All across that front, men of Florida and Alabama, men of Virginia and Arkansas, sensed the moment. They could see it in Lee as they charged forward; they could see it in that gallant cavalier, Jeb Stuart, shouting wildly, waving them on. They could see victory.
Some had been marching since First Manassas or the Peninsula, fought a dozen battles, waded the Potomac many times, and then in June, with such high hopes, had those hopes fulfilled at Union Mills, when final victory was within their grasp. So many, far, far too many comrades who had marched with them, were gone… and now the moment of final reckoning.
Others had marched in the West and had known one bitter defeat after another; others had come from Charleston, where the war had dragged on through days of scorching heat and sweltering nights, all to join this legendary and victorious army.
Lee was right, his cry echoing down the line, home, home was just on the other side of this town.
The charge rolled forward, pushing into the reserve ranks of the lines before them, men exhorting each other on, screaming to go, to go, to keep going forward. The reserves joined them, swarming into the main volley line, tripping and leaping over the bodies of hundreds who had fallen in the initial exchange.
"Come on! Charge!"
The wild enthusiasm spread, sweeping the entire front. Once twenty-five thousand before dawn, then eighteen thousand, now barely sixteen thousand, they began to race forward, a tidal wave, officers caught up in the maelstrom, flags of regiments mingling together, an ocean of armed men bent on victory.
At the barricades, in the ruined houses facing the charge, in the field west of town, Banks's men, tough fighters all, regardless of their dandy leader, saw it coming. They were nearly all from the West and had never known defeat. Or when defeated, they had believed in their hearts it was but a setback of the moment, and tomorrow would set it right.
This was tomorrow. Stand here and it is over. Run and you might live, but run here and there will be another tomorrow in which you will have to face it again or, worse, live out your life wishing you had stood but a few minutes longer.
Officers, some behind, but many now stepping out in front of the men, shouted and pleaded, "Hold, boys! You got to hold! Reload, let 'em get close. Reload!"
Several flag bearers stepped out of the ranks, holding tattered standards aloft, shouting for the men to stay with them, to not leave the colors, and the ranks surged forward a few feet to rally round those colors.
Ramrods were worked down fouled barrels, rifles then raised, some fixing bayonets.
"Hold fire, boys. You'll have one good shot. Hold fire!" The wall was a hundred yards off, now breaking into a run, the ground thundering at their approach, men standing wide-eyed, officers shouting, a few throwing down rifles and turning to run, the rest ignoring them. "Hold now, boys. Hold!" "McPherson!" "Hold!"
A few more seconds. "Take aim!"
Nearly five thousand rifles were leveled, men crowding round each other, those few still in ranks presenting, the second rank leaning in between those in front, in most places just crowds of men behind barricades or individuals leaning out of shattered windows and doorways, the metallic sound of thousands of hammers being cocked back.
Those in the front rank could see it, that strange illusion when a volley line presented directly in front of you and it looked as if every single rifle was aimed at you, so close you could see the open muzzle, the eye squinting down the sight. Some slowed, hesitated, others crouched low, as if bending into a storm, those who tried to slow, now pushed on by the mob surging forward behind them.
'Fire!"
Nearly five thousand one-ounce minie balls snapped across the intervening ground in little more than a tenth of a second. Many went high, but many, so many, came in low, hitting legs, stomachs, chests, arms, heads. For a blessed few there was nothingness, that final split second of sight, of looking at the man about to kill you, or gazing down, seeing grass, a clump of weeds, a flower, or a dreamlike vision of home, of someone waiting, a child running toward you… and then whatever it was that waited beyond the nothingness.
For many there were a few seconds, a tumbling backward, a collapsing forward, a few more pumps of the heart, a chance perhaps to realize that this world was finished, it was goodbye, goodbye to summer evenings, to the touch of a girl's lips, the embrace of a mother, the laughter of friends, the pleasure of a Southern evening under the stars.
For many more it was numbness, a falling down, if blessed, no pain in those first seconds, just a numbness, then a mad tearing at a jacket, knowing you were hit, but not sure where. God, don't let it be the stomach. Take a leg, they would bargain now, I can lose a leg, not the stomach.
And they would feebly tear at their clothes to see where the hole was.
Yet for others there was pain, the terrible grinding agony of a thighbone shattering, collapsing, splinters of bone tearing through flesh and uniform, an arm flying back as if pulled by a giant behind them, the elbow shattered, hand nearly torn off, jawbone shot away.
It wasn't just bullets that did this. A musket stock of the man in front would be blown off and spin into another man's face, breaking his jaw, parts of other men's bodies would punch into the those following, canteens, tin cups, cartridge boxes, twisted rifles, broken swords, pieces of shoes, belt buckles; all these became deadly projectiles as well, showering back into the third, fourth, and fifth ranks.
The entire charge staggered. For so many cheering wildly but seconds before, all thought of cause, of glory, of victory, was gone. The world had focused down to them, to them alone. To the hole in the body they were staring at numbly, to a frantic tearing at a breast pocket to pull out a Bible, the letter of a sweetheart, the daguerreotype of a child, for at such a moment, that was truly all that mattered anymore, all thoughts of rights and wrongs, of what had taken them a thousand miles to this place… forgotten.
And yet, though fifteen hundred or more had fallen, there were over fourteen thousand still surging in.
Regardless of the thrust of those pushing in from behind, it took terrible long seconds for the charge to continue forward. Men had to push around the fallen, the dying, the blinded men screaming, dropping weapons and turning to stagger back, and for nearly every man down there was another in shock, reaching down to support a falling brother, a beloved friend, a favorite officer, or just coming to a numbed stop, their face covered in blood from the man in front of them.
"Come on! Keep moving! Come on!"
The charge surged up over the dead, wounded, shocked, and dying and pushed forward, but those few precious seconds gave the defenders the chance to start to reload. Most of them veterans, they glared defiantly at the rebs pushing in, even as they poured powder, slammed ball down barrel, some now just thrusting ramrods into the ground or against a barricade, cocking the piece, pulling out the percussion cap.
There was no time for orders now, no measured volley. Madness on both sides was taking hold, but several thousand completed the mad race, some now firing so close that the discharges burned the men in front of them. Hardly a shot could miss at this range, some of the rebels absorbing five and six bullets. Those up in the second floor of buildings merely had to aim down into the seething mass.
Thousands more collapsed literally at the edge of town, and then the charge was upon them.
Rebels swarmed over the barricades, screaming insanely, aiming and firing down at their tormentors. Men behind the barricades lashed out with musket butts, some swinging them like clubs, catching their foes across legs and knees, breaking bones, the injured collapsing back.
There were bayonet thrusts, pistol shots, shouts, oaths, curses, hurrahs, men fired into faces not five feet away. None now really knew what he was fighting for, other than the raw primal instinct of survival. All speeches, all talk of causes, of rights, of freedom, of land, of honor, of who had wronged who were forgotten by these nineteen- and twenty-year-old boys swept into a nightmare not of their making, a nightmare that they would enact.
If there was any sense beyond the immediate, it was a vague consciousness that somehow, for some reason, at this moment, what they did would finish it forever, one way or the other, and those not yet into the melee were driven forward by that thought, that and the hysteria that sweeps all men being sucked inexorably into the hurricane of battle.
Jeb Stuart was down, horse riddled by a half dozen bullets, sending him flying forward, a fall that saved his life, for at least a dozen more rounds were aimed straight at him. As he pitched forward one round tore open his left sleeve, another creased his brow, a third struck a uniform button over his stomach at an angle, and painfully drove it in, but barely breaking the flesh.
He lay there semiconscious, troopers dismounting around their beloved "cavalier."
Beauregard had stepped back in the last hundred yards, letting the charge sweep past him. Dismounted, he stood silent, watching the slaughter. The fight was now beyond anything he could ever control. If victorious now, he would go in; if defeated, he would fall back to confront Lee.
Farther back, Lee stood silent, head bowed in prayer.
"Please give them strength, Lord, please give them strength," he kept repeating over and over.
Another wagon had come up over the pass, this one loaded down with, hope beyond hope, cases of canister rounds. They were pre-packaged straight from the factory in Troy, New York, having only been cast and made the day before yesterday, the railroad bringing them through Harrisburg straight from the factory-tin can, serge powder bag attached to the can containing fifty iron balls, each one inside a wooden tube ready to be transferred into a standard limber box. Hunt shouted for one of his batteries still mounted to turn around, and leading the way, he raced back toward Frederick, six three-inch ordnance rifles behind him and the wagon driver, terrified to be heading into the storm. A gunner had climbed up alongside the mule driver, grinning, telling him that he had just joined the artillery and would be shot if he slowed down.
Grant, hands still in pockets, continued to stand silent. It was impossible now to see with all the smoke, the steady drizzle of rain.
His lips suddenly felt warm, and he reached up to his cigar and burned his fingers. In his agitation he had smoked it clean down to the stub. He spat it out, fished for another in his pocket, and swore. The silver case was gone, most likely dropped on the retreat into the town.
Ely came up, offered a cigar, a reserve he always carried for the general, and lit it. No one spoke. Even the reporters down in the street were silent, all looking south.
The wall of men had broken across the front of the town into six funnels, swarms of men, all formation lost, pushing against the barricades across the six streets facing south, barricades giving way under the sheer pressure, while up in the buildings Union troopers were firing away frantically, five and six men loading for one man at a window, until he dropped and another stepped up to take his place.
To the left, at the edge of the town, Banks's Division was buckling back. The charge was already across the pike that led to Harpers Ferry and now beginning to approach their goal: the pike over the Catoctin Mountains. Victory was in sight.
Jeb was back up on his feet, staggering like a drunk, not yet aware that he was suffering from a concussion and a broken wrist, but turning about, shouting for a horse, screaming for the infantry to go forward, for the cavalry to turn oblique and to start swarming up the National Road to take out the Yankee artillery that was enfilading them with such deadly effect. One barricade in the center fell, the next one to the left collapsed, Union troops giving back, a swarming wall of rebs pouring over, battle flags to the front, and beginning to push into the town They're breaking through," someone announced.
Grant ignored the comment. Wounded were trickling back, a few cowards running, but the provost guards did not bother with them; they had been ordered into the fight as well.
I have no more reserves, Grant realized, and yet… my God, what a price Lee is paying for this.
There was a clatter of hooves in the street below, and he walked to the edge of his precarious ledge and looked down. It was a battery of guns, three-inch ordnance rifles, Hunt in the lead. At each street corner one gun was being detailed off, unlimbered, men swarming around a canvas-topped wagon at the rear of the formation, unloading boxes.
Hunt rode to the warehouse, looked up at Grant, and saluted.
"Hundred rounds of canister!" Hunt shouted.
Grant nodded and actually grinned.
"Good work, Henry! Good work!"
Hunt positioned a gun directly below Grant, pointing due south, then shouted for the last gun to cut down an alleyway to the next street and position.
Looking down the street, Grant could see where the rebel charge was over the barrier, only a block away, beginning to fight its way up the street.
"Sir, we had better get ready to pull back again," Ely announced.
Grant said nothing, heading for the shattered stairs and back out onto the street.
The reporters who had been shouting questions were long gone, except for one, the Tribune's man, who was silent, wide-eyed, looking down the street. The telegraphy crew had left their station, drawing pistols as they ran out of the building. Grant's staff, standing about in the ruins of the depot, waited for the order to mount up and evacuate the town.
He said nothing, going to Hunt's side.
"I can hold them," Hunt gasped.
"You'd better," was all Grant could say in reply.
The terrified wagon driver reined in behind the gun, the crew reaching into the back, pulling out boxes of canister rounds, one of the gunners tearing the wooden shipping lid off, slipping out the tin can and cartridge.
"Double canister!" Hunt shouted.
A second wooden cylinder was opened, the serge bag torn off. The first charge went down the barrel, the second can then rammed down on top.
The sergeant in command of the piece plunged a pick through the touchhole tearing open the powder bag within, fished into the primer bag at his side, pulled out a friction primer, set it in the touchhole, hooked the lanyard on, and stepped back.
"Stand clear!"
He drew the lanyard taut and waited. The road ahead was still packed with Union men, fighting hand-to-hand with the rebels surging forward.
The charge was up all six streets leading into Frederick, and Lee could see that on the left, his primary goal had all but been reached. Part of Beauregard's Second Division had indeed swarmed over the Catoctin Road. Jeb's troopers were on to the road. Their mounts were blown, but they appeared ghostlike to be rising out of the mist, pushing upwards. If not for the Yankee artillery blocking the way, they'd be to the top within minutes.
What I wouldn't I give right now for one more fresh division, he thought. One division to support Jeb and to flank the town.
Ahead he could, at times, make out men pushing in toward the town. His heart thrilled at the sight of it, the flags of the Confederacy held high!
Unable to contain himself, he rode forward, a stern glance at Walter silencing protest.
"We have them now!" Lee shouted. "We have them now! Go, my boys, go!"
The charge up Fourth Street toward the depot was gaining some small momentum. The men who had held the barricade but minutes before were nearly all dead, wounded, or captured. The surviving Yankees were beginning to break, to scatter into homes, shops, rebel officers at the front screaming for their men to ignore them for now, to press on through the town and to the open plains beyond.
"Out of the town and we've won!" more than one screamed.
Another rebel yell now, wild and defiant, filled with hopes of victory as they swarmed up the street.
'Get ready!" Hunt screamed A few Union men were still out in the street, running, and then they saw the gun aimed directly at them. They knew what would happen in a few seconds. Men dodged, threw themselves into doorways and alleyways.
The rebel charge, swarming forward, was gaining momentum until the men up front saw, through the smoke, the muzzle of a three-inch ordnance rifle, not a hundred feet away, aimed straight at them.
'Fire!"
The ordnance rifle recoiled with a thunderclap roar, the charge of canister bursting from the barrel. As the first tin cleared the muzzle the tin sheathing peeled back, the fifty iron balls beginning to spread out, deviating to one side or the other, up or down an inch or so for every foot forward; the second can emerged, peeling back, its shot spreading as well. At a hundred feet the spread would be a deadly cone a dozen feet wide.
The impact was devastating, twenty pounds of iron balls, each weighing a little more than two ounces, each traveling at over seven hundred feet a second. A single ball could decapitate a man, tear off an arm, a leg, go clean through a man, tear apart a second, and drop a third behind him.
The entire front of the charge collapsed in a bloody heap.
"Double canister!" Hunt roared.
The swabber leapt forward and ran the sponge down the barrel to kill any lingering sparks. Another pre-packaged charge went in, a second tin on top, and was rammed down, crew to either side working the wheels to re-aim the gun straight down the street.
"Stand clear!"
The battery sergeant drew the lanyard taut and jerked it.
A hundred more balls tore down the street, plowing like a giant's hand into those not swept away by the first blast. Windowpanes shattered from the blast, glass tinkling down, sometimes entire sheets slashing into a man; canister that had gone wide ricocheted down the narrow valley of the street, bouncing off walls, then tearing into men fifty, a hundred feet, farther back.
"Again, double canister!" Hunt roared.
To the west, from Fourth and Fifth Streets, the guns were firing as well, recoiling. At Third Street the charge was far enough forward that it spilled out onto Main Street, almost overrunning the gun, the crew keeping their nerve. The rammer went down, staff still in the gun, the battery sergeant firing it off anyhow, one hundred iron balls and the ramrod blowing down the street, shattering the charge.
Out of the smoke enveloping Fourth Street a charge began to surge forward again, the men in the fore disbelieving. Victory had been so close, so goddamn close, just past that gun.
An officer leapt out front.
"Home, boys, home!"
He ran straight for the piece, the men at the fore raising rifles, firing, the gun sergeant going down, and half the crew. Grant, startled, realized that a ball had plucked the rim of his hat. He remained motionless.
Hunt shouldered his way in, picked up the lanyard, waited a few seconds, a few maddenly long seconds, the rebel charge getting closer, ready to spill into Main Street, where, if once gained, the rebs would swarm around the gun.
"Look at 'em!" Hunt was screaming. "Can't miss, look at 'em!"
Even as he stepped back, shouting for the crew to jump clear, he jerked the lanyard again.
The rebel major leading the charge disappeared, as did scores of men behind him.
Sickened, Grant turned his back for a moment. He had actually caught a glimpse of a man decapitated, the rebel major, head spinning up into the air, bringing back the nightmare memory of Mexico, a comrade standing next to him, head blown off by a round ball fired by a Mexican battery.
"Double canister!" Hunt roared, wild-eyed. While waiting for the gun crew to reload, he pulled out his revolver and emptied it into the smoke.
Another man picked up the ramrod, shoved the round in, crew forgetting to sponge the piece in the heat of battle. Hunt plucked a friction primer out of the haversack of the dead sergeant, fixed it in place, attached the lanyard, stepped back, and jerked it, another roar, the gun recoiling up over the curb.
"Double canister!"
"Hold, Henry," Grant shouted.
Henry looked back at him.
"For God's sake, Henry, hold fire."