Gods and Generals - Jeff Shaara [229]
“ ‘It is necessary that the glorious victory thus far achieved be prosecuted with the utmost vigor, and the enemy given no time to rally. As soon as it is possible, they must be pressed, so that we may unite the two wings of the army. Endeavor, therefore, to dispossess them of Chancellorsville.’ ”
He stopped, there was a silent moment, and he said, “The plan is clear, gentlemen. We will form in lines to press hard to the east, toward Chancellorsville, and by doing so, we can move our right flank around to the southeast and link up with General Lee’s lines. The enemy has already demonstrated a great willingness to leave this field. We will do what we can to speed them along.”
The meeting was over, and men and horses began to move away. Hotchkiss sat down beside a small fire. Pendleton watched him, lowered his voice, said to Stuart, “It has been difficult for us all. Captain Smith is with the general now . . . I had best get back as well. I will keep you informed.”
Stuart nodded, patted the young man’s shoulder again, said, “Tell General Jackson that we will finish the work. This day too will be ours.”
Pendleton tried to smile, nodded, moved slowly toward the horse. Now both men turned, saw it together, the first white glow of the dawn.
HE HAD ridden out first to the south, to the right flank of their lines, followed the advance as it pushed forward, smashing with full fury into the first of the Federal positions. The right flank was little more than a mile from Lee’s left, but in between, Sickles’s corps had dug in, well below the turnpike, and so Stuart could not reach Lee without first confronting the deep lines of the Third Corps.
Heth’s lines were nearly two miles wide, and they swept forward in a continuation of the assault the day before, straight down the turnpike, toward Chancellorsville. Colston’s lines were moving up behind, and in the rear, Rodes was organizing what was left of his division. Stuart knew that he could count on barely twenty-five thousand exhausted and underfed troops, and in front of him was an army of nearly ninety thousand men, many of whom—the men under Reynolds and Meade—had yet to see any action at all.
To the north, Reynolds’s First Corps and Meade’s Fifth had worked all night, dug a long solid line, blocking any advance toward the river, the advance that Jackson would have pressed the day before had he not run out of daylight. Around Chancellorsville, Couch and Slocum were entrenched in a near circle, Slocum facing south and west,
and Couch facing east. Between his headquarters and the Confederate lines, Hooker had dug four solid lines of entrenchments.
Stuart rode close behind the first line, as Jackson had the day before. He waved his sword, yelled, “Remember Jackson,” and they watched him, shouted back. They all knew it was not yet a victory, that the long day ahead of them would prove whether the great, bold plan, the sheer audacity of Lee and Jackson, would be enough after all.
They could see the abatis now, the great piles of thick brush, cut trees, spread high in front of the first entrenchments. The lines kept moving, pushed ahead through smaller thickets, short clearings. He pulled the horse along, stepping over the unburied dead, tried to pick his way through the roar of musket fire. Behind him, he could not see the next line, hidden in the thick brush, and he turned the horse, called out and waited. Then came the great rumble, from the batteries far in front, and low screams, the high whistling shrieks, and the brush began to fly apart around him. Great blasts of splinters blew by him, and he turned again, ducked low on the horse, saw the backs of his men pushing forward, yelled, “Keep moving, forward!”
He rode back to the south, toward the right flank, looked for officers, horses. The orders were plain, Lee had sent another message: link their two armies together, move around below the Federal lines. He pushed the horse into a thick mass of vines. The horse stopped, and he yelled, “Move!”
A shell tore through the brush behind them, a sharp spray of dirt hitting