Call for artillery and infantry and get up and eat and retreat and all that, and it got a mite confusin', so Ole Dan Butterfield wrote a call for this here Brigade, special. If there is an order for this Brigade, well, somebody else would be blowing his blame bugle and we'd think it was for us only it wasn't, but we would follow the order anyway, and next thing you know we'd be in trouble."
"That happened to us once," the Maine man said. "Half | the Regiment charged and the other half retreated. You had your choice." He chuckled. "Seems a good system, come to think on it."
"Well, in this Brigade we got a special call. You hear that call and you know the next call is for you. Goes like this: "We call it 'Dan Butterfield,' just like this: 'Dan, Dan, Dan, Butterfield, Butterfield.'" The Maine man said glumly, "In the middle of a fight I'm supposed to remember that?"
"It's easy if you remember." He sang it again: "Dan, Dan, Dan, Butterfield."
"Um," the Maine man said.
"Ole Butterfield wrote a lot of bugle calls. You know Butterfield's Lullaby?"
"Butterfield's what?"
Tom hummed a few bars of what was still known as Butterfield's Lullaby but which the army would later know as "Taps" and which now had no connotation of death, which simply meant rest for the night, rest after a long day in the dust and the sun, with the bugles blaring, and Joshua Chamberlain, listening, thought of the sound of Butterfield's Lullaby coming out of the dark, through a tent flap, with the campfires burning warm and red in the night, and Chamberlain thought: you can grow to love it.
Amazing. Chamberlain let his eyes close down to the slits, retreating within himself. He had learned that you could sleep on your feet on the long marches. You set your feet to going and after a while they went by themselves and you sort of turned your attention away and your feet went on walking painlessly, almost without feeling, and gradually you closed down your eyes so that all you could see were the heels of the man in front of you, one heel, other heel, one heel, other heel, and so you moved on dreamily in the heat and the dust, closing your eyes against the sweat, head down and gradually darkening, so you actually slept with the sight of the heels in front of you, one heel, other heel, and often when the man in front of you stopped you bumped into him. There were no heels today, but there was the horse he led by the reins. He did not know the name of this horse.
He did not bother any more; the horses were all dead too soon. Yet you learn to love it.
Isn't that amazing? Long marches and no rest, up very early in the morning and asleep late in the rain, and there's a marvelous excitement to it, a joy to wake in the morning and feel the army all around you and see the campfires in the morning and smell the coffee...
... awake all night in front of Fredericksburg. We attacked in the afternoon, just at dusk, and the stone wall was aflame from one end to the other, too much smoke, couldn't see, the attack failed, couldn't withdraw, lay there all night in the dark, in the cold among the wounded and dying. Piled-up bodies in front of you to catch the bullets, using the dead for a shield; remember the sound? Of bullets in dead bodies? Like a shot into a rotten leg, a wet thick leg.
All a man is: wet leg of blood. Remember the flap of a torn curtain in a blasted window, fragment-whispering in that awful breeze: never, forever, never, forever.
You have a professor's mind. But that is the way it sounded.
Never. Forever.
Love that too?
Not love it. Not quite. And yet, I was never so alive.
Maine... is silent and cold.
Maine in the winter: air is darker, the sky is a deeper dark. A darkness comes with winter that these Southern people don't know. Snow falls so much earlier and in the winter you can walk in a snowfield among bushes, and visitors don't know that the bushes are the tops of tall pines, and you're standing in thirty feet of snow. Visitors. Once long ago visitors in the dead of winter: a preacher preaching hell-fire. Scared the fool out of me. And I resented it and Pa said I was right.
Pa.
When he thought of the old man he could see him suddenly in a field in the spring, trying to move a gray boulder. He always knew instinctively the ones you could move, even though the greater part was buried in the earth, and he expected you to move the rock and not discuss it. A hard and silent man, an honest man, a noble man. Little humor but sometimes the door opened and you saw the warmth within a long way off, a certain sadness, a slow, remote, unfathomable quality as if the man wanted to be closer to the world but did not know how. Once Chamberlain had a speech memorized from Shakespeare and gave it proudly, the old man listening but not looking, and Chamberlain remembered it still: "What a piece of work is man... in action how like an angel!" And the old man, grinning, had scratched his head and then said stiffly, "Well, boy, if he's an angel, he's sure a murderin' angel."
And Chamberlain had gone on to school to make an oration on the subject: Man, the Killer Angel. And when the old man heard about it he was very proud, and Chamberlain felt very good remembering it. The old man was proud of his son, the Colonel Of Infantry. What would he have thought of the speech this morning? Home and Mother. Mother wanted me to be a parson. Vincent picked me, me, to lead the Regiment. Folks back home will know by now.
Commander of the Regiment. Why me? What did Vincent see?
He turned his mind away from that. Think on it when the time comes. You think too much beforehand and you get too self-conscious and tight and you don't function well. He knew that he was an instinctive man, not a planner, and he did best when he fell back on instinct. Think of music now and singing. Pass the time with a bit of harmony Hum songs, and rest.
But it was very hot.
Could use some Maine cool now.
Home. One place is just like another, really. Maybe not.
But truth is it's just all rock and dirt and people are roughly the same. I was born up there but I'm no stranger here.
Have always felt at home everywhere, even in Virginia, where they hate me. Everywhere you go there's nothing but the same rock and dirt and houses and people and deer and birds. They give it all names, but I'm at home everywhere.
Odd thing: unpatriotic. I was at home in England. I would be at home in the desert. In Afghanistan or far Typee. All mine, it all belongs to me. My world.
Tom Chamberlain was saying, "You should have seen the last commander. Old Ames. He was the worst, I mean to tell you, the triple-toed half-wound, spotted mule worst."
"Where was you boys at Chancellorsville?"
"Well now." A painful subject. Joshua Chamberlain opened his eyes.
"The fact is," Tom said gloomily, "we was not engaged."
"Well now, a lot of us wa'nt engaged. That there Hooker, I hear he froze right up like a pond in the dark."
"Well, we had us a misfortune." Tom turned eyes sad as a trout. He was a lean, happy, excitable man who had turned out to be calm and serene in combat. Soldiering was beginning to intrigue him.
"The thing was, damn, we had these here 'noculations.
You ever been 'noculated?"
The man swore earnestly Tom nodded. "Well, then, you a know Only thing was, we wound up sick, half the dang regiment. And come time for the fight at Chancellorsville our Surgeon Major-that's a stumble-fingered man named Wormy Monroe-he up and reported us unfit for combat.
So they went ahead and sent us back to mind the dang telegraph wires. We wasn't allowed to 'sociate with nobody.
Old Lawrence there he went on up and argued, but wouldn't nobody come near us. It was like he was carrying the plague. Lawrence said hang it, we ought to be the first ones in, we'd probably give the Rebs a disease and be more useful than any other outfit in the whole army. Matter of fact, way things turned, we probably would've been more use than most of them people. Anyway we wasn't in it."
The Maine man was chuckling. Chamberlain thought: would have thought mountain men were tougher than city boys. But mountain men get all the diseases. City boys get immune as they grow up. We were a thousand strong when we
left Maine.
Gallant six hundred... Half a league, half a league...
It was quieter now. No one was talking. Sound of troops at route step, shuffle in the dust, dull clink of mess kits, a band in the distance, tinny, forlorn, raw call of a cow in the sunlight. A voice in his ear, a hand on his arm.
"Colonel, sir-" exasperated-"beg the Colonel's pardon, but would the Colonel do us all a favor and get back on the damned horse?"
Colonel opened his eyes into the glare, saw: Tozier. Color Sergeant Tozier. A huge man with a huge nose, sweat bubbling all over his face. "I'll tell you, sir, be a damn site easier handlin' these here new recruits if the officers would act like they got sense, sir."
Chamberlain blinked, wiped at his sweat. Some of the men were watching with that odd soft look on their faces that still surprised Chamberlain. He started to say something, shook his head. Tozier was right. He mounted the horse.
Tozier said, "How are you, sir?"
Chamberlain nodded, grinned weakly.
"We don't need no more new commanding officers," Tozier said. "Here you. Lieutenant, keep an eye on the Colonel."
Tom said, "Yes, sir." Tozier departed. Chambenain thought: good thing old Ames didn't see him. My boys.
Ames shaped them. But they're mine. Year ago they held meetings to decide what to do; if they disagreed with an officer, they stopped and argued. Can't conduct an army as a town meeting.
They were coming into Hanover. Out in a field dead bodies lay in untidy rows. The arms were up above the heads, the clothes were scattered, shoes were missing. The hair of some was flickering in the wind and they looked alive. Chamberlain learned: Stuart had been through here and there'd been a brush. The sight of dead men awakened them all.
A clear day, very hot. Wind swinging to the south.
Buzzards ahead. As they rode ladies waved handkerchiefs, a band played the "Star-Spangled Banner." Chamberlain wondered: will the people here let the buzzards have them?
Or will they bury them, Stuart's men?
The people of Hanover were delighted to see them. Now as they got closer to the Rebels people seemed much happier everywhere. Happiness seemed to increase in direct proportion to how close you were. When we actually get there. Chamberlain thought, it will be easy to tell: the men will be kissing you.
Chamberlain rode upright through town. On the far side he slumped again. For a short while Colonel Vincent came up to ride with him. Vincent was the new brigade commander-a very handsome man with thick sideburns, from the 83rd Pennsylvania. He had a good reputation and he had the air of a man who knew what he was doing. But Chamberlain had seen that air before. Hooker had it. And if ever there was a man who did not know what he was doing...
Vincent had heard about the 114 volunteers. He was impressed. He thought that things were looking up. The army was ready for a fight. That in itself was an impressive fact, after all that had happened. He showed Chamberlain the new brigade flag: triangular, white, with a blue border, a red Maltese Cross in the center. The man looked at it without interest. It meant nothing much, as yet. Vincent rode back. The man from the Second Maine said sadly, "You ever hear about our flag? It cost twelve hundred dollars."
But the men were tired. There was silence again.
Chamberlain saw a rider going to the rear, a blue courier.
Then there was the first wagon, then another. There was fighting at Gettysburg. Off against the horizon he could see a haze, a dark haze, as of dirt stirred into the air.
Nothing to do now but rest on the march. The troops became very still. It was darker now. The land around them was hilly and green, turning slowly gold, then hazy purple.
It was a beautiful afternoon. At dark, word came forward to go into bivouac. Vincent came up and stopped the column, and the men moved gratefully out into a field, carrying the rails of the fences with them for evening fires. They had marched more than twenty miles again; it was now a hundred miles in five days. Now for the first time the new Maine men heard the call: Dan, Dan, Dan Butterfield! Butterfield!
And then down the road came more riders, rushing to the rear on lathered horses. Chamberlain looked up to watch them go, sensing alarm. He could feel the Gray army beyond the hills. A moment later there came the bugle call: Dan, Dan, Dan, Butterfield, Butterfield, then forward.
A universal groan. No rest now. The rattle of the rails being dropped, a general cursing. Chamberlain reformed the regiment out in the road. Dispatch from Vincent: Move out.
Word of what had happened moved slowly down the column, but it was a long while before word came down to Chamberlain. By that time it was well after dark and the moon was rising, yellow in hazy air, huge in the trees, gazing like one single vacant eye, and Vincent rode up.
Two Corps had been engaged at Gettysburg and had been driven off. The First Corps had done well, but the Eleventh, those Dutchmen, had run again, as they did at Chancellorsville. Now the First was holding and screaming back for reinforcements. John Reynolds was hurt, possibly killed.
Proceed with all possible speed.
Chamberlain did not protest. In the darkness he could feel his strength rising, coming over him in the cooler air of evening. Not far to Gettysburg now. He could hear no guns.
But now along the roadway there were people rushing out, people lining the rail fences, anxious, overjoyed. From houses back off away from the road there was a waving of flags, a fluttering of white handkerchiefs; women lifted lamps at the windows. There were many healthy-looking young men lining the road and some of the men from Maine grumbled. But the rest were too tired. Chamberlain saw some staggering, then one fell out. He collapsed in a clatter of falling rifle, of mess tins rattling in the dust. He was pulled aside. Chamberlain arranged a detail to pick up fallen men.
On and on. Now it was much darker and the moon was high, and then ahead there was an officer, a staff officer, sitting on a black horse. He rode out to meet Chamberlain as he passed.
"Colonel, tell your men. General McClellan has assumed command of the army."
Chamberlain did not have to spread the word. It went down the ranks like a wind in wheat. Some of the men cheered hoarsely. One man fired a rifle, and then Tozier talked to him. For a long moment Chamberlain believed it.
McClellan was back. God bless old Lincoln. The only general of the whole mess who knew what he was doing.
But then the troops moved on and the moon went behind a cloud and Chamberlain knew that it could not be true.
But the men marched believing they were behind McClellan. He was the only general Chamberlain had ever seen who was truly loved. The Rebs loved Lee, no doubt of that.
And we loved Mac. Chamberlain thought: two things an officer must do, to lead men. This from old Ames, who never cared about love: You must care for your men's welfare. You must show physical courage.
Well, Chamberlain thought, there's no McClellan.
There's only Meade, whom none of these people know, let alone like, and he'll be cautious. So I've taken care, as best I can, of their welfare. Now tomorrow we'll see about the courage.
Now there were the wounded, the stragglers. Men limped back, sat out in the fields making fires, sulked along eastward, out in the dark. Now there were rumors: a terrible defeat, someone had blundered, two hundred thousand Rebs, the Eleventh Corps had deserted. Chamberlain ordered his men to close up and keep moving and not to talk. Damn the rumors. You never knew what was true until days or weeks or even months afterwards. He called close up, close up, first order he had given since morning, and then shortly after that the order came to stop, at last.
It was almost midnight. There were clouds again and it was very dark, but Chamberlain could see a hill in front of him and masses of troops and tents ahead. The Twentieth Maine went off the road and most went to sleep without fires, some without pitching tents, for the night was warm and without a wind. Chamberlain asked a passing courier: how far to Gettysburg? and the man pointed back over his shoulder. You're there, Colonel, you're there.
<
br /> Chamberlain lay down to rest. It was just after midnight.
He wondered if McClellan would really be back. He prayed for a leader. For his boys.
5. LONGSTREET.
He rode out of Gettysburg just after dark. His headquarters were back on the Cashtown Road, and so he rode back over the battlefield of the day. His staff recognized his mood and left him discreetly alone. He was riding slumped forward, head down, hat over his eyes. One by one they left him, moving ahead, cheering up when they were out of his company. He passed a hospital wagon, saw mounded limbs glowing whitely in the dark, a pile of legs, another of arms. It looked like masses of fat white spiders.
He stopped in the road and lighted a cigar, looking around him at the tents and the wagons, listening to the rumble and music of the army in the night. There were a few groans, dead sounds from dying earth, most of them soft and low.
Michael Shaara - The Killer Angels Page 13
