Half a dozen batteries were atop the crest of the cemetery. That was his place; dig them in, lay out the fields of fire. He had a gut feeling that Reynolds and Hancock had bitten off a bit more than they could chew. Two corps of the Union army were up, but it was evident from the volume of Confederate artillery fire, upward of a hundred guns or more, that perhaps half of Lee's army was beginning to circle in.
If Meade decided that this was a holding operation, it was going to take one hell of a lot of holding, and the cemetery was going to be the key.
Even as he reached that conclusion, Henry could see men breaking out of the battle smoke to the north of town. Tiny, antlike figures, running hard, were zigzagging back and forth, panic-stricken men.
"Goddamn Dutchmen breaking," Hancock snapped. "Just like at Chancellorsville. Can't this army ever hold?"
"I'll see to the guns atop the crest here," Henry said. "I only have one orderly. Can you send a courier back, sir? Tell any batteries on the road to come forward at all possible speed."
Hancock nodded, shouted the order, and a rider was off.
"Damn all to hell, Henry!" Hancock cried. "Seems like we have one hell of a battle coming down on our necks this day!"
Henry looked at him in amazement The bastard was actually enjoying it. Thrilling to the challenge, the mastery of it and even the fear. All he knew was that he was scared half to death at what he was seeing. The Rebs were beginning to break through, on a vast arc, all across the north side of town; and in less than an hour they'd be into his guns atop the hill.
His guns, and he'd better get them ready for it Turning away from Hancock, Henry rode through the gate of the cemetery, past the graves, and up to where the guns were digging in.
Chapter Four
The shell burst knocked him to the ground. Maj. John Williamson, of the Fourteenth South Carolina, felt as if he were floating, not sure if he was alive or already drifting into death. He came back up to his knees. Someone was helping him. He could feel hands on his shoulders, pulling him up.
No pain, just the numbness. The thought triggered a momentary panic. He had seen men eviscerated, entrails looping out onto the ground, stand back up and try to go forward, momentarily unaware that they were dead, until finally the dark hand stilled their heart and they fell.
He started to fumble, feeling his chest, stomach. Where am I hit? "Sir! Sir!"
Sound was returning. The hazy mist behind his eyes was clearing. It was Sergeant Hazner who was speaking, holding him by the shoulders, turning him around. "Are you all right, sir?"
He tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come.
Someone else came up to his side. Private Jenson, his orderly, eyes wide with fear. "You're alright, sir, just stunned!"
Hazner was shouting, and John looked around. The noise, the noise was returning, a wild roar, the swirling insane thunder of musketry, artillery, men screaming, cursing, crying.
He looked past Hazner. The charge was losing force. The regiment was staggering to a halt, men now crouching in the middle of the open field.
"All right. I'm all right. Keep moving!"
He broke free from Hazner's grasp, and at that instant another shell detonated… and Jenson seemed to disappear into pulpy mist, what was left of him spraying over them.
Hazner staggered back, stunned, face covered with Jenson's blood.
John turned away, struggling not to vomit. – "John!"
He looked up; the voice was clear and recognizable, Lt Colonel Brown, commander of the regiment.
"Goddamn it, John, move these men!" Brown screamed. "We've got to move!"
The sense of what he was supposed to do, why he was here, returned. He saluted as Brown turned about and disappeared back into the smoke.
John looked down the length of their line. Only minutes before (or was it hours?) they had stepped off, moving past the wreckage of Harry Heth's division, which had fought itself out Heth's boys had shouted that they were facing that damned Black Hat Brigade of the Yankees' First Corps.
The ridge ahead was wreathed in a dirty yellow-gray cloud of smoke, the only thing visible the pinpoint flashes from muskets and artillery. Above the smoke he caught occasional glimpses of a cupola crowning a large brick building.
"Come on, boys!" It was Brown, stepping in front of the line, waving his sword. "We can't stay out here! Come on!"
The battle line started to surge forward. He heard Brown screaming, urging the men on.
He spared a quick glance for Hazner. The sergeant face covered with Jenson's blood, pushed back into the line, screaming for the men to keep moving.
"Go, goddamn it go!" John screamed, adding in his own voice, pushing through the battle line, urging his men forward.
The momentum of the charge began to build again, and he felt swept up in it, driven forward like a leaf, one of thousands of leaves flung into the mouth of a hurricane.
Men were screaming, a wild terrible wolflike cry, the rebel yell.
"Go! Go! Go!"
He kept screaming the single word over and over, urging his men on. Some were ahead of him, running forward, heads down, shoulders hunched, staggering as if into the blast from the open door of a furnace.
He caught a glimpse of the colors. Then the flag bearer spun around, going down in a heap. An instant later he was back up, like a sprinter who had lost his stride but for a second. Disbelieving, John saw that the boy had lost his right arm, blown, off at the shoulder. The boy was holding the colors aloft with his left hand, waving them defiantly, screaming for the regiment to press in and kill the bastards.
They were at the bottom of the swale, the ground flattening out, then rising up less than a hundred yards to the crest
No fire from up forward. Were they running?
The smoke was drifting up, rising in thick, tangled coils.
"Go! Go! Go!"
John caught a glimpse of their line. "Merciful Jesus!" The cry escaped him. The Yankees weren't running. They had always run when the charge came in. Not this time. They were standing up, preparing to deliver a volley, bright musket barrels rising up, coming down in unison.
A thousand voices all mingled together as one, screams of terror, rage, defiance… calls to press on, to charge, to halt to run. Momentum carried them forward, inexorably forward into the waiting death.
He saw the rippling flash, the explosion of the volley. It swept over them, through them, tearing gaping holes in the line. Men spun around, screaming. The entire line staggered, dozens dropping. Bodies went down in bloody heaps, punched by two, three, even half a dozen rounds.
The line staggered to a halt. Those who were left were raising their rifles, ready to return fire.
"No! Now, charge them now!" The words exploded out of him, and he continued forward, sword raised high.
The mad spine-tingling yell, which had nearly been extinguished by the volley, now redoubled. Men came up around him, shouldering him aside, pressing forward.
The Yankees were so close now John could see their faces, so blackened by powder they looked like badly made-up actors in a minstrel show. Some were frantically working to reload; others were lowering rifles, bayonets poised, others swinging guns around, grabbing the barrels. Yet others were backing up, starting to turn, to run.
The sight of them unleashed a maddened frenzy, his men screaming, coming forward, shouting foul obscenities, roaring like wolves at the scent of blood. They hit the low barricade of fence rails in front of the seminary and went up over it. A musket exploded in his face, burning his check. Clumsily he cut down with his sword, the blade striking thin air, the.man before him disappearing.