Two Girls of Gettysburg (33 page)

“General Meade, sir, pardon my interruption,” said General Warren, stepping forward. “My aides Mackenzie and Roebling have just returned from the smaller hill. It indeed affords a wide vantage of the field. But there is a problem, sir. Our line is no longer straight. General Sickles has moved his men forward into an orchard along the Emmitsburg Road, leaving a gap in the line. We’re vulnerable there.”

“Damn Sickles!” exploded Meade. He turned to Roebling. “How did you get up that hill? Did you come across any kind of road?”

“No, sir, I just hacked my way through the brush. That’s why I’m late, sir.”

General Meade pursed his lips tightly and returned his attention to the map. I stepped back as the officers gathered around the table and began to debate how to reinforce the line broken by Sickles. General Meade made bold marks on the map with a pencil and issued terse orders. One by one the generals saluted and left the cottage. I thought I had been forgotten until I heard Meade’s final sharp command.

“Warren, take the lady to the hill called Little Round Top. Find that road and determine if it’s suitable. Meanwhile I will pay a personal visit to General Sickles and discover why he flouts my orders,” he added testily.

Moments later I was again in Warren’s saddle, galloping down Taneytown Road in a flurry of flags, with grit in my mouth and the pounding of hooves in my ears. I wished everyone I knew could see me, Lizzie Allbauer, in the company of the commanding general of the Union army and all his aides!

We came to the road that led to the peach orchard, and General Meade and his party broke off to meet with Sickles. General Warren slowed his horse and I began to look for the logging path. The three aides followed us. We crisscrossed the shrubby ground at the base of the hill and splashed through the creek north of the Weigel farm as I grew more and more confused.

“I know it’s directly by this creek, but the land looks different in the summer with all the bushes and the trees full of leaves,” I tried to explain. “In the winter you can see it clear as anything.”

Just then the booming of artillery began. I cringed and gripped the horse’s mane.

“Well, we don’t exactly have the luxury of waiting until winter,”
said General Warren crisply. I felt his muscles tense as he called out, “Turn around, men! Let’s look farther to the south.”

I knew the path was not in that direction. But General Warren had lost confidence in me. Holding on to the pommel and leaning to the side, I craned my neck to look behind him. Then, at last, I recognized a large pitted boulder.

“No! Turn back. I see it now,” I cried, pointing to the rock. Warren’s aides jumped from their horses and, slashing at the bushes and brambles with hatchets, soon exposed the road. It was overgrown with tall grass but easily wide enough for wagons. We rode up the hill, and when the path ended we continued on foot to the top. The woods ended in a clearing marked with huge boulders that looked as if they were tumbling down the opposite slope. General Warren and his aides stepped out onto a wide, flat rock, and after a brief conference, one of the aides saluted and left.

Curious to see where the battle would unfold, I ventured from the shelter of the trees onto the flat rock. A wide and deep landscape stretched before me, alive with movement. At the base of Little Round Top flowed Plum Run, and beyond the creek, in a field enclosed by trees and strewn with boulders, soldiers scurried like ants, moving the smaller rocks and cutting trees to make breastworks. As my eye traveled north, I saw the narrow lane from Taneytown Road clogged with horses pulling artillery. Union soldiers spilled from the roadway into the valley like water after a flood. Beyond, the road passed by a wheat field that looked like a gold flag spread on the earth, dotted with moving specks of dark blue.

“What you’re seeing is the left flank of the Union army, the end of the line that extends nearly three miles,” General Warren said with a grand gesture of his arm.

“It makes me proud to see them, sir,” I said. But I wished the scene would suddenly freeze into a painting, without a single shot being fired.

On the ridge beyond Emmitsburg Road, a series of flares followed by white puffs of smoke caught my eye. Seconds later the booming reached my ears, and I realized those were enemy cannons, nearly a mile away. The Union cannons fired back.

“The rebels’ll try to do as much damage as possible with their artillery before engaging the infantry,” explained Mr. Roebling. “Look for yourself.”

He handed me his field glasses, and I gasped as the scene leaped directly before my eyes in precise detail. I saw a shell burst amid a herd of unlucky cattle standing in the creek, which began to flow red from their blood. I watched a team of artillerymen load a cannon, light the fuse, fall back, and the great iron gun rock as it recoiled with the blast. I saw a man idly smoking behind a pile of rocks and several soldiers struggling to move a wagon with a broken wheel.

“Follow that lane beyond the wheat field and you’ll see where Sickles has put himself, sticking out like a sore thumb,” Roebling said, stooping slightly and directing my gaze with his outstretched arm.

My face inadvertently brushed against the rough nap of his sleeve, and I smelled the sharp tang of wool and sweat, but I didn’t draw back, so intent was I on the scene. There they were, the wayward troops, occupying a peach orchard on a rise along the Emmitsburg Road, and separated from the rest of the line by a wide gap. A sudden burst of artillery fire came from the orchard.

General Warren erupted like an angry cannon.

“Now that damn fool Sickles is provoking the rebels! They’re going to attack before we’re ready and collapse the line there.” Roebling went to the general’s side just as another aide called out, “General, look! The rebels’ right flank is getting mighty close.”

Using Roebling’s glasses, I peered along the distant ridge until I could make out the gray soldiers moving toward the Emmitsburg Road about half a mile south of General Sickles’s men in the peach orchard. My hands began to shake, making the scene jump wildly. I went over and gave Roebling his glasses. He took them without even glancing at me.

“Damn, I didn’t know they were this far south! We need men up here now,” said General Warren. “Mackenzie, get this message to Meade at once,” he said, scribbling a note and giving it to his aide.

I knew I ought to run back to the Weigel house and take refuge inside its fortlike stone walls. But the unfolding battle had seized my attention, rooting me to the spot against my better judgment. Artillery fire now came from all along the distant Confederate line as foot soldiers dashed toward the Emmitsburg Road. I could faintly hear them yelping like a pack of hunting dogs. Cannons in the wheat field and the boulder-strewn meadow flared in reply, and the rebels began to drop in their tracks. I covered my ears against the deafening noise. Soon smoke obscured the field, and I knew only that a blue and gray mass of men had melted together below me.

General Warren paced back and forth on the large rock. “Damn Sickles forever!” I heard him say as the rebel guns pounded exposed troops in the peach orchard. I couldn’t blame him for cursing. It looked as if the Union line might give way, letting the enemy sweep through the entire valley.

“Good God, Miss Allbauer, what are you doing here still?” Warren shouted at me. He was immediately distracted again. “Roebling, I think Law’s brigade is heading straight for that hill. I don’t know if our sharpshooters down there can hold them off.” He motioned to where the end of the Confederate line was approaching Big Round Top. “We’ve got to hold them there.” He pointed to the rocky field below,
where hundreds of our soldiers hunkered down behind breastworks shooting at the rebels. Already bodies lay scattered on the ground.

“We call that the Devil’s Den,” I said, but my voice came out as a hoarse croak and no one heard me.

“If our men break and run from there, the rebels will be all over this hill, and once they get their batteries up here they’ll destroy this whole end of the line,” said General Warren grimly. “It’s darn near too late.”

I had decided it was time to take myself back to the Weigels’, when Mackenzie returned, reining in his foaming horse just short of the big rock.

“General Warren, sir!” he called out. “Meade has ordered General Sykes to cover this hill immediately. Colonel Strong Vincent is moving four regiments into place along the southwest slopes even now.”

The name
Strong Vincent
sounded familiar. I tried to recall where I had heard it.

“Now we have a fighting chance!” cried Warren, striking his fist into his palm. “Miss Allbauer?” he called, striding over to where I stood. “Allow me to thank you for your service to the Union today. Your information regarding this hill has been most valuable. I believe we can now keep the rebels from flanking us here.”

“You’re welcome, sir.” I smiled, glowing with importance, then forced a more sober expression, considering the serious situation. “And good luck today.”

“Roebling, take this young lady home or else give her a rifle, for we’ll be in the midst of it here before long.”

“Who is Colonel Strong Vincent?” I asked Roebling as we mounted his horse.

“He and his men arrived from Hanover this morning. They have been in reserve all day, so they’re rested up now and ready for action. Good thing, because a lot depends on them.”

He steered his horse to the side of the logging road to make way for a group of horsemen. The lead rider carried a banner printed with a square blue cross with flared ends. Roebling and the officers saluted each other.

“That was General Crawford and Colonel Vincent,” Roebling said to me. “With the vanguard of the Fifth Corps.”

Finally I remembered the letter from Luke.
Our regiment is in the good hands of Colonel Strong Vincent, his courage matches his name.
Despite the day’s heat, I felt a cold flash of fear.

I twisted around in the saddle to face Roebling.

“My brother Luke is serving under Colonel Vincent.”

“Well, indeed!” he said with a smile. A lock of dark hair fell over his forehead. “Then he’ll be fighting good and hard to hold this hill and keep the rebels out of your backyard, won’t he? He’ll want to make you proud of him.”

Lizzie
Chapter 36

Mr. Roebling deposited me at the farmhouse, tipped his hat, and galloped away again. With him went all my sense of security, all my pride in having helped the Union generals strengthen their defenses on Little Round Top. All I could think of was that my brother would soon join the battle, and if anything were to happen to him, it would be my fault.

“Gott in Himmel!
I was worried to death about you!” I heard Mrs. Weigel cry out. “Where were you?
Nein,
tell me later. Go to the cellar where it’s safe.”

I glanced toward the barn, hoping to see Martin, while Mrs. Weigel shoved me toward the house.

“What would I tell
deine Mutter
if you hadn’t come back?” she scolded.

“You saw me go with the general. I was not in danger,” I said, annoyed by the fuss she was making.

In the cellar, Louisa and Bonnie were knitting by the light of an oil lamp. Grace, in a rocking chair, looked at me and raised her eyebrows. The sisters peppered me with questions, but I didn’t feel like talking. I admitted that I had seen General Meade and that there was fighting in the valley. I did not tell them everything I knew, and what I left unsaid weighed on me like a lie.

“Well, Little Round Top stands safely between us and the battle,
Gott sei dank,”
said Mrs. Weigel.

“But what if the cannonballs come over the hill and explode here on the roof?” asked Jack, sounding more eager than afraid.

“They can’t shoot that far,” I replied, though I was not at all certain. The sounds of artillery rumbled through the ground, entering my very bones. Clara covered her ears and whimpered. Hadn’t we left Gettysburg to avoid this?

I sat on the floor and let its coolness seep into me. My dress, damp from sweat, now felt cold on my skin, and I shivered. I picked up a toy that the children had been playing with, a maze of angled tunnels made from tin and supported by wooden struts. I dropped a marble in the funnel at the top and tipped the frame this way and that, watching the marble tumble downward. I tried to manuever it away from the wooden trap at the bottom and out the chute instead, but again and again the marble rolled into the trap.

Louisa Weigel cleared her throat reprovingly. I looked up to see that she had opened the Bible. With a sigh I put the toy aside and folded my hands in my lap.

Louisa leaned close to the pages and read aloud.
“Your hand will find all your enemies. You shall make them as a fiery oven in the time of your anger; the Lord shall swallow them up in His wrath and the fire shall devour them.”

“Liebe Jesu!
Sweet Jesus, read something else,” said Mrs. Weigel.

“The fall of Jericho, perhaps?” Louisa suggested.

“No,
ein Familiengeschichte,
a story to take our minds away from battle. Perhaps Noah and his ark—”