pushing forward.
'General Longstreet!'
Pete turned, recognizing the voice. It was Lee. 'Are you all right, sir?' Lee asked. Pete realized that in his numbness he had failed to salute, and now did so.
'Yes, sir, I am unhurt'
'Fine then, sir. But remember, I ordered you to take care of yourself,' Lee said chidingly.
'Sir, you are under fire as well.' Lee forced a weak smile and nodded.
'Can you hold here, and maintain the action on this front?' he asked.
'Sir, they are falling back.'
Lee stood up slightly in his stirrups and surveyed the ground ahead. His features were grim, lips tightly compressed. 'Yes, I see,' he replied softly.
'General Lee, that is Sixth Corps falling back. We now know for certain where they are. I think they are out of this fight In fact, after this slaughterhouse, I think Meade's entire army is out of the fight. They will not find the will to attack again this day.'
Lee said nothing for. a moment, unmoving though random shots were still clipping the air around the two.
'General Longstreet, the orders for you are still the same.'
Lee reached into his pocket and pulled out his watch. 'It's nearly one-thirty. We might have just enough daylight, six hours, to finish this once and for all. I am leaving here now. You know what to do.'
'Yes, sir.'
Lee snapped off a salute and, calling for Taylor, he galloped off.
'Come on!'
Sergeant Hazner was scrambling up out of the trench, the men around Williamson following.
Hazner looked back at him, grinning.
'I told you you'd live through it The battle's over.' Hazner laughed.
They were the last words Williamson ever heard.
There was no pain, no fear, never a realization of how profoundly he had affected the battle, just a quiet going out, the rifle ball striking him in the left temple.
The breaking of the First and Second Divisions of Sixth Corps, there on the muddy slopes above Union Mills, precipitated a general rout all across the field. As the men swarmed back down the hill, the Third Division of the Sixth attempted to hold on in the first trench, but within minutes gave way, John Sedgwick, still not sure of what should be done, first ordering them to fall back, then for a moment reversing himself, as the realization came, with awful intensity, of what had just occurred. But to try and push the thirteen thousand survivors of his corps back into the fight in any organized manner was now beyond the ability of any mortal man.
Hancock, slung in a blanket carried by four men, was borne across the muddy pastures, and even in that moment of disarray and panic, he was a rallying point As word spread that their general was down, dozens of men came to his side, finally several hundred in all, forming a protective shield. Sedgwick rode past him, less than twenty yards away, not even aware of Hancock's presence.
'Cease fire.'
Henry, head bowed, turned away from his batteries and walked away. All was wreckage around him, dead horses, shattered caissons, dismounted cannons, a long line of dead gunners dragged to the rear. It was a terrible fact of his chosen profession of arms that artillerymen tended to suffer far more terrifying wounds than the infantry. Men had been torn in half by shells, impaled by flying splinters, burned from bursting ammunition wagons, crushed beneath recoiling or collapsing guns. He looked up at Meade and was startled by the sight of tears in the general's eyes.
'My God, Hunt' Meade said, still holding the dispatch from Washington, 'what have I done here?'
Henry looked back toward the enemy lines. Thousands of men were staggering back; the field seemed like a seething mass of floundering lost souls, coming back with heads bowed, the rain still lashing down, torn battle flags hanging limp.
'I'm going to try and rally the men,' Meade announced. 'Have your guns ready, Hunt'
'Rally the men? The guns ready?' Henry gasped. 'For what?'
Meade said nothing and, trailing a dejected staff, he started down the hill.
'Let us go in, sir,' Rodes cried, pointing at the broken forces streaming away, covering the pasture below.
Longstreet wearily shook his head.
'No, General Lee wants us to reform here.'
'We have them beaten now, sir, beaten.'
'I know that'
'Then let us go in.'
Longstreet held his hand out, motioning for Rodes to be silent
Some of the men along the line began to cheer. A soldier came in, triumphal, holding a torn and mud- splattered national flag aloft. That set off a scramble, with dozens climbing out of the trench to run down the slope in search of trophies.
'Stop those men!' Longstreet shouted.
Venable nodded and spurred his mount the horse so exhausted it whinnied in protest and then moved off at a slow trot nearly falling as they tried to go down the muddy forward slope of the trench.
'Reform your division, General Rodes. Rations should be coming up. Get your men some food; find water other than that down mere,' and he nodded toward the millpond, now a muddy brown with splashes of pink all along its banks.
'Why are we not attacking?'
'General Lee ordered it so. You saw what we just did to them. Broken or not we try and cross that field now, and it will be the same for us. We have shattered them, sir, but they are angry, as angry as we would be. They will turn and fight back. I know I would. Let us get them truly running first and then on other ground it will be finished.'
Pete lowered his head. 'And for God's sake, sir, get some volunteers down mere to help the wounded, theirs and ours. I want prisoners taken care of. Colors taken, returned here, and not to be dragged about. They deserve some respect sir, the same respect we would want.'
Rodes nodded.
'When this war is over,' Pete whispered, pointing toward the carnage, 'what will we say to each other then?'
With that he turned away, stepping around the wreckage, the chaos, pausing for a second to look at a sergeant cradling the body of a major, the sergeant rocking back and forth, telling the major over and over how sorry he was.
Longstreet walked off to be alone with his thoughts.
Of the nearly fifty thousand men who had advanced, including those men of the two divisions of Sickles who had attempted to engage Early, nearly eighteen thousand were dead, wounded, or captured. Of the roughly twenty-six thousand Confederates who had faced them, close to five thousand were down as well. The terror of the twelve hours along Antietam Creek, the horrendous losses of that bitter day, had been compressed into less than four hours.
Second Corps was forever finished as a fighting command. As Hancock was loaded into an ambulance, around him close to 70 percent of his men were casualties. All three division commanders were dead or dying. Ninety percent of the officers of colonel's rank or above were dead, wounded, or captured. Entire regiments had been swept off the roster of battle. Slocum's Twelfth Corps had fared nearly as badly. Slocum was unconscious, like Hancock disobeying orders and going forward to be with his men, knocked out by a bursting shell. Both of his divisional commanders were dead.
Dan Sickles, ever the survivor, was getting out Breaking off the engagement in which he had briefly committed two of his divisions, one of which was badly mauled, he was even now preparing to abandon the line.
Kelly, dying, had refused to let go of his flag, respectful Confederates kneeling by his side, a son of Ireland,
