The Killer Angels - Chapter 4

Chapter 4 - Longstreet

It is the night before battle, and General Longstreet is watching an English military visitor - Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Lyon Fremantle - learn to play poker in his camp when he is visited by old friends and colleagues, George Pickett, Lewis Armistead, Richard Brooke Garnett, and James Kemper. We get some sense of Longstreet the person here - he is a legendary poker player, but hasn't played since the deaths of his children. While he is waiting, Longstreet is also fretting about the lack of information from Stuart's cavalry.

When his colleagues arrive, there is some soldierly joshing that goes on and then Longstreet has private conversations with Pickett and Armistead. Pickett is vain and he wants to get his division into the action, a desire that will obviously come back to haunt him. At this point, the description of Pickett is pretty humorous. As he leaves to go off to join those playing poker, Shaara says, "Pickett excused himself, watchful of Longstreet. Pickett was always saying something to irritate someone, and he rarely knew why, so his method was to simply apologize in general from time to time and to let people know he meant well and then shove off and hope for the best. He apologized and departed, curls a jiggle."

Longstreet's conversation with Lewis Armistead is far more melancholy, and reflective of the personal nature of the Civil War. Armistead had a close friendship with Union commander Winfield Hancock, and Armistead expresses a desire to see his old friend, even if it is on a battlefield.

Longstreet and Armistead also have a long conversation on the nature of this conflict, with Armistead expressing the belief that this was a Noble, Holy War. Longstreet expresses skepticism at the idea that the Confederate's soldiers are so much better and more talented than those on the Union's side:

"Well, you've fought with those boys over there, you've commanded them." [Longstreet] gestured vaguely east. "You know damn well they can fight. You should have seen them come up that hill in Fredericksburg, listen." He gestured vaguely, tightly, losing command of the words. "Well, Lo, you know we are dying one at a time and there aren't enough of us and we died just as dead as anybody, and a boy from back home aint a better soldier than a boy from Minnesota or anywhere else just because he's from back home."

Longstreet is ostensibly talking about his belief in a defensive strategy, which he thinks is a mistake to abandon (and, of course, he is proven correct). But I also think that this conversation reflects the challenges of military command. You have to give your soldiers something for which they are willing to fight. The cause, in and of itself, isn't a bad thing but if the professionals mistake the cause for appropriate strategy, then you get yourself in trouble.

It is something that we always must keep in mind in this country. We have seen again - both with Vietnam and Iraq - the mistake of believing that the U.S. will win merely because "we have right on our side." For one thing, merely saying we have right on our side does not mean we actually do. For another, assuming that having right on one's side is some sort of talisman that will protect us from defeat is bad soldiering.

The Killer Angels - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 - Buford

This chapter focuses on Major General John Buford, who rides into Gettysburg the day before day one of the battle and encounters the advanced infantry of the Confederate Army - but no cavalry (a point that I know is key). It is a dramatic moment. Upon spying the Rebel army, Buford sends a message to General Reynolds. Buford has been burned before, holding good ground, and not being backed up by the generals in Washington. He has confidence in Reynolds but not so much in Meade and other commanders.

He had held good ground before and sent off appeals, and help never came. He was very low on faith. It was a kind of gray sickness; it weakened the hands. He stood up and walked to the stone fence. It wasn't the dying. He had seen men die all of his life, and death was the luck of chance, the price you eventually paid. What was worse was the stupidity. The appalling sick stupidity that was so bad you thought sometimes you would go suddenly, violently, completely insane jst having to watch it. It was a deadly thing to be thinking on. Job to be done here. And all of it turns on faith.

By the end of the chapter, Buford has heard back from Reynolds, instructing him to hold his ground. It is easy for the reader to realize that the battle, any battle, is won or lost based on many of these early decisions, decisions made before even a shot is fired. The frustration for men like Buford - and Longstreet on the other side - is that their professional understanding of battle and war is undermined by those higher up in the command chain. The lack of leadership probably explains why the war went on as long as it did. It wasn't until moments like Gettysburg, when the Union began to listen to its soldiers and the Confederacy began making the mistakes that the Union had been making, that the tide began to turn.