House Divided (113 page)

Sorrel handed him a pad of paper, and he wrote: “This scout has served me well. If he is right about Meade, you've again given those people a new commander. I suppose if we move east, they must follow us.” He might make that suggestion stronger; but Lee would weigh it. He folded the paper and handed it to Fairfax. “Report back to me what the General says.”

Fairfax and Harrison departed, and Sorrel, always easily vocal, was eager to discuss the scout's report; but Longstreet withdrew into his own thoughts. To move east of the mountains would be a threat to Baltimore and Washington, would certainly compel Meade to meet them. Meade would be reluctant, he was not so bold as Hooker; but Lincoln had driven Burnside into disaster at Fredericksburg and Hooker into catastrophe at Chancellorsville, and he would do the same to Meade. That man Lincoln was the South's best general. From McDowell to Hooker, every Union commander in the east had been defeated as much by Lincoln's uneasiness about Washington, or by his impatience for victory, as by Lee's army.

Yes, Meade, no matter what he wished to do, would have to find
them and attack. If defensive ground were well chosen they could inflict upon the Yankees another Fredericksburg; and when the enemy was broken they could strike him in his flight.

When Fairfax returned, Longstreet asked: “Well sir?”

“General Lee heard him,” Fairfax reported. “Then he sent Harrison outside and asked me your opinion of the man. I said you thought well of him, and he told me to bring him back to you. That's all.”

Longstreet was struck by the other's tone. “You sound tired.” Fairfax was always tired on Sunday, after bibulous Saturday nights. “Go along to bed.” Fairfax departed, and Longstreet called Harrison and made him repeat every detail of his report. Then a messenger from General Lee asked that Harrison be sent to him again. Longstreet put the scout this time in Sorrel's charge; he lay awake, waiting, sure that Lee would before he slept make some decision.

He was right. When Sorrel returned, he said: “General Lee has decided to concentrate on Cashtown. He's sending for Imboden, and for Robertson's cavalry to hurry and join us, and sending couriers to recall Ewell to Cashtown. Hill will move tomorrow. We'll follow next day.”

Longstreet for a moment did not speak, weighing this, approving. Lee's decision to concentrate east of the mountains was sound. Here was a great victory in the making. He filled his lungs in deep content. “Good! Good!” In the prospect of present action, he felt all the tension in him ease and relax. He was never so completely master of himself as in the pitch and heat of hard contention. Somewhere on the eastern slopes of South Mountain they would find a position with a good field of fire, and wait for Meade to drive his men up to be slaughtered. Over there at Cashtown they would give Meade another Fredericksburg. “Good!” he said for the third time. Sorrel was waiting for orders, but there was no hurry. “Since we don't move tomorrow, we'll not disturb McLaws and Hood tonight. Good night.” He was quickly asleep, undisturbed by dreams.

 

The cloudy dawn brought a frowning threat of storm, and rain presently began to fall. When Longstreet went to the commanding general he saw an extraordinary discomposure in the other's eyes. Lee
dropped the tent flaps so that they could not be observed; and while they talked he paced restlessly up and down, and once he ran his fingers through his hair.

Yet his tone was calm enough. “I've just now sent off another dispatch to Ewell,” he said. “He should have it by noon or soon after.” He frowned at his own thoughts. “We need cavalry badly, General. It's most embarrassing. Robertson should have been here no later than yesterday, and I don't know what Imboden can be doing! What mounted strength we have is all with Ewell. We're even using artillery horses for our foraging.”

Longstreet noticed that he did not speak of Stuart; yet Stuart must be foremost in Lee's mind. “We can manage,” he said hearteningly. “We don't have to find Meade. He must find us. Lincoln will demand that. We need only select a good position and wait for his attack and shatter him.” His own confidence was in his tones.

“Meade will make no mistakes,” Lee commented. “Neither must we. If we do, he will take advantage of them.”

“The mistake will be made in Washington.” Longstreet was calm with confidence. This was Monday. By tomorrow night the army would be all in hand east of the mountains, with time to select a strong position there. Before the week was gone, the clash would surely come. It could have but one outcome.

“In Washington. Yes, perhaps,” said Lee. “But if those people ever give a commanding general his head, he may cause us trouble.”

They decided the details of the coming movement. Pickett must stay here to guard the rear till Imboden arrived. Since Robertson was not yet up, Law's brigade had better stand at New Guilford as a flank guard. Hood and McLaws would move toward Cashtown tomorrow morning, following Hill's corps when the road was clear. To be without cavalry was annoying; yet cavalry would not help them cross South Mountain, and horsemen would not be seriously needed until they came out into the plains of Pennsylvania. Surely by that time Stuart would appear.

Longstreet drew the necessary orders for his divisional commanders. Then, rather than be inactive, he called Goree and rode into Chambersburg, watching the few townspeople on the street, wondering what these stolid Germans thought of their enemy visitors. “Ewell stripped
the town,” he remarked. “Even Major Moses has had trouble finding anything worth a requisition.”

“He unearthed some velveteen that will make good trousers,” Goree told him. “He promised me a piece, at least enough to patch the seat of the pair I'm wearing.”

They stopped for a moment at the Franklin Hotel, where General Ewell at first had made his headquarters. The proprietor said Ewell only stayed one night, then moved out to the grove by the Mennonite church on the Harrisburg Turnpike. Probably General Ewell found the hotel beds held too many small tenants. Every soldier in the army had become reconciled to sharing his garments and his bedding with insect pests, but at least in your own bed and your own blankets, your bedmates were your familiars.

They rode idly through the town; but the streets were almost empty, civilians avoided conversation, most buildings were closed. Longstreet took the pike toward where Pickett's division was in camp along the creek; he went from Pickett back to McLaws and to Hood, informing each one of the situation as it stood, and of tomorrow's plan. It was always particularly important to make sure Pickett understood his orders. He was a fighter, but that was a matter of heart, not brains; he always needed careful direction. Before they came back to headquarters, the shadows were long.

 

Longstreet was roused, sometime in the night, by the rumble of many wagons and guns, coming from the direction of Chambersburg and going out the Gettysburg pike. When soon after breakfast he joined the commanding general, the wagons were still passing; and he asked whose they were.

“They're part of Ewell's,” Lee explained. “I told him unless he found good roads east of the Mountain he could send his wagons this way; so he ordered part of them back through Chambersburg.”

“Then they'll be ahead of us today. We've only one road over the mountain.”

“We haven't far to go,” General Lee reminded him. “If we're in Cashtown tomorrow night, with the army concentrated, I will be content.”

Longstreet nodded. There was time enough. Mistakes could be corrected
long before Meade's army was up. When General Lee was ready they mounted, proceeding at a foot pace, overtaking and passing the lumbering wagons and the trundling guns. Colonel Fremantle rode with Major Fairfax, till Longstreet called the Englishman and introduced him to the commanding general and himself dropped back. Riding now behind the other he saw that General Lee, usually completely easy in the saddle, today was tense, as though braced against any painful twist or jolt. A pity! Lee had enough to think about without that damned rheumatism.

They passed McLaws's division and Hood's, waiting in the fields beside the road; and Longstreet directed the divisional commanders to be ready to follow Ewell's trains, and himself went on. The road crossed easy rolls of ground, dipping into hollows, rising to low heights. Short of Fayetteville another road entered this one from the north, and along the sides of that road men were sprawled at ease. General Lee paused to ask a question, and Longstreet heard the answer. This was Anderson's division of Hill's corps, and they too were waiting for the road. General Lee said they had better precede McLaws and Hood; and Longstreet, fuming a little at this new hindrance, sent Sorrel back with that order.

When they rode up the hill into Fayetteville, the flanks of South Mountain began to converge upon them. It was as though those heights formed a funnel with only one outlet, through which this army must flow. The pass they were soon to climb seemed from this point of view not particularly formidable. The folds of the hills compelled the road to a winding course; but to ascend to the divide appeared to be easy enough.

Yet the column moved so slowly that at Greenwood, a little cluster of a half a dozen houses only seven or eight miles from their starting point, General Lee called a halt. “We need go no farther today,” he said. “Cashtown is just over the mountain, and Ewell can't reach there before tomorrow afternoon. We'll keep the men rested and fresh for the work ahead.”

The road was still jammed, and when the tents were pitched Longstreet sent Major Currain to investigate the situation. Currain after an hour returned with a discouraging report. Not only were the wagons clogging the pike and the pass, but Johnson's division of
Ewell's corps, after retracing its way from Carlisle to Shippensburg, was coming south by a country road that skirted the base of the mountain, and they would enter the turnpike a little ahead of this bivouac. So the congestion on the single road over the mountain would for a while grow worse and worse.

Longstreet reported this to Lee, and the commanding general said regretfully: “Well, Ewell has complicated things for us, but tomorrow will clear up the situation.”

Longstreet spoke in grumbling anger: “With Anderson coming in by that road behind us, and Johnson ahead, it will be tomorrow afternoon before McLaws and Hood can make a start at all.”

Lee smiled affectionately. “The old War Horse scents the battle afar off. Never mind, General, your corps will be up in good time.”

 

That evening General Hill rode back to report that Heth had pushed Pettigrew's brigade on from Cashtown toward Gettysburg and encountered enemy cavalry. Longstreet was with Lee when Hill arrived. At Hill's word, Lee shook his head.

“I find it hard to credit that!” He turned to Longstreet. “Your scout said those people were no nearer than Emmitsburg.” Longstreet reminded him that Emmitsburg was only a short march away, so Meade might easily have not only cavalry but infantry in Gettysburg; but Lee was still incredulous. “I doubt it,” he repeated. “He only took command Sunday. He would need a day or two, at least, to gather the reins.”

Longstreet turned to the map on the table, and Hill said: “Heth met no infantry, though one of his staff thought he heard their drums.”

“No infantry, certainly,” Lee insisted. “Cavalry, perhaps; an outpost, a scouting squadron. But certainly not infantry.”

After Hill was gone, Longstreet, studying the map, said thoughtfully: “Meade will find a concentration at Gettysburg very tempting, General. He has almost as many roads of approach as he has corps to use them. But even if he concentrates there, he must still come to us at Cashtown.”

“We will see, we will see.” Lee's head twitched impatiently. “We will see tomorrow. Tonight there is nothing to be done.”

The day had been windy with scattered clouds, and next morning
the promise of clearing weather was fulfilled. Longstreet, early awake, saw Anderson's division passing. Once Anderson was gone and Johnson had filed in from that byway ahead, then and not till then McLaws and Hood could move. He rode back to find them and explain this long delay. When he returned to headquarters, Lee was waiting for him, asked pleasantly: “Well, General?”

“My men are ready whenever the road is clear.”

“I've sent word to Imboden to come on and relieve Pickett in Chambersburg today,” Lee told him. “Direct Pickett to follow us as soon as Imboden is up. Imboden will guard the passes and gather what supplies he can find. I hear there are some hundreds of barrels of flour at Shippensburg, and I told him to investigate. Headquarters will be at Cashtown tonight. Imboden can park his wagons in the pass between here and Cashtown, after Pickett has moved through.”

“I told my divisions to cross the pass and camp on the east side of the mountains tonight, no matter how late they had to march to get there.”

“Exactly. Tell Pickett to expect Imboden today. Then you and I will ride on.”

It was almost noon before they set out. As they rode, Longstreet saw the other now and then ease himself in the saddle, as though he were in pain; but the fine day, the warming sun would work a cure. They went at a walk; and though because the road was all ups and downs it was hard to be sure, Longstreet thought there was for a while more descent than climb. After a time they found themselves following a sparkling little stream which came singing to meet them, chuckling through the forest, dancing over sun-flecked shallows; and presently below the road they saw the charred ruins of a considerable group of buildings. A few skeins of smoke still rising indicated that they had been recently burned. General Lee pulled up his horse.

“An iron furnace, apparently,” he commented. “Forge, rolling mill, stables.” He spoke to one of his staff. “Major Taylor, find somebody to tell you how this fire happened. One of those men yonder, perhaps.”