Cain at Gettysburg

by Ralph Peters

  A minute later, Lieutenant Devereaux appeared to tell the men they could fall out. The company had to send out pickets, though.

  “Time enough to cook coffee, sir?” Tam McMinn asked.

  “Wouldn’t risk it,” the officer said.

  “What’s holding things up, Lieutenant?” Peachum asked. He dug into his haversack for a cracker.

  “Spy fellow claims there’s Yankees ahead, next town yonder.”

  “Told you I smelled ’em,” Peachum crowed.

  “Lot of them?” Blake asked.

  The lieutenant shrugged. He was the decent son of respectable parents, nothing more. Not among the highly favored, although better born than Lieutenant Colonel Lane. “We have orders not to get ourselves in a fight. That’s all I know.”

  Peachum looked up at the sky. “Well, now, I guess we can just stand here and get rained on.”

  But the courier retraced his route, horse lathered, and the column quickly re-formed. The eastward march continued. Every man paid more attention to the flanks now. Watching for a glimpse of a blue uniform. Weariness faded. Senses peaked.

  No Yankees appeared. No shots rang out. Rain fell again.

  “’Least it keeps things cooled down,” James Bunyan said.

  They passed another tavern, this one set on a ridge where country roads joined. The column descended the slope and compressed its files to hurry over a bridge. A narrow creek had overrun its banks.

  Just short of the next crest, the column halted again.

  “Just one time,” Pike Gray said, “just once, I wish I could be an officer up there on a fine, high horse so I’d know just what the devil’s going on.”

  “Get shot right off it, too,” Cobb told him.

  Lieutenant Devereaux wheeled his mount from a group of officers and raced back along the column. Yanking back too hard on the bit, he reared up short of Blake.

  “Sergeant Blake! Take out skirmishers! Right and forward. Honor to the Twenty-sixth!”

  And the boy turned away again, without having said how many men were to go. Blake culled a dozen and waved them out along the edge of a woodline, then pushed on into the trees. On either side of him, men checked their weapons as they walked, then trailed their rifles to load them with dry powder.

  Blake’s senses burned bright. The rustle of the column off to his left fitted into a box, letting him hear the other, nearer sounds. Wet brush stroked him, briars went ignored. It was ever a wonder to him how the mind ranked dangers so finely, concentrating mightily on survival.

  The trees weren’t thick enough to hide a man. No birds sang.

  He kept a watch on the men beside him, but they knew their work and maintained their intervals. Some crouched like hunters, while others walked upright and strained to see ahead, but all of them moved silently. The wet earth smelled of rot.

  They climbed through the grove. Their silence grew wintry, the stillness of men intent on killing game.

  The trees didn’t thin, they just stopped. Every man paused before breaking from the concealment. The crest of the ridge lay just a dash ahead. But no one had a mind to run.

  Blake stepped out into the open, going cautiously at first. Other men took his lead. A crow’s abrupt complaint startled them all.

  They had moved at an angle and, looking left, Blake saw that they had only come parallel with the head of the column. Other skirmishers had been thrown forward, too. He reached a narrow lane that traced the crest. A few hundred yards northward, General Pettigrew sat on his mount, surrounded by his subordinates, all of them focused on a distant scene.

  Blake followed their line of vision.

  Before a cluster of fine brick buildings, blue-jacketed cavalrymen watched the men in gray who were watching them. Some of the Yankees remained mounted, but others had their boots on the earth, carbines ready.

  Blake waved his skirmish line forward, down a mild slope of wet wheat. A column of Federals trotted out from the town beyond the near buildings, reinforcing their comrades. They did not appear alarmed by the Confederate presence.

  “Those ain’t no militia,” Pike Gray said.

  “Keep moving,” Blake told him, trying to pitch his voice just right. “No talking.”

  This was it, then. How it began. Again. A few men against a few men. Would it remain a minor skirmish? Or lead to a fair battle? It hardly mattered to him and those beside him. As they descended the slope, headed toward the flank of the Union horsemen, they moved at the edge of the world.

  A courier broke from General Pettigrew’s side and cantered down the ridge toward the skirmishers. Blake signaled to the men to halt where they were. Some knelt down, half-disappearing into the wheat. Clutching their rifles.

  The rider reached them, a lieutenant Blake didn’t recognize. The officer eyed Blake’s chevrons.

  “Withdraw your men, Sergeant,” the lieutenant told him. “Fall back on your company. Orders are to reverse the march immediately.” He spurred his mount back toward his brother officers.

  “Take a shot?” John Bunyan asked as the hoofbeats faded away. “I could drop one of them blue-bellies from here.”

  “No,” Blake said.

  * * *

  Brigadier General James Johnston Pettigrew was born on July 4, 1828. His family possessed wealth and social prominence that reached from their North Carolina plantation southward to Charleston and northward to Philadelphia. Handsome and brilliant, Pettigrew graduated first in his class at Chapel Hill at the age of nineteen, received a prized appointment as an astronomer at the Naval Observatory in Washington, and soon discarded a position that slighted his genius. He read the law in a gentlemanly fashion, in the office of Charleston relatives, and took that city’s society in thrall. He traveled to Europe, twice, and privately published a handsome account of Spain. A former superior called Pettigrew “the most promising young man of the South.”

  But Pettigrew felt a lack in his lustrous life: military glory.

  An eager member of the Charleston militia, he applied himself to the study of military science. In the course of his European sojourns, which included earning a law degree from Berlin, he first attempted to join the Prussian army, but royal officials found his interest suspect. He later sought to attach himself to the French army as it marched to face the Austrians in Italy, but the Battle of Solferino ended that war before he could find a suitable place among the officers of Napoleon III.

  After returning to Charleston with fewer laurels than hoped, Pettigrew became the colonel of the First Regiment of Rifles, the most fashionable assembly of militia companies. After unsuccessful efforts to cajole the surrender of Ft. Sumter, he faced a setback when General Beauregard’s arrival trimmed his authority. South Carolina seemed not to value his services sufficiently, so he acquired the colonelcy of the 22nd North Carolina. Within months, President Davis bowed to society’s dictates and personally pressed Pettigrew to don a brigadier’s star. After a polite interval of reflection, Pettigrew accepted.

  His reputation grew, but not to the heights of fame scaled by other men. Opportunities for glory flirted, but then fled. Thus, on a gray afternoon in a Pennsylvania hamlet, James Johnston Pettigrew was dismayed by the reaction of his division commander to his report.

  General Heth frowned and said nothing. In the street, commissary wagons roiled the mud.

  “The Union army is at Gettysburg,” Pettigrew repeated. “I refrained from an attempt to enter the town, sir, in accordance with my instructions not to precipitate a battle. But there can be no doubt that the Federals are before us.”

  “The Hell you say,” Heth told him.

  It long since had struck Pettigrew that Heth, although a Virginian, was not quite a gentleman.

  “We observed their cavalry for nearly thirty minutes,” Pettigrew continued. “Their behavior suggested a larger force nearby. I believe, sir, the Yankee army is to our front. General Lee must be informed.”

  Heth shook his head. “Shit for the birds, Pettigrew. There’s nothing out
there but militia. You’re seeing hants.”

  James Johnston Pettigrew was mortified. He knew what he had seen. And he was not accustomed to being called a fool, if not a liar. Before the war, such treatment would have merited a visit from his seconds.

  “Some of the men reported hearing drums, sir,” he pressed on. “Drums would, of course, mean the presence of infantry.”

  “I know what goddamned drums mean.”

  Appearing behind the trail wagon of the train, General Hill, the corps commander, came on at a trot, followed by his retinue. Spying the division and brigade commanders in consultation, he reined in his horse and dismounted.

  “Get your new shoes, Harry?” he asked Heth.

  Heth grimaced and rolled his eyes heavenward. “Not by a damned sight. General Pettigrew here didn’t see fit to enter Gettysburg. He reports”—Heth curled his lip—“the presence of Yankee cavalry. Not farmers on mules, the real thing.”

  A. P. Hill snorted. He looked pained, his tall frame cramped up. There were personal matters that did not bear discussion, indelicate considerations, Pettigrew understood. The general’s long, greasy hair repelled him, too.

  “Well now,” Hill said, “I’ve just come from General Lee.” He picked at his calico shirt as if hunting a louse. “His staff puts the Yankees down in Maryland. Haven’t even struck their tents.” He smirked. “Scared, most like. Got a new commander. George Meade, the glorious builder of lighthouses.”

  “How current is the staff’s information, sir?” Pettigrew asked.

  That annoyed Hill. “Current enough, I expect.”

  “I told him it had to be militia,” Heth explained, as if Pettigrew were no longer present. “Just farmers got up to parade around on their mules, then run like Hell.”

  “With respect, sir,” Pettigrew said, “the cavalrymen we saw were not about to run away.”

  Hill shifted from one leg to the other, as if feeling the need to relieve his body. His tone grew conciliatory, though, indulging a child. “Well, now … we all know it’s easy enough to get excited. Everybody’s looking forward to a fight, not just you, General Pettigrew. Get excited, your eyes play tricks.”

  Suppressing his sense of ill-treatment as best he could, Pettigrew turned and waved to his aide-de-camp, who had kept a respectful distance across the road.

  “Captain Young!” he called. “Come here.”

  Young had served under Hill during the Seven Days. Hill knew him and liked him. Perhaps the corps commander would listen to Young.

  The captain sloshed across the ravaged street, high boots and spurs digging deep. It was hard to move with dignity.

  The young man saluted the generals as he approached, tilting his saber out of the mud with his other hand.

  “Captain Young, would you please report what you saw on the ridge before Gettysburg today?”

  “Yes, sir. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Immediately to the west of Gettysburg, we observed Union cavalry vedettes. They moved in good order and were reinforced with additional elements as we watched.”

  “Militia. On mules,” Heth said.

  Young’s expression instantly grew wary. But he, too, had seen what he’d seen. “I didn’t judge them to be militia, sir. They appeared extremely well-drilled.”

  Hill nudged a torn-up clot of grass with his toe. “I cannot believe that any portion of the Army of the Potomac is up. A patrol, maybe.…”

  “Goddamned militia,” Heth insisted. “Nothing but.”

  Hill thought about it. “Most like, Harry, most like.” He inspected the weather, judged the hour. “Find out in good time, I suppose.”

  “Well, if there’s no objection, then,” Heth said, “I’ll take my division tomorrow, go to Gettysburg, and get those shoes.”

  Hill pulled at his trousers and shifted his weight again. “No objection,” he said. “None in the world.”

  Heth’s irritation had not been quelled, though. Rather too loudly, he said, “I’ll put Archer’s brigade in front this time. He won’t shy.” The division commander turned his eyes on Pettigrew. “That will be all, sir.”

  Pettigrew saluted and plodded off through the mire, flushed and humiliated. The suggestion that want of valor had deterred him from entering Gettysburg was as unbearable as it was unjust. His orders had been clear: He was not to bring on an engagement. And the Federal cavalry had been right there in front of them, for any man to see.

  General Heth would learn who was brave and who was not.

  Pettigrew snapped his horse’s reins from the orderly sergeant’s hand. Leaping into the saddle, he took care, even now, to show a good seat. His aide aped his every gesture.

  Pettigrew did not turn his mount eastward to where his brigade had camped, on picket duty for the corps that night. Instead, he rode for General Archer’s headquarters. He felt it his duty to pass on to his fellow brigade commander all that he had seen, not only regarding the Union cavalrymen, but the problem of the terrain, the way the ridges running perpendicular to the pike offered a succession of fine defensive positions to a skillful enemy. He would not bear the blame for any blunders tomorrow. And instructing Archer was the honorable thing.

  When the two riders had put a safe distance between themselves and their superiors, Captain Young drew his horse close and said, “I’m left in a spirit of unbelief, sir. At the obstinacy of our generals.”

  After riding a stretch in silence, Pettigrew told the younger man, “I fear that many beliefs will be changed tomorrow.”

  Morgenrot! Morgenrot!

  Leuchtest mir … zum frühen Tod …

  Schwertlein struggled to ignore the song the regimental Liederkranz had begun across the camp. Its sentimental morbidity repelled him:

  Crimson dawn! Crimson dawn!

  Comes the night … and I’ll be gone.

  Soon you’ll hear the trumpets calling,

  Then you’ll see the bodies falling,

  And my short life … will be done.

  The men sang it because the hated Prussian army had forbidden it. They sang it because they liked the yearning melody. And they sang it because they were hopelessly sentimental, even in the depths of war. Sentimentality was a German disease, Schwertlein decided.

  He was tempted to clap his hands over his ears. But that would have made it hard to write the letter.

  His words had to be stripped of clumsy sentiment. He did not want sympathy. He wanted far more than that. When the time came.

  Footsteps climbed the steps to the porch, but Schwertlein refused to look up. A shadow invaded the cast of lantern light, falling on the page, on his unfinished sentence.

  “Another article for the newspaper?” Heisler asked.

  “Yes,” Schwertlein lied. He surrendered and raised his eyes. His friend did not look well.

  “It’s dry here,” Heisler said, glancing around the porch. “I’m surprised the officers haven’t taken it.”

  Schwertlein shrugged. “They’re over at the academy, with the Sisters. So I’m allowed my porch.” He leaned back on the rough-hewn chair, inspecting his comrade while bantering. “The farmer’s an old widower. He was surprised I had the manners to ask if I could sit here. He expected us to just take what we want.”

  Heisler smiled, if not strongly. “He may find that some of his chickens have joined the regiment.”

  “Sit down, Josef,” Schwertlein said. He blotted the paper and folded it over. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Nothing,” Heisler answered. Too quickly. “Absolutely nothing. I just … I’ve written a new poem. I thought you might read it and give me your opinion.”

  Schwertlein turned an amused expression on his friend. “Always, we go through this … you worship your Heine as the god of poetry, and I hand the laurels to Goethe. Our tastes are as different as wine and beer.”

  “Heine’s the voice of freedom.”

  “Of sentimentality and sensation. Goethe’s the better poet. Disciplined, precise…”

  “Goethe was a reactio
nary, a hireling of the ancien régime.”

  “And a better poet.”

  “And I will never be even as good as Heine. I understand. But … will you read this, Fritz?” Heisler drew a paper, folded square, from deep in a pocket.

  Schwertlein accepted the poem in the best spirit he could muster. Heisler loved poetry, but poetry did not love Heisler. He had no gift, only an impulse that burst into awkward rhymes.

  In the ring of yellow light, to the sound of distant singing and insects in multitudes, Schwertlein read the words entrusted to him. The poem was not as long as most that issued from Heisler’s pen. But that was not why Schwertlein looked up so sharply.

  He peered into his friend’s eyes. “So much darkness? Why?”

  Rump perched on the porch rail, Heisler looked off at the campfires protesting the darkness. “I didn’t really come about the poem.”

  “What then?”

  Still searching the darkness, Heisler said, “I’m afraid.”

  Schwertlein gave a snort. “We’re all afraid.”

  His friend shook his head. “It’s different this time. I feel something. Always … I’ve always been able to put these thoughts into this pocket and those thoughts in that pocket. You know what I mean. A man thinks about things. But he doesn’t truly think about them. The mind accepts terrible things, because such things are only to happen to other men.” Weeping as gently as a child, he found the wherewithal to meet Schwertlein’s eyes again. “I have always known that I would go home one day, that I would return to Marthe. Und die Kinder. But now … this time…”

  “It’s the damned singing. It’s morbid.”

  “It’s not the singing.”

  “And there’s the rain, the mud, the heat. It would wear down any man.”

  Drying his eyes with his fingertips, Heisler shook his head. “Do you know what I’ll regret? Apart from never seeing Marthe and the children again?” He raised his chin, showing a good profile and the edge of a bitter smile. “I would have liked to write one truly great poem. To leave one poem behind … that would rival your Goethe. Only one, and I would be content.”