Altsheler Joseph Alexander
The Star of Gettysburg: A Story of Southern High Tide
Harry and Dalton, crouched down in order that they might see better under the smoke, watched the thrilling and terrible spectacle. The Southern vanguard was made up of Texans, tall, strong, tanned men, led by the impetuous Hood, and shouting the fierce Southern war cry they rushed straight at the corps of Sickles. The artillery and rifle fire swept through their ranks, but they did not falter. Many fell, but the others rushed on, and Harry, although unconscious of it, began to shout as he saw them cross a little stream and charge with all their might against the enemy.
The combat was stubborn and furious. The men of Sickles redoubled their efforts. At some points their line was driven in and the Texans sought to take their artillery, but at others they held fast and even threatened the Southern flank. They knew, too, that reinforcements were promised to them and they encouraged one another by saying they were already in sight.
Harry could not turn his eyes away from this struggle, much of which was hidden in the smoke, and all of which was confused. The cannon of Hill and Ewell were thundering elsewhere, but here was the crucial point. The Round Tops rose on one side of the combatants. Round Top itself seemed too lofty and steep for troops, but Little Round Top, accessible to both men and cannon, would dominate the field, and he believed that Hood, as soon as his men crushed Sickles, would whirl about and seize it. But he could not yet tell whether fortune favored the Blue or the Gray.
The generals from both sides watched the struggle with intense anxiety and hurried forward fresh troops. Woods and rocks and slopes helped the defense, but the attack was made with superior numbers. Longstreet himself was directing the action and a part of Hill's men were coming up to his aid. Sedgwick and Sykes, able generals, were rushing to help Sickles. The whole combat was beginning to concentrate about the furious struggle for the Peach Orchard and Little Round Top.
Hood, in all the height of the struggle, saw the value of Little Round Top and tried his utmost to seize it. Again the Northern generals were to show that they had learned how to see what should be done and to do it at once. Little Round Top rose up, dominant over the whole field, a prize of value beyond all computation. Just then it was the most valuable hill in all the world.
A Northern general, Warren, the chief engineer of the army, had seen the value of Little Round Top as quickly as Hood. The signalmen were about to leave, but he made them stay. An entire brigade, hurrying to the battle, was passing the slope, when Warren literally seized upon them by force of command and rushed the men and their cannon to the crest.
Hood's soldiers were already climbing the slopes, when the fire of the brigade, shell and bullets, struck almost in their faces. Harry, watching through his glasses, saw them reel back and then go on again, firing their own rifles as they climbed over the rocky sides of Little Round Top. Again that fierce volley assailed them, crashing through their ranks, and again they went on into the flame and the smoke.
Harry saw the battle raging around the crest of Little Round Top. Then he uttered a cry of despair. The Southerners, with their ranks thin—woefully thin—were falling back slowly and sullenly. They had done all that soldiers could do, but the commanding towers of Little Round Top remained in Union hands, and the Union generals were soon crowding it with artillery that could sweep every point in the field below.
But Sickles himself was not faring so well. His men, fighting for every inch of ground about the Peach Orchard, were slowly driven back. Sickles himself fell, a leg shattered, and walked on one leg for more than fifty years afterwards. Hood, his immediate opponent, also fell, losing an arm then and a leg later at Chickamauga, but Longstreet still pushed the attack, and the Northern generals who had stood around Sickles resisted with the stubbornness of men who meant to succeed or die.
Early in the battle Harry had seen General Lee walk forward to a point in the center of his line and sit down on a smooth stump. There he sat a long time, apparently impassive. Harry sometimes took his eyes away from the combat for the Peach Orchard and Little Round Top to watch his commander-in-chief. But the general never showed emotion. Now and then General Hill or his military secretary, General Long, came to him and they would talk a little together, but they made no gestures. Lee would rise when the generals came, but when they left he would resume his place on the stump and watch the struggle through his glasses. Throughout the whole battle of that day he sent a single order and received but one message. He had given his orders before the advance, and he left the rest to his lieutenants.
"I wish I could be as calm as he is," said Harry.
"I'll risk saying that he isn't calm inside," said Dalton. "How could any man be at such a time?"
"You're right. Duck! Here comes a shell!"
But the shell fell short and exploded on the slope.
"Now listen, will you!" exclaimed Harry. "That's the spirit!"
Immediately after the shell burst a Southern band began to play. And it played the merriest music, waltzes and polkas and all kinds of dances. Harry felt his feet move to the tunes, while the battle below, at its very height, roared and thundered.
But he promptly forgot the musicians as he watched the battle. He knew that the Invincibles were somewhere in that volcano of fire and smoke, and it was almost too much to hope that they would again come unhurt out of such a furious conflict. But they, too, passed quickly from his mind. The struggle would let nothing else remain there long.
He saw that the Union troops were still in the Peach Orchard and that they were pouring a deadly fire also from Little Round Top. Hancock had come to take the place of Sickles, and he was drawing every man he could to his support. The afternoon was waning, but the battle was still at its height. Men were falling by thousands, and generals, colonels, majors, officers of all kinds were falling with them. The Southerners had not encountered such resistance in any other great battle, and the ground, moreover, was against them.
Yet the grim fighter, Longstreet, never ceased to push on his brigades. The combat was now often face to face, and sharpshooters, hidden in every angle and hollow of the earth, picked off men by hundreds. The great rocky mass known as the Devil's Den was filled with Northern sharpshooters and for a long time they stung the Southern flank terribly, until a Southern battery, noticing whence the deadly stream of bullets issued, sprayed it with grape and canister until most of the sharpshooters were killed, while those who survived fled like wolves from their lairs.
The day was now passing, but Harry could see no decrease in the fury of the battle. Longstreet was still hurling his men forward, and they were met with cannon and rifle and bayonet. The Confederate line now grew more compact. The brigades were brought into closer touch, and, gathering their strength anew, they rushed forward in a charge, heavier and more desperate than any that had gone before. Generals and colonels led them in person. Barksdale, young, but with snow-white hair, was riding at the very front of the line, and he fell, dying, in the Union ranks.
The Southern charge was stopped again on the left wing of the Union army, and with the coming of the night the battle there sank, but elsewhere the South was meeting with greater success. Ewell, making a renewed and fierce attack at sunset, drove in the Northern right, and, seconded by Early, took their defenses there. But the darkness was coming fast, and although the firing went on for a long time, it ceased at last, with the two enemies still face to face and the battle drawn.
Harry, who had expected to see a glorious victory won by the setting of the sun, was deeply depressed. His youth did not keep him from seeing that very little advantage had been won in that awful conflict of the afternoon, and he saw also that the Army of the Potomac had been fighting as if it had been improved by defeat. Nor had Lee thrown in his whole force where it was needed most. If Jackson had only been there! Harry pictured his swift flank movement, his lightning stroke, and the crumpling up of the enemy. Jackson loomed larger than ever now to his disappointed and excited mind.
Harry had been all day long and far into the night on Seminary Hill. Often he had scarcely moved for an hour, and now, when the firing ceased and he stood up and tried to peer into the valley of death, he found his limbs so stiff for a minute or two that he could scarcely move. His eyes ached and his throat was raw from smoke and the fumes of burned gunpowder. But as he shook himself and stretched his muscles, he regained firmness of both mind and body.
"We didn't win much," he said to Dalton.
"Not to-day, but we will to-morrow. Harry, wasn't it awful? It looks to me down there like a pit of destruction."
And Dalton described it truly. The losses of the day before had been doubled. Thirty thousand men on the two sides had now fallen, and there was another day to come.
Harry saw that the generals themselves were assailed by doubts and fears. He with other young staff officers witnessed the council of Lee and his leading officers in the moonlight on Seminary Ridge. Some spoke of retreat. A drawn battle in the enemy's country, and with an inferiority of numbers, was for them equivalent to a defeat. Others pointed out, however, that while their losses had been enormous, the courage and spirit of the Army of Northern Virginia were unshaken. Stuart with the cavalry, expected earlier, would certainly be up soon, and, after all, the day had not been without its gains. Longstreet held the Peach Orchard and Ewell was in the Union defenses on the flank of Gettysburg.
But Lee thought most of the troops. These ragged veterans of his who had been invincible asked to be led once more against the enemy. A spirit so high as theirs could not be denied. His decision was given. They would stay and smash the Union army on the morrow.
Harry heard of the decision. He had never doubted that it would be so. They must surely win the next day with the addition of Pickett's men and Stuart's cavalry. He wondered why Stuart had not come up already, but he learned the next morning that a good reason had held him back.
The Union cavalry, always vigilant now, had intercepted Stuart in the afternoon and had given him battle, just when the combat of the second day had begun at Gettysburg. Gregg led the horsemen in blue and there was another combat like that at Brandy Station, now about five thousand sabres on a side. There was a long and desperate struggle in which neither force could win, young Custer in particular showing uncommon skill and courage for the North, while Wade Hampton performed prodigies for the South. At last they drew off by mutual consent, Gregg into the forest, while Stuart, with his reduced force, rode on in the night to Lee. But Gregg in holding back Stuart had struck the Southern army a great blow.
Harry and Dalton with nothing to do received permission to go among the soldiers, and as they marked their spirits, their own rose. Then they passed down toward the battlefield. Harry had some idea that they might again find the Invincibles, as they had found them the night before, but their time was too short. The Invincibles were somewhere in the front, he learned, and, disappointed, he and Dalton turned back into the valley.
The night was clear and bright, and they saw many men coming and going from a cold spring under the shadow of the trees. Some of them were wounded and limped painfully. Others carried away water in their hats and caps for comrades too badly wounded to move. Harry observed that some wore the blue, and some the gray. Both he and Dalton were assailed by a burning thirst at the sight of the water, and they went to the spring.
Here men who an hour or two ago had been striving their utmost to kill one another were gathered together and spoke as friends. When one went away another took his place. No thought of strife occurred to them, although there would be plenty of it on the morrow. They even jested and foes complimented foes on their courage. Harry and Dalton drank, and paused a few moments to hear the talk.
The moon rode high, and it has looked down upon no more extraordinary scene than this, the enemies drinking together in friendship at the spring, and all about them the stony ramparts of the hills, bristling with cannon, and covered with riflemen, ready for a red dawn, and the fields and ridges on which thirty thousand had already fallen, dead or wounded.
"Another meeting, Mr. Kenton," said a man who had been bent down drinking. As he rose the moonlight shone full upon his face and Harry was startled. And yet it was not strange that he should be there. The face revealed to Harry was one of uncommon power. It seemed to him that the features had grown more massive. The powerful chin and the large, slightly curved nose showed indomitable spirit and resolution. The face was tanned almost to blackness by all kinds of weather. Harry would not have known him at first, had it not been for his voice.
"We do meet in unexpected places and at unexpected times, Mr. Shepard," he said.
"I'm not merely trying to be polite, when I tell you that I'm glad to find you alive. You and I have seen battles, but never another like this."
"And I can truthfully welcome you, Mr. Shepard, as an old acquaintance and no real enemy."
It was an impulse but a noble one that made the two, different in years and so unlike, shake hands with a firm and honest grip.
"Your army will come again in the morning," said Shepard, not as a question, but as a statement of fact.
"Can you doubt it?"
"No, I don't, but to-morrow night, Mr. Kenton, you will recall what I told you at our first meeting in Montgomery more than two years ago."
"You said that we could not win."
"And you cannot. It was never possible. Oh, I know that you've won great victories against odds! You've done better than anybody could have expected, but you had genius to help you, while we were led by mediocrity in the saddle. But you have reached your zenith. Mark how the Union veterans fought to-day. They're as brave and resolute as you are, and we have the position and the men. You'll never get beyond Gettysburg. Your invasion is over. Hereafter you fight always on the defensive."
Harry was startled by his emphasis. The man spoke like an inspired prophet of old. His eyes sparkled like coals of fire in the dark, tanned face. The boy had never before seen him show so much emotion, and his heart sank at the appalling prophecy. Then his courage came back.
"You predict as you hope, Mr. Shepard," he said.
Shepard laughed a little, though not with mirth, and said:
"It is well that it should be settled here. There will be death on a greater scale than any the war has yet seen, but it will have to come sooner or later, and why not at Gettysburg? Good-bye, I go back to the heights. May we both be alive to-morrow night to see which is right."
"The wish is mine, too," said Harry sincerely.
Shepard turned away and disappeared in the darkness. Harry rejoined Dalton who was on the other side of the spring, and the two returned to Seminary Ridge, where they walked among sleeping thousands. They found their way to their comrades of the staff, and their physical powers collapsing at last they fell on the ground where they soon sank into a heavy sleep. The great silence came again. Sentinels walked back and forth along the hostile lines, but they made no noise. There was little moving of brigades or cannon now. The town itself became a town of phantom houses in the moonlight, nearly all of them still and deserted. On all the slopes of the hostile ridges lay the sleeping soldiers, and on the rocks and fields between lay the dead in thousands. But from the crest of Little Round Top, the precious hill so hardly won, the Union officers watched all through the night, and, now and then, they went through the batteries for which they were sure they were going to have great use.
Harry and Dalton awoke at the same time. Another day, hot and burning, had come, and the two armies once more looked across the valley at each other. Harry soon heard the booming of cannon off to his right, where Ewell's corps stood. It came from the Northern guns and for a long time those of the South did not answer. But after a while Harry's practiced ear detected the reply. The hostile wings facing each other were engaged in a fierce battle. He saw the flash of the guns and the rising smoke, but the center of the Army of Northern Virginia and the other wing did not yet move. He looked questioningly at Dalton and Dalton looked questioningly at him.
They expected every instant that the combat would spread along the entire front, but it did not. For several hours they listened to the thunder of the guns on the left, and then they knew by the movement of the sound that the Southern wing had been driven back, not far it is true, but still it had been compelled to yield, and again Harry's heart sank.
But it rose once more when he concluded that Lee must be massing his forces in the center. The left wing had been allowed to fight against overwhelming numbers in order that the rest of the army might be left free to strike a crushing blow.
Then noon came and the battle on their left died completely. Once more the great silence held the field and Harry was mystified and awed. Lee, as calm and impassive as ever, said little. The ridges confronted one another, bristling with cannon but the armies were motionless. The day was hotter than either of those that had gone before. The sun, huge and red, poised in the heavens, shot down fiery rays in millions. Harry gasped for breath, and when at last he spoke in the stillness his voice sounded loud and harsh in his own ears.
"What does it mean, George?" he said.
"I don't know, but I think they are massing behind us for a charge."
"Not against the sixty or seventy thousand men and the scores of cannon on those heights?"
"Maybe not yet. It's likely there will be a heavy artillery fire first. Yes, I'm right! There go the guns!"
One cannon shot was followed by many others, and then for a while a tremendous cannonade raged along the front of the armies, but it too died, the smoke lifted, and then came the breathless, burning heat again.
The fire of the sun and of the battle entered Harry's brain. The valley, the town, the hills, the armies, everthing swam in a red glare. The great pulses leaped in his throat. He was anxious for them to go on, and get it over. Why were the generals lingering when there was a battle to be finished? Half the day was gone already and nothing was decided.
Conscious that he was about to lose control of himself he clasped his hands to his temples and pressed them tightly. At the same time he made a mighty effort of the will. The millions of black specks that had been dancing before his eyes went away. The solid earth ceased to quiver and settled back into its place, careless of the armies that trampled over it. Again he clearly saw through his glasses the long lines of men in blue along the slopes and on the crest of Cemetery Hill. He marked, too, there, at the highest point, a clump of trees waving their summer green in the hot sunshine. Turning his glasses yet further he saw the massed artillery on Little Round Top, and the gunners leaning on their guns. A house, set on fire purposely or by shells, was burning brightly, like some huge torch to light the way to death.
"You told me they were preparing for a charge," he said to Dalton.
"So they are, Harry. Pickett's men, who have not been here long, are forming up in the rear, but their advance will be preceded by a cannonade. You can see them wheeling guns into line."
Lee, with Hill and Longstreet, had recently ridden along the lines followed by the older staff officers, and often shells and the bullets of sharpshooters had struck about them, but they remained unhurt. Now Lee stopped at one of his old points of observation. It was now about one o'clock in the afternoon, and as the last gun took its place the whole artillery of the Southern army opened with a fire so tremendous that Harry felt the earth trembling, and he was compelled to put his fingers in his ears lest he be deafened.
A storm of metal flew across the valley toward the Northern ranks, but the guns there did not reply yet. The Union troops lay close behind their intrenchments and mostly the storm beat itself to pieces on the side of the hill. The smoke soon became so great that Harry could not tell even with glasses what was going on in the enemy's ranks, but he inferred from the fact that they were not yet replying that they were not suffering much.
But in a quarter of an hour the tremendous cannonade was suddenly doubled in volume. The Union guns were now answering. Two hundred cannon facing one another across the valley were fighting the most terrible artillery duel ever known in America. The air was filled with shells, shot, grape, shrapnel, canister and every form of deadly missile.
Harry and Dalton sprang to cover, as some of the shells struck about them, but they stood up again when they saw that Lee was talking calmly with his generals.
The Southern fire was accurate. General Meade's headquarters were riddled. Many important officers were wounded, but the Northern gunners, superb always, never flinched from their guns. They fell fast, but others took their places. Guns were dismounted but those in the reserve were brought up instead.
The appalling tumult increased. The shells shrieked as they flew through the air in hundreds, and shrapnel and grape whined incessantly. Harry thought it in very truth the valley of destruction, and it was a relief to him when he received an order to carry and could turn away for a little while. He saw now in the rear the brigades of Pickett which were forming up for the charge, about four thousand five hundred men who had not yet been in the battle, while nearly ten thousand more, under Trimble, Pettigrew and Wilcox, were ready to march on their flanks. Pickett's men were lying on their arms patiently waiting. The time had not quite come.
When Harry came back from his errand the cannonade was still at its height. The roar was continuous, deafening, shaking the earth all the time. A light wind blew the smoke back on the Southern position, but it helped, concealing their batteries to a certain extent, while those of the North remained uncovered.
The Northern army was now suffering terribly, although its infantry stood unflinching under the fire. But the South was suffering too. Guns were shattered, and the deadly rain of missiles carried destruction into the waiting regiments. Harry saw Lee and Longstreet continually under the Union fire. They visited the batteries and encouraged the men. Showers of shells struck around them, but they went on unharmed. Wherever Lee appeared the tremendous cheering could be heard amid the roar of the guns.
Now the Southern artillerymen saw that their ammunition was diminishing fast. Such a furious and rapid fire could not be carried on much longer, and Lee sent the word to Pickett to charge. Harry stood by when the men of Pickett arose—but not all of them. Some had been struck by the shells as they lay on the ground and had died in silence, but their comrades marched out in splendid array, and a vast shout arose from the Southern army as they strove straight into the valley of death.
Harry shouted with the rest. He was wild with excitement. Every nerve in him tingled, and once more the black specks danced before his eyes in myriads. Peace or war! Right or wrong! He was always glad that he saw Pickett's charge, the charge that dimmed all other charges in history, the most magnificent proof of man's courage and ability to walk straight into the jaws of death.
The dauntless Virginians marched out in even array, stepping steadily as if they were on parade, instead of aiming straight at the center of the Union army, where fifty thousand riflemen and a hundred guns were awaiting them. Their generals and those of the supporting divisions rode on their flanks or at their head. Besides Pickett, Garnett, Wilcox, Armistead, Pettigrew and Trimble were there.
The Southern cannon were firing over the heads of the marching Virginians, covering them with their fire, but the light breeze strengthened a little, driving away the smoke. There they were in the valley, visible to both friend and foe, marching on that long mile from hill to hill. The Southern army shouted again, and it is true that, at this moment, the Union ranks burst into a like cry of admiration, at the sight of a foe so daring, men of their own race and country.
But Harry never took his eyes for a moment from Pickett's column. He was using his glasses, and everything stood out strong and clear. The sun was at the zenith, pouring down rays so fiery that the whole field blazed in light. The nature of the ground caused the Virginians to turn a little, in order to keep the line for the Union center, but they preserved their even ranks, and marched on at a steady pace.
Harry began to shout again, but in an instant or two he saw a line of fire pass along the Union front. Forty guns together opened upon the charging column, and Hancock at the Union center, seeing and understanding the danger, was heaping up men and cannon to meet it.
The shells began to crash into the ranks of the Virginians and the ten thousand on their flanks. Men fell in hundreds and now the batteries on Little Round Top added to the storm of fire. The clouds of smoke gathered again, but the wind presently scattered them and Harry, waiting in agony, saw Pickett's division marching straight ahead, never faltering.
But he groaned when he saw that there was trouble on the flanks. The men of Pettigrew, exhausted by the great efforts they had already made in the battle, wavered and lost ground. Another division was driven back by a heavy flank attack. Others were lost in the vast banks of smoke that at times filled the valley. Only the Virginians kept unbroken ranks and a straight course for the Union center.
Pickett paused a few moments at the burning house for the others to get in touch with him, but they could not do so, and he marched on, with Cemetery Hill now only two hundred yards away. The covering fire of the Southern cannon had ceased long since. It would have been as dangerous now to friend as to foe. Harry, watching through his glasses, uttered another cry. Pickett and his men were marching alone at the hill. Half of them it seemed to him were gone already, but the other half never paused. The fire of a hundred guns had been poured upon them, as they advanced that deadly mile, but with ranks still even they rushed straight at their mark, the Union center.
Then Harry saw all the slopes and the crest of Cemetery Hill blaze with fire. The Virginians were near enough for the rifles now, and the bullets came in sheets. Harry saw it, and he groaned aloud. He no longer had any hope for those brave men. The charge could not succeed!
Yet he saw them rush into the Union ranks and disappear. A group in gray, still cleaving through the multitude, reappeared far up the slope, and then burst, a little band of a few dozen men, into the very heart of the Union center, the point to which they had been sent.
A battle raged for a few minutes under the clump of trees where Hancock had stood directing. There Armistead, who had led them, his hat on the point of his sword, fell dead among the Northern guns, and Cushing, his brave foe who commanded the battery, died beside him. All the others fell quickly or were taken. A few hundreds on the slopes cut their way back through the Union army and reached their own. Pickett, preserved by some miracle, was among them.
Harry gasped and threw down his glasses. Now he knew that the words Shepard had spoken to him the night before at the spring were true. The Southern invasion had been rolled back forever.
He looked at General Lee, who on foot had been watching the charge. The impenetrable mask was gone for a moment, and his face expressed deep emotion. Then the great soul reasserted itself and mounting his horse went forward to meet the fugitives and encourage them. He rode back and forth among them, and Harry heard him say once:
"All will come right in the end. We'll talk it over afterward, but meanwhile every good man must rally. We want all good and true men just now."
His manner was that of a father to his children, and, though they had failed, the spontaneous cheers again burst forth wherever he passed. The wounded as they were carried to the rear raised themselves up to see him, and their cheers were added to the others.
Harry never forgot anything that he saw or heard then. Although the battle, in effect, was over, the Northern artillery, roaring and thundering triumphantly, was sending its shells across the valley and upon Seminary Ridge. But he did not think anything of them, even when they struck near him. It would be days before he could feel fear again. He heard Lee say to an officer who rode up, and stated, between sobbing breaths, that his whole brigade was destroyed:
"Never mind, General. All this has been my fault. It is I who have lost this fight, and you must help me out of it in the best way you can."
To another he said:
"This has been a sad day for us, a sad day. But we can't expect always to gain victories."
Beholding such greatness of soul, Harry regained his own composure. He rejoined Dalton, and soon they saw the Southern army reform its lines, and turn a bristling front to the enemy. The Northern cannon were still flashing and thundering, but the Northern army made no return attack. Gettysburg, in all respects the greatest battle ever fought on the American continent, was over, and fifty thousand men had fallen.
