Darkness at Chancellorsville

by Ralph Peters

  Meade suspected that Butterfield, newly arrived, was behind the meeting, but he couldn’t yet figure out why it had been called. Surely not a council of war—Hooker wasn’t that sort.

  “The situation, as I see it,” Hooker continued, “is challenging. Were we to attack Lee from this position toward Fredericksburg—an attack to the east—our initial moves would be confined to forest roads easily blocked.” His eyes settled on Meade. “George has seen those narrow lanes firsthand. To force our way through would be to invite excessive casualties—possibly for naught.”

  Meade said nothing, didn’t nod and didn’t change his expression. He wanted to know what Joe Hooker was up to.

  “As I see it,” Hooker said, forcing his posture to the haughty rectitude no man liked, “a frontal attack to the south could involve even greater risks. Lee has been erecting field fortifications.”

  “As have we,” Reynolds put in, his voice verging on crankiness. He looked about to drop right where he stood.

  Hooker ignored the comment. “Alternatively, should Lee be reinforced and choose to attack us here, he would, no doubt, pay a heavy price … but that downpour earlier … I believe it reminded us all that we have our backs to a river and rely on bridges that flooding would put at risk. May can be a rainy month in Virginia, after all.” He glanced from face to face, registering doubts, and added, “I merely note that, of course.”

  Everyone waited.

  Fumbling, Hooker drew a paper scrap from his pocket. “I have here the latest dispatch from Sedgwick’s headquarters. He fears he may be compelled to withdraw across the Rappahannock tonight. I shall know more within the hour, but, at present, he finds his position untenable. Given the river’s rise, the possibility of more rain at any time…”

  “Then Sedgwick could reinforce us here,” Howard said. “Were we to advance on Lee.”

  Hooker’s grimace made clear that the suggestion was less than welcome. Meade caught Butterfield turning to Hooker then turning back again without intervening.

  Their eyes met and Butterfield smiled at Meade, as if in hoary friendship. The chief of staff took charge of the silence and asked, “Anyone for a cigar? If I brought nothing else to this army, I did bring along good smokes.”

  Only Sickles took one. When he realized he had been the sole willing recipient, he didn’t light it.

  Meade noticed a drip through the canvas. It reignited his frequent anger about the shoddy goods supplied to the army.

  “Gentlemen,” Hooker resumed, “let me share my standing orders with you. At the cost of all else, this army is directed to defend Washington. And, frankly, I worry about the steadiness of some of our regiments, those near the end of their enlistments. I must bear that in mind. In view of our duty to protect the capital.”

  “Joe, that’s an old bugbear,” Meade spoke up. “This business of covering Washington at every turn has paralyzed this army time and again.” He swallowed fetid air and plunged ahead. “If we hit Lee—hard, with all we’ve got—he’s not about to scamper off to capture Stanton and Chase.”

  Hooker looked venomous, but he managed to smile. “Now we have the opinion of Rittenhouse Square.…”

  Meade felt as though, short of that last remark, Hooker had seemed to be reading from a script someone else had written. It sounded like Joe, but it didn’t. Butterfield again, Meade was certain.

  He reminded himself that they all were worn and short-tempered. Margaret would have taken him up for his lack of consideration, his impatience. At such a moment, clear thought, without prejudice, was essential. The hour demanded fairness, even to men he detested.

  In the distance, some ass began to sing, as if he’d found a bottle.

  “All right,” Butterfield said, speaking up for the first time, “the commanding general puts the following proposition to the corps commanders present. Shall we attack Lee tomorrow and risk a decisive battle? Or should we withdraw the army to the north bank of the river? This isn’t about formulating specific plans. It’s a straightforward proposition.” The New Yorker looked around, a man forever weighing the value of everything before him.

  “The commanding general and I will withdraw,” Butterfield continued, “so all may express their opinions, unembarrassed by our presence. Warren will remain—with your permission—as an informed resource, should you have inquiries about the state of the field. He knows Uncle John’s situation firsthand, as well as our own dispositions in detail.” He gathered up papers he had not used, as if they were props in a theater, their purpose served. “Summon us when you’re ready with your advice.”

  The two men left.

  The remaining generals regarded each other warily. Meade was the first to speak:

  “He’s already made up his mind to retreat, that’s clear. Well, I vote to fight. To bring every corps in this army to bear against Lee. Without delay. Strike him tomorrow morning.”

  “Hear, hear!” Howard all but shouted. “My corps … I won’t minimize the difficulties we created for this army, but my men want to fight, to erase the stain. They’d be eager to lead the attack.”

  Disappointing Meade—not for the first time—Couch said, “I don’t know. I can see both sides.”

  Reynolds woke from his stupor. “I say fight. I’m with George and Otis. We didn’t come down here just to take a stroll.” He tottered, slipping a half step back, finding it difficult to remain on his feet. “My corps hasn’t made much of a contribution—hasn’t been allowed to—so we haven’t bled as others have. Thus I can’t urge my view to an excess. But I favor an attack on Lee tomorrow.” His eyes met Meade’s, but Reynolds could not hold the focus. “Sorry, I have to sit down. I’m sorry.” He looked about for a camp chair with the ungainly wildness of exhaustion. “If I fall asleep, George has my proxy. I vote as he votes.”

  Silent until then, Sickles declared, “I don’t believe Joe expects a formal vote. Just an informal poll.” He shrugged, mustaches fallen and face begrimed. “I believe my corps has fought as well and as long as any here. And I say without shame that I favor a retreat.”

  That shocked Meade. Sickles had been all blood and thunder since the campaign’s first day.

  “Dan…,” he said. But the needed words didn’t come quickly enough and Sickles continued:

  “Yes, a retreat would signal a reverse. But while I’m not a professional soldier like the rest of you, I think I can claim experience of the political profession—and speaking as a former politician, the country could bear a reverse of the sort we’ve suffered, a disappointment but not a disaster.” He surveyed the room as if facing a greater crowd and his tone assumed a rhetorician’s flourish. “A catastrophic defeat, though? A mass surrender, with our men pressed against the river? Pressed into the river? Ball’s Bluff magnified a hundred times? Why, the entire Union would lose heart.”

  He held out his hand, as if to reassure them. “If we withdraw, we will suffer vituperation … and Joe, poor Joe will be vilified. But he’s man enough to bear the burden, I think. We all can bear the burden.” Again, he made a show of searching their faces. “But would any of us welcome the blame for the final dissolution of the Union? If this army is destroyed, that will be our fate.”

  “That’s an exaggeration, Dan, and you know it,” Meade snapped. Restraining his anger, he continued, “If Sharpe’s right, we still outnumber Lee two to one. He’s not about to destroy this army.” He snorted. “We might do the job ourselves, but Bobby Lee won’t.”

  Couch leaned into the lamplight, features earnest. “No, George, I see Dan’s point. Oh, we’re all fighters here, every one of us. But the potential consequences…”

  Startled and betrayed, Meade turned to Warren. “Guvvie, what do you think? You’ve seen every position, every line.”

  “George, I don’t command a corps. I’m … only here to offer expertise. Such as it may be.”

  “But you’ve got a damned mind, an informed opinion. Just tell us what you think.”

  Warren weighed the request.
The lantern sputtered. Outside, men laughed.

  Beginning with a sigh, Warren said, “I’ve begged Joe to attack. Earlier this evening, I begged him.” He looked down, already defeated. “I’d hoped something would come of this … this meeting. A decision to fight, a plan of battle…”

  “Well, something has come of it,” Meade told him. “Five corps commanders present, three in favor of a morning attack.”

  “Remember, this wasn’t a formal vote,” Sickles insisted. “Nobody can claim that. It was just an informal poll. Nothing binding.”

  “Let’s see what else Joe has to say,” Couch offered. “Tell him what we think and see where it goes.” Musing, he added, “I’m not against an attack … I simply don’t favor one.”

  Meade wanted to vomit. Darius Couch seemed more the politician than Dan Sickles. And Dan … what had gotten into him?

  Butterfield? They were cronies, of course, Butterfield, Hooker, and Sickles. What was Butterfield up to? Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to have gone as had been expected. Dan was fidgety, a serving maid suspected of stealing spoons.

  He wished he were not so weary, wished he could think with greater subtlety.

  Hooker and his chief of staff returned. Hooker listened to each man’s views with great solemnity, a dignity pompous and false. After the others had had their say, Meade spoke for Reynolds while the First Corps commander continued to snore in his chair.

  Hooker’s façade, already weakened, crumbled as Meade spoke. But he pasted up two-thirds of his bordello grin and concluded by saying, “Thank you, gentlemen. I have decided to withdraw the army. If Lee does not attack us tomorrow, our movement will commence as darkness falls. Orders of march will be provided by the staff in the morning.” He gave Meade a killing look. “You are dismissed.”

  * * *

  Awakened and accompanied to his horse, Reynolds asked Meade:

  “If he’d already made up his mind to retreat, why gather us up at midnight?”

  * * *

  “That goddamned Meade,” Joe Hooker said. “That bastard son of a syphilitic whore…”

  “Best to keep your voice down,” Butterfield told him.

  “Now this.” Hooker held Sedgwick’s latest message in a trembling hand. “He wants me to authorize him to run away, to recross his corps immediately.”

  “Let him,” Butterfield said.

  “But my plan…”

  “Let him. But don’t lose that message, get it in the logs. That’s his contribution, another cause of failure. Not your fault, Joe.”

  Hooker’s features took on the innocence of an earnest child. “I could have beaten Lee. I could have done it. They let me down, all of them.”

  “I know.”

  “That piss-cutter Meade … I’d like to go at that snot with my bare fists.”

  “I have a better idea,” Butterfield told him. “Designate the Fifth Corps as the rear guard for the crossing. Were Lee to strike while the crossing was under way … well, Meade would be responsible for any losses. Wouldn’t he? And if, say, there were trouble at the bridges and the rear guard was cut off … George wants to fight, so let him.”

  “I … don’t want to be vengeful, you understand.”

  “Of course not.”

  FOURTEEN

  May 5 to May 6

  With the morning’s revelations, Lee’s bridled rage gave way to bitterness and a steady, simmering anger toward his subordinates. He had risen before dawn, barely teased by sleep. He could not recall his dreams, but they had been troubled. A glass of buttermilk and a campfire biscuit did not appease him, and the evening’s rain had left behind a morass that soiled his boots. He was curt with the servant who cared for his uniforms and sour toward the groom who saw to his horse. Then a witless soldier surprised him during a quarrel with his bowels. Soon after, the first news arrived from the morning’s advance. It gripped him like a cramp.

  The Union Sixth Corps had escaped. His advancing skirmishers had discovered only forgotten pickets, bewildered stragglers, a handful of eager deserters, and a wealth of abandoned equipment and supplies. Despite the nightlong shelling of Banks’ Ford, Sedgwick had slipped off, retreating with a finesse he had not shown on the attack.

  The dilatory actions—the contemptible indolence—of McLaws, Anderson, and even Early the day before had robbed the army of a magnificent prize: an entire Union corps offered for the taking.

  With his generals sent off again, smarting and in receipt of explicit orders, he turned to Taylor and said, with unwonted sharpness:

  “What is this commotion, Major? Who are those men? I cannot think with this noise.”

  Taylor nodded, meek as a maid, and said, “I’ll see to it, sir.” And off he strode to quiet the headquarters hangers-on, the scouts and orderlies, the couriers and commissaries, none of whose behavior had been unusual.

  Instantly, Lee was ashamed of himself: Authority abused was authority compromised. All through his career, he had taken pains to be civil, even in distasteful situations. An officer’s task—a soldier’s duty—was to protect the weak, and, by definition, every subordinate was weaker than his superior.

  This war had cost him so much. He must not let it compromise his character. He would not allow it to render him common and spiteful.

  Even the innermost members of his staff avoided approaching him. He stepped still farther apart from those who served him, staring northward then lifting his eyes to the heavens. The day could not decide on a course, with a masked sun and sailing clouds showing luminous borders. It must not rain. Not again. Not before he completed his final and greatest task: the destruction of Joseph Hooker’s mishandled army.

  He had dispatched them, his three right-flank generals, to gather their soldiers and march to join the divisions waiting at Chancellorsville. Before this day was out, the Army of the Potomac would be shattered and captive, no matter the cost in lives.

  And the war might end before summer came to the South.

  * * *

  “No,” Hooker said, handing back the draft order, “I want the wounded moved now. And the supply wagons. Then the reserve artillery. I want them across the river before dark, it’s going to be hard enough to get the batteries and six corps across in one night. Three bridges or thirty, things go wrong.” He nodded to Butterfield. “Other than that, good work.”

  Butterfield held the pages in both hands, not quite ready to have them copied and distributed.

  “Joe … I hear what you’re saying … but if we start moving the wounded now, to say nothing of the trains, it might alert Lee. And it could send the wrong signal to the men.”

  “I want the wounded evacuated today. Starting as soon as possible. No more discussion, Dan.” He stopped cold but then added, “Except for those too badly hurt, of course. Arrange for surgeons to stay behind, look after them. Plenty of medical supplies, don’t be parsimonious.”

  Butterfield could not help but be impressed by the man before him, a fellow who had become all but a stranger over the past few days. Since waking that morning, Joe had been the old Hooker, lucid and decisive, a different man from the addled creature of the day before.

  A realization gripped Butterfield, the prospect of a splendid opportunity.

  “Joe, you’re brilliant,” he said. And he meant it. By and large.

  Hooker smirked. “I’m glad somebody in this army sees it.”

  “No, truly. The wounded. Moving them now.” Butterfield felt almost hopeful again. “We can push that in the newspapers, it’s pure bullion: ‘Hooker cares for his wounded soldiers first.’ Really, that’s good.”

  “It’s not about the newspapers,” Hooker said. He sounded uncomfortably sincere.

  Butterfield waved his hands. “Doesn’t matter. Either way. The folks back home will like it. The voters…”

  “Speaking of which … I’d like you to take care of keeping Lincoln informed. To the degree he needs to be informed.” Hooker met Butterfield’s eyes. “You know how to put things. In that wo
rld. Spoon up the porridge, placate him.” He took out a filthy rag and cleared his nostrils, one then the other. “The man saw two Indians once and thinks he’s a soldier. Just see to that end of things.”

  “Sure, Joe. I’ll handle it.” Butterfield lifted the papers a few inches, calling Hooker’s attention back to the order. “Anything else? Before I get this out?”

  “No, I think that’s all.” Hooker straightened his back and lifted his chin. Even with the side of his face bruised and misshapen, he remained the public’s model of a general, an inspiring figure even now for the soldiers. “Meanwhile, if Lee’s fool enough to attack us today, in this position … God help him, because I won’t.”

  “Joe … you don’t really believe he’d consider attacking? Now? Here? Given the time we’ve had to entrench, the numbers? He’d be utterly mad.…”

  “Not mad. Proud. Mark my words, his pride will be Lee’s undoing. Today or another day.”

  Butterfield shrugged. “I’ll get this off.”

  As the chief of staff turned back to his duties, Hooker added, “Send the first copy to Meade. We’ll see just how badly he wants to fight, after all.”

  * * *

  Through a smudged window, he glimpsed the glory of God’s creation. The sky was overcast, that odd gray that could nag the eye with brightness, still he found it beautiful. Turning his head just a little on his pillow, he saw treetops in new leaf, and when he had awakened at dawn he heard birdsong, not artillery. He never had found the words, not even with the few women who had come close to him, to express his wonder at the Lord’s generosity, the fruitfulness, or the splendor that awaited a man each day.

  He recalled those summer afternoons in the glade across the river, the slow waters cooling the air, the green scent of life, and his unthinking youth.

  How long ago that was, and how very fine it had been.

  The Lord had given him much upon this earth, so very much. If the Lord had seen fit to take his arm—surely for good reason—his gratitude and soul remained intact.