May 5 to May 6
With the morning’s revelations, Lee’s bridled rage gave way to bitterness and a steady, simmering anger toward his subordinates. He had risen before dawn, barely teased by sleep. He could not recall his dreams, but they had been troubled. A glass of buttermilk and a campfire biscuit did not appease him, and the evening’s rain had left behind a morass that soiled his boots. He was curt with the servant who cared for his uniforms and sour toward the groom who saw to his horse. Then a witless soldier surprised him during a quarrel with his bowels. Soon after, the first news arrived from the morning’s advance. It gripped him like a cramp.
The Union Sixth Corps had escaped. His advancing skirmishers had discovered only forgotten pickets, bewildered stragglers, a handful of eager deserters, and a wealth of abandoned equipment and supplies. Despite the nightlong shelling of Banks’ Ford, Sedgwick had slipped off, retreating with a finesse he had not shown on the attack.
The dilatory actions—the contemptible indolence—of McLaws, Anderson, and even Early the day before had robbed the army of a magnificent prize: an entire Union corps offered for the taking.
With his generals sent off again, smarting and in receipt of explicit orders, he turned to Taylor and said, with unwonted sharpness:
“What is this commotion, Major? Who are those men? I cannot think with this noise.”
Taylor nodded, meek as a maid, and said, “I’ll see to it, sir.” And off he strode to quiet the headquarters hangers-on, the scouts and orderlies, the couriers and commissaries, none of whose behavior had been unusual.
Instantly, Lee was ashamed of himself: Authority abused was authority compromised. All through his career, he had taken pains to be civil, even in distasteful situations. An officer’s task—a soldier’s duty—was to protect the weak, and, by definition, every subordinate was weaker than his superior.
This war had cost him so much. He must not let it compromise his character. He would not allow it to render him common and spiteful.
Even the innermost members of his staff avoided approaching him. He stepped still farther apart from those who served him, staring northward then lifting his eyes to the heavens. The day could not decide on a course, with a masked sun and sailing clouds showing luminous borders. It must not rain. Not again. Not before he completed his final and greatest task: the destruction of Joseph Hooker’s mishandled army.
He had dispatched them, his three right-flank generals, to gather their soldiers and march to join the divisions waiting at Chancellorsville. Before this day was out, the Army of the Potomac would be shattered and captive, no matter the cost in lives.
And the war might end before summer came to the South.
“No,” Hooker said, handing back the draft order, “I want the wounded moved now. And the supply wagons. Then the reserve artillery. I want them across the river before dark, it’s going to be hard enough to get the batteries and six corps across in one night. Three bridges or thirty, things go wrong.” He nodded to Butterfield. “Other than that, good work.”
Butterfield held the pages in both hands, not quite ready to have them copied and distributed.
“Joe … I hear what you’re saying … but if we start moving the wounded now, to say nothing of the trains, it might alert Lee. And it could send the wrong signal to the men.”
“I want the wounded evacuated today. Starting as soon as possible. No more discussion, Dan.” He stopped cold but then added, “Except for those too badly hurt, of course. Arrange for surgeons to stay behind, look after them. Plenty of medical supplies, don’t be parsimonious.”
Butterfield could not help but be impressed by the man before him, a fellow who had become all but a stranger over the past few days. Since waking that morning, Joe had been the old Hooker, lucid and decisive, a different man from the addled creature of the day before.
A realization gripped Butterfield, the prospect of a splendid opportunity.
“Joe, you’re brilliant,” he said. And he meant it. By and large.
Hooker smirked. “I’m glad somebody in this army sees it.”
“No, truly. The wounded. Moving them now.” Butterfield felt almost hopeful again. “We can push that in the newspapers, it’s pure bullion: ‘Hooker cares for his wounded soldiers first.’ Really, that’s good.”
“It’s not about the newspapers,” Hooker said. He sounded uncomfortably sincere.
Butterfield waved his hands. “Doesn’t matter. Either way. The folks back home will like it. The voters…”
“Speaking of which … I’d like you to take care of keeping Lincoln informed. To the degree he needs to be informed.” Hooker met Butterfield’s eyes. “You know how to put things. In that world. Spoon up the porridge, placate him.” He took out a filthy rag and cleared his nostrils, one then the other. “The man saw two Indians once and thinks he’s a soldier. Just see to that end of things.”
“Sure, Joe. I’ll handle it.” Butterfield lifted the papers a few inches, calling Hooker’s attention back to the order. “Anything else? Before I get this out?”
“No, I think that’s all.” Hooker straightened his back and lifted his chin. Even with the side of his face bruised and misshapen, he remained the public’s model of a general, an inspiring figure even now for the soldiers. “Meanwhile, if Lee’s fool enough to attack us today, in this position … God help him, because I won’t.”
“Joe … you don’t really believe he’d consider attacking? Now? Here? Given the time we’ve had to entrench, the numbers? He’d be utterly mad.…”
“Not mad. Proud. Mark my words, his pride will be Lee’s undoing. Today or another day.”
Butterfield shrugged. “I’ll get this off.”
As the chief of staff turned back to his duties, Hooker added, “Send the first copy to Meade. We’ll see just how badly he wants to fight, after all.”
Through a smudged window, he glimpsed the glory of God’s creation. The sky was overcast, that odd gray that could nag the eye with brightness, still he found it beautiful. Turning his head just a little on his pillow, he saw treetops in new leaf, and when he had awakened at dawn he heard birdsong, not artillery. He never had found the words, not even with the few women who had come close to him, to express his wonder at the Lord’s generosity, the fruitfulness, or the splendor that awaited a man each day.
He recalled those summer afternoons in the glade across the river, the slow waters cooling the air, the green scent of life, and his unthinking youth.
How long ago that was, and how very fine it had been.
The Lord had given him much upon this earth, so very much. If the Lord had seen fit to take his arm—surely for good reason—his gratitude and soul remained intact.
The only matter pestering his conscience was his lack of eagerness to return to duty. He was obliged to return to the war the moment he felt himself capable. That was as clear as the Lord’s own admonitions. Yet he craved a little time apart from those dreadful seductions, the elation of blood-bought victories and the trap of earthly renown.
He wished to go home.
All his days, he had needed to be strong for himself and for others, and now he bore the weight of tens of thousands. And he was tired. He longed for a brief dispensation, for permission to be weak for a little while, to rely on the strength of others, on his esposa, to be caressed.
He thought now that the Lord had chastised him not only for his pride, but for the sinful pleasure he took in war. Even in prayer, he had lied to the Lord about the ecstasy he’d come to crave, his lust to slay his enemies and the transfiguring joy he felt at a foe’s defeat.
Joshua had done his duty, some of its biddings terrible, but he could not recall the Bible portraying Joshua as delighting in cruelties. Joshua was obedient to and fearful of the Lord, not jubilant amid massacre. His deeds might have brought him satisfaction at doing the work of the Lord, but not pleasure, never pleasure.
He had sinned. And the Lord demanded repentance.
If only he might have a little time, some weeks apart …
They told him little of the battle’s course and that much only upon his insistence. He gathered that things had been going well but that matters were not yet resolved.
They did not wish to excite him. They wished him to rest. But the rest he needed was not merely of the body.
The body would heal, he was certain. The flesh was the slightest matter. Pain passed, as did pleasures. The body was a transient’s habitation.
What was the difference between regret and repentance? How could a man be certain that his faith was true and pure, and not an attempt to bargain with the Lord, to bribe Him with hosannas?
A cardinal, a male, perched on the windowsill, a perfect creature, vivid and wonderful.
Yes, he was thankful to the Lord. For that flitting bird. For everything.
With a quick knock, Dr. McGuire came into the room. The Chandlers had been generous, providing him with a little house apart, with privacy, while their own home ached with the suffering of the wounded.
“You’re awake, sir?”
“Resting. As ordered.”
McGuire drew a chair to the bedside. “The pain in your side … it’s gone? You’re feeling better?”
“Yes,” Jackson lied.
Robinson Crusoe. That’s who he’d damned well felt like. Robinson Crusoe, bereft even of his Friday. Nominally the chief of artillery for the Army of the Potomac, Brigadier General Henry Hunt had found himself in charge of just about nothing. Left behind to stew and fret and watch.
In his reorganization of the army, Hooker had pushed not only the batteries but full control over them down to corps and even divisions, maintaining only a grudging army reserve. Hunt had warned him: In a crisis, there had to be one central authority able to shift guns around a battlefield without dickering with generals who didn’t want to release a single tube. Hooker hadn’t listened and paid the price.
Hooker had even ordered him to remain north of the river. To keep him out of the way, to prevent him from interfering.
Even so, Hunt had stayed busy, shifting batteries up and down the north bank as they were needed, in the saddle so constantly he’d lamed one horse and just about used up another.
Oh, he’d gotten his authority back, returned to him in a panic, but too late. Hunt had foreseen what the Southern guns could do—even though his army had better artillerymen, better cannon, and better ammunition. All Hunt had been able to accomplish was to cover the last withdrawal from Fredericksburg and to shield the flight of Sedgwick’s corps from the lunatic mess into which Uncle John had led it.
Now the rest of the army was retreating, with teamsters already crowding the three bridges and a general order issued for a withdrawal after dark—another development he’d anticipated. Indeed, Hunt already had over forty guns in position above and below the crossing site, prepared to protect the army as it returned.
Still, the situation remained a disgraceful mess, and Hunt took it personally. He knew what his guns could have done, had he been trusted. Artillery, well-handled, could decide a battle before either side grasped that its fate had already been determined.
Instead of supporting advances and repelling attacks, he’d been consigned to passivity and embarrassment.
Henry Hunt swore that if ever he was allowed to employ his batteries and battalions as he saw fit, he’d show every last damned infantry officer what massed guns could do.
Again, the afternoon declined while his soldiers moved too slowly. As Lee watched the head of Anderson’s column pass by on a march barely begun, he fought an urge to dismount and shove the officers along.
A courier had informed him that McLaws had closed on his new position at Chancellorsville, enabling Heth to join Stuart on the left. But Anderson had been slow yet again at gathering his command and starting his march.
Anderson had excuses, of course. Everyone had excuses. And plans came to naught.
Nor did the weather look promising.
He had hoped to launch an attack on both of Hooker’s flanks by two p.m. Now the hands on his pocket watch neared four and it would be at least two more hours before Anderson was in place and set to attack.
But attack they would. Lee didn’t care if it would be after midnight and dark as Hades. His army was going to strike. And Hooker and his army would be destroyed.
Nothing was going to stop him.
George Meade continued to hope that Lee would attack while the army was still in place. If Lee proved fool enough to assault the heavily fortified lines, it might yet redeem the campaign, at least in part.
His men waited. He waited. Nothing happened.
Crowding in from the west, the clouds remained swollen. If they didn’t pass by, if it rained, the crossing was going to be a wretched affair.
His corps had been ordered to serve as the rear guard. Meade understood the taunt, but if Joe Hooker had meant to punish him, it hadn’t worked. One corps or another had to bring up the rear, and Meade believed his men would give Lee a thrashing, should the old traitor interfere with the crossing.
Those clouds, though …
Corporal Bill Smith had a presentiment. No more, really, than an unsettling feeling, it nonetheless worked on his nerves. He’d never believed in hocus-pocus doings before the war, but he’d seen too many deaths foretold to rule out the strangest things.
He did not want to attack. Not this time.
But the 12th Virginia stood in line, behind a parapet of earth and logs, waiting for the order to go forward.
As they’d relieved the ragtags of Heth’s division, their fellow Virginians had warned them that the Yankees had built themselves a position that passed for a downright fortress, a line of defenses that promised the massacre of any hayseed idiots who approached it.
Normally, Bill Smith allowed for a generous degree of exaggeration from his fellow soldiers, but this time he believed every word of warning.
He did not want to go forward.
But the mood was of inevitability. All that day, he had not seen one officer of rank who hadn’t gone mean as a water snake, and the junior officers just put one foot in front of the other, staying quiet.
This was it, then. This was it.
He found himself praying. Without thinking to do it, without deciding.
He had the jumps, no question. His guts felt queasy and watery. He’d never been so shaken.
Didn’t want to bust out crying, him wearing corporal’s stripes.
Oh, Lord, oh, Jesus, please don’t. Just don’t. Please don’t.
The clouds exploded with rain, as if a dam in Heaven had collapsed.
Lee waved off Taylor’s attempt to spread his oilskin cape across his shoulders. He preferred to let the deluge soak him through, rather than cower. The weather had played him a vicious trick, but he would spite the weather. His men would advance the moment the tempest ceased.
The rain fell with a weight that threatened to bruise flesh. Still, Robert E. Lee’s expression never changed. Even though the world had gone dark and no man was positioned to see his face.
Strength of character mattered. Even when no man saw it. Especially when no man saw it.
The rain slashed in to blind him.
Hurricanes in Mexico and Texan thunderstorms could not compare. Sheets of lightning bleached the sky and the heavens roared. The rain fell with force enough to knock down a child, to fell a woman. Fields became ponds, and ponds became lakes, and the world closed in and blackened to stop hearts. Then fingers of lightning, the broken bones of the universe, made men gasp again. Lee felt the primitive impulse to take shelter, it was almost overpowering, but he remained in the saddle, fiercely upright. He would not be moved. He would not be defeated. His will would not be weakened. This rain would cease and then he would attack.
Back in his bad years, Hooker had once passed out on the floor and a pair of sluts had overturned a tub of bathwater on him. He’d never known how heavy water could be, not until that rude, aquatic morning.
This rain was harder, heavier. It threatened to play the devil with all of his plans. Already, the engineers had warned of a six-foot rise in the river, with worse to come. It seemed increasingly possible that the army would be cut off.
Ordering Dan Butterfield to follow, the general commanding the Army of the Potomac led his escort to the bridges and hurried to safety on the northern bank.
Private Benjamin Farmer lay in the mud beside the others who’d suffered the gravest wounds. Rain punched his face, but he could not turn his head to keep the water from clogging his nose and forcing its way into his mouth and throat. He gagged. And he gagged again.
He wanted to live.
He yearned with heart and soul to rise from the slop, but his arms and legs no longer obeyed his commands. Men lying near cried out for help, but Farmer did not dare open his mouth, afraid of choking on the gush of water.
Men cursed or called for their mothers. Others begged, “Help me,” over and over.
And all of them waited.
Water cascaded from the cabin’s roof and the wounded served as gutters. More water raced down a slope behind the shack, engulfing the patch of yard. All around, water pooled and rose, as if to float men off, but the mud held them fast where hurried hands had left them.
Those who could sit up or at least incline on their elbows were blessed: They shivered and hoped.
Benjamin Farmer could not rise an inch. And no one moved to help him. He wanted to be home, back in New York, warm within walls he knew. They could cut off his arms and legs, if only they sent him home.
Surgeons had not been seen for hours and the orderlies had slipped away, after scouring the pockets of helpless men. Farmer had nothing of material value: He’d already been robbed as he lay on the battlefield.
Still, a man in a bloody smock pocketed the picture of his sweetheart, sealed in a tin frame, the last of his possessions. Even the battlefield thieves had spared him that.
Well, Clara would not have him now, it didn’t matter. What woman would ever want him? He would give her up, release her from her vows. If he could just live.
His Clara faded, dismissed in his mother’s favor.
Familiar walls beckoned again, the flowered wallpaper and a bright lamp on the table: home.
I’ll be a good boy, Mother, I’ll be a good boy always. I’ll be such a good boy.…
The gathering water reached his ears and continued rising steadily. Lips sealed, he prayed in wild fragments and broken words imagined.
The water smoothed onto his cheeks. Then it lapped the corners of his mouth.
He willed his body to rise, with all the might a man could ever muster. But nothing happened.
Even now, he could not believe that he would not be rescued, that he could be abandoned to die like this.
Wouldn’t anyone help him?
The water closed over his mouth and flooded his nostrils.
Persuaded at last to take shelter, Lee turned to Marshall, to all of his gathered staff, and told them, “Prepare new orders for an attack in the morning.”
Gouverneur Warren finally located Hooker in a house on the north bank, a mile from the crossing site. Heavy with mud and soaked through despite his rubber cape, Warren felt an immense, almost unmanageable resentment upon finding Hooker dry and dozing before a fire, but there was no time to indulge in selfish emotions.
Jostled by Dan Butterfield, Hooker opened his eyes.
“We need to suspend the crossing,” Warren told him, dripping on a dirtied, poor-man’s rug. “The bridges are ready to tear loose, the water’s over their tops. They can’t take any more stress, the cables won’t hold.”
“Well, do something. You’re the engineer.”
Warren ignored Hooker’s tone, the implied insult. “The engineers are doing their best, they all know what’s at stake. But the crossings need to stop, at least for an hour or two. Until they can shore things up.” After a flush of doubt, Warren decided to explain the effort under way. “There’s no hope of maintaining all three bridges. We’re taking the weakest one down and using the pontoons and deck to extend the remaining two. It’s the only chance.”
“We’d only have two bridges. The army needs three, it’s all been calculated.”
Warren’s temper seeped into his voice. “The choice is two bridges, or no bridges. It’s been raining like this for, what, seven hours? Eight? The truth is no one can promise even two bridges that will hold. The river’s banks are collapsing. But those men out there in the rain are doing every goddamned thing they can.”
Hooker stared at him. As if the rain and all else were Warren’s fault. Then the stare drooped to a vacancy.
Butterfield stepped in, telling Warren, “We’ll signal Couch. If the damned torches will stay lit.” He looked down at Hooker, seated and gone distant. “Just a pause. Until the problem’s solved.”
Butterfield made a discreet sign for Warren to leave.
Captain Bill Folwell felt the bridge give way beneath him. Losing his balance, he toppled toward the river, too startled to react. He fell between two barely tethered pontoons and smacked the water.
The cold and the current hit him a double blow. Stronger than any muscle, the flood gripped him and pulled him away.
By a miracle, he managed to grasp a rope. Hoping it was attached at the other end.
Normally drowsy, the river had awakened to a rage. It took all of his strength just to cling to the line, he could not pull himself back toward the bridge.
The current twisted his body and forced him under, into a heavy darkness, into panic. When he resurfaced, choking, torches dazzled his swamped eyes. He was closer to the bridge than he’d believed. Or the bridge had come to him.
Barely audible in the tempest, a voice called:
“Hang on, sir. Hang on, we’ll pull you in.”
He gripped the rope to skin the flesh from his palms, hacking up water, fighting.
The river wanted him.
After the longest minute of his life, big hands grabbed his collar then clutched an arm. His soldiers, his engineers, hauled him out of the water, wary themselves of tumbling off the bridge but far more skilled at their labors than was Folwell.
He coughed up more foul water.
“You all right, sir?” one of his sergeants asked.
He had no idea. He supposed so. He nodded.
“Right, boys,” the sergeant said, “back to work.”
Tarred against the rain’s onslaught, the torches moved away, leaving a lantern to sputter on the planks. The rain fought to get at the tiny flame.
Voice made quiet—as much as the storm allowed—the sergeant told him, “Captain, you’d best go back up on the bank now. And do what officers do.”
Finding his voice, Folwell gasped, “I want to help. Times like this … everyone has to pitch in, even the officers. I … want to help.”
“Well, sir,” the sergeant told him, “you’d help a great deal by not falling back in the river.”
To Meade’s astonishment, Couch had had yet another change of mind. As the senior general remaining south of the river, Couch was in command in Hooker’s absence. Voice raised against the rain, he repeated:
“You were right, George. We needed to make a fight of it. I didn’t have my head attached last night.”
“Well, we still can. That ‘pause’ in Joe’s signal, it’s going to last all night, I’d bet a gold piece. And when the morning comes—when Lee comes—we’ll still be here.”
Cascades of water bent the shoulders of the two generals and forced down the heads of their horses. Neither man complained. And after ten hours of the deluge, a soldier just adjusted to the misery.
“Three corps,” Couch mused. “That’s not bad. Mine, yours, Reynolds’.”
“We could hold this bridgehead until doomsday. Warren laid out a line that’s close to perfect. A single corps could hold it. And with three … and the Johnnies slowed by the mud…”
“Warren wants command of a corps, you know,” Couch commented.
“If it were in my power, I’d give him one.”
“All right. I’ll send a signal to Joe. Or try to. I swear to God, Judas Iscariot must have come back as a Signal officer. I’ll tell him that we mean to fight it out.” He snorted, loud as a horse. “Damned well won’t surrender, that’s for certain.”
Couch turned his mount in the ever-deepening mud and the horse struggled off with the general hunched in his saddle.
Even on duty in Florida, Meade had never witnessed such a storm. His spectacles were useless, his clinging uniform a woolen prison, his rain cape merely adding sweat to the mix.
He gave necessary orders to the drenched, dutiful men who would, in turn, give orders to his soldiers, the men who suffered all and had no voices. Of all the tragedies, great and small, that had broken the campaign, what galled him, what gnawed at him most deeply, was the waste of good men’s lives. Hooker hadn’t fought: He’d staged a parade then quit.
And good men died for nothing.
George Meade swore that if ever such decisions were up to him, he would fight to win when a fight was on and never squander lives in a half-hearted effort.
Materializing from the drown-the-world darkness, John Reynolds found him.
“Took a while to sniff you out, George,” Reynolds said. “This rain.”
“Couldn’t smell a pig’s ass in this storm.”
Reynolds forced his mount closer. “George, I just wanted to tell you … bridges or not, if you stay here to fight, I’m staying with you. To the end.”
Meade was touched. “Couch wants to fight it out, too. He changed his mind.”
Face a white smear framed by a turned-up collar and cap pulled low, Reynolds said, “You know, George, I’d gladly serve under you, date of rank be damned. If you were in Joe’s place.”
Meade snorted. “Only the biggest damned fool in the world would accept command of this army.”
“No, no, no!” Hooker barked. “Answer him immediately. The engineers have two spans open again, the withdrawal resumes immediately.” He paced and snarled, “They want to embarrass me, that’s all. Couch, what has he done on this campaign? Now he wants to strike a heroic pose?” He scanned the floor as if hunting creatures to kill. “Meade’s behind it. Meade’s gotten to him. I should charge them all with mutiny.…”
“Keep your voice down, Joe. Sit down. I’ll handle everything,” Butterfield assured him.
Orders were orders, and George Meade was an obedient soldier. In the gray of a tardy dawn, he marched his last brigade through the mud and swollen air back to the crossings. He’d left a powerful skirmish line behind, enough to discourage any Confederates able and willing to struggle through the mire.
So far, there had been no sign of Rebel movement.
The last acres by the river were packed with troops, Couch’s corps and his own men waiting their turn: Reynolds’ corps was already across. The progress over the bridges was constant and orderly, but Meade felt the press of time.
Hooker had ordered them all to withdraw, and the order was explicit. Meade was not to fight. He could resist if attacked, but must seek to break contact promptly. There would be no last stand south of the Rappahannock.
Meade watched, alone, as the crowd on the south bank thinned and the endless blue columns finally neared an end. It was time, he decided, to call in the skirmishers. Then he would cross the river himself, accepting defeat.
He wondered what the future held for all of them.
If he’d suffered through an uglier night, Bill Smith couldn’t recall it. The feared attack had not gone forward, thanks to that hammer-hard rain, and his presentiment had come to nothing. But the squalor and near hopelessness of that night spent in the open, wrapped in a useless Yankee tent half, had been a discouraging business, enough to make the best of men lose heart.
And he wasn’t feeling like the best of men.
The rain had stopped, leaving behind mud to swallow a horse. True, they had captured Yankee rations to chaw on, but even those were wet through and befouled. In air as heavy as soaked towels, men quietly cleaned their rifles, those indispensable fifth limbs, and hoped their cartridges were dry enough.
The attack had only been postponed. Every man knew it, without being told.
Of course, the 12th Virginia was tasked for skirmishers. And Corporal Smith found himself among the anointed.
Still galled him to have built that bridge for the Yankees. Just scalded his innards to ponder it.
No man showed high spirits. Each one a picture of mortal ruination, the soldiers didn’t even step far off to flush their guts. Pride might return—it surely would—but for the present it was on the deserters’ list.
The only human being on God’s damp earth who seemed downright offensively and inexplicably cheerful was Little Billy. Mahone had come by on his too-big horse, kicking up mud and whatnot, cackling about going out to find him some Yankees for his breakfast.
Smith suspected that the Yankees had appetites of their own, not all congenial.
At last, the go-ahead-now order came down, well after the dawn had pretended to come. Unhappy soldiers stepped off under a dirty sky.
Hadn’t gone as far as a rifle shot before a man’s legs wore out. Down Southside way, you had to go deep in a swamp to find such mud. He had to keep on going, though. His legs just had to do as they were told. And as long as he had arms and strength left in them, Smith intended to hold his rifle high, defying the mud that leapt toward the weapon.
Yankees might catch him out many a way, but they wouldn’t catch him with a useless rifle.
“Guess this here’s ‘the merry month of May,’” a jokester snickered.
No one laughed.
The feel of things grew ominous. Ahead, every man could see the open stretches, freed of all but stumps, where the Yankees had cleared extensive fields of fire. Beyond, layers of abatis announced the presence of field fortifications.
“Going to get it now,” the jokester said. “Yes, sirree. Just you wait.”
“Shut up,” a sergeant told him.
Every man bent his shoulders. Tense as a coward’s finger on a trigger.
The only two sounds left in the world were birds at their own doings and the suck-slop of men struggling forward, many barefoot by choice to save their shoes.
What the devil were the Yankees waiting for?
Movement. Ahead. Smith clutched his rifle tighter, thumb set to cock back the hammer.
Waving his arms wildly to signal Don’t shoot!, a gray-clad figure clambered up from behind the Yankees’ earthen parapet. He called the Virginians forward.
The Yankee fortifications were impressive—daunting—but abandoned. A handful of soldiers from a sister regiment had found easier going through a grove and made it inside the Yankee barricades first.
“I’ll be…,” Smith said to himself.
They held up then, waiting on further orders, which took a fair time to come. By the time they resumed their advance, the hour pushed noon. Here and there, forgotten Yankees or men who’d slept through everything materialized to be taken prisoner—not without enduring some hard teasing and the ritual of having their pockets emptied for the immediate benefit of the Confederacy. Some of the Federals were confused, others were sheepish, and some were plain relieved.
One Yank had dirty pictures you wouldn’t believe.
Later, facing another Union line even more formidable, the 12th Virginia was halted for the last time. Other regiments, other brigades, had already gone ahead to clear things out.
Word came back that the whole Yankee army was gone.
Disgusted, Lee retreated into quiet. A victory had been won, indeed, but a great chance had been lost. Still, he believed he had learned a thing of value: The Union army had lost the will to fight. The soldiers in blue might range from brave to indifferent, along with the cowards who disgraced every flag, but the generals—so many of them men he’d known and respected—hadn’t the heart for an all-or-nothing fight. They did not lack strength of arms but strength of purpose.
The Union generals behaved like frightened men.
His mood was raw and forbidding, his stomach gone sour, but a vision had already begun to take hold, a course he’d pursued too timidly the year before, when he had crossed the Potomac into Maryland. He had lacked the confidence then to drive any deeper, fearful that he might be cut off and cornered. The price of his caution had been that he’d handed the initiative to McClellan, who, blessedly, had failed to make the most of it. Still, the Army of Northern Virginia had been driven to near destruction outside of Sharpsburg.
He saw now that his mistake had been lack of boldness. It was an error he would not make again.
The North beckoned. Virginia might be spared yet another summer of war. With Baltimore or, better, Philadelphia threatened or seized outright, even the most unforgiving men in Washington would be persuaded that further conflict was useless.
Robert E. Lee was confident that the Union army would remain ill-led, surly, but incapable of stopping him.
And his own army, Lee believed, could not be defeated.
The prospect of marching north demanded much consideration, of course. He would discuss it with Longstreet, when that truculent naysayer arrived, to test its logic and practicability. If a feasible plan matured, he would put it to President Davis.
When Lee turned back to his staff, his face had eased.
After a march that would have undone old Job, confinement in verminous railcars, and more slogging thereafter, Sam Pickens had stumbled across Washington City in a rainstorm that beat all, ending up in what the guards called the “Old Capitol Prison.”
At least a man got fed and not so badly. The Yankees were more curious than wicked. A few of the guards put on a swagger that seemed more farce than fierce, but most seemed to know they were high-yella lucky to be guarding Rebs in the rear and not facing them in battle.
Nobody seemed to know how the fight was going or had gone, but some rumors put Marse Robert just outside Washington, while others claimed he’d been driven back on Richmond. Other hearsay, more credible, held that they’d be exchanged in no time at all, since a mighty passel of Yanks had been taken prisoner. True or not, it was pleasant to believe it.
Through all his travails, Pickens had managed to hold on to a silver dollar, and when the guards let the sutlers come braying down the gangway between the cells, he bought his fellows a pie and a jar of molasses, hoarding the change.
A Yankee surgeon or some such like came by to inspect them for smallpox, measles, and fevers. He smelled Pickens’ rotten feet before he got near him.
After marveling that those feet were a case for the medical books, the Yankee had his orderly fetch a bottle of liniment then wash down Pickens’ feet and bandage them up.
In the U.S. Military Telegraph office in Washington, a haggard man read through the latest dispatches. Then he read them again.
When he rose at last, his broken expression silenced the last whispers in the room, leaving only the tick of the keys and the scratch of pencils as evidence that the world had not come to an end.
Very tall, but bent at the shoulders—as if he bore an invisible hod of bricks—he muttered:
“What will the country say?”
Then he walked back to the house the people had loaned him.