The Killer Angels - Michael Shaara [18]
“You ride today, Lawrence. You look weary.”
Chamberlain nodded. Ellis Spear was up. He was Chamberlain’s ranking officer, an ex-teacher from Wiscasset who was impressed with Chamberlain’s professorship. A shy man, formal, but very competent. He gestured toward the prisoners.
“Colonel, what do you suggest we do with them?”
“Give them a moment. Some of them may be willing to fight. Tom, you go back and see what they say. We’ll have to march them under guard. Don’t know what else to do. I’m not going to shoot them. We can’t leave them here.”
The regiment had formed out in the road, the color bearers in front. Chamberlain mounted, put on the wide-brimmed hat with the emblem of the infantry, began walking his horse slowly across the field toward the road. The uneasiness still troubled him. He had missed something, he did not know what. Well, he was an instinctive man; the mind would tell him sooner or later. Perhaps it was only that when you try to put it into words you cannot express it truly, it never sounds as you dream it. But then … you were asking them to die.
Ellis Spear was saying, “How far are we from Pennsylvania, Colonel, you have any idea?”
“Better than twenty miles.” Chamberlain squinted upward. “Going to be another hot day.”
He moved to the head of the column. The troops were moving slowly, patiently, setting themselves for the long march. After a moment Tom came riding up. His face was delighted. Chamberlain said, “How many are going to join us?”
Tom grinned hugely. “Would you believe it? All but six.”
“How many?”
“I counted, by actual count, one hundred and fourteen.”
“Well.” Chamberlain rubbed his nose, astounded.
Tom said, still grinning, “Brother, you did real good.”
“They’re all marching together?”
“Right. Glazier’s got the six hardheads in tow.”
“Well, get all the names and start assigning them to different companies. I don’t want them bunched up, spread them out. See about their arms.”
“Yes, sir, Colonel, sir.”
Chamberlain reached the head of the column. The road ahead was long and straight, rising toward a ridge of trees. He turned in his saddle, looked back, saw the entire Fifth Corps forming behind him. He thought: 120 new men. Hardly noticeable in such a mass. And yet … he felt a moment of huge joy. He called for road guards and skirmishers and the 20th Maine began to move toward Gettysburg.
3.
BUFORD
The land west of Gettysburg is a series of ridges, like waves in the earth. The first Rebel infantry came in that way, down the narrow gray road from the mountain gap. At noon they were in sight of the town. It was a small neat place: white board houses, rail fences, all in order, one white church steeple. The soldiers coming over the last ridge by the Lutheran Seminary could see across the town to the hills beyond and a winding gray road coming up from the south, and as the first gray troops entered the town there was motion on that southern road: a blur, blue movement, blue cavalry. They came on slowly around the last bend, a long blue smoking snake, spiked with guns and flags. The soldiers looked at each other across vacant fields. The day was very hot; the sky was a steamy haze. Someone lifted a gun and fired, but the range was too long. The streets of Gettysburg were deserted.
Just beyond the town there were two hills. One was wooded and green; the other was flat, topped by a cemetery. The Union commander, a tall blond sunburned man named John Buford, rode up the long slope to the top of the hill, into the cemetery. He stopped by a stone wall, looked down across flat open ground, lovely clear field of fire. He could see all the way across the town and the ridges to the blue mountains beyond, a darkening sky. On the far side of the town there was a red brick building, the stately seminary, topped with a white cupola. The road by the building was jammed with Rebel troops. Buford counted half a dozen flags. He had thought it was only a raiding party. Now he sensed power behind