James Reilly, artist and illustrator for
Harper’s Weekly,
looked over his shoulder at the colonel, who was holding his pocket watch up in the pale light before dawn; the man’s hands were shaking.

“Will someone tell that old bastard to shut the hell up?” a sergeant whispered.

“You go tell him, Patterson,” another sergeant groaned.

“He’s rattling the men.”

“Oh, shut the hell up. We’re all rattled,” a young lieutenant sighed. “Now see to your men.”

Reilly, having just reached the forward trench through a “covered way”—a communications trench from headquarters back in the secondary line—was confused as to which brigade and regiment he had fallen in with. Dawn was rapidly approaching and the dark shadows of huddled men, packed shoulder to shoulder inside the forward trench, were now being illuminated as they waited out the last minutes.

“Which regiment are you?” James asked the lieutenant.

“71st Pennsylvania. Why?”

“I’m looking for the 88th New York.”

“Down the line a bit. I think next brigade on our left. Why you asking?”

“My brother’s with them. Wanted to see him.”

“You’ll never get there in time. Who are you?”

“Just an illustrator with
Harper’s Weekly.
”

Like many of his profession traveling with this hard-fighting army, he had adopted their garb: a now battered, faded shell jacket he had not changed out of or washed since the beginning of the campaign twenty-eight days ago, when the army had crossed the Rapidan, filled with high hopes. In the dark he was often mistaken for a soldier. It allowed him to blend in without notice, but at times it caused problems with some officious types demanding identification.

His black, wide-brimmed slouch hat had lost all semblance of shape, one side of it clipped off by a Rebel bullet when he had incautiously decided to peek up over the lip of a trench at Spotsylvania. His shirt beneath the shell jacket was a dingy gray and beginning to rot off his body. He had lost his pack during the Wilderness when the forest caught fire, driving him and the regiment he was sketching back in a hasty retreat. A correspondent with the
New York Herald
had taken pity on him and given him an oversized haversack, a writing board, some pencils, and a sheaf of papers.

“Illustrator?” the lieutenant muttered, stepping back slightly, looking at him appraisingly.

“Nine minutes, boys.”

James nodded to the lieutenant, ignoring the colonel’s nervous timekeeping. There was a time when such an introduction would have elicited delight, a demand to have a sketch made for the papers, or at least something to send back home to the folks.

Not this morning.

He half-expected the man to request a quick sketch. There was silence for a moment.

“Can I have a sheet of paper?”

James hesitated but could not refuse the appeal, though his supply was running short. He nodded, tore a sheet off his pad, and handed it to the lieutenant.

“Sergeant Patterson, I got some more paper.”

The sergeant came over as the lieutenant took the oversized sheet, folded it into four sections, and tore it up, handing three to the sergeant, who grunted a thanks.

“Can I borrow your sketch board and a pencil for a moment?”

James handed them to the lieutenant, who then leaned against the wall of the trench and began to scribble something.

“Eight minutes, boys, eight minutes.”

“Someone tell him to shut the hell up,” came a whispered retort.

Finished writing, the lieutenant handed the board back.

James leaned over the lieutenant’s shoulder to see what he had written.

Lieutenant Andrew McCloskey

25 Exchange St., Philadelphia

71st PA

Wife: Ellen. Son: Eli, 4 years old

“You got a pin, sir?”

James, unsure what was going on, could only shake his head.

“I got some primer wire, lieutenant,” a young drummer boy offered, holding up a sliver of brass from an artillery primer. The lieutenant nodded a thanks, handed the piece of paper to the drummer, and squatted down. Laughing nervously, he admonished the boy not to stab him in the back as the youth pinned the slip of paper to the back of the lieutenant’s jacket.

James stood silent, as the light continued to rise around them. He saw that all the men were doing the same with slips of paper, envelopes, or any scrap they could find.

The lieutenant thanked the boy, putting a firm hand on his shoulder.

“Remember, Billy, you stay here. Promise me, you stay here.”

“No, sir,” the boy’s voice began to break.

“You stay here.”

“I ain’t no coward. I’m goin’.”

“That is an order, son.”

The boy began to cry.

“My God,” James whispered, “what in hell is going on here?”

The lieutenant looked up at him.

“You know, don’t you? You know what is over there.”

He looked at the lip of the trench but was not fool enough to stick his head up for a quick glance. The sun was rising behind them; a head sticking up, silhouetted against the dawn sky, would be the last futile gesture he’d ever make. He had not survived three years of this war by making futile gestures and long ago had abandoned any shows of bravado. His job was to sketch the fight, which was easy enough to do once it was over … that, and to report privately to an old friend the truth of what he saw.

“They know we’re coming. You could hear them digging all last night, laying out dead falls. One of my boys crept up to their line and said the trenches are layered three deep over there.”

“I heard that, as well.”

“Where?”

“I was back at headquarters.”

“Six minutes, lads.”

“Do those damn fools know?” the lieutenant pressed.

“Yes, they know.”

“Damn them! Damn them!”

He did not bother to reply. Why tell them the truth now? He had a “friend,” a contact with General Hancock’s headquarters, well lubricated with an extra bottle of whiskey whenever James could find one. He had received the inside word. All corps commanders had said the attack was impossible. Two days ago the way to Richmond was wide open. Only six miles away, they were so close that with the westerly breeze yesterday evening he could hear the church bells. But that was two days ago. Old Bobbie Lee had rushed in troops to block the way, and they had heard the Rebs had been digging ever since. Yesterday morning it just might have worked, but no firm plan had yet been laid. The assault by the entire army, a full-out frontal assault, had been postponed for twenty-four hours, to but a little more than five minutes from now.

“They say the plan will work.”

Men around the two snorted derisively.

“We got twenty-five days left to our enlistments,” the lieutenant hissed. “We served three years and only got twenty-five days left. They used to pull you off the line for your last month, but not now. Not now. We’ve been in every fight since the Peninsula. We was at Antietam, we charged at Fredericksburg, we held the center at Gettysburg. And this is what they do to us now? In our last twenty-five days?”

His voice was edged with hysteria, nearly breaking. A gray-bearded sergeant put a hand on the lieutenant’s shoulder, and he braced himself.

“Now this.”

BOOK: The Battle of the Crater: A Novel

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