The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War Read online

  “It is a Christian army,” Longstreet said. “You did not know Jackson.”

  “No. It was my great misfortune to arrive after his death. They tell great things of him.”

  “He was colorful,” Longstreet said. “He was Christian.”

  “His reputation exceeds that of Lee.”

  “Well, pay no attention to that. But he was a good soldier. He could move troops. He knew how to hate.” Longstreet thought: a good Christian. He remembered suddenly the day Jackson had come upon some of his troops letting a valiant Yankee color sergeant withdraw after a great fight. The men refused to fire at him, that man had been brave, he deserved to live. Jackson said, “I don’t want them brave, I want them dead.”

  “They tell many stories of the man. I regret not having known him.”

  “He loved to chew lemons,” Longstreet said.

  “Lemons?”

  “Don’t know where he got them. He loved them. I remember him that way, sitting on a fence, chewing a lemon, his finger in the air.”

  Fremantle stared.

  “He had a finger shot away,” Longstreet explained. “When he held it down the blood would get into it and hurt him, so he would hold it up in the air and ride or talk with his arm held up, not noticing it. It was a sight, until you got used to it. Dick Ewell thought he was crazy. Ewell is rather odd himself. He told me Jackson told him that he never ate pepper because it weakened his left leg.”

  Fremantle’s mouth was open.

  “I’m serious,” Longstreet said amiably. “A little eccentricity is a help to a general. It helps with the newspapers. The women love it too. Southern women like their men religious and a little mad. That’s why they fall in love with preachers.”

  Fremantle was not following. Longstreet said, “He knew how to fight, Jackson did. A. P. Hill is good too. He wears a red shirt when he’s going into battle. It’s an interesting army. You’ve met George Pickett?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Perfume and all.” Longstreet chuckled. “It’s a hell of an army.” But thinking of Pickett, last in line, reminded him of Pickett’s two brigade commanders: Garnett and Armistead. Old Armistead, torn by the war away from his beloved friend Win Hancock, who was undoubtedly waiting ahead on that black hill beyond Gettysburg. Armistead would be thinking of that tonight. And then there was Dick Garnett.

  “Pickett’s men are extraordinary men,” Fremantle said. “The Virginians seem different, quite, from the Texans, or the soldiers from Mississippi. Is that true, do you think, sir?”

  “Yes. Have you met Dick Garnett?”

  “Ah, yes. Tall fella, rather dark. Wounded leg. Odd that …”

  “Jackson tried to court-martial him. For cowardice in the face of the enemy. I’ve known Garnett for twenty years. No coward. But his honor is gone. You will hear bad things from people who know nothing. I want you to know the truth. Jackson was … a hard man.”

  Fremantle nodded silently.

  “He also court-martialed A. P. Hill once. And Lee simply overlooked it. Well, come to think of it, I had some trouble with old Powell myself once; he wanted to fight me a duel. Matter of honor. I ignored him. It’s an interesting army. Only Lee could hold it together. But the thing about Garnett troubles me. He thinks his honor is gone.”

  “A tragic thing,” Fremantle said. There was tact there, a tone of caution.

  “The papers, of course, all side with Jackson.” Longstreet blew out a breath. “And Jackson is dead. So now Garnett will have to die bravely to erase the stain.”

  And he saw that Fremantle agreed. Only thing for a gentleman to do. Longstreet shook his head. A weary bitterness fogged his brain. He knew Garnett would die, no help for it now, unturnable, ridiculous, doomed with a festering, unseen wound.

  Fremantle said, “You are not, ah, Virginia born, sir?”

  “South Carolina,” Longstreet said.

  “Ah. That’s in the far south isn’t it, sir?”

  “True,” Longstreet said. He was weary of talk. “Honor,” he said. “Honor without intelligence is a disaster. Honor could lose the war.”

  Fremantle was vaguely shocked.

  “Sir?”

  “Listen. Let me tell you something. I appreciate honor and bravery and courage. Before God … but the point of the war is not to show how brave you are and how you can die in a manly fashion, face to the enemy. God knows it’s easy to die. Anybody can die.”

  In the darkness he could not see Fremantle’s face. He talked to darkness.

  “Let me explain this. Try to see this. When we were all young, they fought in a simple way. They faced each other out in the open, usually across a field. One side came running. The other got one shot in, from a close distance, because the rifle wasn’t very good at a distance, because it wasn’t a rifle. Then after that one shot they hit together hand to hand, or sword to sword, and the cavalry would ride in from one angle or another. That’s the truth, isn’t it? In the old days they fought from a distance with bows and arrows and ran at each other, man to man, with swords. But now, listen, now it’s quite a bit different, and quite a few people don’t seem to know that yet. But we’re learning. Look. Right now, take a man with a good rifle, a good man with a good rifle which has a good range and may even be a repeater. He can kill at, oh, conservatively, two, three hundred yards shooting into the crowd attacking him. Forget the cannon. Just put one man behind a tree. You can hardly see him from two hundred yards away, but he can see you. And shoot. And shoot again. How many men do you think it will take to get to that man behind a tree, in a ditch, defended by cannon, if you have to cross an open field to get him? How many men? Well, I’ve figured it. At least three. And he’ll kill at least two. The way you do it is this: one man fires while one man is moving, and the other is loading and getting ready to move. That’s how the three men attack. There’s always one moving and one firing. That way you can do it. If you forget the cannon. But you’ll lose one man most probably on the way across the field, at least one, probably two, against a cannon you’ll lose all three, no matter what you do, and that’s across the field. Now. If you are attacking uphill …”

  He broke it off. No point in talking this way to a foreigner. Might have to fight him sometime. But the man would not see. Longstreet had spoken to his own officers. They found what he said vaguely shameful. Defense? When Lee dug trenches around Richmond they called him, derisively, the King of Spades. Longstreet took a deep breath and let it go, remembering again that damned black hill, fires like eyes.

  Fremantle said, bewildered, “But, sir, there is the example of Solferino. And of course the Charge of the Light Brigade.”

  “Yes,” Longstreet said. Like all Englishmen, and most Southerners, Fremantle would rather lose the war than his dignity. Dick Garnett would die and die smiling. “Had he his hurts before?” Aye, then he died like a man. Longstreet, who had invented a transverse trench which no one would use, filed the matter forcefully in the dark cavern of his swelling brain and rode into camp.

  That night, at supper, someone remarked casually that since the army needed ammunition, wouldn’t it be proper for the ammunition factories to stay open on Sunday? Most of the officers agreed that it had not yet come to that.

  Longstreet stayed up talking, as long as there was company, as long as there was a fire. Because when the fire was gone and the dark had truly come there was no way he could avoid the dead faces of his children.

  6.

  LEE

  Lee rode north through the town and out the Heidlersburg Road. There was a joy in the night all around him. The men yelled and whooped as he passed by. Many stopped and just smiled and some took off their hats. They had won again. The joy on their faces, the look of incredible pride, the way so many of them looked at him going by as if waiting for some sign of his approval of a job well done, another fight so nobly fought, lights in all the starry young eyes, and beyond that the way some of them had tears in their eyes as he went by, tears for him, for the cause, for the d
ead of the day; the sight of it was something very nearly unbearable, and he set his face and rode through saying nothing, nodding, touching his hat. Then he was out the other side of town, and there were piles of stacked Union muskets, blankets and canteens and wagons, the abandoned implements of war.

  Ewell had made his headquarters in a farmhouse. He was there, along with Early and Rodes. They were all standing at a white gate as Lee rode up at the beginning of the night, enough light still in the sky so that the black mass of the hill to the east, the untaken hill, could still be seen against the evening sky. Lee thought: why did you not attack? Why? But he said nothing.

  Ewell had the look of a great-beaked, hopping bird. He was bald and scrawny; his voice piped and squeaked like cracking eggshells. He had lost a leg at Manassas and had just recently returned to the army, and he was standing awkwardly balancing himself against the unfamiliar leg and scratching his head and swaying nervously, clutching a fencepost. Early stood beside him, dark, formal, composed. Rodes off to the side bowed formally at Lee’s approach.

  “Good evening, sir, God bless you, did you see them run? Did you see them? We whipped them again, by God, yes, sir, we did, sir.” Ewell chattered. Lee sensed a strange thin quality in his voice, a wavery exuberance. He escorted Lee through the house, hobbling awkwardly on the wooden leg, talking about the bullet that had hit him there that afternoon while he was mounted on his horse. They went out into an arbor and sat in the warm evening under the grapevines and the soft sky and Ewell sat on the ground and hiked up his pants to show Lee where the bullet had hit, a minié ball just below the jointed knee, a vast gash of splintered white wood. Ewell was giggling, grinning, cocking his head off to the side like a huge parrot, chortling.

  Lee asked the condition of the corps, the number of wounded. Early spoke up. Ewell deferred. Early stood with his legs wide apart, his hands clasped behind his back, heavy in the jaw, his face bleak and grim, black beard dirty and untrimmed. He had been a West Pointer, had left the army to become a lawyer, a prosecutor. He was utterly sure of himself. Lee watched and listened. Early explained the situation coolly and logically. Behind him, Ewell nodded in punctuation, his head twitching, his fingers fluttering. Lee felt a strangeness in the air, a coolness. Ewell should speak for himself. Rodes sat silently leaning forward, his hands on his knees, looking at the ground. There was a pause.

  Lee said, “I had hoped you would move on through the town and take that hill.”

  Ewell blinked, rubbed his nose, looked at Early, looked at Rodes, patted his thigh. Lee, watching, felt a sudden acute depression.

  Ewell said, “I didn’t think it was, ah, practical. We were waiting, ah, for many reasons. We had marched all day, and fought, and your orders were a caution against bringing on a general engagement.” He jabbered, rambling, moving about in his chair. Early walked over and sat on the railing of the arbor. Ewell turned to him for confirmation.

  Early said calmly, silently, bored, “There were reports of Federal troops in the north. We couldn’t bring artillery to bear, and no word came from Hill, as you know. We decided it would be best to wait for Johnson.” Yes, yes, Ewell nodded vigorously, thumping the wooden leg. “But he did not arrive until dark, just a while ago. He’s out now, looking over the terrain.”

  Ewell went on nodding. Lee looked at Rodes, who said nothing. After a moment Early said, “You may remember, sir, that I passed over this ground a few days ago and am familiar with it. The hill is named Cemetery Hill. It has another hill beyond it, also occupied. It will be a very strong position.”

  Lee closed his eyes for a moment, was very tired. Think of all of it later. An aide brought a cup of hot boiled coffee, thick with sugar. Lee drank, revived, abruptly saw the face of Jackson in his mind, a flare of cold blue eyes. He looked up, blinked. Could almost see him. Jackson was here. Jackson was looking on.

  Ewell was drinking coffee. Early had folded his arms. Rodes still gazed at the ground, plucking at one of his fingers. Lee said, “Can you attack on this flank, in the morning?”

  Ewell sat up. Early did not move. Lee felt the depression, cold and slow and steady like a wind in his brain, shook his head to blow it away.

  Early said, “That hill will be a very strong position. Once it is fortified. Which they are doing right now.”

  “Very strong.” Ewell nodded violently.

  “Have you looked over the ground, sir?” Early asked.

  “From a distance.”

  Early leaned back into the dark. He spoke slowly, deliberately. “I do not think we should attack this point. This will be the strong point. Our troops have marched hard today and fought hard today. I suggest we hold here while the rest of the army makes an attack on the other flank.”

  “You think an attack here would succeed?”

  “I think it would be very costly.”

  Ewell nodded. Lee turned.

  “General Rodes?”

  Rodes looked up, glanced away, shrugged.

  “We’ll attack, of course. But the men have had a good fight. And it will be a strong position.” He looked up at Ewell, then quickly away. “I’m sorry we did not take it today.”

  “Well,” Lee said. “Today is done.”

  “General Longstreet has not been engaged,” Early said. “His corps has not been fought for some time.” He was referring to Chancellorsville, where Longstreet’s men had been detached. “If he were to attack on the right he would draw the enemy from this position and we could then attempt the assault. Supported, of course, by General Hill.”

  Lee thought: Longstreet cannot stand the man. I wonder why? Something too cold here, something disagreeable in the silence of the eyes, the tilt of the head. Jubal. Strange name. Old Jubilee. Nothing happy about the man. And yet, unmistakable competence. Lee said, “Longstreet proposes that we move our army to the right around the enemy flank and interpose between Meade and Washington.”

  “And vacate this position?” Ewell popped his eyes, slapped the splintered wood again. “Leave this town, which we have just captured?”

  Lee said, with some irritation, “The town is of no importance.”

  Ewell looked to Early. Early said slowly, “To move this entire corps, in the face of a fortified enemy?” He smiled slightly, with a touch of the disdain for which he was rapidly becoming notorious.

  “Hardly fitting,” Ewell piped. “Hardly. Troops fought so hard for this town, do we move them out and march them off into the woods, in sight of the enemy? Morale will suffer, General. The boys are ready. Our boys are ready.”

  “Longstreet is on the defensive again.” Early grinned. “I suppose that’s to be expected. But really, sir, it seems to me, we are here and the enemy is there, and Hill and General Ewell have engaged and Longstreet has not. If Longstreet can be induced to attack on the right, we can give you this hill tomorrow by sundown.”

  Ewell was nodding again, pointing at Early, wagging a bony finger. They talked. Lee made no decision. Must not judge Ewell now. The man has been a good soldier for too long. First day in command of the corps. Jackson’s old corps.

  Hill is sick. Ewell indecisive. The hill untaken. Longstreet broods on defensive war. Lee said, “Would you gentlemen retreat?”

  “Retreat? Retreat?” Ewell sat with his mouth open. Rodes looked up.

  “Would you suggest that we fall back behind South Mountain?”

  “Retreat?” Ewell was amazed. “But why?”

  Lee said, “If we do not withdraw, and if we do not maneuver in the face of the enemy, then we must attack. There is no other alternative.” He rose, not waiting for an answer. They accompanied him to the door. He saw a vase filled with flowers on a small wooden table. A picture of an old man frowned down out of an old round frame. Lee was thinking: Very dangerous to withdraw. To pull this army with all its trains back through that pass. Without cavalry, it cannot be done. Stuart. I have waited long enough.

  He thanked the men for their day’s work, told them to get a good night’s rest. Onc
e again he saw Jackson’s blue eyes, probing, reproachful. He thought: General, we miss you.

  He rode off into the dark. Taylor was there with messages. Lee answered them, one to Imboden, one to Chilton, sent Taylor off to find the raider, Harry Gilmore, who was with Johnson. He rode off with Venable and then, moving in out of the night to greet him, saw old Isaac Trimble, astride a pale horse, fiery old Isaac. Lee smiled a greeting. General Trimble was almost sixty. Not much older than you, old man. But he looks ancient. Do I look that old? I was tired before, but I am not tired now. No pain now. God’s blessing. What will I do about Ewell?

  Trimble said, “Sir, I beg your pardon, but I will not serve the man.” He was furious. He raised one huge hand like a vast claw and made a gesture as if pushing a disgusting thing away from him, into the black air. “I will not serve the man. I am a volunteer aide with the man, sir, as you know. I most respectfully request another assignment.” He shook his head violently, almost displacing his hat. “The man is a disgrace. Have you heard it all, sir? What they have been telling you? Ask the aides, sir, or General Gordon, or Johnson.”

  He went on. He was a marvelous old man who had sworn to be a major general or a corpse. Lee gathered that he was talking about Ewell. Lee calmed him, but he wanted to hear.

  Trimble said, “We should have taken that hill. God in His wisdom knows we could have taken that hill. Beyond Cemetery Hill there is another hill and it was totally unoccupied. There was no one there at all, and it commanded the town. Gordon saw it, sir, he was with us, me and Gordon and Ewell, all standing there in the flaming dark like great fat idiots with that bloody damned hill empty, begging your pardon, General, but that bloody damned hill was as bare as his bloody damned great head and it commands the town. We all saw it, General, as God is my witness, ask anyone here. McKim was there, Smith was there, they were all there. I said, ‘General Ewell, we have got to take that hill. General Jackson would not have stopped like this with the bluebellies on the run and plenty of light left and a hill like that empty as, oh God help us, I don’t know what.’ But nobody there at all. And the Federals running, no guns set up, nothing but one battery and one regiment in line.”