Hell or Richmond (29 page)

When he finished speaking, Brown realized that he was swimming in sweat, as if he had been through another charge. He turned and found Bill Wildermuth waiting in ambush.

“First Sergeant,” Bill said, grinning, “that was one steaming pile you fed those boys.”

“Kiss my backside, Private.”

But he couldn’t help smiling: Wildermuth was right.

A bit later, Captain Burket called him over. The way he used to summon First Sergeant Hill. It felt strange, the way a dream could feel false and true at the same time. The captain led him a few steps away from the men.

“Well, First Sergeant,” he said to Brown, “it’s been a Hell of a morning.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The new men didn’t do badly. Under the circumstances.”

“No, sir.”

“Everything all right?”

“Yes, sir. As much as it can be. After…” He opened his hands before him, releasing an imaginary bird.

The captain sighed and looked into the underbrush. “After that bloody damn mess. I feel the same way, Brownie, a captain’s bars don’t change that.” Burket fooled with the end of his long black beard. It was still matted with the blood of others, as was the man’s tunic. “I suppose I shouldn’t tell you this … but … oh, damn it all. Our attack? It was a mistake. General Willcox just wanted us to push out a little and guard the division’s flank.”

Across the woodlands, the battle swelled again.

Two p.m.
Brock Road

Hancock couldn’t understand why Lee had stopped. Confederate troops still pecked at his reorganizing lines, but Longstreet’s men had been rolling him up like a wet carpet, sweeping from south to north to stunning effect.

Then they just stopped. On the cusp of inflicting a catastrophe on him and a third of the army. It wasn’t like Lee, and it wasn’t in Longstreet’s nature to halt like that. For whatever reason, they had spared him, though, giving him time to rally disintegrating regiments and brigades, even broken divisions. Wadsworth had been reported mortally wounded, if not already dead, and left in Confederate hands. Getty had been carried off the field. And Baxter was wounded, too. Carroll was bleeding, but clinging to his command. Winfield Scott Hancock had been within a half hour of suffering one of the war’s ugliest defeats, a fact he would have had to live with for the rest of his life. And the Confederates stopped.

He could think of no explanation for it. Despite his losses, Lee had men enough to keep driving forward. Longstreet had not committed his last brigade, if reports were true. And Hill’s men would have regrouped well enough to add weight to the attack. Was it possible that Lee and Longstreet didn’t know how close they had come to smashing him? Had they, for some madcap reason, lost their nerve? Had they judged the day victory enough? Had he bled Lee that badly earlier on?

It wasn’t their way, it wasn’t their way.…

If Hancock lacked answers, he wasn’t short of anger. Once again, Burnside had not come in when he was supposed to attack. The blustering stoat had learned nothing since Fredericksburg, the man couldn’t lead a temperance procession. And now Meade expected
him
to support Burnside’s belated attack, if it ever came off.

Worse, he had put Gibbon in charge of his left wing, and Gibbon, of all people, had disobeyed orders. And that snot Barlow. Had he brought his entire division forward as ordered, Longstreet would never have been able to pull off his goddamned stunt. Instead, Barlow had sent him one brigade, and Paul Frank’s brigade at that.

His thigh hurt. Awfully. He longed to dismount. But it would be hours before he could leave the saddle. The Rebs would come again. Surely. He looked out past his barricades and the hastily made abatis, past grimy, surly soldiers, and into the smoke and wreckage of the day. You could almost walk on the bodies, they had come that close. Now the woods were burning between the armies, and wounded men shrieked as they roasted in broad daylight.

Careful to keep his expression firm and confident, he watched regimental officers putting men back to work, trying to make up for their earlier failures, deepening entrenchments, felling trees, and piling up more wood in front of their rifle pits, working—at his insistence—on a second line of earthworks behind the first. Lee had had his chance. Hancock did not mean to grant him another one.

But damn Gibbon! And damn Barlow! With his lines taking proper shape again, it was time to deal with those two. He fantasized about relieving them on the spot, imagining their shocked faces. Gibbon, with that Philadelphia snootiness he shared with Meade, the two of them men for whom Norristown wasn’t close enough to Rittenhouse Square. And Barlow, that little prig. Wouldn’t they be surprised if he ripped off their stars?

Of course, he knew he wouldn’t, couldn’t, relieve them. Gibbon and Barlow were the best fighters he had. For what that was worth. And he lacked the power to take away their ranks. But those two bastards had almost cost him the battle this fine day.

“Morgan!” he called to his chief of staff. “Ride down and fetch Barlow. Don’t send Walker or Miller. Go yourself and escort the bugger. I’ll be with Gibbon, we’re going to have a prayer meeting. Bring Barlow.”

Morgan dug steel into his horse’s belly, making the weary beast leap onto the road.

Saving his fury until he had things reorganized, Hancock had restricted himself to sending Gibbon terse orders to get things done. Now it was time for a reckoning. He rode the short distance through the splintered woodland, between troops gilded with sweat and useless batteries. At a hastily got-up field surgery, the wounded lay packed together like tinned fish. The usual pile of limbs lay near enough to warn men what to expect.

He wondered if he should have let them take off his leg and have done with it. Had he been one of these poor bastards with no rank, the butchers would have hacked it off at once. But generals rated above common humanity. Other men died while a general’s limb was saved by surgeons who dropped everything else. But the ghosts had their revenge: The pain from his thigh approached an unbearable level.

Spotting Gibbon astride his horse, Hancock turned to his flag-bearers and staff. “This is generals’ talk, stay back. Walker, find out why I haven’t heard fuck-all from Stevenson.”

Hancock nudged his horse forward. Gibbon rode a few dainty steps toward him and saluted. As if condescending to do so.

Be fair, Hancock warned himself. But he just couldn’t do it. He needed to unload some canister on the men who had let him down.

“You fucking bastard,” he said by way of opening the conversation.

Gibbon paled. His mouth opened. No words came out.

“You know you almost cost this army the battle, you sonofabitch? I want an answer, damn you. Why didn’t you send Barlow’s division forward when I ordered it? Was it
you
who decided to send me just one brigade? Or was that pissant Barlow making decisions for all of us today? I put
you
in charge of my left wing, not him. Why didn’t you send me his goddamned division when I asked for it?”

“Gen-General Hancock…,” Gibbon stuttered, something Hancock had never known him to do, “I … I never received such an order. You called for one of Barlow’s brigades, not his division.”

“That’s a goddamned lie!”

Gibbon blanched. But Hancock saw fire rising in the other man’s eyes, too. Gibbon was a fighter, both of them wounded within a stone’s throw of each other on that ridge at Gettysburg.

“General Hancock, your messenger asked for one brigade. At which point I ordered Barlow to dispatch a brigade immediately.”

“I ordered you to send me his
division
. Between you and Barlow and Burnside, we might as well just surrender to goddamned Lee.”

Barlow galloped toward them, big saber clanking. He wore no hat or uniform blouse, just his usual checkered shirt and a bow tie askew. Morgan rode at his side.

The brigadier reined in, saluting.

Hancock turned first to Morgan. “Charlie, take yourself off.”

Morgan eyed the three generals, saluted sharply, and left them.

“You piss-cutting bastard,” Hancock said to Barlow. “What have you got to say for yourself? Did you, or did you not, receive an order to advance your division?”

Barlow was startled. “When was the order given, sir?”

“You goddamned well know when it was given. This morning, damn you.”

Bewildered, Barlow told him, “I received no such order.” He looked at Gibbon, then back to Hancock. “I was directed to advance one brigade to support the attack’s left wing.”

Weren’t they both just too smug? Society boys. Hancock yearned to take them down a peg. “And who do you send, at that? Goddamned Frank, a drunken sauerkraut gobbler. Do you know he ran away? Left his men and ran?”

“I’ve already relieved Colonel Frank, sir.” Again, he looked to Gibbon. “With General Gibbon’s approval.” Left unsaid was that Hancock had prevented Barlow from replacing Frank in April.

“General,” Gibbon said, “you can’t blame Barlow for the confusion. He obeyed the order I sent him, which relayed the only order I had from you on the subject.”

Hancock refused to be placated. He lashed out at Barlow again. “And why send Frank? The worst brigade commander…”

“His troops were fresh. They weren’t in the fight last night. And I wanted to keep my best brigades together, sir. I
expected
you to order me to attack.”

“Then why didn’t you?”
Hancock knew he was being completely unreasonable. Even making an ass of himself.

“Because I was never ordered to do so, sir.”

Barlow’s tone was unafraid, almost cocky now. And that wouldn’t do. He had meant to put the fear of God and W. S. Hancock into the little piss-cutter, and here was Barlow turning the tables on him.

“Sir…,” Gibbon tried again. “Win, please … Barlow did precisely what I ordered him to do. If there’s a fault, it’s with me.”

“Damned right it is.”

“But I swear to you that I never received an order to advance Barlow’s division.”

“Well, that’s the order I sent. And I’ll damned well prove it, we’ll see what I wrote.…” But Hancock’s guns were running out of powder: He wasn’t at all certain he could prove anything; he was blustering and he knew it. It had been a terrible day, made worse by its spectacular beginning.

“General Hancock, I received a
verbal
order,” Gibbon said. “To forward one brigade.”

“Well, I damned well didn’t have time to write you a formal invitation. I was trying to hold this goddamned corps together. With that bastard Longstreet up my ass.”

How he regretted his early morning euphoria, when his attack had overwhelmed Hill’s shocked men, driving them more than a mile down the Plank Road. He had told Lyman, Meade’s little spy, “Tell General Meade we’re driving them handsomely.” Hardly an hour later, Longstreet’s men had been doing all the driving, herding Hancock’s men toward calamity.

Barlow cocked an eyebrow. “We might ask the messenger, sir. Maybe he confused things. Who was it, why don’t you send for him?”

Hancock felt himself heating up again. With the pain in his thigh a torment. “He’s dead. It was damned Roberts. He was killed riding out after Wadsworth.”

Barlow curled his lips. “‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead,’” he muttered.

Hancock turned on him again. “
Goddamn you!
I don’t know what the devil you’re talking about, Barlow. I never do. But I know insolence when I see it.”

“My apologies, General. The remark wasn’t so intended.”

They were so smooth, so sleek, the two of them. White-glove boys.

Suddenly, all of the air went out of Hancock. He wanted to lie down, to put all this behind him and rub his thigh with alcohol. But any rest was a long way off, and it was time to get back to business. He felt completely drained, but the Confederates would be coming at least one more time and he had to meet them. The day was still too young for Lee to quit.

“Barlow, goddamn it, just go back to your men. We’ll sort this out later. Get your men ready to fight. Bobby Lee and Pete Longstreet won’t let us off so easily.”

“My men are ready, sir.” Barlow saluted and pulled hard on the reins. Too hard. Hancock sensed, belatedly, how much of a struggle it had been for Frank Barlow to keep his temper. Christ. Of course, Barlow would have wanted to get into the fight. What had he been thinking?

Yet … Hancock was certain he had called for Barlow’s division to come up. Gibbon must have misheard. Or the messenger had misspoken.…

In a voice almost penitent, Hancock said to Gibbon, “All right, John. Tell me about the men over here. Are they up for a fight?”

“Some of them. Some of them are angry as hornets. Others…”

“Others?”

“Others are just plain broken. They won’t be worth a damn until they’ve slept. Maybe not until we get out of these woods.”

Hancock nodded and stared down past his stirrups. “We came so close. We
had
him. Lee. Hill’s corps was broken, utterly broken.” He met Gibbon’s eyes. “Then they had us. The Second Corps never folded like that before. It was shameful to watch.”

“Well, their boiler ran out of steam. And just in time.” Gibbon tried to bandage things up between them, adding, “Don’t worry, Win. If they come again, we’ll hold them.”

Hancock nodded. Thinking about the victory he had almost won that morning.

A courier rode up. Colonel Morgan intercepted the man, who drew a paper from his dispatch bag. The horseman looked agitated, anxious.

Not more bad news, Hancock thought. Good Lord.

Morgan rode forward. Slowly. Testing his welcome.

Hancock waved him on. One storm, at least, was over.

The chief of staff held out the unread paper, but said, “Confederate prisoners say Longstreet’s been badly wounded. Maybe dying.”

“Well,” Gibbon commented, “now we know why they stopped.”