September 22, 3:00 p.m.
Ricketts’ division
Where was Crook? Ricketts had been swapping artillery rounds with the Rebs since morning and prodding them with his infantry, just hard enough to imply he might be serious. It hadn’t been much of a fight, more a Punch and Judy show, though with real blood. And that was the problem: It irked him to squander men, even a few, on “demonstrations.” Taking Flint Hill the day before had made good tactical sense, but this skirmishing struck him as frivolous.
By nature, he was given to doing things properly. Or not doing them. He understood the rationale for his orders, this need to keep the Johnnies mesmerized. Yet he felt he was frittering men away. The textbooks called such actions “amusing the enemy,” but Jim Ricketts didn’t find them entertaining.
The men were surprisingly game, though, whether playing cat and mouse with Confederate skirmishers or waging artillery duels. For all the losses at Winchester, victory had inspirited his soldiers, opening new and promising possibilities, awakening bloodlust.
Up on the heights, the enemy lines bristled. Immobile. Confident.
Where was Crook?
Ricketts knew his men were running down. These mortal games made weary children of all. He wanted his division to remain strong enough to be in on the kill; his men had earned that.
Earned? He smiled at himself. Thinking of the evident jealousies newly abroad in the army, resentments he once would have wallowed in himself. The past five months, the carnage, had taught him much—to the extent that a man learned anything of worth, which was a separate issue. It just didn’t pay to envy another’s fame, deserved or not: He had learned that painfully. You couldn’t give in to jealousy, or you poisoned yourself. And war was poison enough.
Of course, praise made him preen, as it did any man, but the approbation he wanted waited at home. He needed the respect of his wife, Frances, a woman of immense courage and selflessness. And he longed for the blessing of Harriet, the dead wife who haunted him still. Had he ever praised either one of them enough? His vanity, he saw, had been colossal. War was a mirror that rarely flattered a man.
After Monocacy, he had been praised and Wallace, the effort’s architect, consigned to oblivion. Or to Baltimore, which was as bad. At Winchester, though, it had been young Upton’s turn to gather laurels, with the sacrifices of Ricketts’ division ignored. Wright had been the savior of Washington. But Crook eclipsed him easily at Winchester. Thus was glory allotted, almost as random as cards dealt in a poker game.
Glory? Oh, he remembered that seductress, the murderous slut. Hadn’t the loins for her now. He was just a graying, begrimed man in a bitter war, hoping to do his duty and evade shame.
Where the hell was Crook?
Hot and thirsty, all but irate, and sore from too many hours in the saddle, Ricketts smiled. Had the fates already pivoted against Crook? Had his movement along the side of the mountain failed? The wheel of fortune turned, and a man had to be content not to be crushed.
Where the devil was the fellow, though? Good men were dying.
Thanks to the intervening ridges and smoke, he couldn’t see much of the mountainside where Crook’s men were supposed to be sneaking along. All he could do was to wait. And continue sending men forward only to see fewer men return.
When Wright explained the plan to his subordinates, Ricketts had shared the general skepticism, but he certainly wanted Crook’s fool trick to work. He feared the collapse of the flanking attempt would precipitate an order to launch a frontal attack. And his men had endured enough mindless assaults.
Spotsylvania. Good God. How much glory had its mud produced?
Up on the heights, Reb officers pranced on their horses, appearing to pay social calls. No soldierly eye would judge them much concerned.
Where was Crook?
Ricketts rode forward, through wisps of smoke, to order Keifer to bring up another regiment. To “amuse” the Johnnies. While waiting for deliverance.
3:15 p.m.
Early’s headquarters
“I don’t like it,” Early muttered. “I don’t like this at all.”
“Want me to draft the order, sir?” Sandie Pendleton asked.
“Write it up, write it up. Army’s to withdraw, right after dark. Meantime, call up the wagons, just do it quiet. Come morning, I don’t want that low-down cur to sniff one Confederate backside on this hill.” Early drew a twist of tobacco from his pocket and bit off a chaw. “I’ll see Sheridan in Hell, before this is over. Just not here, not here.”
Early was correct, as far as tactics went. Pendleton saw that now. The position was fine, but the men were too thin on the ground and they had no reserve. Everyone had engaged in wishful thinking, declaring Fisher’s Hill to be impregnable, desperate to believe it after Winchester. Defeat could be intoxicating, too, in a dreadful way, but as men sobered up they saw their weakness: The army lacked the numbers to hold this ground, if Sheridan applied brute force again. It was time to slip away before they were trapped, and Early was showing the fortitude to do the sensible thing, knowing the Richmond papers and even his own subordinates would condemn him. The Old Man was showing courage of a rare kind and could expect no thanks from any quarter.
Still, Pendleton feared for the army’s morale if they retreated again without a fight.
He said nothing of that to Early. There simply were no good choices, and the Old Man had faced contention enough of late. His generals carped and quarreled, dissecting past events, when they needed to look the future in the eye. And Early sat up by a lantern’s light, alone in his tent and muttering, until dawn.
Spitting amber juice, the general snapped, “I know what Sheridan’s up to, I’m no fool. He’s looking for the weak spot in our line. Planning to hit us first thing in the morning, come first light. Before we can be reinforced. Well, let him waste his powder, we’ll be gone.” He wiped wet from his beard. “Get that order in everybody’s hands by five p.m. And no excuses.”
“Yes, sir,” Pendleton said. He never did make excuses, except for Early’s behavior, but he knew not to take offense.
To the north, the pock-pock of skirmishing passed the time between battery squabbles. Despite the firing, it hadn’t been much of a day. The Yankees seemed tuckered out, too, although it might well be that Early was right, that Sheridan was feeling their line and meant to attack in the morning. And another whipping like Winchester, Pendleton had to admit, would be a sight worse for morale than just marching off.
He dipped his best steel pen and began to write.
3:50 p.m.
Ramseur’s position, left flank of Fisher’s Hill
Stephen Dodson Ramseur had a headache. He sought shade when he could, only to feel guilty about leaving his soldiers out in their sun-punched trenches. Even the letter from his wife annoyed him. It was one of her playful “Dearest Doddie” missives, the kind he usually cherished, full of gossip, household details, and promises that the child would arrive in October. Today, the curls of her penmanship made his head pound.
With the letter in his pocket, he walked the line again, watching the Yankees across the little valley. They swarmed like bees without the heart to sting. His enemies had suffered, too. He had made them suffer. He didn’t believe they were eager to bleed again.
The only thing that worried him was their numbers. Only way they’d won that fight: sheer numbers. Yanks hadn’t shown a lick of skill at Winchester, not one hint of tactical finesse.
Clouds off to the west, past Little North Mountain. Rain in the night, Ramseur figured. Trenches would get muddy as pigpens in May. Nothing to be done about it.
He had to stop, to stand stone still, and close his eyes against the throb in his head. Lord, the hordes of Yankees back at Winchester, those endless ranks of blue …
Winchester. He had expected praise from Jubal Early. His men had been the first to fight in the morning and the last to leave the battlefield at night. But all Early offered anyone was abuse. Ramseur recalled, with a rueful smile, how he once had hoped to be Early’s favored subordinate. Early didn’t like anyone.
Warm day. Not hot, but bright, painfully bright. The clouds to the west moved so slowly, they seemed to hold still. Could have used their shade that very minute. Head hurting like he’d been kicked by Jenkins’ mule.
Trailed by new aides in place of those lost at Winchester, Ramseur strode toward the emplacements of the Fluvanna Artillery.
Bryan Grimes intercepted him. The brigadier was limping—almost hopping—and clearly agitated.
“General Ramseur?”
“How may I serve you, Bryan?”
“Sir, we have to send a brigade, at least a brigade, down to Lomax. Cavalry won’t hold, not without support. There’s Yankees all over the mountain, they’ll turn his flank.”
What on earth?
Almost unwillingly, Ramseur turned to face Little North Mountain, shielding his eyes.
“What are you talking about?”
Grimes pointed. “That bald spot. Halfway up, or thereabouts. See that file of Yankees?”
Ramseur peered at the mountainside. “Only thing I see looks like a fence row. I don’t see anything moving.”
“Call for your field glasses, sir. There’s Yankees up there. On my honor, one Tar Heel to another. They’re going to come down behind Lomax, way they’re moving.”
Ramseur just wanted to close his eyes, but he forced an indulgent smile. He didn’t want to get off to a bad start with a new subordinate. “Well, if you’re right, it’s probably just a scouting party. Even the Yankees aren’t fools enough to attack that way, they’d fall to pieces.”
Grimes opened his mouth to reply but seemed to think better of it.
“What’s that limp of yours about?” Ramseur asked to soothe things.
The brigadier shrugged. “Damned-fool thing. Just plain walking along, not even running. And I gave my ankle a twist, craziest thing.”
“Well, go sit down, rest up. You’re apt to be needed over the next few days.”
Grimes saluted, crestfallen. “Keep watch on that mountain, sir. I’d be beholden.”
Alone again—but for his anxious aides—Ramseur continued on to the gun positions. He valued artillery and liked to display his knowledge. But as he walked in front of a piece drawn back for a repair, a sergeant said, “General, there’s blue-bellies on that mountain yonder, a right bushel.”
Ramseur took a breath to stay his temper.
“I know what’s caught your eye. It’s just a fence row.”
“Well, sir, that there’s a moving fence row, if it’s a fence at all.” The man’s tone was all but insolent. Had Rodes allowed such back talk? Or was it yet another mark of defeat? Ramseur shook his head, just to himself, and it felt as though his brains banged around in his skull. Everybody had the jumps. And the cannoneers around him plainly put more stock in their comrade’s words than in their general’s.
Only one way to settle this, Ramseur decided. He turned to his nearest aide.
“Go back and fetch my field glasses.”
But the battery commander had come up. He drew his own binoculars from their case. “Here. Use mine, sir.”
With an outright sigh, Ramseur took the glasses, tilted up the front brim of his hat, and began to scan the mountain a mile or so off.
He saw nothing but jutting gray rocks. Trees. Green tresses and tangles.
Then he stopped and held the glasses steady.
“My God.”
3:50 p.m.
Little North Mountain
Rud Hayes grabbed a branch in time to stop himself from tumbling down the mountainside.
“Careful, Rud,” Crook told him. Crook was grinning, despite the day’s exertions. “I need you to help me out of this fix I’m in.”
But they weren’t in a fix, at least not yet. The movement up the side of the mountain and then along its flank had required sweat and muscle-burning effort, as well as costing any number of busted ankles and one broken leg, but the men, coming along in Indian files, had suspended their common complaints, with every veteran grasping what they were doing and what it might mean. Quiet curses erupted now and then as men lost their footing or banged a knee, but the corps as a whole moved in remarkable quiet, eager and murderous.
Hayes’ personal concern was the poison ivy, of which he had had quite enough across the summer.
Down where the armies faced one another, rifle fire annoyed the afternoon, inconsequential. These scrambling men would be Destiny’s executors.
Destiny? Did such a thing exist? Or was there just an endless collision of human aspirations, governed by chance? Lucy believed in a good and gracious God shaping mortal affairs, and Hayes had never belittled her beliefs. Belief such as hers was a gift, a wonderful comfort, but one he lacked. If he were to fall this day, he expected to fade into nature, into the general immanence, nothing more. War made it hard to credit a merciful God.
“Rud, you’re wheezing,” Crook teased. The corps commander was a few years the younger, but looked to be the older of the two. Crook had lived rough in remote, hardscrabble garrisons, while Hayes had resided in pleasant homes and offices lined with law books.
“Just drinking deep of the fine Virginia air,” Hayes told his superior. “Wouldn’t be half-bad here, but for the war.”
Correcting his footing, Crook said, “Ought to see the Northwest. Hard place, hard. But beautiful, the grandeur. You there, soldier! Tie up that canteen and stop making that racket.”
Hayes and Crook moved a hundred yards behind the head of the column, with Hayes determined to lead and do his duty, and Crook as avid to maintain control. Joe Thoburn had walked along with them for a time before going back to hurry his men along.
Really, it was astonishing. They just might pull it off, Hayes told himself.
The trees broke for a dozen yards, offering a view of the armies below. Puffing smoke, irregular lines stretched toward the hidden river. Beyond, Three Top Mountain loomed. Early’s army was a cork in a bottle.
And they were out to snap off the bottle’s neck.
“By God, we’re all but behind them,” Crook said.
Shots cracked up ahead. Stray shots, then a flurry. No volleys, though.
Hayes felt Crook tense and understood: It wasn’t the shots that worried him, Reb pickets had been inevitable. He just didn’t want his men to start up a howl and warn Early of the size of the force about to descend on his flank.
Crook hurried forward, plowing through a tangle of poison ivy. Hayes went around the bushes and rushed to catch up.
He soon rejoined Crook, who was questioning a captain.
“Only pickets,” the captain assured them both. “No more than a company, and a weak one. They skedaddled.”
“Damn it, though,” Crook said.
Panting, Hayes offered, “We’ve got them. It’s all right.”
Crook nodded. He told the captain, “Push on another two hundred yards, then hold up.”
The Rebs knew something was doing, though. Artillery shells began crashing into the hillside, splintering trees. But the Johnnies were firing blind, guessing at targets.
“Hold up, halt!” Crook called.
“Division, halt!” Hayes echoed.
The order ran down the line. Hayes wondered how much the Rebs below them could hear. The Confederate artillery provided covering noise, a quirk of war, aiding an enemy.
“Left … face!”
That command ran down the column as well, converting the Indian files into two long ranks. Men pivoted as smartly as they could on the steep hillside. Hayes’ division formed the southernmost wing of Crook’s command, thrust beyond the Rebs’ front line, and he figured the best formation was the simplest. Speed was of more value than finesse.
“Advance your men,” Crook told him.
And off they went, gravity tugging them down the mountainside, with soldiers allowing themselves to hurry, barely maintaining a semblance of good order. Excitement sparked through the air.
Hayes soon caught the animal sense himself, the predator’s foreknowledge that this charge would be irresistible. In their haste, men tripped and plunged face-first. Rifles discharged accidentally. Struggling color-bearers trailed their flags, yanking them from the clutch of branches and briars. But every man’s heart raced.
They were going to roll up the Rebs like a parlor carpet.
“Hold them back,” Crook called as the bottom neared. “Hayes, keep your men together.”
But the soldiers wouldn’t wait. Sensing level, open ground ahead, the entire corps broke into a wild roar. Anticipating an order, men began charging.
Ignoring the pleas of their officers for discipline, dozens, then hundreds, then thousands, of men exploded from the tree line. Flags rose and unfurled. Soldiers hurrahed as if they’d already fought and won a victory. The savagery of it felt barbarous, as if his men were Huns from the pages of Gibbon.
“Come on, boys!” he shouted, unable to contain himself, encouraging men who needed no encouragement.
Ahead, a paltry line of Rebs fired from a barricade of fence rails. But they didn’t fire long. Men in blue swept over the obstacle, knocking it to pieces, collaring prisoners whose faces still shone with amazement.
Hayes wasn’t sure he commanded anything now. He was just one man among many, his rank stripped of its potency. He kept up as best he could.
The veterans didn’t need his guidance, anyway. They stormed across the intervening low ground, brushing aside all resistance, to aim at the heights where the Reb infantry waited, up where the Johnnies were hurriedly countermarching and manhandling guns, shocked and caught unready.
The gray columns scrambling to refuse the flank were too few. Hayes saw that his division—his bellowing, beautiful mob—stretched well beyond the defenses. On his left, Thoburn’s boys encountered resistance, blasted by artillery up on the hill, but they soon surged forward again.
The national colors, division and brigade flags, the torn regimental standards, all thrust onward, racing ahead, climbing the slope with their blue-coated clans about them. Few men fell. The handful of Johnnies opposing them couldn’t reload fast enough to stop them.
On the right, the last Reb cavalry bolted, with Averell’s troopers charging them in the wake of Crook’s attack. To the left, Confederate infantry made a hopeless stand in Thoburn’s path while cannoneers harnessed horses to save their guns. Straight ahead, a patchwork skirmish line faced Hayes’ division.
“Straight for their rear!” Hayes called. “Go straight for their rear!”
Enraptured, he wasn’t panting anymore. Pointing his pistol up the long slope, he shouted his throat raw.
On the distant left, the noise of battle swelled. Sheridan had advanced the rest of the army, Hayes figured, taking swift advantage of Crook’s success.
Most of the Rebs on the heights turned tail and ran as their foes closed in, but a lone brigade stood its ground, ragged and fierce. They were giving Thoburn’s lead regiments all they had.
Hayes had no idea who led those Johnnies, but he had to admire the man.
Colliding more than once with rushing men as he traversed the field, Hayes found Hiram Devol of his old brigade and ordered him to outflank the Rebs blocking Thoburn, to put an end to that lonely, desperate valor.
“Threaten their flank,” Hayes said. “They’ll break, they’ll catch the panic.”
The brigade’s color-bearer staggered. Another man caught the flag.
Devol said, “They’re already breaking, look.”
Across the entire field, hurrahs rang out. Fleet with excitement, Hayes rushed back to his right, outpacing the younger officers on his staff. He couldn’t recall such pure exhilaration, but he never had been part of so easy a victory.
When Hayes rejoined the vanguard of his division atop the heights, he saw an unrivaled spectacle of defeat. Men in gray and shades of mottled brown fled by the thousands, converging on the one road left to them all or just plain running through the countryside. Mounted batteries whipped their way southward and caissons overturned, crushing men and toppling the rear teams, tangling harness and panicking horses left upright. Waving their swords and evidently pleading, maddened officers rode through the mob that had been a proud army only minutes before. When an ambulance lost a wheel, its crazed team dragged it along until it splintered, flinging its cargo. In ruptured defenses, abandoned cannon waited, silent and prim, for a change of masters. A headquarters tent collapsed as men tripped over its ropes. Soldiers sprawled forward, shot in the back. A wagon laden with ammunition exploded.
It reminded Hayes of an illustration he’d seen of the Last Judgment.
5:00 p.m.
Confederate center
As Ramseur’s worthless cowards ran, Early galloped for Pegram’s leftmost regiment, a hundred honest men who had not budged. Closing on the trench line, he recognized the flag of the 13th Virginia.
Riding straight for Captain Sam Buck, Early shouted at the top of his voice, “You, Buck! You men, all of you! Stop those goddamned cowards down there. Shoot ’em like dogs, if they won’t do their duty.”
Buck’s face showed incomprehension. What couldn’t the lowborn simpleton understand?
“I said stop any coward who retreats,” Early railed, hating the high-pitched sound of his own voice. “Any man who won’t stop, shoot him dead!” Growing more furious by the moment, he shrieked, “What are you waiting for? Shoot those yellow bastards, shoot them now!”
Buck shook his head. Slowly. As if the damned fool couldn’t do that much right. The Virginians closed around their captain, in evident support. Glaring at Early. Insubordinate. Traitorous.
Early pointed at the mob of fugitives again. “I said shoot them, damn you.”
Sullen as a whipped buck nigger, a Virginian threw down his rifle, then just stood there. Eyes on Early. Another man cast down his weapon, too. Then another.
“I won’t give that order, sir,” Buck said at last.
“Then you be damned!”
5:00 p.m.
Union Sixth Corps
Sheridan wove in and out of the foremost skirmish line, waving his hat and shouting, “We’ve got ’em, boys, come on! Crook’s in their rear, don’t let him have all the glory! The cavalry’s chasing them high-tail, come on, come on! Don’t let up, go after them! Don’t stop!”
Wherever he rode, men cheered as they rushed forward.
5:15 p.m.
Gordon’s Division
Nobody could rightly tell what the devil was going on, only that something wasn’t exactly right. Uproar aplenty, a ways over on the left, but the Yankees had been fussing around all day. Nichols couldn’t see much, what with the turn of the ground and thickening smoke to westward. Just dark clouds high up, rolling over that mountain. But they all heard Yankee cheering and no Rebel yells.
It wasn’t fear of the blue-bellies themselves that pestered Nichols. Wasn’t scared of fighting them one bit, he didn’t believe. But he’d sprouted a dread of being captured, and he wasn’t apt to go handsome on his bad leg. It hurt, too, even when he kept his weight on the other foot. Not that there was much weight to him nowadays. All he could do was hobble, like Jackie Tate, the crippled fellow back home, the one who sat outside the livery barn, a butt of jokes. Clear as a vision from the Lord, Nichols foresaw Yankees overtaking him, pummeling him, mocking.
He stood in the trench beside his friends, growing uneasy but held in place by pride. Waiting for the Yankees to be fool enough to try to climb that bank right to their front. Steep as a wall, it made for the best position on Fisher’s Hill, officers and men alike agreed. No Yankee was coming up that just-about cliff and living to brag on it.
And when the Yankees blundered forward at last, sure enough, they didn’t get very far. They just fumbuddled around, as if they couldn’t make up their minds to step up and do their duty. They weren’t the problem, although they wanted watching. The worrisome doings were elsewhere, off in that westward ruckus, off where a man couldn’t see.
Not knowing was a terrible thing.
General Gordon showed himself, though not for long. He rode off looking as though the Devil were at him, sour as pickles. In his wake, the officers got jittery, telling their men too often to stand tall.
“Gordon takes on that look of his, ain’t nothing good ahead,” Ive Summerlin noted.
And there wasn’t nothing good. The battle marched nearer, still unseen. Scared fellows ran by, wailing that the Yankees were in the army’s rear. All they got was hard jests for their yellowness. Then the artillerymen on the left dragged off their guns with ropes, hauling them back to be hitched up to their limbers.
It was the rarest thing for the guns to desert them. Without even waiting to learn what was afoot.
“Dear Jesus Lord,” Tom Boyet cried.
And there they were, the Yankees. Over where that battery had been, one crest away.
“Going to be cut off, why don’t we get orders?” Sergeant Alderman wondered. That itself was cause for worry, since Alderman was a steady man in a fight.
“Here they come!” Lem Davis shouted. It took a few seconds for the rest of them to realize he meant they were coming from the front, too.
Gog and Magog, Jebusites, Midianites … the Yankees who hadn’t seemed to be doing no more than fussing around were advancing, in great numbers, heading straight for the hill, as if they couldn’t see its awful steepness, its impossibility, or lacked the sense to care.
“They’re in behind us, they’re blocking the road!” a trash Jeremiah hollered.
Nichols didn’t run at first. None of them did. They were John Gordon’s soldiers, after all. They lit into the Yankees, firing down into the packets of skirmishers and then at the oncoming ranks with their insolent banners.
But catastrophe, like Judgment, could be evaded for only so long. Nichols wasn’t the first to run, nor did he quite intend to run at all, but in a way he could not quite explain he found himself hopping rearward, doing his best to keep up, losing sight of his comrades before spotting them again and spying Colonel Atkinson, abandoned by all, attempting to free an artillery piece stuck in a ditch. Nichols’ heart said go on down and help, but he reckoned his leg about robbed him of much use.
He did not want to be captured, that was the fact of it.
As he reached the rump of the hill and witnessed the awful spectacle of an army falling to pieces, an army dissolving like a mud cake splashed with a bucket of water, he muttered, “Sodom and Gomorrah,” but he kept on going, unlikely to become a pillar of salt, but unwilling to be a captive of flesh and blood.
5:30 p.m.
Ricketts’ advance
Ricketts spotted General Crook haranguing his men and rode over to the row of captured cannon. Crook sat astride a wretched-looking nag, which took Ricketts aback until he realized it, too, was a prize of war.
“What’s the difficulty, sir?” Ricketts asked, approaching the breastworks.
“You tell me, Ricketts. You must have fifty men here, doing nothing. Why aren’t they attacking?”
Surprised, Ricketts told him, “General Crook, they’re hardly ‘doing nothing.’ They’re taking off captured guns.”
“No time for that. We need to press the attack.”
“My entire division’s attacking.”
“Not these men. You’ve got them stealing guns my soldiers took.”
“My men captured these guns.”
“Really? Were you here? I didn’t see you. And now you want to turn in these guns as your prizes.” Crook snorted, frowned, growled. “My men went over this ground before a single soldier of yours advanced.”
Ricketts felt compelled to point out that his men had been fighting for nearly two days, while Crook’s corps dallied pleasantly in the rear. And if Crook hadn’t seen him, he hadn’t seen Crook. But it was no use. Crook was still angry about the gone-astray orders at Cool Springs; the man held a grudge. He also held higher rank.
Besides, Crook was the hero of the day again.
“Yes, sir,” Ricketts said as dark clouds pressed. “I defer to your claim.”
7:00 p.m.
The Valley Pike
As darkness deepened, rain spit. The Yankees were coming along, all right, Jed Hotchkiss had no doubt. Skirmishers still gnawed the retreating army, but it appeared that Sheridan had paused at last to reorganize his force south of the battlefield. They’d come on again, though, that was sure, in a multitude. Too fine an opportunity to be missed, with not just an army of thousands, but the hopes of millions ruined.
“Fine work, Jed,” John Gordon told the mapmaker, loud enough to be heard by the cluster of officers. “You picked excellent ground.”
“One thing I’m good for.”
Beside the Pike, John Carpenter’s two guns awaited the enemy, along with a cobbled-together force built on shreds of the 13th Virginia. When asked to stop and make a stand, Captain Buck, leading twenty men, had agreed immediately. Even more remarkable in that hour, his soldiers obeyed him. Strays from other regiments joined the rear guard thereafter, but those good souls were but a scrape and a scrap of the fleeing masses.
It made for a queer command, with two generals, Gordon and Pegram, and a covey of staff officers in charge of two hundred men. Their “reserve” was a huddle of colored servants, a stripped commissary wagon, and an ambulance drawn by a mule.
It wasn’t much to face down Sheridan’s army.
The rain picked up enough to sting their faces. If the day had been warm, the night promised to be cold.
“Where’d you last see Early?” Gordon asked.
“Back on the field,” Hotchkiss answered. “Cursing the men to damnation. Sandie probably saw him after I did.”
Sitting atop his dusky-white horse, Pendleton told them, “He came off, I’m fairly certain. Probably headed for Woodstock to rally the army.”
“Let’s hope,” Gordon said wearily. “Ed Atkinson wasn’t so lucky. Captured trying to bring off a gun, I swear it galls me. I’m getting sick to death of senseless valor.”
Pegram rejoined the party. “Buck just told me about his run-in with Early.”
“What happened?” Gordon asked him.
“Old Jube ordered the Thirteenth Virginia to fire on Ramseur’s men. Of course, they refused.”
“Early’s like to charge them all with mutiny. If he remembers.”
Pegram shook his head. “Couldn’t make it stick, if he dared try. His stock’s already low on the Richmond exchange. And now this.” Annoyed, he lifted his hat, shook off the rain, and quickly resettled it. “Be ashamed of himself, when he comes to his senses.”
“Shame,” Gordon said, “is not among Early’s salient characteristics.”
Hotchkiss was surprised that Pendleton didn’t leap to Early’s defense. In the past, Sandie had taken such comments to heart.
Shots. Just to the north. Yankees hunting stragglers.
“Never thought I’d see a day like this,” Pegram declared. “Never thought I’d live to see the day.”
“At least you lived,” Gordon said. Turning to Pendleton, the Georgian suggested, “Sandie, you ought to get along, find Early. He’ll need you. Help him patch this army back together.”
The younger man shook his head. His face seemed ghastly pale in the wet night. “I’m minded to stay here, sir. Make sure these boys don’t bolt, give the Yanks free passage.”
“Sam Buck won’t run,” Pegram said.
“Artillerymen might. Despite all Carpenter’s efforts. Hasn’t been their best day. Anyway, I have a mind to stay.”
In lieu of further argument, Pegram grunted.
“Well, I suppose every man’s his own commander now,” Gordon allowed. “But one of you needs to go catch up with Early. Can’t have his whole staff captured and hauled off like the Nervii chieftains. You’ve even got Hennie Douglas playing cannoneer.”
“Jed, you go,” Pendleton said. His voice was spectral in the darkness. “You organized this position, you did your part. I’ll see it through.”
“Just as soon stay myself,” Hotchkiss countered. It wasn’t that he truly wished to remain, but his sense of obligation went soul deep.
“Damn it, this isn’t some ladies’ sanitary committee,” Gordon snapped. “One of you two, get on down the Pike. You, Jed. Get along. Sandie’s right, you’ve done your part. Go find Early. Help the man, he needs you.”
“Same might go for you and me,” Pegram said. “Put the cob to chivalry, this ain’t proper employment for men who ought to be rounding up their divisions.”
“All of you go,” Pendleton said. “This doesn’t call for generals.” Hotchkiss was startled by the tone the chief of staff took with men who outranked him by several grades. “If I can’t handle this, I’m not worth a plug of tobacco. You go, I’ll try to hold them for an hour. Maybe a tad longer, given the rain.”
“Optimistic, young Leonidas,” Gordon said. “But I’m for optimism, given the alternative. Sweep that road, when they come strutting down it. And thank the Almighty for this rain and darkness, they’ll waste time calculating what all might be waiting for them. Trick is to keep them pondering.”
“Gain what time you can,” Pegram put in. “But don’t be a damned fool, Pendleton. Come off this hill before you end up dead or on Johnson’s Island.”
The rain had skirmished. Now it attacked. Hotchkiss wished he had his oilcloth cape, but all of his belongings remained on the field, a threadbare feast for Yankee scavengers. None of those present had rain covers, for that matter. He wondered if they even had an army.
Sam Buck strode up to the clot of mounted officers, all of whom outranked him by a mile.
“Gentlemen,” the Virginian said, “I do believe the Yankees are coming along.”
8:00 p.m.
The Valley Pike
Captain Samuel Dawson Buck did all he could to fortify his men, but more and more rifles misfired in the rain. A few soldiers had already slipped away.
The Yankees seemed unbothered by the downpour. Gushing volleys, their lead regiments inched forward. Even if their fires were inaccurate in the darkness, the volume all but crushed a fellow’s spirit. Why didn’t the rain ruin their cartridges, too? All his men could bring to bear in return was the liquor of spite.
He heard neighing horses and dropping chains, followed by artillery commands. Canister, too, would have to be endured, as soon as they found the elevation and range. As for Carpenter’s two guns, their ammunition was almost gone. It was only a matter of time before the Yankees had things their way.
Buck wasn’t inclined to leave one moment sooner, though. He was newly embittered, driven to an irreconcilable fierceness, and Early’s tantrum had been the least of its causes. The Yankees held Front Royal and Buckton again, if reports ran true. And if the Federals had dishonored his birthplace in the past, they had at least been driven off in turn. This time it was different, an addle-headed private could feel the change. This time the Yankees meant to stay for good. Winchester was lost, and the Lower Valley with it. His family had no wealth to display—before the war, he had gone to clerking a store—but the land they owned had been theirs for a hundred years.
He doubted he’d see his parents’ home again.
“If you can’t shoot, holler at them,” Buck admonished a soldier. The men knelt or sprawled, wet through, struggling to keep the mud from their ramrods and bores, the rain from their cartridge pouches. For his part, Buck felt obliged to remain on his feet, roaming through the darkness, as much a dare to the Yankees as an example to his men.
And if he was a fool for strutting about, that lieutenant colonel, Pendleton, was the greater fool for riding high on that cream-white horse of his, another gentleman’s son playing the gallant. Buck knew his men were not about to take orders from an unfamiliar staff officer, not this day, nor were the artillerymen likely to do so, either. They had stopped to fight because they were soldiers and that other fellow, gone now, had made a case for the ground and the necessity. They had stopped to fight because they were tired of running and not fighting, not hitting back. They had stopped because they were Valley men, most of them, ruing homes abandoned, and because they were all Virginians. And they’d stopped just because they’d stopped, because it just happened.
Yankee solid shot screamed overhead. Their gun crews were seeking the range.
“I cain’t git this piece to fire,” a kneeling soldier complained. Preparatory, Buck understood, to making for the rear.
“Go out and grab a new one from the Yankees, they’ve got plenty.”
He moved on. Wasn’t much more to be done. Hold one man by the ear? While a dozen others ran? If the Yankees came on in one big rush, they were finished.
Well, let them come on, Buck said to himself. I’ll wait.
Walking close to Pendleton, Buck collided with the other staff man who’d stayed behind. After a clipped apology, Douglas stepped toward his comrade and called:
“For God’s sake, Sandie, get down off that horse.”
No sooner had the man spoken than Buck heard the slap-a-carcass sound of a bullet striking home.
A shadow, Pendleton toppled forward, groaning.
Douglas rushed to intercept his fall. Buck started to follow, then paused.
“Kate,” Pendleton called.
“Help me,” Douglas pleaded, staggering under the weight as the wounded man slipped from the saddle into his arms.
Buck just would not do it. He knew that helping would reel him in, stealing him from the fight for precious minutes—a fight that was damned well more important than any man, no matter his rank or parentage or position.
“You, Grimshaw!” Buck said. “Help out there, jump to it.”
Behind his back, the wounded man moaned piteously. Douglas cursed.
Resolute, Buck chose three other soldiers he judged apt to run anyway and sent them to help tote the wounded man to the rear. No more to be done.
* * *
“Where are you hit?” Douglas begged. “Sandie, where are you hit?”
Pendleton moaned. Rain pounded.
“Keep him out of the mud,” Douglas told the soldiers. “Hold him up until I see where he’s hit.”
He couldn’t see much of anything by the muzzle flashes.
“It’s his … it’s lower down,” a soldier told him. “I think he’s hit down there.”
The wounded man gasped, unable to form words.
“What do you mean, ‘down there’?” Douglas demanded. Then he realized. “We have to get him out of here.”
“Yes, sir. Sure now.” The voice told Douglas that however brave these men had been an hour earlier, they were yard-dog happy at being left off the rope to take themselves rearward.
“He’s soaking with blood, just soaking,” another soldier announced. As if such things never happened in a war. “He’s bleeding away.”
“Hold him up, man.” Forbidden a lantern by the enemy’s presence, Douglas felt along the wounded man’s body, reaching, of necessity, into private spots.
Pendleton screamed.
Douglas withdrew his hand. Pendleton’s injury was unthinkable. For a helpless moment, the knowledge froze him. Then he just repeated, “Hold him up.”
“Best carry him on back now,” the soldier who seemed to have charge of the others told Douglas. “Best hurry along.”
“Stop the Yankees…,” Pendleton moaned. “Have to stop them…”
“We’re going to stop the Yankees,” Douglas promised him.
Artillery rounds struck closer as the Yankees adjusted the range.
“You’re going to be just fine, Sandie,” Douglas added. His tone sounded false, even selfish, in his ears. As if he were the one who craved assurance.
There was no hope of a litter: The soldiers allotted Pendleton’s limbs and weight between them.
“Kate,” Pendleton muttered.
“You’ll see Kate,” Douglas told him as they stumbled back from the line. “You’ll see her soon.”
“Best bring his horse along, sir,” a voice advised. “’Case somebody stole that mule from the butcher’s wagon.”
Careless of the rounds streaking the air, Douglas slopped back through the mud toward the outline of Pendleton’s horse. The animal waited calmly, uninjured and unconcerned. Leading it by the bridle, Douglas hastened to overtake the others.
When he rejoined the party, his friend was babbling: “Couldn’t get the order out … no time … couldn’t … no time…”
The Yankees fired a battery in sequence. Their final charge might come at any moment. Probably working around the flanks as well, Douglas decided. Was he glad to be leaving? Was he just the same as these four men, just armed with better manners and finer words? Was Pendleton’s wound his excuse to run to the rear?
For all that, he knew that he would not leave the side of a man whom he counted just short of a brother.
As they lugged him along, Pendleton gasped again and again. Each suck of breath was as dreadful as a shriek.
Poor Sandie. He had to be in agony. How could a man live on with a wound like that? Would he want to?
“How bad is it, Hennie? How badly am I hit?” Pendleton asked, as if his mind had cleared, the pain abated.
“Bad enough for a pleasant leave back home. Let Kate nurse you up, impose on the family. Let them spoil you.”
“Home,” Pendleton mouthed. His mind strayed again, returning by another door. “Must hold them. Give the army time. Must…”
“Keep him up off the ground!” Douglas barked. He imagined Pendleton’s mutilated parts dragging in the mud.
They stumbled about, half-lost, and Pendleton swooned, either from resurgent pain or loss of blood. Douglas wanted his friend to live but wasn’t sure the sentiment was sound. Of all the wounds he had witnessed in the war, no other had shocked him so.
At last, they found the ambulance, tucked behind a shanty. The orderly and driver had disappeared, but a pair of darkies lurked, as if raising the courage to steal the mule.
Douglas stiffened his back and made the Negroes do what they did not want to do: help arrange the wounded man on one of the mounted litters and belt him down.
As they gentled Pendleton’s limbs, he cried, “They’re running! Tell General Jackson!”
“That man shot right through,” a darkey commented.
“Shut your mouth,” Douglas told him. “Either of you know how to drive a wagon, drive it right? Run reins on a mule?”
“Sho’. But I can’t go. I belongs to Cap’n Carpenter, he’d take it harsh.”
“How about you?”
“Yassuh. I can drive a mule jus’ fine.”
“Here. Start by tying this horse to the back of the wagon.”
He turned to the soldier who had done most of the speaking. “What’s your name?”
“Grimshaw.”
“Rank?”
“Private. Nowadays. I been this and that.”
“Where’s your rifle?”
“Couldn’t carry no rifle and him, too.”
Reluctantly, Douglas drew out his revolver, a new Colt he had taken from a Yankee. “Here. That nigger tries to run away, you shoot him. Shoot anybody else who gets in your way. I’ll catch up as soon as I fetch my horse. If I don’t, you keep on straight to Woodstock or till you come up on a field surgery.” He looked at the others in the hard-washed night. “Rest of you men can walk, and count your blessings.”
September 23, 1:00 a.m.
Woodstock, the Murphy home
“No need to lie to me, Dr. Maguire,” Pendleton said. “I know I’m dying. It’s God’s will, I’m satisfied.”
“Yes,” Maguire said, “that’s about the truth of it, I can’t lie. I’ll stay with you, though. I can do that, at least. We do go back.”
“Old Jack,” Pendleton murmured. After the nightmare journey in the ambulance, he had grown lucid in this soft, warm bed. And if he held perfectly still, the pain was bearable.
“Old Jack,” the doctor echoed.
“I do believe I’ll see him. Soon.” Fighting down a spasm, he tried to joke. “I’ll give him your compliments, tell him you’ll be along. In your good time, of course.”
“You do that.”
“Doc?”
“Yes?”
“There’s one thing you can do.”
“Surely.”
“Leave, go. The army needs you. I don’t.” He attempted a smile. “Not anymore.”
He did not choose to think about his wound. But he thought about it.
“I’d prefer to stay,” his old comrade said.
Pendleton groaned. He would have jackknifed up to clutch the pain, but lacked the strength to move.
“No. You go. Please. Do that for me.”
“Sandie…”
“Don’t want the Yankees capturing Old Jack’s surgeon on my account. Probably parade you around in a medicine show.”
“You rest now. I’ll be right here.”
“Tell me you’ll go.”
“Sure you won’t take whiskey? Help the pain?”
Pendleton tried to shake his head. “Promised Kate.”
“Anything I can tell her for you? Shall I take down a letter?”
Pendleton fought to master himself, to rally his spirit. The pain was so severe, it squeezed out tears. But his confusion was past, for that he was grateful.
“Tell her … tell her it’s better so. I’ve been chosen early for that finer world, tell her we’ll meet again—”
Abruptly, he lost consciousness and disorderly visions plagued him. He was back in the ambulance, jolted and suffering pain he had never imagined, wet as a babe in diapers, but with blood. The ambulance was taking him to Chancellorsville, but it wasn’t Chancellorsville, it was Kate’s family home, beautiful in the daylight, as she was beautiful beyond measure in the daylight.
It was still raining when next he woke, still night. Candles, no oil for the lamps. Yankees starving the South of every last thing. Someone was in the room, a woman. He tried to call out to his wife but faded again.
What was the name of that yellow dog the Salters kept tied in the yard? He always had yearned to untie it, let it loose. Was this Kate’s bed, their bed? Would it ever be their bed? Someone had to bring up ammunition, Jackson was furious … that yellow dog …
He sensed, vaguely, that Dr. Maguire had honored his wish and gone back to the army, but the world had lost its sharpness, its boundaries, and he couldn’t be certain. Only the pain was distinct.
Dawn found Sandie Pendleton still with the living. His last hour, far beyond suffering, was spent in the company of Yankee surgeons and officers.
“The pain…,” he muttered as he woke one last time.
“Shall I give him some more, do you think?” a Northern voice asked.
“… pain’s gone,” Pendleton finished.
“More might kill him. Colonel Pendleton? Can you understand me? Is there anything at all that we can do for you?”
“My wife,” he said.
“Yes, your wife. I understand. Is she nearby? Shall we bring her to you?”
“Child.”
“Something about a child. I can’t make it out.”
He tried to lift his hand and could not.
“Colonel Pendleton, what do you want to say to this child? Or to your wife?”
“Love.”
“What are you trying to say, son? We can’t understand you.”
“Better so.”