1. THE SPY
He rode into the dark of the woods and dismounted. He
crawled upward on his belly over cool rocks out into the
sunlight, and suddenly he was in the open and he could see
for miles, and there was the whole vast army below him,
filling the valley like a smoking river. It came out of a
blue rainstorm in the east and overflowed the narrow valley
road, coiling along a stream, narrowing and choking at a
white bridge, fading out into the yellowish dust of June but
still visible on the farther road beyond the blue hills,
spiked with flags and guidons like a great chopped bristly
snake, the snake ending headless in a blue wall of summer rain.
The spy tucked himself behind a boulder and began counting
flags. Must be twenty thousand men, visible all at once. Two
whole Union Corps. He could make out the familiar black hats
of the Iron Brigade, troops belonging to John Reynold’s
First Corps. He looked at his watch, noted the time. They
were coming very fast. The Army of the Potomac had never
moved this fast. The day was murderously hot and there was
no wind and the dust hung above the army like a yellow veil.
He thought: there’ll be some of them die of the heat today.
But they are coming faster than they ever came before.
He slipped back down into the cool dark and rode slowly
downhill toward the silent empty country to the north. With
luck he could make the Southern line before nightfall. After
nightfall it would be dangerous. But he must not seem to
hurry. The horse was already tired. And yet there was the
pressure of that great blue army behind him, building like
water behind a cracking dam. He rode out into the open, into
the land between the armies.
There were fat Dutch barns, prim German orchards. But there
were no cattle in the fields and no horses, and houses
everywhere were empty and dark. He was alone in the heat and
the silence, and then it began to rain and he rode head down
into monstrous lightning. All his life he had been afraid of
lightning but he kept riding. He did not know where the
Southern headquarters was but he knew it had to be somewhere
near Chambersburg. He had smelled out the shape of Lee’s
army in all the rumors and bar talk and newspapers and
hysteria he had drifted through all over eastern
Pennsylvania, and on that day he was perhaps the only man
alive who knew the positions of both armies. He carried the
knowledge with a hot and lovely pride. Lee would be near
Chambersburg, and wherever Lee was Longstreet would not be
far away. So finding the headquarters was not the problem.
The problem was riding through a picket line in the dark.
The rain grew worse. He could not even move in under a tree
because of the lightning. He had to take care not to get
lost. He rode quoting Shakespeare from memory, thinking of
the picket line ahead somewhere in the dark. The sky opened
and poured down on him and he rode on: It will be rain
tonight: Let it come down. That was a speech of murderers.
He had been an actor once. He had no stature and a small
voice and there were no big parts for him until the war
came, and now he was the only one who knew how good he was.
If only they could see him work, old cold Longstreet and the
rest. But everyone hated spies. I come a single spy. Wet
single spy. But they come in whole battalions. The rain
began to ease off and he spurred the horse to a trot. My
kingdom for a horse. Jolly good line. He went on, reciting
Henry the Fifth aloud: “Once more into the breech . . .”
Late that afternoon he came to a crossroad and the sign of
much cavalry having passed this way a few hours ago. His own
way led north to Chambersburg, but he knew that Longstreet
would have to know who these people were so close to his
line. He debated a moment at the crossroads, knowing there
was no time. A delay would cost him daylight. Yet he was a
man of pride and the tracks drew him. Perhaps it was only
Jeb Stuart. The spy thought hopefully, wistfully: If it’s
Stuart I can ask for an armed escort all the way home. He
turned and followed the tracks. After a while he saw a
farmhouse and a man standing out in a field, in a peach
orchard, and he spurred that way. The man was small and bald
with huge round arms and spoke very bad English. The spy
went into his act: a simple-minded farmer seeking a runaway
wife, terrified of soldiers. The bald man regarded him
sweatily, disgustedly, told him the soldiers just gone by
were “plu” soldiers, Yankees. The spy asked: What town lies
yonder? and the farmer told him Gettysburg, but the name
meant nothing. The spy turned and spurred back to the
crossroads. Yankee cavalry meant John Buford’s column.
Moving lickety-split. Where was Stuart? No escort now. He
rode back again toward the blue hills. But the horse could
not be pushed. He had to dismount and walk.
That was the last sign of Yankees. He was moving up across
South Mountain; he was almost home. Beyond South Mountain
was Lee and, of course, Longstreet. A strange friendship:
grim and gambling Longstreet, formal and pious old Bobby
Lee. The spy wondered at it, and then the rain began again,
bringing more lightning but at least some cooler air, and he
tucked himself in under his hat and went back to Hamlet. Old
Jackson was dead. Good night, sweet Prince, and flights of
angels sing thee to thy rest . . .
He rode into darkness. No longer any need to hurry. He left
the roadway at last and moved out in to a field away from
the lightning and the trees and sat in the rain to eat a
lonely supper, trying to make up his mind whether it was
worth the risk of going on. He was very close; he could
begin to feel them up ahead. There was no way of knowing
when or where, but suddenly they would be there in the road,
stepping phantomlike out of the trees wearing those sick
eerie smiles, and other men with guns would suddenly appear
all around him, prodding him in the back with hard steel
barrels, as you prod an animal, and he would have to be
lucky, because few men rode out at night on good and honest
business, not now, this night, in this invaded country.
He rode slowly up the road, not really thinking, just
moving, reluctant to stop. He was weary. Fragments of Hamlet
flickered in his brain: If it be not now, yet it will come.
Ripeness is all. Now there’s a good part. A town ahead. A
few lights. And then he struck the picket line.
There was a presence in the road, a liquid Southern voice.
He saw them outlined in lightning, black ragged figures
rising around him. A sudden lantern poured yellow light. He
saw one bleak hawkish grinning face; hurriedly he mentioned
Longstreet’s name. With some you postured and with some you
groveled and with some you were imperious. But you could do
that only by daylight, when you could see the faces and
gauge the reaction. And now he was too tired and cold. He
sat and shuddered: an insignificant man on a pale and muddy
horse. He turned out to be lucky. There was a patient
sergeant with a long gray beard who put him under guard and
sent him along up the dark road to Longstreet’s headquarters.
He was not safe even now, but he could begin to relax. He
rode up the long road between picket fires, and he could
hear them singing in the rain, chasing each other in the
dark of the trees. A fat and happy army, roasting meat and
fresh bread, telling stories in the dark. He began to fall
asleep on the horse; he was home. But they did not like to
see him sleep, and one of them woke him up to remind him,
cheerily, that if there was no one up there who knew him,
why, then, unfortunately, they’d have to hang him, and the
soldier said it just to see the look on his face, and the
spy shivered, wondering, Why do there have to be men like
that, men who enjoy another man’s dying?
Longstreet was not asleep. He lay on the cot watching the
lightning flare in the door of the tent. It was very quiet
in the grove and there was the sound of the raindrops
continuing to fall from the trees although the rain had
ended. When Sorrel touched him on the arm he was glad of it;
he was thinking of his dead children.
“Sir? You asked to be awakened if Harrison came back.”
“Yes.” Longstreet got up quickly and put on the old blue
robe and the carpet slippers. He was a very big man and he
was full-bearded and wild-haired. He thought of the last
time he’d seen the spy, back in Virginia, tiny man with a
face like a weasel: “And where will your headquarters be,
General, up there in Pennsylvania? ’Tis a big state indeed.”
Him standing there with cold gold clutched in a dirty hand.
And Longstreet had said icily, cheerily, “It will be where
it will be. If you cannot find the headquarters of this
whole army you cannot be much of a spy.” And the spy had
said stiffly, “Scout, sir. I am a scout. And I am a patriot,
sir.” Longstreet had grinned. We are all patriots. He
stepped out into the light. He did not know what to expect.
He had not really expected the spy to come back at all.
The little man was there: a soggy spectacle on a pale and
spattered horse. He sat grinning wanly from under the floppy
brim of a soaked and dripping hat. Lightning flared behind
him; he touched his cap.
“Your servant, General. May I come down?”
Longstreet nodded. The guard backed off. Longstreet told
Sorrel to get some coffee. The spy slithered down from the
horse and stood grinning foolishly, shivering, mouth slack
with fatigue.
“Well, sir”—the spy chuckled, teeth chattering—“you see, I
was able to find you after all.”
Longstreet sat at the camp table on a wet seat, extracted a
cigar, lighted it. The spy sat floppily, mouth still open,
breathing deeply.
“It has been a long day. I’ve ridden hard all this day.”
“What have you got?”
“I came through the pickets at night, you know. That can be
very touchy.”