into his temple. He looked away. There was no time for that now.
Raising his held glasses, he scanned the road they had just retreated down only minutes before. These damn Pennsylvania farmers had made the bridge spanning the river of stone, impossible to destroy. On the far side of the stream, a quarter mile away, hundreds of Yankee troopers were swarming out to either flank, riding hard, while in the center a regiment or more were dismounted, coming in on foot Already the snap whine of their carbine Are was whisking past him, the angry, beelike buzz of.52-caliber rounds cutting the air.
Along the banks of the creek his men were spreading out as well, horse holders moving to the rear, dismounted troopers, most armed with muzzle-loading rifles, a few with the precious Sharps carbines their opponents carried. His own battery of horse artillery was up, pounding away, struggling to keep at bay the two batteries of Yankee artillery shelling the line.
The battle had been a running engagement for the last fifteen miles, opening with skirmishing just before noon, and then a full-blown run of ten miles back to this river. He had led half a dozen counter-charges. In the past one such charge would have sent them reeling, half the Yankees falling off their horses in the rout
This was different, damn different. The Yankees fell back in order as each charge advanced, and then his boys would hit a wall of fire from dismounted troopers behind a fence row, an embankment, a tree lot that would empty a dozen saddles, and he would be forced to fall back. All the time, flanking forces, at least a regiment in strength to north or south, would range out, trying to pincer in, forcing him to fall back yet again.
Focusing his field glasses on the road, he saw what appeared to be a general and his staff, directly in the middle of the road, arrogant, unmoving as a shell detonated nearby. No one he recognized. It must be that Grierson, the raider from Mississippi and Louisiana that the papers had made such a fuss over.
Behind him the last of the Jeff Davis Regiment was up, recalled from its ride toward Downington, but the horses were blown even as they arrived to join their comrades from Cobb's legion and the First and Second South Carolina. In fact, all his horses were blown after this running four-hour battle.
They had taken a few prisoners in the last skirmish before pulling back to the river. The Yankee troopers were arrogant, lean, as weather-beaten as his own. Men from an Illinois regiment boasted that Grierson had sworn an oath to entertain Hampton for dinner before shipping him to the prison camp at Elmira.
The prisoners, still under escort, were sitting nearby, now watching the battle with detached amusement, the way prisoners did when they knew they were safe. He could hear them calmly discussing the spreading fight like professionals, pointing out with glee their own regiment, advancing on foot in the center, the flanking forces even now ranging far outward, a couple of miles away, to the north and south, dust the only indicator of their movements.
He walked over toward them and they looked up. Their leader, a lieutenant, got to his feet and with just the slightest look of mocking disdain offered a salute, which Wade did not return.
'Getting hot for ya, General?' a sergeant nursing a wounded hand asked, looking up at him, shifting a chaw of tobacco in his mouth.
'Were you part of the raid with Grierson out west?' Wade asked.
The lieutenant grinned.
'Sure as hell was. Rode from one end of Mississippi to the other in three weeks. Never seen so many rebels running in my entire life. Almost as many as we seen running today.'
'You damn Yankee.' One of Wade's staff started to step forward, and the lieutenant eyed him coldly. Wade extended his hand, motioning for his man to stop.
The wounded sergeant chuckled and grinned.
'You ain't facing the Army of the Potomac today, General. You're getting a taste of Ulysses S. Grant and his men from the western armies,' the sergeant said.
Wade nodded thoughtfully. These men were different, very different, more like his own even, the way they looked in threadbare uniforms, the sergeant with a patch on his knee, the lieutenant's hat faded, sweat soaked, his uniform jacket just a private's sack coat with shoulder bars. There was no Army of the Potomac spit and polish here. They seemed to take an easy pride in themselves.
'How does it feel to be prisoners?' one of Wade's staff snapped.
'Oh, not for long we reckon. The ball's just started, General,' the lieutenant replied, and the three men sitting behind him nodded. 'It's a long way back across the river for you, isn't it? Kinda figure we'll be hosting you in a day or two.'
'If crossing the river is even our intent.'
The lieutenant just smiled and did not reply.
'You'll be well treated. I'll have a surgeon check your sergeant. If at the end of the day there's prisoners to be exchanged, I'll see you're passed back through the lines.'
'Thank you, sir,' the lieutenant replied and this time the man's arrogance dropped a bit
Wade started to turn away. He caught the eye of the sergeant, who continued to grin while staring at him, as if the man held a deep secret. The look was momentarily unnerving. These men were not beaten, not by a long stretch.
Another shell shrieked overhead, the wind of its passage buffeting Wade. Those gunners were good, damn good, ignoring the counter-battery fire for the moment, concentrating on his own knot of staff and observers, the other guns pounding the approach to the bridge.
He surveyed his line. The battle front was more than half a mile across. Troops had been detached to the flanks to cover fords, burn any bridges, and keep an eye on the flanking force. Already he could sense that their main effort was shifting southward, an obvious move to try and cut him off from running back toward the Susquehanna.
Like hell. It was time Grierson and this upstart army from the West were taught a lesson on how Confederate cavalry in the East could fight and knock some of the overbearing confidence out of them. He would dig in here, along the river, and let them come. By evening, the first North Carolina heading toward Reading should be back, hitting them in the flank. He would hold right here and let them try and take this position, then, when the timing was right, mount up and counter-charge, driving them back toward Harrisburg.
Lee had sent him across the river to gather intelligence and sow panic. That mission had yet to be accomplished. By tomorrow he'd have Grierson bloodied and on the run. If this was to be the opening fight between the Army of Northern Virginia and this Grant and his so-called Army of the Susquehanna, it damn well better be a Confederate victory, no matter what the cost.
The army, his army, was on the march. He had picked a spot atop the river bluff, sitting astride his charger, the road from the ferry dock weaving up from the river's edge. The river itself was swarming with activity, dozens of ships moving back and forth, the huge ferries of the railroad, each one capable of moving a thousand men, an entire battery of guns, or a hundred troopers and their mounts. Dozens of smaller boats, some of them side-wheel or stem-wheel steamers, others barges pushed by steam tugs, were pushing across as well, again loaded with troops. One of the two big railroad ferries was bringing over twenty or more supply wagons with their teams of mules.
So far it was all going without a hitch. A few horses had panicked and gone into the river, one man was reported dead drunk and falling off a boat loaded down with pack and rifle.
Engineering troops from New York were already hard at work, throwing down split logs to corduroy the road up from the docks, and a thousand contraband laborers were working beside them, many of them having worked on the riverboats and ferries repairing docks damaged by rebel raiders the month before after the mad retreat from Baltimore.
A serpentine column of men were coming up the slope, boys of his old Second Division, Humphrey's men, Brewster's brigade, New Yorkers!
He nodded to the bandmaster standing by his side. The officer was well decked out in full dress uniform, huge bearskin cap, the afternoon sun glinting off all his gold braid. The bandmaster saluted with his staff, turned, and held it aloft, announcing the song.
After the initial wave of a brigade had swept across and secured the heights, he had made certain that a band was ferried across, in fact every band from his old Third Corps, a couple of hundred men in total, along with dozens of drummers.
