The Killer Angels

Fremantle nodded. Understandable. One tried to be neat.

But that helmet. And Ross did tend to look a bit ridiculous.

Like some sort of fat plumed duck. These chaps all looked so natural, so… earthy. Not the officers. But the troops. Hardly any uniform at all. Brown and yellow Americans. Odd. So near, yet so far.

He saw Moxley Sorrel, walking briskly off on a mission, “corralled him,” as the Americans would put it.

Sorrel said, “We’ve sent out engineers to inspect the ground to our right. We’ll be attacking later in the day Don’t know where yet, so you can relax, I should say, for two hours or so at least.”

”Have you heard from General Stuart?”

”Not a word. General Lee has sent out scouts to find him.” Sorrel chuckled. “Cheer up, you may have your charge.”

”I hope to have a good position today.”

”We’ll do all we can. I suggest you stay close to Longstreet. There’ll be action where he is.”

Sorrel moved off. Through the trees Fremantle saw Longstreet mounting his horse. Fremantle led his own horse that way Longstreet had Goree with him, the aide from Texas. The greeting was friendly, even warm. Fremantle thought, startled, he likes me, and flushed with unexpected pride. He asked if he could ride with the General; Longstreet nodded. They rode down to the right, along the spine of the ridge, in under the trees. Most of Longstreet’s staff had joined them.

Longstreet said to Hood, “I’ll do what I can. His mind seems set on it.”

Hood shrugged. He seemed smaller now when you were close. He had extraordinary eyes. The eyebrows were shaggy and tilted and the eyes were dark as coal so that he seemed very sad. Fremantle had a sudden numbing thought: by evening this man could be dead. Fremantle stared at him, transfixed, trying to sense a premonition. He had never had a premonition, but he had heard of them happening, particularly on the battlefield. Men often knew when their time had come. He stared at Hood, but truthfully, except for the sadness in the eyes, which may have been only weariness, for Hood had marched all night, there was no extra sensation, nothing at all but a certain delicious air of impending combat which was with them all. Longstreet most of all, sitting round and immobile on the black horse, gazing eastward.

Hood said, “Well, if he’s right, then the war is over by sundown.”

Longstreet nodded.

”We’ll see. But going in without Pickett is like going in with one boot off. I’ll wait as long as I can.”

Hood cocked his head toward the Union lines. “Do you have any idea of the force?”

Longstreet ticked off the corps so far identified: five, counting the two involved in the first day’s action. He thought there would be more very soon, that perhaps even now the entire army was up. Lee did not think so. But yesterday he had not thought the Yankees would be there at all, and they were there in force, and now today the Yankees were on the high ground and with Stuart gone there was no way of knowing just how many corps lay in wait beyond the haze of that far ridge.

Fremantle rode along politely, silently, listening. He had developed a confidence that was almost absolute. He knew that Longstreet was tense and that there was a certain gloom in the set of his face, but Fremantle knew with the certainty of youth and faith that he could not possibly lose this day, not with these troops, not with Englishmen, the gentlemen against the rabble. He rode along with delight blossoming in him like a roseate flower, listening. Longstreet looked at him vacantly, saw him, then looked at him.

”Colonel,” he said abruptly, “how are you?”

”By George, sir, I am fine, I must say.”

”You slept well?”

Fremantle thought: everyone seems concerned that I sleep well.

”Oh, very well.” He paused. “Not long, mind you, but well.”

Longstreet smiled. There seemed to be something about Fremantle that amused him. Fremantle was oddly flattered; he did not know why.

”I would like someday to meet the Queen,” Longstreet said.

”I’m sure that could be arranged. Sir, you would be considered most welcome in my country, a most distinguished visitor.”

There was firing below, a sharp popping, a scattering of shots, a bunch, another bunch, then silence. Longstreet put on his glasses, looked down into the valley. “Pickets,” he said.

Fremantle, who did not know what to expect, started, gulped, stared. But he was delighted. He saw puffs of white smoke start up down in the valley, like vents in the earth, blow slowly lazily to his left, to the north. He looked up at the ridge, but he could see only a few black ca

Longstreet shook his head.

”Then, ah, if I may be so bold, what’s to prevent the Yankees from attacking you?”

Longstreet looked at Hood.

”I mean, ah, I don’t see that you have bothered to entrench,” Fremantle went on.

Longstreet gri

”An interesting thought.” Longstreet smiled. “I confess, it had not occurred to me.”

”Me neither,” Hood said.

”But I suppose it’s possible,” Longstreet said.

”You really think so?”

”Well,” Longstreet hedged. He gri

More soberly, he turned to Fremantle. “It would be most unlike General Meade to attack. For one thing, he is General Meade. For another, he has just arrived on the field and it will take some time to understand the position, like perhaps a week. Also, he has not yet managed to gather the entire Army of the Potomac, all two hundred thousand men, and he will be reluctant to move without his full force. Then again, he will think of reasons.” Longstreet shook his head, and Fremantle saw that he had again lost his humor. “No, Meade will not do us the favor, the great favor. We will have to make him attack. We will have to occupy dangerous grounds between him and Washington and let the politicians push him to the assault. Which they will most certainly do. Given time. We need time.”

He paused, shook his head. They rode on in silence.

Fremantle began to realize how remarkably still it was.

Down in the valley the fields were open and still, the breeze had slowed, there was no movement of smoke. A few cows grazed in the shade, rested in dark pools of shade under the trees. Fremantle could feel the presence of that vast army; he knew it was there, thousands of men, thousands of horses, miles of ca

He was most anxious to move on with Longstreet, but he saw Lawley and Ross pull off into an open field and sit down, and so he bade Longstreet goodbye and rode off to join his fellow Europeans. He let his horse roam with the others in a fenced field and found himself a grassy place under a charming tree and lay flat on his back, gazing up serenely into the blue, watching those curious flecks that you can see if you stare upward against the vacant blue, the defects of your own eye.