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Valley of the Shadow: A Novel

Page 31

by Ralph Peters


  “Give Early a full day?” Sheridan said sharply. “And most of another day?”

  “We lose some time, granted. And Early keeps improving his defenses. But not on that flank. We’ll turn Fisher’s Hill into a trap. Catch him from behind in his own trenches, bury his army right there.”

  Sheridan reared up, a little bull. Everyone realized that the decision had been made.

  “George, you’d damned well better keep your men out of sight. And if you can hide a corps from the Rebs, God bless you.” He turned to Wright and Emory. “Push forward at first light tomorrow. Skirmish, keep the Rebs watching, parade around. Any local terrain we can use to advantage, drive the Rebs off it. But don’t become decisively engaged. Just make Early drool in his beard, thinking we might be stupid enough to hit him from the front the following day.”

  He turned to Averell. “Push Lomax down the Back Road in the morning, make sure none of his scouts get near Crook’s boys.”

  And to Wright: “What’s your order of march? Who’ll be closest to that mountain when you deploy?”

  “Ricketts.”

  “Jim needs to show his mettle. Press the Rebs hard enough to keep them fixed and expecting a frontal assault over on their left. He’ll have to chew forward a bit, accept some losses.”

  Sheridan considered the men gathered in the tent, the weary men who won the day at Winchester. The air under the canvas had grown humid and ripe from sweat. And sour with new rivalries.

  Sheridan slapped the flat of his hand on the map. “When Crook’s men begin rolling up Early’s flank, I want everyone pressing forward, no matter how ugly it looks out there in front of you. Don’t let Early shift troops to shore up that flank. Pound them. And when they break, by God, this time we’ll finish them.”

  September 21, 5:00 p.m.

  Gordon’s Division

  Gordon walked among his men on the high ground of Fisher’s Hill, wielding a jovial mien to meet their complaints. The weather was a mercy, dry and clear, and Sheridan had been merciful as well. Beyond seizing the gun pits on Flint Hill, in between the armies, the Yankees hadn’t made too much of a fuss. The soldiers around him had been spared this day.

  “’Tain’t fair, General,” a thick-bearded corporal declared.

  Per custom, Gordon played along. “And what, on this delectable afternoon, could trouble so fine a soldier?”

  “We’re way up here, up on this hill,” the man explained.

  Gordon reset the hat that Breckinridge had left him as a parting gift. It didn’t fit nearly so well as the one he’d lost two days before.

  “Well, it does seem to me,” Gordon told his interlocutor, “that ‘up here’ isn’t so bad a place to be. I’d rather be up here, with the Yankees down there, than the reverse.”

  “’Tain’t the Yankees,” the fellow said. His comrades had gathered around, sensing another of Gordon’s famed exchanges. “No, General, it’s that we’re up here and those boys General Ramseur done took up are way over there, with another division between us.”

  “And why is ‘over there’ better than here? I confess my mystification.”

  “Well, lookee. They’re right there above the cavalry, ’twixt them and that mountain. One of those nags drops down stone dead, all those boys have to do is trot on down and carve themselves out some dinner. All we get is crackers.”

  “Cavalry might have a say in the divvying up,” Gordon observed. “Anyway, none of those nags have enough meat left on their bones to feed two Georgians.” He smiled. Generously. A smile was about all he had left with which to be generous. “I reckon the point is that you boys are getting rambunctious for a good dinner.…”

  “That’s about right, sir.”

  An invisible hook raised a corner of Gordon’s mouth. “Wouldn’t mind a proper feed myself. Won’t be tonight, though.” His smile tightened. “Unless some noble Achilles were to intrude on General Sheridan’s repast.…”

  “That’s the doggone thing, right there,” a soldier declared. “Worst thing about losing a battle, you don’t get to feed off the Yankees. Had my eye on a fellow looked like a great, big Dutchman, figured him for a haversack full of sausages. Then, ’fore you knowed it, I was headed the wrong way.”

  “And here we are,” Gordon said. “I feel abused myself, boys. I’ve long been partial to letting our Northern confrères supplement our diet, only seems proper.” He remembered, fondly, bags of coffee beans captured in the Wilderness. “We’ll put things right, though. We’re just taking a breathing spell.”

  “That’s a fact,” the first speaker said, contented to have fed on Gordon’s attention, if not on salt pork.

  “Boys, you’ll have to excuse me. I daresay Colonel Pendleton’s got his eye on me from yonder. I must not be truant.”

  “You tell General Early how to fix things,” a bold man said. “He’ll listen to you, General.”

  “As Agamemnon paid heed to Ulysses,” Gordon said wryly, his private joke.

  “Hope that ain’t catching,” a wag exclaimed to the common delight of the men.

  Gordon gave them a soft salute, still studiedly genial, and strode off. In the distance, skirmishers crackled at each other, but the relative calmness of the day made Gordon wonder if Sheridan had been snake-bit bad enough to have grown wary. Or perhaps he was just flummoxed by Fisher’s Hill. Either way, the respite was dearly welcome. The men needed time.

  Pendleton met him in midfield, just below a battery tucked behind gabions.

  “Any word on Clem Evans?” Gordon asked. Before the chief of staff could speak.

  The younger man shook his head.

  “Well, I know he was headed for Richmond,” Gordon went on. “Could have used Clem back at Winchester, that’s the truth.” He repositioned the too-tight hat again. “Can’t accuse John Breckinridge of having a swelled head.” He removed the hat and held it in one hand. “Early calmed down?”

  “Depends on when you walk in on him. Now he’s on to how Sheridan’s a coward for not attacking.”

  “Take a fool to attack us here.”

  “Well, that’s the point, I’d say. The general wants Sheridan to attack. So he can redeem himself. He’s convinced the Yankees will hit us tomorrow, come straight at us.”

  Gordon noted a slight alteration in Pendleton’s tone, in his choice of words. The chief of staff was usually disinclined to criticize Early and eager to explain his worst behavior.

  “I don’t know,” Gordon told him. “We’ve got Sheridan stuck, all right. But he’s got us stuck every bit as bad. He can’t attack, we can’t retreat. Not without risking a whipping out in the open.”

  “He knows that. That’s the heart of it, I think. He feels his hands are tied, he’s not accustomed to it.”

  “Well, I’m all for resting this army a few more days. Morale’s still a tad too flimsy for my comfort.”

  The two strolled down past the gun muzzles and back toward the cluster of headquarters tents. “Have something for me, Sandie?” Gordon asked. “Looked as though you were coming on with a purpose.”

  Gordon glimpsed reddening cheeks.

  Pendleton confided, “I just needed to step away for a time. Told the general I was having a look to your front.”

  “Nothing new to see. You can report that in all honesty. Any word from home?”

  “Yes, sir. Thanks for the asking. Just had a letter. In the middle of all this, isn’t that some luck?”

  “New addition to the family tree?”

  “Not yet. Any day now.”

  Gordon donned a practiced smile. “You’ll like being a father. Nothing like it.”

  “We’re going to be very happy.”

  A lone cannon barked on the left. Pegram’s front? Or Ramseur’s? Early had rearranged the division commands, with Ramseur taking Bob Rodes’ big division and Cull Battle sent back down to his brigade. Pegram now led Ramseur’s old division, while Wharton remained in command of the men left behind by Breckinridge. And Lomax had the cavalry on the fi
eld, an uninspiring, inevitable choice.

  Gordon understood the logic, but wasn’t sure of the wisdom of the changes. When a fight was imminent, he preferred keeping officers above the men who knew them and with the men they knew. But what choice was there, after all? With Rodes gone? And Fitz Lee just hoping to live? Early was doing his best, Gordon had to grant, but something he couldn’t quite nail down left him uneasy.

  Then there was Sheridan, whose tenacity at Winchester had been fearsome. Clearly, the little fellow was in Grant’s mold. It did not bode well.

  “Any more word from Mrs. Gordon?” Pendleton asked, as if recalling that other men, too, had wives.

  “Well on her way to Staunton, might even be there. Damn me down to the toenails, if she didn’t get away cleaner than this army. Amazing woman, God’s own blessing upon me.”

  Pendleton opened his mouth to speak, but he swallowed the words.

  September 21, midnight

  Gordon’s position

  More and more, he feared going to sleep. It wasn’t a child’s hants that troubled Nichols, nor was it the devil mind’s sinful imaginings, but the things of the day that came rushing back at night. He didn’t want to cry out in his sleep, the way Lem Davis did, waking men with his sudden shouts of “No, no!” But far too often the dead died again in his dreams, dead comrades and dead Yankees, crowding in on him. Sometimes they died exactly the same way he’d seen them perish, just doing the same thing over again. Other times their fates got twisted up, muddled and gruesome, beyond the power of any words to tell. Again and again, the dead tried to take him with them, beckoning with pale hands and horrid faces. He felt more dread, more terror, in the night than he ever had experienced in battle. In the night, in dreams, a man could not defend himself.

  In the Good Book, dreams were either visions or warnings. What did his mean? Were they sent by the Lord, or by Satan?

  He would have liked to talk to Elder Woodfin but was ashamed. A true man wasn’t scared of things like nightmares. All he could do was to pray for the dreams to stop.

  Lying awake on pebbled ground, on a blanket worn thin as muslin, he held his eyes open, watching the stars, on guard for his mortal soul.

  What if a man shut his eyes and never returned? What if he couldn’t wake up, couldn’t escape? What if death—a sinner’s death—left him eternally captive to his dreams? Nichols shuddered. The prospect seemed far worse than devils with pitchforks.

  Someday, he promised himself, all this would end. He would go home and marry a woman as faithful and good as Ruth, and she would comfort him. He would close his mind against these things forever.

  “Dear Jesus,” he begged, “don’t let none of my friends know I’m so afraid.”

  FIFTEEN

  September 22, 3:00 p.m.

  Ricketts’ division

  Where was Crook? Ricketts had been swapping artillery rounds with the Rebs since morning and prodding them with his infantry, just hard enough to imply he might be serious. It hadn’t been much of a fight, more a Punch and Judy show, though with real blood. And that was the problem: It irked him to squander men, even a few, on “demonstrations.” Taking Flint Hill the day before had made good tactical sense, but this skirmishing struck him as frivolous.

  By nature, he was given to doing things properly. Or not doing them. He understood the rationale for his orders, this need to keep the Johnnies mesmerized. Yet he felt he was frittering men away. The textbooks called such actions “amusing the enemy,” but Jim Ricketts didn’t find them entertaining.

  The men were surprisingly game, though, whether playing cat and mouse with Confederate skirmishers or waging artillery duels. For all the losses at Winchester, victory had inspirited his soldiers, opening new and promising possibilities, awakening bloodlust.

  Up on the heights, the enemy lines bristled. Immobile. Confident.

  Where was Crook?

  Ricketts knew his men were running down. These mortal games made weary children of all. He wanted his division to remain strong enough to be in on the kill; his men had earned that.

  Earned? He smiled at himself. Thinking of the evident jealousies newly abroad in the army, resentments he once would have wallowed in himself. The past five months, the carnage, had taught him much—to the extent that a man learned anything of worth, which was a separate issue. It just didn’t pay to envy another’s fame, deserved or not: He had learned that painfully. You couldn’t give in to jealousy, or you poisoned yourself. And war was poison enough.

  Of course, praise made him preen, as it did any man, but the approbation he wanted waited at home. He needed the respect of his wife, Frances, a woman of immense courage and selflessness. And he longed for the blessing of Harriet, the dead wife who haunted him still. Had he ever praised either one of them enough? His vanity, he saw, had been colossal. War was a mirror that rarely flattered a man.

  After Monocacy, he had been praised and Wallace, the effort’s architect, consigned to oblivion. Or to Baltimore, which was as bad. At Winchester, though, it had been young Upton’s turn to gather laurels, with the sacrifices of Ricketts’ division ignored. Wright had been the savior of Washington. But Crook eclipsed him easily at Winchester. Thus was glory allotted, almost as random as cards dealt in a poker game.

  Glory? Oh, he remembered that seductress, the murderous slut. Hadn’t the loins for her now. He was just a graying, begrimed man in a bitter war, hoping to do his duty and evade shame.

  Where the hell was Crook?

  Hot and thirsty, all but irate, and sore from too many hours in the saddle, Ricketts smiled. Had the fates already pivoted against Crook? Had his movement along the side of the mountain failed? The wheel of fortune turned, and a man had to be content not to be crushed.

  Where the devil was the fellow, though? Good men were dying.

  Thanks to the intervening ridges and smoke, he couldn’t see much of the mountainside where Crook’s men were supposed to be sneaking along. All he could do was to wait. And continue sending men forward only to see fewer men return.

  When Wright explained the plan to his subordinates, Ricketts had shared the general skepticism, but he certainly wanted Crook’s fool trick to work. He feared the collapse of the flanking attempt would precipitate an order to launch a frontal attack. And his men had endured enough mindless assaults.

  Spotsylvania. Good God. How much glory had its mud produced?

  Up on the heights, Reb officers pranced on their horses, appearing to pay social calls. No soldierly eye would judge them much concerned.

  Where was Crook?

  Ricketts rode forward, through wisps of smoke, to order Keifer to bring up another regiment. To “amuse” the Johnnies. While waiting for deliverance.

  3:15 p.m.

  Early’s headquarters

  “I don’t like it,” Early muttered. “I don’t like this at all.”

  “Want me to draft the order, sir?” Sandie Pendleton asked.

  “Write it up, write it up. Army’s to withdraw, right after dark. Meantime, call up the wagons, just do it quiet. Come morning, I don’t want that low-down cur to sniff one Confederate backside on this hill.” Early drew a twist of tobacco from his pocket and bit off a chaw. “I’ll see Sheridan in Hell, before this is over. Just not here, not here.”

  Early was correct, as far as tactics went. Pendleton saw that now. The position was fine, but the men were too thin on the ground and they had no reserve. Everyone had engaged in wishful thinking, declaring Fisher’s Hill to be impregnable, desperate to believe it after Winchester. Defeat could be intoxicating, too, in a dreadful way, but as men sobered up they saw their weakness: The army lacked the numbers to hold this ground, if Sheridan applied brute force again. It was time to slip away before they were trapped, and Early was showing the fortitude to do the sensible thing, knowing the Richmond papers and even his own subordinates would condemn him. The Old Man was showing courage of a rare kind and could expect no thanks from any quarter.

  Still, Pendleton fear
ed for the army’s morale if they retreated again without a fight.

  He said nothing of that to Early. There simply were no good choices, and the Old Man had faced contention enough of late. His generals carped and quarreled, dissecting past events, when they needed to look the future in the eye. And Early sat up by a lantern’s light, alone in his tent and muttering, until dawn.

  Spitting amber juice, the general snapped, “I know what Sheridan’s up to, I’m no fool. He’s looking for the weak spot in our line. Planning to hit us first thing in the morning, come first light. Before we can be reinforced. Well, let him waste his powder, we’ll be gone.” He wiped wet from his beard. “Get that order in everybody’s hands by five p.m. And no excuses.”

  “Yes, sir,” Pendleton said. He never did make excuses, except for Early’s behavior, but he knew not to take offense.

  To the north, the pock-pock of skirmishing passed the time between battery squabbles. Despite the firing, it hadn’t been much of a day. The Yankees seemed tuckered out, too, although it might well be that Early was right, that Sheridan was feeling their line and meant to attack in the morning. And another whipping like Winchester, Pendleton had to admit, would be a sight worse for morale than just marching off.

  He dipped his best steel pen and began to write.

  3:50 p.m.

  Ramseur’s position, left flank of Fisher’s Hill

  Stephen Dodson Ramseur had a headache. He sought shade when he could, only to feel guilty about leaving his soldiers out in their sun-punched trenches. Even the letter from his wife annoyed him. It was one of her playful “Dearest Doddie” missives, the kind he usually cherished, full of gossip, household details, and promises that the child would arrive in October. Today, the curls of her penmanship made his head pound.

 

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