He could see the touch of fear in their eyes. And he thought of the fear in the eyes of all those lying along the slope, in the eyes of the dead gazing up lifeless, the rain pooling on their still, gray faces.
He stood silent, looking at each in turn. 'I am taking direct command of this wing,' Lee announced. 'Longstreet has held at Union Mills and inflicted grievous losses. Meade's army is ready to collapse. We will be the decisive blow to finish him.'
He closed his eyes for a moment, haunting images floating before him. Think of that later, he told himself.
He looked back at Pickett, 'You will lead the assault, sir, supported by Hood and then Johnson. I want you into their rear, at Littlestown, by dark. We have four hours of daylight left I do not want another Chancellorsville or Second Manassas, with darkness allowing them to escape.
'You are to push on regardless of losses. You will be facing the remnant of only one corps, and they will be shaken, for surely word must be reaching them now of their failed assault at Union Mills.
'I expect you to be across the Baltimore Road by dusk. And I will be with you to the end.'
'General, sir,' Pickett interrupted, 'thank you for the honor and glory, sir. Virginia will bring victory this day, sir.'
Lee's features reddened. At this moment all the flourishes, all the high talk that had been so much a part of all of them, now seemed to have turned to ashes.
'War is hell, gentlemen,' Lee said, his voice icy. 'I pray that God will forgive us all for what we have done to each other this day. And General Pickett we will talk of victory when it is finally won, and not before.'
He said nothing more, stepping off the porch, walking toward Traveler, Walter holding the horse's reins. All gathered around the small farmhouse were silent Many stunned, more than a few nodding, features grim.
The Army of Northern Virginia had changed forever.
4:30 PM, JULY 4,1863
THE GRAND BATTERY-UNION MILLS
Henry walked down the battery line, glancing at each piece in turn. Occasionally he would pause and point one out 'This one,' he announced, and as he moved on, gunners would drive a spike into the breech touchhole with a mallet the rammer then slamming his tool down the bore, bending the spike inside the barrel, effectively destroying the gun. Others attacked the wheels with axes, cutting spokes until the piece collapsed.
It was almost like shooting a beloved pet an old companion.
There were not enough teams available to take out all the guns. Even if there were, the road heading north was clogged; chances were most of the guns tangled into the mess might wind up being abandoned anyhow before the day was done.
All had been silent for nearly an hour after Sedgwick's men crossed back over Pipe Creek. A few had hoped that the Confederates would impetuously countercharge, as they so often had done in the past Gunners muttered about what they would now do in turn, though all they had was roughly half a dozen rounds of canister per barrel.
Henry knew they wouldn't come. There was no need to. And the logic for their waiting finally was apparent when a growing thunder, to the west and norm, started to increase in volume, and ever so slowly shifting more and more to the north… behind their lines.
Lee was flanking yet again, this time driving to cut off the one paved and useful road out of this nightmare, the road back to the north and east The rebels in front had barred the road back to Washington, and now the line of retreat back to York and Harrisburg was being shut as well.
Word came by courier to get the guns out. The army was retreating.
From atop the ridge he could already see the exodus, columns of troops swinging onto the road, some marching in good order, others staggering from exhaustion, especially the men of the Sixth Corps, who had marched up this road on July 2nd to Gettysburg, turned around the following day to force march all that distance back, been thrown into a doomed assault, and now turned about yet again with orders to make for Gettysburg or Hanover once more. It was too much for many to bear, and in the pouring rain, before they had moved even half a mile, the straggling was massive, hundreds, and then thousands of men breaking column to just collapse or wander off to the side of the road, dejected, ignoring the threats and pleas of their officers.
As the batteries slowly began to work their way out of the bastion, Henry kept a close watch on the Confederate lines on the south side of the creek. He could sense that they were ready, just waiting, but would not be so foolish as to try and push in.
No, that would come later, this evening, when the road back to Littlestown, the turnoff to Hanover and York was packed with tens of thousands of exhausted, demoralized, and frightened men… when hundreds of ambulances and thousands of walking wounded clogged the pike. Then Longstreet would hit, and then the panic would truly begin.
Dejected, alone, Henry mounted, pulling the brim of his hat down low against the rain, and rode up the slope and over the hill, leaving Union Mills behind.
Chapter Nineteen
On the night of July 4, 1863, the old Army of the Potomac died
The cause of death could be traced back across an illness of a year or more, incompetence of commanders, the tragically bitter politics that had divided officers against each other, but most of all the disintegration of belief in those who led them by the weary foot soldiers who had seen defeat once too often.
Never in the history of the Republic had there been such an army. An army of idealisms, of volunteers willing to lay down their lives for such abstract ideals, the belief in the Republic that had called them to arms, a visceral sense that there was a destiny to that Republic, the 'city on the hill,' as their puritan forefathers had called it, 'the last best hope of mankind,' as their current president defined it For some there were other causes as well, a belief in a dream as defined in the Declaration, that all men were, indeed, created equal.
And never had so good an army been so ill served. Man for man, they were the equal of any soldiers in history; that had been proven in the cornfields of Antietam, before the sunken road at Fredericksburg, on Seminary Ridge in the first day of the Gettysburg campaign, and in the final closing hours, on the blood-soaked banks of Pipe Greek.
Few in those battered regiments knew even a fragment of the details that had led them to such a tragic moment, but those few fragments of knowledge were enough. They had fought with a gallantry unparalleled in history… it was, yet again, their commanders who had failed them. Whether it was incompetence, self-serving interests, cowardice, or ignorance, the bitter sacrifice was one that created nothing except another defeat
Something within broke at that moment striking into the heart of each man, of every company and regiment brigade and division. They could still fight as individuals or small units; if any dared to try and reach out to touch their sacred blood-stained flags, they would indeed fight for that, for that they sail believed in. For their survival if cornered, they would still fight; but for the generals, that was gone, perhaps forever.
On the other side, it was a moment long dreamed of, a fulfillment of a sense that half victories, which had cost a hundred thousand men in the last twelve months, had now finally reached a climax, that on this Fourth of July all things were, indeed, still possible.
The Fifth Corps of the Army of the Potomac made its final stand in a torrential summer downpour on the outskirts of Littlestown, after being driven back four miles by the relentless onslaught of Pickett Hood, and the hard-bitten survivors of Johnson's division, the men of the old Stonewall Brigade.
In a way this final stand was indeed their finest hour, reminiscent of the Old Guard's stand at Waterloo. The backbone of the 'old Fifth' was the division of regular troops, men who had been in the army since long before the war, when no self-respecting civilian would be caught dead in army blue, and now they were the ones dying in a final bid to hold the road open in die same way they had held the road after me debacle at First Manassas.
Sykes dismounted after losing three mounts in a row, stood with the division as it was battled back, yard by yard, in the pouring rain. If hit only in the center, they most certainly would have held; but whatever position they
