”And you ignored him. You did exactly right.”
”Yep. He might have shot me.”
Lee smiled. His heart rolled again, a soft sudden thump, leaving him breathless. Longstreet was grinning, staring off toward the road, did not notice. Lee said, “One new item. I have confirmed some of your man Harrison’s information. The new commander is definitely George Meade, not Reynolds. The news is carried in the local newspapers.”
Longstreet reached inside his coat, extracted a fat cigar.
”You can trust my man, I think. I sent him into Gettysburg last night. He said he saw two brigades of Union cavalry there.”
”Last night?”
”I sent you a report.”
Lee felt a tightening in his chest. He put his hand to his arm. He said slowly, “General Hill reports only militia.”
”It’s cavalry, I think.” Longstreet chewed, spat.
Where there is cavalry there will be infantry close behind.
”Whose troops?”
”John Buford.”
Longstreet meditated.
” Meade’s coming fast. Looks like he’s trying to get behind us.”
”Yes.” Lee thought: the direction does not matter. Fight him wherever he is. Lee said, “We have an opportunity.”
Longstreet chewed, nodded, grinned. “Yep. Objective was to get him out of Washington and in the open. Now he’s out. Now all we have to do is swing round between him and Washington and get astride some nice thick rocks and make him come to us, and we’ve got him in the open.”
Take the defensive. Not again. Lee shook his head. He pointed to Gettysburg.
”He has been forcing the march. The weather has been unusually hot. He will arrive strung out and tired, piece by piece. If we concentrate we can hit him as he comes up. If we min one or two corps we can even the odds.”
He was again breathless, but he bent over the map.
Longstreet said nothing.
”He’s new to command,” Lee said. “It will take him some days to pick up the reins. His information will be poor, he will have staff problems.”
”Yes, and he will have Washington on his back, urging him to throw us out of Pennsylvania. He has to fight. We don’t.”
Lee put his hand to his eyes. He was fuzzy-brained.
Longstreet loved the defense. But all the bright theories so rarely worked. Instinct said: hit hard, hit quick, hit everything. But he listened. Then he said slowly, “That move will be what Meade expects.”
”Yes. Because he fears it.”
Lee turned away from the table. He wanted no argument now. He had been down this road before, and Longstreet was immovable, and there was no point in argument when you did not even know where the enemy was. Yet it was good counsel. Trust Longstreet to tell the truth. Lee looked up and there was Traveler, led by a black groom. The staff had gathered, the tents were down. Time to move. Lee took a deep, delighted breath.
”Now, General,” he said, “let’s go see what George Meade intends.”
They moved out into the open, into the warm sunlight. It was becoming a marvelous day. Out on the road the army flowed endlessly eastward, pouring toward the great fight. Lee smelled the superb wetness of clean mountain air. He said, “General, will you ride with me?”
Longstreet bowed. “My pleasure.”
Lee mounted in pain, but the hot sun would heal the old bones. They rode out into a space in the great gray bristling stream. Another band played; men were shouting. It was lovely country. They rode through soft green rounded hills, a sunny mom, a splendid air, moving toward adventure as rode the plumed knights of old. Far back in the woods there was still fog in the trees, caught in the branches like fragments of white summer, and Lee remembered:
Bow down Thy Heavens, O Lord, and come down, Touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.
He closed his eyes.
Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my fingers to fight and my hands to war.
Amen.
They rode several miles before they heard the first thunder.
Lee reined to a stop. Silence. Motion of ragged white clouds. He said, “Did you hear that?”
Longstreet, who was slightly deaf, shook his head.
”It might have been thunder.” But Lee waited. Then it came: low, distant thumping. Ominous: angry. Longstreet said grimly, bright-eyes, angered, “I don’t hear too well any more.”
”That was artillery,” Lee said. Longstreet gazed at him with black marble eyes. “You don’t think…” Lee began, then stopped. “I’d better ride forward,” he said. Longstreet nodded. Lee looked at his watch. Not quite ten in the morning. He left Longstreet and rode toward the sound of the guns.
2. BUFORD.
Just before dawn Buford rode down the line himself, waking them up, all the boyish faces. Then he climbed the ladder into the white cupola and sat listening to the rain, watching the light come. The air was cool and wet and delicious to breathe: a slow, fine, soaking rain, a farmer’s rain, gentle on the roof. The light came slowly: there were great trees out in the mist. Then the guns began.
A single shot. He sat up. Another. Two more widely spaced. Then a small volley, a spattering. A long silence: several seconds. He stared at white air, the rounded tops of smoky trees. Men were moving out in the open below him.
An officer paused on horseback in the road. The firing began again. Rebel guns, farther off, but not many. Buford was cold. He shuddered, waited.
The first attack was very short: a ragged fire. Buford nodded, listening. “Yes. Tried to brush us off. Got a bloody nose. Now he’ll get angry, all puffed up like a partridge.
Now he’ll form up a line and try us for real, and he’ll hit the main line.” The mist was lifting slowly, the rain was slackening, but Buford could not see the line. He felt the attack come and turned his face toward the sound of the guns, judging the size of the attack by the width of the sound, and he sat grinning alone in the cupola, while the Rebel troops pushed his line and drew back, bloody, and tried again in another place, the firing spreading all down the line like a popping fuse, and then there was another long silence, and Buford could feel them reforming again, beginning for the first time to take this seriously. The next assault would be organized. He looked at his watch.
Reynolds should be awake by now. They will have eaten their breakfast now, the infantry, and maybe they’re on the march.
There was a silence. He climbed down out of the cupola.
The staff waited whitefaced under dripping trees. Buford asked for coffee. He went back inside the Seminary and waited for the firing to begin again before sending his first word to Reynolds. It took longer than he expected. If whoever was out there attacking him had any brains he would probe this position first and find out what he was attacking. Buford listened for the scattered fire of patrols coming in, moving along his flanks, outlining him, but there was nothing. A long silence, then a massed assault.
Buford grinned, baring fangs. Damn fool. He’s got a brigade in position, that’s all. He’s hitting me with one brigade, and I’m dug in. Lovely, lovely He wrote to Reynolds: “Rebel infantry attacked at dawn.
Am holding west of Gettysburg, expecting relief. John Buford.”
The fire was hotting up. He heard the first cannon: Calef’s Battery opening up down the road, grinned again. No Reb cannon to reply: not yet. He sent the messenger off into the mist, climbed again into the cupola.
The light was much clearer. He saw speckles of yellow fire through the mist: winking guns. The road ran black through misty fields. He saw one black cannon spout red fire at the limits of his vision. On the far side of the road there was a deep railroad cut-an unfinished railroad; he had not noticed it before. He saw horsemen moving behind the line. Then he heard that ripply sound that raised the hair, that high thin scream from far away coming out of the mist unbodied and terrible, inhuman. It got inside him for a suspended second. The scream of a flood of charging men: the Rebel yell.