The Titans (36 page)

and forth. Gideon came up beside him. "Stand still!" Harris whispered. Seconds later, he stabbed the knife in the water, scattering the reflections. "Got the son of a bitch!" Harris yanked the knife out of the creek. A fat bullfrog twitched pn the blade. Harris grinned: "There's our supper. You can douse the torch." "Can I have it, Lieutenant?" one of the enlisted men called from a few feet away. He started toward them. "Ain't found a thing for myself yet." Wearily, Gideon handed over the torch and followed Harris up the muddy, tree-lined bank. Harris was whistling and admiring his catch, dead now. The two officers walked past Second Lieutenant Sun- derlind. Knife in hand, he was splashing in the water, hoping to spot a fish below the surface. "Asshole

496Ride to Glory doesn't know enough to be quiet," Harris whispered. Sunderlind gave them a sullen glance as they passed; he'd learned they didn't care for his company. Gideon and Harris reached the small open place in the brush where they'd piled up dry sticks. Soon they had a fire going. Similar fires burned along the shore for half a mile in either direction. Gideon hunkered down beside I Company's captain, who began to roast the dripping frog on the point of his Bowie. For a second Gideon thought he saw two frogs. He covered a long yawn; shook his head. He'd been in the saddle almost continuously since the first of the week, pausing only long enough for a short nap, or to forage for berries to supplement a scrap of moldy bread from his sabretache, or to relieve himself, or slop his filthy jacket in a stream and put it back on immediately so it would dry as he rode. On Monday the Union general the boys had nicknamed Granny Patterson had sent men out from Mar- tinsburg toward Bunker Hill. Gideon encountered some of them in another twilight fight that ranged crosscountry through hazy meadows and dim groves. At one point Dancer stepped into an animal burrow and took a spill. Gideon lost his shotgun when he was unhorsed. Dancer scrambled up, miraculously unhurt. Gideon had no time to search the weeds for the 30-gauge. Four blue-clad horsemen were coming up fast behind him. He jumped into (he saddle and rode like hell to escape. Later that night, his luck reversed itself. He and his patrol came across three Yank bodies. He screwed up his nerve, crouched over the stiffened corpses and walked away with a pair of .44-caliber old model army Colt revolvers, plus ample ammunition. Toward the end of the following day, Tuesday, the telegraph to Winchester reported General McDowell was at last on the move from the Potomac. Gideon heard varying estimates of the size of the Union force. The Titansbledig One man at staff headquarters said McDowell was coming on with thirty-five thousand effectives-about fifteen thousand more than Old Bory's Manassas army. It wasn't hard for the First Virginia to guess what was coming. Beauregard would need reinforcements from the Valley. The problem was to keep Granny Patterson from discovering relief troops were on the move. The assignment fell to Stuart's regiment. The First Virginia saddled and rode toward Patterson's lines. The cavalrymen had no great fear of Granny. He'd already shown himself to be indecisive. He lived up to his reputation that same Tuesday, withdrawing most of his troops to Charleston. For two days and nights, the riders of the First Virginia kept Granny's pickets well occupied. They hallooed back and forth across the countryside, shooting at enemy outposts and generally making a noisy advertisement of their presence. Behind the screen of this activity, Joe Johnston started nine thousand men from Winchester on Thursday, the eighteenth. Only a rear guard of two thousand and a few men on the sick list were left in place in case Granny suddenly recovered from his case of the indecisives. On Friday, the First Virginia was back in Winchester to receive new orders. They were to ride disffManassas along with Pendleton's five batteries of artillery. A small contingent of the regiment would remain behind to confuse Patterson as long as possible. Gideon had no idea how much ground I Company had covered in the past five days. But it was enough to make him feel about a thousand years old as Jack Harris surveyed the spitted frog and declared: "Little fucker's done. FU chop him up and we can dig in." Gideon ripped into a plump leg with lip-smacking gusto. The meat was incredibly delicious; best he'd ever 498Ride to Glory tasted. But he wouldn't have cared if he'd been chewing spoiled beef. Anything to fill his aching belly! Harris picked bits of bone from his tongue and wiped his hand on his trousers. Beyond the line of fires, the picketed horses cropped what field grass they could find. They had no oats, just as the men had no rations. The regiment's cumbersome commissary wagons had been outdistanced hours ago, together with Pendleton's twenty cannon. Gideon finished eating and spat out a piece of gristly fiber. He walked down to the creek, knelt and lapped up the muddy water as if it were cold beer. Then he filled his canteen, which was wood, and crudely made. Linen straps were attached to it by iron staples. But the plug fit tightly, and the wood was durable. Sutlers in Winchester sold fragile canteens of glass or clay sheathed in leather or rattan. Gullible newcomers brought them for exorbitant prices and regreted it later. For Gideon the canteens symbolized the army's makeshift nature. No two men carried the same equipment. No two companies wore identical uniforms. Of course Stuart still said esprit counted more than fancy trappings. Sometimes, though, Gideon had his doubts. He jammed the plug tight, splashed water over his head and stood up to let the breeze dry his stubbled face. Crickets chirped in the brush. The men gathered by the dim fires talked quietly. Everyone realized the regiment was headed for a major engagement. Larger, even, than the recent battles that had led to Confederate defeats in the mountainous western counties. Gideon knew the forthcoming engagement would be crucial. He recalled a page from that scurrilous Tribune which he'd read in Winchester. The paper screamed the same message it had screamed for weeks: Forward to Richmond! Forward to Richmond! The Rebel Congress must not be allowed The Titansbledii to meet there on the 20th of July! BY THAT DATE THE PLACE MUST BE HELD BY THE NATIONAL ARMY! He wasn't sure the Federals would arrive in Richmond on time. But soon after-who could tell? He trudged back toward Harris, who was urinating to extinguish the fire. Gideon was angry at himself for his pessimism. But he couldn't help it. Sometimes the army did strike him as a collection of amateurs. He worried because his mother was in Richmond. were' And Margaret. He'd thought of Margaret often in the past few days-just as he thought of the dead men he'd seen. Once in a while, doubt devilled his mind: Maybe she's right. Maybe all this isn't as grand as we pretend. Necessary. But not grand. A brass bugle played a familiar call in the humid dark. Other bugles repeated the call along the creek. Boots kicked at embers. Clouds of ash drifted up. The troopers walked wearily to claim thier mounts. Jack Harris buttoned his trousers. "Jesus, that's mighty white of old Jeb. A whole twenty minutes for supper." "More time than we're likely to get at Manassas," Gideon said, unsmiling. The very name of the place had taken on an ominous sound. He felt neither boisterous nor brave this evening; just tired and tense. He fought back another yawn as he went to find Dancer beneath the heat-blurred stars. ii They rode on toward Paris in the summer dark. Really humid weather was on the way. Gideon could tell from the rank smell of the air. 500Ride to Glory As the night wore on, they encountered an increasing number of obstacles. Trains of white-topped supply wagons. Infantry companies plodding in the road or resting on the shoulders. Finally Stuart had to lead his regiment into the fields. "Damn foot-draggers," one of Gideon's privates complained as they trotted through rustling stubble. Suddenly, up ahead, they heard frantic cries: "Jump-jump! They're sleepin' all over the place!" The cavalry column broke apart in total disorder. Troopers galloped, hunching low and kicking their mounts into long leaps over terrified infantrymen waking in the weeds. Gideon saw a white face and frantic arms wigwagging directly ahead. "Get out of the way, you lazy bastard!" he screamed as he reined Dancer to the left, just missing the roused sleeper. The stallion galloped at two more men still floundering on the ground. Gideon booted him into a jump- The horse barely cleared the cowering men. Dancer landed with a ferocious jolt. Each four-man rank was supposed to be separated from the ranks ahead and behind by at least a yard. As a result, the entire regiment strung out over a good distance even in normal formation. Because of the sleepers in the field, it took almost an hour to restore order and tighten up the formations again. The confusion and all the near-accidents only worsened the mood of the troopers. They reached the little railhead at Piedmont while it was still dark. Lanterns burned on flatcars along a siding. Gideon had pulled a bandana over his nose. The cavalry raised a hellish dust; the lanterns on the rolling stock shed a pale, diffused light through the billows. Faces peering from the cars might have belonged to ghosts. The Titans501 "Who are you, boys?" someone called from one of the cars. "Turner Ashby's Rangers?" A maq in I Company screamed back, "Want me to climb up there and brain you? This yere's the First Virginia!" A couple of shrill yells erupted from the troopers. Harris pulled away from the head of the company: "Shut up and keep moving! Let the fuckin' babies have their rest." "Ain't our fault we're stuck here!" someone else protested from one of the flatcars. "Goddamn railroad engineers refuse to work at night." Gideon frankly wouldn't have minded changing places with the foot soldiers. He passed some boxcars with men hanging from the open doors. He couldn't identify the unit to which the soldiers belonged. They wore blue-as did most of the Yanks, but not all. Some of the enemy wore gray instead. The confusing color schemes reminded him that the Stars and Bars being carried far ahead with the regimental colors looked much like the Federal flag when there was no wind to spread the banner and reveal three bars instead of thirteen. I Company clattered on through the dust, leaving the cars, the pale lanterns and spectral faces behind. God, Gideon thought wearily, I wonder if any man in this army, excepting a few like Colonel Stuart, understands what war is really like. Images of Margaret's father troubled his. mind. The Sergeant had insisted war was glorious. But Gideon was beginning to accumulate evidence to the contrary. His crotch itched from sweat and dirt. His armpits crawled with some kind of bugs he'd picked up. His tailbone was a mass of pain. His eyes were gritty from dust. He wondered whether they were riding to glory or something far less romantic. 502Ride to Glory Colonel Stuart can flay me for thinking it, but it strikes me the Sergeant wasn't only drunk, he was crazy. in Saturday's dawn brought no letup in the heat. They followed the railroad line through the gap in the Bull Run mountains. Occasionally they passed a chugging engine pulling a load of flatcars packed with soldiers. By midday they were out of the mountains and down into rolling wooded hills. Here and there an isolated farmhouse stood against the skyline. To judge from the number of hours they'd been in the saddle, they couldn't be far from their destination. A courier approached galloping the opposite way. He paused long enough at the head of the column to pass along some news Gideon and the rest of I Company received long after the rider vanished down the railroad line. Though outnumbered, General Beauregard was already forming battle lines near Bull Run, a meandering stream that ran beneath an arched stone bridge spanning a major highway-the Warrenton Turnpike. A short distance northeast of the bridge lay the village of Centreville, only twenty miles from Washington City. But it had taken McDowell's army two and a half days to cover those twenty miles. There was plenty of joking about that: "Those Yanks don't move any faster, we'll never meet up with "em." "Fella up ahead says they was all the time fallin" out to pick blackberries at the roadside-and never mind how their officers yelled at "em to get back in line." Mopping at the grime and sweat on his face, Jack Harris dropped back beside Gideon, who had pulled out The Titans503 of the column to speed the lagging rear ranks-which included Rodney Arbuckle. Occasionally Rodney still had trouble staying in formation. Again he offered the familiar excuse--daydreams about Miss Nancy Won- derly of White House. Unsmiling, Gideon told him to take his place. For a while Gideon and Harris rode in the choking dust behind their men. Harris looked like a worn-out ghoul. Bad as I must look, Gideon thought. The captain took a swig from his canteen, then chuckled: "I just heard the goddamnedest thing, Gideon. Positively can't believe it." "What'd you hear?" "That some of the Yanks have already turned around and started back to Washington." "You're making that up." Harris raised his right hand. "Swear to God I'm not! C Company got it from the courier when he stopped to fill his canteen. The ninety-day Yanks are keepin" right good track of their enlistment time, it appears. The minute it's up-I mean the minute-home they go." Gideon laughed for the first time in days. "Well, that's a few less to fight. Come on, Jack. Let's get up ahead where we belong." "Wait. You ain't heard the best. On Thursday, old McDowell sent some of his lads pokin' up that river or whatever it is-was "Bull Run?" "Yep. The blue-bellies got their tails kicked by some of General Longstreet's Virginians. They ran like scairt rabbits." "That's a good start," Gideon agreed. "But what the dfevil's McDowell been doing since Thursday?" Harris shrugged. "Fuckin' around, I guess. Reconnaissance comwho the hell knows?" Gideon heard the bell of a locomotive chuffing up 504Ride to Glory the track behind them. "I bet McDowell wouldn't be wasting time if he knew we had boys coming in on the cars every hour." "Bet he wouldn't." The two riders swung out around the ranks and trotted forward. was "Pears this is one time when things a feller don't know can hurt him. Bad." iv By Saturday night the grueling thirty-six hour ride was nearly over. The sun was a hazy red disk behind huge dust clouds rolling across fields and groves and hillsides. As the regiment veered away from the rail line, Gideon counted forty-seven cars pulled up, the foremost ones empty, the rear ones still spilling men in gray and blue. The First Virginia encountered General Johnston at the campsite of an infantry regiment. Gideon spied Colonel Stuart, filthy but cheery as ever, chatting with the little gamecock outside a cluster of headquarters tents. Outranking Beauregard, Johnston had assumed supreme command for the engagement-although it was Beauregard, obviously, who had drawn the plans and deployed the men already in place. Johnston returned the salutes of the mounted officers. The troopers sat straighter and kept their formations more orderly as they passed by. Harris told Gideon the high command's headquarters were located at a nearby farmhouse called Portici. Shortly after they left the infantry area, they were plunged into a confusion of food and ammunition wagons. The foul-mouthed teamsters cursed the heat and their balky mules. Gideon