Beyond the gun, Henry could see them pouring in; several of the Rebs, dashing forward with fanatical bravery, were already up on to the lunette, bayonets poised, only to be swept away as the men of the Seventeenth rose up to meet them. Hand-to-hand fighting exploded around the guns.
Henry limped forward into the middle of the melee, ducking low under a musket butt swung by a screaming Reb, who was suddenly tossed backward, shot in the chest Henry reached down and picked up the lanyard.
He looked forward. Men were coming out of the smoke, a flag bearer in the lead.
He jerked the lanyard taut and then pulled. The Napoleon leapt back with a thunderclap roar. Those in front of the bore simply disappeared, blown into a pulpy spray.
He dropped the lanyard, pulled out his revolver… but there was nothing left to shoot at… only the smoke engulfing them. He caught shadowy glimpses of Rebs falling back, running, disappearing into the smoke. The charge was broken.
On the ground, in front of the gun he had just fired, was a rebel flag, a red Saint Andrew's cross, torn to shreds, staff gone, a twitching body next to it the flag bearer, the bottom half of his body nothing but a ghastly tangle of charred flesh that was still smoking from the blast
One of Wiedrich's gunners scrambled over the lunette and started to pick up the flag. The Reb feebly reached out trying to hang onto the colors. The gunner stopped, knelt down by his side, and relinquished the flag, gently putting the colors back into the hands of the dying boy. The gunner cupped his hands around the Confederate's, leaned over, whispering something. The eyes of the dying boy shifted, looking up at the gunner. He started to say something, lips moving. Henry heard the words drifting as the two spoke together.
' 'He maketh me to lie down in green pastures…''
The boy shook convulsively and then was still.
The gunner closed the Reb's eyes and then gently pried the bloody fingers loose.
He picked up the flag. There was no triumphal waving of it The men of the battery stood silent staring at him. The gunner came back over the lunette, tears streaming down his blackened face.
The smoke was lifting. What was left of the Rebs receded back down the slope. Flanking batteries continued to pound them, bright sparkling airburst of case shot igniting. Stevens's battery had lifted its range, pouring shell into the streets of the town.
'Henry, you all right?'
Still dazed, Henry looked up to see Hancock, blood streaming down his face from a ball that had creased his cheek.
Henry nodded, unable to speak, stunned by all that had happened and what he had just seen.
Hancock motioned for him to step away from the battery. Henry followed and Hancock dismounted, pulled out a clean white handkerchief, and absently dabbed at the nasty furrow plowed across his cheek.
'He came on too soon,' Hancock said, voice calm.
Henry looked at him, finding it hard to believe that only minutes before Hancock had appeared godlike, standing in his stirrups, ignoring the hail of fire, and was now talking quietly, as if they were neighbors sitting on a porch, chatting about the weather.
'A brigade. He thought he could trigger another panic, push us off this hill with just one brigade,' Hancock continued, shaking his head. 'Damn, is that man arrogant This isn't Virginia anymore. We're on our own ground now. He came on too soon.'
Henry looked past Hancock. The column north of Gettysburg was still moving, flanking around the edge of town, starting to shake out from column into line. A brigade last time, now a division, a full division.
'Look to the seminary; more forming up there.'
Henry shifted his gaze. Amid all this madness Hancock was already thinking ahead and had noticed what was going on a mile away.
'Another division over there, I suspect Maybe fresh, maybe the troops that hit Doubleday earlier. Either way, half hour at most and then they'll come in again, hitting us from both sides of the town.'
'Ammunition,' Henry said, 'I've got to get more ammunition up here, more guns.'
'Jones, give your horse to the general.'
Hancock motioned for one of his orderlies to come over and dismount. The boy offered the reins to Henry.
'Henry, I don't want you down here when they come in again,' Winfield said softly.
'Sir?'
'When that division over there charges,' and he pointed to the northeast 'they'll roll over this position.'
He paused, looking at Wiedrich's men. 'God save them, Henry,' he whispered, 'but they stay here. That charge will have to take this battery first We'll lose where we are standing, and that battery with it. But we can still hold the crest of this hill, and that is what will count in the end. Get your other batteries ready to enfilade this position as they come up and over it. This fight will be decided farther back, at the cemetery,' and he pointed up the hill to the crest
Hancock remounted, staff gathering around him. 'I'll see you at the top of the hill in half an hour, Henry. That's where we stop 'em, teach 'em that they aren't going to take this hill.'
Hancock, with a touch of the spurs, turned his mount and galloped off.
Henry looked at the sorry mare that had been passed off to him as a remount.. 'Can you get me more ammunition, sir?'..
It was Wiedrich, Ames coming up behind him.
'I'll have more canister down to you. Hold your case shot till they start to come in,' and he pointed at the rebel division shifting from column to line. Even as he spoke, several shells from Stevens burst over the formation.
'We stay here till we get overrun, is that it?' Ames asked.
Henry couldn't lie. He simply nodded.
'I'll get back the honor of Eleventh Corps right here,' Ames said grimly. 'We stay with this battery till the end.'
Henry dropped the reins of his mare and shook their hands. It was chilling to know that he was shaking hands with men who would most likely be dead within the hour. They knew it as well and didn't flinch from it, and that kind of courage filled him with awe. There was evidence enough of that on this hill, here in Pennsylvania, that they wouldn't back off another inch. Well, if this was a chosen place to die, then so be it, and that thought filled him with a cold and hard-edged resolve to see it through to the end.
'What you do here will mean that this hill holds, that we won't go down to defeat tonight'
Neither of the two spoke. This was not the time for the staged dramatics that some officers favored when the men were watching. This was three comrades, all veterans of the old prewar army, all three knowing what their profession might ultimately demand, and now willing to pay that price.
He started to turn away; then a memory, a grim duty came to him. He walked over to Caesar, lying on his side, breathing raggedly, mouth covered with froth, blood pouring out of the wound that had torn open his breast.
Never get attached to them, he thought, not in this trade. He cocked his revolver and leveled it. Somehow he sensed that Caesar knew what he was doing, why he was doing it and that it was an act of mercy. The eyes looked up at him. He thought again of the rabbit he had shot as a boy, the creature screaming. His hands started to tremble. He closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger.
Some of the gunners were looking at him, saying nothing. The blood-soaked Confederate flag was draped over the open lid of a caisson, the man who'd taken it standing beside the red flag, eyes wide, vacant, gaze unfocused.
Gen. Henry Hunt, Commander of Artillery, Army of the Potomac, mounted and rode back up the hill to the cemetery.
Chapter Five
6:15 PM, JULY I, 1863
