Henry looked past Hancock. The column north of Gettysburg was still moving, flanking around the edge of town, starting to shake out from column into line. A brigade last time, now a division, a full division.
"Look to the seminary; more forming up there."
Henry shifted his gaze. Amid all this madness Hancock was already thinking ahead and had noticed what was going on a mile away.
"Another division over there, I suspect Maybe fresh, maybe the troops that hit Doubleday earlier. Either way, half hour at most and then they'll come in again, hitting us from both sides of the town."
"Ammunition," Henry said, "I've got to get more ammunition up here, more guns."
"Jones, give your horse to the general."
Hancock motioned for one of his orderlies to come over and dismount. The boy offered the reins to Henry.
"Henry, I don't want you down here when they come in again," Winfield said softly.
"Sir?"
"When that division over there charges," and he pointed to the northeast "they'll roll over this position."
He paused, looking at Wiedrich's men. "God save them, Henry," he whispered, "but they stay here. That charge will have to take this battery first We'll lose where we are standing, and that battery with it. But we can still hold the crest of this hill, and that is what will count in the end. Get your other batteries ready to enfilade this position as they come up and over it. This fight will be decided farther back, at the cemetery," and he pointed up the hill to the crest
Hancock remounted, staff gathering around him. "I'll see you at the top of the hill in half an hour, Henry. That's where we stop 'em, teach 'em that they aren't going to take this hill."
Hancock, with a touch of the spurs, turned his mount and galloped off.
Henry looked at the sorry mare that had been passed off to him as a remount.. "Can you get me more ammunition, sir?"..
It was Wiedrich, Ames coming up behind him.
"I'll have more canister down to you. Hold your case shot till they start to come in," and he pointed at the rebel division shifting from column to line. Even as he spoke, several shells from Stevens burst over the formation.
"We stay here till we get overrun, is that it?" Ames asked.
Henry couldn't lie. He simply nodded.
"I'll get back the honor of Eleventh Corps right here," Ames said grimly. "We stay with this battery till the end."
Henry dropped the reins of his mare and shook their hands. It was chilling to know that he was shaking hands with men who would most likely be dead within the hour. They knew it as well and didn't flinch from it, and that kind of courage filled him with awe. There was evidence enough of that on this hill, here in Pennsylvania, that they wouldn't back off another inch. Well, if this was a chosen place to die, then so be it, and that thought filled him with a cold and hard-edged resolve to see it through to the end.
"What you do here will mean that this hill holds, that we won't go down to defeat tonight"
Neither of the two spoke. This was not the time for the staged dramatics that some officers favored when the men were watching. This was three comrades, all veterans of the old prewar army, all three knowing what their profession might ultimately demand, and now willing to pay that price.
He started to turn away; then a memory, a grim duty came to him. He walked over to Caesar, lying on his side, breathing raggedly, mouth covered with froth, blood pouring out of the wound that had torn open his breast.
Never get attached to them, he thought, not in this trade. He cocked his revolver and leveled it. Somehow he sensed that Caesar knew what he was doing, why he was doing it and that it was an act of mercy. The eyes looked up at him. He thought again of the rabbit he had shot as a boy, the creature screaming. His hands started to tremble. He closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger.
Some of the gunners were looking at him, saying nothing. The blood-soaked Confederate flag was draped over the open lid of a caisson, the man who'd taken it standing beside the red flag, eyes wide, vacant, gaze unfocused.
Gen. Henry Hunt, Commander of Artillery, Army of the Potomac, mounted and rode back up the hill to the cemetery.
Chapter Five
6:15 PM, JULY I, 1863
THE LUTHERAN SEMINARY GETTYSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA
"Where is Johnson's division?" Gen. Robert E. Lee's gaze locked onto Walter Taylor and the staff arrayed behind the nervous chief of staff. No one answered.
"Anderson's division is going in." As he spoke, Lee pointed to his right, "But I don't see Johnson!" _ Arrayed behind Seminary Ridge, Anderson's division, a battle line stretching for over a quarter mile southward, nearly five thousand men, was moving forward. The first wave of skirmishers crested the ridge, moving at an oblique to the right in order to sweep around the southern flank of the town and hit Cemetery Hill on its eastern flank.
However, there was no sign that Johnson was launching his attack from the east side of town. The signal, Pegram's massed battery firing a twenty-gun salvo, had cut loose more than ten minutes ago, and still no movement…
"If they don't strike simultaneously…" and Lee's voice trailed off.
He paced back and forth angrily, hands clasped behind his back. He paused, looking back at his staff. "I thought the first strike by Ewell an hour ago, uncoordinated as it was, could perhaps sweep those people off that hill," he announced.
"It was hard to coordinate from the town," Taylor offered. "Ewell's men fought a running battle for two miles; orders did not get through to everyone."
Lee fixed Taylor with his sharp gaze. "Jackson would have found a way. He never would have slowed for an instant. I directly ordered Ewell to take the hill at once and left him with the understanding that the attacks would push forward."
His frustration, ready to boil over, triggered a response that he had spent a lifetime trying to master, to regain an outward calm. Venting his frustration on his staff would only serve to make them nervous and jittery at a time when he needed them to think rationally and with cool judgment He knew the impact his slightest gesture or word could have on this army.
He turned away, leading Traveler by his reins. He caught a glimpse of his headquarters detail watching him at a discreet distance, looking anxious. He ignored their concern, his gaze fixed to the southeast.
Anderson's skirmishers swept down onto the open plains south of town. The first wave, moving two hundred yards behind the skirmishers, came over the ridge, the formation breaking up as it scrambled over barricades and around buildings. A cheer erupted from the regiment nearest to him.
The men were looking his way, pointing, an officer pausing, turning, raising his sword in salute.
Lee raised his hand, and the cheering redoubled, picked up, echoing down the line.
Such displays always embarrassed him, and at moments like this left him humbled. In minutes those boys would wade into an inferno of case shot shrapnel, and canister. More than one was poised at the edge of the eternal.
Why? For Virginia for this thing called the Confederacy? He looked back at Taylor and the others, boys really, just boys dressed up and playing at glory… More than one of them would do it for me. Use such devotion only when you must when there is no other way, he thought with sharp self-reproach.
The first assault on the hill had placed him in that position yet again. An hour ago he had ridden into town, instinct telling him that Ewell would not press the issue hard enough.
He had found his corps commander in the center of the town and issued a direct order to send everything he had in against the hill.