The Killer Angels

”Sir, I can’t shoot worth a damn lying down. Never could. Nor Bill either. Like to fight standin’, with the Colonel’s permission.”

”Then I suggest you find a thicker tree.”

He moved on. Private George Washington Buck, former sergeant, had a place to himself, wedged between two rocks. His face was cold and gray. Chamberlain asked him how it was going. Buck said, “Keep an eye on me, sir. I’m about to get them stripes back.”

A weird sound, a wail, a ghost, high and thin. For a vague second he thought it was the sound of a man in awful pain, many men. Then he knew: the Rebel yell. Here they come.

He drifted back to the center. To Tom he said, “You stay by me. But get down, keep down.” Kilrain was sitting calmly, chewing away. He was carrying a cavalry carbine.

A great roar of musketry from behind the hill. Full battle now. They must be swarming Sickles under. Kilrain was right. Rank attack. Whole Reb army coming right this way.

Wonder who? Longstreet? He it was behind the stone wall at Fredericksburg. Now we have our own stone wall.

Chamberlain hopped down along the line, telling men to keep good cover, pile rocks higher, fire slowly and carefully, take their time. Have to keep your eye on some of them; they loaded and loaded and never fired, just went on loading, and some of them came out of a fight with seven or eight bullets rammed home in a barrel, unfired. He looked again to the left, saw the bleak silence, felt a crawling uneasiness. Into his mind came the delayed knowledge: You are the left of the Union. The Army of the Potomac ends here.

He stopped, sat down on a rock. A flank attack. Never to withdraw.

He took a deep breath, smelled more granite dust. Never to withdraw. Had never heard the order, nor thought. Never really thought it possible. He looked around at the dark trees, the boulders, the men hunched before him in blue mounds, waiting. Don’t like to wait. Let’s get on, get on.

But his mind said cheerily, coldly: Be patient, friend, be patient. You are not leaving here. Possibly not forever, except, as they say, trailing clouds of glory, if that theory really is true after all and they do send some sort of chariot, possibly presently you will be on it. My, how the mind does chatter at times like this. Stop thinking. Depart in a chariot of fire. I suppose it’s possible. That He is waiting. Well. May well find out.

The 83rd engaged. Chamberlain moved to the right. He had been hoping to face a solid charge, unleash a full volley, but the Rebs seemed to be coming on like a lapping wave, rolling up the beach. He told the right to fire at will. He remained on the right while the firing began. A man down in E Company began it, but there was nothing there; he had fired at a falling branch, and Chamberlain heard a sergeant swearing, then a flurry of fire broke out to the right and spread down the line and the white smoke bloomed in his eyes. Bullets zipped in the leaves, cracked the rocks.

Chamberlain moved down closer to the line. Far to the left he could see Tozier standing by the great boulder, with the colors.

Then he saw the Rebs.

Gray-green-yellow uniforms, rolling up in a mass. His heart seized him. Several companies. More and more. At least a hundred men. More. Coming up out of the green, out of the dark. They seemed to be rising out of the ground.

Suddenly the terrible scream, the ripply crawly sound in your skull. A whole regiment. Dissolving in smoke and thunder. They came on. Chamberlain could see nothing but smoke, the blue mounds bobbing in front of him, clang of ramrods, grunts, a high gaunt wail. A bullet thunked into a tree near him. Chamberlain turned, saw white splintered wood. He ducked suddenly, then stood up, moved forward, crouched behind a boulder, looking.

A new wave of firing. A hole in the smoke. Chamberlain saw a man on his knees before him, facing the enemy, arms clutching his stomach. A man was yelling an obscene word.

Chamberlain looked, could not see who it was. But the fire from his boys was steady and heavy and they were behind trees and under rocks and pouring it in, and Chamberlain saw gray-yellow forms go down, saw a man come bounding up a rock waving his arms wide like a crazy Indian and take a bullet that doubled him right over so that he fell forward over the rocks and out of sight, and then a whole flood to the right, ten or twelve in a pack, suddenly stopping to kneel and fire, one man in fringed clothes, like buckskin, stopping to prop his rifle against a tree, and then to go down, punched backward, coming all loose and to rubbery pieces and flipping back so one bare foot stood up above a bloody rock. A blast of fire at Chamberlain’s ear. He turned: Kilrain reloading the carbine. Said something. Noise too great to hear. Screams and yells of joy and pain and rage. He saw bloodstains spatter against a tree. Turned. Fire slowing.

They were moving back. Thought: we’ve stopped ‘em. By God and by Mary, we’ve stopped ‘em.

The firing went on, much slower. Smoke was drifting away. But the din from the right was unceasing, the noise from the other side of the hill was one long huge roar, like the ground opening. Kilrain looked that way.

”Half expect ‘em to come in from behind.”

Chamberlain said, “Did you hear Morrill’s Company?”

”No, sir. Couldn’t hear nothing in that mess.”

”Tom?”

Tom shook his head. He had the look of a man who has just heard a very loud noise and has not yet regained his hearing. Chamberlain felt a sudden moment of wonderful delight. He put out a hand and touched his brother’s cheek.

”You stay down, boy.”

Tom nodded, wide-eyed. “Damn right,” he said.

Chamberlain looked out into the smoke. Morrill might have run into them already, might already be wiped out. He saw: a red flag, down in the smoke and dark. Battle flag. A new burst of firing. He moved down the line, Kilrain following, crouched. Men were down. He saw the first dead: Willard Buxton of K. Neat hole in the forehead.

Instantaneous. Merciful. First Sergeant Noyes was with him. Chamberlain touched the dead hand, moved on. He was thinking: with Morrill gone, I have perhaps three hundred men. Few more, few less. What do I do if they flank me?

The emptiness to the left was a vacuum, drawing him back that way. Men were drinking water. He warned them to save it. The new attack broke before he could get to the left.

The attack came all down the line, a full, wild, leaping charge. Three men came inside the low stone wall the boys had built. Two died; the other lay badly wounded, unable to speak. Chamberlain called for a surgeon to treat him. A few feet away he saw a man lying dead, half his face shot away Vaguely familiar. He turned away, turned back. Half the right jawbone visible, above the bloody leer: face of one of the Second Maine prisoners who had volunteered just a few moments past-the fat one. Never had time to know his name. He turned to Kilrain. “That was one of the Maine prisoners. Don’t let me forget.”

Kilrain nodded. Odd look on his face. Chamberlain felt a cool wind. He put a hand out.

”Buster? You all right?”

Bleak gray look. Holding his side.

”Fine, Colonel. Hardly touched me.”

He turned, showed his side. Tear just under the right shoulder, blood filling the armpit. Kilrain stuffed white cloth into the hole. “Be fine in a moment. But plays hell with me target practice. Would you care for the carbine?”

He sat down abruptly Weak from loss of blood. But not a bad wound, surely not a bad wound.

”You stay there,” Chamberlain said. Another attack was coming. New firing blossomed around them. Chamberlain knelt.

Kilrain gri

”Tom’ll get a surgeon.”

”Just a bit of bandage is all I’ll be needin’. And a few minutes off me feet. Me brogans are killin’ me.” Lapse into brogue.