by Ralph Peters
Where was Archer? Where was McGowan? Harry Heth? And where were Colston’s legions?
As his men—so few remaining—gathered around their officers, tribesmen around their chieftains, a soldier shrieked:
“Here they come!”
A wall of Yankees, a long, blue wall aglitter with bayonets, surged over a low rise, realigning on the march as they left the tangles behind. Drums beat the pace. To Lane, it seemed a death march.
The situation was impossible. The numbers were too skewed. Fantastically so.
But his men formed up. They did not shout anymore. Faces gone grim, they shoved down ramrods with urgent paws.
A lone voice called, “Remember Jackson!” No one took up the cry.
The Yankees didn’t cheer but just came on. Nor did they stop at regulation distance to trade volleys.
One after the other, Lane’s officers ordered their men to fire and rifles bit shoulders. Some Yankees dropped, but the gaps they left were swiftly filled by men from the second rank.
At fifty yards, the Yankees finally halted and leveled their rifles. As smoothly as if on a drill field.
The volley was devastating.
Then they charged.
Yankees thrust in from the flanks as well.
A few of Lane’s men just plain ran. Orders had become superfluous and every soldier who still could walk withdrew. At first, most halted now and again to shoot back toward the pursuing Yankees or just to shake a fist. As they passed back through their own dead and wounded, the disabled pleaded to be taken along. Some were aided by familiar hands, but many went ignored by men in a growing hurry.
Christians cursed like souls in deepest Hell.
Jim Lane felt their rage. Because it was his rage. They’d come so far, done so much. And where was the rest of the army? Why hadn’t Colston’s men been sent forward as promised? Would the bastards remember this? Or would they only recall the wounding of Jackson?
There was no precise moment when it happened. The moral collapse was gradual at first but soon accelerated. Even the best men began to race rearward, fleeing the Yankees and their drums in panic.
By the time they got back to the first line of Yankee entrenchments, Sam Lowe of the 28th was the only regimental colonel not killed or wounded. Surviving officers in all of the regiments struggled to rally their men at the captured defenses, determined to hold their one remaining prize. But soldiers—veteran soldiers—threw down their rifles, suddenly deaf to their officers, blind to all but the Yankees, bewildered as if betrayed. Men who had fought bravely cowered behind piled timbers, shivering. Others were surly toward their own superiors, not the enemy. Some realized for the first time that they’d been wounded.
One man, bewildered to find his chest ripped open, died at the sight of his still-beating heart.
Soldiers from other failed brigades ran through them or mingled to hide from their officers.
Then the Yankees came at them, a hard bunch, hitting them from the front while swinging around both flanks.
A few men stood and fought. Inspired, or just bred to habit, other soldiers, broken a moment before, rose to fight again. But the number of all who resisted was negligible and the Yankees arrived in a host. As the slight defense collapsed, blue-bellies perched atop the logs and fired down into the disordered mass.
“Like what ya git? Like what ya gittin’ now?” a Yankee voice, distinct and western, demanded.
The brigade dissolved. Men ran like boys spooked by hants.
Lane emptied his pistol at the nearest men in blue. He didn’t care if they killed him. But they just wouldn’t.
Only the 28th North Carolina kept together and held its ground. Joining them—drawn to them—Lane ordered the regiment back, unwilling to sacrifice the remaining soldiers for nothing.
His runaways only stopped when they found themselves behind Colston’s do-nothing regiments, which still had not received orders to go forward. Catching up with the survivors, their remaining officers found them docile now and embarrassed. Lane pitched in to gather his soldiers and rally them, but he reached a point where he had to turn away.
He could have wept at the injustice and folly. If only his men had been supported, if only …
Instead of bawling his eyes out, he unbuttoned his trousers and pissed against a tree.
* * *
Hooker felt a marvelous surge of confidence. After some initial success, the Rebs had been repelled all along the line, at every point that mattered. And they’d paid dearly.
Better still, every prisoner taken had been from Jackson’s command. That meant that he, Joe Hooker, had just beat Stonewall Jackson.
Whipped that hymn-howling sonofabitch like a dog that soiled the carpet.
As he led his party through the drifting smoke, veering behind busy batteries, Joseph Hooker believed that the tide had turned.
Plaudits were due all around, but Ruger’s brigade had been utterly savage in its repulse of two brigades of Carolinians, North and South. Ruger had been so successful and had advanced so far that he had to be recalled before the Rebs realized how exposed he was.
And Sickles was almost consolidated on his new line, although his rear guard had gotten mauled and some guns had been lost.
All in all, a very propitious morning. And it was just seven thirty.
Let them come on again, let them launch another clumsy attack straight into his guns.
Just as he reached the edge of the Chancellor clearing, he spotted a pack of officers carrying off a casualty in a blanket.
Had to be someone with rank to merit such company.
Hooker turned his horse, pulling up only when nearly on top of the detail. No time to waste this morning.
Still clutching their burden, the officers halted. Only one tried to salute. Two wept.
“Who is it? Who’s been hit?”
“General Berry, sir. It’s General Berry. He’s dead, sir.”
Hooker slipped from his horse. “Put him on the ground. Let me see.”
“I tried to warn him, sir. I tried to warn him not to cross that road.”
Hooker didn’t listen. He bent over a face already changed, lifeless, with one cheek powder-smudged.
The strength of his emotions almost unmanned him, the depth of the sentiment unexpected. He leaned now like a worshipping Mohammedan and kissed Berry on the forehead.
“My God, Berry, why did this have to happen? Why you? I relied on you.…”
His headache returned with the force of a clubbed musket.
* * *
Colonel Edward Porter Alexander could not believe his good fortune and half suspected the Yankees had set a trap. Surely no foe in the history of gunpowder and cannon had willingly abandoned such a commanding position for artillery. It just plain made no sense.
Nonetheless, a prisoner, hastily questioned, had insisted that it was so, that his regiment and everyone else had been ordered off the hill. Had those in gray waited ten minutes, they could have had the elevation without the minor resistance they had faced.
Glory hallelujah! In all of his nigh on twenty-eight years, Alexander had never been given such a gift.
As he rode about guiding batteries to their positions, Stuart trotted up with his entourage. Alexander had encountered him most everywhere he’d gone since the early hours, the cavalryman was a wizard of sheer presence, colorful as a one-man medicine show. Today, he looked half Reb, a quarter Yankee, and one-eighth high-seas commodore, with a leftover portion of minstrel.
Stuart always was a sight to see.
Wearing his familiar smile, the cavalier declared, “Why, this here ain’t no hill, Porter. Hardly a pimple on the backside of our fair Virginia.”
“Best artillery position I’ve had in this war. Just look.”
As the men turned their heads, the first guns in battery spoke. Alexander and Stuart watched black dots course through the sky. The shells landed just short of a Yankee gun line readying for action on a hill not a mile to the north.<
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“Take that one, too, sir,” Alexander said, “and the Yankees are finished, far as their present ground goes.”
“All in good time, Porter, all in good time. Our Yankee brethren have been teasing us something wicked this morning. Almost seems they’ve got on their fighting manners.” He reinforced his smile. “We’ll see to that, of course.” He gestured toward the guns and men nearby. “With the help of these brazen fellows of yours.”
A second battery rushed into action. Gun carriages recoiled and strong men rushed to return them to their positions. Swabs went to work. Sergeants shouted.
The Federal guns on the other hill sought their range, their interest fixed by the lengthening line of fieldpieces and Stuart’s bevy of flags. Surely, Alexander thought, they’re already regretting the depth of their folly, Lord help them.
It hadn’t been a Yankee artilleryman who’d made the decision to limber up and leave. That much was certain.
A shell sailed overhead and struck trees to the rear, shattering branches and sending a discomfited artilleryman stumbling out of the brush with his trousers down.
“Might be best if you moved on, General,” Alexander said. “Hot work ahead.”
“Just the kind of work I like. But I shall retire, knowing this Olympus, this Vesuvius, is in good hands.”
Alexander couldn’t help adding, “Sure would like to stack a dozen batteries on that other hill.”
“All in good time,” Stuart repeated. About to ride on, he paused and said, “Word on General Jackson is that he’s like to recover just fine. Lost an arm, but not that hard head of his.”
He gee-upped his mount, and the medicine show moved along.
Each minute, more Yankee guns answered Alexander’s batteries. He respected his redleg opponents. Even yesterday, getting themselves a whipping, the Yankee artillery had been full of spleen and a hazard.
He watched as a well-aimed shell struck a Yankee caisson, sending rubbish and men into the sky.
Didn’t even have to offer encouragement to these boys. The section chiefs and gun crews knew their business and worked with relish.
Steadying his mount, Alexander judged distances. He reckoned that with the proper elevation applied, the rifled guns could even range the Chancellor house, which prisoners insisted played host to the Yankee headquarters. Didn’t have an ideal line of sight, but instincts counted. He hated the prospect of damaging Southern property, but war didn’t whisper requests, it shouted demands.
Wouldn’t it be handsome doings to send that Yankee libertine a greeting?
* * *
Colonel John Funk of the 5th Virginia, Stonewall Brigade, just could not believe it. Never had he dreamed of, let alone seen, such a spectacle: hundreds upon hundreds of his fellow Confederates cowering on the near side of a line of Yankee entrenchments. Most lay belly-flat on the ground, trying to sink into it.
“South Carolinians,” one disdainful Virginian remarked. He spit and added, “Trash.”
Funk led his brigade right over them, insisting his men dress their lines and step on whoever lay there in their way.
Couldn’t believe it. He kicked a bareheaded, shaking captain hugging the earth like a drunkard atop a hoor.
“Get up, you coward.”
The captain did not rise. Funk kicked him again, harder, and moved on. Many another disgusted Virginian gave voice to their contempt. The men were riled enough over Jackson’s wounding—thanks to a lawless pack of North Carolinians, men who at least had some fight in them now and then. Before promotion had taken Jackson from them, the veterans striding forward had served under Old Jack like unto forever, right back to the miseries of western Virginia in winter—coldest nights a man had ever felt and days as bad.
Insulted and shamed, a voice rose from the mass of men who’d quit: “You Ginny-boys going to learn, just wait. Be back faster than you done gone, you’ll see.”
An irate Virginia voice answered, “South Carolina started this-here war. Seems better men have to fight it for you.”
Funk’s first line climbed over the entrenchments and re-formed. The men didn’t need orders. They were the Stonewall Brigade.
Bodies lay about, a tithe from both sides. In blue or gray, the wounded went untended. Those who could muster the strength propelled themselves along at an agonized crawl, dragging ruined limbs. Groaning, bleating.
A boy whose eyes had been shot from his head complained that he could not see.
Through all of it, General Paxton strode forward proudly, marching between the brigade’s regiments, an inspiration to every man who saw him. The brigade commander had been other than himself earlier that morning, unusually somber, but now he looked fine and fit.
The morning had been a trial, with Raleigh Colston gallivanting from brigade to brigade, dispensing orders that ranged from the uncertain to the impracticable. The Stonewall Brigade had been ready to go forward, but others weren’t. And time had fled.
From the ranks, a soldier called, “Jackson!” Other voices took up the name, chanting. Funk joined in, guiding the regiment onward with his sword.
His skirmishers had disappeared, gobbled by the undergrowth. Funk’s boots plopped into mud. The first line staggered as a hidden marsh grabbed shoes and the worst thickets yet defied efforts to go forward.
The calls of “Jackson!” faded as men cursed unexpected aggravations, angrier at having their feet mud-slopped than they were at the heathen Yankees.
“Come on, boys!” Funk called. “Keep going. Just get on through it. It’s just a little ways now.”
He had no idea whether it would, indeed, be “a little ways.” But he didn’t know what else to say.
Miserable place. The bog made him think of snakes, creatures he did not care for. But there were far more dangerous animals waiting, up on two legs.
The regiment had not progressed a hundred yards from the entrenchments when a streak of blinding light filled the low horizon. The volley’s roar followed instantly.
Men cried out or dropped with a splash. Nearby soldiers looked to Funk.
“Keep on, keep on,” he ordered. “Get through this, don’t stop now.”
Natural enough to want to halt and shoot back, but it wouldn’t do. Couldn’t even see any Yankees to shoot at.
His men bashed at the undergrowth with rifle butts. Some of nature’s lattices were so thick they stopped men cold.
“Keep going! Forward!”
Another volley thudded into his lines, the cost terrible.
“Don’t stop, boys! Come on!”
The Yankees were firing at will now, picking their targets, while Funk’s men remained stymied by nature itself.
Funk could see them now, though, the blue-bellies. Heads, shoulders, rifles.
The regiment kept going. As best as Funk could sense matters, the entire brigade continued to advance.
Infernal place.
And the Yankees … he couldn’t remember facing such a concentrated fire. Men kept falling, draping themselves over briars.
At last, Funk reached dry ground. A wounded Yankee had crawled atop it to avoid drowning in a few inches of marsh water. His eyes were huge with terror.
Rough ranks parted and stepped to both sides of the Federal.
A line of entrenchments, uneven but effective. Cocked blue caps, indistinct faces, here and there a torso exposed as the Yankees steadied their rifles atop the works. Plenty of them, too, thick as prunes in a stew pot.
Without an order, his soldiers paused on the solid earth, firing at their antagonists. There was a sense, an instinct, in play, the sudden conviction that going one step further meant certain death. Yet there was no inclination to retreat: They were where they were, and this was the fighting ground.
Stink of powder. Biting smoke.
It wouldn’t do. His men were too exposed, while the Yankees had the cover. They had to charge or quit.
About to demand that his soldiers plunge ahead, Funk was delayed by the splashing of Lieutenant
Barton, General Paxton’s man, coming from the rear.
“Colonel!” he called. “Colonel Funk!” His words were barely audible through the racket.
Funk expected an order to advance. Then he saw that Barton glistened with tears.
“The general’s dead, he’s dead!” the lieutenant shouted, as if deafened. “You’re in command, you have the brigade! General Paxton’s dead, he had a presentiment. He’s dead, you—”
Funk gripped the lieutenant’s arm and shook him. “Stop this, Barton. Think, man. What can you tell me? How’s the brigade faring, overall?”
Barton was unmanned. Still, he reported: “Colonel Edmondson’s down, too. Arm all but shot away. And the Fourth … the Fourth Virginia’s been shot all to pieces. In that swamp.”
“You go on back now. Find General Colston. Or speak right to General Stuart, if you see him. Tell him where we stand and ask for orders. Tell him we need support, the Yankees are thick as termites on a stump.”
The lieutenant gathered himself and left.
Funk collected soldiers he knew and trusted, sending them right and left to sister regiments, ordering his fellow colonels to prepare for an assault on the entrenchments. Then, in an irresistible fury, he led his own men forward twenty yards and steadied the line. The storm of musket fire was fit to stun, but he thanked the stars the Yankees had no cannon along this line.
Sounded as though their guns were busy elsewhere.
A passel of Yankees climbed out of their ditch and attempted a countercharge. The Virginians shot them down with hardmouthed glee.
They stood there, his men, firing and reloading, waiting for an order that would take them in one direction or the other. Stalwart.
What should he do?
As his couriers filtered back, the consensus was that the Yankees were too strongly posted, that a charge would only add casualties. But Funk could not bear the prospect that his first order as the head of the Stonewall Brigade should be to withdraw.
