smoke and tattered remnants of com, but there was nothing left to aim at.
Longstreet dismounted and walked down to the volley line, men turning, looking at him wide-eyed, as some were beginning to emerge from the hysteria of battle, the wild cheering now replaced by panting for breath. Some men sinking to the ground, some doubling over and, from nervous exhaustion and heatstroke, beginning to vomit, some laughing with a wild, mad edge in their voices. Most were silent, shocked, taking in the carnage around them.
Longstreet caught sight of the man who had snatched the prized flag of an Iron Brigade regiment, the Texan sitting on the ground, surrounded by admirers, but his head was between his legs, the man was sobbing, hand grasping the sleeve of the Union flag bearer he had just killed. His comrades were understanding, respectful, one rubbing the back of his neck.
He saw Lo Armistead struggling to stand up, still helped by his corporal, a few Virginians gathering around him like children having just found a beloved parent. These men were silent, some taking their hats off.
Robertson, fiercely proud, this fight an exoneration for the defeat at Fort Stevens, walked the line, shouting congratulations, but few responded.
Longstreet turned, looking up at Venable, who was still mounted, blood streaming from the bayonet slash to his thigh.
"You all right, son?" Longstreet asked.
"Didn't go in, just cut me," Venable replied.
"Get a courier to General Lee. Tell him we've held the line; they won't come on again tonight and I now await his orders."
Venable saluted, turned, urged his winded horse up to a slow canter, and rode off.
Pete, unable to control the shaking of his legs, sat down against a tree, sap oozing out from where it had been torn by a dozen or more rounds. Exhausted, he simply lowered his head and closed his eyes.
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Headquarters Army of the Susquehanna
August 19,1863 7:00pm
Some of the more excitable around headquarters claimed that they had been able to hear artillery fire. That was absurd; the battle that was most likely unfolding was over a hundred miles away; though late the day before, he did believe that he had heard some gunfire from Grierson engaging Hampton.
Grant sat wrapped in silent gloom. The doctor from the headquarters hospital had just left his tent Herman Haupt was dead.
He had died two hours ago from acute dysentery. The genius who had been responsible, perhaps more than any other, for the miracle of moving an entire army nearly a thousand miles, supplying it, bringing it nearly up to fighting level, was gone and Grant raged at the loss.
Grant cursed himself. He should have ordered him relieved from duty weeks ago, and yet he had used him. Used him up as easily as he would use a division of troops to take a hill, buy time, storm a fort, watching dispassionately, knowing that a thousand would die by his command to go forward.
And yet, in the using, what had been achieved? He looked at the final manifest that Haupt had submitted to him only yesterday before staggering out of the tent and collapsing facedown on the ground. Rations to feed seventy-five thousand for a month stockpiled, three hundred rounds of rifle ball per man, three hundred and fifty artillery rounds, mixed, solid shot, shell, canister, eight hundred and fifty more wagons coming in, three thousand six hundred mules to pull them, two thousand nine hundred remounts, four hundred tons of oats, pontoon bridges, enough wagons, some of the replacement bridges for the railroad, and, of course, the men, still not enough men.
One more division was starting to come in; already the trains were unloading them, but he would have preferred another entire corps. Couch's militia had proven to be little more than an abysmal waste. They had signed for ninety days, and most of them were making it clear that in three more weeks they were out of the army, but for the moment he still had them.
He wasn't ready to go; his plan had been meticulous, well laid out, and now Sickles had completely destroyed it.
That Sickles would meet Lee, alone, was now a foregone conclusion. The telegraph line from Perryville, up to Philadelphia, New York, and then to Harrisburg had been fully restored and had been buzzing all day with reports from "The Army of the Potomac before Baltimore." The first reports boasted of a victorious advance; the last, dated an hour and a half ago from a correspondent with the New York Tribune, reported heavy fighting and casualties.
He knew what would happen; there was no doubt of it in his mind.
"Ely?"
He turned, and felt embarrassed. Ely was down there with Sickles, most likely to no avail.
His tent was empty. He thought of Elihu, wishing he was present to offer some advice, though Grant was a man who seldom if ever now sought the word of another.
He thought of a drink but that thought only lingered for a second. There was no need of it now. Maybe, just maybe, after the war was over, he would indulge himself, just one more time perhaps. But not now.
He contemplated the odds that Sickles had now given him. Even, at best, but then again maybe a bit better, or, on the other hand, somewhat worse, if Lee pinned and shattered the Army of the Potomac once and for all. The old plans were out and it was time to recast them. That in and of itself did not bother him. Sherman had once said he had ice water in his veins. Now was the time to prove it. Reaching over to his desk, he pulled out a sheet of paper, drew a pencil from his breast pocket, and began to draft his orders to the army.
Twenty Miles East of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
August 19,1863 7:30pm
The train rolled slowly westward, the long rays of the setting sun casting shadows across the Pennsylvania farmland. John Miller stood against the open doorway of the boxcar as it rattled along on its journey, the scent of wood smoke from the locomotive wafting past.
They had left Philadelphia an hour after dawn, the city wild with rumors that Wade Hampton would be into the town before midday. It amused him in a way. Whereas only a week before many of the citizens of that fair city had been openly disdainful of black soldiers, more than one now begged them to stay as they paraded down to the depot to take the train. That disdain, however, had not been shown by the colored of the city, who turned out in droves, proud of their sons, their brothers, and fathers, waving American flags, shouting with joy as the columns of troops marched by.
He was now a company sergeant, and absently he reached up to touch the three stripes on his sleeve. From the little time he had been in service, he knew enough to realize he and his men were not yet ready, but some emergency had called them, and now they were heading west-rumor was, to Harrisburg. It was a bit of a mystery as to why they were pulled from Philadelphia, what with rebel raiders about, but he and his comrades had quickly surmised that the threat could not have been great if an entire division of them had been taken out of the city.
As the trains passed from Philadelphia across New Jersey, then switched westward to Allentown through a mountain pass at Hamburg, and now rolled through a beautiful valley flanked by mountains, he was awed by the size of this nation, its changing nature, the people he saw.
As they passed through northern New Jersey, the land seemed to be one of factories belching smoke, not unlike Baltimore, rail sidings packed with cars loaded with artillery, limber wagons, ambulances, boxes of rations, beef and horses packed into boxcars like the one he was in, all of it seemingly guided by some invisible hand pushing its cargo by force of will to the front lines.
The people who were along the tracks had looked upon him and his comrades with amazement Here was a colored division going to war. Where in the past he had learned to stand detached, head lowered, as if he was not really a man, now he stood looking them in the eye, and many of them waved, some shouting blessings, a woman in a village in western New Jersey passing up a basket of fresh-baked bread.
Perhaps Frederick Douglass was right; perhaps the blue uniform, the cartridge box stamped us, and the rifle in his hand had at last bestowed upon him the rights of citizenship; perhaps he could now claim this land as his as well. And that thought filled him with a swelling of pride, a sense of what he was about, of what he would now do for this land.
The memory of his dead son caught him for a moment. The land would not belong to him, it never would, but for his. daughters, for his grandchildren, perhaps for them, at last the promise would be true. He looked back into the boxcar, to the regimental sergeant major and a young private asleep against the sergeant's shoulder.
They were an interesting pair, with an interesting tale. The sergeant claimed that his father worked in the White House for Abraham Lincoln and he had grown up there. Soldiers were used to tall tales, and though the man was well-spoken, could read, and wrote with a beautiful hand, no one had believed him until only this morning, when a note with THE WHITE HOUSE stamped on the envelope had arrived. The sergeant, half-asleep, still had the letter and envelope clutched in his hands.
Everyone in the boxcars aboard the entire train now knew the content by heart:
To Sergeant-Major Washington Madison Quincy Bartlett
I take pen in hand to wish you and your comrades well. Know that your father is safe here in the White House and sends his blessings. Sergeant, the duty you and your comrades perform in service to our Republic shall write a new chapter in the history of our nation. The sacrifice in blood you lay upon the altar of our country shall be forever honored and remembered by a grateful nation.
Sincerely, Abraham Lincoln
Sergeant Miller knew that if this promise would indeed be honored, this was now a cause worth dying for.
Headquarters Army of Northern Virginia
August 19,1863 10:00 P.M.
It had been a long day. General Lee looked up at Venable and nodded wearily. "Was it really that bad?" Lee asked. "Sir, it's hard to say, but I saw what was left of Pickett. The division most likely took fifty per cent casualties, maybe more. I can't speak for McLaws, but I know Robertson was hit hard as well, but we stopped them cold."
Lee wearily shook his head. Pickett had been ordered to delay, to draw back slowly, not get into a head-on confrontation with an entire corps, two corps actually, from the sound of Venable's report.
Every man lost was one less man available for the real fight, the confrontation with Grant that Lee knew would come next. So far it had, more or less, gone according to plan. Sickles was in the field on his own, the garrison in Washington still immobilized, Grant still in Harrisburg. No news from Wade Hampton, but that was to be expected; in another day or two he would most likely cross the river with details regarding the dispositions of the enemy forces.
He had to defeat Sickles in detail. Not just another defeat and retreat, but to take him out of battle forever. Then turn back on Washington, harass it, and wait for Grant to emerge and come to the relief of the city. He had assumed all along that Grant would do so, but would do it in conjunction with Sickles, a combined force he could not have defeated except with extreme luck. Pickett wasting his division in a stand-up fight… well, he would deal with that later.
"Get some rest, son. Colonel Alexander will find you a comfortable place and a surgeon to look after that wound." "Sir, I should report back to General Longstreet." "An order from me, son. Get some rest, get your wound attended to. Tomorrow you'll have more than enough to do."
Venable nodded.
"Thank you, sir. And bless you."
"And God bless you, too," Lee responded.
Venable left his tent.
Lee looked back down at the map spread before him. Longstreet, with Hood overlapping his position, had things well enough in hand. Together they could parry any thrust Sickles might offer, and it was more than fair to assume Sickles would indeed attack come dawn.
He would have preferred that it was Hood or Longstreet guiding the next step in his plan, but the simple logistics of marching order had put Beauregard on his left, and thus it would be Beauregard's role to spring the trap come morning. Instinct told him that he should move to that flank. Beauregard was an unknown quantity and that was where his moral influence could have the greatest impact. He decided then and there to arise long before dawn and ride to the left of the line.
There was nothing more he could do now. Outside his tent he could hear his weary troops marching by, men who had forced-marched over forty miles, the last of the columns coming up, exhausted, staggering, the stragglers now filling the roads as well, provost marshals guiding them to where their units should be deploying.
Judah Benjamin had come up to join him and was asleep now in the next tent, stricken by the intense heat of the day. He longed to talk to him but knew he could not disturb the man. He had been dangerously ill by the time he reached headquarters, and even now a surgeon was still attending him, wrapping his body in cool, wet towels.
What I would give now for but one more corps, he thought yet again, the conversation with Rabbi Rothenberg still" haunting him. If we had acted that day, that very day when Maryland had declared for the Confederacy, even now a hundred thousand more would be mobilizing across the South. There was many a man of color already in the ranks, those of half blood, quarter blood, servants loyal to their masters, even here and there freemen who had fallen in with local friends, but the majority? The vast majority, they of course would never fight for a cause that in the end only promised them bondage.
France would be inconsequential this year, most likely always. The crisis was here and it was now. I have but one army left; I spent a fair part of it at Gettysburg and Union Mills. I spent more of it before Washington and now again today on Gunpowder River. I can spend no more and yet still hope to win.
But one corps more and how different it might all be, a decision that, if given the chance, I myself would proclaim and adhere to. We are saddled by this madness of slavery, this abomination that sets men against men, though of a different color, nevertheless, still created by the Creator. The rabbi was right; in Heaven would we dwell separately? What would the Savior say of this?
Too many thoughts were beginning to flood in, diverting him from the moment, the task ahead in the next day, the next week.
He leaned over and blew out the coal oil lamp. Standing up, he unbuttoned his tunic and took it off, draping it over a chair, and then knelt
"My God. Guide me as to what Thy will shall be. May there be some purpose in Your eyes for the suffering that now afflicts our nation. Those who fell today, both friend and foe, I beg You to grant them eternal joy in Your presence, and grant peace to those who mourn. I beg this in the name of Jesus. Amen."
He lay down upon his cot and tried to go to sleep while outside his tent men continued to march through the night.