House Divided

by Ben Ames Williams

  Barksdale’s drums up the road yonder were beating the assembly; and Longstreet returned to where an orderly held his horse and rode back to watch Barksdale’s charge. The enemy fire was concentrated now on Kershaw and on Semmes; so Barksdale’s regiments as they formed front of battle had a respite from punishment. Longstreet spoke to McLaws.

  “Very well,” he said. “Let Barksdale go.”

  The Mississippians had been pent till they were taut for action; they were off at a bound. Wofford’s brigade came on behind them, and Longstreet, dismounting again, went with Wofford toward the road. It was impossible to see through the smoke and dust, but his ears quickly caught a sudden sharp difference in the tumult before him, and his pulse lifted in a great exhilaration. By God, Barksdale had already overrun that damned battery! Now the guns were silent, the smoke thinned and he could see. The Yankees were broken; the angle of their line was ruptured, swinging back in fragments.

  Oh, drive them, drive them now! Never let them rally, never let them stand! Send Wofford on! Send word to Powell Hill on the left that it was time for his men to take a hand! Bring up the guns! He spoke quickly to the first messengers at hand, and they raced away to convey his orders. Farm buildings stood beside the lane that led toward the peach orchard. He paused in front of the house. “I’ll be here, or near here, if you wish to find me,” he told McLaws. “You have them now! Go on!”

  Alexander’s guns, blanketed by the advance of the infantry, had been briefly silent; but now with the Yankee line broken, Alexander could rush them forward into closer action. Since some apple trees behind the house obscured his view that way, Longstreet rode down along the lane a few paces more till he could see clearly in that direction. Yonder by the guns there was an orderly milling of men and plunging horses. Alexander had not waited for orders to seize his opportunity. Limber to the front!

  Longstreet’s eye swept the ground over which the batteries must advance to reach the peach orchard, and he saw a rail fence in their path. Beyond the fence, Major Fairfax and a few men were herding a flock of Yankee prisoners at a trot across the road. Longstreet loosed that great voice that could be heard above the roar of battle:

  “Fairfax! Get that damned fence away!”

  Fairfax heard and drove the prisoners to the task. A gate with stone posts was too narrow for guns to pass; but the men attacked the fence beside the gate, and under their hands it disappeared as chalk marks on a blackboard vanish under the stroke of a wet rag.

  Then they scattered, for here came the guns, Alexander with his sword drawn leading them: six batteries, twenty-four guns, six horses to a gun, the guns bouncing and careening behind the limbers, caissons following at the gallop. The gap in the fence was wide enough; but the leading gun on this side swerved close to one of those stone posts, and a man on foot, running swift as a hound beside his gun, was crowded against the post. The washer hook plucked at him, and something like an unfurling pink ribbon came out of him and dragged him off his feet and on till the ribbon parted and he rolled over and over along the ground.

  Longstreet averted his eyes. Forget the man, watch the grand spectacle of those racing guns; three or four hundred horses, five or six hundred men, the batteries as perfectly in formation as though on the drill ground, the drivers riding three to a gun and urging their mounts with whip and spur. Oh that was a splendid and a glorious spectacle, if you could forget the man whose entrails had been drawn out of him.

  As the head of the column reached the orchard yonder, Longstreet saw Colonel Alexander wheel; his sword hand swept up and to the right. Action front! The first battery whirled, each gun team swinging in perfect pattern. Before they were full halted, the men were at the pintle hooks; before the caissons had passed Longstreet’s vantage here, the first guns yonder were already firing. The others as they arrived took station to pour upon the stubbornly retreating enemy a flood of fire.

  The man whom the washer hook had disembowelled no longer moved. Longstreet’s eyes touched him, then turned to scan the battle. The fight was rolling along the road and moving off down the slope below. Lee had wanted that high ground north of the peach orchard. Well, it was his; they had it, they would hold it.

  But success had opened opportunity. They could do much more, could tumble half Meade’s broken line northward toward the cemetery, could jam the other half back against the Round Tops, could cut his whole damned army in two and shatter it! Bring in Hill’s corps! General Lee was doubtless with Hill, a mile or so to the north. He would see to the work there; but Anderson’s division of Hill’s corps was close by. Longstreet, hot with battle passion, mounted and rode to Anderson.

  “Throw Wilcox at them, General!” he said crisply. “Let him sweep those bluebellies off Barksdale’s flank.”

  General Wilcox was with Anderson. He wore an old straw hat and a short jacket, more like a comfortable farmer than a soldier. His side whiskers were bristling, his heavy mustache hid the line of his mouth which always suggested that he tasted something bitter. He was an old West Pointer, a soldier ever since his graduation; and despite his bucolic garb he was a skillful and a bold leader. If he had a weakness, it lay in the fact that he saw obstacles as clearly as he saw opportunities; and now before General Anderson could reply he said, pointing toward the road: “That apple orchard will force me to the left!” But he went with General Anderson toward his brigade.

  Longstreet, watching them move away, heard his name called, and turned and saw General Pickett. He felt a fine satisfaction. Now the whole First Corps was again in hand. He said warmly:

  “Ah, General, I’m glad to see you!” Remembering even in this moment Pickett’s infatuation for that lady in Petersburg, he asked with a twinkle in his eye: “How’s Miss Sally?”

  “Excellently well, General.”

  “Splendid. Where is your division?”

  “The head is up,” Pickett told him. “The division is stretched out along the road. We left Chambersburg soon after midnight.”

  Longstreet nodded. “Then you’ll be ready for work tomorrow.” He turned his attention to the field again.

  To keep clear of that orchard in his path, Wilcox was moving by the left flank. Once past the obstacle, he bore to the right up slightly rising ground toward the road. Skirmish fire met him, but the brigade pushed on and the Yankee skirmishers withdrew. Infantry in line of battle in the road, protecting a battery there, held for a moment while most of the guns were hustled off and then gave way; and Wilcox and his men pressed across the road and down descending slopes beyond.

  Off to the left, Perry’s brigade came in on Wilcox’s flank, meeting heavy fire as they crossed each roll of the ground on the way to the road. General Anderson, again at Longstreet’s side, said Colonel Lang today commanded Perry’s brigade. Well, whoever led them, they were keeping the battle firm.

  “Who is that coming in beyond Perry?”

  “Wright.”

  Longstreet nodded with satisfaction. There was a fighting man, Ranse Wright! With no military training he had enlisted as a private. His regiment elected him Colonel, and before the war was a year old he won a general’s star. Longstreet sometimes thought Ranse Wright looked like Sam Hood, with the same sad and gentle eyes. His men would go anywhere he led them, following him with a blind adoration; for he had the gift of being liked, and with it the cool head and the shrewd eye which made him a fine tactician.

  Longstreet saw that Wright and the others were exploiting to the utmost the success already achieved. That outthrust Yankee salient which had been anchored on the peach orchard was all collapsing. Wilcox and Perry and Wright would pierce Meade’s line at its very center, isolate his whole left wing from his right. Powell Hill need only send forward support for Anderson’s men and the enemy would be broken and shattered. There was still time enough for great work to be done today.

  The situation was wholly favorable; the rest lay with General Hill. Longstreet left Anderson and rode back to the house where he had stood to watch the guns go
forward. McLaws was there to make report.

  “Kershaw had trouble,” he said. “His men got too far to the right and were badly raked; and then an enemy column came at him across that wheat field down there. It became a mêlée for a while. General Semmes took a mortal wound.” He added quietly: “Meade is pouring fresh troops into the field.”

  “Anderson’s brigades have cut Meade’s center,” Longstreet told him. He listened, impatiently watching toward the ridge a mile away. “Hill should be helping Anderson widen that break,” he grumbled. “Yes, and Ewell should be hitting the right to pin the Yankees in front of him. Why the hell don’t they move? If they’ll take a hand, we’ll rip Meade in two!”

  Below them the heavy battle rang; and over on the slopes of the ridge increasing musket fire said Anderson’s brigades were meeting reinforcements; but Hill sent no help to Anderson, and there was no stroke by Ewell. McLaws said quietly: “Barksdale was shot, down beyond the peach orchard. He cannot live.”

  Poor Barksdale, who had been so eager to plunge into this fray! Well, there would be tears for him down in Mississippi when they had the news. But though Barksdale was dead, or soon would be, yet now he was immortal too. His Mississippi men had swept the enemy away in the first hard push of their charge. Longstreet felt a moment’s sorrow for Barksdale, and for all the others who had fallen; but with it as he watched the battle came a deeper sadness.

  For the chance for a great victory was passing, and every moment made it less. Wilcox and Perry and Wright, after their steady thrust through the broken enemy and up the ridge yonder to cut Meade’s center, now were checked and under increasing pressure; but Hill did nothing to support them. As Longstreet saw the opportunity depart, he groaned aloud. Oh, this battle had gone badly! Hill was at fault, Hill and Ewell. If they had struck even half an hour ago, how different the tally now!

  They were at fault, but—and in his heart he knew it—so was he. In his sullen surprise at finding himself facing not the Yankee flank but a well-placed defensive line, he had blundered like a novice. Hood’s fine brigades had made their battle alone. They were fought to a standstill while the weight of artillery at the angle still held McLaws passive; their momentum was lost before McLaws moved, and McLaws in turn was checked before Anderson went in.

  Yet though the battle had been poorly managed—and for this Longstreet knew himself to blame—it had been won! Thirteen brigades had broken the Union line, had pierced the Union center. This was no credit to him, to be sure; but it was high credit to the men. No soldiers ever fought better than these men of his had fought today.

  But while thirteen brigades broke Meade’s center and rolled his line back to right and left, twice that many Confederate brigades stayed passive spectators. Longstreet, trying to forget that his own battle had been badly managed, damned Ewell’s inactivity, and Hill’s. But he could not forget. Why, he had been as clumsy as McClellan at Sharpsburg, fighting his battle a little at a time as McClellan had done on the hill between the Potomac and Antietam Creek. He should have held Hood in hand till he himself had fully surveyed the field, then massed guns against that angle by the peach orchard and thrown all his force against that salient in an overwhelming flood.

  Angry at his own errors, he spurred his horse forward. Down there in a wheat field below the road a Yankee battery was still at work. He crossed the road and overtook Wofford and called him on; and he rode in the van to sweep that battery away! This grand First Corps which was his pride had been glorious today, but he had failed them. There was a moment, riding toward those enemy guns, when he would have welcomed the blow of a bullet in his heart. Barksdale and Semmes had died in glory. Well, so would he! No man could ask a finer fate!

  But the gunners broke and fled; and Moxley Sorrel touched his arm. “This field is ours, General,” he urged. “The field is ours; but the sun’s gone. There’s no more to do today.”

  Longstreet filled his lungs, and calm returned to him. What Sorrel said was true. The sun had set, the roar of battle was diminishing. “See how the work goes on our left,” he directed. He himself rode toward the right. Goree reported that Kershaw’s men were short of ammunition. Well, they would not need much more. Meade might fight back tonight, but Longstreet doubted it; the Yankees had been too badly hurt today.

  There was still heavy musket fire on the slopes of the little Round Top, and he sent Major Currain for a report from that quarter. A reaction from these high hours began to possess him. He felt sleepy, and small details caught and held his dulled eyes. There were a great many dead and wounded men along the stone wall beside which he rode. Stone walls raised the devil with an attack; they were hard to carry, easy to defend. One man behind a stone wall was as strong as five men in the open; and this field where they had fought today was all stone walls and boulders and houses and woods and fences and orchards. Such ground made for deadly fighting.

  He heard a sudden storm of musketry to the north. New reinforcements must be hitting Wilcox. Let Peyton Manning go and see what could be done for him. At the word Manning whirled his horse so eagerly that he almost trampled a wounded man who had propped himself against a tree. Longstreet rode slowly toward the lane that led up to the peach orchard. He passed a dead man from whom blood had flowed down an eroded bank in a wavering line that reached twenty or thirty feet from where the man lay. How much blood was there in a man? Why did it not splash around inside of him audibly when he walked? Yonder a Negro moved from one still figure to the next, probably a servant looking for his master’s body. There would be many such seekers on this field tonight. In the woods, among the rocks, how many dead men would escape that search, would never be found; yes and living men, too, who had not strength to cry out and thus attract attention? As Longstreet reached the lane, someone screamed; and he saw a man with a dangling leg just being lifted into an ambulance, saw the pink-white end of a projecting bone. The ambulance jolted away, the man babbling in a vise of intolerable pain.

  Back at the house on the lane he found Sorrel and McLaws and General Law; and Major Currain came to report, and Colonel Manning presently appeared, carrying saddle and bridle because his horse had been killed under him. It was dark enough now so that against the sky, as the last shells went whirling toward the enemy, the burning fuses could be seen. Longstreet roused himself from the slaked listlessness which held him and sent Sorrel to report to General Lee.

  “Tell him we have that height he wanted for his guns,” he directed. “Say that I will stay here, in case Meade makes a night move.”

  To his divisional commanders he gave instructions. “Hold your positions and correct your lines. We may be ordered to attack in the morning. Have that in mind.” To General Law he added: “Reconnoiter to your right, around those hills, General.” Even now the best hope lay in that move to the right which he had urged upon the commanding general, and upon which Hood and Law when they saw the ground agreed.

  Colonel Alexander came for orders. “Place your guns with an eye to work tomorrow,” Longstreet directed. “General Lee will want you in position to pound the cemetery.” He remembered Lieutenant Wentz. “Did that lieutenant of yours find his family at home?”

  Alexander said: “His father, yes. The rest had moved to safety. When we seized the orchard, Wentz hustled his father down cellar out of harm’s way. We’ve a battery in his yard.” Alexander added in an amused tone: “The old man was sitting in his own kitchen smoking his pipe when the Lieutenant got to him. Several of our shells had hit his house, but fortunately he wasn’t hurt.”

  Longstreet said approvingly: “Well, Colonel, the Yankees around that house under your fire were hurt, thoroughly. A good day’s work.”

  When Alexander was gone, Longstreet asked the losses of the day. McLaws thought his strength had been reduced by at least two thousand bayonets; Law said Hood’s division now under his command had lost as many or more. So four thousand men had paid in blood for that high ground on which General Lee wished to place his guns. Four thousand men? A
heavy price. The whole army lost not many more than that at Fredericksburg! Four thousand? Yes, and Anderson’s brigades had losses, too.

  Major Currain requested permission to go seek Brett Dewain and find out how he had fared. Moxley Sorrel returned, and when he dismounted Longstreet saw some awkwardness in his movements. ‘Hurt?” he asked.

  “A shell fragment hit my right arm, bruised it a bit; nothing serious.” Sorrel made his report. “General Lee congratulates you on your success and says you have accomplished what he hoped. He requests that you renew the attack in the morning.”

  “He knows Pickett is here?”

  “Yes sir.”

  Longstreet nodded. Colonel Fremantle had come with Sorrel. “Well, Colonel,” Longstreet asked, “had you a good view?”

  “Yes, but a distant one.”

  “The enemy was not where we had been told he would be. We had to fight him where we found him.”

  “General Lee was right under my tree,” said the Englishman. “I was interested to see that he sent only one message. Apparently he leaves all details to his commanders.” He added smilingly: “I understand your staff objects to the way you exposed yourself!”

  Longstreet grunted. Major Fairfax joined them, exasperated because he had spent most of his time marching prisoners to the rear. “Like a damned mule driver,” he declared, and they laughed, glad to find an excuse for mirth. Currain came back and to Longstreet’s question answered that Dewain was all right.