Gods and Generals - Jeff Shaara [129]
He tried to spot Tom, looked for the floppy hat, did not even know what company he was in, and his eyes ran up and down the rows, past all variety of dress and stance and expression. Are they better than us? He thought of General Hodsdon’s words, and he wondered if the rebel army was so much better, what it was that won battles. He still felt the dread, a sense of doom, and then he saw Tom, the bright face. He was not wearing the ridiculous hat, was smiling at him, directly at him, and Chamberlain could not stare back at him, because he would begin to smile as well. But he felt the look, the energy of youth, the enthusiasm, and now he began to see others, the faces that were staring to the front, listening to Ames’s words, absorbing them, and he saw there were a lot of them, men who did not yet know how, but would learn, men who understood after all, what this meant, what they had to do.
He began to feel better, the dread slipping away, and imagined himself wearing the uniform, the deep blue, seated high on a horse, before neat rows of men with their own uniforms, straight lines of rifles, shining bayonets. He glanced up at Ames, heard the voice of the commander, and thought, No, they are not better than us, and we will have our chance.
September 1862
THEY WERE at Camp Mason less than a month when orders arrived to board the trains, trains that would pass through other towns and other states, adding carloads of men and equipment, bringing them all out of the cool hills of New England, toward the flat, hot plains around Washington.
Chamberlain had his horse finally, a gift from the town of Brunswick, a wonderful surprise. It was light gray, dappled with white spots, and he rode slowly, grandly, through the formations, watching the men of the regiment turning themselves into soldiers. And they had watched him as well, as he was taught and drilled night after night by Ames. Now, as they rode the long rails south, there was a feeling, shared by all of them, that they were ready for the only real test. Ames still pushed them, rode them hard, drilled them so often that they began to curse him, hate him, but they continued to learn, and if Ames was despised, they also knew he was a good soldier.
In Washington they continued to drill, lines and formations, columns of march and lines of battle, the bugle commands and the hand signals of the officers. Then they were issued muskets and ammunition, backpacks and blankets and canteens. Around them, in camps spread throughout the city and well beyond, great fields of blue troops and white tents, horses and wagons, began to move together, toward and across the river, lining up and flowing out along the narrow, hard roads. The men knew it was their turn, fresh troops for a battered army, and they began the march, not to the south, as they had thought, but northwest, toward a far corner of Maryland.
CHAMBERLAIN HEARD the reports, the rumors and gossip, and sorted through it all, began to feel an instinct for what was accurate and what was absurd. Then there was the official announcement, passed along formally to each regiment: General Pope was gone, relieved. The reckless and pompous fool had been replaced, after he had led his army to a bloody disaster, another costly and painful embarrassment on the same ground that they knew as Bull Run, and it was the beloved McClellan who was getting his second chance.
What his troops, and General Lee, did not know was that an extraordinary piece of good fortune had fallen upon McClellan. Lee’s Special Order 191, which detailed to his generals their movements and