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

by Jeff Shaara

  He had thought often about that, the need for the fight, all of that business about the nature of man. He’d tried to discover something about religion, all the different theories, had traveled through Europe, had even been to Africa, the Mideast, to try to learn about other wars, to see for himself if there were differences. He’d wondered, Was it something unique about Americans that makes us fight? Was it inevitable, something in our nature, something about the pioneer spirit, that if there is no enemy in front of us, we will find an excuse to kill each other? But, no, he thought, we are not that exclusive, it is not just us, it is all of us, it is the history of man.

  He had always believed in the Divine Light, the lesson from his devout mother, that all men held a piece of God somewhere inside, that always, given the chance, that small piece of goodness would prevail. Even after the war, when the country was exhausted, the great wounds still open and bleeding, he had expected the kinder instincts to prevail. But the cruelty, the inhumanity, did not stop with the great fight. He could still see the Irishman’s face even after fifty years, the cynical disgust, Buster Kilrain’s bitter words, Where have you seen the divine spark in action? Perhaps, Buster, it just takes … time.

  For a long time he had believed, hoped, that surely mankind would learn from that war, would carry the lesson into the future. Our war was different, after all, he thought. Something new, something besides the amazing bloodshed, the horrible efficiency of the weapons. This time, there were pictures. If the lesson had never been learned by hearing the stories, or by studying numbers, or even walking among the small white gravestones, this time we could gaze at great thick books, awful collections of photographs. If we start to forget, then look, see it, the blood, broken pieces of men, the horrible things we can do to each other. That should be enough.

  He shook his head. But it is not enough. The rest of the world seems to pay no mind to our lesson, and the guns are still getting better. If God is in us all, then Buster was right. We are killer angels.

  It bothered him feeling this way, the cynicism, losing faith. He knew he had not truly felt this until Fannie had gone. He thought of her now, had known he could not keep that away, could not sit up here on this big rock and not have her beside him. It was nothing like the wounds, or the aches of old age; it was a soft pain, spreading all through him, filling his mind. He stared away into blue sky, thought, I don’t know how long I will live … but I will never lose this. I will miss you always, always in the quiet moments.

  He pulled himself back, his brain working again, distracting him, easing away the sadness. He looked down into the thick green, where the men from Alabama had tried to push past the men from Maine. He had thought of it every time he sat here, on this one flat rock. What might have been, what if he’d given way, what if the Twentieth Maine had turned and run away? There were great debates, academic exercises that Chamberlain had attended too often, and the scenarios were always dramatic and profound. Often it began with a discussion of the great Stonewall, if he had been here, on this ground. Chamberlain enjoyed the speculation, kept his thoughts quiet, thought now, Stonewall would have been … over there, the far end, Cemetery Hill. Right here, the fight might have been no different. It would still have been up to us. But if we had let them through here, things would have been very different indeed.

  He had heard all the theories, if the South had won, how the nation would be split into thirds, the North, the South, and California; how there might have been another war to decide just where the boundary would be out West. There were always Texans talking about their state as a separate country. And the South … he thought of Europe, of all the small countries, hot boundaries, small angry kingdoms, quick to fight. It could have become … the kingdom of Alabama, the Grand Duchy of Virginia.

  He felt a headache growing, tried to pull his mind from all of that, shut down the machine in his brain. You do that every time, he thought, you can never just … sit. He remembered Fannie’s grim patience, holding his arm while he explained it all to her, the explanations she had certainly heard before. He was feeling the sadness again, thought, How many times will I come back here? How many times will I still have to sit here? What, after all, am I waiting for?

  He didn’t know if his children would come to the reunion, even to support him, to endure the great speeches, watching the sad old men. He hoped Daisy would come at least, and bring her children. There is value in that, that if my stories and all the newspaper clippings mean very little, they should at least come to this place, walk this ground. It was different with Wyllys, his son never quite finding his place in the world. Chamberlain had tried to help him, had even gone to Florida for a business venture that Wyllys involved him in. It had come apart, as much of Wyllys’s life had come apart, and Chamberlain thought of that now: It is my fault, my doing. He has a lot to live up to, the name, the famous father. He doesn’t have to prove anything, not to me, but he will never stop trying.

  Down below, there was a noise, loud, and he looked out over the rocks, saw black smoke, an automobile, full of straw hats and colored dresses. The car growled and sputtered along the road, moving toward the town, and he thought, There is something new, something for the old soldiers to think about. What of armies without horses?

  He stood now, slowly, eased the stiffness in his legs. The noise of the auto was still in his mind, the jarring distraction, and he thought, Enough of this. It’s time to go.

  He moved back along the trail, stopped, paused briefly, saw a tall thin tree where no tree had been. Beside it was a rock, small, flat, oddly round. He moved over, stepped up on the rock, looked out toward the larger hill, Big Round Top, and knew it was one of those places he had stood, watching them, watching the enemy roll up the hill in one screaming tide. He looked across the ground, saw more of the rocks now, knew they had always been there, and he remembered now, this rock, he had done this every time he came up here.

  All right, Lawrence, he thought, enough. But something held him, something different this time, and he told himself, No, wait, don’t leave, not just yet. It came out of the ground, the rocks, through the deep green of the trees, all around him, the sight of his men, the sounds, the smells. He closed his eyes, and he was swallowed up in all of it, his men, holding them back, holding the line, the smoke and the cries, the horrible sight of his men dropping away, struck down. He could hear the screams and the sounds of the muskets, could smell the hot burn of the smoke, saw the terror in their eyes, and now he felt it, his mind opening to the marvelous memories, the pure raw excitement. If this was the last time, if he could never come back, he knew, seeing it all again, it was the most alive he had ever been.

  JOSHUA LAWRENCE CHAMBERLAIN DOES NOT ATTEND THE FIFTIETH Reunion at Gettysburg, is stricken with illness. On February 24, 1914, he dies in Portland, Maine. He does not live to see the events that will follow six months later, when, across a wide ocean, another conspiracy, another assassination, will shatter the peace. Once again a glorious army will march with banners unfurled, the colorful flags slapping in the brisk wind. This time it will be the French, and they will still remember the ways of Napoleon, still march in neat lines, a grand parade, officers leading their men, energized by the lust for the glory of war. They will not march into the rifled musket, but something new, the ever-changing technology providing a weapon even more deadly, more efficient. This time, the glorious charge will take them straight into the machine guns of the Germans. The Great War will last another four years, and again the blood and the numbers will horrify the world. And again they will not have learned.

  To my friend Ron Maxwell,

  who has taught me to never lose sight of the dream

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  FOR THE CONSIDERABLE ASSISTANCE I HAVE RECEIVED IN THE WRITing of this book I must thank the following:

  Gabor Boritt, The Civil War Insititute, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, for generously providing information and materials and insight on the character of Abraham Lincoln.

  C
hris Calkins, Chief Historian, Petersburg National Battlefield, Petersburg, Virginia, for the generous gift of his time, his singular knowledge of those special hidden places and his enthusiasm for sharing them.

  Dr. John Elrod, President, Washington and Lee University, for his extraordinary graciousness and hospitality, making available the Lee and Junkin residences, occupied still by the university president and dean, thus allowing prying eyes into the privacy of his own home.

  Patrick Falci, of the Civil War Round Table of New York, who is a tireless source of information and research material, and who sacrificed a large chunk of his vacation time to serve as guide for much of the field research.

  Beth Ford, Cincinnati, Ohio, who generously provided a marvelous collection of original published works from the postwar era, including the published battle reports of every Confederate general.

  Keith Gibson, Director of the VMI Museum, Lexington, Virginia, and his wife, Pat Gibson, whose hospitality and friendship continue to provide insight and direction, and whose talent and enthusiasm for the music of the period always remind us that there is more to our history than the written word.

  Cory Hudgins, and all the staff of the Museum of the Confederacy, in Richmond, Virginia, for their enthusiastic cooperation, and knowledge of details otherwise lost to history.

  Joan McDonough, President, the Civil War Round Table of New York, for her own suggestions of source materials; her tireless energy and assistance in fact-checking are always appreciated.

  Len Reidel, the Blue and Gray Educational Society, Danville, Virginia, for providing difficult to locate documents and material on several of the characters.

  Gordon Rhea, Charleston, South Carolina, author of The Battle of the Wilderness and The Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse and the Road to Yellow Tavern, for not only having produced the two finest accounts of these events that I have come across, but for his generosity and support of this project by providing additional research materials.

  Diane Smith, East Holden, Maine, whose own research into the lives of Joshua and Fannie Chamberlain provided insights into and discussion of aspects of their personal relationship not readily available.

  Michael Wicklein and Susan Saum-Wicklein, of the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites, Hagerstown, Maryland, for their generous assistance with biographical material I simply couldn’t find.

  It is also my privilege to acknowledge the continuing friendship and support of Clare Ferraro, the former publisher of Ballantine Books in New York, without whose faith and confidence I would not now be nor probably ever have been a writer.

  Every writer needs guidance, and for that I must thank Doug Grad, editor, Ballantine Books, who has been a patient sounding-board, and has always supported my ideas. He is one of the few who seem to understand the magic of this amazing process, how the story flows from the mind to the page, a process that is baffling to me yet.

  This process never could have been completed without the constant support and tolerance of my wife Lynne. She reads every word, offers welcome insight into what I am doing right, and what I am doing wrong, but more, she has endured my journey through stress, euphoria, aggravation, fear, exhaustion, and, when the work allows, laughter.

  The positive attention that Gods and Generals received was a wonderful surprise, and something that has pointed me in a direction I will follow for the rest of my life. My brief writing career has already provided me many positives, and a great deal of fulfillment. I did not start this journey, I merely continue it, and I am following enormous footprints. I will never stand before an audience, or dedicate a book, without acknowledging the man who opened the door. Thanks, Dad.

  AFTERWORD

  “War is for the participants a test of character; it makes bad men worse and good men better.”

  —JOSHUA LAWRENCE CHAMBERLAIN

  “It is history that teaches us to hope.”

  —ROBERT E. LEE

  JULIA DENT GRANT

  Regarded with great affection, she seems born to the attention that surrounds her husband’s amazing career. Pious yet charming, her White House years leave Washington with a clear image of the perfect social hostess. She writes her memoirs, an odd mix of touchingly affectionate descriptions of her romance with her husband and a strident attack on the myths that surrounded him, including his presumed difficulties with sobriety. Her focus, and thus her personality, is revealed with charming clarity, as much of her reminiscences concern their two-year journey through the capitals and palaces of the world. Her book is not published in her lifetime, and only reaches a public audience in 1975. She dies the dignified widow of an American hero in 1902.

  THOSE WHO WORE BLUE

  MAJOR GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN

  A man with few friends in the press, his reputation for eccentric behavior continues. He is often accused of insanity, or at the very least, a brutal insensitivity to human life. But the few who know him well understand that this is a man with a deep respect for excellence, and a man of high intellect—in 1859 he founds what later becomes Louisiana State University. Promoted to Lieutenant General in 1866, and then Full General in 1869, he succeeds Grant as general-in-chief of the army. He thus is blamed or praised for the army’s behavior during the great Indian conflicts throughout the expansion of the American West during the 1870s. Despite a notorious disregard for criticism, he wearies of controversy, and retires in 1884. He dies in 1891, a week after his seventy-first birthday.

  MAJOR GENERAL PHILIP H. SHERIDAN

  A man who likely would have faded into obscurity without the opportunities provided him by Grant, he continues to invite controversy for his brusque manner and hot temper. The month after the Appomattox surrender, he is assigned to Texas, to confront the supposed threat from Mexican Emperor Maximilian, brought to power as a puppet of the French, who support Maximilian with French troops. Sheridan’s force of nearly fifty thousand men is a successful deterrent, and the French pull out of Mexico, leaving Maximilian to the angry Mexican citizenry. Sheridan is made military governor of Texas and Louisiana during Reconstruction, but displays such brutality to the civilian population, he is recalled to Washington after a short term of office. Promoted to Lieutenant General in 1869, he later travels to Europe and represents the U.S. as an observer in the Franco-Prussian War. In 1884 he succeeds Sherman as general-in-chief of the army, and dies four years later at age fifty-seven.

  BRIGADIER GENERAL JOHN A. RAWLINS

  Grant’s conscience, if not his tormentor, he is still Grant’s close friend, and remains close after the war. Seen by many as a hypochondriac, his suffering becomes real, and he contracts the tuberculosis that had previously killed his wife. Still with Grant, he accepts the cabinet post as Grant’s first Secretary of War, but his failing health causes his term of office to be brief, and he dies in mid-1869. It is a letter to Grant, written by Rawlins early in the war, that lends the most credence to Grant’s supposed drunkenness. The letter, which Grant never saw, is made public in 1891, and in part reads, “I find you where the wine bottle had been emptied, in company with those who drink, and urge you not to do likewise.” The message reflects the hovering attention to detail and proper protocol for which Rawlins was well known, and includes the additional note, which is often ignored by Grant’s enemies, that this advice was “heeded, and all went well.” There is no evidence whatsoever that during any campaign where the safety of the army was an issue, or during any time when Grant’s decision-making was critical, was Rawlins’s commander ever indulging in the destructive practice that affected the abilities of so many men of both armies.

  MAJOR GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK

  Grant describes him as “the most conspicuous figure of all the general officers who did not exercise a separate command,” and the man whose name was “never mentioned as having committed in battle a blunder for which he was responsible.” Hancock still receives the deepest respect and affection from his subordinates, but the nagging wound keeps him from retur
ning to active command of troops in the field. At the end of the war he is officially Commander of the Department of West Virginia, and has command of the Middle Military Division, the position originally created for Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley. He remains in the army, and his command places him in the uncomfortable position of military executioner for the assassins of President Lincoln. Despite grave misgivings, Hancock reluctantly oversees the execution of Mary Surratt, who he believes to be an innocent victim of the conspiracy.

  In 1866, at Sherman’s request, Hancock is named commander of the Military Department of Missouri, and moves again to Kansas, where he had spent so much of the 1850s. His duty in Sherman’s controversial Indian conflicts is short-lived, concluding with a feud with General George Custer, whom Hancock arrests. In 1867 Hancock is reassigned and succeeds Sheridan as Military Governor of Texas and Louisiana, where his sympathy for the rights of the former Confederate citizens creates enemies for him in Washington. He is eventually given the thankless post commanding the Department of Dakota. Feeling the pressure of Democrats to represent their political interests, he makes an attempt at a presidential nomination in 1868, but Grant’s popularity prevents any hope of success. He assumes command of the Department of the Atlantic under the new President, still keeps his political interests alive, and in 1880 receives the nomination. But Grant’s corrupt administration has shifted the mood of the country away from military heroes, and Hancock loses the election to James Garfield. Hancock then suffers the extraordinary loss of both his children, then loses the final fight for his own health and dies in 1886.