Cain at Gettysburg (2 page)

Still waking to the charge that had been given him, Meade felt a wave of shame, as if one of those Barnegat rip currents had changed the direction of an inner sea. He needed to control himself, if he hoped to control the army. To put up a manly show. How could he have indulged in such fretting in front of Hardie? How could he have shown such weakness? Weariness was no excuse, nor was confusion.

He imagined the colonel telling tales at the bar in Willard's Hotel. He could hear the laughter of clerks and politicians.

Well, the thing was done.

In the sour air of his tent, Meade viewed himself with an engineer's cold eye: too dark of thought, too dour, a man alert to the smell of sulfur, but not to Heaven's scent. He could hear Margaret teasing, “George, I know you can smile!” His wife was a proud, loyal woman, of good family. She had got him a brigadier's rank at the start of the war, when his merits had not sufficed. He would have to do his best for her. And for the Union, of course.

Major General George Gordon Meade had been happiest building lighthouses.

*   *   *

At the cue of hoofbeats, General Hooker emerged theatrically from his tent. Stepping into the humid dawn in his full dress uniform, he looked a perfect military specimen. Only his gold-trimmed hat was missing, left behind to exhibit his fine shock of hair. Flanked by his staff, the dismissed commanding general posed for a martial portrait. Meade stilled his horse and dismounted, slopped with sweat and more than a little mud.

Accompanied only by his son and Hardie, Meade hardly felt apt to complete Hooker's tableau. An officer once had remarked within his hearing that “Old Meade resembles a bishop who's sucked a lemon.” He had mastered a steely dignity, but knew he would never be a favorite of crowds.

Hooker extended his hand. Meade wiped his own on a trouser leg, then took it.

“You've got the bag of wildcats now,” Hooker told him. “And I wish you luck.” He released Meade's hand. Anxious to catch each word, Hooker's coterie edged closer.

“General Hooker,” Hardie interposed, “we need to—”

“A moment, Hardie, a moment. You needn't be so impatient for my head.” Piercing eyes unclouded by drink this day, Hooker returned his attention to his successor. “I've already published my farewell order, so we can abridge the formalities.” He smiled wryly. “We wouldn't want to inconvenience Colonel Hardie by delaying his return to Washington. Butterfield has a copy of it for you. You won't find it objectionable.” He patted Meade on the upper arm, in a show of amity neither man could feel. There had been too much bad blood before this day. “Shall we go to the headquarters tent?”

Meade knew he would have to clear out the worst of Hooker's men, but it couldn't be done all at once, not in midcampaign. He would have to live with the ill will and the spies alert for missteps. He would have liked, at the least, to remove Butterfield, who was Hooker's given creature through and through. But Warren had refused the chief of staff's position, preferring to remain chief engineer and telling Meade he'd be mad to get rid of the only man who might know what Hooker had been up to with the army. Meade took the point, but suspected Warren of avoiding the prospect of failure at his side.

Who would stand by him? John Reynolds, of course. Despite some petty bickering in the past, he knew he could count Reynolds as a friend. But he needed Reynolds in the field, in command, not at headquarters. Gallant John. Their spats aside, he and Reynolds understood each other. Lancaster and Philadelphia, two Pennsylvania men. Perhaps it was as simple as that. He had sent off a courier even before riding out of the Fifth Corps camp, asking Reynolds to come to army headquarters.

The labor of transferring command began. With a map of Maryland spread over a borrowed farmhouse table, Butterfield reeled off the approximate—very approximate—locations of the various corps of the Army of the Potomac. Fiddling with his mustaches as he spoke, the chief of staff kept glancing from Meade to Hooker.

Meade was appalled that the army remained so dispersed, an invitation to defeat in detail and a gift to Robert E. Lee. But he said nothing. He would give his orders soon enough. First, he needed to listen. Nor did he wish to humiliate Hooker further in front of his acolytes. Bad blood enough already, bad blood enough.

Hooker, too, remained silent.

Colonel Sharpe of the Bureau of Military Information took his turn. He had not prepared a map.

“It's been confirmed that General Ewell … in command of Jackson's old corps, somewhat reduced … has passed a division through York. One brigade reached Wrightsville on the Susquehanna, but the militia burned the bridge before the enemy could cross.”

The colonel paused to look at Meade, as if expecting a question.

“Go on, Sharpe,” Meade said. “Where's Ewell now?”

“Carlisle, we believe. Threatening Harrisburg, according to General Crouch and Governor Curtin's people.”

Hooker leaned forward. He was a man who loved to speak and could resist no longer. “Bobby Lee isn't interested in Harrisburg. He's attempting to lure this army into a trap. I've done my best to stay out of it.”

“Where's Lee now?” Meade asked.

Sharpe lifted his eyebrows and whisked the air with a hand. “It's unclear, sir. Somewhere north of Hagerstown and still west of the mountains. No doubt, he intends to reunite with Ewell.”

“Longstreet?”

“He'll be with Lee, sir. Now that Jackson's gone.”

“And Hill?”

“We don't know, sir. Probably west of the mountains.”

“Is that your answer to everything, Sharpe? ‘West of the mountains'?” Meade turned to Hooker. “What were your orders to the cavalry?”

Butterfield answered for his former superior. “They're conducting a screen on a broad front, covering our flanks and the passes on our left, up to the Pennsylvania line. To prevent surprise.”

Chancellorsville leapt to every mind. No one dared say the name in front of Hooker.

“And General Stuart?”

“We've lost contact with him. Since the affair at Upperville.”

“I want to see Pleasanton,” Meade said. “Today.”

A staff man in a cavalry jacket exited the tent. Meade cautioned himself again. Occasional flashes of anger enlivened subordinates, but constant anger demoralized them. Still, he couldn't but feel outraged at finding the army spread halfway to China. And Lee on a romp through Pennsylvania, awaiting his chance to strike.

When he reached for his watch this time, Meade found it. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I'm obliged to send a message to General Halleck.” He turned to the man he had replaced. “General Hooker, I beg your indulgence.” Addressing the little group again, Meade continued, “I have twenty-five minutes past six. Let us reconvene in one hour. General Butterfield, is there a place where I can write without interruption?”

And write Meade did. He knew Halleck's temperament and the backbiting in the War Department well enough to make himself two pledges. First, he would see that each message from his headquarters would be as clear as the English language could make it, even if he had to write every last one himself. Second, he would keep Halleck so well-informed that he'd have no excuse for meddling. He was not going to make Hooker's mistake. At least, not that one.

Left alone in Butterfield's personal tent, he paused and held the pen suspended an inch above the paper. The army's dispersion haunted him. The first order of business would be to concentrate his force so every corps could rush to support another. He was not going to let Lee eat him one bite at a time. The first of them to concentrate might well emerge the victor.

Nor did Meade intend to let his adversary surprise him. He remembered the follies of past commanders too well. If George Meade had any say in it, the next time Robert E. Lee fought the Army of the Potomac, he was going to have to fight all of it.

It was all a matter of time. And how could there be enough time now? He began to write:

The order placing me in command of this army is received. As a soldier, I obey it, and to the utmost of my ability will execute it. Totally unexpected as it has been, and in ignorance of the exact condition of the troops and position of the enemy, I can only now say that it appears to me I must move toward the Susquehanna, keeping Washington and Baltimore well covered, and if the enemy is checked in his attempt to cross the Susquehanna, or if he turns toward Baltimore, to give him battle.

On the edge of his consciousness, horses galloped off. But there was more to write. He wished to complain, but did not. He remembered Hardie's remarks about Hooker sounding too much like McClellan. Lincoln read the telegrams received by the War Department.

When he finished, he blotted the paper, wiped the ink from his fingers, and stepped out of the tent. The morning was bright, hot, fierce. Terrible marching weather. But the men would have to march, and more than one of the marches would be long. He handed the message to the waiting courier, who leapt to the saddle and spurred his mount toward Frederick. The man's alacrity drew a faint smile from Meade, who saw that his reputation as “Old Snapping Turtle” was already having its effect on the headquarters.

Enjoying a new pulse of confidence, he returned to the tent where the staff awaited him. The canvas sides had been rolled up to let the air pass through.

Hooker wasn't there. And several officers were missing. Meade turned a quizzical look on Butterfield, but the chief of staff remained mute.

Meade's son, face pale, spoke up. “General Hooker's gone, sir. He just rode off. Colonel Hardie left with him.”

Suppressing a burst of fury at the snub, Meade told himself that it was better so. Now he could get down to the business of organizing the army, without unnecessary niceties. If Hooker had funked it, good riddance.

He allowed himself a single sigh as he strode to the table that still bore the map of Maryland. “Butterfield? Have one of your officers fetch a map of Pennsylvania. There's work to be done, man. We need to designate points of concentration for this army.”

Butterfield passed on the order to a major, who stood close enough to have heard each word the new commanding general had spoken.

Meade glanced around the reduced group of officers. “Would you gentlemen excuse us? General Butterfield and I have a few affairs to discuss.”

Obedience wasn't a problem. The big tent emptied rapidly.

Meade stepped closer to the man on whom he would have to rely. The chief of staff smelled of cologne water. “Well, Dan, we'll have to make the best of things, you and I.”

Butterfield's face was a mask without emotion.

“I know I haven't been in the good graces of this headquarters of late,” Meade went on.

“Nor I in yours, General Meade.”

“But I think we shall manage. We must.”

Butterfield remained impassive. It exasperated Meade, who had reached the limit of his affability. He didn't like Butterfield, never had. He only hoped he could trust him to do the right thing for the army, if not for its new commander.

The major sent for the Pennsylvania map returned, hesitating at the entrance to the tent. Meade beckoned him inside.

“Spread it on top of the Maryland map,” Meade told him. “General Butterfield and I will need them both. Then tell the rest of the staff to come back in.”

The major did as ordered, then eased away. Meade stepped to the table.

“Major!”
he called after the man.
“Major!”

“What is it?” Butterfield asked calmly.

Meade turned on his chief of staff. “Damn me to bloody blue blazes, I asked for a map of southern Pennsylvania.”

Butterfield considered the map. “That's southern Pennsylvania,” he told Meade.

“I need a topographical map, man. This is nothing but a sketch of towns and roads. I need to see the terrain, the relief, the watercourses. That major should know as much.”

“That's the only Pennsylvania map we have,” Butterfield said.

Meade looked at the man in astonishment.

The chief of staff shrugged. “We never expected to give battle in Pennsylvania, there seemed no need. Proper maps have been ordered, of course. They just haven't arrived.”

Once again, Meade managed to rein in his temper. “All right, Butterfield. I'll speak to Warren, he'll see to the business. Just start at the beginning and explain General Hooker's plan of campaign to me. I need every detail, no matter how small.”

“I can't do that,” Butterfield said.

“What do you mean, you can't?”

The staff officers had gathered outside of the tent, but waited to be bidden to come back in.

“He kept it all in his head,” Butterfield told him.

*   *   *

“You seen it, too. Ain't I right?” Cobb asked. “All through the preaching, Colonel Burgwyn had the look of death on him. He's a marked man, Quaker. I know you seen it. I seen you looking. Things don't get past you.” Cobb widened his grotesque smile.

Sergeant Blake buttoned up his trousers and kept his breathing shallow. After one night, the green glade close to the regiment's camp smelled foul. Cobb reeked, too, but that was his normal condition. This grove, where the morning coolness had drawn up its weakened lines for one last stand, deserved better.

“Shut your mouth,” Blake said. “You're talking craziness.”

“Hell I am,” Cobb said, still spraying the ferns. “Hell, if you don't know it, either. I seen you looking right at him. Plain as day, Quaker, that man ain't long for this world.” He shook his head in mock sorrow. “Pretty fellow, too. And so young. Going to be a shame to see him go, a crying shame.”

In the distance, the regimental band started up, instantly recognizable by the music's precision. Moravians from Salem, the musicians were the pride not only of the 26th North Carolina, but of the entire brigade. General Pettigrew was fond of calling them up to the head of the column whenever his men were about to march through a town. Even Yankees came out to listen, some of them.