House Divided (118 page)

Longstreet welcomed the opportunity. If he were to direct this attack, he should appraise at close range the tactical features of the ground: the woods, whether they were open or thickets; the fences, rail or stone; the farm houses, the swales, the marshy runs, the ravines that might give shelter to attacking troops or serve as obstacles to an advance. But he did not wish to leave this spot; for Lee would presently return, and they could then inspect the ground together. In the meantime, Colonel Alexander's man might contribute useful information. He said agreeably to the young Lieutenant: “Well, sir, Colonel Alexander tells me this was your boyhood home.”

“Yes sir.” Wentz, though he was no boy but a man of thirty or so, was flushed and excited, and Longstreet led him into talk that would put him at his ease.

“But you preferred Virginia?”

“Why, I was apprenticed to Mr. Ziegler in Gettysburg, making carriages,” the Lieutenant explained. “But about ten years ago I decided to set up for myself and I moved to Martinsburg.”

“And prospered, I'm sure,” Longstreet smiled. “From carriage making to service in the artillery was a natural step. Our gun carriages are just a little stouter than your sort, that's all.”

“Yes sir,” Wentz assented. “I was in the Martinsburg Blues, and when the war began most of us went into the army.”

Longstreet nodded and came to questions. He pointed across the rolling fields. “How deep is the valley behind that rise over there?”

“Fairly deep, sir. The ground breaks off pretty sharply toward Rock Creek. Folks around here call that Cemetery Ridge, over there. That's Evergreen Cemetery you see. It's not much of a ridge except at the cemetery, and when it gets to the Round Tops.”

“You mean those rocky hills?”

“Yes sir. And this along here is Seminary Ridge, named after the seminary up by the Chambersburg road; but they call it Warfield Ridge when you get down beyond the run by Mr. Warfield's farm.”

“Our maps show several roads leading up from the south.”

“Yes sir. There's the Baltimore pike beyond the ridge, and the road from Taneytown comes up east of the Round Tops and along the ridge. You can see the Yankees placing guns over there along the Taneytown road. This is the Emmitsburg road right in front of us.”

“Then there may be enemy troops we can't see, down behind that ridge opposite us?”

“Yes sir.” Longstreet thought Meade would know how to make the most of that natural screen, shifting his troops to any threatened point unseen and secure. Lieutenant Wentz added: “I talked with Mr. Warfield this morning, General. His house is down here on a lane this side of the Emmitsburg road, not far from my father's. I wanted to ask him to tell my family to move out. He says the Yankee line hooks around through the cemetery and over Culp's Hill. You can see the top of Culp's Hill there. So their right flank is only about half a mile back from the ridge opposite you here.”

Longstreet's eyes swung to the right. “Is that your father's house I can see?”

“No sir, that's Mr. Sherfy's. Father's house is almost behind Mr. Sherfy's from here.” Whatever embarrassment had at first curbed the Lieutenant's tongue, he was full of talk now. “Then as you come up the road toward town there's Mr. Smith's house, and Mr. Klingel's and Mr. Rogers's. You can see them. Then the Codori place. You can't see it from here. It's behind the Bliss house and the orchard, and down behind the knoll. Codori's is the last house till you get almost to the cemetery.”

Longstreet nodded dismissal, and the Lieutenant and Colonel Alexander moved away. Longstreet let his eyes drift across these fields, considering the tactical features. Some of the meadows had not been mowed, and he thought it was a pretty careless farmer who would let his hay stand this long; all the goodness was dried out of it by now. The wheat, where it was not yet reaped, and the tall meadow grasses gave good cover for skirmishers and sharpshooters between the lines.

 

Toward eleven o'clock, Lee came riding through the orchard; and Longstreet rose to meet him. “Ah, General,” Lee exclaimed, with a little angry twitch of his head. “Still here? Are your men deployed?”

“The guns are up,” Longstreet told him. “And McLaws is ready to march and so is Hood; but Pickett is not here.”

Lee brushed his beard with his hand. “Ewell is firmly opposed to attack on his front,” he said. “But he will make a demonstration when you attack. Anderson will extend General Hill's front here toward
the right. Let McLaws take position beyond Anderson, Hood on McLaws's right. They must sweep up the road and roll up the enemy flank.” He pointed. “Give me that high ground along the road there, General.” His tone was kindly, but it was insistent, too. “It is time to move.”

Longstreet was himself so sure that a maneuver to the right would draw Meade to battle on their own terms that he had hoped till this moment for a change of plan; but now Lee's orders permitted no question. The attack would commit them; it held great risk and no compensating prospect of great gain. But it must be made.

Well, if it were to be made, every man would be needed. “Law will surely be up within the hour, General,” he suggested.

“I think you had better go to work with the force in hand.”

“We will need Law,” Longstreet urged. “We will need every man.”

Lee spoke in reluctant consent. “Very well, your attack can wait on Law; but let McLaws and Hood move into place. Captain Johnston. has found a way to bring your divisions into position without being seen by those people over there. I will let him guide McLaws, and Hood can follow.”

Without waiting for a reply, Lee rode toward the right; and Longstreet mounted, but his jaw set in sullen anger. So Captain Johnston was to direct McLaws's division! Very well, he would ride with Hood! He knew himself to be as unreasonable as a sulking small boy; yet damn it, Lee was wrong! This attack was wrong! If Lee were bent on it, he himself would obey orders; but Lee need expect no more.

When he emerged from the orchard on the slopes where Hood's men were waiting, a messenger reported that Law was here. Captain Johnston had reached McLaws, for that division was already moving into the road that led toward Fairfield and Hagerstown. The road angled away from the prospective battlefield; but if General Lee wished Johnston to take them that way, that was Lee's affair. Longstreet said to Hood: “Follow McLaws, General.” Hood turned to give the necessary orders, and Longstreet sat his horse, hearing behind him the murmuring voices of the men of his staff. The slopes below were alive with movement. There were wagons in park, and ambulances, and guns held in reserve, and hospital tents; and through this orderly
disorder the two divisions of the First Corps marched southward to enter the road and oblique away southwesterly. Thousands of men filed across the already trampled meadows in two columns that extended at first halfway to the Chambersburg pike, that grew shorter as they came to the road and entered it. McLaws's division counted say seven thousand men, Hood's a few more; so there were fourteen or fifteen thousand men in motion here under Longstreet's eye.

They were marching to battle, and to useless battle, too; and hundreds of these men would die before the sun set tonight. Longstreet's throat ached with grief and anger and humiliation. It was Lee's province to decide, his to obey with a whole and willing heart; but he remembered something he had said to Major Currain long ago, that when he was told to do a thing he knew should not be done, his effectiveness was gone. Probably Lee knew this. Probably that was why Lee had put Captain Johnston to direct McLaws. Now Captain Johnston was leading these men miles away from their eventual destination, wearying them with needless marching. He would bring them already footsore to the battlefield! Oh, wrong, wrong, wrong!

 

A messenger from General Pendleton suggested that Longstreet come and see the ground over which the assault would be made. Longstreet followed the messenger, riding through the fields beside the road so that he need not hinder the marching men. The road the men took led them away southwesterly, the enemy lay to the east. Probably Captain Johnston, remembering how at Chancellorsville General Jackson took his men by a wide detour to strike Hooker's flank, dreamed of guiding a like maneuvre today; but Jackson had marched through screening forests. In this open farm land with only an occasional fringe of trees for cover, no such surprise was possible. Long before they came into position they would be seen.

Well, the plan was General Lee's, not his. He and the messenger who was his guide descended to cross a shallow stream and went on for a mile or more over rolling ground to where the road crossed a low hill. It was within minutes of noon when he joined General Pendleton. Beyond, the road the men were following dipped into the ravine of a large creek, and Longstreet saw that at the creek the head of McLaws's column was turning left along a lane that swung back southeasterly
to lead directly toward Round Top, three or four miles away. He could see the lofty hill, but the column in the lane down there was fifty or sixty feet below him; the men would not be visible to any enemy watcher on that distant height, not yet.

General Pendleton pointed off to the southeast where they could look over the tops of the trees to higher ground beyond. “The Emmitsburg road is there, just beyond the woods,” he said. Longstreet levelled his glasses, and General Pendleton added: “I saw enemy cavalry there this morning, and an infantry column moved up the road with their artillery and trains.”

Longstreet lowered his glasses in scornful amusement. It must be two miles, perhaps more, from where they stood to the Emmitsburg road. A survey from this distance might be General Pendleton's idea of reconnaissance, but it was not his. Colonel Alexander joined them and Longstreet asked: “Where are your guns, Colonel?”

Alexander pointed toward the woods, a mile and a half away to the east. “In those trees, General. The road is just beyond.”

Longstreet turned to Pendleton. “You had better go with Colonel Alexander and show him what you can,” he directed; and he himself rode back along the column of marching men till he encountered General Lee. As they met, an aide reported to General Lee that the enemy was extending his left toward the Round Tops.

“Those people might have saved themselves the trouble,” Lee said cheerfully. “General Longstreet will have them out of there before night.”

Longstreet knew this was Lee's way of praising him, and his heart warmed. Off toward the front there was some scattered outpost fire. The small sounds came faintly to Longstreet's ears, and his blood began to stir. This was Lee's battle, not his; yet he would know how to fight it when the time came. A halt came back along the line, and in impatience at this new delay he left General Lee and rode across the fields to investigate. McLaws cantered to meet him.

“General,” McLaws reported, “if we follow that lane any farther we'll come under enemy observation.”

So Captain Johnston had botched his job, and all this marching had been wasted. “Well, what do you propose to do?”

“We might countermarch to that ravine”—McLaws pointed back
along the road by which they had come—“and follow it south through the woods till we can turn east without being seen.”

What McLaws proposed meant that the column must retrace its steps, meant a wasted hour. That was Captain Johnston's fault, and it was General Lee's fault for putting Captain Johnston to guide the column; but time enough had been wasted! “Do so. Let General Hood take the lead,” Longstreet said curtly. “Be quick, but don't exhaust your men. From now on, I'll direct the march.”

 

McLaws rode away, and Longstreet found Hood and gave him his orders. As a consequence of Captain Johnston's blunder, fifteen thousand men must march two or three unnecessary miles in blistering heat before they went into battle; but he would see to it no more strength was wasted! When Hood's column, returning by the way they had come, at last reached the sheltering ravine, Longstreet directed them to follow the stream down through the woods. Then with Sorrel and the others of the staff he pushed ahead through grateful shade and out into the blazing sun again. They followed the shallow branch till Longstreet saw a school house on the other side, and a lane leading up the slope toward a point of trees that widened into a belt of woodland.

He waited at the waterside till Hood joined him. “Cross your men here, General,” he directed. “Send scouts ahead of you to make sure those woods up there are clear. Oblique your men to the right behind the woods and move them through to the road in battle front. McLaws will come in on your left. General Hill has extended his line this way. McLaws will make contact and pivot on him, and you on McLaws. You are to cross the road and wheel toward the town, guiding your left by the road.”

The movement was clear in his mind. General Hill's corps was the fence, lapping the Union right; his own divisions were the swinging gate that would throw the Union flank into disorder. Second Manassas was the model for the maneuver. There Jackson had been the wall that received the enemy attack, while he himself swung against their flank. True, there was a difference. At Second Manassas, Jackson had first cut the Union line of supply. He himself had proposed to Lee to do the same thing here, but Lee overruled him. Well, perhaps Lee
was right! Certainly the position today offered great possibilities. His pulse quickened to the coming hour.

 

Hood's scouts went up past the school house; the head of Hood's column splashed through the shallow brook. The men were dripping with sweat. As they waded the little stream, without checking their steady pace, they scooped up water in their palms and drank. Wounded men would suffer terribly from thirst today. Any wound in any weather made a man thirsty, but in this heat thirst would be keenest torture.