The Killer Angels - Michael Shaara [3]
On the march toward Gettysburg Pickett’s Virginia Division is by a trick of fate last in line. He worries constantly that he will miss the last great battle of the war.
Richard Ewell, Lieutenant General, forty-six. Egg-bald, one-legged, recently married. (He refers to his new wife absentmindedly as “Mrs. Brown.”) Eccentric, brilliant, chosen out of all Lee’s officers to succeed to a portion of Stonewall Jackson’s old command. But he has lost something along with the leg that a soldier sometimes loses with the big wounds. He approaches Gettysburg unsure of himself, in command of twenty thousand men.
Ambrose Powell Hill, Major General, thirty-seven. Has risen to command the other part of Jackson’s old corps. A moody man, often competent, bad-tempered, wealthy, aspires to a place in Richmond society, frets and broods and fights with superiors. He wears a red shirt into battle. He should be a fine soldier, and sometimes is, but he is often ill for no apparent reason. He does not like to follow orders. At Gettysburg he will command a corps, and he will be sick again.
Lewis Armistead, Brigadier General, forty-six. Commander of one of George Pickett’s brigades. They call him “Lo,” which is short for Lothario, which is meant to be witty, for he is a shy and silent man, a widower. Descended from a martial family, he has a fighter’s spirit, is known throughout the old army as the man who, while a cadet at the Point, was suspended for hitting Jubal Early in the head with a plate. Has developed over long years of service a deep affection for Winfield Scott Hancock, who fights now with the Union. Armistead looks forward to the reunion with Hancock, which will take place at Gettysburg.
Richard Brooke Garnett, Brigadier General, forty-four. Commands the second of Pickett’s brigades. A dark-eyed, silent, tragic man. Followed Jackson in command of the old Stonewall Brigade; at Kerns-town he has made the mistake of withdrawing his men from an impossible position. Jackson is outraged, orders a court-martial which never convenes. Jackson dies before Garnett, accused of cowardice, can clear his name and redeem his honor, the honor which no man who knows him has ever doubted. He comes to Gettysburg a tortured man, too ill to walk. He believes that Jackson deliberately lied. In that camp there is nothing more important than honor.
J. E. B. Stuart, Lieutenant General, thirty. The laughing banjo player, the superb leader of cavalry who has ridden rings around the Union Army. A fine soldier, whose reports are always accurate, but a man who loves to read about himself in the Richmond newspapers. His mission that month is to keep Lee informed of the movement of the Union Army. He fails.
Jubal Early, Major General, forty-six. Commander of one of Ewell’s divisions. A dark, cold, icy man, bitter, alone. Left the Point to become a prosecuting attorney, to which he is well suited. A competent soldier, but a man who works with an eye to the future, a slippery man, a careful soldier; he will build his reputation whatever the cost. Dick Ewell defers to him. Longstreet despises him. Lee makes do with the material at hand. Lee calls him “my bad old man.”
These men wore blue:
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Colonel, thirty-four. He prefers to be called “Lawrence.” A professor of rhetoric at Bowdoin University, sometime professor of “Natural and Revealed Religion,” successor to the chair of the famed Professor Stowe, husband to Harriet Beecher. Tall and rather handsome, attractive to women, somewhat boyish, a clean and charming person. An excellent student, Phi Beta Kappa, he speaks seven languages and has a beautiful singing voice, but he has wanted all his life to be a soldier. The university will not free him for war, but in the summer of 1862 he requests a sabbatical for study in Europe. When it is granted