by Ralph Peters
Smith looked back, “to see whence my succor cometh,” as the deacon said, only to observe the third and last line of the regiment filing off into the wood line. Flanking the Yankees, surely. But that would take a painful stretch of time.
Some of the officers saw it, too, and figured things out. A beast with a mind of its own, the line halted on the slope moved forward again, even raised a cheer.
The Yankees kept popping up and firing. Good men fell.
It was enough, though. When Smith and his comrades got within fifty yards of the fence, a Yankee on horseback, an officer, rode along their line, calm as could be, bewilderingly unshot, ordering his men back.
“Shoot that-there sumbitch,” a low-white voice called. But no ball struck the officer.
The 12th Virginia swarmed through the fence, scratched and nettled and cussing and howling, possessors of a small victory.
Yankees got off their wounded, though. And not one body lay sprawled around the farmhouse. Smith could see the blue-bellies rallying on the next stretch of high ground.
Noon
Reuben McGee farm, the Turnpike
Flanked on both sides again, Wickersham pulled his men from a last delaying position to rejoin the regiment, which waited, arrayed and ready, on a reverse slope. His men had been driven back a mile, but they’d cost the Johnnies an hour. And he’d brought his two companies this far with only a pair of wounded.
This would be the real fight, though. The last ridge had to be held. Behind them, there was little more ground before the tangles began, almost as bad for infantry as for cavalry.
“Go!” he shouted, as bullets hunted bluecoats. “Ride! Re-form on the regiment!”
They’d cut it close this time. But Wickersham made sure that he was the last man to leave the position.
As the two small companies rode pell-mell for the line of the 8th Pennsylvania, the rest of the regiment cheered them, while two fieldpieces fired over their heads to slow the Rebs.
An aide rode forward to direct Wickersham and his riders to the left. The allotted ground was poor, but secondary. The general position was good. With his men in place, Wickersham rode forward again for a better view.
The Johnnies who’d driven them back were disorganized, but their mettle was up and they were coming on again, even though they might better have waited on supports. Whoever those Rebs were, they had a grudge.
The captain calculated that he could remain exposed for one last minute. While McCallum and the first sergeants sorted things out.
When, at last, he began to turn his horse, a cavalcade broke from the line behind him, with a half-dozen flags and pennants flying.
An older fellow spurred his horse toward Wickersham. He rode close before the captain recognized General Sykes.
“Bully work, Captain,” the division commander called. “Masterful, just what the damned cavalry should be. Been watching while my boys came up. Damned impressive.”
Belatedly, Wickersham offered a salute. Only then did he realize how drained he felt. All he could say was, “Rebs are in a high temper, sir.”
Sykes lifted his jaw. “My division will knock it out of them.”
* * *
Corporal Smith’s spirits soared as he saw the last line of Yankee horsemen pull back without much of a fight. Everyone felt it. A fine Rebel yell rent the day and men swarmed forward, as if they might catch them each a Yankee and drag him from his horse. Even Lieutenant Colonel Feild, down on his own two feet now, took to hollering, “That’s it, boys! That’s the way! For Virginia and old Petersburg! Drive on for the old Southside!”
Too thrilled to halt and fire at retreating Yankees, men ran madly, as if for a wondrous prize. Dispersed by its triumph, by having knocked the Yankees back a mile and more, the regiment grew more unwieldly with each moment, rushing for the now abandoned crest in little groups and dividing to pass a farmhouse crowning the height.
Then they stopped.
Barely a rifle shot away, the blue horsemen trotted off to reveal perfectly dressed lines of infantry, a full brigade or more.
“Oh, Lord,” a soldier moaned.
“Them’s the Regulators,” another fellow said. “All pretty like that.”
“Reg’lars,” another corrected.
A gun section opened fire from the oblique. The blue lines advanced. Their bayonets shone.
“Form up, form up!” the 12th’s officers shouted, Feild among them. He waved his sword and demanded, “Form on your colors, men!”
A goodly number of soldiers obeyed, but not all of them did. The regiment got off a volley, and then another. The Yankees didn’t trouble to reply. They just came stepping along, stretching across the Turnpike, from tree line to tree line and beyond, ranked deep.
The 12th gave ground. Smith kept close to the colors. Men began to run, the last order broke down. Smith ran, too. It was a sensation that had grown all too familiar.
When he looked back—weary of looking over his shoulder at lucky Yankees—he witnessed the surrender of a pack of fools who’d cowered behind the farmhouse.
Down past a family graveyard and back through another bottom the survivors ran, half expecting the cavalry to pursue them with slashing sabers. But another, worried glance backward revealed only the advancing infantry. Made Smith sick, though.
And thirsty. He realized he was half fainting with thirst. The day had grown warm.
Smoke drifted, fading.
On a long shelf of ground, not yet a ridge, the officers and sergeants gathered the men again, manhandling some. No flags had been lost and not so many men, after all. The regiment still could fight.
And a blind man could see that the Yankees had their own problems. The regiments in the open fields flanking the highway were surging ahead of those thrashing through the undergrowth. Fewer to fight, if the fight developed soon.
They gave the Yankees a volley at 150 yards, but it was paltry. Closing half the distance, unusually disciplined, the blue-bellies halted, steadied their ranks, and fired.
Recoils jerked shoulders. Smoke rose. Along Smith’s line, men fell.
The Yankees stretched beyond both flanks of the regiment, threatening to engulf them, to capture them all.
Men complained that they were out of cartridges. Some fled anew.
The 12th withdrew again, but in better order now. Someone said Captain Banks had been shot up badly, but Feild and the remaining officers put up a good front.
“Billy Mahone want to get us massacred?” Bart Teedlow demanded. “Ain’t he got him a whole brigade to use? Or did he plain forget us?”
Detachments sent to the flanks were soon embattled, divided, and driven into the scrub pines and the brush.
They tried again to stand and failed again.
But just when all had despaired, when Lieutenant Colonel Feild’s voice had quit him and the officers could barely raise their swords, as embittered men staggered back up a ridge they’d purchased with their blood an hour before, the rest of the brigade appeared on the crest, red banners leading.
The anger at Little Billy dissolved in an instant.
As the 12th withdrew and the Yankees halted behind them to make a fight of it, Mahone rode out among the hard-used men.
“Damned fine!” the brigadier general hallooed, a tiny man with a long beard, on a big horse. He took off his hat in salute. “Damned fine work, mighty fine!”
Word spread that Jackson was up, that the 12th Virginia had fixed the Yankees in place and bought precious time.
And all was forgiven.
Twelve thirty p.m.
River Road
With his horse tugged to the side of the trail to let his soldiers squeeze by, Meade said:
“I cannot believe this infernal, goddamned, piss-up-a-rope buggery.”
“Fucked for beans,” Charlie Griffin agreed.
The soldiers slumping along were too unnerved by the general’s burst of temper to be amused. They looked off into the trees or fixed their eyes on the
shoulders and necks in front of them.
Meade calmed his voice to a beast’s growl. In the distance, miles to the south, volleys crackled and fieldpieces blasted away. Sykes was in a fight, Meade had no doubt, and he knew nothing about it beyond what he could hear. Patrols dispatched southward had met only more tangles. He could not control the fate of his Second Division, nor tell if things were going well or badly. And no one seemed concerned enough to inform him. All he got from Hooker’s headquarters were contradictory—and peremptory—orders.
His first assigned objective had been to seize the southern side of Banks’ Ford, to shorten communications back to Falmouth. He met no opposition beyond the sniping of mounted scouts, and his forward element had just sighted the ford—when the order reached Meade to reverse his line of march, retrace his steps, and take the Mine Road to the southeast.
That had, at least, offered the prospect of moving closer to Sykes and reuniting the corps. So he led his two on-hand divisions of increasingly skeptical soldiers down yet another trail pretending to be a road, only to receive another order canceling the previous directive and advising him to return to his original route and objectives.
At least it wasn’t raining. But the beauty of the day couldn’t dent his surliness.
What on God’s earth did Hooker have in mind?
His divisions countermarched again and plodded along a mud track gagged by trees, pressed between bands of undergrowth thick as mesh and dark as Hades. And George Meade, who’d been looking for a fight since the campaign began, found himself marching away from the sounds of battle, away from the unknown fate of Sykes and his detached division.
His faith in Joseph Hooker had suffered a crack the day before. Now it began to crumble.
One p.m.
The Turnpike
They’d gotten off to a bully start, but George Sykes couldn’t mistake the turning tide. Nor was he happy with his apparent abandonment: He hadn’t heard from George Meade and the rest of the corps on his left, and neither had he had a word from Slocum, whose corps was supposed to be active on his right. As for orders from Hooker or reinforcements, he might as well have been waging war in China.
Volleys rippled. Men shouted. Smoke shrouded the earth.
He turned to Warren, the Army of the Potomac’s senior engineer and a perennial busybody who’d come out to have a look. Warren had the face of a bird of prey, but if one day he resembled a hawk, on the next he looked like a vulture with mustaches. Voice raised to be heard over nearby guns, Sykes called from saddle to saddle:
“Warren, if you please … go back and report the situation to Hooker. If he wants me to hold, I have to be supported. The Johnnies are piling in more men by the minute, I’m threatened on both flanks. And I’m damned well outnumbered. No excuse for it, given the force Joe has on hand. My division can’t take on Lee’s entire army.”
“Had been going rather well, I thought.”
“Well, it’s not going well now. The Regulars took a whipping. It’s not about tactics now, it’s mathematics.”
A Reb shell whistled in and struck close, stinging them with dirt.
“I can hold, if reinforced,” Sykes continued. “Send in another division and we can even resume the advance, or try our damnedest. But, for God’s sake, someone has to support me.”
“I’ll do what I can. But you know Joe, his plan.”
“I don’t know his plan, that’s the worst of it. All I know is that I’m in a fight where there wasn’t supposed to be a fight at all. And we’re on the verge of squandering a chance to open this road.” Sykes had another thought. “Listen, Warren … don’t make it sound like we’ve already been whipped, that’s not the message. Just tell Hooker … tell him we’re fighting well, but we need support. That’s all.”
Another Rebel yell announced a charge.
One thirty p.m.
Chancellor house
Sykes has to withdraw,” Joe Hooker said. That much seemed clear. Struck by another headache, he struggled to put the rest of his thoughts in order, but it was obvious that Sykes had to pull back.
Warren appeared startled. “Sir … if I made things sound too dire, I’m sorry. Sykes needs reinforcement, that’s all. The prospects—”
“No. He must pull back.” The racket of battle reached the porch from miles away: dull thumps, waves of muddled noise. “I’ve got Lee now, he’s out from behind his defenses, I forced him out. But I won’t let him choose the battlefield.” The headache was wretched and he had no wish to explain further. But Warren was rather a gossip and needed tending. “I’ve had messages, Warren. From Falmouth, from Butterfield. Telegraph’s working, it seems. Balloon crew detected heavy Confederate movements westward from Fredericksburg. It’s all … everything’s going according to my plan. They’re all but abandoning Fredericksburg, it should fall into Sedgwick’s hands with hardly a struggle. And Lee … Lee has a choice. He can either fight me where I choose, he can fight me right here … or run.”
Unconsciously, he laid the back of his hand over his forehead, as if reading a fever. “If he doesn’t attack in force in the morning … if Lee loses his nerve, we’ll know he’s running.”
Eyebrow ranging high, Warren observed, “Doesn’t seem like he’s running at the moment. Sykes is in a serious fight, sir. If we—”
Hooker nodded enthusiastically. “That’s it, you see. Lee had to lash out. To protect his line of retreat. If Sharpe’s correct, that’s Jackson out there, force-marched from Fredericksburg. Lee must be in a panic.”
Warren still looked quizzical, unsatisfied. Hooker decided he had no more time to waste on the man. He wheeled and shouted for Dickinson. Orders had to go out not just to Sykes, but to Slocum and Meade to pull back to the lines they’d held that morning. He wouldn’t allow Lee to gobble his army piecemeal. Lee would have to fight them all, or none.
Dickinson appeared before the two generals, with Roebling, an engineer sort, at his shoulder.
Hooker’s head made him want to lie down in a darkened room, but he refused to weaken. “Any word from Sedgwick? The Fredericksburg business?”
The colonel shook his head.
“All right,” Hooker continued, “send orders to Sykes, Meade, and Slocum. Immediately.” He looked at Roebling, a headquarters dogsbody. “You ride to Slocum, don’t wait. Before he finds himself heavily engaged. I’ll put it in writing later, but tell him he’s to withdraw and with no delay. His corps will return to its previous position.”
What was wrong with these people? With their dunce-cap expressions?
“Don’t gawk, man. Go,” he told Roebling.
“General…,” Dickinson began.
Hooker held up a hand: Silence. “I have decided to consolidate the army. Here. Let Lee try to attack through these tangles … we’ll trounce him, destroy him.” He concentrated on Dickinson. “All advancing forces are to withdraw. Immediately. Can’t let Lee…”
He lost his train of thought for a moment. His head throbbed. He closed his eyes.
“Sir”—Dickinson’s voice pierced his skull—“General Couch has Hancock coming up. He’s set to reinforce Sykes, if that’s what’s needed. Perhaps we should—”
“Hancock’s to cover Sykes’ withdrawal, nothing more.” He remembered something. “Couch still here?”
“No, sir. He rode forward. Twenty minutes ago. He went up to coordinate Hancock’s advance.”
Yes. Of course. How on earth could he have forgotten that?
“Pull everyone back. Immediately. The army will prepare to defend, get the order out to all the corps. I’ll force Lee to attack me. Or he can run like a coward.”
Eyes aching, he met looks of doubt, of weakness almost insolent. And this was no time for weakness of any kind.
His head, his head …
He would have traded a first-class regiment for a glass of whiskey.
One forty-five p.m.
Alrich farm, right flank of Union advance
Wash Roebling rode for the clust
er of flags. Beyond, rifles snapped by the hundreds, while a battery, freed of the road’s confines, rattled into a field. Slocum had been as dilatory as his name suggested, but his corps was advancing into a fight at last. Roebling didn’t understand Hooker’s decision, but it wouldn’t have done to argue. His expertise lay in building bridges, not in directing armies. His job was to do as told.
It did seem a bit odd, though. To quit before one got started. All blueprint and no construction.
Slocum sat in his saddle with his shoulders squared and his usual joyless expression. Roebling guided his mare through the mob of staff men.
“General Slocum! General Slocum, sir! Orders from General Hooker!”
The corps commander turned heavy eyes toward him. “What the devil does Joe want now? I’m busy, son.”
“Orders, sir. You’re to withdraw immediately, your entire corps. To the position you held this morning.”
Slocum’s mouth fell open. It didn’t quite close again. He stared.
“What?”
“You’re to withdraw, sir. General Hooker’s orders.”
Slocum pulled his horse about, the better to face Roebling. The older man glowered.
“You’re a goddamned liar.”
Roebling didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to say.
Slocum turned to an aide and began, “Ross, you ride back and—”
He cut himself off. “No, I’ll ride back myself. Get to the bottom of this nonsense. Meanwhile, press the fight.” Giving Roebling a last, hard look, he told him, “If you’ve been lying to me, boy, I’ll have you shot right here.”
Two ten p.m.
The Turnpike, Union center
Missing its two front legs, a shrieking battery horse waited for someone to find the time to shoot it.
“This is madness,” General Couch told Sykes after reading the order. “We can’t give up this ground. We’d be locking the entire army into a prison.”
Sykes looked stunned, incapable of speech.
“When I left the headquarters, Joe was full of fight,” Couch added, bewildered.
Sykes found his voice. He told an orderly, “Ride to Colonel Burbank. Quickly. Tell him the Regulars are not to attack that battery, it’s off. Further orders follow.”
