“Send also to General Longstreet, Major,” Lee said as Taylor put away the map. “Tell him he must be ready to move at a moment’s notice, either to pitch into General Grant’s rear or to come to the support of the rest of this army. Send the order by telegraph; he must have it as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir.” Taylor noted down Lee’s instructions, summoned a courier to take them to the army’s field telegraphy wagon.” I’ll also send a copy by messenger,” he said.
“Very good,” Lee said. Like the Confederacy’s railroads, Southern wires were imperfectly efficient. He envied the Federal army its far more elaborate system. But he could have headed that Federal army, sent messages along that system as he chose. Having declined, he was content to make do with what his chosen country could provide.
Dempsey Eure let out a loud, unmusical bray. “If I was a mule, they’d shoot me after a march like this, on account of I wouldn’t be of no more use nohow.”
“You’re a damn jackass, Dempsey, and you’re marchin’ to give some Yankee the chance to shoot you,” Allison High answered. A few men who heard the exchange had the breath left to chuckle. Most simply plodded on, too busy putting one foot in front of the other to have room for anything else.
Mulus Marianus, Nate Caudell thought in the small pan of his mind not emptied by fatigue. He wished Captain Lewis were close by; of all the Castalia Invincibles, Lewis was the only other man who had any Latin and might have appreciated the allusion. But the captain’s bad foot was giving him trouble on the march, and he’d fallen back to the rear of the company.
Caudell coughed. The 47th North Carolina was not in the lead today. The men tramped through a gray-brown cloud of dust that left their hides and uniforms the same color. Every time Caudell blinked, the grit under his eyelids stung. When he spat, his saliva came forth as brown as if he were chewing tobacco.
He’d already forded both the Rapidan and the Rappahannock, but the memory of splashing through cool water was only that, a memory. Reality was muggy heat and sweat and dust and tired feet and the distant thunder of gunfire to the east. The Federals were not going to leave Virginia without more fighting, and were not of the mind to let the Army of Northern Virginia get free of its home state again, either.
Then shots came from the right front, not heavy rolling volleys mixed with artillery where General Ewell’s men were already hotly engaged with the Federals, but a spattering of skirmisher fire. “Grant’s looking to flank us,” Allison High guessed. “He’s got men and to spare to try it.”
“If he didn’t lose three for our one in the Wilderness, I’ll eat my shoes,” Caudell said.
“And if he did, he still has more men than we do,” High answered, which was so manifestly true that Caudell could only click tongue between teeth by way of response. He tasted wet dust when he did.
The regimental musicians beat a brisk tattoo on their drums. “By the right of companies into line!” Captain Lewis echoed, shouting as loud as he could so the whole company could hear him. With a certain relief, Caudell strode off the dust-filled roadway into the field to one side of it. The air would be fresher, at least for a while.
General Kirkland’s whole brigade was shifting into battle formation, 44th, 47th, and 26th North Carolina forward, with the 11th and 52d going into line behind them. Regimental and company flags took the lead as color-bearers stepped out in front of their units. Caudell looked leftward for the banner of Company E of the 44th North Carolina; it was his favorite in the whole brigade. He grinned when he spied it, though it was too far away to seem more than a tiny green square. He knew its device—a snapper with mouth agape—and the company nickname, TURTLE PAWS, spelled out below.
“Skirmishers forward!” Colonel Faribault yelled. Men from every company trotted ahead of the main line.
“Get a move on, Nate,” Rufus Daniel called when Caudell failed to advance with the rest of the skirmishers. “Lieutenant Winborne done got hisself shot, so they’re your boys.”
Caudell was glad for the thick coat of dust on his face; no one could see him turn red. He’d completely forgotten that, with the third lieutenant wounded, the skirmishers fell to him. A couple of them laughed as he dashed up to join them. “Make sure your pieces are loaded and ready,” he growled. The skirmishers paused to check, which took their attention off him for a moment.
They hurried forward, each man a couple of yards from his neighbors to either side. “Do we aim to go straight toward the shooting?” somebody called. Caudell didn’t know the answer.
Third Lieutenant Will Dunn of Company E did. “No, we’re to move to the left of it,” he answered. “If there’s a hole there, we’ll plug it till the rest of the brigade comes up.”
A few minutes later, three people sang out “Yankee skirmishers!” at the same time. Wishing for his lost hat, Caudell raised a hand to shade his eyes. Sure enough, a thin line of bluecoats, tiny as insects in the distance, was approaching the thin gray-clad line of which he was a part. Behind them, a cloud of dust masked more Federal soldiers.
The Yankees were still too far away to make worthwhile targets. They spotted the rebels at about the same time they were seen. Caudell watched them adjust their line. He admired the way they shifted; they might have been on the parade ground, exercising for an inspector general rather than maneuvering on the field of battle. Polished rifle barrels and bayonets revealed the men who kicked up so much dust to their rear.
Lieutenant Dunn carried a pair of field glasses on a leather strap around his neck. He lifted them to his face for a better look at the foe ahead. When he let go with a cry of outrage, Caudell and all the Confederates in earshot stared at him. The field glasses had already fallen to his chest again. Pointing ahead, he shouted, “You know what those are up ahead, boys? Those are nigger troops!”
A couple of rebels started shooting the second they heard that. At a range still close to half a mile, they did no harm Caudell could see. Whatever color they were, the Federal skirmishers had the discipline to hold their fire. Caudell’s jaw tightened. Escaped slaves and free Negroes—they would have no reason to love Southern men any better than he and his comrades loved them.
The bayonets on AK-47s were permanently secured under the barrel by a bolt. Caudell hadn’t brought his forward at any time during the Wilderness fighting. Neither had any other Confederates he remembered seeing. Now several men paused to deploy them. With black men ahead, bullets were not enough for them. Seeing black men in uniform made it literally war to the knife.
As far as Caudell was concerned, any man with a rifle musket in his hands, be he white, black, or green, was a deadly enemy so long as he wore a blue coat. Still as if on parade, half the Yankee skirmishers—now they were close enough for Caudell to tell they were Negroes with his unaided eye—brought their Springfields to their shoulders in smooth unison and fired a volley at Caudell and his comrades.
The range was still long; had Caudell been leading that Federal skirmish line, he would not have had his men shoot so soon. Even so, a couple of men from the skirmish line fell, groaning and cursing at the same time. The Negroes who had fired began to reload; those who had not raised their weapons to volley again.
“Give it to ‘em!” Caudell shouted. All the other company skirmish leaders yelled orders that meant the same thing.
Caudell raised his own rifle and started firing while he advanced on the Negro skirmishers. They began to drop as the Confederates’ repeaters filled the air in their neighborhood with bullets. The blacks still on their feet, though, kept loading and firing as coolly as any veterans. A couple of white men with swords—officers, Caudell supposed—shouted commands to them. Those officers soon fell. They would have been natural targets on any skirmish line and were all the more so here because of whom they led. But even after they went down, their black soldiers continued to fight steadily.