House Divided (119 page)

Longstreet rode up along the lane to the point of trees where Hood's men, screened by the rising ground and by the woods on its crest from enemy observation, were obliquing to the right; and he found that short of the highest ground the lane forked. Hood's men were taking the right fork, which went through thick woodland and over a slight rise before dipping at an angle toward the road again. The other fork bore left to pass a house and then to turn even more to the left into another wood lot. This lane too was screened by trees. Good! The men might move into position without showing themselves.

He returned to the streamside as the head of McLaws's column, doubling on Hood's, approached the crossing. Hood's column was nearest the brook, McLaws's men on the right of Hood's; but this was awkward, since when they deployed McLaws must form on Hood's left, not on his right. McLaws might halt his column here till Hood's last brigades were past, then cross Hood's rear; but that would leave a gap on Hood's left for half an hour or more before McLaws reached his proper position, and gaps were dangerous. The alternative was to halt Hood, and let McLaws pass through him here. Then their columns, proceeding side by side to where the lane forked, and opening like jaws to right and left, would come into battle front almost simultaneously.

He sent Sorrel to direct Hood to wait, and himself spoke to General Kershaw, whose brigade led McLaws's division. Kershaw was a South Carolina man, a good friend of Cousin Cinda and of Brett Dewain, whose plantation was down near Camden somewhere. After serving as a delegate from Kershaw County in the South Carolina convention which passed the ordinance of secession, Kershaw was elected Colonel
of the Second Regiment. He was on Morris Island during the bombardment of Sumter; his regiment won its spurs in Bonham's brigade at First Manassas, and as brigadier he had since then distinguished himself at Harper's Ferry, at Sharpsburg, at Fredericksburg, and at Chancellorsville. His place in the van of McLaws's column was well earned.

Longstreet explained the situation. “I'm halting Hood's brigades to let you pass through them. Follow the lane to the fork, and then take the left fork through the woods till you can see the Emmitsburg road. Deploy under cover there and make contact with Hood on your right.”

Kershaw said crisply: “Very well, sir.” He led his men across the creek. Longstreet reflected that by giving Kershaw orders directly, instead of through McLaws, he had done exactly the thing which when General Lee did it he had resented; but McLaws, never jealous of his prerogatives, would take no offense.

Nor, damn his own hide, should he himself have taken offense at Lee! That was sheer childish petulance. Here was a battle to be fought; nothing else mattered! He brushed aside his ill humor in a rising haste for action, watching the regiments pass, seeing how the heat and their long march had drained strength out of even these hardened veterans. For almost three hours they had been plodding clear around Robin Hood's barn, along roads miles away from where they should have been.

But now at last the brigades were coming into position. Barksdale passed with a salute and a word of greeting. Hood's men along the stream were taking the chance to rest and to drink the warm brook water while McLaws went through them. General Pendleton rode down from the higher ground toward the enemy and eased his horse through the column and spoke to Longstreet.

“General, the enemy has extended his flank a little farther south. It rests now at a four corners due east of you here. He's thrown some men into a peach orchard, has a battery there and some infantry.”

“Will McLaws be beyond his flank, if he follows that lane to the left through the woods?”

“Oh yes.”

“You've directed Colonel Alexander where to place his guns?”

“Yes, General.”

“Good.”

Pendleton rode away; and McLaws came to join Longstreet. Longstreet asked: “How are you going in, General?”

“I'll wait and see what's on my front.”

“General Pendleton says you will have nothing in front of you. I told Kershaw to take your leading brigade along this lane through the woods up there and form on Hood. Meade's flank is anchored in a peach orchard, but when you reach the road you will be south of them.”

“Then I'll cross the road and wheel to the left and attack.”

Longstreet nodded. The little sounds of distant shots came pricking through the shimmering heat of midafternoon, as sharpshooters or skirmishers thought they saw a target. But of course no one could shoot straight at long range on a day like this, when the hot air rose from the sunned earth in waves that distorted vision. Colonel Fremantle and two or three others rode up from the south and Longstreet greeted the Englishman amiably.

“Well, Colonel, have you scouted the enemy position for us?”

“No sir. We went to find a farm where we could buy some feed for our horses, robbed a cherry tree or two, bathed in the stream down there. What's going to happen, General?”

“We propose to roll their flank up the road toward the cemetery.” Longstreet with action near was in high good humor. “Go back where you were this morning and you can count them like sheep as we drive them by!”

Fremantle laughed and moved away, and Longstreet rode with the column advancing toward the front, picturing in his mind the field of battle still hidden beyond the woods. Powell Hill's corps on his left confronted the enemy along a line drawn parallel with the Emmitsburg road. His own men would cross the road and swing into action on a front perpendicular to the road. It was thus Lee had designed the attack: McLaws the hinge, Hood the swinging gate. Longstreet remembered that hour at Second Manassas when as Pope's line of battle faltered in front of Jackson his own corps swung crushingly against the enemy flank. That might well be the story of this day!

In a rising and confident exhilaration, his doubts of the morning and his anger alike forgotten, Sorrel by his side, the officers of his staff following close, Longstreet cantered up past the schoolhouse. There he called to Trav.

“Currain, go to General McLaws, keep me informed. I will see Hood's brigades across the road.”

He turned to the right along the lane Hood's men had followed. The lane was full of them, pressing slowly forward as the regiments in front made room. To his left he saw through the fringe of trees an orchard, and as he continued there were open fields just across a wall within ten feet of him. Where the lane presently bore more to the right, he kept straight ahead, then picked his way through the woods till he saw the road a hundred yards ahead across an open field.

He halted there in the cover of the trees. Northward toward the town a belt of pasture and tillage bordered the road as far as he could see. The road itself came toward him along the crest of that rising ground which General Lee had pointed out this morning from their vantage two miles northward. The worst heat of the day was past, for it was after three o'clock; but even here in the forest shade, men gasped and panted and wiped their dripping brows. Longstreet took off his hat to let what airs there were cool his forehead. From where he stood, the ground rose slightly toward the road; but beyond, it seemed to descend again, and he could see the tops of apple trees in orderly rows half a mile away down the gentle slope. To his left, not far away across the road, rose a low wooded hill; and beyond the apple trees the Round Tops were bold against the sky. Somewhere off to the north, Yankee skirmishers were posted on this side of the road, for he heard the occasional bark of a musket; and once at a sharp report he saw a crow, flying high toward Round Top, tower and veer away to the north on quickened wing.

General Hood came to report that his men were well closed up in the fringe of the trees on this side of the road. “A lane leads from our front straight toward Round Top,” he explained. “We can file into that, or we can cross the road in line of battle.”

“File into the lane,” Longstreet directed. “Put scouts ahead and skirmishers on your left flank. There's nothing in front of you. Meade's flank is half a mile north of us, extending along the road to
that peach orchard you see yonder. When your brigades are across the road, left face and you'll be in line of battle on Meade's left rear. Use skirmishers, and close support in strength, and hit them hard.”

Hood wheeled his horse away, and Major Currain on Nig came bursting through the thickets. “Sir, General McLaws reports that the enemy on his front is in great strength. He says they extend well to his right.”

“He must be mistaken,” Longstreet protested. General Pendleton had reported that the enemy flank now rested in the peach orchard; but that was only the anchor of his line, could not be strongly held. “Tell him to attack at once.”

Trav raced away, and Longstreet rode to the right to watch Hood's advance. Down below the road a spatter of skirmishing fire told him Hood was already visible to the enemy. Currain returned with an insistent message from McLaws; the force in front of his division was strong and well placed; Colonel Alexander's guns would have to break the enemy before a direct attack was feasible. “He wants you to come and see for yourself, sir,” Trav explained.

Longstreet's anger of the morning returned. If the reconnaissance by General Pendleton and Captain Johnston had been faulty, his was not the blame. General Lee had believed them, had believed the enemy flank was on that high ground half a mile north of the peach orchard, and in that belief had given his orders for the tactical development of the battle. Well, they were wrong, so General Lee was wrong. It was true the enemy had, since Lee's orders were given, reached down the road to the peach orchard; but Pendleton must have reported that to the commanding general, and Lee had sent no new orders. McLaws must do as General Lee had directed.

“Tell him to advance,” Longstreet insisted. “Tell him to cross the road and wheel to the left as General Lee directed.”

As Trav went to carry this order for a third time to McLaws, Moxley Sorrel brought a message from Hood, whose skirmishers had begun to develop the Yankee position. Sorrel said the enemy flank, instead of being up there in the peach orchard as McLaws thought, was refused. The peach orchard was the angle of a salient; their line drew a concave curve from the orchard to the foot of Round Top, with that low tree-clad hill below the road as a strong point midway
of the curve. Hood believed, and Sorrel agreed, that to attack up the road would be to accept enemy fire on flank and rear.

“Hood is wrong, Sorrel,” Longstreet said calmly; but his own words did not persuade him. Hood could be trusted not to be wrong! But damn it, he must be. He had to be! Longstreet found himself with two divisions committed to battle—to a battle which was to be fought against his judgment and advice—on the assumption that Meade's flank was in the air; but instead, Meade's left was solidly posted, anchored against Round Top and bolstered by that low hill here below the road and by the guns in the peach orchard half a mile to the north.

Well, no matter; he must attack. It was almost four o'clock. Lee was somewhere two or three miles away. There was no time to report this changed situation. Lee's orders, overruling his suggestion of a maneuvre to the right, gave Longstreet no discretion. He was nothing but Lee's instrument, to see Lee's orders obeyed.

“Hood is wrong, Sorrel,” he repeated. “Tell him to drive north, his left to guide on the road.”

Sorrel bit his lip. “General Hood says if there is any other way the attack can be made, any other way at all, it would be better than this.” And he said urgently: “Also, General Law's scouts report Meade's trains, almost unguarded, just south of Round Top. A move to the right would bring us on them, and on Meade's flank and rear.”

Longstreet almost smiled at the irony of this suggestion. He had proposed this morning exactly the same thing; yes and last night too. But General Lee would not listen. Well, it was too late to renew that argument now. From the peach orchard, enemy guns began an irregular fire on Hood's brigades.

“Say to General Hood,” Longstreet directed in a flat tone, “that General Lee's orders are to attack up the Emmitsburg road.”

He felt Sorrel's surprise and wonder as the other departed to bear this message. Longstreet turned to go to McLaws, riding out of the corner of the woods and across an open field where a few scattering trees along a fence to his right gave him some slight concealment from the enemy in the peach orchard. He and the little knot of horsemen who followed him made an attractive target for any alert Yankee gunner; but in his present mood he did not greatly care. Before he
had gone far, a horseman came in haste to overtake him. This was Captain Hamilton of Hood's staff.

“General Hood has now completely developed the enemy line, sir,” Captain Hamilton reported. “He fears an attack as ordered can accomplish nothing and requests permission to move to his right as offering better work.”

Longstreet did not check his horse. “General Lee's orders, Captain,” he said in even tones, “are to attack up the road.”

He rode on, his head bowed now in a deep depression. The fact that first McLaws and now Hood asked the plan of attack be changed was proof enough it was unsound; but he himself had urged as strongly as he could this march to the right which Hood now proposed, and Lee had overruled him. Not even Lee, the kindliest of men, would forgive a third insistence.

He had to meet one more appeal when Colonel Sellers of Hood's staff came with a third urgent message. Longstreet gnawed at his mustache, but he was in no doubt what his reply would be. Without having seen the enemy position, relying on the reconnaissance of General Pendleton and Captain Johnston, Lee had ordered this attack; and he had refused to consider the very maneuver which Longstreet last night and this morning, and Law and Hood now on the field itself advised.

Then there was no more to be said; the responsibility was Lee's. When Colonel Sellers was done, without checking his horse, without looking at the Colonel, Longstreet spoke slow words like bludgeons. “Please repeat to General Hood that General Lee's orders are to attack up the Emmitsburg road.”