Valley of the Shadow: A Novel

by Ralph Peters

  A private grabbed his bridle and tried to turn Gordon’s horse toward the rear.

  “Save yourself, General! Save yourself!”

  Tears flecked the boy’s eyes.

  Gordon looked down on him, burning. “Release my horse, son.”

  The private let go the leather strap, but didn’t join those fleeing. Instead, he positioned himself in front of Gordon, back to the general and rifle across his chest, defying the entire Yankee army to try to get past him.

  Gordon recognized the lad. Twelfth Georgia. If the boy was a day more than sixteen, it didn’t tell.

  The regiment’s flag-bearer limped up and positioned himself by the private. He held up the banner, waving it.

  More men joined them.

  Nearby, another color-bearer paused, doubt on his face.

  Gordon rode over to the man, grasped the pole from his hands, and said, “You’ll let me borrow this?”

  Lofting the tattered battle flag, Gordon rode through his men, making a miracle. Soldiers who had fled returned to the stone wall, took aim, and fired at the oncoming, hollering Yankees.

  A Confederate battery found the correct range and pounded the Federals. For all Gordon knew, those were the same guns that had fired into the prisoners.

  Fortunes of war.

  His men applied themselves to the fight again. There were fewer of them now, far fewer. But those who remained meant to stand.

  For Christmas—for that last, impoverished Christmas—Fanny had given him William Cowper’s translation of the Iliad, an old copy with a leather cover burnished by many hands over the decades. She knew he loved that book above all others—although he favored the rendering by Pope.

  Now he took his own stand, not on the plains of windy Troy, but on the fields before Winchester. Not an Achilles, but, perhaps, a Hector. With the doomed city at his back.

  Lofting the flag and calling out encouragement, Gordon knew it was only a matter of time. But with his men rallied around him, it was a glorious time.

  5:00 p.m.

  Union center

  “Faster!” Emory Upton demanded. “Get up to the top of that rise, I need to see!”

  The firing threatened to outdistance them.

  His litter bearers picked up the pace, but not enough to satisfy him. The officers and orderlies accompanying the stretcher appeared doubtful, though they had given up on attempts at reason.

  This was no time for reason. Not when he was winning.

  He knew his wound was severe, didn’t need to be told. He had tied off the thigh himself when the others hesitated. The pain blazed, not least when one of the bearers put a foot wrong. But pain could be endured. Jesus Christ had suffered worse than this, as had the Martyrs.

  Think on the Oxford Martyrs.…

  His men had broken through, that was what mattered, and now they raced the rest of the army to Winchester, brushing aside the last, enfeebled resistance. After a bloody afternoon’s frustration, including a confrontation with a Nineteenth Corps colonel who proved a coward, Upton had driven his men on without mercy. And Mackenzie and the others had cracked the Rebel defense, bursting through their lines at last like a horde of avenging angels. His wounding amid that triumph had been a sign, a warning to shun mortal pride in an hour of glory. Perhaps it was even a riddle-wrapped sign of grace.…

  He had kept faith. And the Lord had given him victory.

  When he rose to his elbows, he saw the steeples of Winchester. The fighting was not done, the godless slavers harbored too much spite. Satan did not bow at the first blow. But Upton was determined that his men would be the first Union troops to reach the town. No matter the cost.

  He prayed. Not for the Lord to ease the pain in his thigh, but for the strength to endure it and finish his work.

  He had been granted a vision of how to smite them. All his reading in military science, his dedication to the art of war, was as naught before revelation. He had studied his trade until the last candle guttered, but Jomini shed little light beside the fiery sword of Jesus Christ.

  “And there was given unto him a great sword … a great sword…”

  Upton caught himself swooning. Much blood had been lost. He propped himself higher. Pain pierced him.

  Nothing, he told himself, this is nothing.

  “Tell Mackenzie he must press on.” He wanted to add, but did not, “Show no mercy.”

  The true mercy would be to end this war, to break the chains of bondage forever and ever.

  At an aide’s command, the bearers lowered the stretcher to let a fresh team take it up. When they lifted him again, a bolt of pain made Upton want to shriek. He had forced himself to examine the wound at first, to confront this mortification of his flesh, but now he found it unsettling to view the ruptured meat.

  We are but carrion, dross …

  If the Lord wished to take his leg, even his life …

  Not before I take Winchester, he blasphemed, surprising himself.

  “Faster!” he snapped. “How can I command, if you can’t keep up?”

  Horsemen rushed out of the lengthening shadows. The first cool of evening preceded them, balm in Gilead.

  “Put him down, for Christ’s sake,” a no-nonsense voice commanded.

  Balancing care and haste, the bearers lowered Upton to the ground again.

  “Damn it,” the voice profaned. “I sent orders for you to go back to the surgeons.”

  Sheridan. Gazing down from that great black mount of his. The horse’s mouth dripped slime.

  “I can lead my division.”

  “The hell you can.”

  “Sir, I request…” Upton rallied against the pain. “I demand to remain in command of my division.”

  He could feel the air change around him, grasping that Sheridan would brook no man’s defiance. He stiffened himself to withstand a blast of rage.

  Instead, Sheridan slipped down from the saddle, instantly small when parted from his horse. He knelt over Upton.

  Audible to the officers and men surrounding the litter, Sheridan announced, “General Upton, your performance has been heroic, selfless. No man has done more to turn the tide of battle. You have my personal thanks.”

  Then Sheridan leaned close, bitter of breath and flashing eyes as hard as the hardest gemstone. Lips almost kissing Upton’s ear, he whispered, “Upton, you will go to the rear right now, or I will break you down to fucking private.”

  5:00 p.m.

  The eastern edge of Winchester

  “Halt, you cowardly sonsofbitches,” Jubal Early cried. “Stop, you cowards. God almighty, halt! Stop, I say, and fight like goddamned men.”

  5:00 p.m.

  The northern approach to Winchester

  What a jolly afternoon! Nothing like it in the great, wide world, Custer decided. Mankind had never devised a better sport. They’d run the Rebs mile after mile, the sorry devils.

  Grinning, he returned to the head of his re-formed column of fours, facing the last scraps the enemy had mustered to guard his flank: a few bled-out troops of horse, a section of guns that could be enveloped easily, and a ruptured fort on a knoll. The fortification didn’t interest Custer—an experienced cavalryman let fixed defenses rot—but he fancied taking those guns and finishing off the graybacks who’d dropped from the backs of their nags. Couldn’t let Devin have all the fun, now, could he?

  Turning to an orderly, Custer said, “Bring up the band.”

  He drew his saber.

  5:15 p.m.

  The northern edge of Winchester

  Damnedest thing. Fitz Lee felt about the best he’d felt all day. He’d started out weaker than an old maid with the ague, got worse rushing about, sweating like a hog and worrying like a churchgoing gal on her wedding night, and then got whipped by Yankees more times than he could count, ending up here with his rump all but touching Winchester. His men had done their best, but they were scattered now, he’d lost contact with most of their commanders, and Breathed’s guns appeared to have been pu
t to another man’s use. But, damnation, if he didn’t feel almost peppery.

  He didn’t care to think that getting whipped might be good for a man. He didn’t care to consider that at all.

  Ask Breathed. What did his medical books say of such phenomena?

  “Let ’em get close,” Lee ordered, for the benefit of any man who could hear him over the racket. The horses weren’t worth much now, and the party he had gathered fought dismounted. “Just wait, they’ll come on sure. Just let them get close.”

  “Might care to slip down from the saddle yourself, sir,” a captain suggested. “Air seems a trifle populated.”

  Lee pulled up a beard-spreader smile. “And let one of your bandits steal my horse? Rather chance it with those Yankee sharpshooters.”

  “Hoss?” a private asked in mock incredulity. His tone conjured the porch of a country store and genial times. Better times. “Genr’l, I took that critter you’re settin’ astride for a milk-cow. What have we come to, what has this army come to?”

  Lee played along, waiting for the Federals to make their move. All he could do now was wait. “Cow? I’d cut myself a beefsteak right this minute!”

  That was about true. Hadn’t had so much as a cracker all day. Starved himself back to health, was that it? he wondered. Queerest thing: Even the dizziness had slipped away.

  The dizziness was gone, but the Yankees weren’t. Their pride, their haughty pride, had grown intolerable. They didn’t even bother to wield their repeaters, just came on with sabers, as if mocking men who had beaten them steady for two years, then gave them a time for another year and a half. As if to say, “Yes, we have these fine new rifles that shoot jackrabbit fast, but we don’t even need ’em for your sort.” There was a cruelty in their condescension fiercer than the bite of blades on flesh.

  “Get ready, boys.”

  The men tightened their grips on their weapons, coiling their innards. Across yet another inglorious field, Yankees trotted to and fro, up to some new deviltry.

  Horse artillery rushed up on the flank. The cannoneers wore blue jackets, not gray.

  Lee believed he heard fighting off behind him, down in the streets of Winchester, and hoped it was a fevered hallucination. Anyway, didn’t do any good to ponder it. His place, his purpose, was here, and nowhere else. To hold until the rest of the army escaped.

  Escape. A shameful, unaccustomed word.…

  “They’re coming!”

  Bugles sounded. A band resumed its mockery. The Yankee gun section on the flank dropped its trails with handsome speed. In moments, the crews were ramming home their first shells.

  “Let them get close,” Lee called, speaking of the cavalry. There was nothing to be done about those guns, except bear the torment.

  As the Union force advanced, increasing its pace to a canter with fine discipline, the horses first created a rumble that challenged the clamor of battle. But when they lowered their sabers and spurred to a gallop, their hoofbeats overwhelmed all other sounds.

  A few of his men, the worst of them, didn’t wait to fire, but ran for the town. Lee let them go, figuring they’d be cut down all the quicker.

  The artillery on the flank opened up. One round fell short, but the next smashed into a tree that anchored Lee’s line, hurling branches downward and men upward.

  “Steady!” he called. He could make out the eyes of the horses. A few more yards, and he’d read the eyes of the men. “Steady now!”

  Shells from some blessed, unseen Confederate battery struck smack amidst the first wave of blue-clad horsemen. Mounts tripped and riders tumbled. Lee noticed that the men in the second rank had drawn their carbines, rather than sabers.

  Yankees weren’t taking chances, after all.

  More bugles. But more artillery rounds shrieked overhead, plummeting toward the Yankees, flaying man and beast.

  Lord Jesus, did he have a fighting chance?

  His loss of consciousness was brief, if bewildering. He came to on the ground, grasping for the reins. Quicksilver pain raced over him, invading every part of his body at once. Lee fought for air. The wetness sheathing him wasn’t sweat this time, he could tell that much.

  “Get him out of here,” a voice—raw with dread—commanded. “Carry him to the rear, we’ll hold the bastards.”

  He tried to speak, but could not. The pain had crushing weight. Teeth, too. It bit with rabid fury, surpassing all previous wounds.

  Pounding hooves. Men shouting. Clashing metal. Bring up your guns, Major Breathed. Where was Lomax? He needed to speak with Wickham, had to …

  “Get him out of here,” the voice repeated.

  THIRTEEN

  September 19, 6:00 p.m.

  Winchester

  Fanny Gordon stood in the street before the Lee house, all but choking on the dust and pleading with the soldiers to turn back. She never had imagined such a scene. To witness this army, and her husband’s own men, running from the Yankees …

  “Please,” she begged, “go back and fight. Think of your honor!”

  “Honor got kilt a ways back,” a scarecrow told her.

  But the soldiers were respectful, overall. Many knew her by sight. Those who did shied away, ashamed. Others plodded by, sullen. Even those who just plain ran were careful not to touch her. Dismayed officers tipped their caps in embarrassment. The passage of these hundreds retained no order, with flags and soldiers ajumble. Little united these men beyond their direction.

  A cannonball smashed through a roof but didn’t explode, content to cause a storm of splinters and dust. Glass chinked.

  “Best go inside, ma’am,” a grubby boy in a ravaged straw hat counseled.

  She felt tears welling, but fought them down. John would not approve of a weeping wife at a time like this.

  Was he all right? Might she … was it possible … that she might have cause for weeping?

  Fanny Gordon whipped that thought away. Not her John. He’d be out there to the last, thrashing Yankees. Then he would ride off in an aura of glory. Alive and grinning.

  “Please! Go back,” she begged. “Think of your mothers and wives!” Assailed by a swallow of dust, she coughed and struggled to ask, “Are there any Georgia men among you? Any Georgia men?”

  A half dozen soldiers from her husband’s old brigade made their way toward her.

  “Ain’t fitting for you to be out here, Mrs. Gordon,” a sergeant warned her. His tone was of supplication, not command.

  “And it isn’t fitting for Georgia men to retreat.”

  Sunburned faces blushed. “We’ll fight ’em again tomorrow,” a private said. “Just not today, ma’am. Today just didn’t go right.”

  Anxious to rejoin the flood, the once brave, emasculated men shuffled about until the sergeant asked, “Can we do something for you, ma’am?”

  “Go back and fight.”

  The sergeant tipped his cap and the others nodded. Leaving her. But not to return to the battle.

  “Wait! Is General Gordon all right?”

  The Georgians were already submerged in the crowd, in the mob that had been a proud army.

  Fanny glanced toward the porch, ensuring that young Frank remained indoors, where Laura Lee had promised to restrain him. A rambunctious boy, her second son was more like John than was his doe-eyed brother. She had broken her own rules by bringing Frank along on this visit, afraid—although she could not quite admit it—that the six-year-old might go through life with no memory of his father.

  An ambulance fought through the crowd, so packed that bloodied limbs dangled over its drop-board. Behind it, more crimsoned men clung to a caisson. Rifle fire erupted, suddenly closer.

  Why didn’t any of these men turn and fight? There were so many of them. Surely they could make a stand, perhaps defeat the Yankees even now?

  It was all she could do not to shriek at them.

  She coughed up more dust.

  Then she saw him, just as he spotted her and turned his horse.

  Don’t embarr
ass him, she warned herself. Behave like the lady you know deep down you aren’t. Don’t you run and hug him, don’t you start things. After a decade of marriage, desire seized her still when she pressed against him, and in his arms her thoughts were not genteel.

  As he forced his way through dejected men, with Yankee hurrahs hog-call close, she balled her fists and locked them on her hips. Ferocity was her only means to control herself.

  John. Hat missing and locks awry. Filthy, his forehead gleamed as if smeared with lard. Even with that scar, he was still the handsomest man in the Confederacy.

  When he drew a foot from a stirrup to dismount, she snapped, “John Gordon, you stay on that horse of yours. And you tell me the meaning of this spectacle.”

  Her sternness did the impossible, making him smile. Fleetingly.

  Bending from the saddle, he asked, “Do I see before me my Penelope? Or is this Aphrodite descended to earth?”

  “You hush.”

  “Fanny, go back in the house. You do no good out here.”

  “Well, you don’t seem to be doing much good yourself, General Gordon. Do something with these men.”

  “Hasn’t been our day. Don’t blame these boys.” He gestured toward the drop-shouldered stragglers avoiding the man on horseback and his queen. Those who glanced toward them did so warily.

  She would not cry. She was determined not to let him see one tear.

  “Go in the house now, Fanny. It’s too late to leave. When the Yankees come, identify yourself to one of their field officers. They’ll treat you with—”

  She flared. “You see to your division, John Brown Gordon. The woman you married can manage fine by herself.”

  Gordon’s eyebrows tightened. “Where’s ’Neas? He should be seeing to you.”

  “Fool ran away. When they started shelling the town.”

  “I’ll whip that nigger.”

  “You just whip those Yankees. I’ll see to ’Neas.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He saluted, smiling again. “Reckon I’d best see to it, then. You go inside now, though, look after Frank. He’ll be unsettled.”