Killer Angels, The - Michael Shaara [106]
"General Lee is the soldier of the age, the soldier of the age." Fremantle radiated approval like a tattered star, but he did it with such cool and delicate grace that there was nothing unnatural about it, nothing fawning or nattering. He babbled a charming hero-worship, one gentleman to another.
Longstreet, who had never learned the art of compliment, admired it.
"May I ride along with you, sir?"
"Course."
"I do not wish to intrude upon your thoughts and schemes."
"No problem."
"I observed you with General Lee. I would imagine that there are weighty technical matters that occupy your mind."
Longstreet shrugged. Fremantle rode along beamily chatting. He remarked that he had watched General Lee during much of the engagement that day and that the General rarely sent messages. Longstreet explained that Lee usually gave the orders and then let his boys alone to do the job. Fremantle returned to awe.
"The soldier of the age," he said again, and Longstreet thought: should have spoken to Lee. Must go back tonight. But... let the old man sleep. Never saw his face that weary. Soul of the army. He's in command. You are only the hand.
Silence. Like a soldier.
He will attack.
Well. They love him. They do not blame him. They do impossible things for him.
They may even take that hill.
"... have no doubt," Fremantle was saying, "that General Lee shall become the world's foremost authority on military matters when this war is over, which would appear now to be only a matter of days, or at most a few weeks. I suspect all Europe will be turning to him for lessons."
Lessons?
"I have been thinking, I must confess, of setting some brief thoughts to paper," Fremantle announced gravely.
"Some brief remarks of my own, appended to an account of this battle, and perhaps others this army has fought. Some notes as to the tactics."
Tactics?
"General Lee's various stratagems will be most instructive, most illuminating.
I wonder, sir, if I might enlist your aid in this, ah, endeavor. As one most closely concerned? That is, to be brief, may I come to you when in need?"
"Sure," Longstreet said. Tactics? He chuckled. The tactics are simple: find the enemy, fight him. He shook his head, snorting. Fremantle spoke softly, in tones of awe.
"One would not think of General Lee, now that one has met him, now that one has looked him, so to speak, in the eye, as it were, one would not think him, you known to be such a devious man."
"Devious?" Longstreet swung to stare at him, aghast.
"Oh my word," Fremantle went on devoutly, "but he's a tricky one. The Old Gray Fox, as they say. Charming phrase. American to the hilt."
"Devious?" Longstreet stopped dead in the road. "Devious." He laughed aloud.
Fremantle stared an owlish stare.
"Why, Colonel, bless your soul, there aint a devious bone in Robert Lee's body, don't you know that?"
"My dear sir."
"By damn, man, if there is one human being in the world less devious than Robert Lee, I aint yet met him. By God and fire. Colonel, but you amuse me."
And yet Longstreet was not amused. He leaned forward blackly across the pommel of the saddle. "Colonel, let me explain something. The secret of General Lee is that men love him and follow him with faith in him. That's one secret. The next secret is that General Lee makes a decision and he moves, with guts, and he's been up against a lot of sickly generals who don't know how to make decisions, although some of them have guts but whose men don't love them.
That's why we win, mostly. Because we move with speed, and faith, and because we usually have the good ground. Tactics? God, man, we don't win because of tricks. What were the tactics at Malvern Hill? What were the tactics at Fredericksburg, where we got down behind a bloody stone wall and shot the bloody hell out of them as they came up, wave after wave, bravest thing you ever saw, because, listen, there are some damn good boys across the way, make no mistake on that. I've fought with those boys, and they know how to fight when they've got the ground, but tactics? Tactics?"