The volume of fighting down at the main bridge was beginning to drop off. They were giving up, pulling back. The sight filled him with frustration. They were getting away, damn it. But he could sense that this unit was beaten.
Long minutes passed, his skirmishers engaging at a range of several hundred yards, not feeling strong enough to try and push forward and close. Finally another regiment came up, men staggering as they deployed into a heavy battle line and at last began to squeeze in on the pike.
A final determined band came up the road when they were less than a hundred yards away from the burning farmhouse. A volley dropped several men as the last of the troopers veered off, cutting out into the open fields beyond.
His skirmishers finally closed on the main road, and a hoarse cheer rose up as they greeted troops from Law's brigade coming up from the main bridge.
Anderson, who had been on the skirmish line, came back, features pale, obviously on the edge of dropping from heat exhaustion. "Sir, you'd better come over here."
Pete followed the brigade commander over to the burning farmhouse. Half a hundred wounded and dead troopers were on the front lawn. A surgeon, aided by a lone woman, with two small children clinging to her side, stood at the busted gate.
The surgeon looked up coldly at Pete, who stiffened and saluted.
"My surgeons will be up shortly. We'll establish our hospital here, and your men will be tended to also, Doctor." The surgeon said nothing.
Anderson motioned to one of the bodies. "Sir, that's Buford," Anderson announced.
Pete sighed, dismounted, went up to his old comrade, and knelt down. He wasn't sure if John was alive or not The wound was ghastly, through the lungs.
He wasn't good at moments like this. Bad enough when it was your own men. Harder though when it was someone from long ago, now on the other side, and it was you who'd done it to him.
John opened his eyes. "We have to hold," John whispered.
"You did, John. You did just fine." "Pete? Is that you?" "Yes, John, it's Pete." Buford sighed, closed his eyes. "I'm sorry, John; it had to be done." But Buford was gone.
General Longstreet stood up, catching the cold gaze of the woman standing protectively over the body. "Your house, ma'am?" "Yes."
"My apologies, ma'am. My quartermaster will give you a voucher for payment I pray that you and your family are safe."
"My husband isn't. He died at Gaines Mills," she paused, "fighting on your side."
There was nothing he could say.
He turned away, walking back out to the road. Men from Law's and Anderson's brigades were forming up, gathering beneath their standards on the far side of the road. They were finished for now, played out and needed several hours' rest before he could push them again.
He saw Anderson, leaning against the fence, doubled over. The man vomited. It wasn't fear, it was just the exhaustion after a tough fight Pete waited until the brigade commander, spitting and coughing, stood back up, features pale.
"You had two regiments that didn't engage?"
"Yes, sir."
"I want them on the road in fifteen minutes." Anderson hesitated, then saluted and walked off, his legs rubbery.
Pete drew out his pocket watch. It was nearly four in the afternoon. Too long. Too damn long.
He looked back at John Buford's body.
Maybe you did buy enough time, Pete thought but God I hope not
Remounting, he turned east and continued on toward Taneytown as the roof of the burning farmhouse collapsed, sending up a pillar of flame and smoke.
Chapter Eleven
It was hard to conceal his delight as the light battery of horse artillery galloped into position, guns bouncing and careening behind their caissons, mounted gunners yelling with delight
Stuart snapped off a salute as the unit raced past him, deploying out into an open field to the northeast of the wooded hill flanking the cemetery held by the Army of the Potomac. The range was extreme. The fire would be nothing more than a nuisance, but that was not the main intent.
For the last hour he had "been running the brigade of infantry ragged. They had marched five miles, swinging far north of the town, cutting across fields and down lanes beyond the sight of the Yankees, finally to emerge into view along a stretch of the road leading back to York. After marching in plain sight for several hundred yards, the column dipped out of view, heading to the east then countermarched back around by a concealed lane, only to re-emerge and do the march in sight yet again.
Farther afield small troops of cavalry simply galloped back and forth along roads and farm lanes, dragging brush, kicking up dust while the bulk of his command concentrated east of town skirmished with the Union cavalry that was beginning to come up and probed down around the right flank of the Union lines.
It reminded him of the stories of Magruder down on the Peninsula the year before. A passionate devotee of amateur theater, Magruder had hoodwinked McClellan into believing that two thousand men before Yorktown were actually twenty to thirty thousand.
Though still smarting from the rebuke and the clear threat from Lee, he had to admit that this afternoon he was beginning to enjoy his work.
4:15 PM, JULY 2,1863
Hunt saw the courier galloping up the Taneytown Road. He was astride a magnificent stallion, the animal stretching out, running hard, as its rider guided the horse around the clutter of ammunition wagons slowly moving along the road.
Henry stepped down from the porch of the small house below Cemetery Hill that was now the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac. Staff officers, who had been clustered about, nervously looking to the northeast, where the sound of gunfire was rapidly increasing, barely noticed the arrival of a courier storming up the road from Taneytown.
The courier was a cavalryman, hat gone, uniform so coated with dust that he almost looked like a rebel in dark butternut The man reined in hard, swinging down from his saddle.
"General Meade!"
Several of the staff moved toward the rider, one of them extending his hand, asking for any dispatches.
"My orders from General Buford are to present this directly to General Meade!" the courier shouted, obviously agitated.
Henry felt a cold chill. Buford was supposed to be on his way to Westminster. He moved into the group. "I'll take you to him."
Leading the way, Henry stepped into the small parlor, where Meade stood at a table hunched over a map, while Warren was tracing out a position.
"Based on the Confederate movements against our right flank, I think we have to extend to the right," Warren said, looking around die room,
"General, a dispatch rider," Henry announced. "He says the message must be given to you personally."
Meade looked up, slightly annoyed at the cavalryman standing in the doorway. "Who are you?" Meade snapped.
"Sergeant Malady, Eighth New York Cavalry, Buford's division, sir."
Meade came erect, extending his hand, while the trooper fumbled in his breast pocket and pulled out the note.
Meade unfolded it, started to read, and Henry could instantly tell that the news was bad. Meade finished reading and then seemed to go over the note a second time. All in the room were silent Meade finally passed it to Dan Butterfield, his chief of staff, and turned away for a moment
"What the hell is it?"
General Hancock, who had been standing on the front porch as the courier came in, was now behind the trooper, pushing his way into the room.