Michael Shaara - The Killer Angels

Maps by Don Pitcher

To Lila (old George)... in whom I am well pleased

TO THE READER

This is the story of the Battle of Gettysburg, told from the viewpoints of

Robert E. Lee and James Longstreet and some of the other men who fought there.

Stephen Crane once said that he wrote The Red Badge of Courage because reading

the cold history was not enough; he wanted to know what it was like to be

there, what the weather was like, what men's faces looked like. In order to

live it he had to write it. This book was written for much the same reason.

You may find it a different story from the one you learned in school. There

have been many versions of that battle and that war. I have therefore avoided

historical opinions and gone back primarily to the words of the men

themselves, their letters and other documents. I have not consciously changed

any fact. I have condensed some of the action, for the sake of clarity, and

eliminated some minor characters, for brevity; but though I have often had to

choose between conflicting viewpoints, I have not knowingly violated the

action. I have changed some of the language. It was a naive and sentimental

time, and men spoke in windy phrases. I thought it necessary to update some of

the words so that the religiosity and naivetZ of the time, which were genuine,

would not seem too quaint to the modern ear. I hope I will be forgiven that.

The interpretation of character is my own.

MICHAEL SHAARA.

FOREWORD

JUNE 1863

I. The Armies

On June 15 the first troops of the Army of Northern Virginia, Robert E. Lee

commanding, slip across the Potomac at Williamsport and begin the invasion of

the North.

It is an army of seventy thousand men. They are rebels and volunteers. They

are mostly unpaid and usually self-equipped. It is an army of remarkable

unity, fighting for disunion. It is Anglo-Saxon and Protestant. Though there

are many men who cannot read or write, they all speak English. They share

common customs and a common faith and they have been consistently victorious

against superior members. They have as solid a faith in their leader as any

veteran army that ever marched. They move slowly north behind the Blue Ridge,

using the mountains to screen their movements. Their main objective is to draw

the Union Army out into the open where it can be destroyed. By the end of the

month they are closing on Harrisburg, having spread panic and rage and despair

through the North.

Late in June the Army of the Potomac, ever slow to move, turns north at last

to begin the great pursuit which will end at Gettysburg. It is a strange new

kind of army, a polyglot mass of vastly dissimilar men, fighting for union.

There are strange accents and strange religions and many who do not speak

English at all. Nothing like this army has been seen upon the planet. It is a

collection of men from many different places who have seen much defeat and

many commanders. They are volunteers: last of the great volunteer armies, for

the draft is beginning that summer in the North. They have lost faith in their

leaders but not in themselves. They think this will be the last battle, and

they are glad that it is to be fought on their own home ground.

They come up from the South, eighty thousand men, up the narrow roads that

converge toward the blue mountains. The country through which they march is

some of the most beautiful country in the Union. It is the third summer of the

war.

II. The Men

Robert Edward Lee. He is in his fifty-seventh year. Five feet ten inches tall

but very short in the legs, so that when he rides a horse he seems much

taller. Red-faced, like all the Lees, white-bearded, dressed in an old gray

coat and a gray felt hat, without insignia, so that he is mistaken sometimes

for an elderly major of dignity. An honest man, a gentleman. He has no

"vices." He does not drink or smoke or gamble or chase women. He does not read

novels or plays; he thinks they weaken the mind. He does not own slaves nor

believe in slavery, but he does not believe that the Negro "in the present

stage of his development," can be considered the equal of the white man. He is

a man in control.

He does not lose his temper nor his faith; he never complains. He has been

down that spring with the first assault of the heart disease, which will

eventually kill him.

He believes absolutely in God. He loves Virginia above all, the mystic dirt of

home. He is the most beloved man in either army.

He marches knowing that a letter has been prepared by Jefferson Davis, a

letter which offers peace. It is to be placed on the desk of Abraham Lincoln

the day after Lee has destroyed the Army of the Potomac somewhere north of

Washington.

James Longstreet, Lieutenant General, forty-two. Lee's second in command. A

large man, larger than Lee, full-bearded, blue-eyed, ominous, slow-talking,

crude. He is one of the first of the new soldiers, the cold-eyed men who have

sensed the birth of the new war of machines. He has invented a trench and a

theory of defensive warfare, but in that courtly company few will listen. He

is one of the few high officers in that army not from Virginia.

That winter, in Richmond, three of his children have died within a week, of a

fever. Since that time he has withdrawn, no longer joins his men for the poker

games he once loved, for which he was famous.

They call him "Old Pete" and sometimes "The Dutchman." His headquarters is

always near Lee, and men remark upon the intimacy and some are jealous of it.

He has opposed the invasion of Pennsylvania, but once the army is committed he

no longer opposes. Yet he will speak his mind; he will always speak his mind.

Lee calls him, with deep affection, "my old war horse." Since the death of

Stonewall Jackson he has been Lee's right hand. He is a stubborn man.

George Pickett, Major General, thirty-eight. Gaudy and lovable, long-haired,

perfumed. Last in his class at West Point, he makes up for a lack of wisdom

with a lusty exuberance. In love with a girl half his age, a schoolgirl from

Lynchburg named LaSalle Corbelle, to whom he has vowed ne'er to touch liquor.

Received his appointment to West Point through the good offices of Abraham

Lincoln, a personal friend, and no one now can insult Abe Lincoln in Pickett's

presence, although Lincoln is not only the enemy but the absolute utterest

enemy of all.

On the march toward Gettysburg Pickett's Virginia Division is by a trick of

fate last in line. He worries constantly that he will miss the last great

battle of the war.

Richard Ewell, Lieutenant General, forty-six. Egg-bald, one-legged, recently

married. (He refers to his new wife absent-mindedly as "Mrs. Brown.")

Eccentric, brilliant, chosen out of all Lee's officers to succeed to a portion

of Stonewall Jackson's old command. But he has lost something along with the

leg that a soldier sometimes loses with the big wounds. He approaches

Gettysburg unsure of himself, in command of twenty thousand men.

Ambrose Powell Hill, Major General, thirty-seven. Has risen to command the

other part of Jackson's old corps. A moody man, often competent, bad-tempered,

wealthy, aspires to a place in Richmond society, frets and broods and fights

with superiors. He wears a red shirt into battle. He should be a fine soldier,

and sometimes is, but he is often ill for no apparent reason. He does not like

to follow orders. At Gettysburg he will command a corps, and he will be sick

again.

Lewis Armistead, Brigadier General, forty-six. Commander of one of George

Pickett's brigades. They call him "Lo," which is short for Lothario, which is

meant to be witty, for he is a shy and silent man, a widower. Descended from a

martial family, he has a fighter's spirit, is known throughout the old army as

the man who, while a cadet at the Point, was suspended for hitting Jubal Early

in the head with a plate. Has developed over long years of service a deep

affection for Winfield Scott Hancock, who fights now with the Union. Armistead

looks forward to the reunion with Hancock, which will take place at

Gettysburg.

Richard Brooke Garnett, Brigadier General, forty-four. Commands the second of

Pickett's brigades. A dark-eyed, silent, tragic man. Followed Jackson in

command of the old Stonewall Brigade; at Kernstown he has made the mistake of

withdrawing his men from an impossible position.

Jackson is outraged, orders a court-martial which never convenes. Jackson dies

before Gamett, accused of cowardice, can clear his name and redeem his honor,

the honor which no man who knows him has ever doubted. He comes to Gettysburg

a tortured man, too ill to walk. He believes that Jackson deliberately lied.

In that camp there is nothing more important than honor.

J. E. B. Stuart, Lieutenant General, thirty. The laughing banjo player, the

superb leader of cavalry who has ridden rings around the Union Army. A fine

soldier, whose reports are always accurate, but a man who loves to read about

himself in the Richmond newspapers. His mission that month is to keep Lee

informed of the movement of the Union Army. He fails.

Jubal Early, Major General, forty-six. Commander of one of Ewell's divisions.

A dark, cold, icy man, bitter, alone. Left the Point to become a prosecuting

attorney, to which he is well suited. A competent soldier, but a man who works

with an eye to the future, a slippery man, a careful soldier; he will build

his reputation whatever the cost. Dick Ewell defers to him. Longstreet

despises him. Lee makes do with the material at hand. Lee calls him "my bad

old man."

These men wore blue:

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Colonel, thirty-four. He prefers to be called

"Lawrence." A professor of rhetoric at Bowdoin College, sometimes professor of

"Natural and Revealed Religion," successor to the chair of the famed Professor

Stowe, husband to Harriet Beecher. Tall and rather handsome, attractive to

women, somewhat boyish, a clean and charming person. An excellent student, Phi

Beta Kappa, he speaks seven languages and has a beautiful singing voice, but

he has wanted all his life to be a soldier.

The College will not free him for war, but in the summer of 1862 he requests a

sabbatical for study in Europe. When it is granted he proceeds not to France

but to the office of the Governor of Maine, where he receives a commission in

the 20th Regiment of Infantry, Maine Volunteers, and marches off to war with a

vast faith in the brotherhood of man.

Spends the long night at Fredericksburg piling corpses in front of himself to

shield him from bullets. Comes to Gettysburg with that hard fragment of the

Regiment, which has survived. One week before the battle he is given command

of the Regiment. His younger brother Thomas becomes his aide. Thomas too has

yearned to be a soldier.

The wishes of both men are to be granted on the dark rear slope of a small

rocky hill called Little Round Top.

John Buford, Major General, thirty-seven. A cavalry soldier, restless and

caged in the tamed and political East, who loves the great plains and the

memory of snow. A man with an eye for the good ground, already badly wounded

and not long to live, weary of stupidity and politics and bloody military

greed. At Thorofare Gap he held against Longstreet for six hours, waiting for

help that never came.

Too good an officer for his own advancement, he rides a desk in Washington

until luck puts him back in the field, where he is given two brigades of

cavalry and told to trail Lee's army. He is first into Gettysburg, where he

lifts up his eyes to the hills. He is a man who knows the value of ground.

John Reynolds, Major General, forty-two. Perhaps the finest soldier in the

Union Army. Like Lee before him, a former commander of West Point, a courteous

man, military, a marvelous horseman, another gentleman. His home is not far

from Gettysburg. He has fallen in love late in life, but the girl is Catholic

and Reynolds has not yet told his Protestant family, but he wears her ring on

a chain around his neck, under his uniform. Early that month he is called to

Washington, where he is offered command of the Army. But he has seen the

military results of maneuvering by armchair commanders Halleck and Stanton,

and he insists that the Army cannot be commanded from Washington, that he

cannot accept command without a free hand. He therefore respectfully declines.

The honor passes to George Meade, who is not even given the option but ordered

to command. And thus it is John Reynolds, not Meade, who rides into Gettysburg

on the morning of the First Day.

George Gordon Meade, Major General, forty-seven. Vain and bad-tempered,

balding, full of self-pity. He takes command of the Army on a Sunday, June 28,

two days before the battle. He wishes to hold a Grand Review, but there turns

out not to be time. He plans a line of defense along Pipe Creek, far from

Gettysburg, in the unreal hope that Lee will attack him on ground of his own

choosing. No decision he makes at Gettysburg will be decisive, except perhaps

the last.

Winfield Scott Hancock, Major General, thirty-nine. Armistead's old friend. A

magnetic man with a beautiful wife. A painter of talent, a picture-book

General. Has a tendency to gain weight, but at this moment he is still young

and slim, still a superb presence, a man who arrives on the battlefield in

spotlessly clean linen and never keeps his head down. In the fight to come he

will be everywhere, and in the end he will be waiting for Lew Armistead at the

top of Cemetery Hill.

All that month there is heat and wild rain. Cherries are ripening over all

Pennsylvania, and the men gorge as they march. The civilians have fled and

houses are dark. The armies move north through the heat and the dust.

"When men take up arms to set other men free, there is something sacred and

holy in the warfare."

-Woodrow Wilson

"I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my

country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my

country."

-E. M. Forster

"With all my devotion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an

American citizen, I have not been able to raise my hand against my relatives,

my children, my home. I have therefore resigned my commission in the Army..."

-from a letter of Robert E. Lee

Mr. Mason: How do you justify your acts?

John Brown: I think, my friend, you are guilty of a great wrong against God

and humanity-I say it without wishing to be offensive-and it would be

perfectly right for anyone to interfere with you so far as to free those you

willfully and wickedly hold in bondage. I do not say this insultingly.

Mr. Mason: I understand that.

-from an interview with John Brown after his capture

MONDAY, JUNE 29, 1863

Mine eyes have seen the glory...

1. THE SPY.

He rode into the dark of the woods and dismounted.

He crawled upward on his belly over cool rocks out into the sunlight, and

suddenly he was in the open and he could see for miles, and there was the

whole vast army below him, filling the valley like a smoking river. It came

out of a blue rainstorm in the east and overflowed the narrow valley road,

coiling along a stream, narrowing and choking a white bridge, fading out into

the yellowish dust of June but still visible on the farther road beyond the

blue hills, spiked with flags and guidons like a great chopped bristly snake,

the snake ending headless in a blue wall of summer rain.

The spy tucked himself behind a boulder and began counting flags. Must be

twenty thousand men, visible all at once. Two whole Union Corps. He could make

out the familiar black hats of the Iron Brigade, troops belonging to John

Reynolds' First Corps. He looked at his watch, noted the time. They were

coming very fast. The Army of the Potomac had never moved this fast. The day

was murderously hot and there was no wind and the dust hung above the army

like a yellow veil. He thought: there'll be some of them die of the heat

today. But they are coming faster than they ever came before.

He slipped back down into the cool dark and rode slowly downhill toward the

silent empty country to the north. With luck he could make the Southern line

before nightfall. After nightfall it would be dangerous. But he must not seem

to hurry. The horse was already tired. And yet there was the pressure of that

great blue army behind him, building like water behind a cracking dam. He rode

out into the open, into the land between the armies.

There were fat Dutch barns, prim German orchards. But there were no cattle in

the fields and no horses, and houses everywhere were empty and dark. He was

alone in the heat and the silence, and then it began to rain and he rode head

down into monstrous lightning. All his life he had been afraid of lightning

but he kept riding. He did not know where the Southern headquarters was but he

knew it had to be somewhere near Chambersburg. He had smelled out the shape of

Lee's army in all the rumors and bar talk and newspapers and hysteria he had

drifted through all over eastern Pennsylvania, and on that day he was perhaps

the only man alive who knew the positions of both armies. He carried the

knowledge with a hot and lovely pride. Lee would be near Chambersburg, and

wherever Lee was Longstreet would not be far away. So finding the headquarters

was not the problem. The problem was riding through a picket line in the dark.

The rain grew worse. He could not even move in under a tree because of the

lightning. He had to take care not to get lost. He rode quoting Shakespeare

from memory, thinking of the picket line ahead somewhere in the dark. The sky

opened and poured down on him and he rode on: it will be rain tonight: let it

come down. That was a speech of murderers. He had been an actor once. He had

no stature and a small voice and there were no big parts for him until the war

came, and now he was the only one who knew how good he was. If only they could

see him work, old cold Longstreet and the rest. But everyone hated spies. I

come a single spy. Wet single spy. But they come in whole battalions. The rain

began to ease off and he spurred the horse to a trot. My kingdom for a horse.

Jolly good line. He went on, reciting Henry the Fifth aloud: "Once more into

the breech..."

Late that afternoon he came to a crossroad and the sign of much cavalry having

passed this way a few hours ago. His own way led north to Chambersburg, but he

knew that Longstreet would have to know who these people were so close to his

line. He debated a moment at the crossroads, knowing there was no time. A

delay would cost him daylight. Yet he was a man of pride and the tracks drew

him. Perhaps it was only Jeb Stuart. The spy thought hopefully, wistfully: if

it's Stuart I can ask for an armed escort all the way home. He turned and

followed the tracks.

After a while he saw a farmhouse and a man standing out in a field, in a peach

orchard, and he spurred that way. The man was small and bald with large round

arms and spoke very bad English. The spy went into his act: a simpleminded

farmer seeking a runaway wife, terrified of soldiers.

The bald man regarded him sweatily, disgustedly, told him the soldiers just

gone by were "plu" soldiers, Yankees. The spy asked: what town lies yonder?

and the farmer told him Gettysburg, but the name meant nothing. The spy turned

and spurred back to the crossroads. Yankee cavalry meant John Buford's column.

Moving lickety-split. Where was Stuart? No escort now. He rode back again

toward the blue hills. But the horse could not be pushed. He had to dismount

and walk.

That was the last sign of Yankees. He was moving up across South Mountain; he

was almost home. Beyond South Mountain was Lee and, of course, Longstreet. A

strange friendship; grim and gambling Longstreet, formal and pious old Bobby

Lee. The spy wondered at it, and then the rain began again, bringing more

lightning but at least some cooler air, and he tucked himself in under his hat

and went back to Hamlet. Old Jackson was dead. Good night, sweet Prince, and

flights of angels sing thee to thy rest...

He rode into darkness. No longer any need to hurry. He left the roadway at

last and moved out in to a field away from the lightning and the trees and sat

in the rain to eat a lonely supper, trying to make up his mind whether it was

worth the risk of going on. He was very close; he could begin to feel them up

ahead. There was no way of knowing when or where, but suddenly they would be

there in the road, stepping phantomlike out of the trees wearing those sick

eerie smiles, and other men with guns would suddenly appear all around him,

prodding him in the back with hard steel barrels, as you prod an animal, and

he would have to be lucky, because few men rode out at night on good and

honest business, not now, this night, in this invaded country.

He rode slowly up the road, not really thinking, just moving, reluctant to

stop. He was weary. Fragments of Hamlet flickered in his brain: If it be not

now, yet it will come. Ripeness is all. Now there's a good part. A town ahead.

A few lights. And then he struck the picket line.

There was a presence in the road, a liquid Southern voice. He saw them

outlined in lightning, black ragged figures rising around him. A sudden

lantern poured yellow light. He saw one bleak hawkish grinning face; hurriedly

he mentioned Longstreet's name. With some you postured and with some you

groveled and with some you were imperious.

But you could do that only by daylight, when you could see the faces and gauge

the reaction. And now he was too tired and cold. He sat and shuddered: an

insignificant man on a pale and muddy horse. He turned out to be lucky. There

was a patient sergeant with a long gray beard who put him under guard and sent

him along up the dark road to Longstreet's headquarters.

He was not safe even now, but he could begin to relax.

He rode up the long road between picket fires, and he could hear them singing

in the rain, chasing each other in the dark of the trees. A fat and happy

army, roasting meat and fresh bread, telling stories in the dark. He began to

fall asleep on the horse; he was home. But they did not like to see him sleep,

and one of them woke him up to remind him, cheerily, that if there was no one

up there who knew him, why, then, unfortunately, they'd have to hang him, and

the soldier said it just to see the look on his face, and the spy shivered,

wondering. Why do there have to be men like that, men who enjoy another man's

dying?

Longstreet was not asleep. He lay on the cot watching the lightning flare in

the door of the tent. It was very quiet in the grove and there was the sound

of the raindrops continuing to fall from the trees although the rain had

ended. When Sorrel touched him on the arm he was glad of it; he was thinking

of his dead children.

"Sir? You asked to be awakened if Harrison came back."

"Yes." Longstreet got up quickly and put on the old blue robe and the carpet

slippers. He was a very big man and he was full-bearded and wild-haired. He

thought of the last time he'd seen the spy, back in Virginia, tiny man with a

face like a weasel: "And where will your headquarters be, General, up there in

Pennsylvania? T'is a big state indeed."

Him standing there with cold gold clutched in a dirty hand.

And Longstreet had said icily, cheerily, "It will be where it will be. If you

cannot find the headquarters of this whole army you cannot be much of a spy."

And the spy had said stiffly, "Scout, sir. I am a scout. And I am a patriot,

sir."

Longstreet had grinned. We are all patriots. He stepped out into the light. He

did not know what to expect. He had not really expected the spy to come back

at all.

The little man was there: a soggy spectacle on a pale and spattered horse. He

sat grinning wanly from under the floppy brim of a soaked and dripping hat.

Lightning flared behind him; he touched his cap.

"Your servant. General. May I come down?"

Longstreet nodded. The guard backed off. Longstreet told Sorrel to get some

coffee. The spy slithered down from the horse and stood grinning foolishly,

shivering, mouth slack with fatigue.

"Well, sir-" the spy chuckled, teeth chattering-"you see, I was able to find

you after all."

Longstreet sat at the camp table on a wet seat, extracted a cigar, lighted it.

The spy sat floppily, mouth still open, breathing deeply.

"It has been a long day. I've ridden hard all this day."

"What have you got?"

"I came through the pickets at night, you know. That can be very touchy."

Longstreet nodded. He watched, he waited. Sorrel came with steaming coffee;

the cup burned Longstreet's fingers.

Sorrel sat, gazing curiously, distastefully at the spy.

The spy guzzled, then sniffed Longstreet's fragrant smoke. Wistfully: "I say.

General, I don't suppose you've got another of those? Good Southern tobacco?"

"Directly," Longstreet said. "What have you got?"

"I've got the position of the Union Army."

Longstreet nodded, showing nothing. He had not known the Union Army was on the

move, was within two hundred miles, was even this side of the Potomac, but he

nodded and said nothing. The spy asked for a map and began pointing out the

positions of the corps.

"They're coming in seven corps. I figure at least eighty thousand men,

possibly as much as a hundred thousand.

When they're all together they'll outnumber you, but they're not as strong as

they were; the two-year enlistments are running out. The First Corps is here.

The Eleventh is right behind it. John Reynolds is in command of the lead

elements. I saw him at Taneytown this morning."

"Reynolds," Longstreet said.

"Yes, sir."

"You saw him yourself?"

The spy grinned, nodded, rubbed his nose, chuckled.

"So close I could touch him. It was Reynolds all right."

"This morning. At Taneytown."

"Exactly. You didn't know any of that, now did you, General?" The spy bobbed

his head with delight. "You didn't even know they was on the move, did ye? I

thought not. You wouldn't be spread out so thin if you knowed they was

comin'."

Longstreet looked at Sorrel. The aide shrugged silently If this was true,

there would have been some word. Longstreet's mind moved over it slowly He

said: "How did you know we were spread out?"

"I smelled it out." The spy grinned, fox-like, toothy "Listen, General, I'm

good at this business."

"Tell me what you know of our position."

"Well, now I can't be too exact on this, 'cause I aint scouted you myself, but

I gather that you're spread from York up to Harrisburg and then back to

Chambersburg, with the main body around Chambersburg and General Lee just

'round the bend."

It was exact. Longstreet thought: if this one knows it, they will know it. He

said slowly, "We've had no word of Union movement."

The spy bobbed with joy "I knew it. Thass why I hurried. Came through that

picket line in the dark and all. I don't know if you realize, General-"

Sorrell said coldly, "Sir, don't you think, if this man's story was true, that

we would have heard something?"

Sorrel did not approve of spies. The spy grimaced, blew.

"You aint exactly on friendly ground no more. Major. This aint Virginia no

more."

True, Longstreet thought. But there would have been something. Stuart?

Longstreet said, "General Stuart's cavalry went out a few days back. He hasn't

reported any movement."

The spy shrugged, exasperated, glooming at Sorrel.

Sorrel turned his back, looked at his fingernails.

Longstreet said, "What have you heard of Stuart?"

"Not much. He's riding in the north somewhere. Stirring up headlines and fuss,

but I never heard him do any real damage."

Longstreet said, "If the Union Army were as close as you say, one would

think-" "Well, I'm damned," the spy said, a small rage flaming.

"I come through that picket line in the dark and all. Listen, General, I tell

you this: I don't know what old Stuart is doing and I don't care, but I done

my job and this is a fact.

This here same afternoon of this here day I come on the tracks of Union

cavalry thick as fleas, one whole brigade and maybe two, and them bluebellies

weren't no four hours hard ride from this here now spot, and that, by God, is

the Lord's truth." He blew again, meditating. Then he added, by way of

amendment, "Buford's column, I think it was. To be exact."

Longstreet thought: can't be true. But he was an instinctive man, and suddenly

his brain knew and his own temper boiled. Jeb Stuart... was joyriding. God

damn him. Longstreet turned to Sorrel.

"All right. Major. Send to General Lee. I guess we'll have to wake him up. Get

my horse."

Sorrel started to say something, but he knew that you did not argue with

Longstreet. He moved.

The spy said delightedly, "General Lee? Do I get to see General Lee? Well

now." He stood up and took off the ridiculous hat and smoothed wet plastered

hair across a balding skull. He glowed. Longstreet got the rest of the

information and went back to his tent and dressed quickly.

If the spy was right the army was in great danger. They could be cut apart and

cut off from home and destroyed in detail, piece by piece. If the spy was

right, then Lee would have to turn, but the old man did not believe in spies

nor in any information you had to pay for, had not approved of the money spent

or even the idea behind it. And the old man had faith in Stuart, and why in

God's name had Stuart sent nothing, not even a courier, because even Stuart

wasn't fool enough to let the whole damned Army of the Potomac get this close

without word, not one damned lonesome word.

Longstreet went back out into the light. He had never believed in this

invasion. Lee and Davis together had overruled him. He did not believe in

offensive warfare when the enemy outnumbered you and outgunned you and would

come looking for you anyway if you waited somewhere on your own ground. He had

not argued since leaving home, but the invasion did not sit right in his craw;

the whole scheme lay edgewise and raspy in his brain, and treading here on

alien ground, he felt a cold wind blowing, a distant alarm. Only instinct. No

facts as yet. The spy reminded him about the cigar. It was a short way through

the night to Lee's headquarters, and they rode past low sputtering campfires

with the spy puffing exuberant blue smoke like a happy furnace.

" 'Tis a happy army you've got here, General," the spy chatted with approval.

"I felt it the moment I crossed the picket line. A happy army, eager for the

fight. Singing and all. You can feel it in the air. Not like them bluebellies.

A desperate tired lot. I tell you. General, this will be a factor.

The bluebellies is almost done. Why, do you know what I see everywhere I go?

Disgraceful, it is. On every street in every town, able-bodied men. Just

standing there, by the thousands, reading them poor squeaky pitiful newspapers

about this here mighty invasion and the last gasp of the Union and how every

man must take up arms, haw." The spy guffawed. "Like a bunch of fat women at

church.

The war's almost over. You can feel it. General. The end is in the air."

Longstreet said nothing. He was beginning to think of what to do if the spy

was right. If he could not get Lee to turn now there could be disaster. And

yet if the Union Army was truly out in the open at last there was a great

opportunity: a sudden move south, between Hooker and Washington, cut them off

Michael Shaara - The Killer Angels

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