Battle Flag

Only one of Pope's senior officers demurred. He was an elderly artillery officer wearing the star of a brigadier general on his collar, and he seemed worried enough by Galloway's report to ask whether it was worth running any risks. "If we pull back behind the Centreville defenses, sir, we can wait for McClellan's troops to join us. In a week, sir, with respect, we can overwhelm every rebel in Virginia."

  "You want me to retreat?" John Pope asked scathingly. "This army, sir, is far too accustomed to retreat. It has been led by men who know nothing except how to retreat! No, it's time we advanced, time we fought, and time we won."

  "Hallelujah!" the Reverend Starbuck interjected.

  "But where's Lee?" Galloway asked, but no one had heard the question. General Pope and his staff had gone to their potluck supper, taking the generals and the visiting preacher with them, and leaving Galloway alone.

  The fighting died as darkness swamped the turnpike. The North, assuming that Jackson had tried to force his way past them, claimed victory, while Jackson, whose object had been to draw the Northerners into a full attack, kept his silence. The wounded cried in the dark, while all around them, rustling in the night, an army gathered for the kill.

  Chapter 12

  AT MANASSAS, ON FRIDAY AUGUST 29, 1862, the first light showed a few moments after half past four. It was a gray wolfish light, at first little more than a cold thinning of the eastern darkness, yet it was sufficient to rouse Jackson's army. The men rolled their blankets and, for the first time since they had left the burning depot, were allowed to light fires. "The sons of bitches know we're here now, so we don't have to hide," Starbuck told his men, then sighed with con­tent as he smelt the wondrous aroma of real coffee being brewed on dozens of fires.

  At a quarter past five, a mug of the coffee clasped in his hands, he watched the scenery take shape across the turn­pike. There were troops now where there had been none the night before. The brown smear of smoke that still rose from the depot had drawn an army to Manassas, and Starbuck could see lines of bivouacked infantry, parks of guns, and rows of tethered cavalry horses. The enemy, like his own men, were brewing coffee or shaving, while curious Yankee officers trained their field glasses and telescopes toward the silent western woods where the mingling plumes of smoke at last revealed the true extent of Jackson's position.

  "We'll fight here, you reckon?" Captain Ethan Davies asked Starbuck. Davies was cleaning his spectacle lenses on the skirt of his coat. "It ain't a bad place to defend," Davies added, hooking the spectacles back onto his ears. The land fell away from the woods toward the turnpike, and Starbuck, like Davies, reckoned it was not a bad place to stand and fight, because the Yankees would have to attack uphill while the rebels would have the concealing woods at their back.

  Yet, as the sun rose, Jackson abandoned the position and ordered his army to retreat westward. They did not go far, just a half-mile across unfilled fields into another ragged stretch of blackjack oaks, maples, and birch trees. This new wood was interrupted by small patches of rough meadowland and cut by two streams and a railbed that had been graded but never finished with ties and rails. The railbed had been intended to carry a line that would bypass Manassas Junction and so keep the trains of the Manassas Gap Railroad from paying the exorbitant fees required to use the rails of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, but the investors had run out of cash and abandoned the work, leaving only a smooth, wide, grassy roadway that ran through deep cuttings and along high embankments as it curved, always level, through the undulat­ing woods. It was on the railbed that Jackson stopped with his twenty-four thousand men.

  Colonel Swynyard's brigade would defend a stretch of the unfinished railroad that ran through a deep cutting. The eastward-facing bank of the cutting provided a firestep for riflemen, who could, if overwhelmed, retreat across the wide entrenchment into the woods on the western side. A hun­dred paces behind the cutting the ground rose steeply, though to the right of Swynyard's line, where the Faulconer Legion was posted, that hill faded away so that Starbuck's right-hand companies had no natural barrier behind them, only a flat stretch of young woodland and dense shrub. That change in topography also meant that the cutting became shallow as the railbed rose toward an embankment, while the existence of a deep spoil pit behind the line only made the defense line even more confusing. The spoil pit, only half filled, was where the railroad men had dumped the dirt and rocks they had not needed to build up their embankments.

  The spoil pit marked the dividing line between Swynyard's brigade and their neighbors to the south, and Starbuck, once his men were in position, walked to meet those neighbors, a regiment from North Carolina. Their Colonel was a very tall, very thin, very fair-haired man in his early middle age with an elaborately drooping mustache, amused eyes, and a weather-beaten face. He had very long and studiedly old-fashioned hair that flowed past the faded blue collar of his gray frock coat. "Colonel Elijah Hudson," he introduced himself to Starbuck, "of Stanly County, and uncommon proud of it."

  "Major Starbuck, of Boston, Massachusetts." Colonel Hudson pushed back a lock of his curled hair to uncover one ear. "I do believe my hearing has been quite obliterated by the artillery, Major, for I could swear you said Boston."

  "So I did, Colonel, so I did, but my boys are all Virginians."

  "The good Lord alone knows why you came here from Massachusetts, Major, but I sure am glad to make your acquaintance. Your boys up to hum, are they?"

  "I reckon."

  "Mine are rogues, each and every one of them. Not a man of them's worth a wooden nickel, but Lord above, how I do love the wretches. Ain't that so, boys?" Colonel Hudson had spoken loud enough for his nearest men to hear, and those men grinned broadly at his words. "And this here Major," Hudson went on to introduce Starbuck to his men, "is a poor lost Northerner fighting for us miserable rebels, but you all be nice to him, boys, because if his lads give way then we'll all be so many dead ducks waiting for John Pope to pluck us. And I don't have a fancy to be plucked by a cleric this day."

  Starbuck led Hudson past the spoil pit to the Legion and introduced him to Major Medlicott, explaining that Medlicott not only commanded the company immediately adjacent to the North Carolinians but was also responsible for the whole right wing of the Legion. "Sure pleased to meet you, Major," Hudson said, putting out a hand. "My name's Elijah Hudson and I'm from Stanly County, the best county in all the Carolinas even though my dear wife does come from Catawba County, God bless her, and how are you?"

  Medlicott seemed disconcerted by the tall man's friendli­ness but managed to make a civil response.

  "We've got ourselves a killing patch," Hudson said, ges­turing across the rail cutting to where the ground ran bare to the closest stretch of woods. It was a killing patch because any Yankees attacking out of the woods would be forced to cross those fifty paces of open land under constant fire. "I can't say it was ever my burning ambition to kill Yankees," Hudson said, "but if the dear good Lord above wants me to do it, then he sure does make it easy in a place like this. Mind you, if the Northern gentlemen do manage to get past the railbed, then we're all going to be in a heap of trouble. If that happens we might as well all pack it in and go back to our jobs. What is your job, Major?" he inquired of Starbuck.

  "Soldiering, I guess. I was a student before the war."

  "I'm a miller," Medlicott answered to a similar inquiry.

  "And what better job could a man have," Hudson asked, "than to grind the Lord's corn into our daily bread? That sure is a privilege, Major, a genuine privilege, and I'm proud to know you for it."

  "And your profession, sir?" Starbuck asked the tall Hudson.

  "Can't rightly say I've got any profession, Starbuck, other than a love of God and Stanly County. I guess you could say I do a little of everything and a fair heap of nothing, but if I was pushed to the scratch I'd have to confess to being a farmer. Just one of America's toil-laden farmers, but proud as heck of it." Hudson smiled broadly, then offered his hand again to both men. "I guess I should go and ma
ke sure my rogues aren't running away out of sheer boredom. I count it a real privilege to fight beside you gentlemen and I wish you much happiness of the day." With a wave of his hand the lanky Hudson strode away.

  "A nice fellow," Starbuck said.

  "Grasping folk, North Carolinians," Medlicott said dourly. "I never did trust a North Carolinian."

  "Well, he's trusting you," Starbuck said tartly, "because if we give way here then he'll be outflanked." He stared at Medlicott's riflemen, who were making themselves comfort­able in the shallow stretch of the railbed cutting, then turned to look at the remains of the construction crew's spoil pit, which was now an overgrown hollow stretching for thirty yards behind the makeshift entrenchment. The hollow's stony, overgrown bed could serve as a hidden path into the rear of the rebel defenses. "I guess we ought to barricade the pit," Starbuck said.

  "I don't need you to teach me my business," Medlicott answered.

  Starbuck's temper whiplashed uncontrollably. "Listen, you son of a damned bitch," he said, "I ain't losing this damned battle because you don't like me. If the Yankees use that pit to get behind my line I'm going to use your damned skull for regimental target practice. You understanding me?" Medlicott, unable to compete with the intensity of Starbuck's anger, backed away two paces. "I know how to fight," he said uneasily.

  Starbuck resisted the temptation to remind Medlicott of his cowardice at Cedar Mountain. "Then make sure you do fight," he said instead, "and to help you, put an abatis across the pit." An abatis was a barrier of branches that would entangle an attacker and offer a breastwork to a defender. Starbuck saw the hurt in the miller's face and regretted the fierceness of his tone. "I know you don't like me, Medlicott," he said, trying to make amends, "but our quarrel ain't with each other, it's with the Yankees."

  "And you're a Yankee," the miller said sullenly.

  Starbuck resisted the impulse to tongue-lash the wretched man a second time. "Get your fellows to build the abatis"—he forced himself to speak calmly—"and I'll be back soon to look at it."

  "Don't trust me, is that it?"

  "I hear you write a good letter," Starbuck said, "but I just don't know how good an abatis you can build." With that parting shot he walked away, blowing the frustration from his lungs in a plume of cigar smoke. He wondered if he should have reversed the Legion's usual order of battle by putting Truslow's men on the right and Medlicott's on the left, but such an act would have been construed as a deep insult to the right-flank companies, and Starbuck wanted to demonstrate to the men of those companies, if not to their officers, how he trusted them. He walked on to the northern end of his line, where Truslow's company was entrenched in the deepest section of the railbed's cutting. On their left was one of the Brigade's small Florida battalions. Truslow had paced the open land in front of the cutting to make certain his men knew the exact range of the woods.

  "It's seventy-five yards from here to the timberline," Truslow told Starbuck, "and even a blind son of a bitch can hit a Yankee at seventy-five yards. The bullet will hardly have started to drop." He raised his voice so that the nearest Floridans could hear him. "Aim straight at the bastards' hearts and at worse you'll puncture their bellies. This is infant-school killing, not the hard stuff." The hard stuff was open-field fighting, where a bullet's long-range trajectory was so pronounced that a shot properly sighted at a man standing three hundred yards away would sail high over the cap of a soldier a hundred paces nearer. Starbuck had seen a full regimental volley fired at a line of skirmishers without a single bullet finding its mark.

  There was a constant coming and going of staff officers probing the woods beyond the killing patch to watch for the Yankee advance. Colonel Swynyard made a similar recon­naissance and returned to give Starbuck what news he could. "They ain't advancing yet," he said.

  "You think they'll come?"

  "If they do what they're supposed to do, yes." He con­firmed that the previous evening's action on the turnpike had indeed been designed to draw the Yankees to the attack. "I guess our job is to hold them here while Lee brings up the rest of the army."

  Swynyard's mention of Lee was the first mention Starbuck had heard of the army's commander since they had arrived in Manassas. "Where is Lee?" he asked.

  "Just the other side of Thoroughfare Gap," Swynyard said.

  "He's that close?" Starbuck was surprised.

  "I guess that's where he always intended to be," Swynyard said with undisguised admiration. "He sent us on ahead to draw the Yankees away from the river, and now he's follow­ing on behind, which means that if we can just hold the Yankees all morning, then Lee should hog-tie the lot of them this afternoon. If the good Lord wills it, that is," the Colonel added piously. The tic in his right cheek, which had slowly subsided after his abandonment of liquor, had mysteriously returned to full force. For a second Starbuck wondered if Swynyard had been at the bottle, then realized the tic must be a symptom of nervousness; this was the Colonel's first battle as a brigade commander, and he desper­ately wanted it to be a success. "How are your boys?" Swynyard asked.

  "Good enough," Starbuck said, wondering what symp­toms of nervousness he was displaying. Shortness of temper, maybe?

  Swynyard turned and pointed to the hill behind the Legion's line. "I've got Haxall's Arkansas boys up there. If things get hard I'll send them down to help, but once they've gone we don't have any reserves."

  "Artillery?" Starbuck asked.

  "None that I've seen," Swynyard said. "None at all, I guess, but if Lee gets here fast then maybe we won't need none."

  The Colonel climbed back to his command post. The sun rose higher, promising to bring another stifling day. Off to the south, muffled by distance, rifle shots sounded, but it was hard to tell whether they were being fired in anger or were merely the sound of men trying to provoke distant pickets. Some of Starbuck's men slept as they waited. A few pinned paper labels to their jackets to identify their bodies in case they died, others wrote letters or read or played cards. In the spoil pit the abatis was now breast high. "Tall enough for you?" Medlicott asked Starbuck.

  "Is it tall enough for you?" Starbuck retorted. "It's your life it might save, not mine."

  "If they attack at all," Medlicott said in a tone of voice suggesting that Starbuck's expectation of battle was merely alarmist.

  By late morning Starbuck was himself wondering if the Northern army would ever attack.

  Maybe the Northerners had detected Lee's approach and slipped away to fight another day, for this day had become somnolent, its peace broken by nothing more threatening than an occasional and distant rifle shot. Then, just as Starbuck had convinced himself that he was safe from battle this day, the woods to the left erupted with furious rifle fire. Startled men woke and pushed their rifles over the cutting's crude parapet. All along the line hammers clicked as men cocked their guns, but no Yankees appeared in the killing patch, only a frightened deer that ducked in and out of the sunlight before any man could squeeze off a shot.

  Then a staff officer from the brigade to the north rode up the line, shouting for men to advance into the woods.

  "To do what?" Starbuck shouted back.

  The staff officer was excited and sweating, a drawn sword in his hand. "Yankees are over there. You can hit them in the flank."

  "Do it, Starbuck!" Colonel Swynyard had arrived just in time to hear the officer. "Go for them!"

  Starbuck sent Coffman to tell Colonel Hudson what was happening. He wanted to keep the North Carolinian well informed, just as Hudson had promised to keep Starbuck apprised of any threats on his southern flank. Then Star-buck scrambled up the cutting's face. "Legion!"

  The men climbed from the cutting and formed in two ranks. There were no battle flags to be raised in the Legion's center, where Starbuck took his place. "Forward!" he shouted. The fighting was crackling and spitting in the woods, punctuated by rebel yells. It was hard to tell just what had provoked the fight, but plainly some rebel troops had crossed the railbed to intercept
some Yankees among the trees, where Starbuck now led the Legion. He went fast, knowing that his careful battle line would be shredded by the oaks, but also knowing that any chance of finding an open Yankee flank was too compelling to be ignored.

  The men panted behind him, crashing through under­growth and splintering dry fallen branches as they ran. Starbuck was leading the Legion to his left, going slantwise across the rebels' front line. He could see gunsmoke sifting through the leaves ahead; then he glimpsed flashes of blue where a handful of Northern soldiers ran through the woods. He ran toward those enemy, but the blue coats disappeared in the trees. Somewhere a rifle fired, and Starbuck heard the bullet ripping through the leaves overhead, but he could not see the gunsmoke or tell whether it was a friend or foe who had fired. He slowed down to catch his breath. The Legion had long lost its cohesion as the companies broke apart in the woodland, so that now they were streaming through the trees like packs of hunters on a quick scent. A volley crashed to Starbuck's left, but no bullets came his way. A riderless horse foaming with sweat and with white eyes flashing plunged through the brush and galloped unchecked between two of Starbuck's companies. The wood suddenly seemed empty of enemy. Starbuck could hear shouted orders and sporadic rifle fire, but he could see no one, and he feared he had led his men far astray; then a sudden warning shout turned him to his left.

  And there, suddenly, was an enemy. A huddle of Yankees were kneeling and firing, loading and aiming, but their tar­gets were not the men of the Legion but other Southerners way off to the Legion's left, which suggested that Starbuck had indeed discovered the North's open flank. "Legion, halt! Aim!" He was giving his men precious little time. They skidded to a halt and raised their guns.

  'Tire!"

  The small group of Yankees were swept cruelly away. Over two hundred bullets had been fired at a score of men, and only one of them was able to stand when the volley was done, and that man was staggering and bleeding. "Charge!" Starbuck shouted. "And let me hear you scream!"