Jeff Shaara and Michael Shaara: Three Novels of the Civil War: Gods and Generals, the Killer Angels, the Last Full Measure

by Jeff Shaara

  There was nothing he could do about that; he had no more troops. But he pulled a squad out of Devin’s line and put the young Lieutenant with corn-silk hair in charge and gave him orders.

  “Son, you ride on out that road to the north about five miles. You squat across some high ground, where you can see. First sign you get of enemy coming down that road, you ride like hell this way and tell me. Understand?”

  The squad galloped off. A cannon shell burst in the air nearby, raining fragments in the wet leaves around him. The first Reb cannon were in position, limbering up easily, casually, getting the range. Now Buford had a little time to think. It all depends on how fast Reynolds comes. It all depends on how many men he’s got with him and how fast Lee is moving this way. Nothing to do but fight now and hold this line. But he kept looking at his watch. There ought to be some word. He galloped back to the seminary and climbed the cupola and gazed back to that southern road, but there was nothing there. A short while after that he saw the enemy come out in the open, line after line, heard the guns open up, dozens of guns, watched his own line disappear in smoke. The big attack had come.

  Gamble was down. The first report was very bad, and Buford rode over and took command, but it was only concussion and Gamble was back on his feet in a few moments, ragged and dirty. There was a breakthrough on the right but some junior officers patched it. Lone infantry began bending around the right flank. Buford mounted some men and drove them off. There were moments in smoke when he could not see and thought the line was going; one time when a shell burst very close and left him deaf and still and floating, like a bloody cloud.

  On the right there was another breakthrough, hand-to-hand fighting. He rode that way, leaping wounded, but it had been repulsed when he got there. One by one Calef’s guns were being silenced. No one had yet broken away, no one was running, but Buford could feel them giving, like a dam. He rode back to the seminary, looked down the road. Nothing. Not much more time. He felt the beginning of an awful anger, an unbearable sadness, suppressed it. He rode back to the line. The fire was weakening. He stood irresolute in the road. An aide suggested he go to cover. He listened. The Rebs were pulling back, forming to come again. But the Reb cannon were pounding, pounding. He heard the great whirring of fragments in the air, saw air bursts in bright electric sparks. He rode slowly along the smoking line, looking at the faces. The brigades were wrecked. There was not much ammunition. They were down in the dirt firing slowly, carefully from behind splintery trees, piled gray rails, mounds of raw dirt. They had maybe half an hour.

  Pull out before then. Save something. He rode back toward the seminary. He climbed the cupola, looked out across the field of war. Wreckage everywhere, mounded bodies, smoking earth, naked stumps of trees. He could see a long way now, above the rolling smoke which had replaced the mist, and the road coming down from the far-off mountains was packed with soldiers, thousands of soldiers, sunlight glittering on jeweled guns. He looked toward the south—and there was Reynolds.

  He was coming at a gallop across the fields to the south, a line of aides strung out behind him, cutting across the field to save time. No mistaking him: matchless rider gliding over rail fences in parade-ground precision, effortless motion, always a superb rider. Buford blinked, wiped his face, thanked God. But the road behind Reynolds was empty.

  The General rode into the yard below, dismounted. Buford waited in the cupola, weariness suddenly beginning to get to him in waves. In a moment Reynolds was up the ladder.

  “Good morning, John.”

  An immaculate man, tidy as a photograph, soft-voiced, almost elegant. Buford put out a hand.

  “General, I’m damned glad to see you.”

  Reynolds stepped up for a look. Buford explained the position. In all his life he had never been so happy to see anybody. But where was the infantry? Reynolds swung, pointed a gloved hand.

  The blue line had come around the bend. Buford saw with a slight shock the first column of infantry, the lovely flags. Reynolds said softly, “That’s the First Corps. The Eleventh is right behind it.”

  Buford watched them come. He leaned against the side of the cupola. Reynolds had turned, was surveying the hills to the south. There was a set, hard, formal look to him, but a happiness in his eyes. Buford thought: he has brains to see.

  Reynolds said, “Good job, John.”

  “Thank you.”

  “This is going to be very interesting.”

  “Yes,” Buford said.

  “They seem to be forming for another assault. That’s Harry Heth, isn’t it? Very good. He’ll come in here thinking he’s up against two very tired cavalry brigades, and instead he’ll be hitting two corps of fresh Union infantry.” Reynolds smiled slightly. “Poor Harry,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” Buford said.

  “You can start pulling your boys out. As soon as we set up. Well done. Well done indeed. You can put them out on my flanks. Keep an eye on that north road. I expect Dick Ewell to be coming in shortly.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  They went down out of the cupola. Reynolds mounted a beautiful black horse. Buford came out into the open, saw his staff tidying itself up, combing hair, buttoning buttons. Shells were falling on the ridge nearby and bullets were slicing leaves, but Reynolds sat astride the horse in a motionless calm, looking out toward the fight, picture of a soldier, painted against the trees. Reynolds called in one of his officers. He said slowly, somewhat delicately, pronouncing each word in turn, evenly, machinelike, “Captain, I want you to ride as fast as you can to General Meade. Tell him the enemy is advancing in strong force and that I am afraid they will get the heights beyond the town before I can. We will fight them here inch by inch, through the town if necessary, barricading the streets. We will delay them as long as possible. I am sending messages to all my commanders to come to this place with all possible speed. Repeat that.”

  The Captain did, and was gone. Reynolds sent messages to other commanders: Doubleday, Sickles. Then he said, to Buford, “I think I’ll move over and hurry the boys along.”

  “Obliged,” Buford said.

  “Not at all.” He wheeled the horse gracefully, still something of that elegant quality of display in the fluid motion, and rode off. In the direction he took Buford heard music. A blue band was playing. Buford issued his own orders. The great weight was off him. Now it belonged to Reynolds. And there was no regret. Through most of his life he had resented the appearance of higher command. Now it came to save him. A new thing. He did not mind at all. Must be the age. Well, you have gone to the limit, lad. You have reached your own personal end.

  Tom Devin was up. He was annoyed to be pulled out. Buford looked at him, shook his head. In a moment Reynolds was back, leading blue troops at double time through the fields, tearing down rail fences as they came. Buford’s heart was stirred: the Black Hats, Simon Cutler’s Iron Brigade, best troops in the Union Army. An omen. They began to move out onto the road by the seminary, regiment after regiment, moving with veteran gloom, veteran silence, steady men, not many boys. One man was eating cherries hurriedly from a mess tin; another had a banjo on his back which was bothering him, and he swung it around to cover his front and banged the man in front of him, who complained, to peculiar laughter. One man asked one of Buford’s aides loudly which way was the war and offered to go the other way, and an officer turned and began sending them into line along the crest Gamble had held. Then Reynolds was back.

  The Rebel shells were beginning to pass overhead. They had seen new troops coming and some of the fire was falling now on Gettysburg. Reynolds summoned another aide.

  “Lieutenant, get on into town and tell these people to stay in off the streets. There’s liable to be a fair-sized dispute here today, and give anyone you meet my compliments, along with my suggestion that every person stay indoors, in cellars if possible, and out of harm’s way. Especially children.” He peered at the aide. “Joe, how do you see with those things on?” The aide wore glasses that were v
ery muddy. He took them and tried to clean them and smeared them with jittery fingers. A shell hit a treetop across the road and splinters flickered through the grove and spattered against the brick wall. Reynolds said pleasantly, “Gentlemen, let’s place the troops.”

  He motioned to Buford. They rode out into the road. Buford felt a certain dreamy calm. Reynolds, like Lee before him, had once commanded the Point. There was a professional air to him, the teacher approaching the class, utterly in command of his subject. Reynolds said, “Now, John, he’s got a good fifteen thousand men out there, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Yes. Be a lot more in a little while.”

  “Yes. Well, between us we can put almost twenty thousand in the field in the next half hour. We’re in very good shape, I think.”

  “For a while,” Buford said.

  Reynolds nodded.

  He turned in his saddle, looked back toward the hills. “Isn’t that lovely ground?” he said.

  “I thought so.”

  “Keep at it, John. Someday, if you’re spared, you may make a soldier.” He bowed his head once slightly. It came over Buford like a sunrise that he had just received Reynolds’ greatest compliment. At that moment it mattered very much. “Now,” Reynolds said, “let’s go surprise Harry Heth.”

  They rode out together, placing the troops. The First Corps moved into line on the left. The Eleventh Corps moved in behind them, swung out to the right. Through all that the Reb cannon were firing steadily and smoke was filling up the hollow between the armies and no one could see the motion of the troops. The Eleventh was still not in line when the new Reb attack came rolling up out of the smoke. Reynolds moved off to the left, close to the line. Buford heard music, an eerie sound like a joyful wind, began to recognize it: “The Campbells Are Coming.” He recognized Rufus Dawes and the Sixth Wisconsin moving up, more Wisconsin men behind them, deploying in line of skirmishers and firing already as they moved up, the line beginning to go fluid as the first Reb troops poured over a partly deserted crest, and met the shock of waves of new troops coming up from the south.

  Buford got one last glimpse of Reynolds. He was out in the open, waving his hat, pointing to a grove of trees. A moment later Buford looked that way and the horse was bare-backed. He did not believe it. He broke off and rode to see. Reynolds lay in the dirt road, the aides bending over him. When Buford got there the thick stain had already puddled the dirt beneath his head. His eyes were open, half asleep, his face pleasant and composed, a soft smile. Buford knelt. He was dead. An aide, a young sergeant, was crying. Buford backed away. They put a blanket over him. Off to the left there was massive firing. There was a moment of silence around them. Buford said, “Take him out of here.”

  He backed off. Across the road a woman was chasing a wild-haired child. A soldier ran past her and caught the child and gave it to her. Buford went to a great shade tree and stood in the dark for a moment. Too good a man, Reynolds. Much too good a man. Buford wandered slowly back out into the light. It was very hot now; he could feel sweat all down his face.

  A detail from a New York regiment carried Reynolds away, under a blanket. Buford’s aides came to him, back to the shepherd. There were no orders to give.

  The battle went on without a commander. The men fought where Reynolds had placed them. Buford slowly withdrew his cavalry, as Reynolds had ordered. All the rest of that morning gray Rebel troops came pouring down that narrow road. No messages came. The line continued to hold. There did not seem to be anyone in command, but the line held. After a while Buford mounted what was left of his cavalry and rode slowly out that road to the north. He could not hold for long, but he could hold for a little while, and the yellow-haired lieutenant was out there alone.

  3.

  LEE

  They had stripped the rails from both sides of the road, to widen the passage, and some of the men were marching in the fields.

  The road was already going to dust and the dust was rising, and there was nothing to see ahead but troops in the dust toiling upward toward the crest of a divide. The bands played as he went by. He nodded, touching his cap, head cocked, listening, searching beyond the music and the noise of rolling wagons and steely clinking of sabers and guns for the distant roll of artillery which was always there, beyond the hills. They came to a narrow pass: rocky country, dark gorges, heavily wooded. He thought: if there is a repulse, this will be good country to defend. Longstreet could bring up his people and hold this place and we would shelter the army back in the mountains.

  He began almost to expect it. He had seen retreat. There would be clots of men out in the fields, out far from the road, moving back the other way, men with gray stubborn faces who would not listen. Then there would be the wounded. But here they would block the road. No room to maneuver. If Longstreet’s spy was right and there had been masses of cavalry ahead, what the blue cavalry could do to his packed troops …

  Lee knew that he was worrying too much, recognized it, put a stop to it. He bowed his head and prayed once quickly, then was able to relax and compose himself. He rode up into the pass and the country began to flatten out, to go down toward Cashtown. The day was hazy and he could not see far ahead. He began to pass empty houses, dark doors, dark windows. The people had fled. He entered Cashtown and there at the crossroads, mounted, watching the troops pass, was Powell Hill.

  Hill was sitting with his hat down over his eyes, slouching in the saddle, a pasty illness in his face. He smiled a ghostly smile, drew himself up, saluted, waved toward a brick house just off the road.

  Lee said, “General, you don’t look well.”

  “Momentary indisposition.” Hill grinned weakly. “Touch of the Old Soldier’s Disease. Would you like to go indoors, sir?”

  Lee turned to Taylor. “We will establish temporary headquarters here. All dispatches to this place.” To Hill he said, “What artillery is that?”

  Hill shook his head, looked away from Lee’s eyes. “I don’t know, sir. I sent forward for information a while back. Harry Heth is ahead. He has instructions not to force a major action. I told him myself, this morning.”

  “You have no word from him?”

  “No, sir.” Hill was not comfortable. Lee said nothing. They went to the brick house. There was a woman at the gate to whom Lee was introduced. Near her stood a small boy in very short pants, sucking his thumb. Lee was offered coffee.

  Lee said to Hill, “I must know what’s happening ahead.”

  “Sir, I’ll go myself.”

  Hill was up abruptly, giving instructions to aides. Lee started to object, said nothing. Hill was a nervous, volatile, brilliant man. He had been a superb division commander, but now he commanded a corps, and it was a brutal military truth that there were men who were marvelous with a regiment but could not handle a brigade, and men who were superb with a division but incapable of leading a corps. No way of predicting it. One could only have faith in character. But to be ill, on this day—very bad luck. Lee watched him. He seemed well enough to ride. Good. Hill was gone.

  Lee began work on a plan of withdrawal. Moments later Walter Taylor was in with General Anderson, who had just come into town to look for Hill. Anderson’s division, of Hill’s corps, was stacking up on the road south of town, moving in behind Pender and Heth. Anderson had come to find out about the sound of the guns. He knew nothing. Sitting in the house was galling. Lee was becoming agitated. Anderson sat by hat in hand, watchfully.

  Lee said abruptly, impulsively, “I cannot imagine what’s become of Stuart. I’ve heard nothing. You understand, I know nothing of what’s in front of me. It may be the entire Federal army.”

  He stopped, controlled himself. But he could wait no longer. He called for Traveler and moved on out of Cashtown, toward Gettysburg.

  Now he could begin to hear rifle fire, the small sounds of infantry. He touched his chest, feeling a stuffiness there. So it was more than a duel of artillery. Yet Heth was not a fool. Heth would have reasons. Suspend judgment. But Jackson is n
ot here. Ewell and Hill are new at their commands; all in God’s hands. But there was pain in his chest, pain in the left arm. He could see smoke ahead, a long white cloud, low, like fog, on the horizon. The troops around him were eager, bright-faced; the bands were playing. He came out into a field and saw men deploying, moving out on both sides of the road, cutting away the fences: Pender’s division. He put his binoculars to his eyes. Troops were running in a dark grove of trees. Taylor said that Gettysburg was just ahead.

  Lee rode left up a flat grassy rise. Below him there was a planted field, rows of low green bush, rolling toward a creek, broken by one low rail fence and a few thick clumps of trees. Beyond the stream there was a rise and atop the rise was a large red building with a white cupola. To the left was an open railroad cut, unfinished, a white wound in the earth. There was smoke around the building. A battery of artillery was firing from there. Lee saw blue hills to the south, in the haze, but now, sweeping the glasses, he could begin to see the lines of fire, could sense by the blots of smoke and the pattern of sound what had happened, was happening, begin piecing it together.

  Heth’s division had formed on a front of about a mile, had obviously been repulsed. The Union infantry was firing back from a line at least as long as Heth’s. There did not seem to be many cannon, but there were many rifles. Was this the whole Union force or only an advance detachment? Ewell was off to the north; Longstreet was miles away. What had Heth gotten himself into?