Battle for Atlantis

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The Confederates came up Chambersburg Pike and the surrounding fields just as General Buford had predicted: at first light and in force. The first shot of the battle that would be named after the town was fired from a Sharp breech-loading rifle by a Union horse soldier. The incoming Confederate division deployed, sending a line of skirmishers in, while one brigade wheeled to the left and one to the right of the pike.

Outnumbered, Buford’s men fought fiercely for over an hour, holding their ground, until finally the sheer weight of the oncoming Confederates forced them to withdraw back toward the town. At the same time, General Reynolds. the commander of the Union corps came up and immediately saw what Buford had realized the previous day-this was a good place to defend. And. like Buford, he sent word back for all units to come as quickly as possible.

On the other side, the unexpected stiff defense by the · Union cavalry turned a raiding party looking for shoes into a full-fledged attack, and caused the Confederate division commander to send a request for more troops to his own rear.

As Napoleon had said earlier in the century, armies should march to the sound of the guns and as the sun rose on the morning of July 1, every division from both sides within bearing distance of Gettysburg turned toward the town.

Neither side was able to coordinate the events that transpired throughout the morning, as reinforcements rushed in from both North and South and were thrown penmen into the battle. The Union suffered the first setbacks as General Reynolds was shot out of the saddle, and the Confederates were able to drive the temporarily disorganized Federal troops out of the town to the heights to the south and east.

Union forces counterattacked and smashed the Confederates back, only to be attacked in turn by fresh Southern divisions. Through midday, the battle swung back and forth.

Then Lee arrived at 2:30 P.M. With Ewell’s corps already embroiled in the first, Lee rolled the dice and immediately threw then next corps in line, A. P. Hill’s into the fight. The Union forces fell back to Seminary Ridge in disarray.

The Union’s Iron Brigade from Wisconsin saved the day from becoming a rout by holding their positions, but with an appalling casualty rate of almost 70 percent. Despite their efforts, the Union forces were thrown off of Seminary Ridge, back through the town once more, onto Cemetery Ridge. Here, luck and good leadership played into Union hands as a division had been left on the Ridge since early morning to act as a reserve. The commander had put his men to work building breastworks, although the men, who saw the battle being waged to the north and west, complained.

Those breastworks came in handy, as fleeing Union troops hid behind them and slowly reconsolidated.

From his position on Seminary Ridge, Lee could see the Union position on Cemetery Ridge, and his forces in between. He had been in this sort of position before, with Union forces on the retreat to his front, and he knew what was needed. He sent orders to A. P. Hill to press the assault Just as Longstreet came riding up at the head of his corps. He ended the short note with the polite words “if practicable.”

“How goes it, General?” Longstreet inquired as he surveyed the terrain ahead through his binoculars.

Lee told Longstreet of the orders he had sent to Hill.

They were still discussing the situation when a rider came galloping back from Hill’s headquarters with the corps commander’s response to Lee’s order. Lee read the note and handed it to Longstreet without comment.

“He’s been in the fight all day,” Longstreet said, trying to explain Hill’s response that his men were exhausted and about out of ammunition, and he would not be able to press the assault as ordered — with greatest regrets.

Lee was already scribbling on another piece of paper, which he gave to a rider — the same order, with the same polite ending, this time to Ewell. “We must take that height,” he said to Longstreet, indicating Cemetery Ridge and the hasty stonewall that snaked across its crest.

“Sir.”

Lee slowly turned to his Third Corps commander. “Yes?”

“They have always come to us,” Longstreet said. “Now you’ve just twice ordered us to go to them.”

“Your recommendation?” Lee asked brusquely.

“My corps is ready to keep marching out on the roads west of town,” Longstreet said. He knelt in the dirt at Lee’s feet and sketched his plan as he spoke. “Let me march hard south and then east. Swing around the Union army. Take up a position between them and Washington. I’ll find good terrain for the defense. Meade will have to come to us. This will give you time to disengage Ewell and Hill and bring them around to hit the Union on the flank.”

Lee was watching the battle, barely bothering to glance down at Longstreet’s dirt drawing. “We still do not know how much of the Union we have engaged here,” Lee said. “IT Meade is coming at us piecemeal, as I believe he is, we should take the fight to him now. Here. Before he can gather his forces.”

Longstreet got to his feet. He glanced up at the sun. “It’s late.”

“Ewell can take that ridge,” Lee whispered fiercely.

On Cemetery Ridge, General Hancock was slowly sorting out the confused Union situation, repositioning the forces that had been routed from Seminary Ridge and thrown back through Gettysburg in headlong retreat.

“Sir.”

One of his division commanders had just ridden up, blood dripping from a wound on his scalp.

“Yes?” Hancock asked, scribbling one order after another and handing them to couriers, all basically saying the same thing. Hold. At all costs.

“There’s two Confederate corps down there in the town and around it. And my flankers tell me that Longstreet’s corps is to the west. We have to pull back.”

Hancock had been at the base of Marye’s Heights in Fredericksburg. He’d spent a night with a corpse covering his body from the Confederate snipers who shot anything that moved. He reached up and physically pulled the division commander off the horse and dragged him stumbling forward to the stonewall.

“Do you see that? Do you see the field of fire we have here? Those Rebels are going to have to come to us across that.” Hancock gave an evil grin. “They’ll learn what it feels like before this is over. They’ll learn it hard. Get back to your division and hold. I don’t care if you lose every man. You’ll hold with your dead bodies, damn it. Move.”

The sun was lower and Lee could no longer wait. He finally got on his horse and rode to Ewell’s headquarters. He was shocked to find Ewell standing with his staff, no orders for an advance given, no preparation made.

· “General.” Lee bit the word off. “Did you receive my order?” Lee knew that Ewell was new to corps command. Always before, it had been Stonewall who he had sent his orders to. Stonewall Jackson would already be pressing home the assault Lee knew.

“Yes, sir I did,” Ewell said. “But I sent a courier to Hill and he said he could not support my attack. And your order said assault only if it were practicable. And sir, my men have been hard tasked today.”

“So have the Federal’s,” Lee snapped. He pulled up his field glasses and peered up at Cemetery Ridge in the dying light. He could see new unit flags there. Two more Union corps at least.

Lee put a hand on Ewell’s shoulder. “The day is about done any way. Take defensive positions for the night. I’ll send you orders later for the morning. We’ll take it up again tomorrow.”

Lee went to his horse and mounted. He paused in the saddle, looking up at the Ridge one last time and the ground in between. His stomach lurched. At first, he thought it was the soldier’s curse again, but then he knew the truth. The moment — that one moment that comes in every battle and bad to be seized — bad been lost. The initiative that he had told Longstreet was so important was now gone.

Lincoln threw the newspaper down on the desk. “They dare call me a dictator.”

Early in the war, Lincoln had suspended the rite of habeus corpus, the constitutional guarantee by which a person could not be imprisoned indefinitely without being charged with a specific crime. He’d done it so he could silence many of the most vocal opponents to his policies.

“You do what is necessary,” Mary said.

The ever-present map was underneath the newspaper. Even with the war going on. the country was expanding. Kansas. Nevada, and West Virginia were now states. Hundreds of thousands were migrating west. There were real plans now for a transcontinental railroad.

There was a knock on the door, and a courier from the War Department walked in and handed Lincoln a telegram, leaving as quietly and as quickly as he’d entered. Lincoln opened it.

‘’The battle has been joined.”

The center column once more took up the march, moving ten miles forward to Isandlwana. The road back to Rorke’s Drift was just to the south of the outcrop, passing over a rise between it and Stony Hill. To the north, Isandlwana was attached to the Nqutu Plateau by a narrow spur. To the east was a wide-open plain, cut by a donga beyond which there was a conical hill.

Chelmsford deployed his column on the front slope of Isandlwana. He was very pleased with the position as he had excellent observation and fields of fire to the east. The direction from which any Zulu attack might reasonably be expected to come from Ulundi, Cetewayo’s capital.

However, once more he did not order the column to take the rudimentary defensive preparations. The wagons were not circled up, breastworks were not built and no pickets were placed on the top of Isandlwana. Cavalry pickets were sent out by the militia commander, but one of Chelmsford’s staff officers recalled them, saying that they were too far away and of no use up there.

The night of the 20^th was an uneasy one for the more experienced men in the camp but it passed without incident.

Already having split his force into three columns, Chelmsford compounded things early on the morning of January 21 by splitting up the center column. He sent mounted troops and sixteen companies of militia under Major Darnell of the Natal Mounted Police to scout to the southeast, searching for the Zulu. His orders were to return before darkness.

Chelmsford himself stayed in camp, spending most of the day in his tent. In the afternoon, he rode out north, to the Nqutu escarpment. Where he saw Zulu for the first time — a half dozen warriors who immediately fled. As he rode back to camp, Chelmsford was met by a messenger from Darnell who reported encountering a large force of Zulus, somewhere between five hundred and a thousand warriors, about ten miles from camp.

Most disturbing to Chelmsford was the addendum to the report in which Darnell stated that he was bivouacking for the night in place and requesting reinforcements. Irritated that Darnell had failed to comply to the letter of his orders. Chelmsford denied the request for reinforcements.

That night’s sleep was Dot as restful for the commander of British Forces. He was awoken at 0130 in the morning by another messenger from Darnell. The messenger, who had left Darnell while it was still light out, had had difficulty finding his way back to the main encampment, thus the late arrival.

The message reported that the Zulu force in front of Darnell had been reinforced and now numbered well over two thousand warriors and once more requested reinforcements.

Chelmsford was now in a bit of dilemma. Darnell’s contingent was too small to engage the Zulu force. Yet it was large enough to be an attractive target for the Zulus to attack. Chelmsford also had his doubts about the militia element supporting Darnell and their ability to fight. On the other hand, he figured that if Darnell was in serious trouble, he would have withdrawn by now, many hours after the original message had been written.

Tired and irritated, Chelmsford made a fateful decision in the darkness. He decided to send a relief column to Darnell. And he decided to lead it himself. So for the third time, Chelmsford was dividing his column. He split the Twenty-fourth Regiment, ordering half to come with him in the relief and half to remain at Isandlwana on the defensive. He also sent an order for more troops to come up from Rorke’s Drift to aid in the defense at Isandlwana.

As the orders were issued, the camp at Isandlwana came to life in the middle of the night. Cursing soldiers geared up, wondering why their sleep had been interrupted. They fell in line, and Chelmsford led them out of the camp toward Darnell.

From the Nqutu escarpment, Shakan and Cetewayo could see the activity in the British camp. Cetewayo was confused by the actions of his enemy, as they seemed to make little sense. Why had the British general sent a reconnaissance into the open ground to the east when the most dangerous terrain lay exactly where Cetewayo was, to the north? Did the general have a secret plan?

“He is being foolish,” Shakan said, as if reading his thoughts.

“No one is that stupid,” Cetewayo argued. He had been told that the British were fierce warriors, with an empire that stretched far and wide.

“You can see it with your own eyes,” Shakan said.

Cetewayo knew of Darnell’s patrol. It had run into the left horn of his formation. Since the days of Shaka, the Zulu had adopted the bull as the format for their attack. Two horns that attack on either flank and a massive center on which the enemy would be broken. There were variations to the actual tactics — sometimes the center would · be weak and pretend to break, drawing the enemy fooled weak and pretend to break, drawing the enemy foolishly forward to be swallowed by the horns; sometimes the center would be the only force that attacked while the horns kept the enemy fixed in place for eventual destruction. Cetewayo had not yet determined exactly how he would assault the British because the enemy general was acting in such an erratic and uncertain manner that Cetewayo could not predict the possible next movements.

“You must wait another night,” Shakan said.

“Why?”

“The voice has told me when it should happen.”

Cetewayo grimaced. His men were deployed. The left horn had already been discovered by the enemy. His right horn was to the west, on the Nqutu escarpment. And the center, the bulk of his forces, over twenty thousand warriors strong, was just to the north, hidden in a valley. Keeping many warriors in place for another twenty-four hours was going to be difficult even given the Zulu’s excellent discipline. Plus, he was not sure what the British had planned.

“I will give you one day,” Cetewayo reluctantly agreed, “but only because you have been correct so far in your visions.”

He walked away in the darkness to rejoin his warriors. Alone on the escarpment Shakan pulled her cloak tighter around her body. The voice had told her the day it was to happen. And it had told her that someone was to come to her. Someone she was to help. But who? And where were they?

And what was going to happen on top of Isandlwana? Even this far away from the hill she felt the foreboding evil growing there.

Down to just one company of infantry, Lieutenants Bromhead and Chard were not happy with things at Rorke’s Drift. They’d built up the compound’s defenses as best they could, using bags of millet to form walls connecting the two buildings.

Now they waited completely unaware of what was beginning to develop less than ten miles away.

“We have a second message,” Eddings informed Chamberlain.

They were in his office, set high in the wall of the large chamber two hundred feet below the surface of Antarctica. From the windows along one wall, he could look out into the chamber that housed the bulk of his Battalion. At the current level of alert status, every man and woman was present, minus those in the infirmary.

Eddings turned to the map tacked to the other wall. It displayed the current world’s surface, a much different view from one a hundred years ago. She tapped a spot on the North American coast.

“We’re to move here.”

Chamberlain walked over. He knew the spot. New York. Where one of the gates had been during the Shadow War.

“Has a gate opened?”

“Not yet,” Eddings said. “But the Oracles assume that if we got a message for you to move your troops there that one will.”