by Ralph Peters
Finishing up with Ferguson and Tavenner, he said, “Milt, the Sixteenth will follow the Twenty-second. W.C., your Seventeenth follows after.” He fixed his hard stare back on Cochran, who had disappointed him. “Soon as W.C. clears the ford, you come right on. I want everybody up atop that hill, fast as man and beast can cover the ground. Rally at that high house you saw back a ways. Get your men fixed, and meet me in the yard.” He glanced around a last, fierce time. “Quick now. Go.”
Down by the ford, the skirmishing had a determined sound. McCausland meant to finish it up. Right quick.
The colonels remounted and rode for their regiments. Still a thousand men in the brigade, McCausland figured. Plenty to deal with the uppity militia blocking the army’s way.
Foot in the left stirrup and right leg swinging over his stallion’s haunches, it struck him again that justice was about to be served up hot. Forever berating the cavalry, Early had become just about intolerable. Whether they performed splendidly or poorly made no difference. And McCausland, who had made his name as an infantryman, only to be thrust into cavalry command, was not about to be shunted aside like a poor relation. He’d had enough of playing second fiddle at the Virginia Military Institute, where he’d been junior to mad Tom Jackson on the mathematics faculty, both of them blackboard soldiers teaching the indifferent sons of the gentry. Today, he’d been meant to “support” Early’s latest pet, Dod Ramseur, a pup in scarlet ribbons. Well, Early was going to see who could churn the butter.
He’d earned his nickname, Tiger John, and was not about to be mocked by any man living.
As quickened with excitement as their riders, the pawing horses of the 22nd Virginia hardly looked like thoroughbreds, but they’d do. And the faces of the men, brown as walnut oil, had been cut to planes of bone by long campaigning.
Positioning himself just beside the head of the column, McCausland looked at Bowen and drew his blade.
“Sabers!”
“Draw sabers,” Bowen hollered. The command echoed down through the captains and lieutenants commanding the companies.
The rasp and clang of steel rang loud as a foundry. On the whole, McCausland preferred pistols for an attack. But he sensed in his gut that a regiment charging with sabers would panic the handful of Yankees across the ford. He didn’t want a drawn-out fight, he just wanted them out of the way.
Pointing with his sword, he spurred his horse. Hen Bowen drew alongside. They let the front fours pass.
Right on time, Jimmy Cochran’s dismounts opened up, hundreds of rifles dwarfing the sound of the previous skirmishing.
Screened by trees, the head of the column turned onto the wagon track that led, that could only lead, to the ford.
“Charge!” McCausland shouted.
The foremost men did not wait for the command’s repetition, but kicked their horses to life and howled like Furies. Coming to mighty, thundering life, the entire regiment took up the cry.
McCausland and Bowen rode on the left, under trees and through wild grass, not quite keeping pace.
Cochran’s dismounts poured fire on the Yankees.
With another explosive yell, the lead riders burst from shade into sunlight, spurring their horses into the water, splashing madly, wet sabers gleaming as fountains of water threw rainbows. McCausland pulled up short of the bank. Bowen imitated him. Didn’t want to play the fool, miss the ford and go for a swim.
The crashing and thrashing in the river seemed nearly as loud as the gunfire. Another wave of Rebel yells swept forward.
McCausland did not see a single rider fall. In moments, the first rough-clad horsemen were slapping through the mud of the far bank.
The last Yankee cavalrymen took flight, running and leaping to horse, spurring away.
The fight for the ford was over.
“Yanks won’t claim any battlefield brevets from that one,” Bowen said.
11:00 a.m.
Boundary fence of the Thomas and Worthington farms
Ricketts rode the skirmish line he’d put in behind a rail fence. The sun would bake the men, but there was no shade to be had on the killing ground. Terrain was battle’s tyrant.
“Everybody down. Lie down,” he called, voice firm but not harsh. “All of you lie down. And just stay ready.”
Approaching a pair of officers from the 151st New York, he told them, “Dismount. Both of you. Now. Send your horses to the rear.”
Only one man would remain mounted along the skirmish line, and that would be him.
The soldiers tucked themselves in, a field of grain behind their line and a struggling cornfield, waist-high, beyond the fence. The breeze had died and the stalks stood ragged and still. Maddened insects leapt, their world disordered. His veterans sought comfort, however brief, but clutched their rifles closely. The earth smelled of crops and heat.
Ricketts rode on, calmly, inspecting the lines of fire his men would enjoy, scanning for trick ground that might betray the surprise he meant to spring on the Confederates. When the skirmishing snapped to life down at the ford, Wallace had given him free rein to emplace his forces, and Ricketts had advanced a skirmish line whose strength was a full third of his First Brigade. The remainder of Truex’s units had taken a position between the river and the brick mansion that Wallace’s man, Ross, called “Araby.”
Whatever the house’s name, it would see its share of bloodshed before the day was out.
The obtuse angle of his main line left the men exposed to enfilading fire from the guns across the river, but nothing could be done. Again, the terrain was their master. Only his Vermonters, tucked into a swale as a reserve, were fully protected.
His skirmishers were settled in, hidden, as close to the earth as men who were not under fire ever got. Their officers knelt behind them, heads held below the top fence rail. He had made any man who wore a high-crowned hat remove it.
The Rebs would see one man, and that would be him.
How he wished he had just a single battery of his own! His Regular cannoneers from the 1st Artillery would have wreaked merry mischief on the Rebs. Half-bedazzled by the perfect fields of fire beyond his line, he could not stop thinking as an old redleg, dreaming of double canister and sudden, barked commands.
Wishes were useless things.
He had followed the clash down at the ford by the noise, first the brisk skirmishing, then the sharp eruption of rifle fire, climaxed by a ruckus and wild Reb cries. As the first fleeing horsemen found the high road and galloped back along it, he warned his men not to jeer, curt when he was briefly disobeyed. He could imagine only too well what that handful of cavalrymen had faced. They’d bought what time they could.
To his rear, down by the bridges, the firing picked up. He could read it well enough not to find it worrisome, but he did spare a thought for what might happen if Early brought the full weight of his forces to bear.
No sign of it yet, thanks be to Providence.
Reversing his course along the line, he let his horse slow. He could not afford to look anxious, either to his own men or to the Rebs, when they appeared. “Just keep yourselves quiet,” he told his men. “And we’ll give the Johnnies a welcome they’ll remember. Just rest and be quiet, I’ll tell you when to stand.”
Ricketts felt no fear—only the usual quickening, the tightening of the muscles, and, yes, the thrill of impending battle. It was a terrible business, and this time the stakes were incalculably high. But there was a part of any true soldier that, against all reason, longed for the game to begin.
He rode past officers down on one knee. “Keep your heads down, boys. And wait for my order.”
All of the faces were earnest now, the jokesters and campfire bullies as taut as the silent sorts, some praying, Ricketts was certain, and others merely bothered by the flies. These were men who had seen not only the elephant, but every hideous beast in war’s menagerie. They knew what they were about. But they could not know if they would live or die in the next half hour.
He preferred s
etting troops in motion. Activity worked its own charms, while waiting passively led the mind astray.
Even his own thoughts were not strictly disciplined, despite the weight of command upon his shoulders. Frances intruded. And Harriet. Should this day be his last, he would leave some practical matters in disorder, burdens unfair to his present wife. But nothing could be done. Not now.
A wry smile dented the set of his face. If he was killed … and if the priests and parsons were right about the great beyond, be it Purgatory first, or straight to Heaven or Hell, would he be reunited forever with Harriet? Or did a subsequent marriage take precedence before the Judgment Seat? Surely Heaven would not be some sort of Mormon confederacy or a Mussulman’s harem? Would Harriet still be young and fair, while he appeared old and fat? And Frances, with her enormous heart and steadfast will, deserved her due. He had married good women, better than he deserved, his greatest good fortune.
He stopped himself, coming back to the glint of sun-heated steel, of blue cloth on brown earth, of eye-burning sweat. Here and now. This day, this hour. In this field, under this sun. All of his life had aimed him toward this.
“Don’t drink that canteen dry,” he told a youthful soldier. “You’re going to want water long before you see another well.” He sought to balance his tone between authority and bantering, something he had never fully mastered. Artillerymen did not jabber like the infantry.
“Stay down, stay down now.”
When the firing ceased down at the ford, he had known it was only a matter of minutes before the Rebs came at them. He was almost surprised at their slowness. Waving off another assault of black flies, he halted his horse. Facing the house beyond the cornfield.
And there they were: emerging from the trees, men who had become his mortal enemies because of pride and political skullduggery, darkies and busybodies. Most of the Rebs were on foot. Those who rode soon dismounted.
The officers were easy to spot: They were the only men who remained in the saddle.
Well, they wouldn’t stay mounted for long.
His men could see nothing from their hides, nor could they hear much, if anything, but they tightened as one—he felt it like a sudden temperature change—sensing the approach of battle, as veterans did.
Ricketts had nothing more to say to them, not until it was time for the fateful order. He didn’t want to move his lips, to appear to be giving commands, in case some Reb was eyeing him through a spyglass. Let them wonder why an old fool in a blue suit was sitting on a horse, alone in a dried-out grainfield in the heat. Just let them wonder.
And let them come on, straight through that corn, he begged of any higher power that could hear. James B. Ricketts was not much given to prayer, but he asked for help now: Lord, let them come straight on.
11:20 a.m.
The Worthington house yard
The men near McCausland hurried about, full of purpose but still a tad shocked at the order that there would be no horse-holders this time. Every mount was to be tied to a tree or fence, while every cavalryman in the brigade would go into battle as an infantryman. McCausland was certain that the illusion of infantry formations on their flank would be all it took to set the blue-bellies running for their mothers’ teats.
He nodded at his reassembled colonels. “Brigade front. Two lines. Every flag held high—you tell your boys to wave ’em and wave ’em hard.” He pointed across the cornfield. Just beyond it, a lone Yankee horseman sat watching them. Well, let him have a good look and warn his Sunday-soldiers what was coming.
Probably a few more Yankees about, he figured, vedettes out on the flank. Maybe the same turn-tails who’d run down at the ford.
“Midway through that cornfield, order your men to the double-quick. And I want them hooting and hollering. Those blue-bellies need to hear us long before they see us, let ’em think it’s Doomsday and the legions of Hell are swarming.” His expression turned as cold as the day was hot. “We’re going to show Old Jubilee how Virginia Cavalry fight. Y’all get moving.”
Three of four colonels saluted and strode toward their mounts. Only Tavenner hesitated.
“Shouldn’t we send a few boys forward to scout things?” the colonel asked. “See what all might be out there?”
McCausland felt his expression turn downright cruel. “Worried about a few militia, W.C.?”
11:40 a.m.
Ricketts’ skirmish line
Flags flying, God help them. Everything but a brass band. The Confederates had dressed their two ranks as if on parade, stepped their colors forward, and come straight on, every officer mounted. It was a glorious spectacle, and it was absolute folly.
Ricketts held his horse steady and kept his expression steadier. Every man along his line looked in his direction, the soldiers flat on the ground and wed to their rifles, the officers kneeling or crouching low—Ricketts was damned well going to court-martial any idiot who popped up for a look at what was coming.
And the Rebs … they hadn’t even sent skirmishers ahead. They just prettied up those two long lines and advanced.
Their first rank marched into the corn, filling their little portion of the world with a thrashing, crashing noise that seemed to rival the artillery duel to Ricketts’ rear. The flag-bearers waved their banners like frantic signalers.
One officer caught Ricketts’ eye: He rode forward with one hand cocked on his hip, deigning to draw neither sword nor pistol, as disdainful as a schoolmarm catching out dunces.
The thrashing in the cornfield grew louder as the second rank entered the stalks.
Going to be an early harvest, Ricketts thought.
He knew he had them, but even so, the spectacle of their advance sent a quiver through him.
Then the dab of fear was gone again and there were only those brave, doomed lines, pushing through the crotch-covering corn, rifles held abreast now, their order disturbed by the resistance of the stalks.
He began to feel a child’s impatience, yearning to order his men to their feet, to spring his surprise. He ached to do it. But he needed to wait until the very last moment.
And if a Reb sharpshooter dropped him first? There were plentiful reasons to shout the order immediately, with the Johnnies already in range.
Rabbits dashed under the fence and through his line, startling his waiting men. One of the creatures leapt over a sergeant’s shoulders.
Just wait now, Ricketts told his men without speaking. Just wait a little longer.
The Reb officers pointed the way with lofted swords, riding before, beside, and among their men, between regiments, between ranks. Proud, such proud men. Pride had made this war, Ricketts told himself for perhaps the thousandth time. All of this death and destruction was just about pride.
One Southern voice called out and dozens of officers repeated the command. “Double-quick … march!”
The rustling in the cornfield swelled. The Rebs began yelling and howling. Smaller animals fled the approaching waves, field mice and distraught squirrels. A bewildered fox ran by.
He felt his soldiers clench tighter and tighter. The officers looked toward him, expressions demanding, “What the hell are you waiting for, you old fool?”
No, not demanding. Pleading.
Ricketts refused to move the smallest muscle.
He could see the names of battles embroidered on the advancing, shot-through flags, but couldn’t quite read them. Faces grew distinct.
He waited, counting the seconds.
He could not see the whites of their eyes, only glittering darkness under hat brims.
He raised his hand sharply, pointing at the Rebs.
“On your feet! Fire!”
The officers sprang up, followed by their men. Even before his orders could be repeated, they were obeyed. The officers shouted:
“Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!”
But these men, his men, had learned how to kill. Instead of shooting urgently and wildly, they rested their rifles on the top fence rail, taking an extra b
race of seconds to aim.
When the volleys rippled out, the Confederate lines disappeared.
Riderless horses galloped in every direction. Flags drooped and fell, blanketing cornstalks. A few officers remained mounted, shouting orders. His men did their best to shoot them.
Here and there, a grayback rose and ran like hell for the farmhouse. A few stood and fired toward the fence, but too quickly, too shaken to aim. Out there, in that burnt green field, men were crawling in agony, others just skedaddling, low to the ground. Even at Cold Harbor … or at Spotsylvania … Ricketts had never seen so swift a repulse.
More Rebs were up and running now. Ricketts’ men sent up a cheer, a roar. But they kept on firing, even as some hotheads leapt the fence to charge after the Rebels.
“Call those boys back!” Ricketts shouted. “Get them back here right now!”
Even as he issued the command, one of his soldiers, swift and sure, collared a staggering Rebel in midfield. Discipline left something to be desired, but enthusiasm counted, too.
Royal flush on the first hand, Ricketts told himself. More hands still to play.
11:50 a.m.
Worthington farm
Tiger John McCausland rode among his fleeing soldiers, screaming at them.
“Goddamn you, damn you, goddamn you … stop your running … stop, goddamn you, or I’ll shoot you myself.”
He pointed his pistol at one man after another, but did not pull the trigger. Men fled into the grove behind the house or leapt yard fences. Some halted in the trees or sheltered behind outbuildings, but others, too many, raced back down the hill up which they’d come. A few soldiers hunted their horses, as if they expected to be allowed to ride off.
McCausland fired into the air. “I’ll shoot the man who doesn’t stand and fight.”
The last escapees from the cornfield limped and staggered, hatless, weaponless, blood-drenched. Some of them looked at him insolently, as if to say, “Go ahead and shoot, you sonofabitch.”
It only made McCausland that much angrier—regretting that he had not pulled the trigger on the unwounded men who’d behaved as craven cowards.
