Killer Angels, The - Michael Shaara [43]
But to be ill, on this day-very bad luck. Lee watched him.
He seemed well enough to ride. Good. Hill was gone.
Lee began work on a plan of withdrawal. Moments later Walter Taylor was in with General Anderson, who had just come into town to look for Hill.
Anderson's Division, of Hill's Corps, was stacking up on the road south of town, moving in behind Pender and Heth. Anderson had come to find out about the sound of the guns. He knew nothing.
Sitting in the house was galling. Lee was becoming agitated. Anderson sat by, hat in hand, watchfully.
Lee said abruptly, impulsively, "I cannot imagine what's become of Stuart.
I've heard nothing. You understand, I know nothing of what's in front of me.
It may be the entire Federal army."
He stopped, controlled himself. But he could wait no longer. He called for Traveler and moved on out of Cashtown, toward Gettysburg.
Now he could begin to hear rifle fire, the small sounds of infantry. He touched his chest, feeling a stuffiness there. So it was more than a duel of artillery. Yet Heth was not a fool.
Heth would have reasons. Suspend judgment. But Jackson is not here. Ewell and Hill are new at their commands; all in God's hands. But there was pain in his chest, pain in the left arm. He could see smoke ahead, a long white cloud, low, like fog, on the horizon. The troops around him were eager, bright-faced; the bands were playing. He came out into a field and saw men deploying, moving out on both sides of the road, cutting away the fences: Pender's Division. He put his binoculars to his eyes. Troops were running in a dark grove of trees.
Taylor said that Gettysburg was just ahead.
Lee rode left up a flat grassy rise. Below him there was a planted field, rows of low green bush, rolling toward a creek, broken by one low rail fence and a few thick clumps of trees. Beyond the stream there was a rise and atop the rise was a large red building with a white cupola. To the left was an open railroad cut, unfinished, a white wound in the earth.
There was smoke around the building. A battery of artillery was firing from there. Lee saw blue hills to the south, in the haze, but now, sweeping the glasses, he could begin to see the lines of fire, could sense by the blots of smoke and the pattern of sound what had happened, was happening, begin piecing it together.
Heth's Division had formed on a front about a mile, had obviously been repulsed. The Union infantry was firing back from a line at least as long as Heth's. There did not seem to be many cannon, but there were many rifles. Was this the whole Union force or only an advance detachment?
Ewell was off to the north; Longstreet was miles away.
What had Hem gotten himself into?
The fire from Heth's front was slowing. His troops were not moving. Lee could see many wounded, wagons under trees, clusters of men drifting back through a field to the right. Aides began coming up with messages. Taylor had gone to look for Heth. Lee was thinking: how do we disengage? how do we fall back?
where do we hold until Longstreet comes up?
He sent a message to Ewell to advance with all possible speed. He sent a note to Longstreet telling him that the Union infantry had arrived in force. But he knew Longstreet could do nothing; there were two divisions in his way. Lee looked at his watch: well after two o'clock. Darkness a long way away. No way of knowing where the rest of Meade's army was. Possibly moving to the south, to get between Lee and Washington.
And here, at last, was Harry Heth.
He rode up spattering dust, jerking at the horse with unnatural motions, a square-faced man, a gentle face. He blinked, saluting, wiping sweat from his eyes. He had never been impulsive, like Hill; there was even at this moment something grave and perplexed about him, a studious bewilderment. He had been the old army's leading authority on the rifle; he had written