Gods and Generals - Jeff Shaara [185]
He had taken over five thousand men to the stone wall, taken them to within twenty-five yards, the closest anyone had gotten, and all three of his brigades, Zook and Meagher and Caldwell, had been decimated. They had lost nearly forty percent of their strength, over two thousand casualties. Once he saw the figure, he handed the report to his staff, could not complete it, not yet, and left the men behind. He walked back to the river, passed through the undamaged batteries that still watched the town, the guns that could not help them.
Hancock moved with careful steps, his boots sliding in the soft mud and small patches of ice. He walked upriver, away from the army, walked to the place in the river he had seen before, where the cattle had come across, where his men could have crossed days earlier. A decision, he thought. A command decision.
He understood command, understood the value of discipline, it was the most basic lesson a soldier could learn. If you were asked, you offered your input, your suggestions, and in the end you did what the commander told you to do. It was simple and straightforward, and it was the only way to run an army. And this time it had been a horrible disaster.
He found a rock, climbed up, found a dry spot and sat down. Across the river he could see the burnt and crushed buildings in Fredericksburg, the debris piled along the streets, the scattered ruins of people’s lives, lives that were changed forever. His men had done that. Not all of it, of course. The whole corps had seemed to go insane, had turned the town into some kind of violent party, a furious storm that blew out of control, and he could not stop it. The commanders had ordered the provost guards at the bridges to let no goods leave the town, nothing could be carried across the bridges, and so what the men could not keep, what they could not steal, they had just destroyed. And now, he thought, the people will return, trying to rescue some fragile piece of home, and they will find this . . . and they will learn something new about war, more than the quiet nightmare of leaving your home behind. They will learn that something happens to men, men who have felt no satisfaction, who have absorbed and digested defeat after bloody stupid defeat, men who up to now have done mostly what they were told to do. And when those men begin to understand that it is not anything in them, no great weakness or inferiority, but that it is the leaders, the generals and politicians who tell them what to do, that the fault is there, after a while they will stop listening. Then the beast, the collective anger, battered and bloodied, will strike out, will respond to the unending sights of horror, the deaths of friends and brothers, and it will not be fair or reasonable or just, since there is no intelligence in the beast. They will strike out at whatever presents itself, and here it was the harmless and innocent lives of the people of Fredericksburg.
He stared at the town for a long moment, the church steeples that still rose high and had somehow survived. At least you will have that, he thought. He wondered how strong their faith could be, after . . . He glanced up, looked toward God, something he rarely did, said to himself, All right, help them. Give them some strength to start over, rebuild what they have lost. If this is Your will, then explain that to them. I surely cannot.
He could see rebel soldiers in the town, men on horses, flags, but they were not in force, were not there to set up a line of defense. The big guns were still up here, after all, and by now Lee would know there was no need for a defense. It was over.
In the river below him the pontoon bridges were still fastened to the near shore, but had drifted down with the current, lay flat against the bank, and he could see men moving beside them, starting their work, untying