The Dixie Widow (14 page)

Lee knew this and decided to strike. He had beaten the enemy back many times: McClellan, Burnside, Hooker at Chancellorsville; Pope at the Second Manassas; Banks in the Valley. But he couldn’t mend the Army of Northern Virginia forever; the South had stripped itself of men, arms, and food. Lee had no alternative but to face the legions of Union armies that would come at him fully fed and equipped.

There was only one thing to do: strike at the heart of the North with all the strength he could muster, hoping to burst it asunder with one mighty blow. It was imperative that he carry the war up North, to the untouched fields where his tattered men could feed on the rich grainland and obtain shoes and clothing—take Washington if possible.

Lee was the most audacious soldier who ever wore a uniform, and now like a Mississippi riverboat gambler, he looked at his options. He knew his men. They had never been wholly beaten. He had driven four Union armies back within a year and broken the three top generals from their command. He
studied his opponent’s face—then put all the cards on the table. Win or lose—winner take all.

The decision made, Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia moved North, risking everything. In the words of a ragged sergeant in Jackson’s old corps: “We’ll give ’em the best we got at the ranch!”

They moved quickly, shouldering aside the shotgun militia, taking minor towns, paying out Confederate bills for supplies from Dutch storekeepers, who groaned at their personal loss.

In the North, Lincoln heard rumors of the army of tattered veterans on the move, and replaced Joe Hooker with General George G. Meade as commander of the Army of the Potomac. Meade, a Pennsylvanian, was tall, sad-faced, and austere. He had no flamboyance; his troops never cheered him as they did McClellan—but he was tougher than any of the previous Union generals who had confronted Lee. Like Grant, Meade could watch men die—then send in more who would die when the others fell.

As Lee moved north, he encountered Ellen McClellan, a Union woman with great courage. She had gained an audience with Lee to inform him that the people of her town were starving because the Army of Northern Virginia had taken all the food. He surprised her by immediately ordering supplies to be sent to the beleaguered town. On leaving, she asked for his autograph.

“Do you want the autograph of a Rebel?” he smiled.

“General Lee,” Mrs. McClellan replied, “I am a true Union woman and yet I ask for bread and your autograph.”

General Lee answered, “It is to your interest to be for the Union, and I hope you may be as firm in your principles as I am in mine,” then gave her both bread and his autograph.

Another Confederate general, George Pickett, was leading his weary troops through Pennsylvania when a little girl burst out of a clapboard house, waving a tiny Union flag in explosive patriotic enthusiasm. Instantly, the general wheeled from the line, and taking off his cap, bowed to the child with
all the grace for which he was noted, and saluted the flag of his foes. Then turning, he lifted his hand, and every man in the division doffed his cap and made that same salute.

The little girl stared at the ragged line of men, never expecting such courtesy, and then she cried out, “I wish I had a Confederate flag; I would wave
that
too!”

Later, Pickett was asked how he could salute the enemy’s flag. He replied, “I saluted the womanhood in the heart of that brave little girl.”

****

It was now the end of June. As Lee advanced, Meade groped for his adversary. Through fogs of rumor and false report, the two armies fumbled for each other.

Their first encounter occurred at Gettysburg. The battle began casually—with a raid for shoes. A North Carolina brigade under an officer named Pettigrew moved toward the small town with no more noble ambition than to find shoes for the barefoot troops. They were spotted by a Union officer, John Burford, who had been tracking Lee’s army like a hunter stalking a big cat. He sent a courier scurrying back to General Reynolds, commander of Union Corps I, who gathered his troops and attacked the Confederates the next day, July 1.

It was considered a minor skirmish, but more men were lost at Gettysburg than at Bull Run. General Reynolds was killed, and his Corps I lost half its number, either killed or wounded, as the Confederate General Heth overran the Yankees, who retreated to a fishhook ridge as the sun went down.

****

Davis Winslow arrived at Gettysburg the next morning. He was considered the greenest Third Lieutenant in either army. Since the Twentieth Maine was down to only 300 men, Davis became the target for ridicule. Knowing nothing about the army, it was torturous training for the new recruit. Chamberlain had given Davis his first instructions, driving him day
and night to learn his duties. He had been humiliated more than once. A bearded corporal taught him to shoot, but never missed an opportunity to degrade him. When given a horse with which to carry messages, he had fallen off—in full view of the regiment. Another time he had gotten so lost that a courier had to be sent to find the missing messenger.

But he had endured—and learned. Having completed his training, Davis and the little column set out toward Gettysburg, through the soft green country, filled with orchards and big barns. They had been greeted with a band playing “Yankee Doodle” when they had crossed the Pennsylvania border, and people had handed out free food. A beautiful girl with long blond hair had rushed up to Davis, pressing a warm cake into his hand, and when the soldiers had greeted her with cheers, she had blushed and fled.

At noon they moved into Hanover. As they left they could see a haze against the horizon. “That’s Gettysburg, Lieutenant,” Chamberlain said, nodding his head. “The fighting’s started, I think. That’s gun smoke.”

A thickness rose in Davis’s throat. “Do you think we’ll be in battle today?”

“No.” Chamberlain shaded his eyes and looked at the sky. “Too late—but I reckon we’ll be in the thick of it in the morning.” He glanced at Davis and smiled. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering if you’ll run when the shooting starts.”

Davis was startled. “How’d you know that?”

“It’s what everyone worries ab class="noindent"out the first time he gets into a battle. It’s what
I
thought.” He stared down the road, waiting, as a rider thundered to a stop and handed Chamberlain a message. The colonel read it, and the rider sped off without another word.

“ ‘
Proceed with all speed. Rebels will attack at dawn,
’ “ Chamberlain quoted. “We’ll just about make it.”

“Colonel, I feel so useless!” Davis exclaimed. “The greenest man in our whole regiment knows more than I do.”

“Well, you’re about to get a quick education,” Chamberlain grinned. “When the fighting starts, you discover quickly that knowledge doesn’t mean much. If it gets as thick as I expect, there won’t be any fancy tactics. We’ll line up and they’ll line up on the other side, and the one who kills the most and the quickest will win the Battle of Gettysburg.”

“What if I get separated?”

“You listen for our call. We’ve got our own special alert. Dan Butterfield was a brigade commander under Hooker. He got tired of so many different bugle calls, so he wrote one just for our brigade. When you hear that, you come running. It’s called the ‘Dan Butterfield’ and goes like this: ‘Dan, Dan, Dan, Butterfield, Butterfield.’ ”

Chamberlain kept up a steady conversation with his officers as they moved on, more concerned about his raw third lieutenant than the others. At midnight the Twentieth Maine left the road and slept in the woods.

The next morning Davis awoke to see a group of men coming down the road, unarmed. “Reb prisoners,” said Rankin, the first lieutenant. Davis wanted to talk to some of them as they paused for a rest, but he heard the call ‘Dan, Dan, Dan, Butterfield, Butterfield,’ and ran with the rest to form the line of march.

Chamberlain led them at a killing pace through a flat farm and a peach orchard, then through a high cornfield. They came to a brook, already filthy from so many men moving upstream, but they kept going. Finally they stopped to rest; off in the distance Davis could hear the sound of an occasional cannon. It was very hot, and sweat poured off him. Though he had lost weight in the weeks following his enlistment, he
still carried twenty pounds of fat, and, unlike others, had not been hardened by long marches.

A courier arrived and spoke to Colonel Chamberlain. After reading the message, the colonel called his officers forward: “We’ve got to move quick! Double time all you can, and don’t let anybody drop out!”

They raced forward, and after thirty minutes at the terrific pace, Davis was dizzy from the heat, and his legs trembled so badly he was afraid he would fall out. They made their way between rocks, on a narrow road, then to the top of a hill, where they were met by another officer. Davis was so close he could hear the conversation.

“Chamberlain, they’re attacking the left flank! Sickles was supposed to be there, but he’s not there! So you’ve got to do the job.”

“Yes, Colonel Vincent.”

“Come along and I’ll help set your lines.” Vincent led them down a ravine, and then onto a crest that afforded a view of the whole battlefield. “I’m putting you here, Colonel. This hill is shaped like a fishhook, and you’re the part right at the tip of the barb. The whole brigade will form on your right.” He paused, and said quietly, so quietly that Davis could barely hear him, “You are the extreme left of the whole Union line. You know what that means?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You cannot withdraw—under
any
conditions. If you do, the line is flanked and they’ll go straight up the hilltop and take us in the rear. You
must
defend this place at all cost.”

“Yes, sir,” Chamberlain said steadily, his eyes mild in the hot sunlight.

Vincent grinned. “Well, now we’ll see how professors fight! Good luck, Chamberlain.”

He rode off, and Chamberlain shouted, “Dig in!” The position was more than a hundred yards long. On his right the Eighty-third Pennsylvania was forming; on his left—nothing.
The men dug in, piling up rocks for a defense, and soon the line was fortified. Having finished, they waited.

Davis was amazed at the calm of the veterans. They acted as if nothing traumatic was about to hit them. He wished he could be as calm, but his stomach churned every time he heard a cannon go off, or the rattle of musket fire. As the afternoon wore on, he thought of Colonel Vincent’s order:
You cannot withdraw. Under any conditions.
What did that mean? He didn’t have to ponder long.
To the last man—if necessary.

Death and life beyond the grave had always been a philosophical speculation for him. But as he looked at the gray figures swarming like terriers below, preparing for a charge, the matter became intensely personal. His trembling hands perspired, his throat constricted, and his stomach churned. He thought of his father’s assurance that such predicaments were for ministers. Now those words were empty.
If only—

“Here they come!” The cry exploded in the air and sent a chill up his spine. Bullets rained around them. Rocks cracked. The Yankees dug in deeper—and waited. Davis and the other two lieutenants walked up and down the line. The men grinned at Davis, noting his pale face and jerky movements. He wanted to lie down behind the stones and hug the earth—anything to get away from the bullets zipping around them, but forced himself to walk confidently.
I may not know much—but I can stand up and ignore the fire,
he thought.

By now the Rebels, a myriad of gray-green-yellow uniforms, were rolling up en masse. Then for the first time, Davis heard the Rebel cry. It was a piercing scream that nearly made him drop his pistol, and the whole line dissolved in smoke and thunder.

His troops loaded and fired rapidly, like machines, and when a man in front of Davis dropped dead, Davis picked up the soldier’s rifle and shot into the line of Confederates rushing upward in wavy ranks. The Yankees’ fire was steady, hitting many of the gray targets below, but when one Rebel
went down, it seemed as if three more emerged to take his place.

The attack continued with a ferocity Davis could not have imagined. Again and again the Rebels clamored up the hill, crawling over their own dead, and time and again the Maine regiment beat them back.

Suddenly the firing ceased and a voice called, “Winslow! Lieutenant Winslow!”

He whirled to find Colonel Chamberlain and the other two lieutenants staring at him in unbelief. “I guess you fought them off, Lieutenant,” the colonel grinned. “Better save your ammunition.”

“Why—!” Davis looked down the line at his troops. All eyes were fixed on him. Only at that moment did he realize the Rebels had pulled back. He dropped his rifle and got to his feet, feeling lightheaded. The silence was heavy and oppressive after the thunderous roaring of the canons and the rattle of rifle fire.

“I guess . . . I got carried away,” he said lamely.

“I guess you did,” Chamberlain smiled. He winked at another lieutenant and said, “Perhaps if we had a few hundred more like Davis, we could attack Bobby Lee, eh?”