The Killer Angels - Michael Shaara [44]
Hill shook his head, looked away from Lee’s eyes. “I don’t know, sir. I sent forward for information a while back. Harry Heth is ahead. He has instructions not to force a major action. I told him myself, this morning.”
“You have no word from him?”
“No, sir.” Hill was not comfortable. Lee said nothing. They went to the brick house. There was a woman at the gate to whom Lee was introduced. Near her stood a small boy in very short pants, sucking his thumb. Lee was offered coffee.
Lee said to Hill, “I must know what’s happening ahead.”
“Sir, I’ll go myself.”
Hill was up abruptly, giving instructions to aides. Lee started to object, said nothing. Hill was a nervous, volatile, brilliant man. He had been a superb division commander, but now he commanded a corps, and it was a brutal military truth that there were men who were marvelous with a regiment but could not handle a brigade, and men who were superb with a division but incapable of leading a corps. No way of predicting it. One could only have faith in character. 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 of 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 Heth 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?