The Killer Angels

They chatted, telling stories of other wars. They discussed the strategy of Napoleon, the theories of Jomini, the women of Richmond. Fremantle was not that impressed by Napoleon. But he was impressed by the women of Richmond. He lay dreamily remembering certain ladies, a ball, a rose garden…

This land was huge. England had a sense of compactness, like a garden, a lovely garden, but this country was without borders. There was this refreshing sense of space, of blowing winds, too hot, too cold, too huge, raw in a way raw meat is raw-and yet there were the neat farms, the green country, so much like Home. The people so much like Home. Southern Home. Couldn’t grow flowers, these people. No gardens. Great weakness. And yet. They are Englishmen. Should I tell Longstreet? Would it a

He thinks, after all, that he is an American.

Um. The great experiment. In democracy. The equality of rabble. In not much more than a generation they have come back to class. As the French have done. What a tragic thing, that Revolution. Bloody George was a bloody fool.

But no matter. The experiment doesn’t work. Give them fifty years, and all that equality rot is gone. Here they have the same love of the land and of tradition, of the right form, of breeding, in their horses, their women. Of course slavery is a bit embarrassing, but that, of course, will go. But the point is they do it all exactly as we do in Europe. And the North does not. That’s what the war is really about. The North has those huge bloody cities and a thousand religions, and the only aristocracy is the aristocracy of wealth. The Northerner doesn’t give a damn for tradition, or breeding, or the Old Country. He hates the Old Country. Odd. You very rarely hear a Southerner refer to “the Old Country.” In that painted way a German does. Or an Italian. Well, of course, the South is the Old Country. They haven’t left Europe. They’ve merely transplanted it. And that’s what the war is about.

Fremantle opened an eye. It occurred to him that he might have come across something rather profound, something to take back to England. The more he thought about it, the more clear it seemed. In the South there was one religion, as in England, one way of life. They evEn allowed the occasional Jew-like Longstreet’s Major Moses, or Judah Benjamin, back in Richmond -but by and large they were all the same nationality, same religion, same customs.

A little rougher, perhaps, but… my word.

Fremantle sat up. Major Clarke was resting, back against a tree. Fremantle said, “I say. Major, Longstreet is an English name, I should imagine.”

Clarke blinked.

”No, as a matter of fact, I don’t think it is.” He pondered. “Dutch, I think. Yes, come to think of it. Dutch all right. Comes from New Jersey, the old Dutch settlements up there.”

”Oh.” Fremantle’s theory had taken a jolt. Well. But Longstreet was an exception. He was not a Virginian.

Fremantle again relaxed. He even began to feel hungry.

The morning moved toward noon.

2. CHAMBERLAIN.

The regiment sat in an open field studded with boulders like half-sunken balls. Small fires burned under a steam-gray sky. Chamberlain wandered, watching, listening. He did not talk; he moved silently among them, hands clasped behind his back, wandering, nodding, soaking in the sounds of voices, tabulating the light in men’s eyes, moving like a forester through a treasured grove, noting the condition of the trees. All his life he had been a detached man, but he was not detached any more. He had grown up in the cold New England woods, the iron dark, grown in contained silence like a lone house on a mountain, and now he was no longer alone; he had joined not only the army but the race, not only the country but mankind. His mother had wanted him to join the church. Now he had his call. He wandered, sensing. Tired men. But ready. Please, God, do not withdraw them now. He saw illness in one face, told the man to report to sick call. One man complained. “Colonel, it keeps raining, these damn Enfields go

Whyn’t we trade ‘ em for Springfields first chance we get?”

Chamberlain agreed. He saw Bucklin, together with a cold-eyed group from the old Second Maine, nodded good morning, did not stop to talk. A young private asked him, “Sir, is it true that General McClellan is in command again?” Chamberlain had to say no. The private swore.

Chamberlain finished the walk, went back alone to sit under a tree.

He had dreamed of her in the night, dreamed of his wife in a scarlet robe, turning witchlike to love him. Now when he closed his eyes she was suddenly there, hot candy presence. Away from her, you loved her more. The only need was her, she the only vacancy in the steamy morning.

He remembered her letter, the misspelled words: “I lie here dreamyly.” Even the misspelling is lovely.

A mass of men was coming down the road, unarmed, unspiked, no rifles visible: prisoners. They stopped near a long rock ledge, which walled the road. Some of his own troops began drifting over that way, to stare, to chat. They were usually polite to prisoners. The accents fascinated them. Although some of the Regiment were sailing men, most of them had never been out of Maine. Chamberlain thought vaguely of the South. She had loved it. She had been at home. Heat and Spanish moss. Strange hot land of courtly ma

A curious mixture: the white-columned houses high on the green hills, the shacks down in the dark valleys. Land of black and white, no grays. The South was a well-bred, well-ma

She loved it. Dreamyly. She had liked being a professor’s wife. She had been outraged when he went oif to war.

Square-headed Kilrain: “Is the Colonel awake?”

Chamberlain nodded, looking up.

”I have found me a John Henry, sir.”

”John who?”

”A John Henry, sir. A black man. A darky. He’s over thataway.” Kilrain gestured. Chamberlain started to rise.

”I heard him a-groanin’,” Kilrain said, “just before dawn. Would the Colonel care to see him?”

”Lead on.”

Kilrain walked down a grassy slope away from the road, across the soft field, marshy with heavy rain, up a rise of granite to a gathering of boulders along the edge of a grove of dark trees. Chamberlain saw two men standing on a rock ledge, men of the Regiment. Kilrain sprang lightly up the rock. The two men-one was the newcomer, Bucklin- touched their caps and wished him “morning” and gri

The black man lay in the shadow between two round rocks. He was very big and very black. His head was shaved and round and resting on mossy granite. He was breathing slowly and deeply, audibly; his eyes were blinking. He wore a faded red shirt, ragged, dusty, and dark pants ragged around his legs. There were no sleeves in the shirt, and his arms had muscles like black ca

Bucklin was bending over him with a tin cup of coffee in his hand. The black man took a drink. He opened his eyes and the whites of his eyes were red-stained and ugly.

Chamberlain pointed to the wound.

”How bad is that?”

”Oh, not bad,” Kilrain said. “I think he’s bled a lot, but you know, you can’t really tell.”

Bucklin chuckled. “That’s a fact.”

”Bullet wound,” Kilrain said. “Just under the ribs.”

Chamberlain knelt. The black man’s face was empty, inscrutable. The red eyes looked up out of a vast darkness.

Then the man blinked and Chamberlain realized that there was nothing inscrutable here; the man was exhausted.

Chamberlain had rarely seen black men; he was fascinated.

”We’ll get him something to eat, then we’ll get him to a surgeon. Is the bullet still in?”