He said to Von Borcke, “You may tell General Stuart that I thank him deeply for this gift. The hat . . . my wife sent it to me, and I never thought . . . it was quite right. . . .”
“General, it is perfect . . . perfect! Please, General, allow me to leave. I will report to General Shtuart that his gift is a success.”
“Yes, certainly, you are dismissed, Major.”
Von Borcke hurried heavily to his horse, climbed up with a great grunt, began to move away through the crowd of men. Some of the troops followed after him, calling out, and he waved wildly, nearly falling from the horse.
“Vat ho!” And the men yelled it back to him, none having any idea what he meant.
Pendleton moved closer to Jackson, admired the gold buttons, the gold stars on the collar, the elaborate braiding on the sleeves.
“General Stuart must have gone to a great deal of trouble, sir. This is fine work, probably came from Richmond.”
Jackson had stopped smiling, stared at the young man, said, “We will move at dawn, Captain. General Lee will be expecting us.”
Pendleton knew the festivities were over. He took a step back, raised a salute, said, “Yes, sir. Good night, sir.”
Jackson removed the hat, leaned over into the tent, and the flaps closed behind him. He tossed the hat down on his blanket, thought of Anna, the silly gift that he thought he would never wear. I am a lieutenant general, he thought. She is proud. I must tell her, No, do not be proud of me—thank God for what He has given us. He ran his hands down the smooth material of the uniform, so different from the old ragged jacket that lay now on the ground by his feet. He began to undo the buttons, thought of sleep, the day ahead, then he saw the laughing face of Stuart, thought, I suppose I cannot insult the kindness of General Stuart. But it is clear he has too much time on his hands. We will have to see what we can do about that.
He sat on his blanket, leaned over to the small lamp, snuffed out the light. He lay down, pulled the blanket over the fine gray cloth, and now it was dark and quiet and the cold began to seep into the tent. He stared up, began to think of Fredericksburg and the wide river, of bayonets and flashing cannons and driving the enemy back, over the edge, into the icy water.
29. HANCOCK
December 1862
THE PONTOONS had finally come into Falmouth the last few days of November, came piecemeal, a convoy that had stretched itself thin on the softening mush of the roads. Now they lay in long rows on the bank of the river, patrolled by nervous engineers, the men who would push them out into the icy water and lash them together side by side, until they reached the far shore. Once in place, planks would be laid on top, and the huge army would begin to cross on a narrow strip of bouncing wood. Hancock had walked among them, had heard the comments. They had waited for nearly two weeks for the pontoons to arrive, and now that they were there, the order had not come. There was only silence from Burnside’s headquarters.
Hancock had stayed away from headquarters, from the frequent meetings, meetings that Burnside also avoided, choosing instead to hear a summary of the comments from his staff, feeling out the mood of his commanders. When Burnside did attend, it was to persuade his subordinates that loyalty was their primary concern, not the soundness of his plan. Now, there had been another meeting, and Hancock had been summoned specifically, had gone with no expectations, and the crowded room had been loud and hostile, the commanders speaking their minds more openly now, criticizing their commander’s strategy. The meeting was chaired by Sumner, and the old man had finally given up, had dismissed them with a weary wave of his hand. As the men flowed out of the grand old house, no one spoke, the mood of the generals reflecting the mood of the army. Hancock had paused, waiting for Couch, but Couch passed by him with red-faced anger, did not want to talk, and the others had gone quickly as well. Now Hancock stood alone in the winter ruins of the wide garden, stared far across the river toward the heavy lines of Bobby Lee, admired the scene again, the snow on the wide-open fields, the pleasant waterfront town, and felt like this was all unreal somehow, that there was no war, that nothing would happen to disturb this peaceful countryside.
He put one foot up on a low brick wall, thought, No, this is very real, and we do not have a leader. Behind him he heard a voice, turned, saw Sumner coming toward him. The old man was pulling on a heavy coat, his breath in short bursts of white, and he walked closer to Hancock, who pulled his foot from the wall, turned, stood at attention.
“Easy, General. Saw you out here, wondered what you were doing. You didn’t say much this morning, but there’s a lot in your face. A lot of them . . . they’re getting pretty casual with what they’re saying about General Burnside. Not good . . . not good for an army to let down like that. The disrespect . . . He is still the commander.”
Sumner stared out across the river, and Hancock looked at the old face, the heavy eyes.
“General, we can go inside if you like. No need to stand out here in the cold . . .”
Sumner looked at him, shook his head. “Makes no difference, General. Sometimes, I feel the cold worse inside than I do out here. Old bones . . . this old coat . . .” He raised an arm, and Hancock saw the dull brass buttons on the sleeve, an old army design he had not seen before. “Had this old coat since . . . hell, I don’t know, since the beginning. No West Point back then, no place for a soldier to get any training except out here, the field. It was better . . . smaller . . . simpler. A general gave commands and the army carried them out, and the job was done. You in Mexico, General?”
Hancock nodded. “Sixth Infantry.”
“Oh, so you were with Scott. Winfield Scott . . . now, there was a commander.” Sumner paused, looked again at Hancock. “Your name . . . you were named after him.”
Hancock smiled. “Yes, sir. My father had a great admiration for him. I even met him once. He came to West Point. He asked for me, for me in particular, saw my name on the list of cadets. He told me we had a responsibility to each other . . . said he’d promise not to disgrace my name if I didn’t disgrace his. He scared me to death.”
Sumner laughed, a rough cough, and Hancock realized he’d never seen him smile before. But the smile did not last, and Sumner shook his head, said, “It is a different army. General Scott didn’t have to hold meetings to find out what he should do, to tell him what people thought . . . he didn’t give a damn what people thought. He was the commander, and everyone understood that, even the President. Hell . . . several Presidents. But he made a great mistake—he got too old, and now they replace him with this damned Halleck, a politician. Runs the army like a puppetmaster, pulling strings. If he thinks you’re in his corner, he supports you. If he doesn’t, you don’t get your damned pontoons when you’re supposed to. Scott would never have done that . . . that foolishness.” He turned sharply to Hancock, leaned closer. “This bother you, General? You think maybe I’m talking out of turn?”
Hancock shook his head. “You’re saying what a lot of the men have been saying, General. Even the foot soldiers seem to feel the same way, seem to understand what a mess we’re in.”
“You think we’re in a mess . . . here?”
Hancock paused, told himself to be careful. He knew he had better choose his words. “We might have a difficult time taking those hills, General.”
“General Hancock, last week I showed General Burnside a map, given to me by one of the engineers. It showed a deep canal, cutting across that open field behind the town, the field we will have to cross. I pointed out the location of the canal, that it will present a difficult obstacle in the face of artillery fire. General Burnside looked at the map, then looked at me, and said there is no canal in that location, that the map was wrong. I thought, well, he could be right, I suppose he has access to better information than I do. So I came out here, stood on this spot with field glasses, and looked across the tops of those church steeples, and pretty plain I could see it, right where the engineer said it was. Now, General, what am I supposed to do? I have spent over
forty years in this army accepting the word of my commander as gospel, carrying out my duty.” He paused, wiped at his nose with a handkerchief. “The commanding general says we are to cross this river and take those heights. So, that is what we will do.”
Hancock nodded, said, “It’s possible. Down to the left, we could push through, maybe turn Jackson’s lines, push him back, trap Longstreet on top of the hill, surround him. It’s possible.”
Sumner cocked an eyebrow, chuckled again, said, “You trying to be a politician too? Turn Jackson’s lines? No, General, we will meet him head-on and it will be a bloody mess. And we will march up to that hill over there, and we will eat their artillery fire all the way across that field. But the important thing is, regardless of the outcome, we will be able to look at ourselves in the mirror and say we are good soldiers, we did what we were told. And if we are not successful, we can say, well, it was a good plan, but there were . . . circumstances, and Mr. Lincoln and General Halleck and Secretary Stanton will pace in their offices and fret over what we should do next. And you, General, can one day go back to your hometown and tell the families of your men that they died doing their duty. And they might even believe you.”
Hancock felt the cold numbing his hands and feet, began to move slightly, nervously. “Is there no way to change his mind? We should have crossed upriver, at the shallow fords.”
“Oh, certainly that has been suggested, General. Try to imagine President Lincoln’s response if General Burnside said to him, ‘Sir, if you don’t mind, we’re turning the army around, going back up where we just came from and starting over.’ ” He chuckled, rubbed his chin with the handkerchief. “I’d like to be there for that . . . ought to be a good one.”
Hancock nodded, tried to smile. Sumner turned, began to move back toward the wide doors of the house. He paused, kicked softly at the snow, turned up something with his foot, and Hancock saw color, bright yellow, red, a child’s toy. Sumner bent over, picked it up, shook off the snow and held it for a long moment. He said nothing, and Hancock waited, then moved closer to the old man, saw his face, saw red anger, hard red eyes, and Sumner tossed the toy out of the garden, over the low brick wall.
“General, we will be moving across the river very soon. There has been too much talk . . . too much loose talk. I want it shut off, stopped. Any further criticism of General Burnside’s plan of attack will be considered insubordination and will be dealt with severely. Am I clear?”
Hancock stiffened, felt the old man’s anger, said crisply, “Yes, sir. Very clear, sir.”
“Good. Now, return to your division, General. The engineers will be receiving their orders very soon. Be ready.” He climbed up the short steps, reached for the door, did not look back, and Hancock watched him disappear inside. He stood still for a minute, absorbing what Sumner had said, thought, Of course, he has no choice, it is all he has ever been. The rest of us . . . we have the luxury of youth, of better education, of better choices after all this is over. He’s just an old soldier, and his time is up. And he will go out doing his duty.
He turned toward the river again, to the far hills, felt a shiver flow across his body, pulled his coat tighter. He walked over to the low wall again, looked down the hill, saw the deep scars in the snow where the toy had rolled, saw broken pieces, the remnants, and he thought of Pennsylvania, and going home to the families of his men.
30. BARKSDALE
December 11, 1862
IT HAD been a steady stream, a solid sad line moving slowly, by foot, by cart, out and away from the town. They were old and young, women and children and their grandparents, the sick and infirm. Some were veterans of earlier fights, men who carried their wounds. Some were fit to be soldiers but had escaped, by politics or by money, but now they were all part of the same tragedy, moving together, and they all understood, they were giving up their homes, leaving behind them all that they could not carry, because the great destruction of the great war had finally come to crush their town, and the two armies, who squatted on the hills around them, could not offer them safety, but only ensure them that if they stayed, they would suffer the most.
He had kept his men by the side of the road, allowing the long line to pass, making room for squeaking carts and richly upholstered carriages, and the people looked at him as they went by, some saluting the uniform, but few said anything, there was no cheering, no mindless patriotism.
The civilians had grown used to seeing the war through the newspapers, sipping tea on sunlit porches, boasting of the great Lee and the mighty Jackson, cursing the demon Lincoln. They had read of the horrors of other cities, Charleston, Norfolk, pitied the people in the smaller towns, Sharpsburg, Manassas, Harper’s Ferry. Some of them worked on the river, loaded goods from boats and barges to trains and wagons, watched the food and supplies move away, sustaining their soldiers off in some far distant field, some other valley. Some had expected this, were prepared, neatly packed boxes, wagons piled high, and others did not believe it still, wanted to stay, fight the Yankees just by being there, showing their spirit. But the order had come from the hills beyond, from Lee himself, and so they would not disobey. Across the river they could see the big guns and the mass of blue, and they understood at last that all they could do was leave, get out of the way.
He moved his men into Fredericksburg before dark, quietly, with no fanfare, and they did not have to work, no trenches or earthworks, but had filled the basements and the lower levels of the houses and stores perched along the riverbank. Every window, every small gap in old brickwork, any place a man could fire a rifle, was filled with the men of his brigade. Sixteen hundred rifles pointed at the river, and during the long dark night, they made coffee and played cards, and talked of the Yankees across the way.
Barksdale stood at the edge of the water, at a small boat launch, the hard street flowing right down into the water. It was still early, there was no light, and he could feel the thick, cold air, the heavy fog that filled the valley. He strained his eyes, stared across the quiet water, listened hard for any sound. There were small voices, conversation, then the sound of tin, coffee cups and plates, and soon the voices became louder, more intense. The conversation had become official, commands and replies, and now there were new sounds, tools and heavy wood, and still he could see nothing.
The fog began to glow, a light gray, the dim light of dawn finding its way down to the streets and the water, and now he watched his boots, had perched his toes right on the edge of the smooth glaze of ice, gauging the motion of the slowly moving river. He looked out again, and still there was only the fog, and after a minute he looked down again, and saw: his boots were wet—the water had come out from under the ice, a small disturbance on the still water, pushed toward him by something . . . something wide and heavy moving into the river from the other side.
He turned quickly, ran up the short hill to the quiet streets, and now he saw his staff, the men waiting for the order, and he sent them fanning out through the houses and stores, passing the word to the men: the Yankees were coming across.
He walked back to the edge of the river, stared hard into the fog, heard now the splashing of oars, heavy boots on hard wood, the orders of the engineers. He tried to measure the distance, had memorized the far bank, the positions of the idle pontoons, now began to draw a bead. There was no breeze, and so he knew the sounds were true and straight. He raised his pistol, pointed blindly at the sound of a man’s voice, held the pistol steady for a long second and fired a single shot. On both sides of him, his men responded to his signal, and a volley of rifles opened with bright flashes, sending a shower of lead toward the unseen voices.
There were splashes, the sound of cracking ice. Men screamed and orders were yelled, and suddenly the voices moved away, back in the distance: they had gone back to the far shore. He waited, listened;
there was no sound from the river, no movement on the water. He took off his hat, waved it high above his head and gave out a whoop, a single piece of rebel yell, a
nd from the basements and windows came the muffled reply, the cheering of his men.
Barksdale’s brigade of Mississippians had been ordered into the town as the first line of defense, and the division commander, Lafayette McLaws, had told him there would be no support. Barksdale’s orders had been simple and brief: delay the building of the pontoon bridges, then retire back to the safety of the high hill, the hill above the stone wall known as Marye’s Heights.
William Barksdale had come to the Confederacy with the background as a newspaperman and a hard-line secessionist. He was gray-haired and clean-shaven, a neat and educated man, and had shown an unusual ability to lead troops, unusual because Lee had learned through bitter experience that the more political a commander, the less likely he was to be a good soldier.
The fog showed no signs of lifting, and now he heard the noises again, more heavy boots on hard wood, sharp voices and cracking ice, and he waited, let them begin work again. He tried to picture the scene in his mind, the engineers scrambling over the fat pontoon boats, pulling them together into a line, hauling the long planks, laying them across. He knew they would be looking his way, wondering where the shots had come from and when the next volley would come. He smiled, raised the pistol again, and fired into the fog. And from all along the riverfront his men responded with their rifles, and the cries were louder this time, more men fell into the ice, collapsed into the boats. He did not yell, heard his men take up the refrain on their own, and he knew this would work for a while, but he was only one brigade, and surely someone over there would do something to push him out of the town and away from the river.
Barksdale stared hard at the fog, could see out into the river now, maybe forty or fifty yards. It was fully daylight, and the fog was beginning to lift. Now the noises returned, and he could hear men farther down the river, another bridge, knew he had men stretching far enough to cover the entire waterfront, that any landing along the town would be a hot one. He raised the pistol again, picked out a single sound and took aim, and suddenly there was a loud rush of sound, a low scream, and behind him a shell exploded, digging a hole into the hard street. Then another one fell into the building on his left, splinters and bricks scattered across the street, and he heard voices, his staff behind him, and he turned and ran up the short street. Men were waving at him, and he went that way, and another shell hit the street, then another went through the porch where his men had stood, and he was hit with a spray of broken glass and shattered timbers. He saw more men and moved that way, ran with his head down and reached a stairway, dropping down below the level of the street. He jumped toward the bottom, fell hard and then felt himself pulled by the arms into the dark coolness of a basement.