Charleston (46 page)

In the spring of 1862 Gen. Joe Johnston fought and retreated, fought and retreated, in front of George McClellan's army on the Peninsula. The strategic withdrawal took Johnston to the outskirts of the capital, and had two objectives: to give Richmond time to strengthen defenses, and Johnston time to find favorable ground for a decisive engagement.

Gibbes reached the headquarters of the Hampton Legion two days after a skirmish at Eltham's Plantation. Federal troops disembarking from boats in the York River were driven back in brief action. Gibbes shuddered when he heard that the Confederates lost “only” forty-eight men, with another forty-six taken prisoner.

The Legion was now part of the division of Brig. Gen. William H. C. Whiting, a West Point engineer who at one time worked on the defenses of Charleston and Morris Island. Hampton had been given command of an entire brigade the preceding October but had yet to receive formal promotion.

Gibbes reported to Maj. Owen Wheat of the brigade staff. Wheat was a large barrel of a man with pale, frosty eyes, unruly gray hair, and a single star on his collar. He re
ceived Gibbes's salute and papers, kept him at attention while he packed and lit his pipe.

“Let us be candid, Captain. We both know what secured your commission. Social position, connections, not experience. Well, I'll not soothe you with fantasies. A battle is the devil's own business. Imagine the worst and you're but a tenth of the way to reality. Further, your company is now about fifty percent replacements, green striplings mostly. First time they see the elephant, they may run. As an officer it's your duty to stop 'em. I am intolerant of cowardice.” Gibbes's bowels were churning.

“The Legion fought bravely at Manassas. On the Warrenton Turnpike we found ourselves in the thick of it. Never had I imagined such a continuous rushing hailstorm of shot, shell, and musketry as fell around and among us. Those of us who survived constantly wonder how it happened. I don't say this to alarm you but to prepare you.” Gibbes didn't believe him. Wheat probably took sadistic pleasure in frightening his subordinates.

“Lieutenant Frank Adams will introduce you to your men. You may keep that fine horse you tied outside, but as of now you're in the infantry. Look on the bright side. Combat presents many a sudden opportunity for promotion.”

First Lt. Frank Adams had been a schoolteacher in Branchville. First Sgt. Oliver Burks owned a small cotton farm in Richland County. Both knew how to march, which Gibbes did not.

A few men in the company carried outdated muskets, but most were equipped with .69-caliber percussion rifles stamped with the name of the Palmetto Armory of Columbia. First Sergeant Burks drilled the veterans and their clumsy replacements while Gibbes observed, finding confidence to take over just days before the war engine roared to life.

Camp duty was miserable: scant rations, muddy bivouacs, nearly constant rain. Gibbes slept badly, haunted by Wheat's ominous words about battle. Wheat harassed and criticized him at every opportunity. He let Gibbes know the reason:

“I did not volunteer to fight this war so Low Country gentlemen like yourself could put on plumed hats, mount fine horses, and trot off to glory. Frankly, I despise you and your kind. Although in a minority, you maneuvered the rest of us into an armed quarrel over slavery. I am not a slave master and never have been. I own a tobacco warehouse in Florence. The men who work for me receive wages, not whippings and cast-off shirts at Christmas. I long ago decided Carolina would be a whole lot better off if we shipped all our colored to Connecticut or some benighted province like Iowa and learned to dirty our hands with honest toil.”

“Sir, with respect. Isn't this war all about the right to own property, niggers included?”

“Your war, sir. I'm fighting for the land I possess. The patch of ground where I was born and still reside. I'm here because I don't want some gaseous Yankee politician telling me I can't spit into the wind if I choose. I'm no student of the philosophies of government”—though prating like one, Gibbes thought—“but it seems to me that if I have freely entered into an agreement to form a union, I should have the privilege of withdrawing from that union if and when it no longer comports with my beliefs. In other words, Captain, I am not fighting for your right to beat
your niggers at your whim, I am fighting for a separate and independent Confederate republic.” Wheat waved his corncob, leaving traceries of blue in the air. “Dismissed.”

 

While the Confederate government prepared for the worst, burning records and readying an escape plan for President Davis, Joe Johnston prepared to fight. He would strike McClellan's advancing right wing to prevent linkage with 40,000 reinforcements, including a division of McDowell's, that would give Little Mac 150,000 effectives at the gates of Richmond—a two-to-one advantage. As it turned out, McDowell's advance was a feint; he was soon countermarching to Fredericksburg.

The swollen Chickahominy River split McClellan's army. Three corps, Sumner's, Porter's, and Franklin's, held the north side, two more, those of Keyes and Heintzelman, the south. Incessant spring rain had created a muddy maze of new streams, tributaries, and ponds.

On May 30, Friday, south of the river, Confederate reconnaissance showed Silas Casey's division strung across the Williamsburg Road about a half mile west of the junction known as Seven Pines. Casey's left extended south of the road, into White Oak Swamp, while his right ran north for about a mile, to the Fair Oaks station of the Richmond & York River Railroad. Divisions of Couch and Kearny backed up Casey's line.

After dark a violent storm brought down rain at the rate of three or four inches in two hours. The rain continued through the night, flooding roads and low places. Johnston's attack started on Saturday, hours behind schedule due to road conditions and costly misunderstandings of orders by Longstreet.

Whiting's division had the task of watching the Union right. At dawn Saturday they prepared to march from Richmond to Fair Oaks on the Nine Mile Road, a distance of six miles. Rain, mud, and General Longstreet's division breaking camp at the city's Fairfield Race Course hampered their progress. By one o'clock they were scarcely two thirds of the way to their objective.

In the afternoon improvised bridges allowed units of Sumner's corps to cross to the south side of the Chickahominy. Scouts discovered this and Whiting rushed three brigades, Hampton's, Pettigrew's, and Hatton's, to repel Sumner; Hampton's Brigade was on the left. Gibbes would later say that when they advanced, they found hell without Satan.

 

It was already past five in the afternoon when they neared the Federal lines in an enveloping womb of dripping trees and watery sinkholes. They advanced in standard formation, two skirmisher companies out in front, then the main line, and two companies behind it as reserves. Gibbes's was a flanker company, at the left end of the main line. Bayonets were fixed, although Frank Adams said they were seldom used. “They're more to frighten than kill.”

Given the thick woods, intermittent rain, and a rising ground fog, it was hard to recognize comrades even a few feet away. Uniforms were muddy; gray might be blue, and vice versa. Men carried their rifles over their heads as they passed through standing water of uncertain depth. The forest grew darker. Less than two hours of daylight remained.

Gibbes made a brave show of flourishing his straight infantry sword as he sloshed knee-deep across a newly channeled stream. “Forward, men, forward, we'll meet them any moment.” He was mortally afraid. Whistles and warbles echoed eerily in the wood. Whether they were bird calls or signals, he couldn't say.

Far away to his right rebel yells and a rattle of shots signaled Hatton's men engaging. Then, directly ahead, a rifle cracked. Gibbes saw the spurt of flame. Near him Frank Adams cried out and sank into shallow water. A bullet had cleanly drilled the center of his forehead.

Exploding shells set damp tree limbs to sparking and smoking. The distant artillery threw grapeshot as well, filling the air with hissing metal that felled four more men. Sumner's blue-bellies opened up across their entire front;
sheets of flame leapt out. “Forward, forward!” Gibbes screamed himself hoarse, walking backward, flourishing his sword. More men dropped. The company's ranks disintegrated as soldiers wheeled and ran to the rear, leaving their rifles in the mud.

Another shell landed twenty yards away. Gibbes cringed and covered his head against a rain of earth. No sooner had he uncovered than a ball tore his gray sleeve. He peered down at the hole in the cloth and lost control. His bowels released. He ran with the others, away from the hail of enemy fire.

What little courage Gibbes possessed deserted him in that mad flight. His stinking trousers sagged, shaming him. He lurched out of a water hole, slipped, and fell on his face, trembling and sobbing. A familiar voice boomed in the murk. “Form details, form details. Those unhurt prop the wounded against trees so they don't drown.”

Gibbes told himself to get up, run; he recognized that voice. He wobbled up on one knee, only to collapse again. The dusk was deepening. There were few men anywhere near him. He couldn't stop crying.

A hand yanked his collar, flung him on his back. Major Wheat's livid face dripped sweat and rain. “You rotten coward. I saw you bolt. I wagered you would, first time I laid eyes on you.”

Gibbes groped for his holstered revolver. Wheat slapped his hand down, then pulled his own short-barrel
revolver, an imported Tranter. “You'll hang for this, you son of a bitch.”

Wheat's hand must have been slippery; he fumbled with the revolver grip. Gibbes seized Wheat's wrist in both hands, wrenched the revolver loose. Wheat's eyes popped. “You yellow toad, you don't have enough guts to—” Gibbes fired into Wheat's mouth, blowing off the back of his head.

The man who could have destroyed Gibbes's life lay motionless, eyes open, a little blood dribbling from his mouth, black as licorice. The gloomy woods were full of red flashes, yells from both sides, shell bursts, men running or lying hurt and pleading for help. Medical corpsmen rushed to the rear, carrying wounded in blankets sopping with gore.

Gibbes left Wheat and splashed down into the water, moving not to the rear but toward the guns.
Not too far, not too far,
he thought as the hissing and snapping of bullets and buckshot grew louder. He stopped on a muddy slope. When he believed he was unobserved, he gritted his teeth, aimed Wheat's revolver to his left thigh, and fired.

His leg buckled. He stifled a scream. He reached behind him and dropped the revolver into black water, where it sank. He threw his own sidearm after it. He couldn't remember losing his sword, but he didn't have it. He shouted into the rain. “I'm hit. Over here, I'm hit.”

A corpsman soon reached his side. Gibbes's left trouser leg was dark with blood, his mind hazy. The corpsman smelled Gibbes and winced. Duty compelled him to take hold of Gibbes's arm.

“No, son, no, see to the major first,” Gibbes said. “He's back there. I think they killed him.”

Then he fainted.