Jed looked back along the line.
Seven miles of it with twelve hundred wagons in the rear guarded by two brigades of infantry, Gregg’s and Lawton’s. A pall of white dust climbed high and sifted softly down on the marching troops, coating their sweat-stained faces. Ahead of them lay the dusty road to Culpeper. To their right, a little more than two miles away, the long, wooded ridge of Slaughter’s Mountain rose boldly from the plain.
The heat was like an enemy itself and Jed wished he could ride ahead of the column, scouting with Robertson’s cavalry, perhaps even as far forward as Washington Farm. He glanced to one side. Jackson was dozing in the saddle as though there were not a Federal soldier within a hundred miles. The rest of his staff, Kyd, Pendleton and Meade, straggled behind.
Shortly before noon the cavalry scouts brought word that Federal cavalry was massed on the banks of Cedar Run, maybe a mile and a half to the north. Jackson was wide awake now, eyes shining with anticipation. He held out a hand. He did not need to say what he wanted. His topographical engineer, Captain Hotchkiss, rummaged out a map from his saddle bag and put it in Jackson’s waiting hand. They pulled to the side of the road to look at it while the infantry trudged past. Nobody was singing today. Too damned hot.
‘Are the Federals on the mountain?’ Jackson asked the young cavalry captain who had brought in the information on a lathered horse.
‘No, sir!’ the soldier snapped.
‘Remiss of them,’ Jackson remarked, folding the map. He looked at Popeye Ewell who nodded and rubbed his hands together, shifting in the saddle as though his seat were itching.
‘We put that mountain on our right, Tom, and we’ve got ourselves a nice, protected flank,’ he commented. ‘Yes, sir, very nice indeed, I’d say that was. Very nice indeed!’ He rubbed his nose and squinted his eyes half-shut.
Jackson scratched his beard and looked towards close-set woods on the left. He frowned. Nobody liked fighting in the woods: it was like going forward in fog, unable to see more than a few arm’s lengths in front of you. An entire regiment could hide in the undergrowth and wait for you to come within rifle range, then stand up and mow you down.
‘Get the artillery up!’ Jackson commanded. Even as he spoke they heard the first warning rumble of the Federal cannon. He turned to Ewell. ‘General, make your dispositions on the right as soon as you are able!’
‘And you, sir?’ Ewell asked.
‘Winder will take the left flank,’ Jackson answered, swinging his horse about. ‘I’ll stay there till Little Powell comes up to take the center.’
Tally-ho! Jed thought, as Jackson galloped off to the west. He kicked his horse into a run and thundered across the fields after his commander. Jackson didn’t need to hurry: it would take at least two hours for the dispositions he had so casually ordered to be carried out. There were twenty thousand infantrymen and fifteen batteries in that seven-mile column. But Jackson hated inactivity. With him it was always full-speed or stop.
Jed came up to find Jackson talking to General Winder, pointing towards the Federal positions and nodding emphatically. A quiet, scholarly man, Winder looked drawn and pale, and Jed recalled hearing someone say that Winder had been ill.
By three o’clock the lines were formed beneath the broiling sun. On the right of the advanced guard were eight guns and eight more on the mountain itself. Along the highroad to the left were placed six guns of Winder’s division. For nearly two more hours these guns volleyed and thundered, hurling shells into the enemy lines every twenty-five seconds. The enemy artillery replied in kind. The heavens shook, roared. Trees fell with huge snapping cracks.
‘Present my compliments to Colonel Garnett, Major,’ Jackson shouted at Jed. ‘Tell him to look well to his left and to ask his divisional commander for reinforcements. I don’t like the look of those woods yonder: they make our flank extremely vulnerable.’
Jed made the dash across the field to Garnett’s position, which was to the front and west of the road. The left of the line extended along a skirt of woodland, which ran at right angles to the road, overlooking a newly reaped wheat field. On the far side of the wheat field lay the dense woods which made Jackson so uneasy.
Garnett nodded his understanding and asked Jed to convey word to General Winder that he would like the reinforcements suggested by General Jackson.
‘Where’s he at?’ Jed shouted, neck-reining his horse around.
‘He’s with the Stonewall brigade!’ Garnett yelled back. ‘On the left, along the highroad. Behind the guns!’
‘Noisier than the night Granny fell down the stairs, Colonel!’ Jed grinned. Garnett grinned back, teeth showing white against his dust-covered face.
‘Amen!’ he yelled. ‘Good luck, Major!’
Jed spurred back across the field, picking the horse up as he stumbled where caissons had torn the ground and left great gashes in the soft earth. There was dust and powder smoke everywhere: the constant roar of the cannon, the blowback blasts of heat from their reeking muzzles, the whistling roar of the shells thundering off towards the Federal lines, and the even louder thunder of Federal shells crashing down around them, making the leather-lunged yells of the gunners sound like the voices of frail old ladies. Jed slid off his horse and tied it to a tree where some of the gunnery horses stood. He could see Charlie Winder up ahead by the battery, uniform jacket off. He was looking at the Federal lines through a pair of field-glasses. Jed started towards him and as he did there was a zooming, thunderous shriek and he found himself lying on his side, ears numbed by the force of the shell. The torn ground on which he lay was smoking, the grass brittle, burned. Shaking his head, Jed got slowly to his feet. Not hurt, he thought, wonderingly: my luck’s still in. The smoke cleared. Where Winder had been standing there was a smoking hole. The gunners who had been serving the cannon were gone. One man lay across the barrel of the gun, coughing blood. Something twitched beside Jed’s boot, and he saw that it was a severed hand. Further to the right Winder lay on the ground in a welter of blood, his right leg bending and straightening spasmodically.
‘Six men!’ Jed yelled into the din. ‘Over here on the double!’
Some soldiers ran across to him. They locked arms beneath the body of the groaning general and hurried Winder to the field station at the rear. Jed watched them go, knowing no surgeon could do anything for such fearful injuries as Charlie Winder had sustained.
‘Where the hell is Little Powell?’ he gritted as he stumbled towards his horse. ‘It must be five o’clock. Where the hell is he?’
He heard cheering, looked up. Out of the woods on the far side of the wheat field Federal infantry came running, sunlight flashing on their bayonets, firing their rifles as they ran, shouting, the bright red stripes of their colors bobbing and ducking. Jesus Christ! Jed thought, just what Jackson was afraid of? He jumped on to his horse and spurred him across to where two Alabama regiments stood awaiting the onset of the Federal soldiers, lacing the oncoming lines with a vicious enfilade. Jed saw the dark blue line falter, saw men falling, but then they started cheering and came on again, closing up the gaps in their lines. The 1st Virginia further on was already almost completely isolated.
‘Stop them, stop them!’ he yelled, not even knowing he was yelling. ‘They’re going to turn our flank! Stop them!’ He rode up behind the lines of firing men. ‘Aim low!’ he shouted. ‘Pick your targets, men!’
The Federals looked to be well over a thousand strong as they pushed steadily across the three hundred yards of open ground, colors flying. Their skirmishers were using stooks of corn and the odd ragged patch of scrub for cover as they came. The close-ranked lines of infantry were being mercilessly thinned by the Confederate rifles, but still they came on.
Jed smelled the panic starting. Some of the men in the front line were looking over their shoulders, eyes wide with fear. The Federals were no more than a couple of hundred yards away and still coming.
‘There’s too damned many of them!’ someone shouted. ‘Fall back, boys, fall back!’
‘Stand your ground and fight!’ Jed shouted, pulling out his saber. ‘I’ll kill the first man that runs!’ But he knew that even if he did so he could not stop them. They were moving now as a mindless mass, retreating from certain death. They looked at him with blank eyes as they got up and started running. There was nothing Jed could do. The men did not know him. He was just another officer. The advancing Federals raised a cheer and began to trot, sweeping rapidly into the woods after the fleeing Confederate soldiers, bearing down on the flank of Taliaferro’s brigade and Winder’s artillery.
Jed raced across their front, trying to reach Taliaferro’s position and warn him before the Federals fell upon him, but he had not covered a hundred yards when he saw a big, bearded fellow drop to one knee, raising his musket. He’ll hit me, Jed thought and wrenched the horse’s head round in order to ride at the man. In that same moment the Federal soldier fired, and the bullet smashed into the horse’s jaw, tearing a great chunk out of its mouth, splattering Jed with blood and hair. The horse shrieked in agony and reared; as it did Jed heard the meaty smack of another bullet hitting it in the body. The horse came down on all fours, shaking its head and heaving, knees buckling. Jed jumped clear as it rolled, thrashing on the ground and pulled out the great pistol he had taken from El Gato. He saw the Federal infantryman rushing at him, bayonet leveled. Knocking the bayonet aside, Jed shot him at point-blank range. The terrible force of the great slug blew the man aside as if he were a leaf. Another man rushed at him and Jed fired again. The soldier fell dead across the body of the first man.
Jed ran forward shouting into the surging lines before him. Somewhere in the rear he could hear the roar of advancing troops. Had the reinforcements come up? Was it the Stonewall Brigade? He felt a spit of rain. Or was it blood? He saw a youngster running towards him, carrying colors.
‘Here, lad!’ he shouted. ‘Stand with me! Come on boys! Rally on the colors! Form a line, now! Come on, form a line!’
He felt, rather than saw them coming, dust-covered, smoke-stained, sweating, panting, bleeding, limping. Wordless shouts, hoarse screams, animal noises filled the air.
‘Form a line and fix your bayonets!’ Jed yelled. You had to put thunder into your voice for it to be heard. The effort scraped your throat drier than a bone. Thirty men, forty, were grouped around him, firing. The man standing next to him said ‘Christ!’ and collapsed, a bullet through his heart.
‘Fall back to that clump of cedars!’ he shouted. ‘Orderly, now!’ Form two lines! First line, fire and fall back! Second line, fire and fall back!’ He saw Federals coming forward again through the rolling smoke. ‘First line, fire and fall back! Second line, fire and fall back!’
He was deaf There were dead men all around him. One of his soldiers sat down suddenly, coughing blood. We’re done for, Jed thought. The Federals were about thirty yards away. He saw a man level a rifle at him. He saw the flash of the gun and the smoke. The bullet went pzzzz past his head. Missed, he thought. A riderless horse came out of the trees and he grabbed its bridle, swinging into the saddle. More of Taliaferro’s boys were rallying around the colors. They raised a cheer when he swung up on the horse. The cheer grew and grew. He looked around and saw waves of gray-uniformed figures coming across the fields, line after line of them, laying down a hail of fire that was driving the unprotected Federals back the way they had come.
‘All together, now, lads!’ Jed shouted, wheeling the horse around. ‘Let’s go and singe Johnny Pope’s beard with the Stonewall brigade!’
The sixty or seventy men grouped around the colors raised a new cheer and ran past him, shouting animal screams as they pursued the Federal troops, leaping over the bodies of dead and wounded. Before them, the Federals were turning. Their movements looked uncoordinated, like clockwork dolls running down, jerky, unsure. And by God! they’re running, Jed thought.
He reloaded his pistol and snatched up a discarded saber, spurring the horse down the slight slope after his running men, passing them. He was shouting: there was a singing in his cars as he rode into the wind-whipped smoke. Men in Federal blue lay all around him. Some of them were trying to get up. Others did not move from the ground, screaming in one long, continuous sound.
Jed saw a Federal officer, a thin, worried-looking man in the uniform of a lieutenant-colonel, sword in one hand, pistol in the other, shouting at the retreating Federal soldiers. He might as well have been shouting at a waterfall. He saw the officer raise his pistol and point it at him. Jed swerved the horse towards the man, but even as he did so, the man pulled the trigger and Jed felt the hot sear of the bullet in his upper left arm. He shouted with pain as the officer fired the pistol again. It hit Jed’s horse in the chest and the animal slewed wildly to one side, throwing Jed, jarring the pistol from his hand.
He rolled as he landed, and came up on his feet to see the thin-face officer running at him, saber held high. It came down in a whistling arc that would have cloven Jed’s skull had he not rolled aside. He kicked out desperately at the man’s legs and heard him yell with pain. The Federal was on his knees trying to scramble upright when Jed hit him across the back of the neck with his saber. The shock of the blow wrested the weapon from Jed’s hand but it did not matter. No second blow was needed: the man was dead.
Jed saw his pistol and picked it up. Confederate troops were running past where he stood, cheering, shouting. About thirty or forty yards away, Jed saw another Federal officer trying to catch up a loose horse. He ran across towards the man who turned. He wore the insignia of a major. He held a pistol in his hand. He raised it and fired. It snapped on an empty chamber.
‘Throw it down!’ Jed shouted. The man shook his head, as though vexed at the pistol for misfiring, and pulled the trigger again. Again it snapped empty, and again and again. Jed was on him now, knocking the pistol out of the officer’s hand.
‘Damn it, damn it, damn it!’ the man was shouting. He was young and dark-haired. There were tears of anger and frustration in his eyes. He threw the gun down. ‘I consider myself to be your prisoner, Major,’ he said stiffly. His face was very white as if he was going to be sick.
‘Make your way to the rear, sir,’ Jed said, turning away from the man to catch up his horse. He mounted, the better to see what was happening up ahead. Jackson’s army was moving to the attack all along the front, pushing irresistibly forward. Federal soldiers caught away from their lines were surrendering in their hundreds; grinning Confederate soldiers herded them to the rear in shamefaced phalanxes.
We’ve won again, Jed thought. He could see the Federals streaming back. The officer who had surrendered to him was sitting on a rock, his entire posture that of a man utterly spent in body and spirit. Jed pointed with his saber towards the lines of prisoners, and the officer got up and moved off without a word.
As Jed reached for his scabbard a lance of pain flashed up his arm. The muscles were growing numb and stiff His sleeve was soggy with blood. Please God, don’t let the bone be broken, he thought. He moved the arm gingerly. Nothing grated. He thanked God silently. Broken bones were what you feared most if you were wounded. The surgeons had no time for repair work. Amputation was faster and easier. Maybe I’ll get a furlough, Jed thought. A few more days and we’ll have kicked Johnny Pope out of Culpeper. I’ll go home and see Pa, he decided. He’ll be glad to see me. Turning the horse towards the rear lines, Jed kicked the animal into a walk. It was easy to find the field station. All you had to do was follow the screams.