And One Wore Gray (35 page)

They rode all night toward Pennsylvania, slowed down by their wagons and their prisoners. Near Hood’s Mill, they destroyed part of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. At noon they rode on to Westminster, and there they were attacked by Federal cavalry.

They were victorious, repulsing the Yanks, but the Yanks, like the wagons, had cost them time. The next day they entered Hanover, Pennsylvania, and immediately, they were charged by another Union brigade. Once again, they repulsed the Federals, but only after a savage battle had been fought. When it was done, they rode on through the night, halting at Dover.

On the morning of July first, they rested and fed their mounts.

They had no idea that Lee’s army, having heard nothing from Stuart, had stumbled into the battle of Gettysburg.

A message reached Stuart by late afternoon. It was
then that he and Daniel and a few other officers rode hard ahead of the brigades to report to Lee at Gettysburg.

And Lee, the careful gentleman, the ultimate officer, looked hard at Stuart and said, “Well, General Stuart, you are here at last.”

But the
matter went no
further; there was a battle
to
be fought. Daniel found himself quickly thrown into communications, surveying the landscape of the area. He was assigned a young captain from Tennessee to explain the current positions and situation. His name was Guy Culver, and he was an excellent horseman. Though he’d barely graduated from the VMI before the onset of war, he had a good sense of strategy, and was quick to give Daniel a good overview in one of the command tents.

“Can you beat it, Colonel, it all began over shoes! There was this big advertisement, you see, for shoes, in Gettysburg. So we have a brigade under Heth marching down the Chambersburg Pike and they’re seen by some Union cavalry. Well, the Union cavalry commander must have decided that this place held strategic importance—it does, there’s nine roads go through here—and he engages his cavalry with our infantry. Before you know it, both sides are calling for reinforcements, and now, the bulk of both armies are engaged.”

He spread out a map of the area, and Daniel quickly acquainted himself with the layout of the area.

He spent what was left of the day riding from one area of carnage to another. Little Round Top, Big Round Top. Culp’s Hill, Cemetery Hill, the peach orchard, the wheatfield, Devil’s Den. The fighting was fierce, the battles were savage. At the end of the day, the fighting came to a halt with a last abortive Confederate assault upon Culp’s Hill.

After two horrible days of fighting, Lee was still determined
to hold. That night he laid out his plan for a direct assault against Cemetery Ridge. General Long-street protested, but Lee was determined. The Union Army was under Meade now, but the Union had a history of dissolving quickly under pressure, and a reputation for retreat.

Stuart and his cavalry were to attack the Union rear from the east.

But Daniel was still assigned to communications. Few men, even among Stuart’s fine cavaliers, could ride as fast or as hard as Daniel, and few seemed to have quite as many lives. While Jesse had managed to keep Goliath fit and well during these two long years of war, Daniel had lost at least seven horses from beneath him.

Lee did not want to be blinded again.

By noon, a seven-hour assault upon Culp’s Hill was giving the Confederates no success. Lee decided to send eleven brigades against the very center of the Union line. Stuart would come from the rear; the other men, led by General George Pickett’s fresh division, would charge straight across the field upon the Union line.

It was ominous, Daniel thought. Silence pervaded the field; dear Lord, it seemed like forever. It was only an hour.

Then the cannons began to roar. For two hours, Confederate gunners sent a barrage soaring across the heavens. The sky became sickly gray. The noise was deafening. Firestorms exploded.

And then, again, silence.

After that silence came the awful sound of the Rebel yell, and with startling, near perfect precision, thirteen thousand Confederate soldiers came marching out across the field. They were awesome; they were majestic. They moved like a curse of God, and they moved
with a stunning courage and devotion to God and duty and state.

They were mown down, just the same.

The Federal artillery burst upon the men, and they fell. They fell with horrible screams; they fell, men destroyed. Canisters sprayed out their death.

And still, the men charged on.

There was no help from the rear assault, Daniel discovered, for riding around the action he found Stuart and the cavalry engaged in a fierce battle and gaining no ground.

Sweeping back around with his information for Lee, Daniel found the remnants of the charging Confederates limping, crawling, staggering back to their own line.

He found Lee, the grand old gentleman, there to greet them. “It’s all my fault. It’s all my fault.”

Pickett’s Charge was over.

Indeed, Gettysburg was over.

There was nothing to do but count the losses. That night, the estimates were horrible. Nearly four thousand Rebs killed, nearly twenty thousand injured, and over five thousand missing.

Then there was the battlefield. In all that he had seen, in all that he had witnessed, Daniel had never known a sensation like standing on Seminary Ridge and looking down over the fields of devastation. Men moved among the fields of bodies. Sad bodies, twisted bodies, destroyed bodies. Young bodies, old bodies, enemies embraced again in death.

Now the medics moved among them, and again, Daniel thought of his brother, and he knew that Jesse must be out there, that he must be up to his elbows in blood. He wished that he could be with him, that he could help him. It didn’t matter to him that night whether the injured were Reb or Yank. War was horrible. And it would not end.

He looked down and saw one of their own regimental physicians moving about the wounded. He started down toward him, walking first, then running. The doctor, a Captain Greeley, looked at him, startled.

“Colonel!”

“Tell me what to do. I’m a fairly decent assistant in a surgery.”

“But Colonel—”

“I am at my leisure, sir, at the moment, if such a thing can exist on such a night. I am not a doctor, but I know something of medicine. God knows what lives I have taken. I wish to help save those that I might tonight.”

Greeley still seemed unnerved that a cavalry colonel was offering assistance in such a way. But he shrugged, and he asked Daniel to pick up a young man he had found still breathing by a tree stump. “We’ve not enough stretchers. We’ve not enough doctors. We’ve not enough anything,” he finished lamely.

“Then any hands will help,” Daniel said, and he scooped up the private with the blood-spattered uniform.

For the next hour, he served by searching out the living. There weren’t enough stretchers. He found a few of his men to help, and he knew that they had made a difference while the hours wore on. Greeley stopped him before he could make a return trip, asking him then to help in the surgery.

He had done it before. Yet nothing made it easy.

He helped hold down the men while Greeley removed limbs. He tried to talk to them; there was nothing to stem the cries. All that could help
a
limb so shattered was its removal.

He didn’t know how many men he had assisted with when an orderly brought in a figure he knew well.

It was Billy Boudain.

“Colonel!”

Billy’s handsome face was pinched and gray. He smiled nonetheless. “They let you ride in to surgery, eh?”

Daniel didn’t like the look of Billy. He was too gray. He smiled in turn anyway, knowing how important the will to live could be.

“Hell, you know I have some acquaintance with what I’m doing, right, Billy?”

“That I do, sir. That I do.”

“What did you do, Billy? Get too close to one of those Yankees?”

“Hell, sir, I wasn’t close at all. Something exploded by me, and I just woke up a few minutes ago, it seems.”

“It’s going to be right as rain, won’t it, Doctor Greeley?”

Greeley had peeled back Billy’s cavalry shirt. His face lifted to Daniel’s, and Daniel instantly saw in his eyes that there was no way at all. Daniel glanced down to Billy’s chest. Bone and blood were shattered and mingled.

He almost cried out. He felt tears welling behind his eyes, stinging his lids, and he fought them, furious with himself. Officers could not cry, and Camerons never gave way, and by God, he would not be weak, especially not now, not now when Billy needed him so much.

He curled his fingers around Billy’s hand. “Just hold tight and breath easy, Billy.”

“I’m going to die, Colonel.”

“No, Billy—”

“Don’t tell me that I’m not, sir. I can feel death. It’s cold. It—it doesn’t hurt.”

Daniel choked, then knelt down by Billy. “Billy, you can’t die on me. I’m going to take you home with me to Cameron Hall Billy, you’ve never seen anything quite
like it. The grass is as green as emeralds and it rolls and slopes down to the river. The trees are tall and very thick, and there’s always a breeze, so they sway there. And there’s a porch, Billy, a broad, wide porch, and you can just sit there and feel the breeze—”

“And sip on a whiskey, eh, sir?”

“Whiskey, brandy, julep, whatever you’ve a mind for, Billy. We’ll get back there.”

Billy’s fingers tightened around his. “The grass is like emeralds?”

“Just like.”

Billy coughed. Blood spilled from his lips. “Pray for me, Colonel. Someday, we’ll meet again. In an Eden, just like Cameron Hall.”

“Billy—”

Billy’s hand tightened, and then went limp. Daniel’s fingers curled around him. He grated his teeth hard.

“He’s gone, Colonel,” Greeley said softly.

Daniel nodded.

“We need the table.”

“Yes.”

Daniel lifted Billy in his arms, and walked out of the surgery with him. He walked into the night, and found a tree, and sat down beneath it, still cradling Billy in his arms.

He sat so for a long time. Tall cavalry boots appeared at his side.

“A friend, Daniel?”

Stuart, worn, haggard, and weary, sat down beside him. He didn’t seem to notice that his friend cradled a corpse.

“You’ve got to let him go, Daniel.”

Daniel nodded. “He wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me. I brought him out of Old Capitol.”

“God decides what happens to all of us, Daniel. And God knows, I failed Lee these last days!”

“We’ve lost a big one,” Daniel agreed.

“Armistead is dead; Pickett has sworn that he will never forgive Lee. And what can any of that matter to all the boys, Union and Confederates, who have gone on from here. Hell, Daniel, any of us can die at any time. But it’s God’s will, not mine, not yours.”

They were both silent for a minute.

“We begin a retreat, you know.” Stuart motioned to someone. A soldier walked over and saluted Daniel sharply. He reached for Billy’s body.

Daniel gave it up.

“Yes,” he said to Stuart.

“We’re going south, through Maryland once again. We’ll be a long time regrouping from this one. I’ll give you your time now, if Meade doesn’t follow us. If Meade does follow us, God alone knows what will happen. But if the Union does not attack, you may have the time I promised you. Do whatever it is that you’re so desperate to do in Maryland. I’ll give you until the end of the month. Then report back to me.”

Daniel looked at Stuart.

Maryland.

Yes …

It was time to see her again.

Callie could see the movement of part of the armies as they headed north.

They didn’t travel a path that led directly by her farm. They remained at quite a distance, and it was only with her brother Josiah’s glass that she was able to see them clearly at all, and that from her bedroom window.

From the first moment she saw a gray uniform and the straggle of poorly clad men around it, she knew that the Rebels were advancing again.

Her heart seemed to leap to her throat. Rebels. Coming here, coming after her.

No. There was only one Rebel who might be coming
after her, and he could not possibly be doing so. She was so grateful. She’d heard about the huge cavalry battle in Virginia, and she’d had to sit down and hug her knees to her chest, grateful that Daniel could not have been part of it, that his name could not have appeared on the list of the dead.

Now the Rebels were heading north again. She closed her eyes, and prayed. Prayed that the battlefield would not be her front lawn again, that she wouldn’t have to see the awful horror of war.

Her eyes flew open and she prayed simply that they would not come her way at all.

There were more and more deserters these days. From both armies. Some of these men could be dangerous. She hadn’t only herself to worry about anymore.

She had Jared.

Fear drove her to the room she had set up as a nursery for her son. He was sleeping, but she slipped him up into her arms anyway and held him close. She’d die before she’d let anyone harm him in any way.

She squeezed him so tight that he awoke and let out a cry of protest.

“My love, my little love, I’m so sorry!” she said softly. He quieted, studying her with his wide blue eyes. He let out a little cooing sound and pursed his lips, and she laughed. Well, she had woken him up. He thought it was time to eat.

She carried him to the old rocker in his room and sat with him, rocking while he nursed. She ran her fingers over his silky ink-black hair, and when she closed her eyes, she couldn’t help but think of Daniel again, and her thoughts were torn. Thank God he could not reach her. Dear God, but she had to reach him. One day.

He’d merely want to throttle her. Perhaps he wouldn’t want anything to do with the baby.

Perhaps he would want the baby and nothing at all to do with her.

Her pulse beat too quickly with just the thought. Guiltily she realized she had been thinking once again it was a good thing the war raged on.

No, no, Lord, I did not mean that!

The war was horrible. Jeremy and Josiah were outside of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Jeremy had written to her about the awful battles they had fought, and how they were trying to starve out the population of Mississippi. There were those who managed to get in and out of the city, and Jeremy’s letters were full of pity for the citizens who were living in caves in the hills—and dining upon rats when they were lucky enough to catch them.