by Ralph Peters
After making his way through Pierce’s debacle, Major William Mitchell found General Egan.
Before hearing out Mitchell’s speech, the Irishman interrupted: “Already have them at it, lad. Come along and see for yourself. McAllister’s moving upon them, and I’ll support him with all the men I can, just keep enough up here to fend off the Johnnies. They’ll be coming at us over the run, too. ’Tis clear what they’re on to, the shites.”
“Yes, sir. Grand, sir.”
“We’ll see how grand it is, Major. The Rebs will have their say, they will.”
And they rode southeast, arriving just in time to see the New Jersey brigade surprise the Johnnies in turn, sweeping over a low ridge and charging across a swale where a branch meandered. A number of gray-clad flankers were taken, and McAllister pushed the Rebs back a hundred yards before they recovered and made a stand.
The Rebs countercharged. They were repulsed in turn. Then McAllister’s boys went at them again, dogged and dripping blood. At more than one point, the fight became one of bayonets, rifle butts, emptied revolvers wielded like hammers, and bloody-knuckled fists.
But down behind that struggle, the Confederate attack had stormed across the Plank Road, closing the route that Mitchell had followed only minutes before. Where it wasn’t at a stalemate, the fighting still favored the Rebs.
“I’ve got to see Smyth, one Irishman to another,” Egan said. “I’ll leave you to pass Win’s greetings on to Rugg. Luck of the day to you, Mitchell.”
Five twenty p.m.
Plank Road
If Hampton was attacking, Billy Mahone damned well saw no sign of it. He’d driven the Yankees, was driving them still, shattering their attempts to hold the Plank Road. But he needed Hampton to come in from the west and Rooney Lee to do his part from the south, to chop the pig into pieces they could gobble.
His belly burned and acid climbed his throat.
He needed Heth to cross the run as well, to get behind that Yankee brigade that had gotten behind him. And Heth had to move before the drive broke down. It was next to impossible to maintain order in an attack so swift and so successful, almost as hard as controlling men running away.
Davey Weisiger found him.
“General Mahone, I want to push for those wagons, cut those roads. I can do it right now.”
“I know, I see it. Don’t like to split the force any more than we have to. Hampton needs to do his part, come in and snap them up.”
“Well, he ain’t. And my boys spotted Federal cavalry riding for White Oak Road. They’ll give him a time when he does come, hold him up.”
Damn Hampton.
“All right, Davey. Go on. You take those wagons. But keep an eye on your flanks. I’ll see to things up here.”
Damn Hampton.
He longed for a glass of milk.
Five twenty p.m.
Burgess farm
Charlie Morgan felt puking sick, but he told himself it was no worse than a hangover, a condition of which he believed himself a master.
He found Hancock amid the half-rallied soldiers of Pierce’s brigade, cursing, cajoling, and herding strays as if he were a first sergeant. The men were making something of a stand, but the road had been cut. Egan’s situation to the north of the Rebs was unclear, but that wasn’t the worst of it.
“Sir,” he called. But it took a hard moment to get Hancock’s attention, to make his way closer. Bullets dropped men all around them, spicing the air with blood and brains and shrapnel chips of bone. A yard ahead, a lieutenant doubled over, pawing his belly and screaming so madly it spooked Morgan’s horse to a sidestep.
“Sir,” Morgan called, nearing Hancock at last, “I couldn’t bring up the Sixty-ninth Pennsylvania. Or anyone else. The Rebs are attacking down White Oak Road. In force. Gregg’s men can’t hold by themselves.”
“Christ. Damn it. I knew it.”
“Those Philadelphia micks can hold. They just can’t be withdrawn.”
“Goddamn it, Charlie, I understood you the first time. You there, you! Get back on the firing line, you worthless piss-cutter.”
“General, you’re needed in the rear. You need to be in charge, not in a charge.”
Hancock wheeled on Mitchell with fury on his face and his shoulders bent forward, an old lion set to maul. “And you…,” he bellowed. But he stopped himself.
Mitchell waited. He knew when to wait Hancock out.
“Damn you, Mitchell, you know how I hate being wrong.”
Five thirty p.m.
The Wishbone
“Splendid, boys, splendid! Show them what you’re about! Absolutely splendid!”
It wasn’t splendid at all, but a bloody mess. De Trobriand reminded himself, as always, that the situation must look as bad or worse on the enemy’s side: another lesson inherited from his father, with Eylau tendered as the maxim’s proof.
And it wasn’t as bad as the Wheatfield. Nothing ever was.
His men behaved themselves properly, never wavering, denying the Johnnies the prize of the junction, with all the spare guns and wagons—and, not least, the corps’ sole line of retreat, should it come to that.
He felt pride, of course, but he rationed the emotion. Pride was best indulged in at day’s end. And despite the gloom creeping over the fields, he suspected that the day was far from done.
For himself, de Trobriand favored staying alive. He adored his wife and daughters. He had wealth. His health was robust, as sound as a soldier in the field could expect. There were books he intended to write and journeys he meant to take, vintages waiting to be drunk and meals to be had in good company. So he found the bullets aimed his way an affront. Nor was he fearless.
But a man did his duty, or he was no man. That was the entire alphabet of honor. So de Trobriand remained mounted, letting his white gelding prance down the firing line as he encouraged the men he asked to die.
The Rebels charged again.
Five thirty p.m.
The cornfield
Just couldn’t move ’em. Damned Yankees. One stubborn brigade behind a rail fence, with fugitive blue-bellies sidling back to join them on the flanks. And that wagon park just at their backs, as tempting as Delilah or Jezebel, as beauteous as the Rose of Sharon, surely. Just waiting to be ravished, food, medicine, all the wealth of Yankeedom. Denied them by one brigade of Philistines, officered by a fellow as wicked as Beelzebub and Lucifer made one, him twirling that shining butcher’s knife of his like a circus feller.
Why couldn’t nobody hit him? Sale wondered, having failed himself.
They charged again. Feet slop-busting the fading furrows and ankle-kicking away the broken stalks, going at the Yankees with a hoarse cheer, the air wet and clinging, though sparing of rain for now, and bullets singing by, good men falling, and Sale found himself at the forefront, raging, calling on men to come along, it wasn’t but a bit farther, just come on, but not enough of them stayed with him and he wasn’t given to doing foolish things, so—bitterly, bitterly—he followed the rest of his regiment back into the corpse-specked field, whose middle ground they denied to the Yankees with all the old-mule stubbornness the Yankees were showing to them.
And they just kept on killing each other. Way folks did.
Five forty p.m.
White Oak Road
Hampton had waited, hoping Mahone’s attack would draw off some of the Yankees on White Oak Road. As soon as he saw a sign they’d weakened their line, he meant to strike them hard and punch right through, to unite with Mahone’s infantry and complete Hancock’s destruction. But he couldn’t read the field for the trickster light and ghosting smoke, and he remained unsure of the strength of the Federal force awaiting him. All he could tell was that Little Billy had kicked up quite a ruckus, judged by the noise.
Raindrops dabbed his eyes; he could wait no longer. He ordered Butler forward in a saber charge with a dismounted echelon following, the first intended to clear off Federal skirmishers and make the Yankees reveal their strength,
the latter to strike their weakest point and shatter them.
In the dregs of the day, Butler led his riders personally for the first stretch of the charge. They advanced with sabers up, the horses slipping here and there as they sped to a gallop, the men hollering like demons. Hampton followed just behind, riding ahead of the dismounted ranks. Positioned on the flank, one of Hart’s batteries pummeled Yanks seen and unseen.
Hampton watched his horsemen charge into the murk. Startled Union skirmishers fled in terror. Everything was going right.
A bolt of horror pierced him, followed by fury.
Damned Preston! The boy was unmistakable. Riding amid the foremost horsemen, next to Butler’s younger brother Nat.
Hampton resolved to dismiss his son from service. For outrageous and intolerable disobedience.
Turning, he called to his eldest son and pointed.
“Wade! Major Hampton! Go fetch Preston, bring that damned fool back here!”
Young Wade gee-upped his horse and applied his spurs, flinging mud on the staff and Hampton, too.
Hampton quickened his own pace. Forgetting the battle and watching his defiant son.
Preston turned, grinning and waving his hat. His horse’s neck bent rearward. He was coming back on his own, he’d had his thrill.
Thank God, Hampton thought. The young fool.
Preston jerked and his hat fell off. He buckled, clutching his groin. Then he slipped from the saddle and dropped like a sack.
Hampton kicked his horse to a gallop.
Young Wade got there first, leaping to the ground and running to Preston. Pivoting to wave for help, Hampton’s eldest son toppled over, too.
Zim Davis reined up and slipped to the ground. He bent over young Wade, then slopped on to Preston.
Hampton hurled himself from his horse, landing so hard he almost slipped and fell. The advancing soldiers parted around the scene. Eyeing things warily.
Young Wade was alive and conscious, though in pain. He called for someone to help him sit up, then cried out for Preston, asking if he was all right. Hampton couldn’t see a wound on him, didn’t see any blood.
He rushed on to Preston, plunging to his knees.
Preston’s eyes had rolled back in his head. He breathed in irregular gasps. Bright blood pumped through his shredded uniform, just where his thigh joined the hip.
Hopeless. Hampton knew. And refused to know.
He roared at the rain, the sky. Wordless. Once.
Bending forward, he gathered Preston in his arms, cradling the boy’s head with one big hand. He kissed him on the forehead, then on the lips.
“My son, my son…”
He held his child against his chest, as if his embrace could transfer the force of life back into the slighter form. The battle his men had joined no longer existed.
The boy’s breathing stopped.
“There’s a wagon,” someone said. Matt Butler, back from his charge. “We’ve brought up a wagon, sir. And Doctor Taylor.”
Holding the boy still tighter, Hampton stopped fighting his tears. Manliness meant nothing anymore.
“Let us take him up,” another familiar voice said. Doc Taylor. A hand settled on Hampton’s shoulder.
“Save him,” Hampton muttered. Unwilling to let go.
Then it was different, all things were different, the world cavernous and bleak. He relinquished Preston’s form to men who lifted him—gently—into the bed of a wagon stripped of its canvas.
“Major Hampton?” he asked, remembering. “How is—”
“It’s his spine, he’s shot low in the back. Rode off himself, though,” Butler told him. “Don’t know how he did it.”
Yes, he would. A Hampton would always ride off himself. If he had breath left.
Hampton wanted to howl and howl. But that was done now, the terrible selfishness. Not the agony. That was only beginning. But the awful sense of being robbed by God had to be subdued, some order imposed on the soul.
Taking the reins from an orderly, he mounted and guided his horse alongside the wagon. Doc Taylor sat in the bed, cradling Preston. The boy’s head lolled, unmuscled now, the head of a pickaninny’s doll of rags.
“Too late, Doctor,” Hampton said, willing his voice not to break. “But I thank you.”
He turned his horse around and went back to his duty.
Five fifty p.m.
White Oak Road
“Come on, me darlings,” the sergeant called to the approaching Confederates. “Come to Sergeant Danny, ye filthy bastards.”
The 69th Pennsylvania stood beside the road, ranked deep, with the men to the rear reloading and passing rifles forward as fast as the front rank could fire.
“An’t it a lovely slaughter, though,” the sergeant asked those around him. “It’s almost as fine a thing as killing Englishmen.”
The Rebs came on and they shot them down.
“I do love killing the darlings,” the sergeant said.
Five fifty p.m.
Boydton Plank Road
Little time remained before darkness settled, and skirmishing raindrops foretold a proper deluge. As best Major William Mitchell could judge, the fighting remained at a stalemate, with a tilt either way still possible. If Colonel Rugg had only credited Hancock’s order and turned to attack southward, it might have turned the tide.
But Rugg had been dismissive, insisting his orders from hours before still stood, and who was Mitchell, anyway? No more than Hancock’s pup.
The quarrel had worsened as neither man gave in. Until, at last, Rugg said, “I can spare the Thirty-sixth Wisconsin, nobody else.”
Now Mitchell found himself at the head of the shrunken, nearly officerless regiment, leading them down the Plank Road toward the battle, trying to judge where the handful might make a difference.
Wounded men staggered past, not all of them Union. The fighting ahead seemed a chaos, with the opposing lines zigzagging here and gaping open there in swaddling smoke.
The one thing certain was that the Rebs still held a position west of the Plank Road, their deepest penetration.
Well, he decided, charging straight down the road gave him a clear axis, might help keep the men together. And he did think he saw an opening between the Rebs fighting westward and those who had turned north to fend off McAllister.
On the march, he unfolded the little regiment into a line of battle. The veterans moved smoothly, without pausing.
“Fix bayonets!”
The Wisconsin boys did that at the quick-step, too.
Smoke, rain, stray soldiers, a tipped-over wagon with a dead horse atop a living one, the latter neighing madly. Mitchell still couldn’t see a Reb line ahead, only a guileless to and fro, with officers struggling to gather their broken commands. Whether because of the dying light or the rain or the smoke or all of it, nobody seemed troubled by his approach.
Not that there was much to notice.
“Charge!” Mitchell shouted, waving men on with his saber.
“Wisconsin! Wisconsin!” the soldiers yelled.
The Rebs—those who finally noticed them—appeared stunned. Few reacted before the regiment overran them. And those who did react fled. Or threw down their rifles.
Jesus, if they realize how few we are … Mitchell sheathed his sword and drew his revolver.
But the Johnnies surrounding them, outnumbering them, had panicked. It took Mitchell two pistol shots and half a minute to understand why: His charge had excited other Union regiments to join in. On both sides of the road, the attack expanded.
The toughest Rebels fought with rifles wielded as clubs, but more and more withdrew to the east, giving up the Plank Road.
When no more Rebs stood to their front, Mitchell re-formed the regiment, detailed men to march off his haul of prisoners, and turned over the 36th to McAllister—who was spitting happy.
Shaking so badly he could barely holster his pistol, the major rode off to find Hancock. He doubted that he would ever do such a mad thing again i
n his life.
Less than a half hour later, Mitchell led two more regiments into another attack, with equal success.
Six p.m.
The Wishbone
De Trobriand had all but begged Mott to let him charge the Confederates, but Mott had delayed, still worried about the flank and Hancock’s censure.
The order came at last.
De Trobriand leapt his horse over a broken stretch of fence and lofted his sword again, although his arm was tired unto numbness.
“Come on, boys! Those devils started this soirée, let us make an end! Oblique order, from the right, by regiment … ten-pace interval … forward!”
The brigade swept over the cornfield, stepping over the dead and skirting the wounded as darkness fell. The Rebs retreated and re-formed inside the oak grove. De Trobriand called for guns to blast them out of it.
Six twenty p.m.
Burgess farm, east grove
Mahone wasn’t done fighting. Couldn’t be done. Wouldn’t let it happen.
He’d done his part, cutting Hancock’s corps all but in half, taking whole regiments prisoner, and overrunning their guns. The 12th Virginia had captured three flags.
And what help had he gotten? No sign of Hampton beyond a too-late spatter of firing off to the west. And nothing from Rooney Lee. So little even from Harry Heth that Hancock had been able to turn from Hatcher’s Run and counterattack, threatening to encircle brigades intended to encircle him. Mahone had needed to send his bloodied-up horse to the rear and borrow a nag.
Even committing his reserve, his Mississippi Brigade, had done no more than buy time. Time that other men wasted. Now he was in a slashing mood, re-forming his men back in the trees while the Yankees pounded the grove with artillery.
Hampton and all his high-horse, South Carolina pomposity could burn in Hell. Thrown away, another magnificent victory thrown away. What was wrong with the damned army?
Weisiger reported. Mahone asked the dark figure, “Ready to have another rush at them, Davey?”
The Virginian hesitated. “Honestly don’t know, sir. The men are blown, did what they could. And this rain, the darkness … Try, though, if you want.”
“I’m thinking on it. Waiting to hear from MacRae, his condition.”
