They rode into Pennsylvania on the thirtieth of June. Hunting for Lee, they found the Yanks at Hanover, and after a sharp little fight, read local newspapers for their first solid information about the invasion of the state by Lee and Longstreet.
Familiar history began to repeat. Short rations. Scant sleep or none. Forced marches, with men dozing in the saddle or falling out. And for Charles, contradictory thoughts of Gus. A longing to see her, and doubts about the wisdom of it.
They went on to Dover and Carlisle and then another twenty-odd miles overnight toward Gettysburg, where the army had more or less blundered into an unwanted engagement on ground not of its choosing. It was said this happened because Stuart was off gallivanting — following his vague orders — and was thus unable to provide Lee with accurate reports of the enemy's whereabouts.
Now it was the second of July. About five miles south of the spot where Charles and Jim Pickles had come upon the four Yankees, smoke drifted and cannon roared. Behind the grove from which the blue-clad troopers emerged, there arose a dust cloud of some size. Charles interpreted it as a large body of horsemen on the move — toward Hunterstown, he guessed, after examining a crude map. He wanted to know exactly who was responsible for that dust. He was sure General Hampton would want to know, too. Hence his wish to capture a Yank.
Galloping down on the surprised foursome, he felt his exhaustion slough away. He hadn't slept at all last night, and there had been plenty of excitement while the cavalry rested that morning. General Hampton, riding out alone to survey the terrain, had unexpectedly come upon a soldier from the Sixth Michigan. The enlisted man's carbine had misfired, and, like a gallant Southern duelist, Hampton had allowed him time to reload. While he did, a second Yankee, a lieutenant, approached sneakily from behind. He sabered Hampton on top of the head. Then the enlisted man fired and nicked him. Gallantry wasn't a very useful trait any more.
Even with his hat and thick hair to protect him, the general took a four-inch cut in his scalp and barely escaped. The cut was dressed and so was the light chest graze from the enlisted man's bullet. By noon, he was fully active again, wanting to know, as Stuart did, what was happening north of the main battle site.
So Charles had ridden out with Pickles, and though many times in recent days he had felt he couldn't travel one more mile without falling over, he had gone that mile and many more — and now he was wide awake, tense, and eager to catch one of the bluebellies.
The Yanks milled at the roadside for a minute, then began to snap off carbine shots. Charles heard a buzz to his left in the rows of tasseled corn. He opened his mouth and gave the Yanks one of those wailing yells that scared hell out of them. His beard flew over his left shoulder, spikes of white showing in it now. So many layers of dirt and dried sweat covered him he felt like a mud man.
Pickles closed up behind him, his weight bringing lather to his roan's flanks. Charles kept going at the gallop, howling. A bullet snapped his hat brim, and then the Yanks started a countercharge with revolvers and drawn sabers.
"Now," Charles shouted when the range was right. He brought up his shotgun, fired both barrels, and veered Sport to the shoulder, slowing a little. In the clear, Pickles fired. Between them they downed two of the Yanks. The other two reined up, wheeled about, and galloped into the safety of the grove.
"I hope one's still alive," Charles yelled as he rode on. The horse of one of the fallen men was trotting away, but the second animal nuzzled its rider where he lay in the road. The trooper didn't move. Disgusted, Charles slowed down to a walk.
Soon he could see the flies gathering around the open mouth of the trooper in the road. No information to be gotten there. The other Yank was nowhere in sight.
Charles heard thrashing in some high weeds to his left, then a groan. With an eye on the dust clouds billowing perhaps two miles to the northwest, he dismounted and cautiously advanced to the roadside. Sweat dropped from the end of his nose as he craned over and saw the Union cavalryman, a bearded fellow with his revolver still in its holster, sitting in the bottom of the ditch. Blood soaked his left thigh.
Watching the man, Charles laid his shotgun on the ground with his left hand while drawing his Colt with his right. He cocked the revolver. Wary and scared, the Yank breathed loudly as Charles clambered down to him. Pickles sat watching, an eager pupil. "What unit are you?" "General — Kilpatrick's — Third Division." "Bound where?"
The Yank hesitated. Charles pressed the muzzle of his gun to the perspiring forehead. "Bound where?" "Lee's left flank — wherever that is."
Quickly, Charles stood and scanned the hazy treetops bending in the hot wind. Reverberations of cannon fire continued to roll out of the south. With another glance at the wounded man, Charles began to back up the side of the ditch. As he leaned down for his shotgun, his eyes left the Yank for a second. Jim Pickles cried, "Hey, Charlie, watch —"
Pivoting, he sensed rather than saw the downward movement of the Yank's hand. He fired. The bullet jerked the man sideways.
Charles blew into the barrel of his Colt, noting that the Yank had been reaching for his wounded thigh with his left hand, not for his holster with his right.
"All right, Jim. Let's get the word back to Hampton. That dust is Kilpatrick, trying a flanking movement."
As they turned about and started east on the deserted road, Pickles broke into a huge grin. "Lord God, Charlie, you're somethin'. Cool as a block from the icehouse. 'Course, I feel kinda sorry for that Yank. He was only reachin' down because he was hurtin'."
"Sometimes your hand has to move faster than your brain," Charles answered with a shrug. "If I'd waited, he might have pulled the pistol. Better a mistake than a grave."
The younger man chuckled. "Ain't you somethin'. You boys in the scouts, you're regular killin' machines."
"That's the general idea. Every dead man on their side means fewer on ours."
Jim Pickles shivered, not entirely in admiration. To the south, the guns at Gettysburg kept roaring.
Pitch black ahead, pitch black behind. Rain rivered from Charles's hat. It had soaked through his cape hours ago.
In many respects it was the worst night he had ever spent as a soldier. They were bound south to the Potomac, in retreat, a train of confiscated farm wagons, most springless, each hung with a pale lantern. The procession stretched out for miles.
Hampton's men had drawn the honored position of rear guard. To Charles it was more like duty on the perimeter of hell. Full of irony, too. The day now passing into its last hours was July fourth.
Yesterday Hampton had taken a third wound, a shrapnel fragment, in a hot fight with Michigan and Pennsylvania horse, part of a failed effort to sweep around and attack Meade's rear. In some quarters Stuart was being blamed openly for the Gettysburg debacle. Critics continued to say his long ride away from Lee had deprived the army of its eyes and ears.
The Second South Carolina was down to around a hundred effectives. Visiting with his old outfit for an hour, Charles had heard that Calbraith Butler, invalided home after Brandy Station, would spend the rest of his life with a cork foot. The memory stuck with him tonight, and added to it were the outcries of the hurt and maimed packed like fish into the springless wagons whose every roll and lurch increased their pain. The voices filled the rainy dark.
"Let me die. Let me die."
"Jesus Christ, put me out of this wagon. Have mercy. Kill me."
"Please, won't someone come? Take my wife's name and write her?"
That came from the wagon nearest Charles. Feeling Sport stagger and slip in the mud, he tried to shut his mind to the noise. But it went on: the hiss of rain; the squeal of axles; the men crying out like children. It broke his heart to listen to them.