His voice pitched up as he said the last words, half standing in his stirrups.
Inwardly he was furious with himself for the outburst, the dramatic display, allowing passion to take control. Jackson had been known for such moments. Longstreet was feared for his famed explosions of rage. That was never me though. I've spent a lifetime learning mastery of myself. The realization of it made him even angrier.
"You are to go directly to Johnson and order him to go in with what he has. Do it now!" Lee announced, his voice set at an icy pitch.
He hesitated for a second. "Walter, go with him."
Ewell, obviously startled by Lee's tone, and the none too subtle insult of having Lee's staff officer go along to make sure the order was carried out, simply saluted.
Ewell's driver mounted-wide-eyed in the presence of Lee and the display of temper-grabbed the reins, and swung the carriage around. Lee wanted to shout with exasperation at the sight of Ewell's carriage trying to inch its way through the mad jumble of confusion that filled the square. Wooden leg or hot, Ewell should be mounted, not riding around town in a carriage.
Walter, showing initiative, simply left him and disappeared behind a jumble of ambulances abandoned at the east end of the square.
Early was looking up at him, silent, dark eyes penetrating.
"Do you wish to say something, General?" Lee asked.
Early nodded.
"Go ahead then."
"Malvern Hill, sir."
"What?"
"That's Malvern Hill up there, sir. It might look easy from a distance, us having them on the run as we did. But they've got artillery up there, lots of it A year ago today, sir, we fought at Malvern Hill, and you saw what their artillery did to us there."
"We could have swept them off that hill an hour ago," Lee replied heatedly. "We should have done it"
"We didn't."
Early fell silent as if judging his words carefully.
"Go ahead," Lee said, trying to keep his voice calm.
"Your blood is up, sir. That's all I'll say, sir. Your blood is
up." -
Startled, Lee said nothing. Looking away, gaze fixed on that bloody hill, that damn bloody hill.
6:40 PM
CEMETERY HILL
His guidon bearer grunted from the impact of the bullet. Hancock reached out, grabbing the boy by the shoulder as he leaned drunkenly from the saddle, half falling, guidon dropping.
The guidon had to stay up. The men had to see it, but he would not let go of the boy.
"I'm sorry, sir, sorry," the boy gasped.
Someone on foot was beside him, reaching tip, grabbing the boy, easing him out of the saddle, the youth gasping, clutching his stomach.
Shot in the gut, as good as dead, Hancock thought, trying to stay detached, looking away. A staff officer dismounted, picked up the guidon, and remounted, holding it aloft
Another volley tore across the western slope of the hill, a rebel yell echoing up. They were charging again, coming up over the fences lining the Emmitsburg Road. Behind them a battery of four guns was cutting across a field, caissons bouncing, the first gun sluicing around to a stop, preparing to unlimber at murderously close range.
Henry's gunners, following orders, were ignoring it for the moment concentrating everything they had on the advancing infantry.
A blast of canister, aimed low, tore into a section of fence, which exploded for fifty feet of length into tumbling rails, splinters, and bodies. The charge pressed forward, coming up the slope into the face of forty guns ringing the crest of the hilltop. Gunners, working feverishly, were not even bothering to roll the pieces back into place, simply loading and firing. Some of the crews had even stopped swabbing, running the risk of a hot bore or spark triggering a premature blast in order to save an additional ten seconds.
Shimmers of heat radiated off the guns directly in front of Hancock. Even as he watched, a loader slammed a canister round into the open bore. The rammer pushed him aside, started to drive the round in, and then was flung backward as the powder bag hit a hot spark, seven-foot ramrod staff screaming downrange, rammer writhing on the ground, right hand blown off, shoulder broken, face scorched black.
His comrades pulled him back behind the firing line, the gun sergeant screaming for a replacement ramrod, running back toward a limber wagon.
The Rebs were pushing closer, not coming on in a wild heads-down charge but advancing slowly, pouring in a fierce fire, trying to break up the batteries before pressing the final hundred yards.
Bullets sang around Hancock's ears, his staff ducking and bobbing in their saddles. He rode the length of the line, voice too hoarse to continue shouting. Henry came past, waving his hat, three limber wagons, two chests of ammunition strapped to each, bouncing behind him. He waved them into place, one wagon per battery.
The crest of the hill was crowded with limber wagons and caissons, each with six horses, all of them pressed nearly side to side. Hancock could almost pity the trace riders for the caissons. Regulations stated that when in action the mounted rider of the six-horse team had to remain in the saddle, ready to guide the caisson around if the guns needed to be moved quickly.
It was a ghastly job in the middle of a fight. A man was expected to sit with his back to the enemy, all hell breaking loose, arid just wait It was a type of courage he wondered if he could ever muster… to do nothing but wait.
He reached the south end of the battle line, where a low stone wall jutted out to the west for fifty yards, a small grove of trees behind the wall. Buford's skirmishers crouched behind the wall; Calef's hard-fought battery of mounted artillery occupied the angle, pouring shot into the enemy flank. The four Reb guns deployed on the far side of the road opened on Calef, but he ignored them, his men simply ducking as a shell screamed in, then returning to their work of laying down case shot on the road.
He focused his glasses-down the Emraitsburg Road, looking south. Something was on it, dark, serpentlike, still distant, but coming. It was Sickles, responding to his urgent plea for immediate support
"General Hancock, sir!"
He looked back. A courier, one of Howard's men, was riding up hard, waving his hat "They're coming, sir. The Rebs east of town; they're coming!"
He looked back south. A half hour, maybe more. Damn!
He turned, following Howard's messenger, riding along the crest looking west judging the strength and determination of the Reb attack hitting his left flank. A lot of the Rebs were still wearing blanket rolls and backpacks, a sign they had maneuvered straight from the march into battle formation without taking time to form regimental depots, drop-off points for all excess baggage, before going into the fight.
Rather than lose a precious blanket and haversack of food, the men were carrying the extra weight into battle. He wondered if they had been watered before the attack or were coming in with dry canteens.
For whatever reason, their attack was slow. The artillery's concentrated fire had battered Anderson's division down, keeping them pinned along the road. But the guns had to shift if there was any hope of flinging back the new assault on the right Henry was up at the crest of the hill, frantically waving, directing the redeployment swinging guns around to face north and east
The Rebs along the fence, however, had yet to react to push forward, though they had to have seen by now that the artillery fire was slackening.
He eased his mount through a hole in the cemetery wall and weaved his way past a parked row of caissons. Passing the nearest one, he looked in as a loader pulled a round of case shot out of a storage slot and, with an awl-like punch, set the fuse at two seconds.
"How many left?" Hancock shouted