He could sense the ripple of excitement sweep through his staff. He nudged Traveler and then turned to look back. "Be certain to return the table and chairs to their proper place, Walter."
Returning to the road, he turned east heading toward Gettysburg.
1:30 PM, JULY I, 1863
TANEYTOWN, MARYLAND
FIELD HEADQUARTERS, ARMY OF THE POTOMAC
Breathing hard, Henry Hunt climbed the last steps up onto the widow's walk of the Antrim, a mansion at the edge of Taneytown. Meade, with
Hooker's old chief of staff, Gen. Dan Butterfield, was leaning on the railing, attention focused to the north.
Henry didn't need to be told where to look. Smoke was boiling up from Gettysburg, ten miles away. Uncasing his field glasses, he leaned against the railing and focused. The church spires of the town were clearly visible, the smoke just to the west A dull rumble was echoing down, thumping, building, then drifting off.
The day was becoming hot the morning scattering of showers giving way to a dull sky, not quite clear, not quite hazy, the type of weather that could clear or brew up into an afternoon of fierce storms. The air was heavy, humid, and oppressive.
Turning his field glasses to the west, he clearly saw the Catholic school and convent over at Emmitsburg. Dust was swirling up from me road in front of the school.
"Whose men are those over there?" he asked, looking to one of Meade's staff, who were all silently clustered to either side of the general.
"Dan Sickles's Third Corps."
"Are they moving up?"
"The Eleventh Corps is on the same road and should be in Gettysburg by now," Butterfield announced, not looking back, attention still focused to the north. "We're holding Dan in place for the moment, waiting to see what develops."
Henry nodded and said nothing. He had fairly well memorized the maps of the region over the last couple of days. It was clear that Lee was coming over the South Mountain Range, but was the main thrust toward Gettysburg or was that a diversion and would he hit toward Emmitsburg instead?
He knew the answer without even having to ask it Lee would move on Gettysburg. It was a better road connection, allowing him to thrust in nearly any direction. Holding Sickles in reserve at Emmitsburg might be prudent in order to cover the left flank, but Henry sensed it was a waste. Push toward the sound of the guns.
"You hear about Reynolds?" Butterfield asked, turning back at last to look at Henry.
"John Reynolds, First Corps?" He felt a sudden tightness. The old professional army was small, and with every action the rank of comrades thinned.
"Word just came in. Killed a couple of hours ago."
"Damn."
John had always led from the front; it was only a matter of time. He had been Commandant of Cadets at West Point and many an officer in the army today had first served under him there and worshipped him. Everyone believed John was destined for greatness and that corps command was simply a stepping-stone. It had been, right into a grave.
Henry looked at Meade, who was still hunched over the railing, field glasses trained on the hills to the north. It was Reynolds who was supposed to be commanding this army now. That's who they had really wanted back in Washington. For once the politicians had been right Meade was good, but John would have been better, a mind perhaps capable of matching Lee's.
But John was dead. He lowered his head, turned, and moved to the other side of the widow's walk, leaning over the side, looking down. Couriers, staff, cavalry escort waited in the open yard below. Dust stirred from farther south and east; columns of troops coming up, Fifth Corps and Second Corps, strung out along twenty miles of road. The entire army was on the move. By tomorrow they'd be concentrated. He looked back to the north, the rumble of fire growing for a moment
Fight them there or here?
It was a meeting engagement up there, us and them, racing to bring up reinforcements. We win the race, hold the good ground, we roll them up. It was a chance, a roll of the dice, but against Lee that was how things had to be played.
"Hunt"
He stirred. Meade was looking back at him, and Henry stiffened.
"Your report Hunt"
"I surveyed the ground along Pipe Creek as you ordered, sir."
"Warren has already given me the map."
Henry nodded. Warren had ridden on ahead while he had turned aside for a few minutes to check his batteries parked just outside the town.
"It's a damn good position, sir. Everything you thought it might be. Solid protection on the flanks, clear fields of fire along the entire front good roads behind the lines to move men, and a rail line just seven or eight miles back at Westminster, linking us back to Baltimore."
"If we can lure Lee down into it," Meade replied. 'I'm sending out a circular to the corps commanders that it still might be our position, but it looks like things are being decided differently up there."
Meade pointed toward the norm and the distant clouds of smote.
"You hear about John Reynolds?" Meade asked.
Henry nodded, not saying anything.
"He was in command up there. Now it's General Howard who's senior on the field," and as he spoke Meade gestured toward the dark smudge of smoke rising up into the heavy air.
Henry didn't let his feelings about General Howard show. It wasn't wise to do so when generals were discussing other generals. Some now considered Oliver to be a jinx. He had done well early in the war, losing an arm in a gallant charge at Fair Oaks; but the disastrous rout at Chancellorsville only eight weeks back, when he allowed his entire corps to be flanked and his men panicked, sat squarely on his shoulders. He could be sanctimonious, too, not inspiring confidence when things got tense.
"I've decided to stay here for now," Meade continued. "I've got people spread out from here halfway back to the outskirts, of Frederick. John Sedgwick's Sixth Corps is still thirty miles off. The dispatches are coming here, and I'm stuck in this town for now."
Meade leaned back over the railing, gaze fixed on the northern horizon. "I just sent Winfield Hancock forward to take command until the rest of the army comes up."
Henry could not help but let something slip, a nearly audible sigh of relief, and Meade nodded. "Hancock will put backbone into the fight up there. You head up there as well. You might catch Winfield on the road if you move quickly; he left just a short while ago."
"My orders, sir?"
"Organize the artillery. You know your job, Hunt Put yourself at Hancock's disposal. If it's Gettysburg, and Hancock decides that's the ground to fight it out on, I'll come up later in the day. If not, you help cover the retreat back to here and the line along Pipe Creek. Until we're certain, keep the rest of your Artillery Reserve here in Taneytown, but you are to go forward."
Henry nodded and felt a cool shiver. The long months of exile, of pushing paper, were over. He was being cut loose to fight
Meade turned away without waiting for a reply, and Henry bounded down the stairs, racing through the broad open corridor of the house and out onto the porch. A young orderly from his staff stood jawing with Henry's headquarters sergeant-major, the two of them relaxed in the shade of the porch. At the sight of Henry's approach, the two stiffened.
Henry pointed at his sergeant "Williams, get back to my headquarters. Tell them to come up to Gettysburg. You'll find me up there, most likely near where General Hancock is. The Artillery Reserve is to concentrate here, at Taneytown, and await my orders; but get the batteries ready to move at a moment's notice. You got that?"
The sergeant grinned as he swung into the saddle. "Good fight coming, sir?"