Gods and Generals - Jeff Shaara [169]
From each side Hill’s muskets began to fire, squeezing the blue lines together, pressing them with the deadly fire, and so they would reach the trees even more compactly, moving where the fire was the least, where Hill had no muskets. Jackson saw it happening, saw the gap in Hill’s lines suddenly filling with a strong flow of blue. They began to move into the swamp, pushing forward, driving a wedge between Hill’s brigades.
Jackson pulled on the horse, began to move back toward the road. Smoke was drifting across now, and he could see very little. The sounds of muskets filled the woods, and he did not see Hill. He moved down the road, toward the point where the blue advance would come, saw General Maxcy Gregg and the troops that lay behind the swamp, that would next feel the thrust of Meade’s advance.
“General, prepare for the assault. The enemy is cutting our lines . . . they are pushing through the swamp, between the brigades of Archer and Lane.”
Gregg nodded. “Yes, General, we have seen them coming. Can we expect some support?”
Jackson turned, saw his two aides following up close behind him. “Captain Pendleton,” he said, “go to General Early. Tell him to advance his men here, toward these woods. He may direct himself by the sounds of the battle. Captain Smith . . . go to General Taliaferro, tell him to advance his men here as well.” He turned back to Gregg, who saluted and was quickly gone.
The battle was closer now, the minié balls clipping leaves and small branches around him, high shots from lines of men who knew they were breaking through the enemy, men who would not stop unless you made them stop. He looked down the road in both directions, still did not see Hill, and now in the road in front of him, not a hundred yards away, smoke boiled out of the trees, a fresh volley from moving troops. He saw a cluster of blue, the men pouring out into the road like the flow from a great blue wound, lining up against Gregg’s troops, who were moving up from the woods in the rear.
Suddenly, he was blinded by a swirling cloud of smoke, the hot sulfur smell. Jackson turned the horse, rode back into the woods, tried to find a clear spot, someplace he could see. In front of him and to the side new smoke poured from the lines of muskets, and he could hear nothing but the steady crack of the rifles, the enemy yells, and the screams of his shattered troops.
He rode farther back, tried to escape the smoke, to find someone, Early. We have the reserves, he thought, we are strong. They never should have pushed this far, cut through our lines. He thought of Hill, felt a violent twinge, saw the man’s small figure, the ragged beard, the red shirt that he now saw as obnoxious, foolish bravado, and he wanted to kill him, grab him with his fists and squeeze the life from him.
He jerked the horse through the trees, ducked under low branches. He rode up onto a small ridge, could see out through the woods, thinner trees, the dense clouds of smoke hanging in the branches. The sounds kept moving, a steady flow, pushing his men back, and he knew this was bad. If they send in more strength at the gap, he thought, they can turn our lines completely, cutting behind the bigger hills, surrounding Longstreet’s position. He faced the sounds, tried to determine the direction, glanced up at the sun, now high in the sky, and gauged the direction. No, they had not turned yet, were still coming straight through, straight across the road.
The firing began to slow now, the men deep into dense