Michael Shaara - The Killer Angels

”General Lee is the soldier of the age, the soldier of the age.” Fremantle radiated approval like a tattered star, but he did it with such cool and delicate grace that there was nothing unnatural about it, nothing fawning or nattering. He babbled a charming hero-worship, one gentleman to another. Longstreet, who had never learned the art of compliment, admired it.

”May I ride along with you, sir?”

”Course.”

”I do not wish to intrude upon your thoughts and schemes.”

”No problem.”

”I observed you with General Lee. I would imagine that there are weighty technical matters that occupy your mind.”

Longstreet shrugged. Fremantle rode along beamily chatting. He remarked that he had watched General Lee during much of the engagement that day and that the General rarely sent messages. Longstreet explained that Lee usually gave the orders and then let his boys alone to do the job. Fremantle returned to awe. “The soldier of the age,” he said again, and Longstreet thought: should have spoken to Lee. Must go back tonight. But… let the old man sleep. Never saw his face that weary. Soul of the army. He’s in command. You are only the hand. Silence. Like a soldier.

He will attack.

Well. They love him. They do not blame him. They do impossible things for him. They may even take that hill.

”… have no doubt,” Fremantle was saying, “that General Lee shall become the world’s foremost authority on military matters when this war is over, which would appear now to be only a matter of days, or at most a few weeks. I suspect all Europe will be turning to him for lessons.”

Lessons?

”I have been thinking, I must confess, of setting some brief thoughts to paper,” Fremantle announced gravely.

”Some brief remarks of my own, appended to an account of this battle, and perhaps others this army has fought. Some notes as to the tactics.”

Tactics?

”General Lee’s various stratagems will be most instructive, most illuminating. I wonder, sir, if I might enlist your aid in this, ah, endeavor. As one most closely concerned? That is, to be brief, may I come to you when in need?”

”Sure,” Longstreet said. Tactics? He chuckled. The tactics are simple: find the enemy, fight him. He shook his head, snorting. Fremantle spoke softly, in tones of awe.

”One would not think of General Lee, now that one has met him, now that one has looked him, so to speak, in the eye, as it were, one would not think him, you known to be such a devious man.”

”Devious?” Longstreet swung to stare at him, aghast.

”Oh my word,” Fremantle went on devoutly, “but he’s a tricky one. The Old Gray Fox, as they say. Charming phrase. American to the hilt.”

”Devious?” Longstreet stopped dead in the road. “Devious.” He laughed aloud. Fremantle stared an owlish stare.

”Why, Colonel, bless your soul, there aint a devious bone in Robert Lee’s body, don’t you know that?”

”My dear sir.”

”By damn, man, if there is one human being in the world less devious than Robert Lee, I aint yet met him. By God and fire. Colonel, but you amuse me.” And yet Longstreet was not amused. He leaned forward blackly across the pommel of the saddle. “Colonel, let me explain something. The secret of General Lee is that men love him and follow him with faith in him. That’s one secret. The next secret is that General Lee makes a decision and he moves, with guts, and he’s been up against a lot of sickly generals who don’t know how to make decisions, although some of them have guts but whose men don’t love them. That’s why we win, mostly. Because we move with speed, and faith, and because we usually have the good ground. Tactics? God, man, we don’t win because of tricks. What were the tactics at Malvern Hill? What were the tactics at Fredericksburg, where we got down behind a bloody stone wall and shot the bloody hell out of them as they came up, wave after wave, bravest thing you ever saw, because, listen, there are some damn good boys across the way, make no mistake on that. I’ve fought with those boys, and they know how to fight when they’ve got the ground, but tactics? Tactics?” He was stumbling for words, but it was pouring out of him in hot clumps out of the back of the brain, the words like falling coals, and Fremantle stared open-mouthed.

”God in Heaven,” Longstreet said, and repeated it, “there’s no strategy to this bloody war. What it is, is old Napoleon and a hell of a lot of chivalry. That’s all it is. What were the tactics at Chancellorsville, where we divided the army, divided it, so help me God, in the face of the enemy, and got away with it because Joe Hooker froze cold in his stomach? What were the tactics yesterday? What were they today? And what will be the blessed tactics tomorrow? I’ll tell you the tactics tomorrow. Devious? Christ in Heaven. Tomorrow we will attack an enemy that outnumbers us, an enemy that outguns us, an enemy dug in on the high ground, and let me tell you, if we win that one it will not be because of the tactics or because we are great strategists or because there is anything even remotely intelligent about the war at all. It will be a bloody miracle, a bloody miracle.”

And then he saw what he was saying.

He cut it off. Fremantle’s mouth was still open. Longstreet thought: very bad things to say. Disloyal. Fool. Bloody damned fool. And then he began truly to understand what he had said.

It surfaced, like something long sunken rising up out of black water. It opened up there in the dark of his mind and he turned from Fremantle.

The Englishman said something. Longstreet nodded. The truth kept coming. Longstreet waited. He had known all this for a long time but he had never said it, except in fragments.

He had banked it and gone on with the job, a soldier all his life. In his mind he could see Lee’s beautiful face and suddenly it was not the same face. Longstreet felt stuffed and thick and very strange. He did not want to think about it. He spurred the horse. Hero reared. Longstreet thought: you always know the truth; wait long enough and the mind will tell you. He rode beneath a low tree; leaves brushed his hat. He stopped. A voice at his elbow: Fremantle.

”Yes,” Longstreet said. Damn fool things to say to a guest.

”If I have disturbed you, sir…”

”Not at all. Things on my mind. If you don’t mind, Colonel…”

Fremantle apologized. Longstreet said good night. He sat alone on his horse in the dark. There was a fire in the field.

A boy was playing a harmonica, frail and lovely sound.

Longstreet thought of Barksdale as he had gone to die, streaming off to death, white hair trailing him like white fire. Hood’s eyes were accusing. Should have moved to the right. He thought: tactics are old Napoleon and a lot of chivalry.

He shuddered. He remembered that day in church when he prayed from the soul and listened and knew in that moment that there was no one there, no one to listen.

Don’t think on these things. Keep an orderly mind. This stuff is like heresy.

It was quieter now and very warm and wet, a softness in the air, a mountain peace. His mind went silent for a time and he rode down the long road between the fires in the fields and men passed him in the night unknowing, and soldiers chased each other across the road. A happy camp, behind the line. There was music and faith. And pride. We have always had pride.

He thought suddenly of Stonewall Jackson, old Thomas, old Blue Light. He could move men. Yes. But you remember, he ordered pikes for his men, spears, for the love of God. And the pikes sit by the thousands, rusting now in a Richmond warehouse because Jackson is dead and gone to glory. But he would have used them. Pikes. Against cannon in black rows. Against that hill in the morning.