The awesome battlefield spread before them. A red brick millhouse loomed in the haze. Straight ahead, exposed ground rolled for five hundred yards toward a small hill, which must have been their objective judging from the smoke smothering its slope. Smashed wagons and two-wheeled ammunition limbers mingled with dead horses dotting the open ground. Confederate casualties sprawled among the wreckage. Other soldiers cowered behind downed trees and in slight depressions as explosions slashed their midst like handfuls of gravel plunking into a wind-whipped pond.
A ripping-sheet noise startled Whistler. An artillery shell exploded behind him. They marched in an open field, terribly exposed, and he fought an impulse to duck low. His eyes absorbed everything as if reading a musical score. The First Texas deployed in straight lines on their left and aligned with his regiment. Law’s Alabama troops marched slightly ahead on the right. Smoke blossomed in the middle of their gray lines, creating a hole that closed within moments.
General Hood rode by them. “Forward, men. Forward!” He waved his sword over his head and shouted encouragement to the Fifth Texas troops, who trotted toward the hill.
With two hundred yards still to go, the ground softened beneath Whistler’s feet. When a boom boom vibrated the air, he glanced at the Alabamians.
Law’s Brigade slowed. Some men dove to the ground to hide from the artillery fire. Soldiers faltered and ran to the rear, their officers shouting for them to turn around.
Ten yards from Whistler, a smoking piece of metal the size of a bread loaf rolled to a stop. Other projectiles whooshed and whizzed their deadly notes.
General Hood rode toward the rear, his horse sweat-foamed. “Fourth Texas! Fourth Texas, forward!”
He’s bringing up the reserves already. Whistler flinched when a bullet zipped inches over his head, a sinister sound he would never forget.
Hood led the reserve regiment in a swing behind the stalled brigade to the right. He dismounted and placed himself in the front of the Fourth Texas, still waving his sword. An explosion showered the general with dirt, but he seemed untouched. Shell fragments knocked the Fourth Regiment’s colonel off his horse. Several aides gathered around the downed officer.
A man in front of Whistler stumbled and fell. He stepped over him.
The Fifth Texas men passed troops who had been fighting earlier. Their faces white and mud-streaked, they cried, “Don’t go up there! It’s pure death if’n you do.”
“Us Texans will save you, sonny,” Garrett called.
The Fifth Texas colonel fell, and a lieutenant knelt beside him as the regiment swarmed past like hounds on the scent of a fox. The deputy commander, Lieutenant Colonel Upton, incongruously held high a frying pan and waved them forward.
Crazy. This is crazy. No one can live through this. Whistler jumped a day-old body beginning to bloat, the man’s eyes bulging out of their sockets.
“Benge’s down,” Mitchell shouted.
“Keep going!” Bullets zipped past Whistler at an increased tempo. Something tugged at his bedroll over his left shoulder. He hastened his pace to a lope.
Excited yelling erupted when the Fourth Texas splashed through a creek far to the right. The Fifth and the First Texas echoed the contagious yells as they struggled across the swampy land. “Eeee-ha!” from thousands of Confederate mouths almost drowned out the crack of Yankee rifles and the bone-jarring thump of bursting shells.
Whistler splashed through the small creek. Wide-eyed pale faces peered over a line of log barriers. He fired his rifle. A blue-coated man threw up his arms and fell backward. “Bayonets! Give it to them.” He ran forward as fast as he could.
He climbed, striving for the pile of logs. Bullets felled two men ahead. Whistler paused a moment to re-load, then jumped over the wall. He checked that no enemy soldiers had hidden behind logs to shoot him, then he glanced up the hill.
A Yankee scrambled on the slope to escape the yelling Rebel hoard.
Whistler shot him.
The soldier tumbled wounded and crying into a ditch. “Don’t kill me.” The Yankee cringed.
Whistler rammed his rifle butt into the man’s head. “Bastard. You were trying to kill me.”
Reloading, he spotted Lamar and Garrett. The others of the squad may have been wounded or scattered in the confusion, but a half-dozen Confederates clustered behind Whistler. “Let’s go.” He waved them forward and slid over the next log.
The panicked Yankees clamored toward another barrier.
Whistler snapped a quick shot. A blue-coated soldier rolled down the slope, arms flopping like a rag doll. Confederates around Whistler killed several more Yankees scrambling up the slope in disorganized flight.
Leaping over the final barrier, he discovered a young soldier in blue running side-by-side with him.
The Yankee swung his rifle at him. When it didn’t connect, the Bluecoat stumbled and fell.
Whistler broke stride and slammed his rifle barrel into the youngster’s face, smashing his chin. The Yankee sprawled on the ground.
Garrett, two steps behind, stuck his bayonet through the boy’s chest. He used his foot on the Yankee’s body to pull free.
Whistler gasped for breath and raised his hand to halt a dozen men behind. He stood on a level spot. A ridgeline loomed ahead another hundred yards. The fighting had died down, with sporadic crackling of rifles on the right and left but none in front. Whistler searched for Lamar but didn’t see him.
The men of the Fourth Texas on the right reached the top of the ridge and yelled in triumph. In a confusing melee, Yankees still streamed by them, dodging bayonets and shooting at the Texans.
Whistler wiped sweat and gunpowder from his face. “Where’s the rest of the squad?” he asked Garrett.
“Ain’t seen ’em.” Garrett’s chest heaved.
Ritter trotted up and stopped. He breathed easily and held a bloody long knife in his left hand, his Sharps carbine gripped in his right. Blood spattered his face and left arm. Gore stained his buckskin leggings.