Hell or Richmond (31 page)

Brown dropped back beside Henry Hill.

“No more craziness, all right? Once was enough.”

“All right,” his friend said.

The smoke stuck to their sweat as they hurried forward, greasing their flesh and making the heat still hotter. Lower faces blackened with powder, the men looked as though they wore bandits’ masks askew. Few uniforms were buttoned up, fewer still unstained.

Brown’s crusted undergarments chafed his thighs. For a few paces, but no more, he let himself dream of a bath in a cool, clean river.

The clamor of battle rushed toward them. Wounded men appeared, clutching shattered arms or bloodied faces, some staggering and on the verge of collapse, others not displeased at the nicks they’d received.

“What’s happening up there?” Brown asked a soldier who seemed merely sobered by the damage done to him.

“Same old story,” the private said. “We start out whupping them, they end up whupping us.”

Men in shameless flight came next, a few strays first, then knots and clots of skedaddlers.

Bullets gnawed the treetops. One of the rounds chased a brown snake off a limb. It dropped into the column, slapping the back of one of the Eckerts, who jogged on unaware of what had happened.

“Like goddamned Mississippi,” Bill Wildermuth griped.

The column halted and the front ranks of the 20th Michigan collided with the rear of the 50th Pennsylvania. As junior officers and sergeants sorted things out, the captain waved Brown to his side. Soldiers who had had enough edged past them.

“Stay with the men,” Burket said. “Don’t let them fall out. I’m going forward to see the colonel, find out what I can.”

“He’ll be with Colonel Christ, sir.”

“I know.”

Neither of them said what Brown knew both of them were thinking: They’d seen the brigade commander in the saddle an hour before, working hard on his whiskey flask.

The captain added, “Only two choices. We either shore up the line, or we attack.”

Recalling Christ’s reddened face, Brown said, “We’ll attack.”

The company commander nodded. Then Burket smiled. “It’s all on your head, Brownie. You’re the one who lugged him back in at Antietam.”

They giggled like mischievous boys. There was nothing else to be done.

The captain hurried along the column of companies, and Brown turned back to the men who were now his charges. Trying to recall each step First Sergeant Hill had taken before an attack, he called out, “Corporal Oswald! If we ground knapsacks, you stand guard. Pick two men for the detail.”

There were fewer packs to watch over now.

Next, he inspected the weapons of the recruits, checking that muzzles weren’t gritty or barrels fouled. When he reached the Eckert boys, he told John the Shorter, “After this fuss, you’re going to wash those stockings good and give them back.”

“Teacher’s pet,” another Eckert muttered.

Brown ignored it. He wanted the boy and the rest of the new men thinking about anything but what waited ahead. It was queer: When men were moving forward toward a fight, especially moving at the double-quick, they acquired a fierceness of outlook that no one had ever managed to explain to him. But let them pause for even a peck of time, and their minds roamed off in all the wrong directions.

The captain returned along with the commanders of the trail companies. Each man’s face was grim.

Before the column resumed its march, the battle approached again. Brown and the veterans understood: They were needed and they’d be going straight into it.

They pushed on for a hundred paces before their officers turned them into the brush. Fighting raged to their front, glimpsed as muzzle flashes and shapes in the smoke. Instead of deploying in two battle lines, the regiment formed four deep. It made sense to Brown: Better chance of keeping the men together in the undergrowth and general confusion.

Between their left flank and the right of the 20th Michigan, a thicket blazed. The heat had become dizzying. Brown hoped the new men had not drunk up their water. It shamed him to think that he had not checked their canteens when he’d had the chance. Overwhelmed by all he suddenly had to do and ruing how much he had to leave undone, Brown was far from certain he could replace First Sergeant Hill.

Dismounted now, Lieutenant Colonel Overton announced, “The Rebs up ahead pushed our boys back, but they’re about played out. We’re going to teach them a lesson.” He raised his sword so every man could see it. “For the good old Keystone State!” he cried.

“Pennsylvania never done shit for me,” Isaac Eckert whispered.

Bill Wildermuth told him, “Guess that makes you and Harrisburg about even.”

The inevitable order came. And the men of Company C, 50th Pennsylvania, started forward. For a small eternity, Brown feared a repeat of the morning’s debacle, with only the 50th and the 20th Michigan making the attack, but as the regiment neared the front line, other regiments rose from behind hasty barricades.

“Let’s go, let’s go!” Brown shouted, just as thousands of men broke into a cheer.

*   *   *

Oates had driven his regiments as far as they could go, surprising himself with what he had achieved. For his part, Colonel Perry helped worthily, pushing up the 44th Alabama under Major Carey, giving Oates command of a third rump regiment. Together, they had sent maybe three times their number of Yankees reeling backward. But just as Oates meant to bring some order to his strewn command, the Yankees burst out of the forest again, fresh Yankees, as though the sonsofbitches had factories turning out men as quick as a foundry made railroad spikes.

“Rally on the colors!” Oates shouted, voice nearly gone. “Rally on the colors of your regiment!”

His soldiers edged back before the renewed onslaught. Few men on either side would close with bayonets, and rarely when exhausted. The threat of cold steel had worked in his favor for the past half hour, but only New Orleans cutthroats really hankered to gut other men. A soldier might club a head in with a rifle butt and do it merrily, but the bayonet worked differently on the mind. Almost as if men thought, Do unto others …

“Rally, boys!” Oates called. “Fifteenth Alabama, hold this ditch.”

The men nearest him obeyed, and others joined them. They got down in the trough of a drying creek, using the waist-high banks for their protection, and fired into the Yankees as fast as they could.

Oates expected the Federals to halt, as usual, to trade volleys. But this bunch just kept pushing. When they got within thirty paces, Oates pulled his men back, firing as they withdrew. The Yankees seized the creekbed and briefly turned it to their benefit, propping elbows on the bank to aim at withdrawing Confederates. Then the blue-bellies climbed out of the ditch again, on the near side, coming on hot. Another Alabaman toppled backward beside Oates, and a blue-clad flag-bearer clutched his belly and staggered. A ready Yankee caught the flag, yelling words in a dialect thick as molasses.

“Rally on the high ground,” Oates barked. Or tried to. His voice was dry as wood shavings.

He launched Folger with orders for the 48th Alabama, but the corporal dropped before he had gone twenty feet and lay there twitching. Smoke from volleys on the left rode a hot gust into the 15th Alabama. Brushfires thickened the swirls and donated cinders.

“Rally! Captain Strickland, to me!”

It took an eternity, at least thirty seconds, for Billy Strickland to reach him.

“Got a grip on your boys?”

The captain nodded.

“You hold them sonsofbitches up,” Oates told him. “Just give me two, three minutes, till I can get us back where we started and under some shape of cover.”

“Yes, sir.”

If the young captain had doubts, he didn’t show them.

“Fifteenth! Withdraw! Back to the barricades.…” He ran along his broken line to pass the order to the 48th. As for the 44th on the left, Carey had a quick eye, he’d figure things out for himself.

With another hurrah, the Yankees surged again.

Oates wondered whether anything was left of the Florida Brigade, or if the Alabamans were on their own. The rest of the army had as good as disappeared.

The 48th was fighting handsomely, contesting every bit of ground with the Yankees. Oates sent a private back to tell Colonel Perry he meant to try to hold where he’d first changed front, adding that they were under attack by at least one fresh brigade and maybe two.

Cursing, Oates passed wounded men in the uniforms of both armies, all begging to be taken along before the brushfires reached them. Pity was all he had to spare, not time. Not even time to help the men he recognized. He would have let them all burn to death in the bottom pit of Hell if it meant he could whip the Yankees.

*   *   *

The men of Company C leapt into the ditch the Rebels had defended. Some paused to aim and fire after the Johnnies, but Brown soon had the last of them scrambling up the far bank and back in the chase. Billy Eckert was hit and dropped to his knees, but the other Eckerts kept going. Everyone’s blood was up. And the Rebs didn’t have the numbers they had feared. The morning’s situation had been reversed.

Here and there, a Johnny dawdled too long getting off a last shot and the boys caught up with him. If the Reb didn’t drop his weapon and raise his hands fast, he didn’t fare well. Running ahead in a fit of mean, Isaac Eckert locked rifles with a Johnny inches taller but plank thin. Seconds into their smoke-wreathed duel, Isaac sidestepped and swept his stock up into the other man’s face, stepped back, and thrust his bayonet into the staggering Johnny’s belly. The Reb convulsed and collapsed. Crowing like a rooster, Isaac smashed in his skull.

Sometimes the clashes went the other way.

But the 50th kept shoving through the brambles, slowed only by the patches of crawling flames. Brown could tell that the Johnnies they faced had been fighting awhile. Their moves were tardy and they fired low, forearms quivering under the weight of their rifles. Their shoulders would be bruised and painful, too, no matter how much experience they had.

The puffed-up generals with mighty plans never fired rifles and had no idea what one could do to a man in one hour of fighting. At the very least, a soldier’s aim went off as he coddled his shooting shoulder.

Brown saw Henry Hill advance with an air of determination, judging when it was time to pause and shoot, and taking careful aim before pulling the trigger. He was a model of how a veteran moved. The new men needed talking to, though, since most of them fired before choosing a target, just blasting in the direction of the enemy.

“Keep together!” Brown shouted. A gulp of smoke made him cough and gasp, but he continued giving orders, pausing to fire only when he believed he had his men in hand.

He glimpsed Isaac Eckert’s blood-spattered grin and mad eyes.

The Rebs dug in their heels at a string of barricades, none worth much except as a marker of where they meant to fight. More men in gray and brown rags rushed up from the enemy’s rear, just enough fresh blood to give the defenders hope.

The advance slowed and the firing thickened. At a command, the 50th stopped and formed lines, angering Brown: He was sure they could have run right over the Rebs, even with that handful of reinforcements.

The two sides traded volleys. Killing each other at close range because the officers didn’t know what else to do. Someone had ordered the 50th to halt, because someone else a half mile along had ordered a halt, and the order had just ricocheted down the line.

Walking behind the ranks of shooters and loaders, Captain Burket spun around and tumbled.

Brown froze.

In moments, the captain got back up, holding his side and wheezing. He had lost his cap, but held on to his pistol.

Brown rushed toward him. “Sir?”

The captain grunted. His eyes strained, seeking nothing in particular. Then he came around, at least partway, and declared, “I’m all right. It’s all right. See to the men … the men…”

“You have to go to the rear, sir,” Brown told him.

Clutching his ribs with one hand and the revolver in the other, he shook his head. “They’ll have to do a damn sight worse than that.”

There was no blood in his spittle. That was good.

“See to the men!” Burket snarled. “Damn it, Brown, do your duty.”

Brown turned back to his soldiers. Walking the firing line as the captain had done, patting men on the shoulder, cautioning the new recruits to take time to aim. Stepping over the dead and wounded.

It was blundering idiocy now. Just standing there, saying, “Shoot me.”

But they all stood there.

The Rebs had to be low on ammunition and getting jumpy. The 50th could charge them, Brown was certain. More lives would be saved than lost.

But he had no say in it. All he could do was to steady his men and encourage them to be good targets for their enemies.

Another order came down the line. Not to charge, but to take what cover they could and keep up the fire. Instead of welcoming the order, most of the veterans cursed. They all sensed what they could do, given the command.

Once they dropped down, the Johnnies behind the barricades slackened their fire. Yes, Brown thought, they’re happy as drunks in a brewery. We could have had them. And we stopped like fools.

He picked out a target, a Johnny’s head crowned by a misshapen hat, but he missed.

More smoke rolled in, thick as river fog.

Crouching, Brown worked along the line, telling the men to fire only if sure of a target. He didn’t want them wasting their cartridges and ending up in the same state as the Johnnies. You could win a fight or stay alive because you had one round left when a Reb had none.

He could tell from behind that one of the new recruits had pissed his pants. Well, men had done worse.

They were tired from their trot through the woodlands and their angry charge, from their earlier fight and their night march, from the weight of their dead and the terrible load of their thoughts, more tired lying on the ground than they would have been standing and charging. Weariness was a bushwhacker, waiting for a chance to strike from behind.

The firing on both sides dwindled to odd shots, then to almost none.