Michael Shaara - The Killer Angels

”Button your shirt,” Chamberlain said.

”Yassuh, boss. Hey, what we got here?” He moved to see the surrounded black. The surgeon had bent over the man and the red eyes had gone wild with new fear, rolling horse-like, terrified. Chamberlain went away, went back to the coffeepot. He felt a slow deep flow of sympathy. To be alien and alone, among white lords and glittering machines, uprooted by brute force and threat of death from the familiar earth of what he did not even know was Africa, to be shipped in black stinking darkness across an ocean he had not dreamed existed, forced then to work on alien soil, strange beyond belief, by men with guns whose words he could not even comprehend. What could the black man know of what was happening? Chamberlain tried to imagine it. He had seen ignorance, but this was more than that.

What could this man know of borders and states’ rights and the Constitution and Dred Scott? What did he know of the war? And yet he was truly what it was all about. It simplified to that. Seen in the flesh, the cause of the war was brutally clear.

He thought of writing Fanny a quick letter. Dreamyly. He wanted to tell her about the black man. He wanted time to think. But the 83rd Pennsylvania was up and forming. Ellis Spear was coming along the line. It came to Chamberlain suddenly that they might move from here to battle. Under his command. He took a deep breath. Bloody lonely feeling.

He moved back to the cluster around the black man. The shirt was off and Nolan was attending him. The light was stronger; the sun was a blood red ball just over the hills. Chamberlain saw a glistening black chest, massive muscles. The black man was in pain.

Nolan said, “He’ll be all right. Colonel. Bullet glanced off a rib. Cut the skin. Looks just like anybody else inside.”

Nolan clucked in surprise. “Never treated a Negro before. This one’s a tough one. They all got muscles like this one, Colonel?”

”We’ll have to leave him,” Chamberlain said. “Let him have some rations, try to give him directions. Buster, can you talk to him?”

”A little. Found out who shot him. It was some woman in that town there, Gettysburg.”

”A woman?”

”He came into town looking for directions and a woman came out on a porch and shot at him. He don’t understand. I guess she didn’t want to take a chance on being caught with him. But shoot him? Christ. He crawled out here figurin’ on dyin’.”

Chamberlain shook his head slowly.

Kilrain said, “He’s only been in this country a few weeks. He says he’d like to go home. Since now he’s free.”

Bugles were blowing. The men were moving out into formation. Tom came up with the black mare.

”I don’t know what I can do,” Chamberlain said. “Give him some food. Bind him up. Make a good bandage. But I don’t know what else.”

”Which way is home. Colonel?”

”Let’s go. Buster.”

”Do I point him generally east?”

Chamberlain shrugged. He started to moved off, and then he turned, and to the black face looking up, to the red eyes, he looked down and bowed slightly, touching his cap.

”Goodbye, friend. Good luck. God bless you.”

He rode off feeling foolish and angry, placed himself in front of the Regiment.

The Division was forming on level ground, down the road-great square blocks of blue. The colors were unfurled, the lines were dressed. A stillness came over the corps. They were expecting a review, possibly Meade himself. But no one came. Chamberlain sat on his horse, alone in the sun before the ranks of the Twentieth Maine. He heard Tozier behind him: “Dress it up, dress it up,” a muffled complaint, whispers, the far sound of hoofs pawing the ground. His own horse stood quietly, neck down, nibbling Pennsylvania grass. Chamberlain let the mare feed. The day was very hot. He saw a buzzard floating along in the pale blue above, drifting and floating, and he thought of the smell of dead men and chicken hawks swooping down and the only eagle he’d ever seen, in captivity, back in Brewer, a vast wingspread, a murderous eve.

Colonel Vincent came down the line, trailing aides like blue clouds. Chamberlain saluted. Vincent looked very happy.

”We’ll be moving up soon. No action this morning. I expect we’ll be in reserve.”

”Yes, sir.”

”Reserve is the best duty. That means they’ll use us where we’re needed. ‘Once more into the breach.’” He grinned brightly, showing teeth almost womanly white.

”How does that go. Professor?”

Chamberlain smiled politely.

”You spell breach with an ‘a,’ am I right? Thought so.

I’m a Harvard man myself.” Vincent grinned, looked thoughtfully at the Regiment. “Glad you got those extra men. You may need ‘em. How they getting along?”

”Fine.”

Vincent nodded, reached out cheerily, patted Chamberlain on the arm. “You’ll be all right. Colonel. Glad to have you with us. I’m having some beef driven up. If there’s time, we’ll have a good feed tonight in this brigade.”

He was interrupted by bugles, and there it was: Dan, Dan, Dan, Butterfield, Butterfield. He swung his horse to listen, saw riders approaching, began to move that way.

Over his shoulder he said, “Anything you need. Colonel,” and he rode off.

The call came to advance. Chamberlain turned to face the Regiment. He ordered right shoulder arms; the rifles went up. He drew his sword, turned. Down the line the order came: advance. He gave the long order to Tozier: guide in the next regiment, the 118th Pennsylvania. He raised his sword. They began to move; the whole Corps in mass, at slow march forward through a flat farm, a peach orchard.

He ordered route step. Looking far off down the line, he saw the men moving in a long blue wave, the heart-stopping sight of thousands of men walking silently forward, rifles shouldered and gleaming in the sun, colors bobbing, the officers in front on high-stepping horses. Chamberlain sucked in his breath: marvelous, marvelous. Behind him he could hear men joking, but he could not hear the jokes.

Details of men, in front, were removing white rail fences.

He rode past a house, slowed to let the men flow round it, saw a fat woman in a bonnet, a gray dress, standing on the porch, her hands in her apron. She extracted one hand, waved slowly, silently. Chamberlain bowed. Some of the men wished her good morning. A sergeant apologized for marching through her farm. The Regiment moved on across the open place and through a cornfield and some low bushes. Then there was high ground to the right. The front of the Corps swung to face south, rolled forward down a slope through more cornfields. The corn was high and the men tried not to trample it, but that was not possible. It was becoming a long walk, up and down in the heat, but Chamberlain was not tired. They came to a brook, cold water already very dirty from many men moving upstream.

Chamberlain sent back word that no one was to fall out to fill a canteen; canteen bearers would be appointed. On the far side of the brook they came upon a broad road and the rear of the army. He saw a long line of dark wagons, a band of Provost guards, men gathered in groups around stacked rifles, small fires. To the right there was an artillery park, dozens of guns and caissons and horses. Beyond the road there was a rise of ground, and at that moment, looking upward toward a broad tree on a knoll just above, a tree with huge branches spread wide in the shape of a cup, full and green against a blue sky. Chamberlain heard the first gun, a cannon, a long soft boom of a gun firing a long way off.

A short while later the Corps was stopped. They were told to stop where they were and rest. The men sat in a flat field, an orchard to the left, trees and men everywhere, higher ground in front of them. They waited. Nothing happened. There was the sound of an occasional cannon.