Killer Angels, The - Michael Shaara [56]
Is that true?"
"Might have been." Longstreet chuckled. "I know one that I heard myself. While ago we sat around a fire, talked on Darwin. Evolution. You read about it?"
"Ah?"
"Charles Darwin. Theory of Evolution."
"Can't say that I have. There are so many of these things rattling about."
"Theory that claims that men are descended from apes."
"Oh that. Oh yes. Well, I've heard-distastefully-of that."
"Well, we were talking on that. Finally agreed that Darwin was probably right.
Then one fella said, with great dignity he said, 'Well, maybe you are come from an ape, and maybe I am come from an ape, but General Lee, he didn't come from no ape.'"
"Well, of course." Fremantle did not quite see the humor. Longstreet grinned into the dark.
"It is a Christian army," Longstreet said. "You did not know Jackson."
"No. It was my great misfortune to arrive after his death. They tell great things of him."
"He was colorful," Longstreet said. "He was Christian."
"His reputation exceeds that of Lee."
"Well, pay no attention to that. But he was a good soldier. He could move troops. He knew how to hate."
Longstreet thought: a good Christian. He remembered suddenly the day Jackson had come upon some of his troops letting a valiant Yankee color sergeant withdraw after a great fight. The men refused to fire at him, that man had been brave, he deserved to live. Jackson said, "I don't want them brave, I want them dead."
"They tell many stories of the man. I regret not having known him."
"He loved to chew lemons," Longstreet said.
"Lemons?"
"Don't know where he got them. He loved them. I remember him that way, sitting on a fence, chewing a lemon, his finger in the air."
Fremantle stared.
"He had a finger shot away," Longstreet explained.
"When he held it down the blood would get into it and hurt him, so he would hold it up in the air and ride or talk with his arm held up, not noticing it.
It was a sight, until you got used to it. Dick Ewell thought he was crazy Ewell is rather odd himself. He told me Jackson told him that he never ate pepper because it weakened his left leg."
Fremantle's mouth was open.
"I'm serious," Longstreet said amiably "A little eccentricity is a help to a general. It helps with the newspapers.
The women love it too. Southern women like their men religious and a little mad. That's why they fall in love with preachers."
Premantle was not following. Longstreet said, "He knew how to fight, Jackson did. A. P. Hill is good too. He wears a red shirt when he's going into battle.
It's an interesting army. You've met George Pickett?"
"Oh yes."
"Perfume and all." Longstreet chuckled. "It's a hell of an army" But thinking of Pickett, last in line, reminded him of Pickett's two brigade commanders: Garnett and Armistead. Old Armistead, torn by the war away from his beloved friend Win Hancock, who was undoubtedly waiting ahead on that black hill beyond Gettysburg. Armistead would be thinking of that tonight. And then there was Dick Garnett.
"Pickett's men are extraordinary men," Fremantle said.
"The Virginians seem different, quite, from the Texans, or the soldiers from Mississippi. Is that true, do you think, sir?"
"Yes. Have you met Dick Garnett?"
"Ah, yes. Tall fella, rather dark. Wounded leg Odd that..."
"Jackson tried to court-martial him. For cowardice in the face of the enemy I've known Garnett for twenty years. No coward. But his honor is gone. You will hear bad things from people who know nothing. I want you to know the truth. Jackson was... a hard man."
Fremantle nodded silently.
"He also court-martialed A. P. Hill once. And Lee simply overlooked it. Well, come to think of it, I had some trouble with old Powell myself once; he wanted to fight me a duel. Matter of honor. I ignored him. It's an interesting army.
Only Lee could hold it together. But the thing about Garnett troubles me. He thinks his honor is gone."
"A tragic thing," Fremantle said.