The Killer Angels

”I’ll be going, Buster,” Chamberlain said.

Kilrain grumbled, looked sourly, accusingly at his bloody wound.

”Damn.”

”Well, you take care. I’ll send Tom back with word.”

”Sure.”

”We’ll miss you. Probably get into all kinds of trouble without you.”

”No.” Kilrain said. “You’ll do all right.”

”Well, I have to go.”

”Right. Goodbye, Colonel.”

He put out a hand, formally. Chamberlain took it.

”It was a hell of a day, wasn’t it. Buster?”

Kilrain gri

”I’ll come down and see you tomorrow.” Chamberlain backed off.

”Sure.” Kilrain was blinking, trying to keep his eyes open. Chamberlain walked away, stopped, looked back, saw the eyes already closed, turned his back for the last time, moved off into the gathering dark.

He moved forward and began to climb the big hill in the dark. As he walked he forgot his pain; his heart began to beat quickly, and he felt an incredible joy. He looked at himself, wonderingly, at the beloved men around him, and he said to himself: Lawrence, old son, treasure this moment. Because you feel as good as a man can feel.

5. LONGSTREET.

The hospital was an open field just back of the line.

There were small white tents all over the field and bigger tents where the surgeons did the cutting. Hood was there, in a big tent, on a litter. Longstreet came in out of the dark, bowing under a canopy, saw the face like cold marble in yellow candlelight, eyes black and soft like old polished stones. Cullen and Maury were working together on the arm. Longstreet saw; not much left of the hand. Exposed bone. He thought of Jackson hit in the arm at Chancellorsville: died a slow death. Let us cross over the river. Hood’s black eyes stared unseeing. Longstreet said softly, “Sam?”

Cullen looked up; Maury was tying a knot, went on working. Troops had gathered outside the canopy. A sergeant bawled: move on, move on. Hood stared at Longstreet, not seeing. There was dirt streaked in tear stains on his cheeks, but he was not crying now. His head twitched, cheek jerked. He said suddenly, in a light, strange, feathery voice, “Should have let me move to ri- “ He breathed. “To the right.”

Longstreet nodded. To Cullen, he said, “Can I talk to him?”

”Rather not. We’ve drugged him. Sir. Better let him sleep.”

Hood raised the other arm, twitched fingers, let the hand fall. “Din see much. Boys went in an’ hit the rocks. I got hit.”

Longstreet, no good at talking, nodded.

”Should have moved right, Pete.” Hood was staring at him, bright, drugged, eerie eyes. “How did it go, Pete?”

”Fine, Sam,”

”We took those rocks?”

”Most of ‘em.”

”Took the rocks. Really did.”

”Yes,” Longstreet lied.

Hood’s eyes blinked slowly, blearily. He put the good hand up to shade his eyes. “Devil’s Den. Good name for it.”

”Yep.”

”Worst ground I ever saw, you know that?” Hood laid the back of his hand across his eyes. His voice trembled. “Got to give my boys credit.”

Longstreet said to Cullen, “Can you save the arm?”

”We’re trying. But if we do, it won’t be much use to him.”

Hood said, “Casualties? Was casualties?”

”Don’t know yet,” Longstreet said. And then: “Not bad.” Another lie.

Cullen said gloomily, plaintively, “He ought to go to sleep. Now don’t fight it, General. Let it work. You just drift right on off.”

Longstreet said softly, “You go to sleep now, Sam. Tell you all about it tomorrow.”

”Shame not to see it.” Hood took the hand away. His eyes were dreaming, closing like small doors over a dim light. “Should have gone to the right.” He looked hazily at the hand. “You fellas try to save that now, you hear?”

”Yes, sir. General. Now why don’t you…?”

”Sure will miss it.” Hood’s eyes closed again; his face began smoothing toward sleep. Longstreet thought: he won’t die. Not like Jackson. There was a blackness around Jackson’s eyes. Longstreet reached down, touched Hood on the shoulder, then turned and went out into the moonlight.

Sorrel was there, with the silent staff. Longstreet mounted, rising up into the moonlight, looking out across the pale tents at the small fires, the black silence. He heard a boy crying, pitiful childish sobs, a deeper voice beyond soothing. Longstreet shook his head to clear the sound, closed his eyes, saw Barksdale go streaming to his death against a flaming fence in the brilliant afternoon, hair blazing out behind him like white fire. Longstreet rode up the ridge toward the darker ground under the trees.

Barksdale lies under a sheet. They have not covered his face; there is a flag over him. Semmes is dead. How many others? Longstreet cleared the brain, blew away bloody images, the brilliant fence in the bright gleaming air of the afternoon, tried to catalogue the dead. Must have figures.

But he was not thinking clearly. There was a rage in his brain, a bloody cloudy area like mud stirred in a pool. He was like a fighter who has been down once and is up again, hurt and in rage, looking to return the blow, looking for the opening. But it was a silent rage, a crafty rage; he was learning war. He rode purposefully, slowly off into the dark feeling the swelling inside his chest like an unexploded bomb and in the back of his mind a vision of that gray rocky hill(all spiked with guns, massed with blue troops at the top, and he knew as certainly as he had ever known anything as a soldier that the hill could not be taken, not any more, and a cold, metal, emotionless voice told him that coldly, calmly, speaking into his ear as if he had a companion with him utterly untouched by the rage, the war, a machine inside wholly unhurt, a metal mind that did not feel at all.

”Sir?”

Longstreet swiveled in the saddle: Sorrel. The man said warily, “Captain Goree is here, sir. Ah, you sent for him.”

Longstreet looked, saw the ski

Sorrel backed off. Longstreet said, “T. J. Want you to get out to the right and scout the position. No more damn fool counter-marches in the morning. Take most of the night but get it clear, get it clear. I’ve got Hood’s Division posted on our right flank. Or what’s left of it. I’ve put Law in command. You need any help, you get it from Law, all right?”

The Texan, a silent man, nodded but did not move.

Longstreet said, “What’s the matter?”

”They’re blaming us,” Goree said. His voice was squeaky, like a dry wagon wheel. He radiated anger.

Longstreet stared.

”What?”

”I been talking to Hood’s officers. Do you know they blame us? They blame you. For today.”

Longstreet could not see the bony face clearly, in the dark, but the voice was tight and very high, and Longstreet thought: he could be a dangerous man, out of control.

Goree said, “You may hear of it. General. I had to hit this fella. They all said the attack was your fault and if General Lee knowed he wouldn’t have ordered it and I just couldn’t just stand there and I couldn’t say right out what I felt, so I had to hit this one fella. Pretty hard. Had to do it. Ain’ goin’ to apologize neither. No time. But. Thought you ought to know.”

”Is he dead?”

”I don’t think so.”

”Well, that’s good.” Longstreet meditated. “Well, don’t worry on it. Probably won’t hear another thing if you didn’t kill him. Probably forgotten in the morning. One thing: I want no duels. No silly damn duels.”

”Yes, sir. Thing is, if anything bad happens now, they all blame it on you. I seen it comin’. They can’t blame General Lee. Not no more. So they all take it out on you. You got to watch yourself, General.”

”Well,” Longstreet said. “Let it go.”

”Yes, sir. But it aint easy. After I saw you take all morning trying to get General Lee to move to the right.”

”Let it go. T. J. We’ll talk on it after the fight.”