Grant Comes East

Chapter Nineteen

Battle of Gunpowder River, Maryland

August 19,1863 4:30 p.m.

Voice long since gone, Lo Armistead staggered up and down the line, limping slightly from the rifle ball or shell fragment that had creased his left leg just above the knee.

His brigade, his precious brigade, was bleeding out. A half hour ago he had committed his two reserve regiments, pushing them into the volley line, pulling his already committed regiments back one at a time to give the men ten minutes to clean their rifles, replenish ammunition, gulp down some water..and still it continued, the most sustained fire-fight he had seen across two years of war.

The smoke was a dark blanket hovering over the battlefield. The air was so thick from the humid heat combined with the smoke of battle that he was beginning to lose as many men from physical collapse as from enemy fire. Few were now standing; most of the men were hunkered down, kneeling, lying; some had stopped shooting and, with bayonets, were frantically digging in. The dead lay in almost orderly rows, most where the brigade had first engaged two hours ago; yet more were sprawled out now where the brigade had pulled back a hundred yards, back to a low crest and a fence row.

No one could see the Yankees in all the smoke, though they were still out there, the incoming rounds evidence enough of their presence. All was fire, smoke, screaming men, the maddening buzz of bullets sweeping past, the sickening thunk when one hit a man. "General Armistead!"

He looked up and to his amazement saw Pickett, still mounted, though his horse was bleeding from several wounds, the general nursing an arm in a sling. Lo wearily saluted, barely able to focus.

"You must hold this center, sir," Pickett shouted, his voice breaking, carrying a hysterical edge.

"Sir! What about our orders?" Lo cried.

"What orders?"

Lo stepped closer to Pickett's side.

"We were supposed to engage then withdraw, sir; those were our orders."

"And show our backs now?" Pickett shouted. "I'd sooner burn in hell! We've bloodied an entire corps over there, Lo, an entire corps! Hood and the rest will be up soon enough, but I'm not giving away this ground now. The blood of Virginia is on it!"

"When will we be relieved?"

Pickett shook his head.

"I'll be damned if I know. McLaws went in on our left an hour ago. Hood should be up within another hour."

"An hour? If they push now, sir, I can't promise we'll hold."

"You are talking about the honor of our division, General Armistead. We will hold!"

Pickett savagely turned his mount and rode off.

Armistead watched him ride off and shook his head. They were in a brutal head-on fight; the entire division was bleeding out. They were outnumbered, exhausted; men not down from wounds were collapsing in the boiling heat, and still George was determined to hold and to make it a point of honor.

Cursing under his breath, he resumed his walking up and down the line, oblivious, if for no other reason than exhaustion, of the continual rain of bullets and shells striking his line.

4.45pm

General Warren, when will you be ready to commit?" Dan shouted, eyes wide, face contorted in anger as the commander of his Sixth Corps rode up.

Maj. Gen. Gouverneur Warren rode up to Sickles and saluted.

"Sir, my First Division is already in support of Birney."

"I want the rest of your corps in now; push them right up the center. I ordered that an hour ago, General."

"Sir, we are deploying even now in the valley back there." Warren pointed to the ravine of Gunpowder River.

"I want them now. By God, Gouverneur, we are ready to bowl those rebels over."

Warren looked past Sickles, to the hundreds of wounded painfully staggering back from the front line two hundred yards away, the boiling clouds of smoke. Just behind Sickles, a battery of three-inch rifles fired a salvo, redoubling the smoke around them, and Warren shook his head.

"A word of caution, sir."

"I have no time for caution now. We're on the edge of driving them from this field. Their fire has been slacking off. The time is now."

"Sir. The Sixth Corps is your only reserve. We've only marked the location of two of their divisions, Pickett here, and McLaws to the north, facing the Fifth Corps. Where is the rest of Lee's army?"

"Undoubtedly they are coming up," Sickles cried, "but they are not here yet If I can destroy two of their divisions before the rest arrive, we might get them rolling back and running."

"Sir, that is Lee over there," Warren replied, trying to stay calm, for it was evident that the commander of the Army of the Potomac was caught up in battle hysteria. "I think I should advise caution. You've done a masterful job, sir, but the losses to your old corps are heavy; we can both see that. Push them back tactically, sir, but do not go in with a full pursuit now. The men are exhausted, the heat is killing. Just do a local advance so they break, then stop and consolidate our forces so we can respond to whatever Lee is preparing."

He pointed back across the Gunpowder River.

"That is good ground back there; pull back, dig in, then let the rest of Lee's forces come to us, and we will defeat them from a sound defensive position at little risk to ourselves."

"Did I ask you for advice?"

"No, sir, but perhaps advice is needed," Warren replied. "Sir, I know ground. Remember, I was topographer for this army before you promoted me. You have a good position here. The good ground is right at your back. Hold on the north bank of this river. Let Lee come up, and then savage him. We have but half the numbers we did at Chancellorsville. We don't have the reserves for an aggressive pursuit"

"And Lee would have good ground on this side of the river if we give it back to him! We are driving them," Sickles replied sharply. "I listened to caution at Chancellorsville, at Gettysburg, and Union Mills. We've caught two of their divisions out in the open. We will roll them up and destroy these divisions and then do the same to the rest of those damn rebels tonight and tomorrow. Now put your men in!"

Warren was silent for a moment looking straight at Sickles.

Wearily, he saluted. "Yes, sir."

Near Christiana, Pennsylvania

August 19,1863 5:00 p.m.

His horse collapsed, sighing, going down on its knees, and he felt a moment of pity as he pulled his feet from the stirrups and dismounted.

It was a beautiful animal, chestnut, well-bred, and he had driven it without mercy throughout the day. As a born horseman, he felt revulsion at having pushed mis faithful animal to the point of death.

Tradition demanded that he shoot it, not let it fall into enemy hands, but he could not bring himself to do it as the stallion looked up at him wide-eyed, panting hard, lathered in sweat

He turned to one of his few remaining adjutants. "Get my saddle off him; find me another mount," Wade barked.

His staff wearily dismounted, one of the men gently urging the trembling beast back up to its feet so they could undo the saddle and bridle.

They were atop a low ridge. In the valley looking back toward the village of Christiana, he saw hundreds of his troopers streaming across the open fields and farm lots. The incessant crackle of carbine fire echoed in the distance and there, a mile away, the damnable Yankees, still on his tail, still pressing, still keeping pace.

How could they? he wondered, filled with mixed admiration and rage. These were not Yankee troopers, they couldn't be. Anytime in the past he would have left them a dozen miles in the rear by now, and yet doggedly they pressed on, scooping up those exhausted men of his dwindling brigade who fell behind.

He had long since abandoned his battery of guns, the artillerymen cutting the axles and spiking the touchholes. The few supply wagons loaded with ammunition had been abandoned as well, so that his men rode only with what they carried in their cartridge boxes and saddlebags.

He would still outrun them; he had to. Never had this happened across the entire war, and he would not be the first of Stuart's cavaliers to be cut off and ignobly defeated by a bunch of damn shopkeepers and mechanics on horseback.

The Battle of Gunpowder River, Maryland

August 19,1863 5:10 p.m.

General Longstreet, thank God!" Pete rode up to George's side. His division commander looked on the edge of complete collapse, hat gone, arm in a sling, blood dripping down his uniform and on to his leg.

Pete took all this in with a sharp glance. For the last half hour, in his final dash up to the front, he had seen the wreckage of battle streaming to the rear, wounded by the hundreds, ambulances filled with casualties, men staggering back, dropping from heat exhaustion, dead men sprawled in the middle of the road, and always forward the incessant roar of a pitched battle.

"What is going on here?" Longstreet cried.

"Sir, as ordered, we advanced out of Baltimore shortly after dawn," Pickett gasped. "At around two I deployed into battle formation, three brigade front, and moved forward to relieve General Stuart. We ran smack into the middle of their Third Corps, one division to start. We met them head-on and gave them hell."

He sighed, trembling, swaying in the saddle, so that Pete had to lean over and brace him.

"Go on."

"Sir. They brought up a second division, deployed to my left, so I extended my line, then a third division, which forced me to withdraw several hundred yards and refuse the left. I know McLaws is to my north, but I couldn't extend enough to make a solid front and lost contact with him. Now I think their Sixth Corps is coming in. We've held them for three hours, but if their Sixth comes in, I think we'll be forced back."

His voice trailed off for a moment and he lowered his head.

"My God, Pete. My division. My boys. I think I've lost half my men in this fight. We can't hold much longer. I need support."

"You weren't supposed to do this!" Pete roared. "You were to engage, then withdraw slowly back on your support."

Pickett looked at him wide-eyed, unable to speak.

"You were to fall back, not wreck your division!"

"I'm sorry, sir," George replied, voice breaking. "I felt I could handle them, and I did until they brought up another corps."

"General Hood's been forced to move his lead division farther forward to try and support you!" Pete shouted. "His men have forced-marched over forty miles. You were to fall back, damn it!"

Longstreet looked past Pickett to the volley line, shadowy in the smoke. This was typical of George, focusing on the ground. Ground that had been insignificant a day before, now suddenly so important that a thousand should die holding it, if for no other reason than pride. Now he had bled most of his division out fighting an entire corps. Granted, he had most likely given back as good as he received, but still, the butcher bill was beyond anything he or Lee wanted to pay.

"I want you to prepare to withdraw now," Pete said.

Pickett looked at him, incredulous.

"Sir, my men have paid dearly for this ground."

"It's not the ground I want at this moment," Pete snapped. "General Lee wants Sickles, but not at the price of destroying the only army we have left on this field. Hood's old division even now is deploying behind you, a mile back. You are to fall back."

"I object, sir. Ask Hood to come forward. I think we should hold here. My boys have paid a terrible price for this ground, and to retreat now," he sighed, "it will mean defeat. I cannot see surrendering ground that gallant Southern blood has been spilt upon."

Longstreet looked at him, incredulous. It had been the same at Gettysburg, the first day, General Lee suddenly obsessed with ground purchased by blood, not willing to give it back, not able to see at that moment the broader nature of the fight, the battle, the entire war. Thank God, Lee had realized it in time, and then developed the plan that had created Union Mills. And now Pickett was caught in the same lust.

"Hood's men cannot move another foot. Damn it, follow my orders," Pete snapped. "Obey my orders now or surrender your command to someone who will!"

5.30pm

'That's it, Warren. Go, boys, go!"

Riding at the front of his Second Division, Gouverneur Warren turned, sword raised, offering a salute to Sickles.

Behind Warren a division was deployed on a front a third of a mile wide, coming up out of the swale of Gunpowder River, advancing at the walk, bayonets fixed, rifles held at the "bayonet charge." The vast, terrifying, machinelike line marched into the smoke slowly drifting back from the thundering volley line held by the shattered remnants of the forward divisions, Third Corps and his own division, which he had thrown in an hour ago.

Already some of his men were dropping from sheer exhaustion, the heat most likely hovering at a hundred degrees. Here and there distant, spent rounds were striking men with still enough force to fracture a skull or break an arm. As quickly as men fell, others closed up the ranks.

Knowing that the ritual moment had passed, Warren reined in as they went into the smoke, letting the first wave of five regiments, all of them Vermont boys, press forward. Those closest to him raised kepis in salute and pressed on into the fog of battle.

He swung in behind the first line, in the swirling smoke catching sight of the second wave, tough, hardened veterans of the old First Corps, still carrying their original corps banner though they had been incorporated into his own. He stood tall in the stirrups.

"Old First. Remember Gettysburg! Remember Reynolds. God be with you!"

His salute, a reminder of glory and tragedy past, roused them and a cheer went up.

"The First, the First, the First, remember Reynolds!"

He fell in to their front, riding with them.

The volume of fire ahead increased, deep thunder of artillery adding in, the whirl of spent canister rounds slashing overhead.

The line passed the ground where the first volleys had been fired, crossing over the prone formation of hundreds of dead and dying men, of the Third Corps, their reduced numbers a cold, frightful testament to their courage, their resilience, and discipline, to having stood under the blazing August sun, exchanging volley after volley with Pickett's legion.

Lying on the ground, a few of those wounded looked up, raising clenched fists in salute.

"Give 'em hell, boys, give it to them!" the cry echoed. More than one of the advancing line stripped off a precious canteen and tossed it to the fallen; hands touched hands, the fallen and those still to fall.

These men of the old First knew, they knew far more than perhaps any veterans of the war, what was to come. These were the men that had held Seminary Ridge at Gettysburg, losing seventy percent of their numbers. These were the men who had gone in at Fredericksburg, charged the Cornfield at Antietam, and stood in volley line against the Stonewall Division at Groveton. The humiliation of Union Mills burned in their souls, and it was time to right that, to restore pride, even if it meant dying in the act of succeeding. They were the inner heart, the steel soul of the republic.

Here they come!" Lo Armistead looked up, torn away from the side of a dying comrade who was whispering a final farewell, a wish to be buried alongside his wife in Stanton. He could see nothing for a moment. His eyes stung, watered, and with a blood-soaked hand he tried to wipe them clear.

Yes, my God, he could see them, a solid, blue-black wall emerging out of the smoke.

"Oh, my God, here they come!"

The cry went up and down the line. Exhausted men coming back to their feet. With a final burst of draining energy, men struggled to ram another charge down fouled barrels. Where a thick, solid double line had stood two and a half hours ago, now there was little more than a skirmish line, here and there half a dozen feet between men, thicker clusters around shot, shredded battle flags.

Lo wept unashamedly at the sight of it, tears streaming down his blackened face. Victory or defeat, never had he known such pride as he did at this moment, his men still not giving back, still standing defiant. And yes, pride in his foe as well, who he knew had suffered as grievously as his own brigade, and yet were still coming on.

"Volley fire." His words came out as an inaudible croak.

He turned to one of the few of his staff still standing; the man, knowing what he wanted, handed over his canteen. Lo took a deep drink, then another, hawked, and spit, clearing his parched throat

"Volley fire. Virginians! Volley fire!"

His desperate cry was echoed and picked up.

"Lo!"

It was Pickett and, to his amazement, Longstreet at his side, oblivious it seemed to the wall of Yankees coming at them.

"Fire and withdraw!" Pete shouted. 'Try and keep formation; don't let your men break!"

The two galloped off before Lo could respond in outrage to the order. He would be damned if his men would ever break.

The Yankee line was closer, a hundred and fifty yards out. "Volley fire, then withdraw fifty paces on my command!" Lo shouted.

"Virginians, take aim!"

Where once more than twenty-five hundred rifles would have been lowered in response, now barely a thousand remained.

'Take aim!"

Again the reassuring and yet frightful sound of hammers being pulled back. "Fire!"

A wall of fire erupted. Not coordinated, starting at the center, then rippling down the line to either flank. "Virginians. Back fifty paces!"

His men seemed to hesitate. Heartbreakingly, he saw one of his men directly to his front lean over, an elderly man, beard gray, kissing a fallen boy on the forehead, laying a Bible on his breast.

The battle line started to fall back, the few surviving officers shouting for the men to hold steady. The elderly man was by Lo's side and Lo reached out, touching his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Lo whispered.

"My only boy," the man replied and then lowered his head.

5.45pm

'They're breaking!"

Warren pushed his mount to a canter, coming up behind the line of the Vermont regiments. They were across an open, marshy stretch of pasture, leaving behind the exhausted men of the Third Corps and his own first division. The sight had been horrific. Here had been a fight like Groveton, the Cornfield, a stand-up, knock-down volley fight at two hundred yards that had endured for hours, neither side willing to give back, neither side able to advance under the withering fire delivered by their opponents. In places, the dead and wounded of the Third Corps were heaped two and three deep, the survivors hunkered down behind the Mien.

The marsh was actually stained pink with blood, as hundreds of wounded from both sides had crawled down to the water, desperate for anything to drink. The formation of the

Vermonters broke repeatedly and re-formed as they swung around clusters of the fallen. They pushed up the slope, and a volley hit. In the seconds before it slashed in, he saw what they were facing, a thin line, looking to be nothing more than skirmishers, which disappeared behind the smoke. But their fire was still deadly, dozens of boys from Barrington, Bennington, and Stowe dropping.

Without orders from him, the cry went up for advance on the double, drummers increasing the cadence, men now leaning forward, picking up the pace of their advance. Behind him he could hear the third brigade shouting, surging forward, crying Reynolds's name.

A second volley hit, not as effective as the first but dropping more nevertheless, and then there was a shadow across the crest, and for a second he hesitated. It looked as if a solid line was down on the ground, waiting now to stand up and deliver a scathing volley at point-blank range.

But these were men who would never stand again. The dead were piled thick, the ground behind them carpeted with wounded crawling back. The attack slowed for a second, as soldiers stepped gingerly over the enemy fallen, then pressed forward yet again, only to encounter a second line of fallen a hundred yards farther back, atop the low crest of a hill.

"Forward, keep moving! Forward!"

As they crested the hill, they began to emerge out of the valley of smoke and death.

He could see them now, a broken, pitiful-looking remnant, not a line really, just clusters of men clumped under blue flags of Virginia and the red St. Andrew's crosses of the Army of Northern Virginia, falling back on the double, men struggling to reload, groups of them turning to fire, then falling back yet again.

The Vermont regiments halted, again without his orders. He would have just pushed. But the men were too exercised now that their foe was finally in sight.

'Take aim!"

A thousand muskets were leveled.

"Fire!"

The volley swept the front; in the split second before smoke obscured everything, he saw rebels dropping by the dozens.

"Reload!"

Ramrods were drawn, charges pushed home in gun barrels that were still clean, the metallic rattle of ramrods in barrels echoing along the line.

"Hold boys, now hold!"

Rifles came up, were shouldered.

"Charge bayonets!"

With a wild shout, a thousand rifles were brought down from shoulder arms, poised now level at the waist, bayonet points gleaming in the late-afternoon sun.

"On the double, quick! Charge!"

A wild, hysterical shout rose up. The line surged forward, men screaming incoherently, the lust of battle upon them, the lust of revenge, of pent-up rage, of all that they had suffered and endured; a chance to restore the honor of the Army of the Potomac was here at last.

5.55pm

Any hope of controlling his brigade was gone, and for the first time in his life on a battlefield, Lo Armistead ran for his life. He did not know where he could gain one more ounce of reserve to move one step farther. He weaved like a drunken man.

The old man who had lost his son was down, shot in the back of his head, his brains staining Lo's jacket, the impact of that round nearly pushing Lo into panic.

He wanted to shout for his men to hold, to rally, but he could no longer find voice for it.

Out of the smoke of the battle line he could see the survivors of Pickett's division streaming back, running across meadows, pushing through cornfields, climbing over fences, men collapsing from exhaustion and wounds. A knot of men were gathered around a barn, leaning against the building, which was beginning to burn. They fired away, then turned to run.

He caught a glimpse of Pickett, staff trailing, riding across the front of the retreat, waving his sword, crying for the men to hold fast. But after more than three hours they had been pushed beyond all endurance. Longstreet was nowhere to be seen. Beyond all caring, Armistead staggered up to an abandoned farmhouse. Wounded were sprawled on the porch. From a shattered ground-floor window, he saw several men peering out, one of them raising his rifle to fire. A man came bursting out the front door and then just collapsed, shot in the back.

Lo looked back. The Yankees were charging less than a hundred yards away, bayonets flashing, a terrifying wall, coming on remorselessly, overrunning a battery position, the gunners breaking away from their pieces and fleeing before them.

"Come on, General, let's get the hell out of here!" An arm came under his shoulder, a burly corporal, a giant of a man at over six feet by his side, lifting him up. "Come on, sir, time we got the hell out of here." "I’m all right, leave me." The corporal laughed.

"Can't say I left my brigadier behind. Just promote me to captain when this is over. Now let's get the hell out of here!"

6:05 p.m.

‘Form here!" Longstreet roared. "God damn it get into line here!" General Robertson, leading Hood's old division, saluted and galloped off along the edge of the woodlot. A battery of guns, Rowan's North Carolina, were already into the woods, barrels of their pieces projecting out over the low split-rail fence, infantry swarming in to either side of the guns.

Behind him he could hear hundreds of men running through the woods, pouring off the main road coming up from Baltimore, shaking out from column to line, the men panting with exhaustion, officers shouting for men to load, to get ready, to keep inside the woods.

Already the first of Pickett's division were coming in, staggering out of the cornfield to their front, their passage marked by the swaying of the head-high corn. Raising his field glasses, he could see to the far side of the cornfield a quarter mile away, where the relentless advance of the Army of the Potomac was pushing forward, driving the stragglers of Pickett before them.

Pickett's boys had been routed by this last charge, but he could not blame them. They had faced off against a corps and a half for three hours under a killing sun, inflicted thousands of casualties, and had baited the trap, which was beginning to unfold. But it would only be a trap if their panic did not envelop the exhausted reinforcements now coming up.

Robertson's division was filing into position. Behind them, a mile away, Hood's entire corps was advancing and deploying out as well. It was possible, just possible, that after more than forty miles of marching with thousands- perhaps ten thousand or more stragglers dropping out on the road, the rumors sweeping back of defeat-even these hardened men might break and run. On such things, on such moments, battles often turned.

He rode along the edge of the woods, eyes blazing, watching intently as division broke into brigades, brigades into regiments, regiments into companies, falling in along the fence at the edge of the woods, men hunkering down, loading, sliding rifles over the top of fence rails, staring blindly now into a cornfield where the enemy would not be visible until he was only thirty feet away.

Robertson's division waited for the impact of the charge.

6.10pm

‘Hold them back!" Warren shouted.

The Vermonters were already into the cornfield. The men were panting from the heat, the pursuit of the last mile that had carried them across pastures, fields

of winter wheat, corn, orchards, and farm lanes. They had swept up hundreds of prisoners, all Confederate resistance collapsing. But in the cornfield ahead, there was something that was triggering in him a sense of foreboding. "Holdback!"

His cry went unanswered. He turned, riding across the front of the reserve brigade, the boys from the First Corps, shouting for them to halt, but only those directly to his front followed orders. The battle front was nearly a half mile wide, and one lone voice at such a moment could not be heard.

The charge plunged into the cornfield, trampling the crop under as it advanced.

He caught a glimpse of Sickles coming up, army commander banner held high, staff trailing behind him. Warren raced back.

Sickles was exulting, swept up in the moment of glory, of victory.

"Call it off!" Warren cried. Sickles slowed, looked at him.

"For God's sake, we've driven them. It's enough for now."

"I know. God damn them, we're driving them. Your boys are magnificent!" Sickles cried.

"No, sir. Halt now!"

Sickles looked at him, incredulous.

Warren gasped. "We don't know what's waiting ahead. Stop this charge!"

Sickles, eyes blazing, said nothing, and then rode past, following the charge; Warren, knowing not where to go at this moment, falling in behind him.

6:15 p.m.

‘Hold your fire, boys, hold it!"

Longstreet rode back along the line concealed in the woods. Hundreds of Pickett's men were still passing through. He caught a glimpse of Pickett, face ashen, riding past, then Lo Armistead, limping, helped along by a huge enlisted man who pushed him up over the fence, the two collapsing on the other side. "Steady!"

From the slight rise within the woods he could see them coming, a relentless wall, corn being knocked down by their advance, bayonet points sticking up, flags rising above the corn. To his left a volley erupted where one of Robertson's brigades, on the far side of the woods, was engaging. In the woods all was strangely quiet for a moment, officers hissing commands, a gunner screwing up the rear screw of a field piece, dropping the muzzle lower, loaders already standing ready with double canister alongside the muzzles of the guns, a few officers looking north, a man up in a tree shouting that the Yankees were only fifty yards off, then jumping down. Rifles were leveled over the fence, hammers back, here and there a man firing, foul oaths shouted at the nervous to hold fire, hold fire, hold fire!

Blue legs appeared in the cornfield, bayonets above the corn, a last few stragglers running, heaving themselves over the fence, some still in the com seeing what was directly ahead, knowing they would not reach safety in time, flinging themselves to the ground.

The surging wall of blue appeared, shouldering the corn aside, shouts echoing, huzzahs, officers waving swords, someone on horseback shouting.

"Fire!"

He did not give the order, he did not need to. Regimental commanders did it on their own, judging the moment. In those last few seconds the advancing Yankees, so exuberant, had slowed, seeing something, seeing the fence, the dark forms hunkered behind it, the muzzles of Napoleons and ten-pounders, rifles poised as if each was aimed straight at them.

There was a moment, a second or two, of shouted and confused orders, to halt, to take aim, to charge, to keep moving.

"Fire!"

The volley burst from the wood line, a thousand or more rifles at point-blank range, bursts of double canister from six guns. Five hundred or more dropped; it was impossible to miss, so dense was the Union line. The frightful canister, nearly a thousand iron balls, tore into the corn, shredding stalks high into the air in the split second it took from when the burst of canister left the barrel and traversed the twenty to thirty yards into the advancing line, mowing the corn down as if someone had worked with maniacal speed to cut every stalk off inches above the ground.

A groan cut through the cacophony of noise, the screams of hundreds of men, wounded, men who would die in a few seconds as hearts beat out a last pulse. Shattered rifles, body parts, blood literally rose into the air and tumbled back in a blizzard of destruction.

"Reload!"

The rebel infantry stood up, ramrods already drawn and stuck into the ground, cartridges laid out along fence rails; gunners leapt to their pieces, swabbing out bores, then ramming in yet another charge of double canister.

The men of Vermont, staggered by the blow, could barely respond. Here and there a desperate few leveled their rifles, men who but seconds before were pursuing a defeated foe now were out in the open being slaughtered. But some would still die game, would fire back.

'Take aim!"

Again the mechanical-like motion, a thousand rifles raised then lowered, the men behind them now standing. "Fire!"

Another volley swept into the cornfield, hundreds more fell, and seconds later a second blast of canister tore in from the battery, some of the rounds crashing into the reserve brigade, struggling to get forward over their own dead and wounded Vermont neighbors.

Again reload, even as the reserve brigade, among them survivors of the old Iron Brigade, pushed into the confusion, men screaming, cursing, some from Vermont already falling back, comrades to their rear pushing forward.

'Take aim! "Fire!"

Another volley.

The sheer momentum of the reserve brigade of the Second Division, Sixth Corps, actually pushed the charge forward to within ten yards of the fence. These hardened veterans, filled with rage, would not break in spite of the surprise, the terror that had met them in this cornfield. It was Antietam again, and as one of them had once said, after Antietam, nothing would frighten them ever again.

In turn, without orders, they leveled rifles, took aim impossible to miss, and fired. A hundred or more Confederates tumbled back from the fence, most of the gunners down.

"Charge!"

The reserve brigade pushed the last ten yards into the fence, even as their opponents prepared to deliver yet another volley, and what ensued was the nightmare of hell, the unleashing of all that this war had created. Boys from Indiana and Wisconsin slammed into boys from Texas, jabbing, thrusting, clubbed muskets raised.

For the first time in the war, Pete actually drew his own revolver, leveled it, and dropped a man who came over the fence, bayonet poised, racing straight at him. He lost sight of the battle as his staff pushed around him and then forcibly drove him back from the line, Venable cursing as he took a bayonet thrust to the leg.

A sickening, mad melee unfolded, the split-rail fence collapsing under the weight of Union troops. Hood's men staggered backward, giving ground a foot at a time, thrusting, parrying, those with a few seconds reloading and firing at point-blank range.

A desperate hand-to-hand fight erupted around a flag of the old Iron Brigade, the flag bearer pushing forward, then cut off, a wild cry going up from his comrades-"Our flag, our flag!" — and by the dozens they dropped as they fought to retrieve their colors. A Texan flag bearer, a red-bearded giant, Sergeant Robinson, the same man who had stopped General Lee from his suicidal gesture to lead a charge at Taneytown, waded into the melee holding his own flag aloft, clubbing the Union flag bearer with his staff, then snatched the colors of the Nineteenth Indiana from the dying man's hands.

Longstreet, pushed fifty yards back from the fight, turned viciously on his staff, swearing at them, caught up in the madness of the moment. The heat, the terrible hours of volley fire along Gunpowder River, the memory of Union Mills, all the dreams, all the hopes, all the bitter frustrations were now played out along this nameless fence row bordering a nameless cornfield in Maryland.

Neither side would give, and both sides fought with passion, with abandon, all the causes of this insane conflict forgotten except the desire to win regardless of cost.

And then behind him, coming out of the smoke-filled gloom of the woods, Longstreet saw a wall of men advancing, colors to the fore, Jubal Early in the lead. Hood's corps was coming up.

Jubal, spying Longstreet, rode up and saluted.

"I'm coming in," Jubal announced triumphantly.

And for the moment, all the rivalry between the two was forgotten. Longstreet reached out and grasped Jubal's hand.

"You know what to do!"

Jubal grinned.

"Hell of a march and now a hell of a fight!"

Jubal reined his mount around, even as the horse whined and writhed in pain, a minie* ball striking its neck, blood spraying out.

"Louisiana, charge!"

Hays's Louisiana brigade leapt forward, baying like wolves at the scent of blood. It was only fifty yards to where the Texans struggled with the Sixth Corps, and the collision of wood and steel with wood, steel, and bodies reverberated, staggering the Union line back. The Louisiana brigade charged with rifles loaded, and as they pushed past the Texans, they leveled their weapons and fired at point-blank range; hundreds of Union troops dropped from the onslaught, and within seconds, they broke, streaming back into the cornfield that was now leveled for most of its width.

Regardless of pride, of memory, of all that they fought for, in that hundred-degree heat they could no longer withstand this arrival of fresh brigades, where only minutes before they had been pursuing a beaten foe.

The Texans and the soldiers of the bayous began to swarm over the shattered fence in pursuit.

"Hold, hold your position!"

Longstreet's command was already being shouted by Early, Robertson, and brigade and regimental commanders. "Load!"

Men feverishly drew rammers; the Texans, many driven back from where they had stuck ramrods in the ground, tossed weapons aside, picking up the Springfield rifles of the Yankees piled around them.

The retreating men were now a hundred yards back, some disappearing back into the corn that was still standing, some turning, defiant, ready to renew the exchange.

'Take aim!"

With that, as rifles were leveled, the will of the Union troops broke, some flinging themselves to the ground, others falling back, but a brave few, the tragic remnants of the Iron Brigade, still remorseful over the loss of a precious flag, were trying to regroup, and many a rifle turned in their direction.

"Fire!"

The volley cut across the field, cornstalks going down, men going down, and what was left of the elan of that confident Union charge broke as the survivors fell back into the corn and disappeared.

A defiant cheer erupted from the rebel line, men from neighboring states slapping each other on the back, yelling, laughing, even as they drew cartridges and reloaded. Some fired blindly into the smoke and tattered remnants of com, but there was nothing left to aim at.

Longstreet dismounted and walked down to the volley line, men turning, looking at him wide-eyed, as some were beginning to emerge from the hysteria of battle, the wild cheering now replaced by panting for breath. Some men sinking to the ground, some doubling over and, from nervous exhaustion and heatstroke, beginning to vomit, some laughing with a wild, mad edge in their voices. Most were silent, shocked, taking in the carnage around them.

Longstreet caught sight of the man who had snatched the prized flag of an Iron Brigade regiment, the Texan sitting on the ground, surrounded by admirers, but his head was between his legs, the man was sobbing, hand grasping the sleeve of the Union flag bearer he had just killed. His comrades were understanding, respectful, one rubbing the back of his neck.

He saw Lo Armistead struggling to stand up, still helped by his corporal, a few Virginians gathering around him like children having just found a beloved parent. These men were silent, some taking their hats off.

Robertson, fiercely proud, this fight an exoneration for the defeat at Fort Stevens, walked the line, shouting congratulations, but few responded.

Longstreet turned, looking up at Venable, who was still mounted, blood streaming from the bayonet slash to his thigh.

"You all right, son?" Longstreet asked.

"Didn't go in, just cut me," Venable replied.

"Get a courier to General Lee. Tell him we've held the line; they won't come on again tonight and I now await his orders."

Venable saluted, turned, urged his winded horse up to a slow canter, and rode off.

Pete, unable to control the shaking of his legs, sat down against a tree, sap oozing out from where it had been torn by a dozen or more rounds. Exhausted, he simply lowered his head and closed his eyes.

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Headquarters Army of the Susquehanna

August 19,1863 7:00pm

Some of the more excitable around headquarters claimed that they had been able to hear artillery fire. That was absurd; the battle that was most likely unfolding was over a hundred miles away; though late the day before, he did believe that he had heard some gunfire from Grierson engaging Hampton.

Grant sat wrapped in silent gloom. The doctor from the headquarters hospital had just left his tent Herman Haupt was dead.

He had died two hours ago from acute dysentery. The genius who had been responsible, perhaps more than any other, for the miracle of moving an entire army nearly a thousand miles, supplying it, bringing it nearly up to fighting level, was gone and Grant raged at the loss.

Grant cursed himself. He should have ordered him relieved from duty weeks ago, and yet he had used him. Used him up as easily as he would use a division of troops to take a hill, buy time, storm a fort, watching dispassionately, knowing that a thousand would die by his command to go forward.

And yet, in the using, what had been achieved? He looked at the final manifest that Haupt had submitted to him only yesterday before staggering out of the tent and collapsing facedown on the ground. Rations to feed seventy-five thousand for a month stockpiled, three hundred rounds of rifle ball per man, three hundred and fifty artillery rounds, mixed, solid shot, shell, canister, eight hundred and fifty more wagons coming in, three thousand six hundred mules to pull them, two thousand nine hundred remounts, four hundred tons of oats, pontoon bridges, enough wagons, some of the replacement bridges for the railroad, and, of course, the men, still not enough men.

One more division was starting to come in; already the trains were unloading them, but he would have preferred another entire corps. Couch's militia had proven to be little more than an abysmal waste. They had signed for ninety days, and most of them were making it clear that in three more weeks they were out of the army, but for the moment he still had them.

He wasn't ready to go; his plan had been meticulous, well laid out, and now Sickles had completely destroyed it.

That Sickles would meet Lee, alone, was now a foregone conclusion. The telegraph line from Perryville, up to Philadelphia, New York, and then to Harrisburg had been fully restored and had been buzzing all day with reports from "The Army of the Potomac before Baltimore." The first reports boasted of a victorious advance; the last, dated an hour and a half ago from a correspondent with the New York Tribune, reported heavy fighting and casualties.

He knew what would happen; there was no doubt of it in his mind.

"Ely?"

He turned, and felt embarrassed. Ely was down there with Sickles, most likely to no avail.

His tent was empty. He thought of Elihu, wishing he was present to offer some advice, though Grant was a man who seldom if ever now sought the word of another.

He thought of a drink but that thought only lingered for a second. There was no need of it now. Maybe, just maybe, after the war was over, he would indulge himself, just one more time perhaps. But not now.

He contemplated the odds that Sickles had now given him. Even, at best, but then again maybe a bit better, or, on the other hand, somewhat worse, if Lee pinned and shattered the Army of the Potomac once and for all. The old plans were out and it was time to recast them. That in and of itself did not bother him. Sherman had once said he had ice water in his veins. Now was the time to prove it. Reaching over to his desk, he pulled out a sheet of paper, drew a pencil from his breast pocket, and began to draft his orders to the army.

Twenty Miles East of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

August 19,1863 7:30pm

The train rolled slowly westward, the long rays of the setting sun casting shadows across the Pennsylvania farmland. John Miller stood against the open doorway of the boxcar as it rattled along on its journey, the scent of wood smoke from the locomotive wafting past.

They had left Philadelphia an hour after dawn, the city wild with rumors that Wade Hampton would be into the town before midday. It amused him in a way. Whereas only a week before many of the citizens of that fair city had been openly disdainful of black soldiers, more than one now begged them to stay as they paraded down to the depot to take the train. That disdain, however, had not been shown by the colored of the city, who turned out in droves, proud of their sons, their brothers, and fathers, waving American flags, shouting with joy as the columns of troops marched by.

He was now a company sergeant, and absently he reached up to touch the three stripes on his sleeve. From the little time he had been in service, he knew enough to realize he and his men were not yet ready, but some emergency had called them, and now they were heading west-rumor was, to Harrisburg. It was a bit of a mystery as to why they were pulled from Philadelphia, what with rebel raiders about, but he and his comrades had quickly surmised that the threat could not have been great if an entire division of them had been taken out of the city.

As the trains passed from Philadelphia across New Jersey, then switched westward to Allentown through a mountain pass at Hamburg, and now rolled through a beautiful valley flanked by mountains, he was awed by the size of this nation, its changing nature, the people he saw.

As they passed through northern New Jersey, the land seemed to be one of factories belching smoke, not unlike Baltimore, rail sidings packed with cars loaded with artillery, limber wagons, ambulances, boxes of rations, beef and horses packed into boxcars like the one he was in, all of it seemingly guided by some invisible hand pushing its cargo by force of will to the front lines.

The people who were along the tracks had looked upon him and his comrades with amazement Here was a colored division going to war. Where in the past he had learned to stand detached, head lowered, as if he was not really a man, now he stood looking them in the eye, and many of them waved, some shouting blessings, a woman in a village in western New Jersey passing up a basket of fresh-baked bread.

Perhaps Frederick Douglass was right; perhaps the blue uniform, the cartridge box stamped us, and the rifle in his hand had at last bestowed upon him the rights of citizenship; perhaps he could now claim this land as his as well. And that thought filled him with a swelling of pride, a sense of what he was about, of what he would now do for this land.

The memory of his dead son caught him for a moment. The land would not belong to him, it never would, but for his. daughters, for his grandchildren, perhaps for them, at last the promise would be true. He looked back into the boxcar, to the regimental sergeant major and a young private asleep against the sergeant's shoulder.

They were an interesting pair, with an interesting tale. The sergeant claimed that his father worked in the White House for Abraham Lincoln and he had grown up there. Soldiers were used to tall tales, and though the man was well-spoken, could read, and wrote with a beautiful hand, no one had believed him until only this morning, when a note with THE WHITE HOUSE stamped on the envelope had arrived. The sergeant, half-asleep, still had the letter and envelope clutched in his hands.

Everyone in the boxcars aboard the entire train now knew the content by heart:

To Sergeant-Major Washington Madison Quincy Bartlett

I take pen in hand to wish you and your comrades well. Know that your father is safe here in the White House and sends his blessings. Sergeant, the duty you and your comrades perform in service to our Republic shall write a new chapter in the history of our nation. The sacrifice in blood you lay upon the altar of our country shall be forever honored and remembered by a grateful nation.

Sincerely, Abraham Lincoln

Sergeant Miller knew that if this promise would indeed be honored, this was now a cause worth dying for.

Headquarters Army of Northern Virginia

August 19,1863 10:00 p.m.

It had been a long day. General Lee looked up at Venable and nodded wearily. "Was it really that bad?" Lee asked. "Sir, it's hard to say, but I saw what was left of Pickett. The division most likely took fifty per cent casualties, maybe more. I can't speak for McLaws, but I know Robertson was hit hard as well, but we stopped them cold."

Lee wearily shook his head. Pickett had been ordered to delay, to draw back slowly, not get into a head-on confrontation with an entire corps, two corps actually, from the sound of Venable's report.

Every man lost was one less man available for the real fight, the confrontation with Grant that Lee knew would come next. So far it had, more or less, gone according to plan. Sickles was in the field on his own, the garrison in Washington still immobilized, Grant still in Harrisburg. No news from Wade Hampton, but that was to be expected; in another day or two he would most likely cross the river with details regarding the dispositions of the enemy forces.

He had to defeat Sickles in detail. Not just another defeat and retreat, but to take him out of battle forever. Then turn back on Washington, harass it, and wait for Grant to emerge and come to the relief of the city. He had assumed all along that Grant would do so, but would do it in conjunction with Sickles, a combined force he could not have defeated except with extreme luck. Pickett wasting his division in a stand-up fight… well, he would deal with that later.

"Get some rest, son. Colonel Alexander will find you a comfortable place and a surgeon to look after that wound." "Sir, I should report back to General Longstreet." "An order from me, son. Get some rest, get your wound attended to. Tomorrow you'll have more than enough to do."

Venable nodded.

"Thank you, sir. And bless you."

"And God bless you, too," Lee responded.

Venable left his tent.

Lee looked back down at the map spread before him. Longstreet, with Hood overlapping his position, had things well enough in hand. Together they could parry any thrust Sickles might offer, and it was more than fair to assume Sickles would indeed attack come dawn.

He would have preferred that it was Hood or Longstreet guiding the next step in his plan, but the simple logistics of marching order had put Beauregard on his left, and thus it would be Beauregard's role to spring the trap come morning. Instinct told him that he should move to that flank. Beauregard was an unknown quantity and that was where his moral influence could have the greatest impact. He decided then and there to arise long before dawn and ride to the left of the line.

There was nothing more he could do now. Outside his tent he could hear his weary troops marching by, men who had forced-marched over forty miles, the last of the columns coming up, exhausted, staggering, the stragglers now filling the roads as well, provost marshals guiding them to where their units should be deploying.

Judah Benjamin had come up to join him and was asleep now in the next tent, stricken by the intense heat of the day. He longed to talk to him but knew he could not disturb the man. He had been dangerously ill by the time he reached headquarters, and even now a surgeon was still attending him, wrapping his body in cool, wet towels.

What I would give now for but one more corps, he thought yet again, the conversation with Rabbi Rothenberg still" haunting him. If we had acted that day, that very day when Maryland had declared for the Confederacy, even now a hundred thousand more would be mobilizing across the South. There was many a man of color already in the ranks, those of half blood, quarter blood, servants loyal to their masters, even here and there freemen who had fallen in with local friends, but the majority? The vast majority, they of course would never fight for a cause that in the end only promised them bondage.

France would be inconsequential this year, most likely always. The crisis was here and it was now. I have but one army left; I spent a fair part of it at Gettysburg and Union Mills. I spent more of it before Washington and now again today on Gunpowder River. I can spend no more and yet still hope to win.

But one corps more and how different it might all be, a decision that, if given the chance, I myself would proclaim and adhere to. We are saddled by this madness of slavery, this abomination that sets men against men, though of a different color, nevertheless, still created by the Creator. The rabbi was right; in Heaven would we dwell separately? What would the Savior say of this?

Too many thoughts were beginning to flood in, diverting him from the moment, the task ahead in the next day, the next week.

He leaned over and blew out the coal oil lamp. Standing up, he unbuttoned his tunic and took it off, draping it over a chair, and then knelt

"My God. Guide me as to what Thy will shall be. May there be some purpose in Your eyes for the suffering that now afflicts our nation. Those who fell today, both friend and foe, I beg You to grant them eternal joy in Your presence, and grant peace to those who mourn. I beg this in the name of Jesus. Amen."

He lay down upon his cot and tried to go to sleep while outside his tent men continued to march through the night.