Chapter 10

Mrs. Weikert was not happy that Bette chose to join Victor in lieu of remaining on the farm, but having read Tillie Pierce’s booklet several times, Bette remembered that Tillie wrote that on the 3rd of July the Weikert family was evacuated from the farm due to the errant Confederate artillery fire, which preceded Pickett’s Charge. She concluded she would probably be safer on Big Round Top with Victor than at the Weikerts’ farm. No one, Bruce Catton assured her, would be firing on Big Round Top during Pickett’s Charge.

They climbed undetected up the eastern slope of Big Round Top to its summit, retracing the steps they had taken the day before. Victor led Bette to yesterday’s boulder-strewn crow’s nest and they set up camp, even going so far as to lay out a Union blue picnic blanket that Mrs. Weikert had provided. Again, the matriarch of the Weikert clan supplied Victor and Bette with food, water and the spyglass. Bruce Catton was merrily floating overhead watching the preparation of the artillerymen on Little Round Top, as well as the machinations of the Confederates to the west along the wood line that stretched the length of Seminary Ridge.

“It is really hot and humid today, Victor,” Bette said. “Most of the clouds have lifted and the sun is going to bake us,” she added.

“We have shade, among the boulders and the trees, Bette. The sun won’t bake us as bad as it will the soldiers. Professor Michael Jacobs of Pennsylvania College kept a record of the weather during the battle. We’ll have a high of 87 degrees today,” he said, adding, “with a few cumulostratus clouds.”

“You even know the weather report?” an impressed Bette asked.

“Well, it is important, and I read the report Professor Jacobs from Pennsylvania College kept about the weather during the battle. He was very thorough. He took temperatures three times per day. And yes, it is humid today. The Confederates are going to have to march about a mile over open ground in the hot sunlight. Climb over fences and so forth. All while under fire. That’s especially fatiguing when someone is trying to kill you at the same time.”

“The Rebels are beginning to gather in mass,” Catton called to the students from overtop their position.

Victor, extended the tube on his spyglass and peered at Little Round Top. “What are those odd-looking cannons, Mr. Catton?” he asked.

The ghost turned his head and then floated over to Little Round Top. He returned with an answer. “Those are six ten-pound Parrott Rifles, Victor. The latest thing…well for 1863 anyway. They were accurate, rifled guns, named for the man from West Point, New York, who designed the weapons.”

“Anything special about them, Mr. Catton?”

“Parrott Rifles were celebrated for their accuracy at over two thousand yards, which is more than a mile. Unfortunately, they had a reputation for blowing up. You see, children, an artillery man faced death not only from his enemy but from his own weapon. Many a dedicated soldier was killed or maimed when one of the guns exploded and sent shrapnel hither and thither.”

“Hither and thither?” Victor asked.

Bette intervened. “Here and there,” she said.

“Oh.”

“Look over at Seminary Ridge. Do you notice anything happening in the woods on the ridge?” Catton asked.

“It appears the Confederates are collecting cannons,” Victor said, after looking through the glass. “I remember reading Stephen W. Sears’ account of the line of cannons and he wrote that ‘nothing remotely like it had been seen in the war and with their crews hidden from sight the guns stood silent in their long ranks like deadly, solitary sentinels.’ You can see the bronze Napoleon cannons glistening in the sunlight. The Confederate commander of artillery was a man named Porter Alexander, wasn’t it, Mr. Catton?”

“Very good, Victor. Colonel Porter Alexander to be precise. Unfortunately, he was outfoxed by his Union counterpart, who feigned defeat and stopped firing. You see, not only Shelby and I, but most historians disagree on four things about Pickett’s Charge, or as Shelby likes to call it, the Trimble-Pickett-Pettigrew Charge. First, how many Confederate cannons fired in the bombardment before the charge? Second, how long did the Rebel cannons fire? The estimates vary between one hundred forty and one hundred sixty-three. And we can’t see all of the artillery pieces from our vantage point. Third, and this is the one historical disagreement that Shelby and I argue most heatedly about—how many men marched in the attack? Anywhere from ten thousand to fifteen thousand, historians say. I conclude it is about twelve thousand and Shelby claims it is fourteen thousand men. We plan to settle the argument today.”

“I hope so,” Victor interrupted. “Since that’s why you took us to July 1863 instead of November, Mr. Catton.”

“Ah yes, Victor… And the fourth and last thing, is how far did the Confederates advance? You see Pettigrew’s men marched farther than Pickett’s boys, because the Rebels weren’t totally parallel with Cemetery Ridge and Pettigrew was on the left flank of the group. Look, here come the artillerymen out of the wood line!”

Mr. Catton was like a little boy about to open the largest Christmas present under the tree. In some ways, Victor was pleased that a soul could be happy in the afterlife, for he hoped that when he died and went to heaven it wouldn’t be all harps and wings and choir rehearsals. Messrs. Catton and Foote made death seem like fun. But he was in no hurry to share their “fun.”

Sure enough, as Bruce Catton cheered them on, the Confederates began to take their positions by their cannons in preparation for the bombardment of Cemetery Ridge.

“It’s show time!” Bruce Catton shouted.

1:07 p.m. according to Professor Jacobs’ meticulous calculations, 1:07 p.m. on the afternoon of July 3rd, 1863. By 4 p.m. the Confederates’ chance to win the Civil War would be gone with the wind, to borrow Margaret Mitchell’s immortal phrase.

“What do you mean by that, Mr. Catton?” Bette asked. “Show time?”

“Look to your right, girl, can you see the Union soldiers huddling behind the stone wall on Cemetery Ridge?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And that small clump of trees?”

“Yes,” Bette said.

“Well the cannons are about to open fire on that position. The idea was to soften up the Union defenses, but what happened, Victor Bridges, I’m sure you know?”

“The Confederates overshot their target. Most of the shells fell harmlessly behind the Union line on Cemetery Ridge. Some of them even got close to the Weikert farm.”

“Yes,” Bruce Catton said. “I know that you read Tillie Pierce’s account, Bette. Well, Tillie and the Weikerts will soon be leaving the farm for a safer haven because of the overshooting. So you were wise to come with us.”

Bette nodded agreement.

Victor estimated that the Confederates had well over one hundred cannons. But Mr. Catton was right. The undulation in the terrain prevented Victor from obtaining a precise accounting of the artillery pieces.

The cannonade began with one cannon firing after another at the Union lines on Cemetery Ridge. The roar of the artillery was deafening and Victor and Bette watched silently as the Confederate barrage began. The Rebel cannons were met with return fire from Union artillery, including the Parrott Rifles on Little Round Top. Victor saw a Confederate cannon suffer a direct hit from a Federal shell, and the men working a battery on Little Round Top rose as one and appeared to be cheering even though Victor could not hear them above the din of battle.

More Parrott Rifles began to fire at the Confederate batteries, joining a chorus of cannons from Cemetery Ridge and Culp’s Hill. One of the guns registered a direct hit and flipped a bronze Confederate Napoleon cannon into the air like a fairytale giant tossing a broken toy. Another shell silenced a second weapon, killing or maiming all of its artillerymen. Victor witnessed several more hits from the Parrott Rifles, and had not witnessed even one of the guns explode. At least so far, he thought.

Back and forth the monotonous volleys continued for more than an hour. Victor estimated that the Confederate bombardment consumed over an hour and a half. He wished he had had a cell phone to record the cannonade. Wouldn’t that be something to put on YouTube? he thought, and then realized that was impossible. Something like that and the council of dead historians would banish their trips to the past forever.

Meanwhile, the Union gunners ceased firing.

“It’s a ploy. I believe in baseball they refer to it as a ‘deke’ to fake out one’s opponent. As when a first baseman pretends that a throw is not coming to him and the runner is surprised when the ball arrives in the first baseman’s mitt. I believe ‘deke’ is slang for decoy?”

“I understand ‘deke’,” Mr. Catton. Yes, it is slang for decoy. But in what sense is deke used here?”

“Well, Victor,” Catton began his explanation. “The Union artillery commander is pretending that the Confederates have taken out the Union artillery, but what he is really doing is lulling the Confederates to feel confident of their attack…and then, boom, he opens up on the Confederate infantry caught out in the open. “

“And Colonel Porter bought the trick?” Victor asked.

“He sure did,” Catton said. “To his everlasting chagrin. Yes, the Confederate guns did inflict Federal casualties, but most of the cannons overshot Cemetery Ridge and the shells killed horses and splintered trees. Meade’s headquarters was shelled, but Meade and his staff had fled. The Confederates lost more men in the bombardment than the Federals as the Union guns were more accurate. Now, Victor and Bette, fix your eyes on the trees on Seminary Ridge.”

The cannons stilled and an eerie pall of silence overcame the battlefield as thousands of Confederates milled about the trees and began assembling into ranks. A piercing voice from Little Round Top broke the quiet.

“Sweet God in heaven!” shouted one of the artillerymen. “Look at all the damn Rebels! Are they figuring to charge?”

“I’d say they are,” another man shouted back. “Crazy bastards!”

Through the tree line advanced a horde of Confederate infantry, a line of soldiers that stretched along Seminary Ridge for over a mile. File after file. Rank after rank. The Rebels slowly, meticulously, marched toward the Army of the Potomac on Cemetery Ridge. It was a beautiful sight, Victor thought. He estimated ten thousand or more men walking in unison, their bayonets glistening in the sun. And then, suddenly, the pageantry of the Confederate parade-ground precision was ruined by the Union cannons from Cemetery Ridge when they opened fire on the Confederate host, ripping holes in the Rebel lines.

Victor was horrified at the slaughter, and yet mesmerized as the disciplined Rebels dressed their line, filling in the gaps in the ranks that were created by the deadly Union canister and enfilade fire.

Men marched shoulder to shoulder across a pasture of perdition. The Confederates had nearly a mile of open ground to cross from Seminary Ridge to Cemetery Ridge, but they moved slowly, not rushing in the least, and as a result, sustaining hundreds of casualties. Such beautifully choreographed madness, Victor thought.

On Little Round Top, the order came to fire on the advancing columns of the Confederates, and the Parrott Rifles opened up with deadly accuracy. Such a shame, Victor thought, for the Confederates looked so gloriously beautiful with their regimental flags raised high, the bright sunlight glinting off their swords and bayonets. Their movements were so graceful, like a battlefield ballet, a ballet suddenly ruined by bullets. Then the true carnage began. It began at the double line of fences along Emmitsburg Road, an obstacle for the soldiers to overcome, an obstruction that stalled their advance. As the center of the Confederate line reached the fences strung along Emmitsburg Road, scores of soldiers were killed or wounded crossing the fences. Weighed down by their equipment, the Rebels couldn’t leap over the fences, and instead had to awkwardly climb the barrier. And as they climbed they became easy targets for the Federal gunners who cut them down. Men fell dead or wounded around and over the fences.

Bruce Catton, watching the battle intently, said to the students, “The fences along the Emmitsburg Road really slowed them up. I think it showed poor planning that the Rebels hadn’t aimed their cannons at the fences, for they were an impediment to the infantry’s advance. Why the Confederates didn’t see that puzzles me.”

One of the Parrott Rifles lobbed a shell into a column of Rebels, killing and maiming ten of the Rebel soldiers and causing a breach in the line. Another shell lifted three Confederate soldiers high into the air. Still another decapitated two soldiers marching abreast, leaving smoking torsos on the ground. Holes were formed in the lines and the Rebels robotically filled the gaps with other men who would, in turn, join the earlier casualties for, as soon as a breach was plugged in the line, another gap cropped up from a shell emanating from Culp’s Hill. Then another hole in the line was caused by a gun from Cemetery Ridge. The Confederates were being bombarded with Union artillery from three different angles. But still the Rebels stubbornly pressed on. Holes were created and the gaps quickly filled and the line was dressed. Men were mangled and cut in half. Men were killed instantly. But still the Confederate host marched on, slowly covering the distance to Cemetery Ridge. Victor shook his head in disbelief. It was suicide. Pickett’s Charge was suicide. Victor saw nothing glorious in it, only vain, glorious stupidity.

Why didn’t they run at full speed? Victor wondered. Surely there would be fewer casualties if they ran. Heck, the Confederate soldiers hadn’t even fired a shot. They were just marching.

The soldiers were handsome in their butternut uniforms, Victor admitted. Their movements were the epitome of military precision, but it was futility. The Confederates were heading to a copse of trees at the center of Cemetery Ridge. Rebel flags fell, but were quickly retrieved and raised and waved again by another soldier, who might hold the flag for only a few seconds before he, too, was shot down. But the flag would fly again. Over and over this dance with death went on. Victor estimated the life expectancy of a flag bearer at two minutes, tops.

When the Confederates were within two hundred yards of the stone wall, the Union soldiers, crouched behind the wall, rose up and opened fire with their Springfield rifle muskets, cutting the Rebels down like a scythe in a harvest of souls. The Union gunners on Cemetery Ridge switched their ammunition from hard shell and explosive to canister shot, which contained hundreds of minie balls, nails and glass shards. The projectiles were disseminated from the barrel of a cannon like a giant shotgun. A line of Confederates was literally blown away by a round of canister shot. The canister round pushed the Rebels back like a strong wind, laced with shrapnel.

But still they came. Victor, using the looking glass, observed one courageous Confederate general as he put his hat on his sword and waved it for his men to follow him. From reading Killer Angels, Victor recognized the officer to be Brigadier General Lewis Armistead.

On the other side of the stone wall stood Federal troops who flew the Stars and Stripes and the green flag of Eire. Victor turned to asked Bruce Catton who those soldiers were, but Catton responded to Victor’s thought before the boy could get the words out.

“That’s the 69th Pennsylvania, Victor. It is made up of Irish men, immigrants or sons of immigrants who left Ireland during the potato famine of the 1840s. They stopped Armistead’s Virginians, and then another group of Pennsylvanians, the 72nd, began firing at the flank of the Virginians, mortally wounding Armistead as you will presently see. Watch carefully!”

Smoke on the battlefield obscured Victor’s vision, but he still made out the hat atop the sword and watched the headgear reach the stone wall of the Union lines and then, sharpshooters on the flank of the Confederate thrust not more than eighty yards away, fired from a hundred or more weapons. Suddenly, the general’s hat disappeared.

Mr. Catton was correct—Armistead was mortally wounded and he was probably calling out for his old friend, Union General Winfield Hancock who, Victor remembered, became a casualty of the battle as well. Although unlike Armistead, Winfield Scott Hancock survived his wounds and went on to run for president of the United States in 1880, losing to James Garfield who, ironically was a Civil War veteran who survived the war only to be assassinated by a disappointed office seeker in a railroad station in 1881.

The bloody fight for the wall descended from an orderly line of battle to a mob melee. Unlike a dressed line of infantry with perhaps two ranks where one line fired as the other reloaded, two groups of soldiers, bunched together, fought not only with muskets but with fists and bayonets. Alone, the 72nd Pennsylvania on the flank remained its integrity of operation.

A bevy of conflicting thoughts ran through Victor’s mind as he watched the Confederates obtain their “high water mark,” but when the general’s hat was no longer visible, it appeared that all the energy drained from the Rebel charge; the Confederates began to fall back in retreat, and the Federal soldiers began to shout “Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!” But Victor couldn’t recall why the Union soldiers shouted that.

“Why are they shouting ‘Fredericksburg,’ Mr. Catton?” Victor asked.

“Fredericksburg had a futile Union charge, similar to this Confederate one, Victor,” Bruce Catton explained. “Thousands of Union soldiers were killed or wounded charging a fortified position like the Confederates charged on Cemetery Ridge.”

“How many men charged Cemetery Ridge do you think?”

“Well,” Catton said. “It pains me to say this, but I think Shelby’s figure of fourteen thousand is closer to the actual count than my estimate. So, I must grudgingly agree with him.”

“Good,” Bette said. “Can we go home now?” she asked.

The ghost blushed. Victor hadn’t thought a ghost could blush, but Bruce Catton just did. The ghost was embarrassed.

“Well, I wish it were that simple, Bette, I really do, but we programmed the portable to return on the evening of November 19th after Mr. Lincoln boards the train to return to Washington City. We knew how much Mr. Greene wanted you students to hear Abraham Lincoln deliver his Gettysburg Address. We really didn’t think of the time between the battle and the president’s three-minute speech, as time doesn’t mean much to one when one is deceased. Eternity knows no time. You really lose your sense of time when you are dead, Bette, I’m sorry to say. Sense of time? Time makes no sense, except to the living.”

Victor wasn’t paying attention to the conversation between the ghost and his classmate. He was thinking of Pickett’s Charge. So many men marched so honorably across the open ground and an hour later so many now lay dead or mangled on the field of honor. Field of honor? He wondered. Field of horror. Even as the Confederates retreated, the vengeful Union soldiers kept firing at the Rebels, and a few dozen more Confederates fell before they reached the safety of the tree line on Seminary Ridge. Then, finally, the shooting ended, and the cries echoed from the battlefield. Screams of anguish. Victor looked through the glass and watched as a man, missing a leg, crawled in the direction of whence he had come, but he didn’t get too far before he expired, registering a final spasm of movement. Other men struggled, using their rifles as crutches as they slowly made their way in retreat. Others threw away their rifles, their haversacks and their cartridge boxes as if to visually say they had had enough. Victor glimpsed a lone figure in a gray uniform walk out of the wood line. He raised his eyeglass for a closer look. He drew a blank, but he knew he had seen that man’s photograph somewhere. In a book?

“Who is that coming out of the woods to greet the returning men?” Victor asked Bruce Catton.

“That’s Lee,” Catton replied. “Robert Edward Lee of Arlington, Virginia.”

Of course, Victor thought, irritated. His eidetic memory had failed him.

Catton continued. “Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia came out to apologize to the survivors of Pickett’s Charge. Of course, Pickett blamed Lee for the fiasco. Well, at this moment, I believe that Marse Robert is telling the bedraggled troops, ‘It’s my fault.’ Funny thing, when Lee was asked about Pickett’s Charge after the war he didn’t take responsibility for the failure, but blamed others. Southerners blamed James Longstreet, but Longstreet had argued against the assault.”

Finally the last cannons and the last rifles fell silent and the only sounds emanating from the battlefield were the cries of wounded men. The smoke from the battle had cleared and Victor could see the groups of men in butternut uniforms being led away. Prisoners, Victor realized. For those Confederate soldiers, their war was over. Some soldiers in blue uniforms had been marched away as well to the Confederate positions on Seminary Ridge and they would sit out the war, if they managed to survive the brutal conditions of Southern prisoner of war camps, in Libby Prison in Richmond or Andersonville in Georgia.

Victor looked at the beaten Confederates as they found sanctuary behind the trees on Seminary Ridge. He asked Bruce Catton an obvious question. “Why didn’t Meade counterattack, Mr. Catton?”

Catton chuckled. “That’s a question that Abraham Lincoln asked as well, Victor. I mean, Lincoln was happy for the Union victory, but he thought Meade missed an opportunity to end the war by not attacking a weakened Lee.”

“Did he?”

“Yes and no, but I believe that was Monday morning quarterbacking by Mr. Lincoln. On paper the president was right, but after that battle, the Army of the Potomac was spent. Also, Meade was wary of a wounded Lee. He sensed as soon as Pickett’s Charge failed, Lee was preparing for a counterattack. Lee was too shaken to prepare an adequate defense, but Meade had no way of knowing that. Lee’s center line was as soft as a marshmallow. Tonight, Lee will slink out of Gettysburg and head back over South Mountain and make his way to Virginia, not knowing that the Potomac River has become too deep to ford and will require the construction of pontoon bridges. Meade would regroup and chase Lee to the Potomac River, but he was unsuccessful in forcing Lee to surrender his army. That would have ended the war. So the Army of the Potomac won the battle, but it didn’t end the war, just as Lee might have ended the war if he had been victorious. On such events our history as a nation hung in the balance.”

“I guess that’s all the excitement for today, huh?” Bette asked.

“Pretty much, Bette,” Catton commented. “All of the lions are licking their wounds.”

“Let’s head back to the Weikert farm then,” Victor advised.

Victor and Bette with Bruce Catton floating alongside them, began the descent from the summit of Big Round Top. They were almost down the east side of the prominence when, suddenly, a dozen Union soldiers appeared in their path. Happy to see the victorious soldiers, Bette smiled at them, but her smile was met with grim faces. The leader, a crusty-looking sergeant with an unkempt red beard, ordered Victor and Bette to stop.

“Who are you?” the sergeant said, looking right at Victor.

“Refugees from Mercersburg, sergeant,” Victor replied.

“They is spies, sergeant,” one of the soldiers declared. “The boy’s got a Signal Corps glass, he does.”

“You can’t be serious,” Bette said, trying to intervene.

The soldier’s comment caught the sergeant’s attention.

“Are you a spy, boy?” the sergeant asked.

“No, sir,” Victor nervously replied.

“Don’t sir me,” the sergeant said and then turned his head to spit out a splash of tobacco juice. “I work for a living.”

“We aren’t spies,” Bette protested.

“Hand me your glass, boy,” the sergeant said. Victor handed it over and the sergeant examined it. “What were you doing with this?”

“Watching Pickett’s Charge,” Victor said.

“Who’s Pickett?” the sergeant asked.

“The Rebel general for heaven’s sake,” Bette chimed in. It didn’t help.

“You aint no refugees from Mercersburg,” the sergeant judged, accurately. “And civilians don’t know who a Confederate general is, except maybe Lee.”

“I assure you we are refugees, sergeant. I was given the spyglass by Mrs. Weikert. Her farm is now a Union hospital and the spyglass was left by a Signal Corps man.”

The sergeant stroked his beard in contemplation. “That’s against regulations,” the sergeant said. “That should have been returned to the Signal Corps.”

“Good heavens, Victor,” Bruce Catton said. “The sergeant is one of the those by the books men. He isn’t going to bend. I’m afraid you will just have to go with him and sort it out with a higher up.”

“Well, it ain’t for me to decide whether you is or is not spies,” the sergeant declared. “But you are coming along with us. Under guard,” he added.

“What should I do?” Victor said to Mr. Catton. Unfortunately, the sergeant heard him.

“Are you talking to me, boy?”

“No sir, er sergeant.”

“Well, you come along with us and we will let the old man figure it out.”

Mr. Catton whispered to Victor. “He is taking you to his commanding officer, who was sometimes nicknamed the ‘old man.’”

“Oh,” Victor mumbled.

“No talking, boy,” the sergeant ordered.

With soldiers in front of them and soldiers in back of them, Victor and Bette walked together along Taneytown Road. The landscape was littered with broken fences, shattered trees and, to Bette’s dismay, dozens of dead horses that were the innocent victims of a Confederate artillery barrage that had overshot its targets.

“I have researched the devastation of the battle, children,” Catton said to Victor and Bette. “But witnessing it is another thing all together. The enormity of it all. It is truly sobering,” he added.

Victor nodded agreement with Mr. Catton.

“Pick up your pace, girl,” the sergeant snapped at Bette who was trying as best as she could manage to keep up with the fast-paced men.

She appealed to his chauvinism. “Sir, I am merely a woman.”

Victor raised his eyebrows in disbelief. He couldn’t believe his ears. Bette Kromer said that? “Merely a woman.”

“Yeah, the Rebels have a lot of girly spies, I hear, sergeant,” the troublemaking soldier commented in response to Bette’s plea.

“I don’t care, miss, I will let the colonel decide about you two. Too bad so many of the trees are splintered by the shells. Might not be a good branch around to hang your from,” the sergeant added.

“You wouldn’t hang a woman, would you, sergeant?” Bette asked.

Suddenly, Victor was feeling abandoned by his classmate. She was appealing to their nineteenth century chauvinism.

“No, girl. I wouldn’t hang you, but the colonel, he might hang you.”

The group arrived in front of the headquarters tent of the 20th Maine. Victor was astounded. “Chamberlain,” he mumbled.

Bruce Catton chuckled. “Why, Victor, it’s your hero in the flesh. You should be honored to be hanged by a medal of honor winner.”

“That’s not funny, Mr. Catton,” Victor hissed.

Lieutenant Colonel Chamberlain was sitting in a chair, holding a mirror up and trimming his mustache with a pair of scissors. His wounded foot was propped up. The sergeant went ahead to talk to his commander.

“Begging the colonel’s pardon,” the sergeant began.

“What is it sergeant?”

“I found these two suspicious characters on the big rocky hill.”

“Big Round Top?”

“If that’s what they’s callin’ it, yes.”

“Who are they?” Chamberlain asked as he pointed his scissors at Victor and Bette.

“They might be spies, colonel.” He handed Chamberlain the Signal Corps glass.

Chamberlain took the glass and examined it. “Spies, really?” he said, wondering where they obtained the Signal Corps glass. “Bring them to me.”

Victor and Bette were brought front and center to the commander.

“Who are you?” Chamberlain asked.

Bette answered. “My name is Bette Bridges and this is my brother Victor. We fled from Mercersburg when the Rebels approached, and we took refuge here. We were watching the battle from Big Round Top.”

“And having a picnic as well, I suppose,” Chamberlain said. “Like those foolish civilians at Bull Run, driving out from Washington City to watch the battle like it was some kind of a game for spectators. Let me speak to your brother. Victor is it?” Chamberlain asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Does your sister always speak for you?”

Victor blushed. “She has a mind of her own, sir.”

A slight smile of sympathy creased Chamberlain’s face and Victor wondered if Chamberlain had a sister. “Where did you get the spy glass, Victor.”

“Mrs. Weikert sir. Her farm is being used as a hospital. She gave the spyglass to me. She said it belonged to a dead Signal Corps man.”

“So let me get this straight. You two climbed Big Round Top to watch the battle?”

“Yes, sir,” Victor replied. “We were at the farm and heard all the commotion and we were curious.”

“Have you ever heard that curiosity killed the cat?”

“Yes, sir,” Victor admitted, remembering Mrs. Weikert’s same admonition.

Chamberlain thought a moment and said, “Is there anyone I know that can vouch for you?”

“Mrs. Weikert, colonel,” Victor said.

“I don’t know her,” Chamberlain replied.

Bette had an inspiration. “General Meade,” she said.

“General Meade? You know the commanding general?” Chamberlain said, totally surprised.

“Yes,” Bette said. “We gave him water the other day when Victor and I and our friend Tillie were giving water to parched soldiers.”

Chamberlain was skeptical. He turned to another officer who Victor recognized as Thomas Chamberlain, the colonel’s younger brother. “Thomas, bring me a wagon. I am going to take these two youngsters over to General Meade’s headquarters. I don’t think I can walk that far.”

Chamberlain took the reins while Victor and Bette sat in the wagon bed, guarded by two soldiers.

Chamberlain called back to them in a serious voice. “I hope for your sake that General Meade can identify you. If he cannot, I’m afraid it will be out of my hands.”

Bruce Catton appeared and took a seat next to Victor and Bette in the wagon bed. “What Chamberlain means is that if Meade can’t recognize you, they will probably hang you.”

Bette, not thinking, blurted out. “I hope General Meade is alive!”

“He is alive,” Chamberlain answered.

Chamberlain stopped the wagon in front of a wooden-frame house, which was pockmarked by shell fire. The front door was missing, the windows were shattered. Chamberlain hobbled down from the driver’s bench. A captain met him.

“Colonel Chamberlain, what can I do for you?”

“Is your father here, Captain Meade?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is he available?”

“I will see, sir.”

The captain went into the shattered building and quickly returned. Behind him came the sad-faced, somber commander of the Army of the Potomac.

“What can I do for you, colonel?” General Meade inquired.

“Sir, I have two young civilians who may be spies, but the girl says she knows you.”

“Does she? Well, bring her to me.”

Chamberlain waved to the guards to bring Victor and Bette.

Meade took a look at Victor and Bette and declared, “I don’t know them, colonel.”

“I see,” Chamberlain replied, and was about to gesture to the guards to return the two students to the wagon when Bette shouted out, “General Meade, we were the young people handing out water to troops along Taneytown Road. There were three of us, but the other girl didn’t come with us today. She stayed at the farm to help with the wounded men.”

Meade’s face brightened to recognition. He smiled. “Yes,” Meade said. “I remember you and the other girl, handing out water to my soldiers. It is okay, colonel, I know them. I don’t believe spies would be giving our men cool water to drink.”

Chamberlain smiled as well and Meade addressed him. “I want to compliment you for your actions, yesterday, Chamberlain. You saved the line, sir, you saved the line.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“That will be all, colonel. I want to chat with these two youngsters if you don’t mind. George,” he said to his son, Captain George Gordon Meade Jr. “Pull up two chairs for my guests.” Meade offered Victor and Bette two folding chairs on which to sit. They sat down in front of the headquarters and Meade asked Bette, “Did you know we found a girl among the Rebel dead, miss?”

“No sir.”

“She was fighting with the Rebels in their charge. I mention this to warn you that even girls can be killed in war. You must be careful,” Meade said, in a fatherly tone. “Where are you two staying?”

Bette replied, “At the Weikerts’, sir, where we were giving soldiers water, general.”

“Well, perhaps you should be getting back before its dark. It will be dark soon.” As he spoke, the commanding general of the Army of the Potomac was busy writing out passes for Victor and Bette. When he had signed his name, he handed the passes to them.

“These are passes signed by me. If any of my men stop you, show the pass to them and they will let you pass. This will simplify things for you,” he said. “We had a glorious victory today, children, a glorious victory.”

“Yes, sir,” Victor agreed.

“Captain Meade will escort you safely back to the farm.”

Victor wanted to ask General Meade why he hadn’t counterattacked, for he had heard Bruce Catton’s opinion on Meade’s reluctance to take the offensive against Lee, preferring to let Lee leave Gettysburg unmolested. Of course, Meade had no way of knowing that Lee’s retreat would be made in inclement weather, conditions which would turn the dirt roads to mud and slow the egress of the Army of Northern Virginia. In sum, Victor realized that Meade had no way of knowing how crippled Lee was. Meade, who had only been commander of the Army of the Potomac for little more than a week, was not about to risk his army needlessly, even if Abraham Lincoln would be furious at him for not crushing the Rebel host.

Captain Meade arranged a wagon and a cavalry escort for Victor and Bette to safely return to the Weikert farm. He offered Victor the seat beside him on the bench of the wagon and started a conversation.

“Where are you from, boy?” Captain Meade asked.

“Mercersburg, captain.”

“So, you really watched the Rebel charge?”

“Yes, from Big Round Top.”

“Yes, the big rocky hill,” Captain Meade said.

“We also saw the fight for Little Round Top yesterday.”

“You witnessed the bayonet charge?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I wish I had seen that. I was giving my father’s orders to General Sickles, but the man ignored them and nearly cost us the field. He lost his leg from his impetuousness. Tell me about the charge, boy.”

Victor spent the rest of the ride telling the son of the Commander of the Army of the Potomac about the mad dash of the 20th Maine. He was pretty talked out when Captain Meade pulled the buckboard up to the gate of the Weikert farm.

“Thank you, captain,” Bette said for both of the students.

The two travelers were stunned to see even more wounded soldiers than before. Men were lying out in the open everywhere, and were divided into three groups. The first group were men who were shot in the gut or the head—there was no hope for them. They were put in one area and left to die as peacefully as possible. Victor noticed that many of these men were twitching and suffering from convulsions. He stopped and watched one man have one seizure after another, flailing away like an epileptic having a grand mal seizure, before finally falling limp and expiring.

But no one came to help him. Or the others in that group. There were other wounded men who could be saved. Help was concentrated on the men who had a chance to survive. Those others were placed in a second section of the farm and were administered to after the first group unless they went downhill fast and, as a consequence, were moved to the mortally wounded section of the farm. The third group was composed of the “walking wounded” who had not sustained life-threatening injuries. They were bandaged, or given a splint and crutches and moved on.

The sun was down but the full moon illuminated the farm and the face of a weary Tillie Pierce, who had spent the day with the patients. She wore an exhausted smile when she spotted Bette. Tillie wiped the blood from her hands and rushed over to Bette and hugged her.

“We heard you were captured,” Tillie said.

Victor wondered how in the world Tillie knew about that. So did Bette, for she asked Tillie, “Who told you that?”

“One of the boys from Maine,” Tillie replied. “He came by to be treated for a flesh wound. He was a rather talkative man who claimed he had caught two Rebel spies and then he described you both and I knew it was you. What happened?”

The obnoxious soldier, Victor realized.

Before Victor could stop Bette, his classmate related the whole story of Pickett’s Charge and their subsequent detention as espionage suspects before being reacquainted with General Meade. Bette had told Victor that pregnant gravedigger Elizabeth Thorn would name her future child Rose Meade Thorn, in honor of the commanding general, but at that moment he was worried that Bette might divulge that salient fact and somehow appear in Tillie Pierce’s memoir.

Mrs. Weikert joined the trio and welcomed Victor and Bette back to the farm. “Where’s your telescope, Victor?” Mrs. Weikert asked.

“The soldiers confiscated it, Mrs. Weikert,” Victor replied.

“Well, that’s probably for the best. They say the battle is over and the Rebs are whipped,” she said. “But at a terrible cost. So many dead and wounded, so many,” she lamented and walked away.

Tillie explained. “It has been an awful day. We had to evacuate the farm and were not allowed to return to the farm until the guns were silent, only a few hours ago. As we approached the farm I couldn’t believe the awful sight. The number of wounded had tripled or more. The air was filled with moaning and groaning. Some men were even shrieking. It was terrible to hear. We were compelled to pick our steps in order that we might not tread on the prostrate bodies. When we entered the house, we found it also completely filled with the wounded. We hardly knew what to do or where to go. They, however, removed most of the wounded and made room for the family.

“We made ourselves useful by rendering our assistance to the heartrending state of affairs. Poor Mrs. Weikert went through the house and brought out all the muslin and linen she could spare. We tore these into bandages and gave them to the surgeons to bind up the soldiers’ wounds.

“By this time, amputating benches had been placed about the house. I guess I had become so numb to the sights and sounds that I could watch the operations without vomiting. Near the basement door, and directly under the window I was at, stood one of the amputating benches. I saw them lifting the poor men upon it, then the surgeons sawing and cutting off arms and legs, then again probing and picking bullets from the flesh. Some of the soldiers begged to be taken next. That is how bad they were suffering that they were anxious to lose a limb to end the pain.

“I saw surgeons put a cattle horn over the mouths of the wounded ones, after they were placed on the bench. Then came the chloroform which didn’t always work. Some men remained conscious. Follow me,” Tillie said and led Victor and Bette to the south of the house just outside the yard.” Even in the moonlight you can see the pile,” she said, pointing to a stack of limbs, which was higher than the fence. “Isn’t it ghastly?” she asked.

Bette responded by vomiting on the spot.

“Such cruel butchery,” Tillie added.

Tears streamed down Bette’s cheeks.

Cry, Bette, Victor thought. Go ahead and cry.

Tillie left Victor and Bette to contemplate the horror at the farm. “I’m off to bed,” she added.

Bette wiped her tears away and said to Victor, “That was in her memoir, Victor.”

“What was?”

“What Tillie just told us. Some of it was verbatim from her memoir, I’d swear to it. She wrote the reminiscence decades later, but she remembered all the details.”

“That’s amazing,” Victor replied.

They stood there stone-faced staring at the pile of severed limbs before, Bette finally said, “I need some sleep.”

It had been an exhausting day, Victor thought as he trudged into the house after Bette and went upstairs to bed. He would have no trouble falling asleep, he assured himself. Even if there were no sheets left on the bed, he wouldn’t have trouble falling asleep.

And he didn’t.