Cain at Gettysburg (32 page)

“He's emptied a bottle now and then,” Longstreet said. “We all have. But I never knew the man to be a drunk. Nor common.”

“But everyone's saying that Vicksburg's been redeemed. That it's a great victory for your cause, that the tide has turned decisively.”

“I'd be glad to hear it. But I haven't heard it from anybody with a mite of knowledge on the subject.”

He thought again of Grant. Born with a whipped face and a mighty heart, red hair flying as he jumped a horse higher than any man in the history of West Point. And Grant chafing at his quartermaster's duties in Mexico, finding every excuse to get into the fighting. A man who had never uttered a dishonest word, who could not. Longstreet had sensed an untapped strength in his fellow cadet. Back when “Uncle Sam Grant” had been the quietest man in the barracks.

“Near as I can tell,” Hood announced, “the trouble with Grant is that he don't know when he's licked.” He laughed, but harshly. “Take Shiloh. Sidney Johnston beat him fair and square. And look what happened. No, sir, if that stubborn sonofabitch ran off from Vicksburg, I expect he was running toward poor Joe Johnston. With a mind to whup him. If I'm wrong, I'll eat my boot and call it a pork chop.”

Disappointed by the generals' attitudes, Fremantle changed the subject. “There's a Union signal outpost on the nearer of those hills, you know.”

“Saw it,” Longstreet said. “'Long as they don't haul up a battery and a good brigade, it'll be all right.”

“Hard to believe they haven't,” Hood remarked. “That's one mistake George Meade's going to find costly.”

With Fremantle momentarily silenced, Scheibert, the Prussian, thrust in. As the sun browned his face, his dueling scars—livid white—had become more prominent.

“General Longstreet, I must tell you a thing,” he announced. “I have spoken with Unionist prisoners, men who are from Germany in their origins. They are disreputable people. Before they fled
wie Ratten
from their homelands, they have rebelled against their sovereigns, against their governments. They are traitors, these men.”

Hood looked at Longstreet with a smile that spread his beard around his mouth. They had shared a realization.

Inflamed by his own speech, the Prussian added, “They deserve to be shot.”

Longstreet aped deep thought. And tried not to laugh. At last, he said, “Well, now, that isn't quite the way we do things, Colonel Scheibert. Much as a man might like to from time to time. And I'm embarrassed to point out that General Hood and I are in pretty much the same boat as those Dutchmen. General Lee, too. All of us. We're guilty of the sin of rebellion ourselves.”

Taken aback, the Prussian stammered on: “But … this is different.
Die Lage ist ganz anders.
You … are making a fight to keep things as they are, is that not so? The Unionists are those who wish to change all things, to upset society and the proper relations of superior and inferior. For my example, I take the situation of the Negro, who they would raise from the position the
Herrgott
has given him. This cannot be, there must be proper order. Am I not correct?”

Longstreet thought of the pistol-whipped darkey in the chain of prisoners he'd met west of the mountain.

Before he could speak, Hood tore into the Prussian: “It ain't just about niggers. Damn it, man. It's about the freedom of God-fearing men to say, ‘This here's mine, and it ain't yours, so keep your dirty hands off it.' It's about states' rights, and damned Yankee bankers worse than Jews. And a Congress that sees more good in a factory than a cotton field. It's about the proper respect due to a man, it's about our freedom.” Out of words, he grunted. “You go on over and talk to General Barksdale with McLaws' bunch. He can put it a sight better than me.”

“I have not wished to give offense,” the Prussian pleaded.

“None taken, Colonel,” Longstreet assured him. “General Hood here's just itching for a fight, and he's a fellow takes on all comers. We value your presence … and your sovereign's goodwill.”

“The Unionists must not be allowed to overturn your society,” Scheibert grumbled. “We must defend the proper order of things. That is all I have wished to say.”

“And it was well said, sir,” Longstreet told him. He just wished the pack of them would disappear. He lacked Lee's faith in the efficacy of foreign opinion. And he didn't care for a one of them, save Ross, the not-exactly-Austrian, who could be merry and had an eye for a dainty ankle. Ross would have fit right in on a fine plantation, raising Hell and taking things as they came. Scheibert would have had a slave uprising on his hands.

Lee returned at eleven. His retinue consisted of more staff officers than had ridden off with him earlier. When the old man dismounted, Longstreet noted that he didn't rush to relieve his afflicted bowels. He looked more vigorous.

Posture perfect and uniform only mildly offended by dust, Lee approached them. Longstreet and Hood rose. The foreign contingent nodded and stepped back a pace or two. Scheibert cracked to attention and saluted.

“You will pardon us,” Lee told the observers and lurking newspapermen. They faded away. No man questioned Lee.

That was a significant piece of the problem, Longstreet believed. The old man wasn't used to having his judgment challenged anymore. He'd been winning too long, making it all look easy. While the butcher's bills swelled.

One of Lee's staff men, Venable, spread the headquarters' map over the ground again. Longstreet spotted Porter Alexander, who would command the artillery for the attack, and waved him over. McLaws had returned to his division, as ordered. Muttering. And justifiably, Longstreet felt bound to admit. He had been as unfair to McLaws as Lee had been to him.

Lee began with Longstreet: “Have your divisions marched for their attack positions, General?”

Longstreet felt hit from the rear. Clearly, he and the old man had misunderstood each other. “No, sir. I thought I was to await your final plan.”

Lee's face pinked, but the old man mastered himself.

Might as well get it over with, Longstreet decided. “And I'd prefer to wait on Law's brigade, General. Since I won't have Pickett.”

Lee appeared impatient, but asked, “When is General Law expected on the field?”

“Noon hour,” Hood answered. “Thereabouts.”

The old man nodded. “We can wait no longer than that.” He glanced toward the Union lines, but did not really look at them. “We have lost much of the day and will need to move boldly.” He knelt to the map.

Instantly, the other officers got to their knees around him. As if it were a prayer meeting, Longstreet thought.

Lee traced his index finger over the heavy paper. It showed roads in some detail, but only the most important landscape features—and those poorly. “General Longstreet, your divisions will attack abreast. Here. As we decided earlier. They will advance up this road and strike those people on the flank. You will have the element of surprise to add to the force of your blow.”

“If we're not seen,” Longstreet said. “Meade has a signal station on the lower hill now. They might spot us marching up.”

Lee dismissed the concern. “Captain Johnston has been over the ground. He assures me you won't be detected. He will guide your corps himself.”

Rifle fire erupted to the south, farther down the ridge on which they had gathered.

Longstreet tensed. “That's more than skirmishing.”

Lee remained unperturbed. “General Hill is moving General Anderson into position. They doubtless have surprised a forward party.”

“Pretty far forward,” Hood said.

Lee gave the division commander a sharp look. It quieted him.

“I mentioned General Anderson and his division,” Lee said. “You do not have Pickett, General Longstreet, but Anderson will cooperate with you. When you have advanced successfully on the Union's left flank, here and here, he will strike their left-center. It will have the effect of an oblique attack.”

“What's Ewell supposed to do?” Longstreet asked. “With his corps?”

Again, Lee was annoyed. “General Ewell will make a simultaneous demonstration. He will bid for General Meade's attention and render him unsure as to where to commit his reserves.”

“What triggers Ewell's ‘demonstration'?” Longstreet asked.

“He will move at the sound of your guns.” Lee scanned the second rank of kneeling officers and stopped at Porter Alexander. “I anticipate, Colonel Alexander, that your gunnery will be loud enough to be heard?”

From Lee, that passed as a joke. His subordinates murmured appreciatively.

“Yes, sir,” Alexander replied. “They'll be loud enough.”

The old man looked around the assembly of officers, awaiting questions, but not really inviting them.

“We understand each other, gentlemen? As to what is expected?”

No man denied it.

“Then it's time to look to our duties,” Lee concluded. “We must strike swiftly now. General Longstreet, you will set your divisions in motion.” He surveyed the earnest faces a last time and swept a hand toward the Union lines. “If God wills it, we will meet again on the other side of those fields.”

The meeting broke up. Longstreet sent Hood off after breaking the news that McLaws would lead the march, since his division was better distributed along the farm roads the corps would need to travel. The Kentuckian, who had proven his worth by leading wild Texans early on, didn't like taking second place, but accepted his fate.

Longstreet, though, could not accept his own. He returned to Lee's side a last time.

The old man looked into his eyes, briefly and impatiently, then looked away. As if he found what he had seen distasteful.

“I beg you, sir, don't do this,” Longstreet whispered.

He felt Lee tense in anger. When the old man spoke, his voice was as cold as winter at West Point:

“See to your corps, General.”

*   *   *

Although it had slowed his political career, Dan Sickles never rued killing his wife's lover. He had shot the craven fellow down in daylight, a block from the White House. Honor had demanded it. Nor was a cuckold apt to advance with New York City voters, unless he acted to guard his reputation.

In the end, he chose not to fault Teresa much—although he had considered killing her, too. She had been young and impressionable, after all. The dastardly Key had abused the privilege of friendship to seduce her, plying her with tales of her husband's amours. Such tattling was, to say the least, ungentlemanly. And if Teresa had not commanded all his affections, Sickles had treated her with consideration. On his wedding day, for example, he had told her mother that their frolic was over. A delectable piece of baggage in her time, the older woman had wept, but kept her senses. Nor had his dalliances with women of the world been indiscreet. The sum of such encounters was no more than common to a man in his prime. In public, he had been the soul of honor. Teresa had not known the extent of her luck.

She knew it now. He might have discarded her as a fallen woman and been petted as a wanton's victim. But the lass had something that spoke to his desires. He wanted her still. She possessed a tumultuous innocence that enticed him beyond reason. Besides, her family knew details from his past that might have disappointed his constituents. Best to keep Teresa in his bed and the members of her family in their places. So Daniel Sickles had forgiven his wife. Albeit with curtailed liberties.

His star had fallen because of that noble gesture. The public's sympathy had been with him as the wronged party and his acquittal as deranged by passion had been applauded. But when he chose not to discard Teresa, whom the voters wished to see beaten down and condemned, he was judged a blackguard for his display of mercy. But what else could he have done? Cast that white flesh and ready mouth aside? What a waste of horseflesh that would have been! And fortune's wheel had turned around in time: Thank God for the war!

Democrat though a fellow had to be in New York City, Sickles had always been a solid Union man. An undivided country offered far more scope for ambition, political or otherwise. And his Irish constituents, especially, despised the Confederacy, if for no other reason than that England favored the South. The arrogant planters' class too closely resembled the English gentry for Irish sentiment. As for the nigger question, it was of no consequence, except that the Irish resented darkey laborers.

And his credit had held in Washington, God be thanked. In a stroke of what others described as “Sickles' luck,” a prime defense attorney at his trial had been Edwin Stanton, now secretary of war. By the time the judge read out the “not guilty” verdict, the two men had become friends. A few years thereafter, Stanton had oiled the hinges at the White House, where Sickles, valued as a top War Democrat, found the president manageable and his wife a vain little fool who could be flattered.

Nor had he done badly on the battlefield, after raising his own men. If he had made errors, all had been bravely done. No man would ever question Dan Sickles' courage.

So on that anxious July day, as he peered into the fuss of Meade's headquarters, he told himself, “Much ado about nothing, ain't it?”

Teresa's family had theater connections, and that rarely left a man short of ready phrases. Oh, his marriage wouldn't have done for Meade's Philadelphia, but played well enough in New York, where vitality reigned.

The headquarters shack was as busy as Delmonico's scullery on a Saturday evening. Poor Butterfield looked worn to a nub, as if he'd been scouring pots and pans for days. Sickles nodded toward his friend, but Butterfield, scribbling on, hardly responded.

Meade had not deigned to notice his arrival. “A grandee dealing with some
arriviste,
” as Teresa's mother might have put it. But Sickles made it his business to know as much about those with whom he had to cope as generous pouring and Tammany Hall could uncover. He knew the old bugger's pockets were shallow, even if his pride went deep. There wasn't much to Meade beyond that uniform, which the “proper Philadelphian” would not even button. Meade looked like an aged clerk gone to seed in his master's absence.