What Might Have Happened Part 35

The artillery began pulling out. Poe could hear Yankee cheers. Poe's staff had vanished, lost in the whirlwind of the retreat, but there was s.e.xtus, standing by the buggy, looking at the advancing Yankee line with a strange, intent expression. Poe dragged himself upright and walked toward the buggy.

"Come along, s.e.xtus," he said. "We must go."

s.e.xtus gave him a look. There was wildness in it.

Poe scowled. This was no time for the African to take fright. Bullets fluttered overhead.

"Take the reins, s.e.xtus. I'm too tired. We must leave this champ du Mars."

At the sound of the French, Poe saw a strange comprehension in s.e.xtus's eyes. Then s.e.xtus was running, clutching his supposedly injured arm, running down the gentle hill as fast as his legs could carry him, toward the advancing Northern army. Poe looked after him in amazement.

"s.e.xtus!" he called. "You fool! That's the wrong way!" The fighting had obviously turned the darky's wits. s.e.xtus gave no indication he had heard. "The wrong way! We're running away from the Yankees, not toward them!" Poe limped after him. "Madman!" he shrieked. "Baboon! Animal!"

His nerves turned to blazing fire, and he clawed for one of his Le Mat revolvers. Holding the heavy thing two-handed, Poe drew the hammer back and sighted carefully. A few Yankee bullets whistled over his head.

s.e.xtus kept running. The dark ma.s.ses of Union men were just beyond him. The pistol's front sight wavered in Poe's vision.

Stupid, Poe thought.

He c.o.c.ked his arm back and threw the revolver spinning after s.e.xtus. There was a bang as the Le Mat went off on impact, but Poe didn't bother to look. He turned to the buggy and stepped into it; he whipped up the mare and followed the guns and the funeral procession through a cornfield toward the Confederate rear. Behind him he heard Yankee cheers as they swarmed up onto the deserted Starker lawn.

The corn was just sprouting. The buggy bounded over furrows. The field was covered with wounded Confederates staggering out of the way of the retreating guns. There was a cloud of dust on the border of the field.

On, no, Poe thought.

Men moved out of the dust, became two divisions of A. P. Hill's corps, moving in perfect battle formation. Marching to the rescue, like something out of Walter Scott.

Poe halted, examined the advancing Confederates through his field gla.s.ses, and then whipped up again once he found the man he wanted to see.

Little Powell Hill was riding in another buggy-another officer too sick to ride-but he was wearing the red flannel he called his "battle s.h.i.+rt," and his heavy beard, a contrasting shade of red, was veritably bristling with eagerness for battle.

Poe pa.s.sed through Hill's lines, turned his buggy in a wide circle, and brought it on a parallel course to Hill. He and Hill exchanged salutes.

"I hope you've left some Yankees for us, General." Hill's voice was cheerful.

Poe looked at him. "Plenty of Yankees, sir," he said. "None of my men left, but plenty of Yankees."

Powell Hill grinned. "I'll reduce 'em for you."

"I hope you will."

"You should rally your men. I need your support."

Where were you when 1 needed your support! Poe wanted to say it, but he couldn't. Instead he just saluted, and brought the buggy to a halt.

His broken men gathered around him. Hill's marched on, into the swelling battle.

The battle died down at sunset. The blows and counterblows weren't clear to Poe, but Hanover Junction, after having changed hands several times, ended up back with the Confederacy, and Grant's army was safely penned in the bend of the North Anna. The burning Starker house was a bright glow on the horizon, a pillar of fire. Someone's sh.e.l.lfire had set it alight.

Among all the other dead was Hugin, shot by a Yankee bullet. The raven lay wrapped in a handkerchief at the foot of his tall perch. Munin moved from side to side on the perch, his head bobbing, mourning the loss of his mate.

Poe stood under the perch in the light of a campfire, listening to reports from his subordinates.

Torn and dying men were lying around him in neat rows. The living, some distance off, were cooking meat; Poe could smell salt pork in the air. From the reports he gathered that he had lost about sixty percent of his men, killed, wounded, or missing. He had lost eighty percent of his officers the rank of captain or above. The figures were almost as bad as the attack at Gettysburg, last July.

A buggy moved carefully through the darkness and came to a halt. Walter Taylor helped Robert Lee out. Lee had apparently recovered somewhat; he was dressed carefully in a well- brushed uniform. Poe hobbled to him and saluted.

"General Lee."

Lee nodded. "This army owes you its thanks," he said. "You have saved Richmond."

"I have lost my division."

Lee was silent a moment. "That is hard," he said. "But you must tell your men how well they fought, how they have saved the capital. Perhaps it will make their sorrows easier to bear."

Poe nodded. "I will tell them." He looked at Lee. "What will I tell George Pickett? They were his men, not mine."

"You will tell him what you must."

Is this, Poe wondered, how Lee had got such a reputation for wisdom? Repeating these simple things with such utter sincerity?

Lee stepped forward, took Poe's arm. "Come. I would like to speak with you apart."

Poe allowed himself to be led off into the darkness. "Grant will move again," Lee said, "as soon as he gets his wounded to the rear and his cavalry comes back from the Yellow Tavern raid.

There will be another battle, perhaps more than one. But sooner or later there will be a pause."

"Yes, sir."

"I would take advantage of that pause, General Poe. I would like to send a division to the Valley on this railroad you have saved us, to defeat the invaders there and strike at Was.h.i.+ngton. I would like to say, sir, that I am considering you for the command."

An independent Shenandoah Valley command, thought Poe. A chance for glory. The same command had been the making of Stonewall.

"My division is destroyed," Poe said. "I can't commit them to battle."

"Your division," gently, "is General Pickett's. When he recovers his health, he will return to command it. I refer to a new division, a.s.sembled with an eye to the Valley adventure."

"I see." Poe walked in silence for a moment, and stopped suddenly as his boots thudded against a wooden surface. He looked at it and realized it was the Starker girl's coffin, lying alone in the rutted cornfield. Apparently it had been thrown out of the wagon during the retreat.

Glory, he thought.

The Cause was lost. He couldn't believe in it anymore. That afternoon he'd told Moses one should fight for something n.o.ble, even if its time was gone. Now he no longer believed it. None of this was worth it.

He should have died, he thought savagely. He should have died on that last spree in Baltimore. It would have spared him all this. And perhaps spared his men, too.

If he hadn't antic.i.p.ated Grant's maneuver, all this savagery might have been avoided. And the war would be over all that much sooner. The one chance he had to change things, to become the great man, and all he'd done was prolong the nation's agony. Put more good men in their graves.

He thought of the lines of wounded and dying men, lying in the cornfield waiting for the morning, and he felt his heart crack. One fought for them, or nothing.

He straightened, took a breath. "I must decline the command, sir," he said. "My health and spirits are too poor."

Lee looked at him somberly. "You may wish to reconsider, General. It's been a hard day." "I want to stay with my men, sir," Poe said.

Lee was silent for a long time. "I will speak to you again on this matter, General Poe," he said. He began walking back toward the raven standard. Poe followed.

"Your men shall be spared further fighting," Lee said. "Your men will be a.s.signed to bury the dead."

For some reason this made Poe want to laugh. "Yes, sir," he said.

"I thank you for your part today."

Poe saluted. "Sir."

Walter Taylor snapped the reins, and Lee's buggy trotted away into the darkness.

He has left me in command of the dead, Poe thought. s.e.xton-general in charge of dead hopes, dead causes, dead ravens, dead verse, dead girls.

He looked at his officers, gathered under the standard for his instructions. Poe stepped to the perch and picked up Hugin's body.

"About fifty yards out there," he said, pointing, "there's a dead girl in a coffin. Find some men, find a wagon, and deliver her to the graveyard in New Market." He held out the dead raven.

"Bury this poor bird with her," he said.

"Yes, sir."

He pulled his black cloak around him. He could hear the moans and muttering of the wounded. They were his responsibility when alive; now they were his, too, when they were in the grave.

In a quiet voice, he gave his instructions.

Above him the raven mourned, and said nothing.

end