The Long Roll
by Mary Johnston
CHAPTER I. THE
BOTETOURT
RESOLUTIONS
CHAPTER II. THE
HILLTOP
CHAPTER III.
THREE OAKS
CHAPTER IV.
GREENWOOD
CHAPTER V.
THUNDER RUN
CHAPTER VI. BY
ASHBY'S GAP
CHAPTER VII. THE
DOGS OF WAR
CHAPTER VIII. A
CHRISTENING
CHAPTER IX.
WINCHESTER
CHAPTER X.
LIEUTENANT
McNEIL
CHAPTER XI. “AS
JOSEPH WAS
A-WALKING”
CHAPTER XII.
“THE BATH AND
ROMNEY TRIP”
CHAPTER XIII.
FOOL TOM JACKSON
CHAPTER XIV. THE
IRON-CLADS
CHAPTER XV.
KERNSTOWN
CHAPTER XVI.
RUDE'S HILL
CHAPTER XVII.
CLEAVE AND
JUDITH
CHAPTER XVIII.
McDOWELL
CHAPTER XIX. THE
FLOWERING WOOD
CHAPTER XX.
FRONT ROYAL
CHAPTER XXI.
STEVEN DAGG
CHAPTER XXII.
THE VALLEY PIKE
CHAPTER XXIII.
MOTHER AND SON
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE FOOT CAVALRY
CHAPTER XXV.
ASHBY
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE BRIDGE AT
PORT REPUBLIC
CHAPTER XXVII.
JUDITH AND
STAFFORD
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE NINE-MILE
ROAD
CHAPTER XXX. AT
THE PRESIDENT'S
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE FIRST OF THE
SEVEN DAYS
CHAPTER XXXII.
GAINES'S MILL
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE HEEL OF
ACHILLES
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE RAILROAD GUN
CHAPTER XXXV.
WHITE OAK SWAMP
CHAPTER XXXVI.
MALVERN HILL
CHAPTER XXXVII.
A WOMAN
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
CEDAR RUN
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE FIELD OF
MANASSAS
CHAPTER XL. A
GUNNER OF
PELHAM'S
CHAPTER XLI. THE
TOLLGATE
CHAPTER XLII.
SPECIAL ORDERS,
NO. 191
CHAPTER XLIII.
SHARPSBURG
CHAPTER XLIV. BY
THE OPEQUON
CHAPTER XLV. THE
LONE TREE HILL
CHAPTER XLVI.
FREDERICKSBURG
CHAPTER XLVII.
THE WILDERNESS
CHAPTER XLVIII.
THE RIVER
TO THE READER
To name the historians, biographers, memoir and narrative writers,
diarists, and contributors of but a vivid page or two to the magazines
of Historical Societies, to whom the writer of a story dealing with
this period is indebted, would be to place below a very long list. In
lieu of doing so, the author of this book will say here that many
incidents which she has used were actual happenings, recorded by men
and women writing of that through which they lived. She has changed the
manner but not the substance, and she has used them because they were
true stories and she wished that breath of life within the book. To
all recorders of these things that verily happened, she here
acknowledges her indebtedness and gives her thanks.
CHAPTER I. THE BOTETOURT RESOLUTIONS
On this wintry day, cold and sunny, the small town breathed hard in
its excitement. It might have climbed rapidly from a lower land, so
heightened now were its pulses, so light and rare the air it drank, so
raised its mood, so wide, so very wide the opening prospect. Old
red-brick houses, old box-planted gardens, old high, leafless trees,
out it looked from its place between the mountain ranges. Its point of
view, its position in space, had each its valuewhether a lesser value
or a greater value than other points and positions only the Judge of
all can determine. The little town tried to see clearly and to act
rightly. If, in this time so troubled, so obscured by mounting clouds,
so tossed by winds of passion and of prejudice, it felt the proudest
assurance that it was doing both, at least that self-infatuation was
shared all around the compass.
The town was the county-seat. Red brick and white pillars, set on
rising ground and encircled by trees, the court house rose like a
guidon, planted there by English stock. Around it gathered a great
crowd, breathlessly listening. It listened to the reading of the
Botetourt Resolutions, offered by the President of the Supreme Court of
Virginia, and now delivered in a solemn and a ringing voice. The season
was December and the year, 1860.
* * * * *
The people of Botetourt County, in general meeting assembled,
believe it to be the duty of all the citizens of the
Commonwealth,
in the present alarming condition of our country, to give some
expression of their opinion upon the threatening aspect of
public
affairs....
In the controversies with the mother country, growing out of the
effort of the latter to tax the Colonies without their consent,
it
was Virginia who, by the resolution against the Stamp Act, gave
the
example of the first authoritative resistance by a legislative
body
to the British Government, and so imparted the first impulse to
the
Revolution.
Virginia declared her Independence before any of the Colonies,
and
gave the first written Constitution to mankind.
By her instructions her representatives in the General Congress
introduced a resolution to declare the Colonies independent
States,
and the Declaration itself was written by one of her sons.
She furnished to the Confederate States the father of his
country,
under whose guidance Independence was achieved, and the rights
and
liberties of each State, it was hoped, perpetually established.
She stood undismayed through the long night of the Revolution,
breasting the storm of war and pouring out the blood of her
sons
like water on every battlefield, from the ramparts of Quebec to
the
sands of Georgia.
A cheer broke from the throng. That she didthat she did! 'Old
Virginia never tire.'
By her unaided efforts the Northwestern Territory was
conquered,
whereby the Mississippi, instead of the Ohio River, was
recognized
as the boundary of the United States by the treaty of peace.
To secure harmony, and as an evidence of her estimate of the
value
of the Union of the States, she ceded to all for their common
benefit this magnificent regionan empire in itself.
When the Articles of Confederation were shown to be inadequate
to
secure peace and tranquillity at home and respect abroad,
Virginia
first moved to bring about a more perfect Union.
At her instance the first assemblage of commissioners took place
at
Annapolis, which ultimately led to a meeting of the Convention
which
formed the present Constitution.
The instrument itself was in a great measure the production of
one
of her sons, who has been justly styled the Father of the
Constitution.
The government created by it was put into operation, with her
Washington, the father of his country, at its head; her
Jefferson,
the author of the Declaration of Independence, in his cabinet;
her
Madison, the great advocate of the Constitution, in the
legislative
hall.
And each of the three, cried a voice, left on record his judgment
as to the integral rights of the federating States.
Under the leading of Virginia statesmen the Revolution of
1798 was
brought about, Louisiana was acquired, and the second war of
independence was waged.
Throughout the whole progress of the Republic she has never
infringed on the rights of any State, or asked or received an
exclusive benefit.
On the contrary, she has been the first to vindicate the
equality of
all the States, the smallest as well as the greatest.
But, claiming no exclusive benefit for her efforts and
sacrifices in
the common cause, she had a right to look for feelings of
fraternity
and kindness for her citizens from the citizens of other
States....
And that the common government, to the promotion of which she
contributed so largely, for the purpose of establishing justice
and
ensuring domestic tranquillity, would not, whilst the forms of
the
Constitution were observed, be so perverted in spirit as to
inflict
wrong and injustice and produce universal insecurity.
These reasonable expectations have been grievously
disappointed
There arose a roar of assent. That's the truth!that's the plain
truth! North and South, we're leagues asunder!We don't think alike,
we don't feel alike, and we don't interpret the Constitution alike!
I'll tell you how the North interprets it!Government by the North,
for the North, and over the South! Go on, Judge Allen, go on!
In view of this state of things, we are not inclined to
rebuke or
censure the people of any of our sister States in the South,
suffering from injury, goaded by insults, and threatened with
such
outrages and wrongs, for their bold determination to relieve
themselves from such injustice and oppression by resorting to
their
ultimate and sovereign right to dissolve the compact which they
had
formed and to provide new guards for their future security.
South Carolina!Georgia, too, will be out in January.Alabama as
well, Mississippi and Louisiana.Go on!
Nor have we any doubt of the right of any State, there being
no
common umpire between coequal sovereign States, to judge for
itself
on its own responsibility, as to the mode and manner of
redress.
The States, each for itself, exercised this sovereign power when
they dissolved their connection with the British Empire.
They exercised the same power when nine of the States seceded
from
the Confederation and adopted the present Constitution, though
two
States at first rejected it.
The Articles of Confederation stipulated that those articles
should
be inviolably observed by every State, and that the Union
should be
perpetual, and that no alteration should be made unless agreed
to by
Congress and confirmed by every State.
Notwithstanding this solemn compact, a portion of the States
did,
without the consent of the others, form a new compact; and
there is
nothing to show, or by which it can be shown, that this right
has
been, or can be, diminished so long as the States continue
sovereign.
The right's the right of self-governmentand it's inherent and
inalienable!We fought for itwhen didn't we fight for it? When we
cease to fight for it, then chaos and night!Go on, go on!
The Confederation was assented to by the Legislature for each
State; the Constitution by the people of each State, for such
State
alone. One is as binding as the other, and no more so.
The Constitution, it is true, established a government, and it
operates directly on the individual; the Confederation was a
league
operating primarily on the States. But each was adopted by the
State
for itself; in the one case by the Legislature acting for the
State;
in the other by the people, not as individuals composing one
nation,
but as composing the distinct and independent States to which
they
respectively belong.
The foundation, therefore, on which it was established, was
FEDERAL,
and the State, in the exercise of the same sovereign authority
by
which she ratified for herself, may for herself abrogate and
annul.
The operation of its powers, whilst the State remains in the
Confederacy, is NATIONAL; and consequently a State remaining in
the
Confederacy and enjoying its benefits cannot, by any mode of
procedure, withdraw its citizens from the obligation to obey
the
Constitution and the laws passed in pursuance thereof.
But when a State does secede, the Constitution and laws of the
United States cease to operate therein. No power is conferred
on
Congress to enforce them. Such authority was denied to the
Congress
in the convention which framed the Constitution, because it
would be
an act of war of nation against nationnot the exercise of the
legitimate power of a government to enforce its laws on those
subject to its jurisdiction.
The assumption of such a power would be the assertion of a
prerogative claimed by the British Government to legislate for
the
Colonies in all cases whatever; it would constitute of itself a
dangerous attack on the rights of the States, and should be
promptly
repelled.
There was a great thunder of assent. That is our doctrinebred in
the bonedyed in the weaving! Jefferson, Madison, Marshall,
Washington, Henryfurther back yet, further backback to Magna
Charta!
These principles, resulting from the nature of our system of
confederate States, cannot admit of question in Virginia.
In 1788 our people in convention, by their act of ratification,
declared and made known that the powers granted under the
Constitution, being derived from the people of the United
States,
may be resumed by them whenever they shall be perverted to
their
injury and oppression.
From what people were these powers derived? Confessedly from the
people of each State, acting for themselves. By whom were they
to be
resumed or taken back? By the people of the State who were then
granting them away. Who were to determine whether the powers
granted
had been perverted to their injury or oppression? Not the whole
people of the United States, for there could be no oppression
of the
whole with their own consent; and it could not have entered
into the
conception of the Convention that the powers granted could not
be
resumed until the oppressor himself united in such resumption.
They asserted the right to resume in order to guard the people
of
Virginia, for whom alone the Convention could act, against the
oppression of an irresponsible and sectional majority, the
worst
form of oppression with which an angry Providence has ever
afflicted
humanity.
Whilst therefore we regret that any State should, in a matter of
common grievance, have determined to act for herself without
consulting with her sister States equally aggrieved, we are
nevertheless constrained to say that the occasion justifies and
loudly calls for action of some kind....
In view therefore of the present condition of our country, and
the
causes of it, we declare almost in the words of our fathers,
contained in an address of the freeholders of Botetourt, in
February, 1775, to the delegates from Virginia to the
Continental
Congress, That we desire no change in our government whilst
left to
the free enjoyment of our equal privileges secured by the
CONSTITUTION; but that should a tyrannical SECTIONAL MAJORITY,
under
the sanction of the forms of the CONSTITUTION, persist in acts
of
injustice and violence toward us, they only must be answerable
for
the consequences.
That liberty is so strongly impressed upon our hearts that we
cannot
think of parting with it but with our lives; that our duty to
God,
our country, ourselves and our posterity forbid it; we stand,
therefore, prepared for every contingency.
RESOLVED THEREFORE, That in view of the facts set out in the
foregoing preamble, it is the opinion of this meeting that a
convention of the people should be called forthwith; that the
State
in its sovereign character should consult with the other
Southern
States, and agree upon such guarantees as in their opinion will
secure their equality, tranquillity and rights WITHIN THE
UNION.
The applause shook the air. Yes, yes! within the Union! They're not
quite madnot even the black Republicans! We'll save the Union!We
made it, and we'll save it!Unless the North takes leave of its
senses.Go on!
And in the event of a failure to obtain such guarantees, to
adopt
in concert with the other Southern States, OR ALONE,
such measures
as may seem most expedient to protect the rights and ensure the
safety of the people of Virginia.
The reader made an end, and stood with dignity. Silence, then a
beginning of sound, like the beginning of wind in the forest. It grew,
it became deep and surrounding as the atmosphere, it increased into the
general voice of the county, and the voice passed the Botetourt
Resolutions.
CHAPTER II. THE HILLTOP
On the court house portico sat the prominent men of the county,
lawyers and planters, men of name and place, moulders of thought and
leaders in action. Out of these came the speakers. One by one, they
stepped into the clear space between the pillars. Such a man was cool
and weighty, such a man was impassioned and persuasive. Now the tense
crowd listened, hardly breathing, now it broke into wild applause. The
speakers dealt with an approaching tempest, and with a gesture they
checked off the storm clouds. Protection for the manufacturing
North at the expense of the agricultural Southan old storm
centre! Territorial Rightsonce a speck in the west, not so
large as a man's hand, and now beneath it, the wrangling and darkened
land! The Bondage of the African Racea heavy cloud! Our
English fathers raised it; our northern brethren dwelled with it; the
currents of the air fixed it in the South. At no far day we will pass
from under it. In the mean time we would not have it burst. In
that case underneath it would lie ruined fields and wrecked homes, and
out of its elements would come a fearful pestilence! The Triumph of
the Republican Partyno slight darkening of the air is that, no
drifting mist of the morning! It is the triumph of that party which
proclaims the Constitution a covenant with death and an agreement with
hell!of that party which tolled the bells, and fired the minute guns,
and draped its churches with black, and all-hailed as saint and martyr
the instigator of a bloody and servile insurrection in a sister State,
the felon and murderer, John Brown! The Radical, the Black Republican,
faction, sectional rule, fanaticism, violation of the Constitution,
aggression, tyranny, and wrongall these are in the bosom of that
cloud!The Sovereignty of the State. Where is the tempest which
threatens here? Not here, Virginians! but in the pleasing
assertion of the North, 'There is no sovereignty of the State!' 'A
State is merely to the Union what a county is to a State.' O shades of
John Randolph of Roanoke, of Patrick Henry, of Mason and Madison, of
Washington and Jefferson! O shade of John Marshall even, whom we used
to think too Federal! The Union! We thought of the Union as a golden
threadat the most we thought of it as a strong servant we had made
between us, we thirteen artificersa beautiful Talus to walk our
coasts and cry 'All's well!' We thought soby the gods, we think so
yet! That is our Unionthe golden thread, the faithful servant;
not the monster that Frankenstein made, not this Minotaur swallowing
States! The Sovereignty of the State! Virginia fought seven
years for the sovereignty of Virginia, wrung it, eighty years ago, from
Great Britain, and has not since resigned it! Being different in most
things, possibly the North is different also in this. It may be that
those States have renounced the liberty they fought for. Possibly
Massachusettsthe years 1803, 1811, and 1844 to the contrarydoes
regard herself as a county. Possibly Connecticutfor all that there
was a Hartford Convention!sees herself in the same light. Possibly.
'Brutus saith 't is so, and Brutus is an honourable man!' But Virginia
has not renounced! Eighty years ago she wrote a certain motto on her
shield. To-day the letters burn bright! Unterrified then she entered
this league from which we hoped so much. Unterrified to-morrow, should
a slurring hand be laid upon that shield, will she leave it!
Allan Gold, from the schoolhouse on Thunder Run, listened with a
swelling heart, then, amid the applause which followed the last
speaker, edged his way along the crowded old brick pavement to where,
not far from the portico, he made out the broad shoulders, the waving
dark hair, and the slouch hat of a young man with whom he was used to
discuss these questions. Hairston Breckinridge glanced down at the
pressure upon his arm, recognized the hand, and pursued, half aloud,
the current of his thought. I don't believe I'll go back to the
university. I don't believe any of us will go back to the
university.Hello, Allan!
I'm for the preservation of the Union, said Allan. I can't help
it. We made it, and we've loved it.
I'm for it, too, answered the other, in reason. I'm not for it
out of reason. In these affairs out of reason is out of honour. There's
nothing sacred in the word Union that men should bow down and
worship it! It's the thing behind the word that countsand whoever
says that Massachusetts and Virginia, and Illinois and Texas are united
just now is a fool or a liar!Who's this Colonel Anderson is bringing
forward? Ah, we'll have the Union now!
Who is it?
Albemarle man, staying at Lauderdale.Major in the army, home on
furlough.Old-line Whig. I've been at his brother's place, near
Charlottesville
From the portico came a voice. I am sure that few in Botetourt need
an introduction here. We, no more than others, are free from vanity,
and we think we know a hero by intuition. Men of Botetourt, we have the
honour to listen to Major Fauquier Cary, who carried the flag up
Chapultepec!
Amid applause a man of perhaps forty years, spare, bronzed, and
soldierly, entered the clear space between the pillars, threw out his
arm with an authoritative gesture, and began to speak in an odd, dry,
attractive voice. You are too good! he said clearly. I'm afraid you
don't know Fauquier Cary very well, after all. He's no heroworse
luck! He's only a Virginian, trying to do the right as he sees it, out
yonder on the plains with the Apaches and the Comanches and the sage
brush and the desert
There was an interruption. How about Chapultepec?And the Rio
Grande?Didn't we hear something about a fight in Texas?
The speaker laughed. A fight in Texas? Folk, folk, if you knew how
many fights there are in Texasand how meritorious it is to keep out
of them! No; I'm only a Virginian out there. He regarded the throng
with his magnetic smile, his slight and fine air of gaiety in storm.
As you know, I am by no means the only Virginian, and they are heroes,
the others, if you like!real, old-line heroes, brave as the warriors
in Homer, and a long sight better men! I am happy to report to his
kinsmen here that General Joseph E. Johnston is in healthstill loving
astronomy, still reading du Guesclin, still studying the Art of War.
He's a soldier's soldier, and that, in its way, is as fine a thing as a
poet's poet! I see men before me who are of the blood of the Lees. Out
there by the Rio Grande is a Colonel Robert E. Lee, of whom Virginia
may well be proud! There are few heights in those western deserts, but
he carries his height with him. He's marked for greatness. And there
are 'Beauty' Stuart, and Dabney Maury, the best of fellows, and Edward
Dillon, and Walker and George Thomas, and many another good man and
true. First and last, there's a deal of old Virginia following Mars,
out yonder! We've got Hardee, too, from Georgia, and Van Dorn from
Mississippi, and Albert Sidney Johnston from Kentuckyno better men in
Homer, no better men! And there are others as soldierlyMcClellan with
whom I graduated at West Point, Fitz-John Porter, Hancock, Sedgwick,
Sykes, and Averell. McClellan and Hancock are from Pennsylvania,
Fitz-John Porter is from New Hampshire, Sedgwick from Connecticut,
Sykes from Delaware, and Averell from New York. And away, away out
yonder, in the midst of sage brush and Apaches, when any of us chance
to meet around a camp-fire, there we sit, while coyotes are yelling off
in the dark, there we sit and tell stories of home, of Virginia and
Pennsylvania, of Georgia and New Hampshire!
He paused, drew himself up, looked out over the throng to the
mountains, studied for a moment their long, clean line, then dropped
his glance and spoke in a changed tone, with a fiery suddenness, a
lunge as of a tried rapier, quick and startling.
Men of Botetourt! I speak for my fellow soldiers of the Army of the
United States when I say that, out yonder, we are blithe to fight with
marauding Comanches, with wolves and with grizzlies, but that we are
notoh, we are notready to fight with each other! Brother against
brothercomrade against comradefriend against friendto quarrel in
the same tongue and to slay the man with whom you've faced a thousand
dangersno, we are not ready for that!
Virginians! I will not believe that the permanent dissolution of
this great Union is come! I will not believe that we stand to-day in
danger of internecine war! Men of Botetourt, go slowgo slow! The
Right of the StateI grant it! I was bred in that doctrine, as were
you all. Albemarle no whit behind Botetourt in that! The Botetourt
Resolutionsamen to much, to very much in the Botetourt Resolutions!
South Carolina! Let South Carolina go in peace! It is her right!
Remembering old comradeship, old battlefields, old defeats, old
victories, we shall still be friends. If the Gulf States go, still it
is their right, immemorial, incontrovertible!The right of
self-government. We are of one blood and the country is wide. God-speed
both to Lot and to Abraham! On some sunny future day may their children
draw together and take hands again! So much for the seceding States.
But Virginia,but Virginia made possible the Union,let her stand
fast in it in this day of storm! in this Convention let her voice be
heardas I know it will be heardfor wisdom, for moderation, for
patience! So, or soon or late, she will mediate between the States, she
will once again make the ring complete, she will be the saviour of this
great historic Confederation which our fathers made!
A minute or two more and he ended his speech. As he moved from
between the pillars, there was loud applause. The county was largely
Whig, honestly longinghaving put on record what it thought of the
present mischief and the makers of itfor a peaceful solution of all
troubles. As for the army, county and State were proud of the army, and
proud of the Virginians within it. It was amid cheering that Fauquier
Cary left the portico. At the head of the steps, however, there came a
question. One moment, Major Cary! What if the North declines to
evacuate Fort Sumter? What if she attempts to reinforce it? What if she
declares for a compulsory Union?
Cary paused a moment. She will not, she will not! There are
politicians in the North whom I'll not defend! But the peoplethe
peoplethe people are neither fools nor knaves! They were born North
and we were born South and that is the chief difference between us! A
Compulsory Union! That is a contradiction in terms. Individuals and
States, harmoniously minded, unite for the sweetness of Union and for
the furtherance of common interests. When the minds are discordant, and
the interests opposed, one may be bound to another by Conquestnot
otherwise! What said Hamilton? To coerce a State would be one of the
maddest projects ever devised! He descended the court house steps
to the grassy, crowded yard. Here acquaintances claimed him, and here,
at last, the surge of the crowd brought him within a yard of Allan Gold
and his companion. The latter spoke. Major Cary, you don't remember
me. I'm Hairston Breckinridge, sir, and I've been once or twice to
Greenwood with Edward. I was there Christmas before last, when you came
home wounded
The older man put out a ready hand. Yes, yes, I do remember! We had
a merry Christmas! I am glad to meet you again, Mr. Breckinridge. Is
this your brother?
No, sir. It's Allan Gold, from Thunder Run.
I am pleased to meet you, sir, said Allan. You have been saying
what I should like to have been able to say myself.
I am pleased that you are pleased. Are you, too, from the
university?
No, sir. I couldn't go. I teach the school on Thunder Run.
Allan knows more, said Hairston Breckinridge, than many of us who
are at the university. But we mustn't keep you, sir.
In effect they could do so no longer. Major Cary was swept away by
acquaintances and connections. The day was declining, the final speaker
drawing to an end, the throng beginning to shiver in the deepening
cold. The speaker gave his final sentence; the town band crashed in
determinedly with Home, Sweet Home. To its closing strains the county
people, afoot, on horseback, in old, roomy, high-swung carriages, took
this road and that. The townsfolk, still excited, still discussing,
lingered awhile round the court house or on the verandah of the old
hotel, but at last these groups dissolved also. The units betook
themselves home to fireside and supper, and the sun set behind the
Alleghenies.
Allan Gold, striding over the hills toward Thunder Run, caught up
with the miller from Mill Creek, and the two walked side by side until
their roads diverged. The miller was a slow man, but to-day there was a
red in his cheek and a light in his eye. Just so, he said shortly.
They must keep out of my mill race or they'll get caught in the
wheel.
Mr. Green, said Allan, how much of all this trouble do you
suppose is really about the negro? I was brought up to wish that
Virginia had never held a slave.
So were most of us. You don't hold any.
No.
No more I don't. No more does Tom Watts. Nor Anderson West. Nor the
Taylors. Nor five sixths of the farming folk about here. Nor seven
eighths of the townspeople. We don't own a negro, and I don't know that
we ever did own one. Not long ago I asked Colonel Anderson a lot of
questions about the matter. He says the census this year gives Virginia
one million and fifty thousand white people, and of these the fifty
thousand hold slaves and the one million don't. The fifty thousand's
mostly in the tide-water counties, too,mighty little of it on this
side the Blue Ridge! Ain't anybody ever accused Virginians of not being
good to servants! and it don't take more'n half an eye to see that the
servants love their white people. For slavery itself, I ain't
quarrelling for it, and neither was Colonel Anderson. He said it was
abhorrent in the sight of God and man. He said the old House of
Burgesses used to try to stop the bringing in of negroes, and that the
Colony was always appealing to the king against the traffic. He said
that in 1778, two years after Virginia declared her Independence, she
passed the statute prohibiting the slave trade. He said that she was
the first country in the civilized world to stop the tradepassed her
statute thirty years before England! He said that all our great
Revolutionary men hated slavery and worked for the emancipation of the
negroes who were here; that men worked openly and hard for it until
1832. Then came the Nat Turner Insurrection, when they killed all those
women and children, and then rose the hell-fire-for-all, bitter-'n-gall
Abolition people stirring gunpowder with a lighted stick, holding on
like grim death and in perfect safety fifteen hundred miles from where
the explosion was due! And as they denounce without thinking, so a lot
of men have risen with us to advocate without thinking. And underneath
all the clamour, there goes on, all the time, quiet and steady, a
freeing of negroes by deed and will, a settling them in communities in
free States, a belonging to and supporting Colonization Societies.
There are now forty thousand free negroes in Virginia, and Heaven knows
how many have been freed and established elsewhere! It is our best
people who make these wills, freeing their slaves, and in Virginia, at
least, everybody, sooner or later, follows the best people. 'Gradual
manumission, Mr. Green,' that's what Colonel Anderson said, 'with
colonization in Africa if possible. The difficulties are enough to turn
a man's hair grey, but,' said he, 'slavery's knell has struck, and
we'll put an end to it in Virginia peacefully and with some approach to
wisdomif only they'll stop stirring the gunpowder!'
The miller raised his large head, with its effect of white powder
from the mill, and regarded the landscape. 'We're all mighty blind,
poor creatures,' as the preacher says, but I reckon one day we'll find
the right way, both for us and for that half million poor,
dark-skinned, lovable, never-knew-any-better,
pretty-happy-on-the-whole, way-behind-the-world people that King James
and King Charles and King George saddled us with, not much to their
betterment and to our certain hurt. I reckon we'll find it. But I'm
damned if I'm going to take the North's word for it that she has the
way! Her old way was to sell her negroes South.
I've thought and thought, said Allan. People mean well, and yet
there's such a dreadful lot of tragedy in the world!
I agree with you there, quoth the miller. And I certainly don't
deny that slavery's responsible for a lot of bitter talk and a lot of
red-hot feeling; for some suffering to some negroes, too, and for a
deal of harm to almost all whites. And I, for one, will be powerful
glad when every negro, man and woman, is free. They can never really
grow until they are freeI'll acknowledge that. And if they want to go
back to their own country I'd pay my mite to help them along. I think I
owe it to themeven though as far as I know I haven't a forbear that
ever did them wrong. Trouble is, don't any of them want to go back! You
couldn't scare them worse than to tell them you were going to help them
back to their fatherland! The Lauderdale negroes, for instancenever
see one that he isn't laughing! And Tullius at Three Oaks,he'd
say he couldn't possibly think of goingmust stay at Three Oaks and
look after Miss Margaret and the children! No, it isn't an easy
subject, look at it any way you will. But as between us and the North,
it ain't the main subject of quarrelnot by a long shot it ain't! The
quarrel's that a man wants to take all the grist, mine as well as his,
and grind it in his mill! Well, I won't let himthat's all. And here's
your road to Thunder Run.
Allan strode on alone over the frozen hills. Before him sprang the
rampart of the mountains, magnificently drawn against the eastern sky.
To either hand lay the fallow fields, rolled the brown hills, rose the
shadowy bulk of forest trees, showed the green of winter wheat. The
evening was cold, but without wind and soundless. The birds had flown
south, the cattle were stalled, the sheep folded. There was only the
earth, field and hill and mountain, the up and down of a narrow road,
and the glimmer of a distant stream. The sunset had been red, and it
left a colour that flared to the zenith.
The young man, tall, blond, with grey-blue eyes and short, fair
beard, covered with long strides the frozen road. It led him over a
lofty hill whose summit commanded a wide prospect. Allan, reaching this
height, hesitated a moment, then crossed to a grey zigzag of rail
fence, and, leaning his arms upon it, looked forth over hill and vale,
forest and stream. The afterglow was upon the land. He looked at the
mountains, the great mountains, long and clean of line as the marching
rollers of a giant sea, not split or jagged, but even, unbroken, and
old, old, the oldest almost in the world. Now the ancient forest
clothed them, while they were given, by some constant trick of the
light, the distant, dreamy blue from which they took their name. The
Blue Ridgethe Blue Ridgeand then the hills and the valleys, and all
the rushing creeks, and the grandeur of the trees, and to the east,
steel clear between the sycamores and the willows, the riverthe upper
reaches of the river James.
The glow deepened. From a farmhouse in the valley came the sound of
a bell. Allan straightened himself, lifting his arms from the grey old
rails. He spoke aloud.
Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
The bell rang again, the rose suffused the sky to the zenith. The
young man drew a long breath, and, turning, began to descend the hill.
Before him, at a turn of the road and overhanging a precipitous
hollow, in the spring carpeted with bloodroot, but now thick with dead
leaves, lay a giant oak, long ago struck down by lightning. The
branches had been cut away, but the blackened trunk remained, and from
it as vantage point one received another great view of the rolling
mountains and the valleys between. Allan Gold, coming down the hill,
became aware, first of a horse fastened to a wayside sapling, then of a
man seated upon the fallen oak, his back to the road, his face to the
darkening prospect. Below him the winter wind made a rustling in the
dead leaves. Evidently another had paused to admire the view, or to
collect and mould between the hands of the soul the crowding
impressions of a decisive day. It was, apparently, the latter purpose;
for as Allan approached the ravine there came to him out of the dusk,
in a controlled but vibrant voice, the following statement, repeated
three times: We are going to have war.We are going to have war.We
are going to have war.
Allan sent his own voice before him. I trust in God that's not
true!It's Richard Cleave, there, isn't it?
The figure on the oak, swinging itself around, sat outlined against
the violet sky. Yes, Richard Cleave. It's a night to make one think,
Allanto make one thinkto make one think! Laying his hand on the
trunk beside him, he sprang lightly down to the roadside, where he
proceeded to brush dead leaf and bark from his clothing with an old
gauntlet. When he spoke it was still in the same moved, vibrating
voice. War's my metier. That's a curious thing to be said by a
country lawyer in peaceful old Virginia in this year of grace! But like
many another curious thing, it's true! I was never on a field of
battle, but I know all about a field of battle.
He shook his head, lifted his hand, and flung it out toward the
mountains. I don't want war, mind you, Allan! That is, the great
stream at the bottom doesn't want it. War is a word that means agony to
many and a set-back to all. Reason tells me that, and my heart wishes
the world neither agony nor set-back, and I give my word for peace.
Onlyonlybefore this life I must have fought all along the line!
His eyes lightened. Against the paling sky, in the wintry air, his
powerful frame, not tall, but deep-chested, broad-shouldered, looked
larger than life. I don't talk this way oftenas you'll grant! he
said, and laughed. But I suppose to-day loosed all our tongues, lifted
every man out of himself!
If war came, said Allan, it couldn't be a long war, could it?
After the first battle we'd come to an understanding.
Would we? answered the other. Would we?God knows! In the past
it has been that the more equal the tinge of blood, the fiercer was the
war.
As he spoke he moved across to the sapling where was fastened his
horse, loosed him, and sprang into the saddle. The horse, a magnificent
bay, took the road, and the three began the long descent. It was very
cold and still, a crescent moon in the sky, and lights beginning to
shine from the farmhouses in the valley.
Though I teach school, said Allan, I like the open. I like to do
things with my hands, and I like to go in and out of the woods.
Perhaps, all the way behind us, I was a hunter, with a taste for books!
My grandfather was a scout in the Revolution, and his father was a
ranger.... God knows, I don't want war! But if it comes I'll go.
We'll all go, I reckon.
Yes, we'll all go, said Cleave. We'll need to go.
The one rode, the other walked in silence for a time; then said the
first, I shall ride to Lauderdale after supper and talk to Fauquier
Cary.
You and he are cousins, aren't you?
Third cousins. His mother was a DandridgeUnity Dandridge.
I like him. It's like old wine and blue steel and a cavalier
poetthat type.
Yes, it is old and fine, in men and in women.
He does not want war.
No.
Hairston Breckinridge says that he won't discuss the possibility at
allhe'll only say what he said to-day, that every one should work for
peace, and that war between brothers is horrible.
It is. No. He wears a uniform. He cannot talk.
They went on in silence for a time, over the winter road, through
the crystal air. Between the branches of the trees the sky showed
intense and cold, the crescent moon, above a black mass of mountains,
golden and sharp, the lights in the valley near enough to be gathered.
If there should be war, asked Allan, what will they do, all the
Virginians in the armyLee and Johnston and Stuart, Maury and Thomas
and the rest?
They'll come home.
Resigning their commissions?
Resigning their commissions.
Allan sighed. That would be a hard thing to have to do.
They'll do it. Wouldn't you?
The teacher from Thunder Run looked from the dim valley and the
household lamps up to the marching stars. Yes. If my State called, I
would do it.
This is what will happen, said Cleave. There are times when a man
sees clearly, and I see clearly to-day. The North does not intend to
evacuate Fort Sumter. Instead, sooner or later, she'll try to reinforce
it. That will be the beginning of the end. South Carolina will reduce
the fort. The North will preach a holy war. War there will bewhether
holy or not remains to be seen. Virginia will be called upon to furnish
her quota of troops with which to coerce South Carolina and the Gulf
States back into the Union. Welldo you think she will give them?
Allan gave a short laugh. No!
That is what will happen. And thenand then a greater State than
any will be forced into secession! And then the Virginians in the army
will come home.
The wood gave way to open country, softly swelling fields, willow
copses, and clear running streams. In the crystal air the mountain
walls seemed near at hand, above shone Orion, icily brilliant. The
lawyer from a dim old house in a grove of oaks and the school-teacher
from Thunder Run went on in silence for a time; then the latter spoke.
Hairston Breckinridge says that Major Cary's niece is with him at
Lauderdale.
Yes. Judith Cary.
That's the beautiful one, isn't it?
They are all said to be beautifulthe three Greenwood Carys.
ButYes, that is the beautiful one.
He began to hum a song, and as he did so he lifted his wide soft hat
and rode bareheaded.
It's strange to me, said Allan presently, that any one should be
gay to-day.
As he spoke he glanced up at the face of the man riding beside him
on the great bay. There was yet upon the road a faint
after-lightenough light to reveal that there were tears on Cleave's
cheek. Involuntarily Allan uttered an exclamation.
The other, breaking off his chant, quite simply put up a gauntleted
hand and wiped the moisture away. Gay! he repeated. I'm not gay.
What gave you such an idea? I tell you that though I've never been in a
war, I know all about war!
CHAPTER III. THREE OAKS
Having left behind him Allan Gold and the road to Thunder Run,
Richard Cleave came, a little later, to his own house, old and not
large, crowning a grassy slope above a running stream. He left the
highway, opened a five-barred gate, and passed between fallow fields to
a second gate, opened this and, skirting a knoll upon which were set
three gigantic oaks, rode up a short and grass-grown drive. It led him
to the back of the house, and afar off his dogs began to give him
welcome. When he had dismounted before the porch, a negro boy with a
lantern took his horse. Hit's tuhnin' powerful cold, Marse Dick!
It is that, Jim. Give Dundee his supper at once and bring him
around again. Down, Bugle! Down, Moira! Down, Baron!
The hall was cold and in semi-darkness, but through the half-opened
door of his mother's chamber came a gush of firelight warm and bright.
Her voice reached himRichard! He entered. She was sitting in a
great old chair by the fire, idle for a wonder, her hands, fine and
slender, clasped over her knees. The light struck up against her fair,
brooding face. It is late! she said. Late and cold! Come to the
fire. Ailsy will have supper ready in a minute.
He came and knelt beside her on the braided rug. It is always warm
in here. Where are the children?
Down at Tullius's cabin.Tell me all about it. Who spoke?
Cleave drew before the fire the chair that had been his father's,
sank into it, and taking the ash stick from the corner, stirred the
glowing logs. Judge Allen's Resolutions were read and carried.
Fauquier Cary spokemany others.
Did not you?
No. They asked me to, but with so many there was no need. People
were much moved
He broke off, sitting stirring the fire. His mother watched the deep
hollows with him. Closely resembling as he did his long dead father,
the inner tie, strong and fine, was rather between him and the woman
who had given him birth. Wedded ere she was seventeen, a mother at
eighteen, she sat now beside her first-born, still beautiful, and
crowned by a lovely life. She had kept her youth, and he had come early
to a man's responsibilities. For years now they had walked together,
caring for the farm, which was not large, for the handful of servants,
for the two younger children, Will and Miriam. The eighteen years
between them was cancelled by their common interests, his maturity of
thought, her quality of the summer time. She broke the silence. What
did Fauquier Cary say?
He spoke strongly for patience, moderation, peaceI am going to
Lauderdale after supper.
To see Judith?
No. To talk to Fauquier.... Maury Stafford is at Silver Hill. He
straightened himself, put down the ash stick, and rose to his feet.
The bell will ring directly. I'll go upstairs for a moment.
Margaret Cleave put out a detaining hand. One momentRichard, are
you quite, quite sure that she likes Maury Stafford so well?
Why should she not like him? He's a likable fellow.
So are many people. So are you.
Cleave gave a short and wintry laugh. I? I am only her
cousinrather a dull cousin, too, who does nothing much in the law,
and is not even a very good farmer! Am I sure? Yes, I am sure enough!
His hand closed on the back of her chair; the wood shook under the
sombre energy of his grasp. Did I not see how it was last summer that
week I spent at Greenwood? Was he not always with her?supple and
keen, easy and strong, with his face like a picture, with all the
advantages I did not haveeducation, travel, wealth!Why, Edward told
meand could I not see for myself? It was in the air of the placenot
a servant but knew he had come a-wooing!
But there was no engagement then. Had there been we should have
known it.
No engagement then, perhaps, but certainly no discouragement! He
was there again in the autumn. He was with her to-day. The chair shook
again. And this morning Fauquier Cary, talking to me, laughed and said
that Albemarle had set their wedding day!
His mother sighed. Oh, I am sorrysorry!
I should never have gone to Greenwood last summernever have spent
there that unhappy week! Before that it was just a fancyand then I
must go and let it bite into heart and brain and life He dropped his
hand abruptly and turned to the door. Well, I've got to try now to
think only of the country! God knows, things have come to that pass
that her sons should think only of her! It is winter time, Mother; the
birds aren't mating nowsave those twosave those two!
Upstairs, in his bare, high-ceiled room, his hasty toilet made, he
stood upon the hearth, beside the leaping fire, and looked about him.
Of latesince the summereverything was clarifying. There was at work
some great solvent making into naught the dross of custom and habitude.
The glass had turned; outlines were clearer than they had been, the
light was strong, and striking from a changed angle. To-day both the
sight of a face and the thought of an endangered State had worked to
make the light intenser. His old, familiar room looked strange to him
to-night. A tall bookcase faced him. He went across and stood before
it, staring through the diamond panes at the backs of the books. Here
were his Coke and Blackstone, Vattel, Henning, Kent, and Tucker, and
here were other books of which he was fonder than of those, and here
were a few volumes of the poets. Of them all, only the poets managed to
keep to-night a familiar look. He took out a volume, old, tawny-backed,
gold-lettered, and opened it at random
Her face so faire, as flesh it seemed not,
But hevenly pourtraict of bright angels hew,
Cleare as the sky, withouten blame or blot
A bell rang below. Youthful and gay, shattering the quiet of the
house, a burst of voices proclaimed the children's return from
Tullius's cabin. When, in another moment, Cleave came downstairs, it
was to find them both in wait at the foot, illumined by the light from
the dining-room door. Miriam laid hold of him. Richard, Richard! tell
me quick! Which was the greatest, Achilles or Hector?
Will, slight and fair, home for the holidays from Lexington and, by
virtue of his cadetship in the Virginia Military Institute, an
authority on most things, had a movement of impatience. Girls are so
stupid! Tell her it was Hector, and let's go to supper! She'll believe
you.
Within the dining-room, at the round table, before the few pieces of
tall, beaded silver and the gilt-banded china, while Mehalah the
waitress brought the cakes from the kitchen and the fire burned softly
on the hearth below the Saint Memin of a general and law-giver, talk
fell at once upon the event of the day, the meeting that had passed the
Botetourt Resolutions. Miriam, with her wide, sensitive mouth, her
tip-tilted nose, her hazel eyes, her air of some quaint, bright garden
flower swaying on its stem, was for war and music, and both her
brothers to become generals. Or Richard can be the general, and you be
a cavalryman like Cousin Fauquier! Richard can fight like Napoleon and
you may fight like Ney!
The cadet stiffened. Thank you for nothing, Missy! Anyhow, I shan't
sulk in my tents like your precious Achillesjust for a girl! Richard!
'Old Jack' says
I wish, Will, murmured his mother, that you'd say 'Major
Jackson.'
The boy laughed. 'Old Jack' is what we call him, ma'am! The other
wouldn't be respectful. He's never 'Major Jackson' except when he's
trying to teach natural philosophy. On the drill ground he's 'Old
Jack.' Richard, he saysOld Jack saysthat not a man since Napoleon
has understood the use of cavalry.
Cleave, sitting with his eyes upon the portrait of his grandfather,
answered dreamily: Old Jack is probably in the right of it, Will.
Cavalry is a great arm, but I shall choose the artillery.
His mother set down her coffee cup with a little noise, Miriam shook
her hair out of her eyes and came back from her own dream of the story
she was reading, and Will turned as sharply as if he were on the parade
ground at Lexington.
You don't think, then, that it is just all talk, Richard! You are
sure that we're going to fight!
You fight! cried Miriam. Why, you aren't sixteen!
Will flared up. Plenty of soldiers have died at sixteen,
Missy! 'Old Jack' knows, if you don't
Children, children! said Margaret Cleave, in a quivering voice.
It is enough to know that not a man of this family but would fight now
for Virginia, just as they fought eighty odd years ago! Yes, and we
women did our part then, and we would do it now! But I pray God, night
and dayand Miriam, you should pray toothat this storm will not
burst! As for you two who've always been sheltered and fed, who've
never had a blow struck you, who've grown like tended plants in a
gardenyou don't know what war is! It's a great and deep Cup of
Trembling! It's a scourge that reaches the backs of all! It's universal
destructionand the gift that the world should pray for is to build in
peace! That is true, isn't it, Richard?
Yes, it is true, said Richard. Don't, Will, as the boy began to
speak. Don't let's talk any more about it to-night. After all, a deal
of storms go byand it's a wise man who can read Time's order-book.
He rose from the table. It's like the fable. The King may die, the Ass
may die, the Philosopher may dieand next Christmas maybe the
peacefullest on record! I'm going to ride to Lauderdale for a little
while, and, if you like, I'll ask about that shotgun for you.
A few minutes later and he was out on the starlit road to
Lauderdale. As he rode he thought, not of the Botetourt Resolutions,
nor of Fauquier Cary, nor of Allan Gold, nor of the supper table at
Three Oaks, nor of a case which he must fight through at the court
house three days hence, but of Judith Cary. Dundee's hoofs beat it out
on the frosty ground. Judith CaryJudith CaryJudith Cary! He
thought of Greenwood, of the garden there, of a week last summer, of
Maury StaffordStafford whom at first meeting he had thought most
likable! He did not think him so to-night, there at Silver Hill, ready
to go to Lauderdale to-morrow!Judith CaryJudith CaryJudith
Cary. He saw Stafford beside herStafford beside herStafford
beside her
If she love him, said Cleave, half aloud, he must be worthy. I
will not be so petty nor so bitter! I wish her happiness.Judith
CaryJudith Cary. If she love him
To the left a little stream brawled through frosty meadows; to the
right rose a low hill black with cedars. Along the southern horizon
stretched the Blue Ridge, a wall of the Titans, a rampart in the night.
The line was long and clean; behind it was an effect of light, a
steel-like gleaming. Above blazed the winter stars. If she love
himif she love him He determined that to-night at Lauderdale he
would try to see her alone for a minute. He would find outhe must
find outif there were any doubt he would resolve it.
The air was very still and clear. He heard a carriage before him on
the road. It was coming toward hima horseman, too, evidently riding
beside it. Just ahead the road crossed a bridgenot a good place for
passing in the night-time. Cleave drew a little aside, reining in
Dundee. With a hollow rumbling the carriage passed the streams. It
proved to be an old-fashioned coach with lamps, drawn by strong, slow
grey horses. Cleave recognized the Silver Hill equipage. Silver Hill
must have been supping with Lauderdale. Immediately he divined who was
the horseman. The carriage drew alongside, the lamps making a small
ring of light. Good-evening, Mr. Stafford! said Cleave. The other
raised his hat. Mr. Cleave, is it not? Good-evening, sir! A voice
spoke within the coach. It's Richard Cleave now! Stop, Ephraim!
The slow grey horses came to a stand. Cleave dismounted, and came,
hat in hand, to the coach window. The mistress of Silver Hill, a young
married woman, frank and sweet, put out a hand. Good-evening, Mr.
Cleave! You are on your way to Lauderdale? My sister and Maury Stafford
and I are carrying Judith off to Silver Hill for the night.She wants
to give you a message
She moved aside and Judith took her placeJudith in fur cap and
cloak, her beautiful face just lit by the coach lamp. It's not a
message, Richard. II did not know that you were coming to Lauderdale
to-night. Had I known it, IGive my love, my dear love, to Cousin
Margaret. I would have come to Three Oaks, only
You are going home to-morrow?
Yes. Fauquier wishes to get back to Albemarle
Will you start from Lauderdale?
No, from Silver Hill. He will come by for me. But had I known,
said Judith clearly, had I known that you would ride to Lauderdale
to-night
You would dutifully have stayed to see a cousin, thought Cleave in
savage pain. He spoke quietly, in the controlled but vibrant voice he
had used on the hilltop. I am sorry that I will not see you to-night.
I will ride on, however, and talk to Fauquier. You will give my love,
will you not, to all my cousins at Greenwood? I do not forget how good
all were to me last summer!Good-bye, Judith.
She gave him her hand. It trembled a little in her glove. Come
again to Greenwood! Winter or summer, it will be glad to see
you!Good-bye, Richard.
Fur cap, cloak, beautiful face, drew back. Go on, Ephraim! said
the mistress of Silver Hill.
The slow grey horses put themselves into motion, the coach passed
on. Maury Stafford waited until Cleave had remounted. It has been an
exciting day! he said. I think that we are at the parting of the
ways.
I think so. You will be at Silver Hill throughout the week?
No, I think that I, too, will ride toward Albemarle to-morrow. It
is worth something to be with Fauquier Cary a little longer.
That is quite true, said Cleave slowly. I do not ride to
Albemarle to-morrow, and so I will pursue my road to Lauderdale and
make the most of him to-night! He turned his horse, lifted his hat.
Stafford did likewise. They parted, and Cleave presently heard the
rapid hoofbeat overtake the Silver Hill coach and at once change to a
slower rhythm. Now he is speaking with her through the window!
The sound of wheel and hoof died away. Cleave shook Dundee's reins and
went on toward Lauderdale. Judith CaryJudith CaryThere are other
things in life than loveother things than loveother things than
love.... Judith CaryJudith Cary....
At Three Oaks Margaret Cleave rested upon her couch by the fire.
Miriam was curled on the rug with a book, an apple, and Tabitha the
cat. Will mended a skate-strap and discoursed of Old Jack. It's a
fact, ma'am! Wilson worked the problem, gave the solution, and got from
Old Jack a regular withering up! They'll all tell you, ma'am, that he
excels in withering up! 'You are wrong, Mr. Wilson,' says he, in that
tone of hisdry as tinder, and makes you stop like a musket-shot! 'You
are always wrong. Go to your seat, sir.' Well, old Wilson went, of
course, and sat there so angry he was shivering. You see he was right,
and he knew it. Well, the day went on about as usual. It set in to
snow, and by night there was what a western man we've got calls a
'blizzard.' Barracks like an ice house, and snowing so you couldn't see
across the Campus! 'T was so deadly cold and the lights so dismal that
we rather looked forward to taps. Up comes an orderly. 'Mr. Wilson to
the Commandant's office!'Well, old Wilson looked startled, for he
hadn't done anything; but off he marches, the rest of us predicting
hanging. Well, whom d' ye reckon he found in the Commandant's office?
Old Jack?
Good marksmanship! It was Old Jacksnow all over, snow on his
coat, on his big boots, on his beard, on his cap. He lives most a mile
from the Institute, and the weather was bad, sure enough! Well, old
Wilson didn't know what to expectmost likely hot shot, grape and
canister with musketry fire thrown inbut he saluted and stood fast.
'Mr. Wilson,' says Old Jack, 'upon returning home and going over with
closed eyes after supper as is my custom the day's work, I discovered
that you were right this morning and I was wrong. Your solution was
correct. I felt it to be your due that I should tell you of my mistake
as soon as I discovered it. I apologise for the statement that you were
always wrong. You may go, sir.' Well, old Wilson never could tell what
he said, but anyhow he accepted the apology, and saluted, and got out
of the room somehow and back to barracks, and we breathed on the window
and made a place through which we watched Old Jack over the Campus,
ploughing back to Mrs. Jack through the blizzard! So you see, ma'am,
things like that make us lenient to Old Jack sometimesthough he is
awfully dull and has very peculiar notions.
Margaret Cleave sat up. Is that you, Richard? Miriam put down
Tabitha and rose to her knees. Did you see Cousin Judith? Is she as
beautiful as ever? Will hospitably gave up the big chair. You must
have galloped Dundee both ways! Did you ask about the shotgun?
Cleave took his seat at the foot of his mother's couch. Yes, Will,
you may have it.Fauquier sent his love to you, Mother, and to Miriam.
They leave for Greenwood to-morrow.
And Cousin Judith, persisted Miriam. What did she have on? Did
she sing to you?
Cleave picked up her fallen book and smoothed the leaves. She was
not there. The Silver Hill people had taken her for the night. I passed
them on the road.... There'll be thick ice, Will, if this weather
lasts.
Later, when good-night had been said and he was alone in his bare,
high-ceiled room, he looked, not at his law books nor at the poet's
words, left lying on the table, but he drew a chair before the
fireplace, and from its depths he raised his eyes to his grandfather's
sword slung above the mantel-shelf. He sat there, long, with the sword
before him; then he rose, took a book from the case, trimmed the
candles, and for an hour read of the campaigns of Fabius and Hannibal.
CHAPTER IV. GREENWOOD
The April sunshine, streaming in at the long windows, filled the
Greenwood drawing-room with dreamy gold. It lit the ancient wall-paper
where the shepherds and shepherdesses wooed between garlands of roses,
and it aided the tone of time among the portraits. The boughs of peach
and cherry blossoms in the old potpourri jars made it welcome, and the
dark, waxed floor let it lie in faded pools. Miss Lucy Cary was glad to
see it as she sat by the fire knitting fine white wool into a sacque
for a baby. There was a fire of hickory, but it burned low, as though
it knew the winter was over. The knitter's needles glinted in the
sunshine. She was forty-eight and unmarried, and it was her delight to
make beautiful, soft little sacques and shoes and coverlets for every
actual or prospective baby in all the wide circle of her kindred and
friends.
A tap at the door, and the old Greenwood butler entered with the
mail-bag. Miss Lucy, laying down her knitting, took it from him with
eager fingers. Place a la postein eighteen hundred and
sixty-one! She untied the string, emptied letters and papers upon the
table beside her, and began to sort them. Julius, a spare and venerable
piece of grey-headed ebony, an autocrat of exquisite manners and great
family pride, stood back a little and waited for directions.
Miss Lucy, taking up one after another the contents of the bag, made
her comments half aloud. Newspapers, newspapers! Nothing but the
twelfth and Fort Sumter! The Whig.'South Carolina is too
hot-headed!but when all's said, the North remains the aggressor.'
The Examiner.'Seward's promises are not worth the paper they are
written upon.' 'Faith as to Sumter fully keptwait and see.'
That which was seen was a fleet of eleven vessels, with two hundred and
eighty-five guns and twenty-four hundred men'carrying provisions
to a starving garrison!' Have done with cant, and welcome open war!
The Enquirer.'Virginia will still succeed in mediating. Virginia
from her curule chair, tranquil and fast in the Union, will persuade,
will reconcile these differences!' Amen to that! said Miss Lucy, and
took up another bundle. The Staunton GazetteThe Farmer's
MagazineThe Literary MessengerMy Blackwood
Julius!
Yaas, Miss Lucy.
Julius, the Reverend Mr. Corbin Wood will be here for supper and to
spend the night. Let Car'line know.
Yaas, Miss Lucy. Easter's Jim hab obsarved to me dat Marse Edward
am conducin' home a gent'man from Kentucky.
Very well, said Miss Lucy, still sorting. The Winchester Times
The Baltimore Sun.The mint's best, Julius, in the lower bed.
I walked by there this morning.Letters for my brother! I'll readdress
these, and Easter's Jim must take them to town in time for the Richmond
train.
Yaas, Miss Lucy. Easter's Jim hab imported dat Marse Berkeley
Cyarter done recompense him on de road dis mahnin' ter know when
Marster's comin' home.
Just as soon, said Miss Lucy, as the Convention brings everybody
to their senses.Three letters for Edwardone in young Beaufort
Porcher's writing. Now we'll hear the Charleston versionprobably he
fired the first shot!A note for me.Julius, the Palo Alto ladies
will stop by for dinner to-morrow. Tell Car'line.
Yaas, Miss Lucy.
Miss Lucy took up a thick, bluish envelope. From Fauquier at
lastfrom the Red River. She opened the letter, ran rapidly over the
half-dozen sheets, then laid them aside for a more leisurely perusal.
It's one of his swift, light, amusing letters! He hasn't heard about
Sumter.There'll be a message for you, Julius. There always is.
Julius's smile was as bland as sunshine. Yaas, Miss Lucy. I 'spects
dar'll be some excommunication fer me. Marse Fauquier sho' do favour
Old Marster in dat.He don' never forgit! 'Pears ter me he'd better
come homeall dis heah congratulatin' backwards an' forwards wid
gunpowder over de kintry! Gunpowder gwine burn ef folk git reckless!
Miss Lucy sighed. It will that, Julius,it's burning now. Edward
from Sally Hampton. More Charleston news!One for Molly, three for
Unity, five for Judith
Miss Judith jes' sont er 'lumination by one of de chillern at de
gate. She an' Marse Maury Stafford'll be back by five. Dey ain' gwine
ride furder'n Monticello.
Very well. Mr. Stafford will be here to supper, then. Hairston
Breckinridge, too, I imagine. Tell Car'line.
Miss Lucy readdressed the letters for her brother, a year older than
herself, and the master of Greenwood, a strong Whig influence in his
section of the State, and now in Richmond, in the Convention there,
speaking earnestly for amity, a better understanding between Sovereign
States, and a happily restored Union. His wife, upon whom he had
lavished an intense and chivalric devotion, was long dead, and for
years his sister had taken the head of his table and cared like a
mother for his children.
She sat now, at work, beneath the portrait of her own mother. As
good as gold, as true as steel, warm-hearted and large-natured, active,
capable, and of a sunny humour, she kept her place in the hearts of all
who knew her. Not a great beauty as had been her mother, she was yet a
handsome woman, clear brunette with bright, dark eyes and a most
likable mouth. Miss Lucy never undertook to explain why she had not
married, but her brothers thought they knew. She finished the letters
and gave them to Julius. Let Easter's Jim take them right away, in
time for the evening train.Have you seen Miss Unity?
Yaas, ma'am. Miss Unity am in de flower gyarden wid Marse Hairston
Breckinridge. Dey're training roses.
Where is Miss Molly?
Miss Molly am in er reverence over er big book in de library.
The youngest Miss Cary's voice floated in from the hall. No, I'm
not, Uncle Julius. Open the door wider, please! Julius obeyed, and she
entered the drawing-room with a great atlas outspread upon her arms.
Aunt Lucy, where are all these places? I can't find them. The
Island and Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, and the rest
of them! I wish when bombardments and surrenders and exciting things
happen they'd happen nearer home!
Child, child! cried Miss Lucy, don't you ever say such a thing as
that again! The way you young people talk is enough to bring down a
judgment upon us! It's like Sir Walter crying 'Bonny bonny!' to the
jagged lightnings. You are eighty years away from a great war, and you
don't know what you are talking about, and may you never be any
nearer!Yes, Julius, that's all. Tell Easter's Jim to go right
away.Now, Molly, this is the island, and here is Fort Moultrie and
here Fort Sumter. I used to know Charleston, when I was a girl. I can
see now the Battery, and the blue sky, and the roses,and the roses.
She took up her knitting and made a few stitches mechanically, then
laid it down and applied herself to Fauquier Cary's letter. Molly,
ensconced in a window, was already busy with her own. Presently she
spoke. Miriam Cleave says that Will passed his examination higher than
any one.
That is good! said Miss Lucy. They all have fine mindsthe
Cleaves. What else does she say?
She says that Richard has given her a silk dress for her birthday,
and she's going to have it made with angel sleeves, and wear a hoop
with it. She's sixteenjust like me.
Richard's a good brother.
She says that Richard has gone to Richmondsomething about arms
for his Company of Volunteers. Aunt Lucy
Yes, dear.
I think that Richard loves Judith.
Molly, Molly, stop romancing!
I am not romancing. I don't believe in it. That week last summer he
used to watch her and Mr. Staffordand there was a look in his eyes
like the knight's in the 'Arcadia'
Molly! Molly!
And everybody knew that Mr. Stafford was a suitor. I knew
itEaster told me. And everybody thought that Judith was going to make
him happy, only she doesn't seem to have done soat least, not yet.
And there was the big tournament, and Richard and Dundee took all the
rings, though I know that Mr. Stafford had expected to, and Judith let
Richard crown her queen, but she looked just as pale and still! and
Richard had a line between his brows, and I think he thought she would
rather have had the Maid of Honour's crown that Mr. Stafford won and
gave to just a little girl
Molly, I am going to lock up every poetry book in the house
And that was one day, and the next morning Richard looked stern and
fine, and rode away. He isn't really handsomenot like Edward, that
isonly he has a way of looking so. And Judith
Molly, you're uncanny
I'm not uncanny. I can't help seeing. And the night after the
tournament I slept in Judith's room, and I woke up three times, and
each time there was Judith still sitting in the window, in the
moonlight, and the roses Richard had crowned her with beside her in
grandmother's Lowestoft bowl. And each time I asked her, 'Why don't you
come to bed, Judith?' and each time she said, 'I'm not sleepy.' Then in
the morning Richard rode away, and the next day was Sunday, and Judith
went to church both morning and evening, and that night she took so
long to say her prayers she must have been praying for the whole
world
Miss Lucy rose with energy. Stop, Molly! I shouldn't have let you
ever begin. It's not kind to watch people like that.
I wasn't watching Judith, said Molly. I'd scorn to do such a
thing! I was just seeing. And I never said a word about her and Richard
until this instant when the sunshine came in somehow and started it.
And I don't know that she likes Richard any more. I think she's trying
hard to like Mr. Staffordhe wants her to so much!
Stop talking, honey, and don't have so many fancies, and don't read
so much poetry!Who is it coming up the drive?
It's Mr. Wood on his old grey horselike a nice, quiet knight out
of the 'Faery Queen.' Didn't you ever notice, Aunt Lucy, how everybody
really belongs in a book?
On the old, broad, pillared porch the two found the second Miss Cary
and young Hairston Breckinridge. Apparently in training the roses they
had discovered a thorn. They sat in silenceat opposite sides of the
stepsnursing the recollection. Breckinridge regarded the toe of his
boot, Unity the distant Blue Ridge, until, Mr. Corbin Wood and his grey
horse coming into view between the oaks, they regarded him.
The air, said Miss Lucy, from the doorway, is turning cold. What
did you fall out about?
South Carolina, answered Unity, with serenity. It's not unlikely
that our grandchildren will be falling out about South Carolina. Mr.
Breckinridge is a Democrat and a fire-eater. Anyhow, Virginia is not
going to secede just because he wants her to!
The angry young disciple of Calhoun opposite was moved to reply, but
at that moment Mr. Corbin Wood arriving before the steps, he must
perforce run down to greet him and help him dismount. A negro had
hardly taken the grey, and Mr. Wood was yet speaking to the ladies upon
the porch, when two other horsemen appeared, mounted on much more fiery
steeds, and coming at a gait that approached the ancient planter's
pace. Edward and Hilary Preston, said Miss Lucy, and away down the
road, I see Judith and Mr. Stafford.
The two in advance riding up the drive beneath the mighty oaks and
dismounting, the gravel space before the white-pillared porch became a
scene of animation, with beautiful, spirited horses, leaping dogs,
negro servants, and gay horsemen. Edward Cary sprang up the steps.
Aunt Lucy, you remember Hilary Preston!and this is my sister Unity,
Preston,the Quakeress we call her! and this is Molly, the little
one!Mr. Wood, I am very glad to see you, sir! Aunt Lucy! Virginia
Page, the two Masons, and Nancy Carter are coming over after supper
with Cousin William, and I fancy that Peyton and Dabney and Rives and
Lee will arrive about the same time. We might have a little dance, eh?
Here's Stafford with Judith, now!
In the Greenwood drawing-room, after candle-light, they had the
little dance. Negro fiddlers, two of them, born musicians, came from
the quarter. They were dressed in an elaborate best, they were as
suavely happy as tropical children, and beamingly eager for the credit
in the dance, as in all things else, of de fambly. Down came the bow
upon the strings, out upon the April night floated Money Musk! All
the furniture was pushed aside, the polished floor gave back the
lights. From the walls men and women of the past smiled upon a stage
they no longer trod, and between garlands of roses the shepherds and
shepherdesses pursued their long, long courtship. The night was mild,
the windows partly open, the young girls dancing in gowns of summery
stuff. Their very wide skirts were printed over with pale flowers,
their bodices were cut low, with a fall of lace against the white
bosom. The hair was worn smooth and drawn over the ear, with on either
side a bright cluster of blossoms. The fiddlers played Malbrook s'en
va-t-en guerre. Laughter, quick and gay, or low and ripplingly sweet,
flowed through the old room. The dances were all square, for there
existed in the country a prejudice against round dancing. Once Edward
Cary pushed a friend down on the piano stool, and whirled with Nancy
Carter into the middle of the room in a waltz. But Miss Lucy shook her
head at her nephew, and Cousin William gazed sternly at Nancy, and the
fiddlers looked scandalized. Scipio, the old, old one, who could
remember the Lafayette ball, held his bow awfully poised.
Judith Cary, dressed in a soft, strange, dull blue, and wearing a
little crown of rosy flowers, danced along like the lady of Saint Agnes
Eve. Maury Stafford marked how absent was her gaze, and he hoped that
she was dreaming of their ride that afternoon, of the clear green woods
and the dogwood stars, and of some words that he had said. In these
days he was hoping against hope. Well off and well-bred, good to look
at, pleasant of speech, at times indolent, at times ardent, a little
silent on the whole, and never failing to match the occasion with just
the right shade of intelligence, a certain grip and essence in this man
made itself felt like the firm bed of a river beneath the flowing
water. He was not of Albemarle; he was of a tide-water county, but he
came to Albemarle and stayed with kindred, and no one doubted that he
strove for an Albemarle bride. It was the opinion of the county people
that he would win her. It was hard to see why he should not. He was
desperately in love, and far too determined to take the first No for
an answer. Until the last eight months it had been his own conclusion
that he would win.
The old clock in the hall struck ten; in an interval between the
dances Judith slipped away. Stafford wished to follow her, but Cousin
William held him like the Ancient Mariner and talked of the long past
on the Eastern Shore. Judith, entering the library, came upon the
Reverend Mr. Corbin Wood, deep in a great chair and a calf-bound
volume. Come in, come in, Judith my dear, and tell me about the
dance.
It is a pretty dance, said Judith. Do you think it would be very
wrong of you to watch it?
Mr. Wood, the long thin fingers of one hand lightly touching the
long thin fingers of the other hand, considered the matter. Why, no,
he said in a mellow and genial voice. Why, noit is always hard for
me to think that anything beautiful is wrong. It is this way. I go into
the drawing-room and watch you. It is, as you say, a very pretty sight!
But if I find it so and still keep a long face, I am to myself
something of a hypocrite. And if I testify my delight, if I am absorbed
in your evolutions, and think only of springtime and growing things,
and show my thought, then to every one of you, and indeed to myself
too, my dear, I am something out of my character! So it seems better to
sit here and read Jeremy Taylor.
You have the book upside down, said Judith softly. Her old friend
put on his glasses, gravely looked, and reversed the volume. He
laughed, and then he sighed. I was thinking of the country, Judith.
It's the only book that is interesting nowand the recital's tragic,
my dear; the recital's tragic!
From the hall came Edward Cary's voice, Judith, Judith, we want you
for the reel!
In the drawing-room the music quickened. Scipio played with all his
soul, his eyes uprolled, his lips parted, his woolly head nodding, his
vast foot beating time; young Eli, black and shining, seconded him
ably; without the doors and windows gathered the house servants,
absorbed, admiring, laughing without noise. The April wind, fragrant of
greening forests, ploughed land, and fruit trees, blew in and out the
long, thin curtains. Faster went the bow upon the fiddle, the room
became more brilliant and more dreamy. The flowers in the old, old blue
jars grew pinker, mistier, the lights had halos, the portraits smiled
forthright; but from greater distances, the loud ticking of the clock
without the door changed to a great rhythm, as though Time were using a
violin string. The laughter swelled, waves of brightness went through
the ancient room. They danced the Virginia Reel.
Miss Lucy, sitting beside Cousin William on the sofa, raised her
head. Horses are coming up the drive!
That's not unusual, said Cousin William, with a smile. Why do you
look so startled?
I don't know. I thoughtbut that's not possible. Miss Lucy half
rose, then took her seat again. Cousin William listened. The air's
very clear to-night, and there must be an echo. It does sound like a
great body of horsemen coming out of the distance.
Balance corners! called Eli. Swing yo' partners!Sachay!
The music drew to a height, the lights burned with a fuller power,
the odour of the flowers spread, subtle and intense. The dancers moved
more and more quickly. There are only three horses, said Cousin
William, two in front and one behind. Two gentlemen and a servant. Now
they are crossing the little bridge. Shall I go see who they are?
Miss Lucy rose. Outside a dog had begun an excited and joyous
barking. That's Gelert! It's my brother he is welcoming! From the
porch came a burst of negro voices. Who dat comin' up de drive? Who
dat, Gelert?Dat's marster!Go 'way, 'ooman! don' tell me he in
Richmon'! Dat's marster!
The reel ended suddenly. There was a sound of dismounting, a step
upon the porch, a voice. Father, father! cried Judith, and ran into
the hall.
A minute later the master of Greenwood, his children about him,
entered the drawing-room. Behind him came Richard Cleave. There was a
momentary confusion of greeting; it passed, and from the two men,
travel-stained, fatigued, pale with some suppressed emotion, there sped
to the gayer company a subtle wave of expectation and alarm. Miss Lucy
was the first whom it reached. What is it, brother? she said quickly.
Cousin William followed, For God's sake, Cary, what has happened?
Edward spoke from beside the piano, Has it come, father? With his
words his hand fell upon the keys, suddenly and startlingly upon the
bass.
The vibrations died away. Yes, it has come, Edward, said the
master. Holding up his hand for silence, he moved to the middle of the
room, and stood there, beneath the lit candles, the swinging prisms of
the chandelier. Peale's portrait of his father hung upon the wall. The
resemblance was strong between the dead and the living.
Be quiet, every one, he said now, speaking very quietly himself.
Is all the household here? Open the window wide, Julius. Let the house
servants come inside. If there are men and women from the quarter on
the porch, tell them to come closer, so that all may hear. Julius
opened the long windows, the negroes came in, Mammy in her turban,
Easter and Chloe the seamstresses, Car'line the cook, the housemaids,
the dining-room boys, the young girls who waited upon the daughters of
the house, Isham the coachman, Shirley the master's body-servant,
Edward's boy Jeames, and the nondescript half dozen who helped the
others. The ruder sort upon the porch, outdoor negroes drawn by the
music and the spectacle from the quarter, approached the windows.
Together they made a background, dark and exotic, splashed with bright
colour, for the Aryan stock ranged to the front. The drawing-room was
filled. Mr. Corbin Wood had come noiselessly in from the library, none
was missing. Guests, family, and servants stood motionless. There was
that in the bearing of the master which seemed, in the silence, to
detach itself, and to come toward them like an emanation, cold, pure,
and quiet, determined and imposing. He spoke. I supposed that you had
heard the news. Along the railroad and in Charlottesville it was known;
there were great crowds. I see it has not reached you. Mr. Lincoln has
called for seventy-five thousand troops with which to procure South
Carolina and the Gulf States' return into the Union. Hethe
Northdemands of Virginia eight thousand men to be used for this
purpose. She will not give them. We have fought long and patiently for
peace; now we fight no more on that field. Matters have brought me for
a few hours to Albemarle. To-morrow I return to Richmond, to the
Convention, to do that which I never thought to do, to give my voice
for the secession of Virginia.
There was a general movement throughout the room. So! said Corbin
Wood very softly. Cousin William rose from the sofa, drew a long
breath, and smote his hands together. It had to come, Cary, it had to
come! North and South, we've pulled in different directions for sixty
years! The cord had to snap. From among the awed servants came the
voice of old Isham the coachman, 'Secession!' What dat wuhd
'Secession,' marster?
That word, answered Warwick Cary, means, Isham, that Virginia
leaves of her free will a Union that she entered of her free will. The
terms of that Union have been broken; she cannot, within it, preserve
her integrity, her dignity, and her liberty. Therefore she uses the
right which she reservedthe right of self-preservation. Unterrified
she entered the Union, unterrified she leaves it.
He paused, standing in the white light of the candles, among his
children, kinsmen, friends, and slaves. To the last, if ingrained
affection, tolerance, and understanding, quiet guidance, patient care,
a kindly heart, a ready ear, a wise and simple dealing with a simple,
not wise folk, are true constituents of friendship, he was then their
friend as well as their master. They with all the room hung now upon
his words. The light wind blew the curtains out like streamers, the
candles flickered, petals from the blossoms in the jars fell on the
floor, the clock that had ticked in the hall for a hundred years struck
eleven. There will be war, said the master. There should not be, but
there will be. How long it will last, how deadly its nature, no man can
tell! The North has not thought us in earnest, but the North is
mistaken. We are in earnest. War will be for us a desperate thing. We
are utterly unprepared; we are seven million against twenty million, an
agricultural country against a manufacturing one. We have little
shipping, they have much. They will gain command of the sea. If we can
get our cotton to Europe we will have gold; therefore, if they can
block our ports they will do it. There are those who think the powers
will intervene and that we will have England or France for our ally. I
am not of them. The odds are greatly against us. We have struggled for
peace; apparently we cannot have it; now we will fight for the
conviction that is in us. It will be for us a war of defence, with the
North for the invader, and Virginia will prove the battle-ground. I
hold it very probable that there are men here to-night who will die in
battle. You women are going to sufferto suffer more than we. I think
of my mother and of my wife, and I know that you will neither hold us
back nor murmur. All that is courageous, all that is heroically
devoted, Virginia expects and will receive from you. He turned to face
more fully the crowding negroes. To every man and woman of you here,
not the less my friends that you are called my servants, emancipated at
my death, every one of you, by that will which I read to you years ago,
each of you having long known that you have but to ask for your freedom
in my lifetime to have itto you all I speak. Julius, Shirley, Isham,
Scipio, Mammy, and the rest of you, there are hard times coming! My son
and I will go to war. Much will be left in your trust. As I and mine
have tried to deal by you, so do you deal by us
Shirley raised his voice. Don' leave nothin' in trus' ter me,
marster! Kase I's gwine wid you! Sho! Don' I know dat when gent'men
fight dey gwine want dey bes' shu't, an dey hat breshed jes' right!
I'se gwine wid you! A face as dark as charcoal, with rolling eyes,
looked over mammy's shoulder. Ain' Marse Edward gwine? 'Cose he gwine!
Den Jeames gwine, too! A murmuring sound came from the band of
servants. They began to rock themselves, to strike with the tongue the
roof of the mouth, to work toward a camp-meeting excitement. Out on the
porch Big Mimy, the washerwoman, made herself heard. Des' let um
dar ter come fightin' Greenwood folk! Des' let me hab at um with er
tub er hot water! Scipio, old and withered as a last year's reed,
began to sway violently. Suddenly he broke into a chant. Ain' I done
heard about hit er million times? Dar wuz Gineral Lafayette an' dar wuz
Gineral Rochambeau, an' dar wuz Gineral Washington! An' dar wuz Light
Horse Harry Lee, an' dar wuz Marse Fauquier Cary dat wuz marster's
gran'father, an' Marse Edward Churchill! An' dey took de swords, an'
dey made to stack de ahms, an' dey druvan' dey druv King Pharaoh into
de sea! Ain' dey gwine ter do hit ergain? Tell me dat! Ain' dey gwine
ter do hit ergain?
The master signed with his hand. I trust youone and all. I'll
speak to you again before I go away to-morrow, but now we'll say
good-night. Good-night, Mammy, Isham, Scipio, Easter, all of you!
They went, one by one, each with his bow or her curtsy. Mammy paused
a moment to deliver her pronunciamento. Don' you fret, marster! I ain'
gwine let er soul tech one er my chillern! Julius followed her.
Dat's so, marster! An' Gawd Ermoughty knows I'se gwine always prohibit
jes' de same care ob de fambly an' de silver!
When they were gone came the leave-taking of the guests, of all who
were not to sleep that night at Greenwood. Maury Stafford was to stay,
and Mr. Corbin Wood. Of those going Cousin William was the only one of
years; the others were all young,young men, young women on the edge
of an unthought-of experience, on the brink of a bitter, tempestuous,
wintry sea. They did not see it so; there was danger, of course, but
they thought of splendour and heroism, of trumpet calls and waving
banners. They were much excited; the young girls half frightened, the
men wild to be at home, with plans for volunteering. Good-bye, and
good-bye, and good-bye again! and when it's all overit will be over
in three months, will it not, sir?we'll finish the 'Virginia Reel!'
The large, old coach and the saddle horses were brought around. They
drove or rode away, through the April night, by the forsythia and the
flowering almond, between the towering oaks, over the bridge with a
hollow sound. Those left behind upon the Greenwood porch, clustered at
the top of the steps, between the white pillars, stood in silence until
the noise of departure had died away. Warwick Cary, his arm around
Molly, his hand in Judith's, Unity's cheek resting against his
shoulder, then spoke. It is the last merry-making, poor children!
Well'Time and tide run through the longest day!' He disengaged
himself, kissed each of his daughters, and turned toward the lighted
hall. There are papers in the library which I must go over to-night.
Edward, you had best come with me.
Father and son left the porch. Miss Lucy, too, went indoors, called
Julius, and began to give directions. Ready and energetic, she never
wasted time in wonder at events. The event once squarely met, she
struck immediately into the course it demanded, cheerfully, without
repining, and with as little attention as possible to forebodings. Her
voice died away toward the back of the house. The moon was shining, and
the lawn lay chequered beneath the trees. Corbin Wood, who had been
standing in a brown study, began to descend the steps. I'll take a
little walk, Judith, my dear, he said, and think it over! I'll let
myself in. He was gone walking rapidly, not toward the big gate and
the road, but across to the fields, a little stream, and a strip that
had been left of primeval forest. Unity and Molly, moving back to the
doorstep, sat there whispering together in the light from the hall.
Judith and Richard were left almost alone, Judith leaning against a
white pillar, Cleave standing a step or two below her.
You have been in Richmond? she said. Molly had a letter from
Miriam
Yes, I went to find, if possible, rifled muskets for my company. I
did not do as well as I had hopedthe supply is dreadfully smallbut
I secured a few. Two thirds of us will have to manage, until we can do
better, with the smoothbore and even with the old flintlock. I have
seen a breech-loader made in the North. I wish to God we had it!
You are going back to Botetourt?
As soon as it is dawn. The company will at once offer its services
to the governor. Every moment now is important.
At dawn.... You will be its captain?
I suppose so. We will hold immediately an election of officersand
that's as pernicious a method of officering companies and regiments as
can be imagined! 'They are volunteers, offering allthey can be
trusted to choose their leaders.' I don't perceive the sequence.
I think that you will make a good captain.
He smiled. Why, then, the clumsy thing will work for once! I'll try
to be a good captain.The clock is striking. I do not know when nor
how I shall see Greenwood again. Judith, you'll wish me well?
Will I wish you well, Richard? Yes, I will wish you well. Do not go
at dawn.
He looked at her. Do you ask me to wait?
Yes, I ask you. Wait tilltill later in the morning. It is so sad
to say good-bye.
I will wait then. The light from the hall lay unbroken on the
doorstep. Molly and Unity had disappeared. A little in yellow
lamplight, chiefly in silver moonlight the porch lay deserted and quiet
before the murmuring oaks, above the fair downward sweep of grass and
flowers. It is long, said Cleave, since I have been here. The day
after the tournament
Yes.
He came nearer. Judith, was it so hard to forgivethat tournament?
You had both crowns, after all.
I do not know, said Judith, what you mean.
Do you rememberdo you remember last Christmas when, going to
Lauderdale, I passed you on your way to Silver Hill?
Yes, I remember.
I was on my way to Lauderdale, not to see Fauquier, but to see you.
I wished to ask you a questionI wished to make certain. And then you
passed me going to Silver Hill, and I said, 'It is certainly so.' I
have believed it to be so. I believe it now. And yet I ask you
to-nightJudith
You ask me what? said Judith. Here is Mr. Stafford.
Maury Stafford came into the silver space before the house, glanced
upward, and mounted the steps. I walked as far as the gate with
Breckinridge. He tells me, Mr. Cleave, that he is of your Company of
Volunteers.
Yes.
I shall turn my face toward the sea to-morrow. Heigho! War is folly
at the best. And you?
I leave Greenwood in the morning.
The other, leaning against a pillar, drew toward him a branch of
climbing rose. The light from the hall struck against him. He always
achieved the looking as though he had stepped from out a master-canvas.
To-night this was strongly so. In the morning! You waste no time.
Unfortunately I cannot get away for another twenty-four hours. He let
the rose bough go and turned to Judith. His voice when he spoke to her
became at once low and musical. There was light enough to see the flush
in his cheek, the ardour in his eye. 'Unfortunately!' What a word to
use in leaving Greenwood! No! For me most fortunately I must wait
another four and twenty hours.
Greenwood, said Judith, will be lonely without old friends. As
she spoke, she moved toward the house door. In passing a great porch
chair her dress caught on the twisted wood. Both men started forward,
but Stafford was much the nearer to her. Released, she thanked him with
grave kindness, went on to the doorway, and there turned, standing a
moment in her drapery of dim blue, in the two lights. She had about her
a long scarf of black lace, and now she drew it closer, holding it
beneath her chin with a hand slender, fine, and strong. Good-night,
she said. It is not long to morning, now. Good-night, Mr. Stafford.
Good-night, Richard.
The good-night that Stafford breathed after her needed no
commentary. It was that of the lover confessed. Cleave, from his side
of the porch, looked across and thought, I will be a fool no longer.
She was merely kind to mea kindness she could afford. 'Do not go till
morningdear cousin!' There was a silence on the Greenwood
porch, a white-pillared rose-embowered space, paced ere this by lovers
and rivals. It was broken by Mr. Corbin Wood, returning from the fields
and mounting the moonlit steps. I have thought it out, he said. I am
going as chaplain. He touched Stafford, of whom he was fond, on the
shoulder. It's the sweetest night, and as I came along I loved every
leaf of the trees and every blade of grass. It's home, it's fatherland,
it's sacred soil, it's mother, dear Virginia
He broke off, said good-night, and entered the house.
The younger men prepared to follow. The next time that we meet,
said Stafford, may be in the thunder of the fight. I have an idea that
I'll know it if you're there. I'll look out for you.
And I for you, said Cleave. Each had spoken with entire courtesy
and a marked lack of amity. There was a moment's pause, a feeling as of
the edge of things. Cleave, not tall, but strongly made, with his thick
dark hair, his tanned, clean shaven, squarely cut face, stood very
straight, in earnest and formidable. The other, leaning against the
pillar, was the fairer to look at, and certainly not without his own
strength. The one thought, I will know, and the other thought, I
believe you to be my foe of foes. If I can make you leave this place
early, without speaking to her, I will do it.
Cleave turned squarely. You have reason to regret leaving
Greenwood
Stafford straightened himself against the pillar, studied for a
moment the seal ring which he wore, then spoke with deliberation. Yes.
It is hard to quit Paradise for even such a tourney as we have before
us. Ah well! when one comes riding back the welcome will be the
sweeter!
They went indoors. Later, alone in a pleasant bedroom, the man who
had put a face upon matters which the facts did not justify, opened
wide the window and looked out upon moon-flooded hill and vale. Do I
despise myself? he thought. If it was false to-night I may yet make
it truth to-morrow. All's fair in love and war, and God knows my all is
in this war! Judith! Judith! Judith! look my way, not his! He stared
into the night, moodily enough. His room was at the side of the house.
Below lay a slope of flower garden, then a meadow, a little stream, and
beyond, a low hilltop crowned by the old Greenwood burying-ground. Why
not sleep?... Love is warthe underlying, the primeval, the
immemorial.... All the same, Maury Stafford
In her room upon the other side of the house, Judith had found the
candles burning on the dressing-table. She blew them out, parted the
window curtains of flowered dimity, and curling herself on the
window-seat, became a part of the April night. Crouching there in the
scented air, beneath the large, mild stars, she tried to think of
Virginia and the coming war, but at the end of every avenue she came
upon a morning hour. Perhaps it would be in the flower garden, perhaps
in the summer-house, perhaps in the plantation woods where the
windflower and the Judas tree were in bloom. Her heart was hopeful. So
lifted and swept was the world to-night, so ready for great things,
that her great thing also ought to happen, her rose of happiness ought
to bloom. After to-morrow, she said to herself, I will think of
Virginia, and I'll begin to help.
Toward daybreak, lying in the large four-post bed beneath the white
tasselled canopy, she fell asleep. The sun was an hour high when she
awoke. Hagar, the girl who waited upon her, came in and flung wide the
shutters. Dar's er mockin' bird singin' mighty neah dish-yer window!
Reckon he gwine mek er nes' in de honeysuckle.
I meant to wake up very early, said Judith. Is any one downstairs
yet, Hagar?No, not that dress. The one with the little flowers.
Dar ain' nobody down yit, said Hagar. Marse Richard Cleave, he
done come down early, 'way 'bout daybreak. He got one of de stable-men
ter saddle he horse an' he done rode er way. Easter, she come in de
house jes' ez he wuz leaving en he done tol' her ter tell marster dat
he'd done been thinkin' ez how dar wuz so much ter do dat he'd better
mek an early start, en he lef' good-bye fer de fambly. Easter, she ax
him won't he wait 'twel the ladies come down, en he say No. 'Twuz
better fer him ter go now. En he went. Dar ain' nobody else come down
less'n hits Marse Maury Stafford.Miss Judith, honey, yo' ain' got
enny mo' blood in yo' face than dat ar counterpane! I gwine git yo' er
cup er coffee!
CHAPTER V. THUNDER RUN
Allan Gold, teaching the school on Thunder Run, lodged at the
tollgate halfway down the mountain. His parents were dead, his brothers
moved away. The mountain girls were pretty and fain, and matches were
early made. Allan made none; he taught with conscientiousness thirty
tow-headed youngsters, read what books he could get, and worked in the
tollgate keeper's small, bright garden. He had a passion for flowers.
He loved, too, to sit with his pipe upon the rude porch of the
toll-house, fanned by the marvellous mountain air, and look down over
ridges of chestnut and oak to the mighty valley below, and across to
the far blue wall of the Alleghenies.
The one-roomed, log-built schoolhouse stood a mile from the road
across the mountains, upon a higher level, in a fairy meadow below the
mountain clearings. A walnut tree shaded it, Thunder Run leaped by in
cascades, on either side the footpath Allan had planted larkspur and
marigolds. Here, on a May morning, he rang the bell, then waited
patiently until the last free-born imp elected to leave the delights of
a minnow-filled pool, a newly discovered redbird's nest, and a
blockhouse in process of construction against imaginary Indians. At
last all were seated upon the rude benches in the dusky room,small
tow-headed Jacks and Jills, heirs to a field of wheat or oats, a
diminutive tobacco patch, a log cabin, a piece of uncleared forest, or
perhaps the blacksmith's forge, a small mountain store, or the sawmill
down the stream. Allan read aloud the Parable of the Sower, and they
all said the Lord's Prayer; then he called the Blue Back Speller class.
The spelling done, they read from the same book about the Martyr and
his Family. Geography followed, with an account of the Yang-tse-Kiang
and an illustration of a pagoda, after which the ten-year-olds took the
front bench and read of little Hugh and old Mr. Toil. This over, the
whole school fell to ciphering. They ciphered for half an hour, and
then they had a history lesson, which told of one Curtius who leaped
into a gulf to save his country. History being followed by the writing
lesson, all save the littlest present began laboriously to copy a
proverb of Solomon.
Half-past eleven and recess drawing on! The scholars grew restless.
Could the bird's nest still be there? Were the minnows gone from the
pool? Had the blockhouse fallen down? Would writing go on forever?The
bell rang; the teacher, whom they liked well enough, was speaking.
No more school! Recess foreveror until next year, which was the
same thing! No more geography, reading, writing, arithmetic, and
spelling; no more school! Hurrah! Of course the redbird's nest was
swinging on the bough, and the minnows were in the pool, and the
blockhouse was standing, and the sun shining with all its might! All
the men about here are going to fight, said Allan. I am going, too.
So we'll have to stop school until the war is over. Try not to forget
what I've taught you, children, and try to be good boys and girls. You
boys must learn now to be men, for you'll have to look after things and
the women. And you girls must help your mothers all you can. It's going
to be hard times, little folk! You've played a long time at fighting
Indians, and latterly I've noticed you playing at fighting Yankees.
Playtime's over now. It's time to work, to think, and to try to help.
You can't fight for Virginia with guns and swords, but every woman and
child, every young boy and old man in Virginia can make the hearts
easier of those who go to fight. You be good boys and girls and do your
duty here on Thunder Run, and God will count you as his soldiers just
the same as if you were fighting down there in the valley, or before
Richmond, or on the Potomac, or wherever we're going to fight. You're
going to be good children; I know it! He closed the book before him.
School's over now. When we take in again we'll finish the Roman
HistoryI've marked the place. He left his rude old desk and the
little platform, and stepping down amongst his pupils, gave to each his
hand. Then he divided among them the scanty supply of books, patiently
answered a scurry of questions, and outside, upon the sunshiny sward,
with the wind in the walnut tree and the larkspur beginning to bloom,
said good-bye once more. Jack and Jill gave no further thought to the
bird's nest, the minnows in the pool, the unfinished blockhouse. Off
they rushed, up the side of the mountain, over the wooded hills, along
Thunder Run, where it leaped from pool to pool. They must be home with
the news! No more schoolno more school! And was father goingand
were Johnny and Sam and Dave? Where were they going to fight? As far as
the big sawmill? as far away as the river? Were the dogs going,
too?
Allan Gold, left alone, locked the schoolhouse door, walked slowly
along the footpath between the flowers he had planted, and, standing by
Thunder Run, looked for awhile at the clear, brown water, then, with a
long breath and a straightening of the shoulders, turned away.
Good-bye, little place! he said, and strode down the ravine to the
road and the toll-house.
The tollgate keeper, old and crippled, sat on the porch beside a
wooden bucket of well-water. The county newspaper lay on his knee, and
he was reading the items aloud to his wife, old, too, but active,
standing at her ironing-board within the kitchen door. A cat purred in
the sunshine, and all the lilac bushes were in bloom. 'Ten companies
from this County,' read the tollgate keeper; 'Ten companies from Old
Botetourt,The Mountain Rifles, the Fincastle Rifles, the Botetourt
Dragoons, the Zion Hill Company, the Roaring Run men, the Thunder
Run' Air you listenin', Sairy?
Sairy brought a fresh iron from the stove. I am a-listenin', Tom.
'Pears to me I ain't done nothing but listen sence last December! It's
got to be sech a habit that I ketch myself waking up at night to
listen. But I've got to iron as well as listen, or Allan Gold won't
have any shirts fit to fight in! Go on reading, I hear ye.
It's an editorial, said Tom weightily. 'Three weeks have passed
since war was declared. At once Governor Letcher called for troops; at
once the call was answered. We have had in Botetourt, as all over
Virginia, as through all the Southern States, days of excitement,
sleepless nights, fanfare of preparation, drill, camp, orders,
counter-orders, music, tears and laughter of high-hearted women'
Sairy touched her iron with a wet finger-tip. This time next year
thar'll be more tears, I reckon, and less laughter! I ain't a girl, and
I don't hold with warWell?
'Beat of drums and call of fife, heroic ardour and the cult of
Mars'
Of?
That's the name of the heathen idol they used to sacrifice men to.
'Parties have vanished from county and State. Whigs and Democrats,
Unionists and Secessionists, Bell and Everett men and Breckinridge
menall are gone. There is now but one partythe party of the
invaded. A month ago there was division of opinion; it does not
exist to-day. It died in the hour when we were called upon to deny our
convictions, to sacrifice our principles, to juggle with the
Constitution, to play fast and loose, to blow hot and cold, to say one
thing and do another, to fling our honour to the winds and to assist in
coercing Sovereign States back into a Union which they find
intolerable! It died in the moment when we saw, no longer the
Confederation of Republics to which we had acceded, but a land whirling
toward Empire. It is dead. There are no Union men to-day in Virginia.
The ten Botetourt companies hold themselves under arms. At any moment
may come the order to the front. The county has not spared her
first-bornno, nor the darling of his mother! It is a rank and file
different from the Old World's rank and file. The rich man marches, a
private soldier, beside the poor man; the lettered beside the
unlearned; the planter, the lawyer, the merchant, the divine, the
student side by side with the man from the plough, the smith, the
carpenter, the hunter, the boatman, the labourer by the day. Ay, rank
and file, you are different; and the army that you make will yet stir
the blood and warm the heart of the world!'
The ironer stretched another garment upon the board. If only we
fight half as well as that thar newspaper talks! Is the editor going?
Yes, he is, said the old man. It's fine talking, but it's mighty
near God's truth all the same! He moved restlessly, then took his
crutch and beat a measure upon the sunken floor. His faded blue eyes,
set in a thousand wrinkles, stared down upon and across the great view
of ridge and spur and lovely valleys in between. The air at this height
was clear and strong as wine, the noon sunshine bright, not hot, the
murmur in the leaves and the sound of Thunder Run rather crisp and gay
than slumbrous. If it had to come, said Tom, why couldn't it ha'
come when I was younger? If 't weren't for that darned fall out o'
Nofsinger's hayloft I'd go, anyhow!
Then I see, retorted Sairy, what Brother Dame meant by good
comin' out o' evil!Here's Christianna.
A girl in a homespun gown and a blue sunbonnet came up the road and
unlatched the little gate. She had upon her arm a small basket such as
the mountain folk weave. Good-mahnin', Mrs. Cole. Good-mahnin', Mr.
Cole. It cert'ny is fine weather the mountain's having.
Yes, it's fine weather, Christianna, answered the old man. Come
in, come in, and take a cheer!
Christianna came up the tiny path and seated herself, not in the
split-bottomed chair to which he waved her, but upon the edge of the
porch, with her back to the sapling that served for a pillar, and with
her small, ill-shod feet just touching a bed of heartsease. She pushed
back her sunbonnet. Dave an' Billy told us good-bye yesterday. Pap is
going down the mountain to-day. Dave took the shotgun an' pap has
grandpap's flintlock, but Billy didn't have a gun. He said he'd take
one from the Yanks.
Sho! exclaimed Sairy. Didn't he have no weapon at all?
He had a hunting-knife that was grandpap's. An' the blacksmith made
him what he called a spear-head. He took a bit o' rawhide and tied it
to an oak staff, an' he went down the mountain so! Her drawling
voice died, then rose again. I'll miss BillyI surely will! It
failed again, and the heartsease at her feet ran together into a little
sea of purple and gold. She took the cape of her sunbonnet and with it
wiped away the unaccustomed tears.
Sho! said Sairy. We'll all miss Billy. I reckon we all that stay
at home air going to have our fill o' missing!What have you got in
your basket, honey?
Christianna lifted a coloured handkerchief and drew from the basket
a little bag of flowered chintz, roses and tulips, drawn up with a blue
ribbon. My! that's pretty, exclaimed Sairy. Whar did you get the
stuff?
The girl regarded the bag with soft pride. Last summer I toted a
bucket o' blackberries down to Three Oaks an' sold them to Mrs. Cleave.
An' she was making a valance for her tester bed, an' I thought the
stuff was mighty pretty, an' she gave me a big piece! an' I put it away
in my picture box with my glass beads. For the ribbonI'd saved a
little o' my berry money, an' I walked to Buchanan an' bought it. She
drew a long breath. My land! 't was fine in the townHigh Street just
crowded with Volunteers, and the drums were beating. Her eyes shone
like stars. It's right hard on women to stay at home an' have all the
excitement go away. There don't seem to be nothin' to make it up to
us
Sairy put away the ironing-board. Sho! We've just got the little
end, as usual. What's in the bag, child?
Thar's thread and needles in a needle-case, an' an emery, said
Christianna. I wanted a little pair of scissors that was at Mr.
Moelick's, but I didn't have enough. They'd be right useful, I reckon,
to a soldier, but I couldn't get them. I wondered if the bag ought to
be smallerbut he'll have room for it, I reckon? I think it's
right pretty.
Old Tom Cole leaned over, took the tiny, flowery affair, and
balanced it gently upon a horny hand. Of course he'll have room for
it! An' it's jest as pretty as they make them!An' here he comes now,
down the mountain, to thank ye himself!
Allan Gold thanked Christianna with simplicity. He had never had so
pretty a thing, and he would keep it always, and every time he looked
at it he would see Thunder Run and hear the bees in the flowers. It was
very kind of her to make it for him, andand he would keep it always.
Christianna listened, and then, with her eyes upon the heartsease,
began to say good-bye in her soft, drawling voice. You're going down
the mountain to-day, Mrs. Cole says. Well, good-bye. An' pap's goin'
too, an' Dave an' Billy have gone. I reckon the birds won't be singin'
when you come againthar'll be ice upon the creeks, I reckon. She
drew her shoulders together as though she shivered for all the May
sunshine. Well, good-bye.
I'll walk a piece of the road with you, said Allan, and the two
went out of the gate together.
Sairy, a pan of biscuits for dinner in her hand, looked after them.
There's a deal of things I'd do differently if I was a man! What was
the use in sayin' that every time he looked at that thar bag he'd see
Thunder Run? Thunder Run ain't a-keerin' if he sees it or if he don't
see it! He might ha' said that every time he laid eyes on them roses
he'd see Christianna!Thar's a wagon comin' up the road an' a man on
horseback behind. Here, I'll take the toll
No, I'll take it myself, said Tom, reaching for the tobacco box
which served as bank. If I can't 'list, I reckon I can get all the
news that's goin'! He hobbled out to the gate. Mornin', Jake!
Mornin', Mr. Robinson! Yes, 't is fine weather for the crops. What
The Rockbridge companies are ordered off! Craig and Bedford are
going, too. They say Botetourt's time will come next. Lord! we used to
think forest fires and floods were exciting! Down there in camp the
boys can't sleep at nightevery time a rooster crows they think it's
Johnny Mason's bugle and the order to the front! Ain't Allan Gold
going?
Sairy spoke from the path. Course he's goin'he and twenty more
from Thunder Run. I reckon Thunder Run ain't goin' to lag behind! Even
Steve Dagg's goin'though I look for him back afore the battle. Jim's
goin', too, to see what he can make out of it't won't harm no one, I
reckon, if he makes six feet o' earth.
They're the only trash in the lot, put in Tom. The others are
first-ratethough a heap of them are powerfully young.
Thar's Billy Maydew, for instance, said Sairy. Sho! Billy is too
young to go
All the cadets have gone from Lexington, remarked the man on
horseback. They've gone to Richmond to act as drill-mastersevery boy
of them with his head as high as General Washington's! I was at
Lexington and saw them go. Good Lord! most of them just childrenthat
Will Cleave, for instance, that used to beg a ride on my load of hay!
Four companies of them marched away at noon, with their muskets shining
in the sun. All the town was up and outthe minister blessing them,
and the people crying and cheering! Major T. J. Jackson led them.
The Thunder Run men are going in Richard Cleave's company. He sets
a heap o' store by Allan, an' wanted him for second lieutenant, but the
men elected Matthew Coffin
Coffin's bright enough, said Tom, but Allan's more
dependable.Well, good-day, gentlemen, an' thank ye both!
The wagon lumbered down the springtime road and the man on horseback
followed. The tollgate keeper hobbled back to his chair, and Sairy
returned to her dinner. Allan was going away, and she was making
gingerbread because he liked it. The spicy, warm fragrance permeated
the air, homely and pleasant as the curl of blue smoke above the
chimney, the little sunny porch, the buzzing of the bees in the lilacs.
Here's Allan now, said Tom. Hey, Allan! you must have gone a good
bit o' the way?
I went all the way, answered Allan, lifting the gourd of
well-water to his lips. Poor little thing! she is breaking her heart
over Billy's going.
Sairy, cutting the gingerbread into squares, held the knife
suspended. Have ye been talkin' about Billy all this time?
Yes, said Allan. I saw that she was unhappy and I tried to cheer
her up. I'll look out for the boy in every way I can. He took the
little bag of chintz from the bench where he had laid it when he went
with Christianna, and turned to the rude stair that led to his room in
the half story. He was not kin to the tollgate keepers, but he had
lived long with them and was very fond of both. I'll be down in a
moment, Aunt Sairy, he said. I wonder when I'll smell or taste your
gingerbread again, and I don't see how I am going to tell you and Tom
good-bye! He was gone, humming Annie Laurie as he went.
'T would be just right an' fittin', remarked Mrs. Cole, if half
the men in the world went about with a piece of pasteboard round their
necks an' written on it, 'Pity the Blind!' Dinner's most ready,
Tom,an' I don't see how I'm goin' to tell him good-bye myself.
An hour later, in his small bare room underneath the mossy roof,
with the small square window through which the breezes blew, Allan
stood and looked about him. Dinner was over. It had been something of a
feast, with unusual dainties, and a bunch of lilacs upon the table.
Sairy had on a Sunday apron. The three had not been silent either; they
had talked a good deal, but without much thought of what was said.
Perhaps it was because of this that the meal had seemed so vague, and
that nothing had left a taste in the mouth. It was over, and Allan was
making ready to depart.
On the floor, beside the chest of drawers, stood a small hair trunk.
A neighbour with a road wagon had offered to take it, and Allan, too,
down the mountain at three o'clock. In the spring of 1861, one out of
every two Confederate privates had a trunk. One must preserve the
decencies of life; one must make a good appearance in the field!
Allan's was small and modest enough, God knows! but such as it was it
had not occurred to him to doubt the propriety of taking it. It stood
there neatly packed, the shirts that Sairy had been ironing laid atop.
The young man, kneeling beside it, placed in this or that corner the
last few articles of his outfit. All was simple, clean, and newonly
the books that he was taking with him were old. They were his Bible,
his Shakespeare, a volume of Plutarch's Lives, and a Latin book or two
beside. In a place to themselves were other treasures, a daguerreotype
of his mother, a capacious huswife that Sairy had made and stocked for
him, the little box of paper to write home on that had been Tom's
present, various trifles that the three had agreed might come in handy.
Among these he now placed Christianna's gift. It was soft and full and
brighthe had the same pleasure in handling it that he would have felt
in touching a damask rose. He shut it in and rose from his knees.
He had on his uniform. They had been slow in comingthe
uniformsfrom Richmond. It was only Cleave's patient insistence that
had procured them at last. Some of the companies were not uniformed at
all. So enormous was the press of business upon the authorities, so
limited was the power of an almost purely agricultural,
non-manufacturing world suddenly to clothe alike these thousands of
volunteers, suddenly to arm them with something better than a
fowling-piece or a Revolutionary flintlock, that the wonder is, not
that they did so badly, but that they did so well. Pending the arrival
of the uniforms the men had drilled in strange array. With an attempt
at similarity and a picturesque taste of their own, most of them wore
linsey shirts and big black hats, tucked up on one side with a rosette
of green ribbon. One man donned his grandfather's Continental blue and
buffon the breast was a dark stain, won at King's Mountain. Others
drilled, and were now ready to march, as they came from the plough, the
mill, or the forge. But Cleave's company, by virtue of Cleave himself,
was fairly equipped. The uniforms had come, and there was a decent
showing of modern arms. Billy Maydew's hunting-knife and spear would be
changed on the morrow for a musket, though in Billy's case the musket
would certainly be the old smoothbore, calibre sixty-nine.
Allan's own gun, left him by his father, rested against the wall.
The young man, for all his quietude, his conscientious ways, his daily
work with children, his love of flowers, and his dreams of books,
inherited from frontiersmenwhose lives had depended upon
watchfulnessquickness of wit, accuracy of eye, and steadiness of aim.
He rarely missed his mark, and he read intuitively and easily the
language of wood, sky, and road. On the bed lay his slouch hat, his
haversack, knapsack, and canteen, cartridge-box and belt, and slung
over the back of a chair was his roll of blanket. All was in readiness.
Allan went over to the window. Below him were the flowers he had
tended, then the great forests in their May freshness, cataracts of
green, falling down, down to the valley. Over all hung the sky,
divinely blue. A wind went rustling through the forest, joining its
voice to the voice of Thunder Run. Allan knelt, touching with his
forehead the window-sill. O Lord God, he said, O Lord God, keep us
all, North and South, and bring us through winding ways to Thy end at
last. As he rose he heard the wagon coming down the road. He turned,
put the roll of blanket over one shoulder, and beneath the other arm
assumed knapsack, haversack, and canteen, dragged the hair trunk out
upon the landing, returned, took up his musket, looked once again about
the small, familiar room, then left it and went downstairs.
Sairy and Tom were upon the porch, the owner of the wagon with them.
I'll tote down yo' trunk, said the latter, and presently emerged from
the house with that article upon his shoulder. I reckon I'll volunteer
myself, just as soon 's harvest's over, he remarked genially. But,
gosh! you-all'll be back by then, telling how you did it! He went down
the path whistling, and tossed the trunk into the wagon.
I hate good-byes, said Allan. I wish I had stolen away last
night.
Don't ye get killed! answered Sairy sharply. That's what I'm
afraid of. I know you'll go riskin' yourself!
God bless you, said Tom. You've been like a son to us these five
years. Don't you forget to write.
I won't, answered Allan. I'll write you long letters. And I won't
get killed, Aunt Sairy. I'll take the best of care. He took the old
woman in his arms. You two have been just as good as a father and
mother to me. Thank you for it. I'll never forget. Good-bye.
Toward five o'clock the wagon rolled into the village whence certain
of the Botetourt companies were to march away. It was built beside the
rivertwo long, parallel streets, one upon the water level, the other
much higher, with intersecting lanes. There were brick and frame
houses, modest enough; there were three small, white-spired churches,
many locust and ailanthus trees, a covered bridge thrown across the
river to a village upon the farther side and, surrounding all, a noble
frame of mountains. There was, in those days, no railroad.
Cleave's hundred men, having the town at large for their friend,
stood in no lack of quarters. Some had volunteered from this place or
its neighbourhood, others had kinsmen and associates, not one was so
forlorn as to be without a host. The village was in a high fever of
hospitality; had the companies marching from Botetourt been so many
brigades, it would still have done its utmost. From the Potomac to the
Dan, from the Eastern Shore to the Alleghenies the flame of patriotism
burned high and clear. There were skulkers, there were braggarts, there
were knaves and fools in Virginia as elsewhere, but by comparison they
were not many, and theirs was not the voice that was heard to-day. The
mass of the people were very honest, stubbornly convinced, showing to
the end a most heroic and devoted ardour. This village was not
behindhand. All her young men were going; she had her company, too. She
welcomed Cleave's men, gathered for the momentarily expected order to
the front, and lavished upon them, as on two other companies within her
bounds, every hospitable care.
The wagon driver deposited Allan Gold and his trunk before the porch
of the old, red brick hotel, shook hands with a mighty grip, and
rattled on toward the lower end of town. The host came out to greet the
young man, two negro boys laid hold of his trunk, a passing volunteer
in butternut, with a musket as long as Natty Bumpo's, hailed him, and a
cluster of elderly men sitting with tilted chairs in the shade of a
locust tree rose and gave him welcome. It's Allan Gold from Thunder
Run, isn't it? Good-day, sir, good-day! Can't have too many from
Thunder Run; good giant stuff! Have you somewhere to stay to-night? If
not, any one of us will be happy to look after you.Mr. Harris, let us
have juleps all round
Thank you very kindly, sir, said Allan, but I must go find my
captain.
I saw him, remarked a gray-haired gentleman, just now down the
street. He's seeing to the loading of his wagons, showing Jim Ball and
the drivers just how to do itand he says he isn't going to show them
but this once. They seemed right prompt to learn.
I was thar too, put in an old farmer. 'They're mighty heavy
wagons,' I says, says I. 'Three times too heavy,' he says, says he.
'This company's got the largest part of its provisions for the whole
war right here and now,' says he. 'Thar's a heap of trunks,' says I.
'More than would be needed for the White Sulphur,' he says, says he.
'This time two years we'll march lighter,' says he
There were exclamations. Two years! Thunderation!This war'll be
over before persimmons are ripe! Why, the boys haven't volunteered but
for one yearand even that seemed kind of senseless! Two years! He's
daft!
I dunno, quoth the other. If fighting's like farming it's
all-fired slow work. Anyhow, that's what he said. 'This time two years
we'll march lighter,' he says, says he, and then I came away. He's down
by the old warehouse by the bridge, Mr. Goldand I just met Matthew
Coffin and he says thar's going to be a parade presently.
An hour later, in the sunset glow, in a meadow by the river, the
three companies paraded. The new uniforms, the bright muskets, the
silken colours, the bands playing Dixie, the quick orders, the more
or less practised evolutions, the universal martial mood, the sense of
danger over all, as yet thrilling only, not leaden, the known faces,
the loved faces, the imminent farewell, the flush of glory, the
beckoning of great eventsno wonder every woman, girl, and child,
every old man and young boy who could reach the meadow were there,
watching in the golden light, half wild with enthusiasm!
Wish I was in de land ob cotton,
Old times dar am not forgotten
Look away! look away! Dixie Land.
At one side, beneath a great sugar maple, were clustered a number of
women, mothers, wives, sisters, sweethearts, of those who were going
forth to war. They swayed forward, absorbed in watching, not the
companies as a whole, but one or two, sometimes three or four figures
therein. They had not held them back; never in the times of history
were there more devotedly patriotic women than they of the Southern
States. They lent their plaudits; they were high in the thoughts of the
men moving with precision beneath the great flag of Virginia, to the
sound of music, in the green meadow by the James. The colours of the
several companies had been sewed by women, sitting together in dim old
parlours, behind windows framed in roses. One banner had been made from
a wedding gown.
Look away! look away!
Look away down South to Dixie!
The throng wept and cheered. The negroes, slave and free, belonging
to this village and the surrounding country, were of an excellent type,
worthy and respectable men and women, honoured by and honouring their
white people. A number of these were in the meadow by the river, and
they, too, clapped and cheered, borne away by music and spectacle,
gazing with fond eyes upon some nursling, or playmate, or young,
imperious, well-liked master in those gleaming ranks. Isaac, son of
Abraham, or Esau and Jacob, sons of Isaac, marching with banners
against Canaan or Moab, may have heard some such acclaim from the
servants left behind. Several were going with the company. Captain and
lieutenants, and more than one sergeant and corporal had their
body-servantsthese were the proudest of the proud and the envied of
their brethren. The latter were voluble. Des look at Wash,des look
at Washington Mayo! Actin' lak he own er co'te house an' er stage line!
O my Lawd! wish I wuz er gwine! An dat dar Tullius from Three Oakshe
gwine march right behin' de captain, an' Marse Hairston Breckinridge's
boy he gwine march right behin' him!Dar de big drum ag'in!
In Dixie land I'll take my stand,
To live and die in Dixie!
Look away! Look away!
Look away down South to Dixie!
The sun set behind the great mountain across the river. Parade was
over, ranks broken. The people and their heroes, some restless, others
tense, all flushed of cheek and bright of eye, all borne upon a
momentous upward wave of emotion, parted this way and that, to supper,
to divers preparations, fond talk, and farewells, to an indoor hour.
Then, presently, out again in the mild May night, out into High Street
and Low Street, in the moonlight, under the odour of the white locust
clusters. The churches were lit and open; in each there was brief
service, well attended. Later, from the porch of the old hotel, there
was speaking. It drew toward eleven o'clock. The moon was high, the
women and children all housed, the oldest men, spent with the strain of
the day, also gone to their homes, or their friends' homes. The
Volunteers and a faithful few were left. They could not sleep; if war
was going to be always as exciting as this, how did soldiers ever
sleep? There was not among them a man who had ever served in war, so
the question remained unanswered. A Thunder Run man volunteered the
information that the captain was asleephe had been to the house where
the captain lodged and his mother had come to the door with her finger
on her lips, and he had looked past her and seen Captain Cleave lying
on a sofa fast asleep. Thunder Run's comrades listened, but they rather
doubted the correctness of his report. It surely wasn't very
soldier-like to sleepeven upon a sofathe night before marching
away! The lieutenants weren't asleep. Hairston Breckinridge had a map
spread out upon a bench before the post office, and was demonstrating
to an eager dozen the indubitable fact that the big victory would be
either at Harper's Ferry or Alexandria. Young Matthew Coffin was in
love, and might be seen through the hotel window writing, candles all
around him, at a table, covering one pale blue sheet after another with
impassioned farewells. Sergeants and corporals and men were wakeful.
Some of these, too, were writing letters, sending messages; others
joined in the discussion as to the theatre of war, or made knots of
their own, centres of conjectures and prophecy; others roamed the
streets, or down by the river bank watched the dark stream. Of these, a
few proposed to strip and have a swimwho knew when they'd see the old
river again? But the notion was frowned upon. One must be dressed and
ready. At that very moment, perhaps, a man might be riding into town
with the order. The musicians were not asleep. Young Matthew Coffin,
sealing his letter some time after midnight, and coming out into the
moonlight and the fragrance of the locust trees, had an inspiration.
All was in readiness for the order when it should come, and who, in the
meantime, wanted to do so prosaic a thing as rest? Boys, let us
serenade the ladies!
The silver night wore on. So many of the boys had sisters, that
there were many pretty ladies staying in the town or at the two or
three pleasant old houses upon its outskirts. Two o'clock, three
o'clock passed, and there were yet windows to sing beneath. Old love
songs floated through the soft and dreamy air; there was a sense of
angelic beings in the unlit rooms above, even of the flutter of their
wings. Then, at the music's dying fall, flowers were thrown; there
seemed to descend a breath, a whisper, Adieu, heroesadored, adored
heroes! A scramble for the flowers, then out at the gate and on to the
next house, and so da capo.
Dawn, though the stars were yet shining, began to make itself felt.
A coldness was in the air, a mist arose from the river, there came a
sensation of arrest, of somewhere an icy finger upon the pulse of life.
Maxwelton's braes are bonnie,
Where early fa's the dew,
And 't was there that Annie Laurie
Gie'd me her promise true,
They were singing now before an old brick house in the lower street.
There were syringas in bloom in the yard. A faint light was rising in
the east, the stars were fading.
Gie'd me her promise true
Which ne'er forgot shall be
Suddenly, from High Street, wrapped in mist, a bugle rang out. The
orderthe orderthe order to the front! It called again, sounding the
assembly. Fall in, men, fall in!
At sunrise Richard Cleave's company went away. There was a dense
crowd in the misty street, weeping, cheering. An old minister, standing
beside the captain, lifted his armsthe men uncovered, the prayer was
said, the blessing given. Again the bugle blew, the women cried
farewell. The band played Virginia, the flag streamed wide in the
morning wind. Good-bye, good-bye, and again good-bye! Attention!
Take arms! Shoulder arms! Right face! FORWARD, MARCH!
CHAPTER VI. BY ASHBY'S GAP
The 65th Virginia Infantry, Colonel Valentine Brooke, was encamped
to the north of Winchester in the Valley of Virginia, in a meadow
through which ran a stream, and upon a hillside beneath a hundred
chestnut trees, covered with white tassels of bloom. To its right lay
the 2d, the 4th, the 5th, the 27th, and the 33d Virginia, forming with
the 65th the First Brigade, General T. J. Jackson. The battery
attachedthe Rockbridge Artilleryoccupied an adjacent apple orchard.
To the left, in other July meadows and over other chestnut-shaded
hills, were spread the brigades of Bee, Bartow, and Elzey. Somewhere in
the distance, behind the screen of haze, were Stuart and his cavalry.
Across the stream a brick farmhouse, ringed with mulberry trees, made
the headquarters of Joseph E. Johnston, commanding the forces of the
Confederacyan experienced, able, and wary soldier, engaged just now,
with eleven thousand men, in watching Patterson with fifteen thousand
on the one hand, and McDowell with thirty-five thousand on the other,
and in listening attentively for a voice from Beauregard with twenty
thousand at Manassas. It was the middle of July, 1861.
First Brigade headquarters was a treean especially big treea
little removed from the others. Beneath it stood a kitchen chair and a
wooden table, requisitioned from the nearest cabin and scrupulously
paid for. At one side was an extremely small tent, but
Brigadier-General T. J. Jackson rarely occupied it. He sat beneath the
tree, upon the kitchen chair, his feet, in enormous cavalry boots,
planted precisely before him, his hands rigid at his sides. Here he
transacted the business of each day, and here, when it was over, he sat
facing the North. An awkward, inarticulate, and peculiar man, with
strange notions about his health and other matters, there was about him
no breath of grace, romance, or pomp of war. He was ungenial, ungainly,
with large hands and feet, with poor eyesight and a stiff address.
There did not lack spruce and handsome youths in his command who were
vexed to the soul by the idea of being led to battle by such a figure.
The facts that he had fought very bravely in Mexico, and that he had
for the enemy a cold and formidable hatred were for him; most other
things against him. He drilled his troops seven hours a day. His
discipline was of the sternest, his censure a thing to make the boldest
officer blench. A blunder, a slight negligence, any disobedience of
ordersdown came reprimand, suspension, arrest, with an iron
certitude, a relentlessness quite like Nature's. Apparently he was
without imagination. He had but little sense of humour, and no
understanding of a joke. He drank water and sucked lemons for
dyspepsia, and fancied that the use of pepper had caused a weakness in
his left leg. He rode a raw-boned nag named Little Sorrel, he carried
his sabre in the oddest fashion, and said oblike instead of
oblique. He found his greatest pleasure in going to the Presbyterian
Church twice on Sundays and to prayer meetings through the week. Now
and then there was a gleam in his eye that promised something, but the
battles had not begun, and his soldiers hardly knew what it promised.
One or two observers claimed that he was ambitious, but these were
chiefly laughed at. To the brigade at large he seemed prosaic, tedious,
and strict enough, performing all duties with the exactitude, monotony,
and expression of a clock, keeping all plans with the secrecy of the
sepulchre, rarely sleeping, rising at dawn, and requiring his staff to
do likewise, praying at all seasons, and demanding an implicity of
obedience which might have been in order with some great and glorious
captain, some idolized Napoleon, but which seemed hardly the due of the
late professor of natural philosophy and artillery tactics at the
Virginia Military Institute. True it was that at Harper's Ferry, where,
as Colonel T. J. Jackson, he had commanded until Johnston's arrival, he
had begun to bring order out of chaos and to weave from a high-spirited
rabble of Volunteers a web that the world was to acknowledge
remarkable; true, too, that on the second of July, in the small affair
with Patterson at Falling Waters, he had seemed to the critics in the
ranks not altogether unimposing. He emerged from Falling Waters
Brigadier-General T. J. Jackson, and his men, though with some mental
reservations, began to call him Old Jack. The epithet implied
approval, but approval hugely qualified. They might have saidin fact,
they did saythat every fool knew that a crazy man could fight!
The Army of the Shenandoah was a civilian army, a high-spirited,
slightly organized, more or less undisciplined, totally inexperienced
in war, impatient and youthful body of men, with the lesson yet to
learn that the shortest distance between two points is sometimes a
curve. In its eyes Patterson at Bunker Hill was exclusively the blot
upon the escutcheon, and the whole game of war consisted in somehow
doing away with that blot. There was great chafing at the inaction. It
was hot, argumentative July weather; the encampment to the north of
Winchester in the Valley of Virginia hummed with the comments of the
strategists in the ranks. Patterson should have been attacked after
Falling Waters. What if he was entrenched behind stone walls at
Martinsburg? Patterson should have been attacked upon the fifteenth at
Bunker Hill. What if he has fifteen thousand men?what if he has
twenty thousand?What if McDowell is preparing to cross the
Potomac? And now, on the seventeenth, Patterson is at Charlestown,
creeping eastward, evidently going to surround the Army of the
Shenandoah! Patterson is the burning reality and McDowell the
dreamand yet Johnston won't move to the westward and attack! Good
Lord! we didn't come from home just to watch these chestnuts get ripe!
All the generals are crazy, anyhow.
It was nine, in the morning of Thursday the eighteenth,a scorching
day. The locusts were singing of the heat; the grass, wherever men,
horses, and wagon wheels had not ground it into dust, was parched to a
golden brown; the mint by the stream looked wilted. The morning drill
was over, the 65th lounging beneath the trees. It was almost too hot to
fuss about Patterson, almost too hot to pity the sentinels, almost too
hot to wonder where Stuart's cavalry had gone that morning, and why
Old Joe quartered behind the mulberries in the brick farmhouse, had
sent a staff officer to Old Jack, and why Bee's and Bartow's and
Elzey's brigades had been similarly visited; almost too hot to play
checkers, to whittle a set of chessmen, to finish that piece of Greek,
to read Ivanhoe and resolve to fight like Brian de Bois Gilbert and
Richard Coeur de Lion in one, to write home, to rout out knapsack and
haversack, and look again at fifty precious trifles; too hot to smoke,
to tease Company A's pet coon, to think about Thunder Run, to wonder
how pap was gettin' on with that thar piece of corn, and what the girls
were sayin'; too hot to borrow, too hot to swear, too hot to go down to
the creek and wash a shirt, too hotWhat's that drum beginning for?
The long roll! The Army of the Valley is going to move! Boys, boys,
boys! We are going north to Charlestown! Boys, boys, boys! We are going
to lick Patterson!
At noon the Army of the Valley, the First Brigade leading, uncoiled
itself, regiment by regiment, from the wide meadow and the chestnut
wood, swept out upon the turnpikeand found its head turned toward the
south! There was stupefaction, then tongues were loosed. What's
thiswhat's this, boys? Charlestown ain't in this direction. Old Joe's
lost his bearings! Johnny Lemon, you go tell him sogo ask Old Jack if
you can't. Whoa, there! The fool's going!! Come back here quick,
Johnny, afore the captain sees you! O hell! we're going right back
through Winchester!
A wave of anger swept over the First Brigade. The 65th grew
intractable, moved at a snail's pace. The company officers went to and
fro. Close up, men, close up! No, I don't know any more than you
domaybe it's some roundabout way. Close upclose up! The colonel
rode along the line. What's the matter here? You aren't going to a
funeral! Think it's a fox hunt, boys, and step out lively! A courier
arrived from the head of the column. General Jackson's compliments to
Colonel Brooke, and he says if this regiment isn't in step in three
minutes he'll leave it with the sick in Winchester!
The First Brigade, followed by Bee, Bartow, and Elzey, marched
sullenly down the turnpike, into Winchester, and through its dusty
streets. The people were all out, old men, boys, and women thronging
the brick sidewalks. The army had seventeen hundred sick in the town.
Pale faces looked out of upper windows; men just recovering from
dysentery, from measles, from fever, stumbled out of shady front yards
and fell into line; others, more helpless, started, then wavered back.
Boys, boys! you ain't never going to leave us here for the Yanks to
take? Boysboys The citizens, too, had their say. Is Winchester to
be left to Patterson? We've done our best by youand you go marching
away! Several of the older women were weeping, the younger looked
scornful. Close up, men, close upclose up!
The First Brigade was glad when it was through the town. Before it,
leading southward through the Valley of Virginia, stretched the great
pike, a hundred and twenty miles of road, traversing as fair, rich, and
happy a region as war ever found a paradise and left a desolation. To
the east towered the Blue Ridge, to west the Great North and Shenandoah
Mountains, twenty miles to the south Massanutton rose like a Gibraltar
from the rolling fields of wheat and corn, the orchard lands and
pleasant pastures. The region was one of old mills, turning flashing
wheels, of comfortable red brick houses and well-stored barns, of fair
market towns, of a noble breed of horses, and of great, white-covered
wagons, of clear waters and sweet gardens, of an honest, thrifty,
brave, and intelligent people. It was a fair country, and many of the
army were at home there, but the army had at the moment no taste for
its beauties. It wanted to see Patterson's long, blue lines; it wanted
to drive them out of Virginia, across the Potomac, back to where they
came from.
The First Brigade was dispirited and critical, and as it had not yet
learned to control its mood, it marched as a dispirited and critical
person would be apt to march in the brazen middle of a July day. Every
spring and rivulet, every blackberry bush and apple tree upon the road
gathered recruits. The halts for no purpose were interminable, the
perpetual Close up, close up, men! of the exasperated officers
as unavailing as the droning in the heat of the burnished June-bugs.
The brigade had no intention of not making known its reluctance to
leave Patterson. It took an hour to make a mile from Winchester.
General Jackson rode down the column on Little Sorrel and said
something to the colonel of each regiment, which something the colonels
passed on to the captains. The next mile was made in half an hour.
The July dust rose from the pike in clouds, hot, choking, thick as
the rain of ash from a volcano. It lay heavy upon coat, cap, haversack,
and knapsack, upon the muskets and upon the colours, drooping in the
heat, drooping at the idea of turning back upon Patterson and going
off, Heaven and Old Joe knew where! Tramp, tramp over the hot pike,
sullenly southward, hot without and hot within! The knapsack was heavy,
the haversack was heavy, the musket was heavy. Sweat ran down from
under cap or felt hat, and made grimy trenches down cheek and chin. The
men had too thick underwear. They carried overcoat and blanketit was
hot, hot, and every pound like ten! To keepto throw away? To
keepto throw away? The beat of feet kept time to that pressing
question, and to Just marching to be marching!reckon Old Joe
thinks it's fun, and to Where in hell are we going, anyway?
Through the enormous dust cloud that the army raised the trees of
the valley appeared as brown smudges against an ochreish sky. The
farther hills and the mountains were not seen at all. The stone fences
on either side the road, the blackberry bushes, the elder, the
occasional apple or cherry tree were all but dun lines and blotches.
Oh, hot, hot! A man swung his arm and a rolled overcoat landed in the
middle of a briar patch. A second followed suita third, a fourth. A
great, raw-boned fellow from some mountain clearing jerked at the
lacing of his shoes and in a moment was marching barefoot, the
offending leather swinging from his arm. To right and left he found
imitators. A corpulent man, a merchant used to a big chair set in the
shady front of a village store, suffered greatly, pale about the lips,
and with his breath coming in wheezing gasps. His overcoat went first,
then his roll of blanket. Finally he gazed a moment, sorrowfully
enough, at his knapsack, then dropped it, too, quietly, in a fence
corner. Close up, menclose up!
A wind arose and blew the dust maddeningly to and fro. In the Colour
Company of the 65th a boy began to cough, uncontrollably, with a hollow
sound. Those near him looked askance. You'd better run along home,
sonny! Yo' ma hadn't ought to let you come. Darn it all! if we march
down this pike longer, we'll all land home!If you listen right hard
you can hear Thunder Run!And that thar Yank hugging himself back thar
at Charlestown!dessay he's telegraphin' right this minute that we've
run away
Richard Cleave passed along the line. Don't be so downhearted, men!
It's not really any hotter than at a barbecue at home. Who was that
coughing?
Andrew Kerr, sir.
Andrew Kerr, you go to the doctor the first thing after roll-call
to-night. Cheer up, men! No one's going to send you home without
fighting.
From the rear came a rumble, shouted orders, a cracking of whips.
The column swerved to one side of the broad road, and the Rockbridge
Artillery passeda vision of horses, guns, and men, wrapped in a dun
whirlwind and disappearing in the blast. They were gone in thunder
through the heat and haze. The 65th Virginia wondered to a man why it
had not chosen the artillery.
Out of a narrow way stretching westward, came suddenly at a gallop a
handful of troopers, black plumed and magnificently mounted, swinging
into the pike and disappearing in a pillar of dust toward the head of
the column. Back out of the cloud sounded the jingling of
accoutrements, the neighing of horses, a shouted order.
The infantry groaned. Ten of the Black Horse!where are the rest
of them, I wonder? Oh, ain't they lucky dogs?
Stuart's men have the sweetest time!just galloping over the
country, and making love, and listening to Sweeney's banjo
If you want to have a good time
If you want to have a good time,
Jine the cavalry!
What's that road over therethe cool-looking one? The road to
Ashby's Gap? Wish this pike was shady like that!
A bugle blew; the command to halt ran down the column. The First
Brigade came to a stand upon the dusty pike, in the heat and glare. The
65th was the third in column, the 4th and the 27th leading. Suddenly
from the 4th there burst a cheer, a loud and high note of relief and
exultation. A moment, and the infection had spread to the 27th; it,
too, was cheering wildly. Apparently there were several couriersNo!
staff officers, the 65th saw the gold lacewith some message or order
from the commanding general, now well in advance with his guard of
Black Horse. They were riding down the lineOld Jack was with
themthe 4th and the 27th were cheering like mad. The colonel of the
65th rode forward. There was a minute's parley, then he turned,
Sixty-fifth! It isn't a fox huntit's a bear hunt! 'General Johnston
to the 65th' He broke off and waved forward the aide-de-camp beside
him. Tell them, Captain Washington, tell them what a terror to
corn-cribs we're going after!
The aide, a young man, superbly mounted, laughed, raised his voice.
Sixty-fifth! The Army of the Valley is going through Ashby's Gap to
Piedmont, and from Piedmont by rail to Manassas Junction. General
Stuart is still at Winchester amusing General Patterson. At Manassas
our gallant army under General Beauregard is attacked by McDowell with
overwhelming numbers. The commanding general hopes that his troops will
step out like men and make a forced march to save the country!
He was gonethe other staff officers were goneOld Jack was gone.
They passed the shouting 65th, and presently from down the line came
the cheers of the 2d, 21st, and 33d Virginia. Old Jack rode back alone
the length of his brigade; and so overflowing was the enthusiasm of the
men that they cheered him, cheered lustily! He touched his old forage
cap, went stiffly by upon Little Sorrel. From the rear, far down the
road, could be heard the voices of Bee, Bartow, and Elzey. Ardour,
elasticity, strength returned to the Army of the Shenandoah. With a
triumphant cry the First Brigade wheeled into the road that led
eastward through the Blue Ridge by Ashby's Gap.
Two o'clock, three o'clock, four o'clock came and passed. Enthusiasm
carried the men fast and far, but they were raw troops and they
suffered. The sun, too, was enthusiastic, burning with all its might.
The road proved neither cool nor shady. All the springs seemed suddenly
to have dried up. Out of every hour there was a halt of ten minutes,
and it was needed. The men dropped by the roadside, upon the parched
grass, beneath the shadow of the sumach and the elder bushes, and lay
without speaking. The small farmers, the mountaineers, the hunters, the
ploughmen fared not so badly; but the planters of many acres, the
lawyers, the doctors, the divines, the merchants, the millers, and the
innkeepers, the undergraduates from the University, the youths from
classical academies, county stores, village banks, lawyers' offices,
all who led a horseback or sedentary existence, and the elderly men and
the very young,these suffered heavily. The mounted officers were not
foot-weary, but they also had heat, thirst, and hunger, and, in
addition, responsibility, inexperience, and the glance of their
brigadier. The ten minutes were soon over. Fall infall in, men!
The short rest made the going worse, the soldiers rose so stiff and
sore.
The men had eaten before leaving the camp above Winchesterbut that
was days ago. Now, as they went through Clarke County, there appeared
at cross-roads, at plantation gates, at stiles leading into green
fields, ladies young and old, bearing baskets of good things hastily
snatched from pantry and table. They had pitchers, too, of iced tea, of
cold milk, even of raspberry acid and sangaree. How good it all was!
and how impossible to go around! But, fed or hungry, refreshed or
thirsty, the men blessed the donors, and that reverently, with a purity
of thought, a chivalrousness of regard, a shade of feeling, youthful
and sweet and yet virile enough, which went with the Confederate
soldier into the service and abode to the end.
The long afternoon wore to a close. The heat decreased, but the dust
remained and the weariness grew to gigantic proportions. The First
Brigade was well ahead of Bee, Bartow, and Elzey. It had started in
advance and it had increased the distance. If there was any marching in
men, Jackson forced it out; they went a league for him where another
would have procured but a mile, but even he, even enthusiasm and the
necessity of relieving Beauregard got upon this march less than two
miles an hour. Most happily, McDowell, advancing on Beauregard and Bull
Run and fearing masked batteries, marched much more slowly. At sunset
the First Brigade reached the Shenandoah.
The mounted officers took up one and sometimes two men beside them,
and the horses struggled bravely through the cold, rapid, breast-deep
current. Behind them, company by company, the men stripped off coat and
trousers, piled clothing and ammunition upon their heads, held high
their muskets, and so crossed. The guns and wagons followed. Before the
river was passed the night fell dark.
The heat was now gone by, the dust was washed away, the men had
drunk their fill. From the haversacks they took the remnant of the food
cooked that morning. The biscuit and the bacon tasted very good; not
enough of either, it was true, but still something. The road above the
river rose steeply, for here was the Blue Ridge, lofty and dark, rude
with rock, and shaggy with untouched forests. This was the pass through
the mountains, this was Ashby's Gap. The brigade climbed with the road,
tired and silent and grim. The day had somehow been a foretaste of war;
the men had a new idea of the draught and of the depth of the cup. They
felt older, and the air, blowing down from the mountains, seemed the
air of a far country toward which they had been travelling almost
without knowing it. They saw now that it was a strange country, much
unlike that in which they had hitherto lived. They climbed slowly
between dark crag and tree, and wearily. All song and jest had died;
they were tired soldiers, hungry now for sleep. Close up, men, close
up!
They came to the height of the pass, marked by a giant poplar whose
roots struck deep into four counties. Here again there was a ten
minutes' halt; the men sank down upon the soft beds of leaf and mould.
Their eyelids drooped; they were in a dream at once, and in a dream
heard the Fall infall in, men! The column stumbled to its feet
and began the descent of the mountain.
Clouds came up; at midnight when they reached the lower slope, it
was raining. Later they came to the outskirts of the village of Paris,
to a grove of mighty oaks, and here the brigade was halted for the
night. The men fell upon the ground and slept. No food was taken, and
no sentries were posted. An aide, very heavy-eyed, asked if guard
should not be set. No, sir, answered the general. Let them sleep.
And you, sir? I don't feel like it. I'll see that there is no
alarm. With his cloak about him, with his old cadet cap pulled down
over his eyes, awkward and simple and plain, he paced out the night
beneath the trees, or sat upon a broken rail fence, watching his
sleeping soldiers and, the aide thought, praying.
The light rain ceased, the sky cleared, the pale dawn came up from
the east. In the first pink light the bugles sounded. Up rose the First
Brigade, cooked and ate its breakfast, swung out from the oak grove
upon the highroad, and faced the rising sun. The morning was divinely
cool, the men in high spirits, Piedmont and the railway were but six
miles down the road. The First Brigade covered the distance by eight
o'clock. There was the station, there was the old Manassas Gap
railroad, there was the train of freight and cattle carsever so many
freight and cattle cars! Company after company the men piled in; by ten
o'clock every car was filled, and the platforms and roofs had their
quota. The crazy old engine blew its whistle, the First Brigade was off
for Manassas. Bee, Bartow, and Elzey, arriving at Piedmont in the
course of the morning, were not so fortunate. The railroad had
promised, barring unheard-of accident, to place the four brigades in
Manassas by sunrise of the twentieth. The accident duly arrived. There
was a collision, the track was obstructed, and only the 7th and 8th
Georgia got through. The remainder of the infantry waited perforce at
Piedmont, a portion of it for two mortal days, and that without
rations. The artillery and the cavalrythe latter having now come
upmarched by the wagon road and arrived in fair time.
From ten in the morning until sunset the First Brigade and the
Manassas Gap train crept like a tortoise through the July weather, by
rustling cornfields, by stream and wood, by farmhouse and village. It
was hot in the freight and cattle cars, hot, cinderish, and noisy. With
here and there an exception the men took off their coats, loosened the
shoes from their feet, made themselves easy in any way that suggested
itself. The subtle give, the slip out of convention and
restraint back toward a less trammelled existence, the faint return of
the more purely physical, the slight withdrawal of the more purely
mental, the rapid breaking down of the sheer artificialthese and
other marks of one of the many predicates of war began to show
themselves in this journey. But at the village stations there came a
change. Women and girls were gathered here, in muslin freshness, with
food and drink for our heroes. The apparel discarded between stations
was assiduously reassumed whenever the whistle blew. Our heroes
looked out of freight and cattle car, somewhat grimy, perhaps, but
clothed and in their right mind, with a becoming bloom upon them of
eagerness, deference, and patriotic willingness to die in Virginia's
defence. The dispensers of nectar and ambrosia loved them all, sped
them on to Manassas with many a prayer and God bless you!
At sunset the whistle shrieked its loudest. It was their
destination. The train jolted and jerked to a halt. Regiment by
regiment, out poured the First Brigade, fell into line, and was
double-quicked four miles to Mitchell's Ford and a pine wood, where,
hungry, thirsty, dirty, and exhausted, the ranks were broken.
This was the night of the nineteenth. At Piedmont the brigade had
heard of yesterday's minor affair at this ford between Tyler's division
and Longstreet, the honours of the engagement resting with the
Confederate. In the pine wood there was a line of fresh graves; on the
brown needles lay boughs that shell had cut from the trees; there were
certain stains upon the ground. The First Brigade ate and sleptthe
last somewhat feverishly. The night passed without alarm. An attack in
force was expected in the morning, but it did not come. McDowell,
amazingly enough, still rested confident that Patterson had detained
Johnston in the valley. Possessed by this belief he was now engaged in
a reconnoissance by stealth, his object being to discover a road
whereby to cross Bull Run above the Stone Bridge and turn Beauregard's
left. This proceeding and an afternoon rest in camp occupied him the
whole of the twentieth. On this day Johnston himself reached Manassas,
bringing with him Bee's 2d Mississippi and 4th Alabama, and Bartow's
7th and 8th Georgia. Stuart, having successfully amused Patterson, was
also on hand. The remainder of the Army of the Shenandoah, detained by
the break upon the Manassas Gap, was yet missing, and many an anxious
glance the generals cast that way.
The First Brigade, undiscovered by the reconnoissance by stealth,
rested all day Saturday beneath the pines at Mitchell's Ford, and at
night slept quietly, no longer minding the row of graves. At dawn of
Sunday a cannon woke the men, loud and startling, McDowell's signal
gun, fired from Centreville, and announcing to the Federal host that
the interrupted march, the On to Richmond blazoned on banners and
chalked on trunks, would now be resumed, willy nilly the rebel horde
on the southern bank of Bull Run.
CHAPTER VII. THE DOGS OF WAR
In the east was a great flare of pink with small golden clouds
floating across, all seen uncertainly between branches of pine. A mist
lay above Bull Runon the high, opposite bank the woods rose huddled,
indistinct, and dream-like. The air was still, cool, and pure, a Sunday
morning waiting for church bells. There were no bells; the silence was
shattered by all the drums of the brigade beating the long roll. Men
rose from the pine needles, shook themselves, caught up musket and
ammunition belt. The echoes from McDowell's signal cannon had hardly
died when, upon the wooded banks of Bull Run, the First Brigade stood
in arms.
Minutes passed. Mitchell's Ford marked the Confederate centre. Here,
and at Blackburn's Ford, were Bonham, Bee, Bartow, Longstreet, and
Jackson. Down the stream, at MacLean's Ford and Union Mills, Early and
Ewell and D. R. Jones held the right. To the left, up Bull Run, beyond
Bee and beyond Stuart, at the Island, Ball and Lewis fords, were
Cocke's Brigade and Hampton's Legion, and farther yet, at the Stone
Bridge, Evans with a small brigade. Upon the northern bank of the Run,
in the thick woods opposite Mitchell's and Blackburn's fords, was
believed to be the mass of the invaders. There had been a certitude
that the battle would join about these fords. Beauregard's plan was to
cross at MacLean's and fall upon the Federal left. Johnston had
acceded, and with the first light orders had gone to the brigadiers.
Hold yourselves in readiness to cross and to attack.
Now suddenly from the extreme left, away in the direction of the
Stone Bridge, burst an unexpected sound both of musketry and artillery.
It was distant, it waxed and waned and waxed again. The First Brigade,
nervous, impatient, chilled by the dawn, peered across its own reach of
misty stream, and saw naught but the dream-like woods. Tyler's division
was over there, it knew. When would firing begin along this line? When
would the brigade have orders to move, when would it cross, when would
things begin to happen?
An hour passed. Ranks were broken and the men allowed to cook and
eat a hasty breakfast. How good, in the mist-drenched wood, tasted the
scalding coffee, how good the cornbread and the bacon! The last crumb
swallowed, they waited again, lying on the brown earth beneath the
pines. The mounted officers, advanced upon the bank of the stream and
seen through the mist, loomed larger, man and horse, than life. Jackson
sat very quiet upon Little Sorrel, his lips moving. Far up the stream
the firing continued. The 2d, 4th, 5th, 27th, 33d, and 65th Virginia
fidgeted, groaned, swore with impatience.
Suddenly the nearer echoes awoke. A Federal battery, posted on the
hills beyond the fringe of thick wood on the northern bank, opened a
slow and ineffective fire against the hills and woods across the
stream. The Confederates kept their position masked, made no reply. The
shells fell short, and did harm only to the forest and its creatures.
Nearly all fell short, but one, a shell from a thirty-pounder Parrott,
entered the pine wood by Mitchell's Ford, fell among the wagons of the
65th, and exploded.
A driver was killed, a mule mangled so that it must be shot, and an
ambulance split into kindling wood. Few in the First Brigade had seen
such a thing before. The men brushed the pine needles and the earth
from their coats, and looked at the furrowed ground and at the headless
body of the driver with a startled curiosity. There was a sense of a
sudden and vivid flash from behind the veil, and they as suddenly
perceived that the veil was both cold and dark. This, then, was one of
the ways in which death came, shrieking like this, ugly and resistless!
The July morning was warm and bright, but more than one of the
volunteers in that wood shivered as though it were winter. Jackson rode
along the front. They don't attack in force at the Stone Bridge. A
feint, I think. He stopped before the colour company of the 65th.
Captain Cleave.
Yes, sir.
You have hunters from the mountains. After the battle send me the
man you think would make the best scoutan intelligent man.
Very well, sir.
The other turned Little Sorrel's head toward the stream and stood
listening. The sound of the distant cannonade increased. The pine wood
ran back from the water, grew thinner, and gave place to mere copse and
a field of broomsedge. From this edge of the forest came now a noise of
mounted men. Black Horse, I reckon! said the 65th. Wish they'd go
ask Old Joe what he and Beauregard have got against us!No, 'taint
Black HorseI see them through the treesgray slouch hats and no
feathers in them! Infantry, toomore infantry than horse. Hampton,
maybeNo, they look like home folk A horseman appeared in the wood,
guiding a powerful black stallion with a light hand between the pines,
and checking him with a touch beside the bank upon which Little Sorrel
was planted. General Jackson? inquired a dry, agreeable voice.
Yes, sir, I am General Jackson. What troops have you over there?
The Virginia Legion.
Jackson put out a large hand. Then you are Colonel Fauquier Cary? I
am glad to see you, sir. We never met in Mexico, but I heard of youI
heard of you!
The other gave his smile, quick and magnetic. And I of you,
general. Magruder chanted your praises day and nightour good old Fuss
and Feathers, too! Oh, Mexico!
Jackson's countenance, so rigid, plain, restrained, altered as
through some effect of soft and sunny light. The blue of the eye
deepened, the iris enlarged, a smile came to his lips. His stiffly
held, awkwardly erect figure relaxed, though very slightly. I loved it
in Mexico. I have never forgotten it. Dear land of the daughters of
Spain! The light went indoors again. That demonstration upstream
is increasing. Colonel Evans will need support.
Yes, we must have orders shortly. Turning in his saddle, Cary
gazed across the stream. Andrew Porter and Burnside are somewhere over
there. I wonder if Burnside remembers the last time he was in
Virginia! He laughed. Dabney Maury's wedding in '52 at Cleveland, and
Burnside happy as a king singing 'Old Virginia never tire!' stealing
kisses from the bridesmaids, hunting with the hardest, dancing till
cockcrow, and asking, twenty times a day, 'Why don't we do like this in
Indiana?' I wonderI wonder! He laughed again. Good old Burnside!
It's an odd world we live in, general!
The world, sir, is as God made it and as Satan darkened it.
Cary regarded him somewhat whimsically. Well, we'll agree on God
now, and perhaps before this struggle's over, we'll agree on Satan.
That firing's growing louder, I think. There's a cousin of mine in the
65thyonder by the colours! May I speak to him?
Certainly, sir. I have noticed Captain Cleave. His men obey him
with readiness. He beckoned, and when Cleave came up, turned away with
Little Sorrel to the edge of the stream. The kinsmen clasped hands.
How are you, Richard?
Very well, Fauquier. And you?
Very well, too, I suppose. I haven't asked. You've got a fine, tall
company!
Cleave, turning, regarded his men with almost a love-light in his
eyes. By God, Fauquier, we'll win if stock can do it! It's going to
make a legendthis army!
I believe that you are right. When you were a boy you used to dream
artillery.
I dream it still. Sooner or later, by hook or by crook, I'll get
into that arm. It wasn't feasible this spring.
His cousin looked at him with the affection, half humorous and
wholly tender, with which he regarded most of his belongings in life.
I always liked you, Richard. Now don't you go get killed in this
unnatural war! The South's going to need every good man she's gotand
more beside! Where is Will?
In the 2d. I wanted him nearer me, but 'twould have broken his
heart to leave his company. Edward is with the Rifles?
Yes, adding lustre to the ranks. I came upon him yesterday cutting
wood for his mess. 'Why don't you make Jeames cut the wood?' I asked.
'Why,' said he, 'you see it hurts his prideand, beside, some one must
cook. Jeames cooks.' Cary laughed. I left him getting up his load and
hurrying off to roll call. Phoebus Apollo swincking for Mars!I was at
Greenwood the other day. They all sent you their love.
A colour came into Cleave's dark cheek. Thank them for me when you
write. Only the ladies are there?
Yes. I told them it had the air of a Spanish nunnery. Maury
Stafford is with Magruder on the Peninsula.
Yes.
Judith had a letter from him. He was in the affair at
Bethel.What's this? Orders for us all to move, I hope!
A courier had galloped into the wood. General Jackson? Where is
General Jackson? A hundred hands having pointed out Little Sorrel and
his rider, he arrived breathless, saluted, and extended a gauntleted
hand with a folded bit of paper. Jackson took and opened the missive
with his usual deliberation, glanced over the contents, and pushed
Little Sorrel nearer to Fauquier Cary. General, he read aloud,
though in a low voice, the signal officer reports a turning column
of the enemy approaching Sudley Ford two miles above the Stone Bridge.
You will advance with all speed to the support of the endangered left.
Bee and Barlow, the Hampton Legion and the Virginia Legion will receive
like orders. J. E. Johnston, General Commanding.
The commander of the Virginia Legion gathered up his reins. Thank
you, general! Au revoirand laurels to us all! With a wave of
his hand to Cleave, he was gone, crashing through the thinning pines to
the broomsedge field and his waiting men.
It was nine o'clock, hot and clear, the Stone Bridge three miles
away. The First Brigade went at a double quick, guided by the sound of
musketry, growing in volume. The pines were left behind; oak copse
succeeded, then the up and down of grassy fields. Wooden fences
stretched across the way, streamlets presented themselves, here and
there gaped a ravine, ragged and deep. On and on and over all! Bee and
Bartow were ahead, and Hampton and the Virginia Legion. The sound of
the guns grew louder. Evans hasn't got but six regiments. Get on,
men, get on!
The fields were very rough, all things uneven and retarding. Only
the sun had no obstacles: he rose high, and there set in a scorching
day. The men climbed a bank of red earth, and struck across a great
cornfield. They stumbled over the furrows, they broke down the stalks,
they tore aside the intertwining small, blue morning-glories. Wet with
the dew of the field, they left it and dipped again into woods. The
shade did not hold; now they were traversing an immense and wasted
stretch where the dewberry caught at their ankles and the sun had an
unchecked sway. Ahead the firing grew louder. Get on, men, get on!
Allan Gold, hurrying with his hurrying world, found in life this
July morning something he had not found before. Apparently there were
cracks in the firmament through which streamed a dazzling light, an
invigorating air. After all, there was something wide, it seemed, in
war, something sweet. It was bright and hotthey were going, clean and
childlike, to help their fellows at the bridge. When, near at hand, a
bugle blew, high as a lark above the stress, he followed the sound with
a clear delight. He felt no fatigue, and he had never seen the sky so
blue, the woods so green. Chance brought him for a moment in line with
his captain. Well, Allan?
I seem to have waked up, said Allan, then, very soberly. I am
going to like this thing.
Cleave laughed. You haven't the air of a Norse sea king for
nothing! They dipped into a bare, red gully, scrambled up the opposite
bank, and fought again with the dewberry vines. When the battle's over
you're to report to General Jackson. Say that I sent youthat you're
the man he asked for this morning.
The entangling vines abruptly gave up the fight. A soft hillside of
pasturage succeeded, down which the men ran like schoolboys. A gray
zigzag of rail fence, a little plashy stream, another hillside, and at
the top, planted against a horizon of haze and sound, a courier,
hatless, upon a reeking horse. General Jackson?
Yes, sir.
McDowell has crossed at Sudley Ford. The attack on the Stone Bridge
is a feint. Colonel Evans has left four companies there, and with the
4th South Carolina and the Louisiana Tigers is getting into position
across Young's Branch, upon the Mathews Hill. Colonel Evans's
compliments, and he says for God's sake to come on!
Very good, sir. General Jackson's compliments, and I am coming.
The courier turned, spurred his horse, and was gone. Jackson rode
down the column. You're doing well, men, but you've got to do better.
Colonel Evans says for God's sake to come on!
That hilltop crossed at a run, they plunged again into the trough of
those low waves. The First Brigade had proved its mettle, but here it
began to lose. Men gasped, wavered, fell out of line and were left
behind. In Virginia the July sunshine is no bagatelle. It beat hard
to-day, and to many in these ranks there was in this July Sunday an
awful strangeness. At homeah, at home!crushed ice and cooling fans,
a pleasant and shady ride to a pleasant, shady church, a little dozing
through a comfortable sermon, then friends and crops and politics in
the twilight dells of an old churchyard, then home, and dinner, and
wide porchesAh, that was the way, that was the way. Close up,
there! Don't straggle, men, don't straggle!
They were out now upon another high field, carpeted with yellowing
sedge, dotted over with young pines. The 65th headed the column.
Lieutenant Coffin of Company A was a busy officer, active as a
jumping-jack, half liked and half distasted by the men. The need of
some breathing time, however slight, was now so imperative that at a
stake and rider fence, overgrown with creepers, a five minutes' halt
was ordered. The fence ran at right angles, and all along the column
the men dropped upon the ground, in the shadow of the vines. Coffin
threw himself down by the Thunder Run men. Billy Maydew!
Yaas, sir.
What have you got that stick tied to your gun for? Throw it away! I
should think you'd find that old flintlock heavy enough without
shouldering a sapling besides!
Billy regarded with large blue eyes his staff for a young Hercules.
'Tain't a mite in my way, lieutenant. I air a-goin' to make a notch on
it for every Yank I kill. When we get back to Thunder Run I air a-goin'
to hang it over the fireplace. I reckon it air a-goin' to look right
interestin'. Pap, he has a saplin' marked for b'ar an' wolves, an'
gran'pap he has one his pap marked for Indians
Throw it away! said Coffin sharply. It isn't regular. Do as I
tell you.
Billy stared. But I don't want to. It air my stick, an' I air
a-goin' to hang it over the fireplace
The heat, the sound in front, all things, made Coffin fretful. He
rose from the fence corner. Throw that stick away, or I'll put you in
the guardhouse! This ain't Thunder Runand you men have got to learn a
thing or two! Come now!
I won't, said Billy. An' if 't were Thunder Run, you wouldn't
dar'
Allan Gold drew himself over the grass and touched the boy's arm.
Look here, Billy! We're going into battle in a minute, and you want to
be there, don't you? The lieutenant's rightthat oak tree surely will
get in your way! Let's see how far you can throw it. There's plenty
more saplings in the woods!
Let him alone, Gold, said the lieutenant sharply. Do as I order
you, Billy Maydew!
Billy rose, eighteen years old, and six feet tall. If it's jest the
same to you, lieutenant, he said politely, I'll break it into bits
first. Thar are time when I jest hone to feel my hands on somethin'
brittle! He put the thick sapling across his knee like a sword, broke
it in twain, broke in their turn the two halves, and tossed the four
pieces over the fence. Thar, now! It's did. Moving back to Allan's
side, he threw himself down upon the grass. When's this hell-fired
fightin' goin' to begin? I don't ask anything better, jest at this
minute, than to encounter a rattler!
The sound ahead swelled suddenly into loud and continuous firing.
Apparently Evans had met the turning column. Fall in, men, fall in!
The First Brigade rose to its feet, left the friendly fence, and
found itself upon a stretch of road, in a dust cloud that neatly capped
all previous ills. At some distance rose the low hill, covered, upon
this side, by a second growth of pines. That's the Henry Hill, said
the guide with the 65th. The house just this side is the Lewis
house'Portici,' they call it. The top of the hill is a kind of
plateau, with deep gulleys across it. Nearly in the middle is the Widow
Henry's house, and beyond it the house of the free negro Robinson.
Chinn's house is on the other side, near Chinn's Branch. It's called
the Henry Hill, and Mrs. Henry is old and bedridden. I don't know what
she'll do, anyway! The hill's most level on top, as I said, but beyond
the Henry House it falls right down, quite steep, to the Warrenton
turnpike. Across that there's marshy ground, and Young's Branch, with
the Stone House upon it, and beyond the branch there's Mathews Hill,
just around the branch. Yes, sir, this back side's wooded, but you see
the cleared ground when you get on top.
A bowshot from the wood, the head of the column was met by a second
courier, a boy from the Alabama River, riding like Jehu, pale with
excitement. When you get to the top of the hill you'll see! They're
thicker than bees from a sweet gumthey're thicker than bolls in a
cotton-field! They've got three thousand Regulars, and fifteen thousand
of the other kind, and they're cutting Evans to pieces! He pulled
himself together and saluted. General Bee's compliments to General
Jackson, and he is going into action.
General Jackson's compliments, and I will support him.
The 65th entered the wood. The trees were smallbundles of hard,
bright green needles aloft on slender trunks, out of which, in the
strong sunshine, resin was oozing. They were set well apart, the grass
beneath dry and slippery, strewn with cones. The sky was intensely
blue, the air hot and without moisture, the scent of the pines strong
in the nostril. Another step and the 65th came upon the wounded of
Evans's brigade. An invisible line joined with suddenness the early
morning picture, the torn and dying mule, the headless driver, to this.
Breathless, heated, excited, the 65th swept on, yet it felt the cold
air from the cavern. It had, of course, seen accidents, men injured in
various ways, but never had it viewed so many, nor so much blood, and
never before had it rushed past the helpless and the agonizing. There
were surgeons and ambulancesthere seemed to be a table of planks on
which the worst cases were laidthe sufferers had help, of course, a
little help. A Creole from Bayou Teche lay writhing, shot through the
stomach, beneath a pine. He was raving. Melanie, Melanie, donnez-moi
de l'eau! Melanie, Melanie! donnez-moi de l'eau!
Stragglers were coming over the hilltopfroth and spume thrown from
a great wave somewhere beyond that covermen limping, men supported by
their comrades, men gasping and covered with sweat, men livid with
nausea, men without arms, men carrying it off with bluster, and men too
honestly frightened for any pretence. A number were legitimately there,
wounded, ill, exhausted, useless on the field of battle; others were
malingerers, and some were cowardscowards for all time, or cowards
for this time only. A minority was voluble. You all think yo' going to
a Sunday-school picnic, don't you? Well, you ain't. Just you all
wait until you get to the top of the hill! What are you going to see?
You're going to see hell's mouth, and the devil wearing blue! We've
been therewe've been in hell since daybreakdamned if we haven't!
Evans all cut to pieces! Bee and Bartow have gone in now. They'll find
it hell, jest like we did. Twenty thousand of them dressed in blue. A
man began to weep. All cut to pieces. Major Wheat's lying there in a
little piney wood. He was bleeding and bleedingI saw himbut I
reckon the blood has stopped. And we were all so hungry. I didn't get
no breakfast. There's a plateau and the Henry House, and then there's a
dip and Young's Branch, and then there's a hill called the Mathews
Hill. We were thereon the Mathews Hillwe ain't on it now. Two
officers appeared, one on foot, the other mounted, both pale with rage.
You'll be on it again, if you have to be dragged by the heels! Get
back there, you damned, roustabout cowards! The mounted man laid about
him with his sabre; the lieutenant, afoot, wrenched from a strapping
fellow his Belgian musket and applied the stock to the recreant's
shoulders. The 65th left the clamour, swept onward between the pines,
and presently, in the narrow road, met a braver sort, men falling back,
but without panic. Hot as hell, sir, on the other side of the hill!
No, we're not running. I'll get the men back. It's just that Sykes was
in front of us with his damned Regulars. Beg your pardon, general?
General Jackson. I'll get the men backdamnedblessedif I don't,
sir! Form right here, men! The present's the best time, and here's the
best place.
At the crest of the hill the 65th came upon Imboden's batterythe
Staunton Artilleryfour smoothbore, brass six-pounders, guns, and
caissons drawn by half the proper number of horsesthe rest being
killedand conducted by wounded, exhausted, powder-grimed and swearing
artillerymen. Imboden, in front, was setting the pitch. !
! ! Jackson checked Little Sorrel and withered the
battery and its captain. What are you doing here, sir, blaspheming and
retreating? Outfacing your God with your back to the enemy! What
Imboden, an entirely gallant man, hastened to explain. Beg pardon,
general! Bad habit, I acknowledge, but the occasion excusesMy battery
has spent the morning, sir, on the Henry Hill, and damn me, if it
hasn't been as lonely there as the Ancient Mariner! No supportnot a
damned infantryman in sight for the last half hour! Alone down there by
the Robinson House, and Ricketts and GriffinRegulars by the
Lord!and the devil knows how many batteries beside playing on us with
Parrotts and twelve-pounder howitzers like all the fountains at
Versailles! The ground looks as though it had been rooted by hogs! No
support, and no orders, and on the turnpike a bank of blue massing to
rush my guns! And my ammunition out, and half my horses downand if
General Bee sent me orders to move I never got them! He stamped upon
the ground, wiping the blood from a wound in his head. I
couldn't hold the Henry Hill! I couldn't fight McDowell with one
batteryno, by God, not even if 't was the Staunton Artillery! We had
to move out.
Jackson eyed him, unmollified. I have never seen the occasion,
Captain Imboden, that justified profanity. As for supportI will
support your battery. Unlimber right here.
Imboden unlimbered, placing his guns below the pine wood upon the
summit. The First Brigade wheeled into line to the left. Here it was
met by an aide. General Jackson, hold your troops in reserve until Bee
and Bartow need supportthen give it to them! The First Brigade
deployed in the wood. About the men was still the pine thicket, blazed
upon by the sun, shrilled in by winged legions; before them was the
field of Bull Run. A tableland, cut by gullies, furred with knots of
pine and oak, held in the middle a flower garden, a few locust trees,
and a small housethe Henry Housein which, too old and ill to be
borne away to safety, lay a withered woman, awaiting death. Beyond the
house the ground fell sharply. At the foot of the hill ran the road,
and beyond the road were the marshy banks of a little stream, and on
the other side of the stream rose the Mathews Hill. Ranged upon this
height Ricketts and Griffin and Arnold and many another Federal battery
were sending shrieking shells against the Henry Hill. North and east
and west of the batteries ran long radii of blue, pointed with bright
banners, and out of the hollow between the hills came a smoke and noise
as of the nethermost pit. There, beneath that sulphurous cloud, the
North and the South were locked in an embrace that was not of love.
CHAPTER VIII. A CHRISTENING
Imboden had been joined by the Rockbridge Artillery and the
Alexandria and Loudoun batteries. A little later there came up two of
the New Orleans guns. All unlimbered in front of the pine wood where
was couched the First Brigade, trained the sixteen guns upon the
Mathews Hill and began firing. Griffin and Ricketts and Arnold answered
with Parrotts and howitzers, throwing elongated, cylindrical shell that
came with the screech of a banshee. But the Federal range was too long,
and the fuses of many shells were uncut. Two of Rockbridge's horses
were killed, a caisson of Stanard's exploded, scorching the gunners, a
lieutenant was wounded in the thigh, but the batteries suffered less
than did the infantry in the background. Here, more than one exploding
horror wrought destruction. Immediately in rear of the guns were posted
the 4th, the 27th, and the 65th. To the right hand was the 5th, to the
left the 2d and the 33d. In all the men lay down in ranks, just
sheltered by the final fringe of pines. The younger officers stood up,
or, stepping into the clearing, seated themselves not without
ostentation upon pine stumps, to the laudable end that the enemy should
know where to find them. Jackson rode back and forth behind the guns.
The thundering voices grew louder, shaking the hills. The First
Brigade could not see the infantry, swept now from the Mathews Hill and
engaged about the turnpike and the stream. By stretching necks it saw a
roof of smoke, dun-coloured, hiding pandemonium. Beneath that deeper
thunder of the guns, the crackling, unintermittent sound of musketry
affected the ear like the stridulation of giant insects. The men
awaiting their turn beneath the pines, breathing quick, watching the
shells, moved their heads slightly to and fro. In front, outdrawn upon
a little ridge, stood the guns and boomed defiance. Rockbridge,
Staunton, Loudoun, Alexandria, and New Orleans did well this day. The
guns themselves were something ancient, growing obsolete; but those
striplings about them, beardless, powder-grimed, bare of arm and chest,
silent and swift and steady of eye and hand, sponging, ramming,
priming, aiming, firing, showed in the van of Time a brood of Mars, a
band of whom foe-quelling Hector might say They will do well.
General T. J. Jackson on Little Sorrel went up and down between the
speaking guns and the waiting infantry. The men, from their couch upon
the needles, watched him. Before their eyes war was transfiguring him,
and his soldiers called him Old Jack and made no reservation. The
awkward figure took on a stalwart grace, the old uniform, the boots,
the cap, grew classically right. The inner came outward, the atmosphere
altered, and the man was seen as he rode in the plane above. A shell
from Ricketts came screaming, struck and cut down a young pine. In
falling, the tree caught and hurt a man or two. Another terror followed
and exploded overhead, a fragment inflicting upon a bugler of the 65th
a ghastly wound. Steady, men, steady!all's well, said Old Jack. He
threw up his left hand, palm out,an usual gesture,and turned to
speak to Imboden, whose profanity he had apparently forgiven. As in any
other July hour a cloud of gnats might have swum above that hill, so,
on this one summer day, death-dealing missiles filled the air. Some
splinter from one of these struck the lifted hand. Jackson let it fall,
the blood streaming. Imboden uttered an ejaculation. It's nothing,
said the other; then, with slow earnestness, Captain Imboden, I would
giveI will givefor this cause every drop of blood that courses
through my heart. He drew out a handkerchief, wrapped it around the
wound, and rode on down the right of his line.
Up to meet him from the foot of the hill, out of the dun smoke
hiding the wrestle, came at a gallop a roan horse bearing a rider tall
and well made, black-eyed and long-haired, a bright sash about his
waist, a plumed hat upon his head. Panting, he drew rein beside Little
Sorrel. I am Bee.General Jackson, we are drivenwe are overwhelmed!
My God! only Evans and Bartow and I against the whole North and the
Regulars! We are being pushed backyou must support.In three minutes
the battle will be upon this hillHunter and Heintzleman's divisions.
They're hot and huzzaingthey think they've got us fast! They have, by
God! if our troops don't come up! He turned his horse. But you'll
supportwe count on you
Count only upon God, General Bee, said Jackson. But I will give
them the bayonet.
Bee struck spur into the roan and galloped across the plateau. Out
of one of the furrowing ravines, a sunbaked and wrinkled trough
springing from the turnpike below and running up and across the Henry
Hill toward the crest of pine and oak, came now a handful of men, grey
shadows, reeling, seeking the forest and night. Another
followedanotherthen a stream, a grey runlet of defeat which grew in
proportions. A moment more, and the ravine, fed from the battle-ground
below, overflowed. The red light shifted to the Henry Hill. It was as
though a closed fan, laid upon that uneven ground, had suddenly opened.
The rout was not hideous. The men had fought long and boldly, against
great odds; they fled now before the storm, but all cohesion was not
lost, nor presence of mind. Some turned and fired, some listened to
their shouting officer, and strove to form about the tossed colours,
some gave and took advice. But every gun of the Federal batteries
poured shot and shell upon that hilltop, and the lines of blue had
begun to climb. The disorder increased; panic might come like the wind
in the grass. Bee reached the choked ravine, pulled up his great roan.
He was a man tall and large, and as he rose in his stirrups and held
his sword aloft, standing against the sky, upon the rim of the ravine,
he looked colossal, a bronze designed to point the way. He cried aloud,
Look! Yonder is Jackson standing like a stone wall! Rally behind the
Virginians! As he spoke a shell struck him. He fell, mortally wounded.
The eyes of the men in the cleft below had followed the pointed
sword. The hilltop was above them, and along the summit, just in
advance of a pine wood, ran a stone wall, grey, irregular, touched here
by sunlight, there by shadow, and shrouded in part by the battle smoke.
Some one had planted upon it a flag. For a full moment the illusion
held, then the wall moved. A captain of the 4th Alabama, hoarse with
shouting, found voice once more. God! We aren't beaten! Talk of Birnam
wood! The stone wall's coming!
Up and out of the ravine, widening like an opening fan, pressed the
disordered troops. The plateau was covered by chaos come again.
Officers, raging, shouted orders, ran to and fro, gesticulated with
their swords. A short line was formed, another; they dissolved before a
third could be added. All voices were raised; there was a tumult of
cries, commands, protestations, adjurations, and refusals. Over all
screamed the shells, settled the smoke. Franklin, Willcox, Sherman, and
Porter, pressing the Federal advantage, were now across the turnpike.
Beneath their feet was the rising grounda moment more, and they would
leap victorious up the ragged slope. The moment was delayed. With a
rending sound as of a giant web torn asunder, the legions of Hampton
and Cary, posted near the house of the free negro Robinson, came into
action and held in check the four brigades.
High upon the plateau, near Jackson's line, above the wild confusion
of the retreating troops, appeared in the blaze of the midday sun,
hatless, on steeds reeking from the four miles' gallop from that centre
where the battle did not join to this left where it did, the generals
Johnston and Beauregard. Out of the red lightning, the thunder, the
dust and the smoke, above the frenzied shouting and the crying of the
wounded, their presence was electrically known. A cheer rushed from the
First Brigade; at the guns Rockbridge, Staunton, Loudoun, Alexandria,
and New Orleans took up the cry, tossed it with grape and canister
across to the opposite hill. Bee, Bartow, and Evans, exhausted,
shattered, wavering upwards toward the forest, rest, cessation from
long struggle, heard the names and took fresh heart. The two were not
idle, but in the crucial moment turned the scale. Black danger hemmed
their cause. The missing brigade of the Shenandoah was no man knew
where. At Mitchell's and Blackburn's fords, Ewell, D. R. Jones, Bonham,
and Longstreet were engaged in a demonstration in force, retaining upon
that front the enemy's reserve. Holmes and Jubal Early were on their
way to the imperilled left, but the dust cloud that they raised was yet
distant. Below the two generals were broken troops, men raw to the
field, repulsed, driven, bleeding, and haggard, full on the edge of
headlong flight; lower, in the hollow land, McDowell's advance, filling
the little valley, islanding the two fighting legions, and now, a
mounting tide, attacking the Henry Hill. At Beauregard's order the
regimental colours were advanced, and the men adjured to rally about
them. Fiery, eloquent, of French descent and impassioned, Pierre
Gustave Toutant Beauregard rose in his stirrups and talked of la
gloire, of home, and of country. Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and
Louisiana listened, cheered, and began to reform. Johnston, Scotch,
correct, military, the Regular in person, trusted to the hilt by the
men he led, seized the colours of the 4th Alabama, raised them above
his grey head, spurred his war horse, and in the hail of shot and shell
established the line of battle. Decimated as they were, raw volunteers
as they were, drawn from peaceful ways to meet the purple dragon, fold
on fold of war, the troops of Bee, Bartow, and Evans rallied, fell into
line, and stood. The 49th Virginia came upon the plateau from Lewis
Fordat its head Ex-Governor William Smith. Extra Billy, old
political hero, sat twisted in his saddle, and addressed his regiment.
Now, boys, you've just got to kill the ox for this barbecue! Now, mind
you, I ain't going to have any backing out! We ain't West P'inters,
but, thank the Lord, we're men! When it's all over we'll have a
torchlight procession and write to the girls! Now, boys, you be good to
me, and I'll be good to you. Lord, children, I want to be proud of you!
And I ain't Regular, but I know Old Virginny. Tom Scott, you beat the
drum real loud, and James, you swing that flag so high the good Lord's
got to see it!Here's the West P'intershere's the generals! Now,
boys, just see how loud you can holler!
The 49th went into line upon Gartrell's right, who was upon
Jackson's left. Beauregard paused to speak to that brigadier, advanced
upon Little Sorrel in front of the 65th. An aide addressed the latter's
colonel. General Bee christened this brigade just before he fell. He
called it a stone wall. If he turns out a true prophet I reckon the
name will stick. A shell came hurtling, fell, exploded, and killed
under him Beauregard's horse. He mounted the aide's and galloped back
to Johnston, near the Henry House. Here there was a short council. Had
the missing brigade, the watched for, the hoped for, reached Manassas?
Ewell and Early had been ordered up from Union Mills. Would they arrive
upon this hill in time? What of the Stone Bridge, now left almost
undefended? What of Blackburn and Mitchell's fords, and Longstreet's
demonstration, and the enemy's reserves across Bull Run? What best
disposition of the strength that might arrive? The conference was
short. Johnston, the senior with the command of the whole field,
galloped off to the Lewis House, while Beauregard retained the
direction of the contest on the Henry Hill. Below it the two legions
still held the blue wave from mounting.
Ricketts and Griffin upon the Mathews Hill ceased firinggreatly to
the excitement of Rockbridge, Staunton, Loudoun, Alexandria, and New
Orleans. The smoke slightly lifted. What're they doing? They've got
their horsesthey're limbering up! What in hell!d'ye suppose they've
had enough? No! Great day in the morning! They're coming up here!
Ricketts and Griffin, cannoneers on caissons, horses urged to a
gallop, thundered down the opposite slope, across Young's Branch and
the turnpike. A moment and they were lost to sight, another and the
straining horses and the dust and the guns and the fighting men about
them showed above the brow of the Henry Hill. Out they thundered upon
the plateau and wheeled into battery very near to the Henry House.
Magnificence but not war! They had no business there, but they had been
ordered and they came. With a crash as of all the thunders they opened
at a thousand feet, full upon the Confederate batteries and upon the
pine wood where lay the First Brigade.
Rockbridge, Staunton, Loudoun, Alexandria, and New Orleans, wet with
sweat, black with powder, sponging, ramming, priming, aiming, firing,
did well with the bass of that hill-echoing tune. A lieutenant of the
Washington Artillery made himself heard above the roar. Short range!
We've got short range at last! Now, old smoothbores, show what you are
made of! The smoothbores showed. Griffin and Ricketts answered,
Jackson's sharpshooters took a part, the uproar became frightful. The
captain of the Rockbridge Artillery was a great-nephew of Edmund
Pendleton, a graduate of West Point and the rector of the Episcopal
Church in Lexington. He went back and forth among his guns. Fire! and
the Lord have mercy upon their souls.Fire! and the Lord have mercy
upon their souls. With noise and a rolling smoke and a scorching
breath and a mad excitement that annihilated time and reduced with a
thunderclap every series of happenings into one all-embracing moment,
the battle mounted and the day swung past its burning noon.
The 11th and 14th New York had been pushed up the hill to the
support of Ricketts and Griffin. Behind them showed in strength other
climbing muskets. In the vale below Hampton and Cary had made
diversion, had held the brigades in check, while upon the plateau the
Confederates rallied. The two legions, stubborn and gallant, suffered
heavily. With many dead and many wounded they drew off at last. The
goal of the Henry Hill lay clear before McDowell.
He had brigades enough for the advance that should set all the bells
of Washington ringing for victory. His turning column at Sudley Ford
had numbered eighteen thousand men. But Howard was somewhere in the
vague distance, Burnside was resting, Keyes, who had taken part in
the action against Hampton, was now astray in the Bull Run Valley, and
Schenck had not even crossed the stream. There were the dead, too, the
wounded and the stragglers. All told, perhaps eleven thousand men
attacked the Henry Hill. They came on confidently, flushed with
victory, brilliant as tropical birds in the uniforms so bright and new,
in the blue, in the gold, in the fiery, zouave dress, in the Garibaldi
shirt, in the fez, the Scotch bonnet, the plume, in all the militia
pomp and circumstance of that somewhat theatrical On to Richmond.
With gleaming muskets and gleaming swords and with the stars and
stripes above them, they advanced, huzzaing. Above them, on that
plateau, ranged beneath the stars and bars, there awaited the impact
six thousand and five hundred Confederates with sixteen guns. Three
thousand of the troops were fresh; three thousand had been long and
heavily engaged, and driven from their first position.
Rockbridge and New Orleans and their fellows worked like grey
automata about their belching guns. They made a dead line for the
advance to cross. Ricketts and Griffin answered with their howling
shellsshells that burst above the First Brigade. One stopped short of
the men in battle. It entered the Henry House, burst, and gave five
wounds to the woman cowering in her bed. Now she lay there, dying,
above the armies, and the flower-beds outside were trampled, and the
boughs of the locust trees strewn upon the earth.
Hunter and Heintzleman mounted the ridge of the hill. With an
immense volley of musketry the battle joined upon the plateau that was
but five hundred yards across. The Fire Zouaves, all red, advanced like
a flame against the 4th Alabama, crouched behind scrub oak to the left
of the field. The 4th Alabama fired, loaded, fired again. The zouaves
broke, fleeing in disorder toward a piece of woods. Out from the shadow
of the trees came Jeb Stuart with two hundred cavalrymen. The smoke was
very thick; it was not with ease that one told friend from foe. In the
instant of encounter the beau sabreur thought that he spoke to
Confederates. He made his horse to bound, he rose in his stirrups, he
waved his plumed hat, he shouted aloud in his rich and happy voice,
Don't run, boys! We are here! To his disappointment the magic fell
short. The boys ran all the faster. Behind him, a trooper lifted his
voice. They're not ours! They're Yankees! Charge them, sir, charge!
Stuart charged.
Along the crest of the Henry Hill the kneeling ranks of the First
Brigade fired and loaded and fired again. Men and horses fell around
the guns of Ricketts and Griffin, but the guns were not silenced.
Rockbridge and Loudoun and their fellows answered with their Virginia
Military Institute six-pounders, with their howitzers, with their one
or two Napoleons, but Ricketts and Griffin held fast. The great shells
came hurtling, death screaming its message and sweeping the pine wood.
The stone wall suffered; here and there the units dropped from place.
Jackson, holding up his wounded hand, came to the artillery. Get these
guns out of my way. I am going to give them the bayonet. The bugler
put the bugle to his lips. The guns limbered up, moving out by the
right flank and taking position elsewhere upon the plateau. Jackson
returned to his troops. Fix bayonets! Now, men, charge and take those
batteries!
The First Brigade rose from beneath the pines. It rose, it advanced
between the moving guns, it shouted. The stone wall became an
avalanche, and started down the slope. It began crescent-wise, for the
pine wood where it had lain curved around Ricketts and Griffin like a
giant's half-closed hand. From the finger nearest the doomed batteries
sprang the 33d Virginia. In the dust of the field all uniforms were now
of one neutral hue. Griffin trained his guns upon the approaching body,
but his chief stopped him. They're our own, man!a supporting
regiment! The 33d Virginia came on, halted at two hundred feet, and
poured upon the batteries a withering fire. Alas for Ricketts and
Griffin, brave men handling brave guns! Their cannoneers fell, and the
scream of their horses shocked the field. Ricketts was badly wounded;
his lieutenant Ramsay lay dead. The stone wall blazed again. The
Federal infantry supporting the guns broke and fled in confusion. Other
regimentsMichigan and Minnesota this timecame up the hill. A
grey-haired officerHeintzlemanseated sideways in his saddle upon a
hillock, appealing, cheering, commanding, was conspicuous for his
gallant bearing. The 33d, hotly pushed, fell back into the curving
wood, only to emerge again and bear down upon the prize of the guns.
The whole of the First Brigade was now in action and the plateau of the
Henry Hill roared like the forge of Vulcan when it welded the armour of
Mars. It was three in the afternoon of midmost July. There arose smoke
and shouts and shrieks, the thunder from the Mathews Hill of the
North's uncrippled artillery, and from the plateau the answering
thunder of the Southern, with the under song, incessant, of the
muskets. Men's tongues clave to the roofs of their mouths, the sweat
streamed forth, and the sweat dried, black cartridge marks were about
their lips, and their eyes felt metallic, heated balls distending the
socket. There was a smell of burnt cloth, of powder, of all heated and
brazen things, indescribable, unforgettable, the effluvia of the
battlefield. The palate savoured brass, and there was not a man of
those thousands who was not thirstyoh, very, very thirsty! Time went
in waves with hollows between of negation. A movement took
hourssurely we have been at it since last year! Another passed in a
lightning flash. We were there beneath the pines, on the ground
red-breeched Zouaves and United States Marines, above us a noisy shell,
the voice of the general coming dry and far like a grasshopper's
through the dinwe are here in a trampled flower garden, beside the
stumps of locust trees, in the midst of yells and trampling, hands
again upon the guns! There was no time between. The men who were left
of Ricketts and Griffin fought well; they were brave fighters. The 2d
Wisconsin came up the hill, then the 79th and 69th New York. An impact
followed that seemed to rock the globe. Wisconsin and New York retired
whence they came, and it was all done in a moment. Other regiments took
their places. McDowell was making a frontal attack and sending in his
brigades piecemeal. The plateau was uneven; low ridges, shallow
hollows, with clumps of pine and oak; one saw at a time but a segment
of the field. The nature of the ground split the troops as with wedges;
over all the Henry Hill the fighting now became from hand to hand, in
the woods and in the open, small squad against small squad. That night
a man insisted that this phase had lasted twelve hours. He said that he
remembered how the sun rose over the Henry House, and how, when it went
down, it left a red wall behind a gun on the Mathews Hilland he had
seen both events from a ring of pines out of which he, with two others,
was keeping twenty Rhode Islanders.
Ricketts and Griffin, forty men upon the ground, twice that number
of horses dead or disabled, tried to drag away the guns. Down upon them
roared the 65th, no alignment, broken and fierce as a mountain torrent,
as Thunder Run when the rains were out and the snows had melted. It
took again the guns; it met a regiment from the Northwest, also stark
fighters and hunters, and turned it back; it seized the guns and drew
them toward the pine wood. On the other side Howard's Brigade came into
action, rising, a cloud of stinging bees, over the ridge. Maine and
Vermont fell into line, fired, each man, twenty rounds. The First
Brigade answered at close range. All the Henry plateau blazed and
thundered.
From headquarters at the Lewis House a most able mind had directed
the several points of entrance into battle of the troops drawn from the
lower fords. The 8th, the 18th, and 28th Virginia, Cash and Kershaw of
Bonham's, Fisher's North Carolinaeach had come at a happy moment and
had given support where support was most needed. Out of the southeast
arose a cloud of dust, a great cloud as of many marching men. It moved
rapidly. It approached at a double quick, apparently it had several
guns at trail. Early had not yet come up from Union Mills; was it
Early? Could it becould it be from Manassas? Could it be
the missing brigade? Beauregard, flashing across the plateau like a
meteor, lifted himself in his stirrups, raised with a shaking hand his
field-glasses to his eyes. Stonewall Jackson held higher his wounded
hand, wrapped in a handkerchief no longer white. It ain't for the
pain,he's praying, thought the orderly by his side. Over on the
left, guarding that flank, Jeb Stuart, mounted on a hillock, likewise
addressed the heavens. Good Lord, I hope it's Elzey! Oh, good Lord,
let it be Elzey! The 49th Virginia was strung behind a rail fence,
firing from between the grey bars. Extra Billy, whose horse had been
shot an hour before, suddenly appeared in an angle erect upon the
topmost rails. He gazed, then turned and harangued. Didn't I tell you,
boys? Didn't I say that the old Manassas Gap ain't half so black as
she's painted? The president of that road is my friend, gentlemen, and
a better man never mixed a julep! The old Manassas Gap's got them
through! It's a road to be patronized, gentlemen! The old Manassas
Gap
A hand plucked at his boot. For the Lord's sake, governor, come
down from there, or you'll be travelling on the Angels' Express!
The dust rose higher; there came out of it a sound, a low, hoarse
din. Maine and Vermont, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, New York and
Rhode Island, saw and heard. There was a waver as of grain beneath wind
over the field, then the grain stood stiff against the wind, and all
the muskets flamed again.
The lost brigade of the Army of the Shenandoah, seventeen hundred
infantry and Beckham's Battery swept by the Lewis House, received
instructions from Johnston in person, and advanced against the enemy's
right flank. Kirby Smith led them. Heated, exhausted, parched with
thirst, the regiments came upon the plateau. Not till then did they see
the enemy, the awaited, the dreamed-of foe, the giant whose voice they
had heard at Manassas. They saw him now, and they yelled recognition.
From a thousand dusty throats came a cry, involuntary, individual,
indescribably fierce, a high and shrill and wild expression of anger
and personal opinion. There was the enemy. They saw him, they
yelled,without premeditation, without cooperation, each man for
himself, Yaai, Yai ... Yaai, Yaai, Yai.... Yaai! That cry was to
be heard on more than two thousand battlefields. It lasts with the
voice of Stentor, and with the horn of Roland. It has gone down to
history as the Rebel yell.
As they reached the oak woods Kirby Smith was shot. Desperately
wounded, he fell from his horse. Elzey took command; the troops swept
out by the Chinn House upon the plateau. Beckham's battery unlimbered
and came, with decisive effect, into action.
McDowell, with a last desperate rally, formed a line of battle, a
gleaming, formidable crescent, half hid by a cloud of skirmishers. Out
of the woods by the Chinn House now came Jubal Early, with Kemper's 7th
Virginia, Harry Hays's Louisianians, and Barksdale's 13th Mississippi.
They took position under fire and opened upon the enemy's right. As
they did so Elzey's brigade, the 10th Virginia, the 1st Maryland, the
3d Tennessee, the 8th and 2d South Carolina, the 18th and 28th
Virginia, and Hampton's and Cary's legions charged. The First Brigade
came down upon the guns for the third time, and held them. Stuart,
standing in his stirrups and chanting his commands, rounded the base of
the hill, and completed the rout.
The Federals turned. Almost to a man their officers did well. There
were many privates of a like complexion. Sykes' Regulars, not now upon
the Henry Hill, but massed across the branch, behaved throughout the
day like trained and disciplined soldiers. No field could have
witnessed more gallant conduct than that of Griffin and Ricketts.
Heintzleman had been conspicuously energetic, Franklin and Willcox had
done their best. McDowell himself had not lacked in dash and grit, nor,
to say sooth, in strategy. It was the Federal tactics that were at
fault. But all the troops, barring Sykes and Ricketts and the quite
unused cavalry, were raw, untried, undisciplined. Few were good
marksmen, and, to tell the truth, few were possessed of a patriotism
that would stand strain. That virtue awoke later in the Army of the
Potomac; it was not present in force on the field of Bull Run. Many
were three-months men, their term of service about to expire, and in
their minds no slightest intention of reenlistment. They were close kin
to the troops whose term expiring on the eve of battle had this morning
marched to the rear to the sound of the enemy's cannon. Many were men
and boys merely out for a lark and almost ludicrously astonished at the
nature of the business. New Englanders had come to battle as to a town
meeting; placid farmers and village youths of the Middle States had
never placed in the meadows of their imaginations events like these,
while the more alert and restless folk of the cities discovered that
the newspapers had been hardly explicit. The men of the Northwest had a
more adequate conception; there was promise in these of stark fighting.
To all is to be added a rabble of camp followers, of sutlers,
musicians, teamsters, servants, congressmen in carriages, even here and
there a congressman's wife, all the hurrah and vain parade, the strut
and folly and civilian ignorance, the unwarlike softness and the
misdirected pride with which these Greeks had set out to take in a
night that four-years-distant Troy. Now a confusion fell upon them, and
a rout such as was never seen again in that war. They left the ten
guns, mute enough now, they gave no heed to their frantic officers,
they turned and fled. One moment they stood that charge, the next the
slopes of the Henry Hill were dark blue with fugitives. There was no
cohesion; mere inability to find each an unencumbered path crowded them
thus. They looked a swarm of bees, but there was no Spirit of the Hive.
The Confederate batteries strewed their path with shot and shell, the
wild and singular cry, first heard upon that field, rang still within
their ears. They reached the foot of the hill, the Warrenton turnpike,
the Sudley and Newmarket road, and the marshy fields through which
flowed Young's Branch. Up to this moment courtesy might have called the
movement a not too disorderly retreat, but now, upon the crowded roads
and through the bordering meadows, it became mere rout, a panic quite
simple, naked, and unashamed. In vain the officers commanded and
implored, in vain Sykes' Regulars took position on the Mathews Hill, a
nucleus around which the broken troops might have reformed. The mob had
neither instinct nor desire for order. The Regulars, retreating finally
with the rest, could only guard the rear and hinder the Confederate
pursuit. The panic grew. Ravens in the air brought news, true and
false, of the victors. Beckham's battery, screaming upon the heels of
the rout, was magnified a hundred-fold; there was no doubt that
battalions of artillery were hurling unknown and deadly missiles,
blocking the way to the Potomac! Jeb Stuart was following on the Sudley
Road, and another cavalry fiendMunfordon the turnpike. Four hundred
troopers between them? No! Four thousandand each riding like
the Headless Horseman with terror in his hand! There was Confederate
infantry upon the turnpikea couple of regiments, a legion, a
batterythey were making for a point they knew, this side Centreville,
where they might intercept the fleeing army. It behoved the army to get
there first, to cross Bull Run, to cross Cub Run, and to reach
Centreville with the utmost possible expedition. The ravens croaked of
the Confederate troops four miles down Bull Run, at the lower fords.
They would cross, they would fall upon Miles and Tyler, they would
devour alive the Federal reserves, they would get first to Centreville!
That catastrophe, at least, the mob did its best to prevent. It threw
away its muskets, it dropped its colours, it lightened itself of
accoutrements, it fled as if each tired and inexperienced grey soldier
behind it had been Death in the Apocalypse. Each man ran for himself,
swore for himself, prayed for himself, found in Fate a personal foe,
and strove to propitiate her with the rags of his courage. The men
stumbled and fell, lifted themselves, and ran again. Ambulances,
wagons, carriages, blocked the road; they streamed around and under
these. Riderless horses tore the veil of blue. Artillery teams,
unguided, maddened, infected by all this human fear, rent it further,
and behind them the folds heard again the Confederate yell.
CentrevilleCentreville first, and a little foodall the haversacks
had been thrown awaybut no stopping at Centreville! No! Beyond
Centreville the PotomacWashingtonhome! Home and safety,
Maine or Massachusetts, New York or Vermont, as the case might be! The
sun went down and left the fleeing army streaming northward by every
road or footpath which it conceived might lead to the Potomac.
In the summer dusk, back at the Lewis House, a breathless courier
brought to Beauregard a circumstantial statement. From Major Rhett at
Manassas, general! The Federal Reserves have been observed crossing
below MacLean's. A strong columnthey'll take us in the rear, or
they'll fall upon Manassas! That McDowell would use his numerous
reserves was so probable a card that Bonham and Longstreet, started
upon the pursuit, were recalled. Ewell and Holmes had just reached the
battlefield. They were faced about, and, Beauregard with them,
double-quicked back to MacLean's Fordto find no Miles or Richardson
or Runyon for them to attack! It was a mistake and a confusion of
identity. The crossing troops were ConfederatesD. R. Jones returning
from the position he had held throughout the day to the southern bank
of Bull Run. The dark had come, the troops were much exhausted, the
routed army by now at Centreville. Beauregard did the only thing that
could be done,ordered the men to halt and bivouac for the night in
the woods about the stream.
Back upon the Sudley Road Stuart and his troopers followed for
twelve miles the fugitive army. There was a running fight; here and
there the enemy was cut off; great spoil and many prisoners were taken.
Encumbered with all of these, Stuart at Sudley Church called off the
chase and halted for the night. At the bridge over Cub Run Munford with
a handful of the Black Horse and the Chesterfield Troop, a part of
Kershaw's regiment and Kemper's battery meeting the retreat as it
debouched into the Warrenton turnpike, heaped rout on rout, and
confounded confusion. A wagon was upset upon the bridge, it became
impassable, and Panic found that she must get away as best she might.
She left her congressmen's carriages, her wagons of subsistence, and
her wagons of ammunition, her guns and their caissons, her flags and
her wounded in ambulances; she cut the traces of the horses and freed
them from pleasure carriage, gun carriage, ammunition wagon, and
ambulance; with these horses and afoot, she dashed through the water of
Cub Run, and with the long wail of the helpless behind her, fled
northward through the dusk. A little later, bugles, sounding here and
there beneath the stars, called off the pursuit.
* * * * *
The spoil of Manassas included twenty-eight fieldpieces with a
hundred rounds of ammunition to each gun, thirty-seven caissons, six
forges, four battery wagons, sixty-four artillery horses, five hundred
thousand rounds of small arm ammunition, four thousand five hundred
sets of accoutrements, four thousand muskets, nine regimental and
garrison flags, pistols, swords, musical instruments, knapsacks,
canteens, blankets, tents, officers' luggage, rope, handcuffs, axes,
and intrenching tools, wagons, horses, camp and garrison equipage,
hospital stores and subsistence, and one thousand four hundred and
twenty-one prisoners.
History has not been backward with a question. Why did not the
Confederate forces press the pursuit to the Potomac, twenty-five miles
away? Why did they not cross that river? Why did they not take
Washington? History depones that it was a terror-stricken city and that
it might have been stormed, and so, perhaps, the great war ended ere it
had well begun. Why did you not pursue from Manassas to Washington?
The tongue of the case answers thus: We were a victorious army, but
we had fought long and hard. We had not many fresh troops. Even those
which were not engaged had been marching and countermarching. The enemy
had many more than weheavy reserves to whom panic might or might not
have been communicated. These were between us and Centreville, and the
night had fallen. Our cavalry was the best in the land, but cruelly
small in force, and very weary by that midnight. We were scant of
provisions, scant of transportation, scant of ammunition. What if the
Federal reserves had not stood, but had fled with the rest, and we had
in some fashion achieved the Potomac? There were strong works at
Arlington and Alexandria, lined with troops, and in easy distance were
Patterson and his unused men. There was a river a mile wide, patrolled
by gunboats, and beyond it a city with how many troops we knew not,
certainly with strong earthworks and mounted guns. Being only men and
not clairvoyants we did not know that the city was so crazed with fear
that perhaps, after all, had we ever gotten there we might have stormed
it with a few weary regiments. We never saw the like in our own capital
at any after date, and we did not know. We were under arms from dawn
until the stars came out, we had fought through the heat of a July day
in Virginia, we were hungry, we were thirsty, we were drunk with need
of rest. Most of us were under twenty-four. We had met and vanquished
heavy odds, but we ourselves, like those who fled, were soldiers all
untried. Victory disorganized us, as defeat disorganized them. Not in
the same measure, but to the extent that all commands were much broken,
men astray in the darkness, seeking their companies, companies calling
out the number of their regiments. Most of us went hungry that night.
And all around were the dead and wounded, and above us, like a pall,
the strangeness of this war at last. The July night passed like a
fevered dream; men sleeping on the earth, men seeking their commands,
men riding to and fro, men wandering with lanterns over the
battlefield. At three came down the rain. It was as though the heavens
were opened. No one had ever seen such a downpour. All day long it
rained, and in the rain we buried our comrades. There were two
brothers, Holmes and Tucker Conrad, boys from the University. Holmes
was shot through the heart, just on the edge of a ravine on the Henry
Hill. Tucker, across the ravine, saw him fall. He was down one side and
up the other before a man could draw breath. He lifted Holmes, and as
he did so, he, too, was killed. We found them lying in each other's
arms, Holmes smiling, and we buried them so. We buried many friends and
comrades and kindredwe were all more or less akinand perhaps, being
young to war, that solemn battlefield loomed to us so large that it
obstructed the view of the routed invasion now across the Potomac, out
of Virginia. We held then and we hold still, that our generals that day
were sagacious and brave, and we think history may take their word for
it that any effective pursuit, looking to the crossing of the Potomac,
was a military impossibility. It is true that Stonewall Jackson, as
history reminds us, was heard to exclaim while the surgeon was dressing
his hand, 'Give me ten thousand fresh troops, and I will be in
Washington to-morrow!' But there were not the ten thousand troops to
give.
CHAPTER IX. WINCHESTER
The December afternoon was drawing to a quiet close. The season had
proved extraordinarily mildit seemed Indian summer still rather than
only a fortnight from Christmas. Farming folk prophesied a cold
January, while the neighbourhood negroes held that the unusual warmth
proceeded from the comet which blazed this year in the skies. An old
woman whom the children called a witch sat in the sun on her doorstep,
and shook her head at every passer-by. A green Christmas makes a fat
graveyard.Down, pussy, down, down!A green Christmas makes a fat
graveyard. Did ye hear the firing yesterday?
An amethyst haze filled the valley town of Winchester. Ordinarily,
in weather such as this, the wide streets had a dream quality and the
gardens where the chrysanthemums yet lingered and the brick sidewalks
all strewn with russet leaves, and the faint smell of wood smoke, and
the old gilt of the sunshine, all carried back as to some vanished song
or story, sweet while it lasted. But if this was true once of
Winchester, and might be true again, it was hardly true of to-day, of
Winchester in December 1861; of Winchester with Major-General T. J.
Jackson, commanding the Department of the Valley, quartered in the
town, and the Stonewall Brigade, commanded by Garnett, encamped upon
its edge, and the Valley Troopers commanded by Ashby, flashing by on
their way to reconnoitre the Federal General Banks; of Winchester, with
bands playing Dixie, with great white-topped wagons going endlessly
through the streets, with soldiers passing and repassing, or drilling,
drilling, drilling in the fields without, or thronging the Taylor
House, or coming to supper in the hospitable brick mansions where the
pretty girls could never, never, never look aught but kindly on any man
who wore the greyof Winchester, in short, in war time.
The sun slipped low in the heavens. Out of the purple haze to the
south, a wagon from Staunton way, drawn by oxen and piled high with
forage, came up a side street. The ancient negro who drove was
singing,
I saw de beam in my sistah's eye,
Cyarn see de beam in mine!
Yo'd better lef' yo' sistah's doah,
An' keep yo' own doah fine!
An' I had er mighty battle lak Jacob an' de angel
The wagon passed on. A picket squad swung up the middle of the
street, turned, and went marching toward the sunset. The corner house
was a warehouse fitted for a hospital. Faces showed at the windows;
when, for a moment, a sash was lifted, a racking cough made itself
heard. Just now no wounded lodged in the warehouse, but all the
diseases were there with which raw troops are scourged. There were
measles and mumps, there were fevers, typhoid and malarial, there were
intestinal troubles, there were pleurisy and pneumonia. Some of the
illnesses were slight, and some of the men would be discharged by
Death. The glow of the sun made the window glass red. It was well, for
the place needed every touch of cheer.
The door opened, and two ladies came out, the younger with an empty
basket. The oppression of the place they were leaving stayed with them
for some distance down the wider street, but at last, in the rosy
light, with a bugle sounding from the camp without the town, the
spirits of the younger, at least, revived. She drew a long breath.
Well! As long as Will is in a more comfortable place, and is getting
better, and Richard is well and strong, and they all say he is a born
soldier and his men adore him, and there isn't a battle, and if there
were, we'd win, and this weather lasts, and a colonel and a captain and
two privates are coming to supper, and one of them draws and the other
has a voice like an angel, and my silk dress is almost as good as new,
I can't be terribly unhappy, mother!
Margaret Cleave laughed. I don't want you to be! I am not
'terribly' unhappy myselfdespite those poor, poor boys in the
warehouse! I am thankful about Will and I am thankful about Richard,
and war is war, and we must all stand it. We must stand it with just as
high and exquisite a courage as we can muster. If we can add a gaiety
that isn't thoughtless, so much the better! We've got to do it for
Virginia and for the Southyes, and for every soul who is dear to us,
and for ourselves! I'll lace your silk dress, and I'll play Mr.
Fairfax's accompaniments with much pleasureand to-morrow we'll come
back to the warehouse with a full basket! I wish the coffee was not
getting so low.
A soldier, a staff officer equipped for the road, came rapidly up
the brick sidewalk, overtook the two, and spoke their names, holding
out his hand. I was sure 'twas you! Nowadays one meets one's world in
no matter how unlikely a place! Not that Winchester is an unlikely
placedear and hospitable little town! Nor, perhaps, should I be
surprised. I knew that Captain Cleave was in the Stonewall Brigade. He
took the basket from Miriam and walked beside them.
My youngest son has been ill, said Margaret. He is in the 2d.
Kind friends took him home and cared for him, but Miriam and I were
unhappy at Three Oaks. So we closed the house and came.
Will always was a baby, volunteered Miriam. When the fever made
him delirious and they thought he was going to die, he kept calling for
mother, and sometimes he called for me. Now he's better, and the sister
of a man in his mess is reading 'Kenilworth' aloud to him, and he's
spoiled to death! Richard always did spoil him
Her mother smiled. I don't think he's really spoiled; not, that is,
by Richard.When did you come to town, Major Stafford?
Last night, answered Stafford. From General Loring, near
Monterey. I am the advance of the Army of the Northwest. We are ordered
to join General Jackson, and ten days or so should see the troops in
Winchester. What is going to happen then? Dear madam, I do not know!
Miriam chose to remain petulant. General Jackson is the most
dreadful martinet! He drills and drills and drills the poor men until
they're too tired to stand. He makes people get up at dawn in December,
and he won't let officers leave camp without a pass, and he has prayer
meetings all the time! Ever so many people think he's crazy!
Miriam!
But they do, mother! Of course, not Richard. Richard knows how to
be a soldier. And WillWill would be loyal to a piece of cement out of
the Virginia Military Institute! And of course the Stonewall Brigade
doesn't say it, nor the Rockbridge Artillery, nor any of Ashby's
menthey're soldiers, too! But I've heard the militia say it
Maury Stafford laughed. Then I won't! I'll only confide to you that
the Army of the Northwest thinks that General Jackson isiswell, is
General Jackson!To burn our stores of subsistence, to leave unguarded
the passes along a hundred miles of mountain, to abandon quarters just
established, to get our sick somehow to the rear, and to come up here
upon some wild winter campaign or otherall on the representation of
the rather singular Commander of the Army of the Valley! He took off
his gold-braided cap, and lifted his handsome head to the breeze from
the west. But what can you do with professors of military institutes
and generals with one battle to their credit? Nothingwhen they have
managed to convert to their way of thinking both the commanding general
and the government at Richmond!You look grave, Mrs. Cleave! I should
not have said that, I know. Pray forget itand don't believe that I am
given to such indiscretions! He laughed. There were representations
which I was to make to General Jackson. Well, I made them! In point of
fact, I made them but an hour ago. Hence this unbecoming temper. They
were received quite in the manner of a stone wallwithout comment and
without removal from the ground occupied! Well! Why not expect the
thing to show its nature?Is this pleasant old house your goal?
They had come to a white, old mansion, with steps running up to a
narrow yard and a small porch. Yes, we are staying here. Will you not
come in?
Thank you, no. I ride as far as Woodstock to-night. I have not seen
Captain Cleave. Indeed, I have not seen him since last spring.
He is acting just now as aide to General Jackson. You have been all
this while with General Magruder on the Peninsula?
Yes, until lately. We missed Manassas. He stood beside the garden
wall, his gauntleted hand on the gatepost. A creeper bearing yet a few
leaves hung from a tree above, and one of the crimson points touched
his grey cap. I am now on General Loring's staff. Where he goes at
present I go. And where General Jackson goes, apparently we all go!
Heigho! How do you like war, Miss Miriam?
Miriam regarded him with her air of a brown and gold gilliflower.
She thought him very handsome, and oh, she liked the gold-braided cap
and the fine white gauntlet! There is something to be said on both
sides, she stated sedately. I should like it very much did not you
all run into danger.
Stafford looked at her, amused. But some of us run out againAh!
Cleave came from the house and down the path to the gate, moving in
a red sunset glow, beneath trees on which yet hung a few russet leaves.
He greeted his mother and sister, then turned with courtesy to
Stafford. Sandy Pendleton told me you were in town. From General
Loring, are you not? You low-countrymen are gathering all our mountain
laurels! Gauley River and Greenbriar and to-day, news of the Allegheny
engagement
You seem to be bent, said Stafford, on drawing us from the
Monterey line before we can gather any more! We will be here next
week.
You do not like the idea?
The other shrugged. I? Why should I care? It is war to go where you
are sent. But this weather is much too good to last, and I fail to see
what can be done to the northward when winter is once let loose! And we
leave the passes open. There is nothing to prevent Rosecrans from
pushing a force through to Staunton!
That is the best thing that could happen. Draw them into the middle
valley and they are ours.
Stafford made a gesture. Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame! Mrs.
Cleave, there is no help for it! We are bewitchedand all by a stone
wall in an old cadet cap!
Cleave laughed. No, no! but it is, I think, apparentYou will not
go in? I will walk with you, then, as far as the hotel.
Margaret Cleave held out her hand. Good-bye, Major Stafford. We
think day and night of all you soldiers. God bless you all, wherever
you may be!
In the sunset light the two men turned their faces toward the Taylor
House. It is a good thing to have a mother, said Stafford. Mine died
when I was a little boy.Well, what do you think of affairs in
general?
I think that last summer we won a Pyrrhic victory.
I share your opinion. It was disastrous. How confident we are with
our 'One to Four,' our 'Quality, not Quantity,' our contempt for 'Brute
Mass'! To listen to the newspapers one would suppose that the fighting
animal was never bred north of the PotomacMaryland, alone, an
honourable exception! France and England, too! They'll be our active
allies not a minute later than April Fool's Day!
You are bitter.
It is the case, is it not?
Yes, said Cleave gravely. And the blockade is daily growing more
effective, and yet before we are closed in a ring of fire we do not get
our cotton out nor our muskets in! Send the cotton to Europe and sell
it and so fill the treasury with honest gold!not with this delusion
of wealth, these sheafs of Promises to Pay the Government is issuing.
Five million bales of cotton idle in the South! With every nerve
strained, with daring commensurate to the prize, we could get them
outeven now! To-morrow it will be too late. The blockade will be
complete, and we shall rest as isolated as the other side of the moon.
Well! Few countries or men are wise till after the event.
You are not bitter.
Cleave shook his head. I do not believe in bitterness. And if the
government is not altogether wise, so are few others. The people are
heroic. We will see what we will see. I had a letter from the Peninsula
the other day. Fauquier Cary is there with his legion. He says that
McClellan will organize and organize and organize again until
springtime. It's what he does best. Then, if only he can be set going,
he will bring into the field an army that is an army. And if he's not
thwarted by his own government he'll try to reach Richmond from the
correct directionand that's by sea to Old Point and up both banks of
the James. All of which means heavy fighting on the Peninsula. So Cary
thinks, and I dare say he knows his man. They were classmates and
served together in Mexico.
They approached the old colonnaded hotel. Stafford's horse stood at
the rack. A few soldiers were about the place and down the street, in
the warm dusk a band was playing. You ride up the valley to-night?
said Cleave. When you return to Winchester you must let me serve you
in any way I can.
You are very good. How red the sunsets are! Look at that bough
across the sky!
Were you, asked Cleave, were you in Albemarle this autumn?
Yes. For one day in October. The country looked its loveliest. The
old ride through the woods, by the mill
I remember, said Cleave. My cousins were well?
Quite well. Enchanted princesses guarded by the sable Julius. The
old place was all one drift of red and yellow leaves.
They reached the hotel. Cleave spoke abruptly. I am to report
presently at headquarters, so I will say good-bye here. The two
touched hands. A pleasant gallop! You'll have a moon and the road is
good. If you see Randolph of Taliaferro's, tell him to bring that book
of mine he has.
He walked away, stalwart in the afterglow. Stafford watched him from
the porch. Under other circumstances, he thought, I might have liked
you well enough. Now I do not care if you lead your mad general's next
mad charge.
The night fell, mild as milk, with a great white moon above the
treetops. It made like mother-of-pearl the small grey house with
pointed windows occupied, this December, by Stonewall Jackson. A clock
in the hall was striking nine as Cleave lifted the knocker. An old
negro came to the door. Good-evening, Jim. Will you tell the
general
Some one spoke from down the hall. Is that Captain Cleave? Come
here, sir.
Passing an open door through which could be seen a clerk writing and
an aide with his hands behind him studying an engraving of Washington
crossing the Delaware, Cleave went on to the room whence the voice had
issued. Come in, and close the door, it said again.
The room was small, furnished with a Spartan simplicity, but with
two good lamps and with a log of hickory burning on the hearth. A table
held a number of outspread maps and three booksthe Bible, a
dictionary, and Napoleon's Maxims. General Jackson was seated on a
small, rush-bottomed chair beside the table. By the window stood a
soldier in nondescript grey attire, much the worse for mud and
brambles. Captain Cleave, said the general, were you ever on the
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal?
No, sir.
Do you know the stretch of the Potomac north of us?
I have ridden over the country between Harper's Ferry and Bath.
Do you know where is Dam No. 5?
Yes, sir.
Come nearer, Gold, said the general. Go on with your report.
I counted thirty boats going up, general, said Allan. All empty.
There's a pretty constant stream of them just now. They'll get the coal
at Cumberland and turn back toward Washington in about ten days. It is
estimated that a thousand tons a day will go down the canalsome of it
for private use in Washington, but the greater part for the warships
and the factories. The flatboats carry a large amount of forage. The
Yankees are using them, too, to transport troops. There is no attempt
to rebuild the section of the Baltimore and Ohio that we destroyed.
They seem willing to depend upon the canal. But if Dam No. 5 were cut
it would dry that canal like a bone for miles. The river men say that
if any considerable breach were made it could not be mended this
winter. As for the troops on the other side of the river He drew out
a slip of paper and read from it: 'Yankees upon the Maryland side of
the Potomac from Point of Rocks to Hancocksay thirty-five hundred
men. Two thirds of this force above Dam No. 4. At Williamsport Colonel
Leonard with three regiments and several guns. At Four Locks a troop.
At Dam No. 5 several companies of infantry encamped. At Hancock a
considerable forceperhaps two regiments. A detachment at Clear
Spring. Cavalry over against Sleepy Creek, Cherry Run, and Sir John's
Run. Concentration easy at any point up and down the river. A system of
signals both for the other side and for any of their scouts who may
have crossed to this. Troops reported below Point of Rocks and at the
mouth of the Monocacy. The remainder of General Banks's
divisionperhaps fifteen thousand menin winter quarters at Frederick
City.'That is all I have to report, general.
Very good, said Jackson. Give me your memorandum. Captain
Cleave
Yes, sir.
Stonewall Jackson rose from the rush-bottomed chair and walked with
his slow stiff stride to the mantelpiece. From behind a china vase he
took a saucer holding a lemon which had been cut in two, then, standing
very rigidly before the fire, he slowly and meditatively sucked the
lemon. Cleave, beside the table, had a whimsical thought. The general,
about to open slightly the door of reticence and impart information,
was stimulating himself to the effort. He put the lemon down and
returned to the table. Captain Cleave, while I am waiting for General
Loring, I propose to break this damDam No. 5.
Yes, sir.
I shall go almost immediately to Martinsburg, taking with me
General Garnett's brigade and two of the Rockbridge guns. It will be
necessary to cover the operation. The work may take several days. By
the time the dam is broken General Loring will be up.
His eyes moved toward the mantel. Allan Gold stepped noiselessly
across the room and brought back the saucer with the lemon, setting it
on the table. Thank you, said Jackson gently, and sucked the acid
treasure. With this reinforcement I am going against Kelly at Romney.
If God gives us the victory there, I shall strike past Kelly at
Rosecrans.
I hope that He will give it, sir. That part of Virginia is worth
making an effort for.
That is my opinion, sir. While I march toward Romney the government
at Washington may thrust General Banks across the Potomac. I do not
want him in my rear, nor between me and General Johnston. He again
sucked the lemon. The Secretary of War writes that our spies report a
clamour at Washington for some movement before spring. It is thought at
Richmond that General Banks has been ordered to cross the Potomac as
soon as practicable, effecting if possible a junction with Kelly and
descending upon Winchester; General McClellan at the same time to
advance against General Johnston at Manassas. Maybe it is so, maybe
not. Of one thing I am sureGeneral McClellan will not move until
General Banks is on this side of the river. Yesterday Colonel Ashby
captured a courier of Kelly's bearing a letter to Banks. The letter,
which demands an answer, asks to know explicitly what are Banks's
instructions from Washington.
He put the lemon down. Captain Cleave, I very particularly wish to
know what are General Banks's instructions from Washington. Were Jarrow
here he would find out for me, but I have sent Jarrow on other
business. I want to know within four days.
There was a moment's stillness in the room; then, Very well, sir,
said Cleave.
I remember, said Jackson, that you sent me the scout here. He
does good service. He is at your disposal for the next few days.
Drawing ink and paper toward him, he wrote a few lines. Go to the
adjutant for anything you may need. Captain Cleave on Special
Service. Here, too, is the name and address of a Catholic priest in
Frederick City. He may be depended upon for some readiness of mind, and
for good-will. That is all, I think. Good-night, captain. In four days,
if you please. You will find me somewhere between Martinsburg and the
river.
You spoke, sir, said Cleave, of a captured dispatch from General
Kelly. May I see it?
Jackson took it from a box upon the table. There it is.
Do you object, sir, to its reaching General Banks?
The other retook the paper, glanced over it, and gave it back. No,
not if it goes by a proper courier.
Has the former courier been sent to Richmond?
Not yet. He wrote another line. This, if you wish to see the
courier.
That is all, sir?
That is all, captain. Within four days, near Martinsburg.
Good-night.
The two soldiers saluted and left the room, going softly through the
hall, past the door where the aide was now studying the Capture of
Andre and out into the moonlight. They walked down the long board path
to the gate, unlatched this, and turned their faces toward the camp.
For some distance they were as silent as the street before them; then,
If ever you had taught school, said Allan, you would know how
headings out of reading books and sentences that you set for the
children to copy have a way of starting up before you at every corner.
The Post of Honour is the Post of Danger. I can see that in round
hand. But what I can't see is how you are going to do it.
I want, said the other, one half-hour quite to myself. Then I
think I'll know. Here's the picket. The word's Bethel.
The Stonewall Brigade was encamped in the fields just without the
town. It was early in the war and there were yet tentslong line of
canvas A's stretching in the moonlight far over the rolling ground.
Where the tents failed there had been erected tiny cabins, very rude,
with abundant ventilation and the strangest chimneys. A few field
officers were quartered in the town and Jackson had with him there his
permanent staff. But captains and lieutenants stayed with the men. The
general of them all ruled with a rod of iron. For the most part it
swayed lightly, with a certain moral effect only over the head of the
rank and file, but it grew to a crushing beam for the officer
who did not with alacrity habitually attend to his every duty, great or
small. The do-nothing, the popinjay, the intractable, the
self-important, the remonstrant, the I thought, sirthe It
is due to my dignity, sirnone of these flourished in the Army of
the Valley. The tendencies had been there, of course; they came up like
the flowers of spring, but each poor bloom as it appeared met an icy
blast. The root beneath learned to send up to the sky a sturdier
growth.
Company A, 65th Virginia, numbered in its ranks men who knew all
about log cabins. It was well lodged, and the captain's hut did it
credit. Richard Cleave and Allan, entering, found a fire, and Tullius
nodding beside it. At their step he roused himself, rose, and put on
another log. He was a negro of sixty years, tall and hale, a dignified
master of foraging, a being simple and taciturn and strong, with a love
for every clod of earth at Three Oaks where he had been born.
Cleave spoke. Where is Lieutenant Breckinridge, Tullius?
Tullius straightened himself. Lieutenant Breckinridge is at the
colonel's, sah. An' Lieutenant Coffin, he's at the Debatin' Society in
Company C.
Cleave sat down before the pine table. Give Allan Gold something to
eat, and don't either of you speak to me for twenty minutes. He
propped his head on his hands and stared at the boards. Allan seated
himself on a box beside the fire. Tullius took from a flat, heated
stone a battered tin coffee-pot, poured into an earthenware cup some
smoking mixture, and brought it to the scout. Hit ain't moh'n half
chicory, sah, From an impromptu cupboard he brought a plate of small
round cakes. Mis' Miriam, she done mek 'em fer us.
Cleave spoke from the table. His voice was dreamy, his eyes fixed
upon the surface before him as though he were studying ocean depths.
Tullius, give me a dozen coffee berries.
Er cup of coffee, you mean, Marse Dick?
No, coffee berries. Haven't you any there?
Tullius brought a small tin box, tilted it, and poured on the table
something like the required number. Thar's all thar is. He returned
to his corner of the fire, and it purred and flamed upon the crazy
hearth between him and the scout. The latter, his rifle across his
knees, now watched the flames, now the man at the table. Cleave had
strung the coffee berries along a crack between the boards. Now he
advanced one small brown object, now retired another, now crossed them
from one side to the other. Following these manoeuvres, he sat with his
chin upon his hand for five minutes, then began to make a circle with
the berries. He worked slowly, dropping point after point in place. The
two ends met. He rose from the table. That's all right. I am going to
brigade headquarters for a little, Allan. Suppose you come along. There
are some things I want to knowthose signals, for instance. He took
up his hat and sword. Tullius, you'll have Dundee saddled at four
o'clock. I'll see Lieutenant Breckinridge and the colonel. I won't be
back until after taps. Cover the fire, but wait up for me.
He and Allan went out together. Tullius restored the coffee berries
to the tin box, and the box to the cupboard, sat down by the fire, and
fell again into a nodding dream of Three Oaks, of the garden, and of
his grandchildren in the quarter.
CHAPTER X. LIEUTENANT McNEIL
The Williamsport ferry-boat came slowly across the Potomac, from the
Maryland to the Virginia side. The clear, deep water lay faintly blue
beneath the winter sky, and the woods came so close that long branches
of sycamore swept the flood. In that mild season every leaf had not
fallen; up and down the river here the dull red of an oak met the eye,
and there the faded gold of a willow.
The flatboat, a brown shadow beneath a creaking wire and pulley,
came slowly to the southern side of the stream. The craft, squat to the
water and railed on either side, was in the charge of an old negro.
Clustered in the middle of the boat appeared a tall Marylander in blue
jeans, two soldiers in blue cloth, and a small darky in a shirt of blue
gingham. All these stared at a few yards of Virginia road, shelving,
and overarched by an oak that was yet touched with maroon, and stared
at a horseman in high boots, a blue army overcoat, and a blue and gold
cap, who, mounted upon a great bay horse, was waiting at the water's
edge. The boat crept into the shadow of the trees.
One of the blue soldiers stood watchfully, his hands upon an Enfield
rifle. The other, a middle-aged, weather-beaten sergeant-major who had
been leaning against the rail, straightened himself and spoke, being
now within a few feet of the man on horseback.
Your signal was all right, he said. And your coat's all right.
But how did your coat get on this side of the river?
It's been on this side for some time, explained the man on
horseback, with a smile. Ever since Uncle Sam presented it to me at
Wheelingand that was before Bull Run. He addressed the negro. Is
this the fastest this boat can travel? I've been waiting here half an
hour.
The sergeant-major persisted. Your coat's all right, and your
signal's all right, and if it hadn't ha' been, our sharpshooters
wouldn't ha' left much of you by nowYour coat's all right, and your
signal's all right, but I'm damned if your voice ain't Southern The
head of the boat touched the shore and the dress of the horseman was
seen more closely.Lieutenant, ended the speaker, with a change of
tone.
The rider, dismounting, led his horse down the yard or two of road
and into the boat. So, Dandy! Just think it's the South Branch, and
come on! Thirty miles since breakfast, and still so gaily!
Horse and man entered the boat, which moved out into the stream.
I was once, stated the sergeant-major, though still in the proper
tone of respect toward a lieutenant, I was once in Virginia for a
month, down on the Pamunkeyand the people all said 'gaily.'
They say it still, answered the rider. Not so much, though, in my
part of Virginia. It's Tuckahoe, not Cohee. I'm from the valley of the
South Branch, between Romney and Moorefield.
The heretofore silent blue soldier shifted his rifle. What in
hell he muttered. The sergeant-major looked at the Virginia shore,
looked at the stranger, standing with his arm around his horse's neck,
and looked at the Williamsport landing, and the cannon frowning from
Doubleday's Hill. In the back of his head there formed a little
picturea drumhead court-martial, a provost guard, a tree and a rope.
Then came the hand of reason, and wiped the picture away. Pshaw! spies
don't say they're Southern. And, by jiminy! one might smile with
his lips, but he couldn't smile with his eyes like that. And he's
lieutenant, and there's such a thing, Tom Miller, as being too
smart! He leaned upon the rail, and, being an observant fellow, he
looked to see if the lieutenant's hand trembled at all where it lay
upon the horse's neck. It did not; it rested as quiet as an empty
glove. The tall Marylander began to speak with a slow volubility.
There was a man from the Great Kanawha to Williamsport 't other daya
storekeepera big, fat man with a beard like Abraham's in the
'lustrated Bible. I heard him a-talking to the colonel. 'All the Union
men in northwestern Virginia are on the Ohio side of the mountains,'
said he. 'Toward the Ohio we're all for the Union,' said he. 'There's
more Northern blood than Southern in that section, anyway,' said he.
'But all this side of the Alleghenies is different, and as for the
Valley of the South Branchthe Valley of the South Branch is a hotbed
of rebels.' That's what he said'a hotbed of rebels.' 'As for the
mountain folk in between,' he says, 'they hunt with guns, and the men
in the valley hunt with dogs, and there ain't any love lost between
them at the best of times. Then, too, it's the feud that settles it. If
a mountain man's hereditary enemy names his baby Jefferson Davis, then
the first man, he names his Abraham Lincoln, and shoots at the other
man from behind a bush. And vice versa. So it goes. But the
valley of the South Branch is old stock,' he says, 'and a hotbed of
rebels.'
When it's taken by and large, that is true, said the horseman with
coolness. But there are exceptions to all rules, and there are some
Union men along the South Branch. He stroked his horse's neck. So,
Dandy! Aren't there exceptions to all rules?
He's a plumb beauty, that horse, remarked the sergeant-major. I
don't ride much myself, but if I had a horse like that, and a straight
road, and weather like this, I wouldn't ask any odds between here and
Milikenville, Illinois! I guess he's a jim dandy to travel,
Lieutenant
McNeill, said the Virginian. It is lovely weather. You don't
often have a December like this in your part of the world.
No, we don't. And I only hope 't will last.
I hope it will, assented McNeill. It's bad marching in bad
weather.
I don't guess, said the sergeant-major, that we'll do much
marching before springtime.
No, I reckon not, answered the man from the South Branch. I came
from Romney yesterday. General Kelly is letting the men build cabins
there. That doesn't look like moving.
We're doing the same here, said the sergeant-major, and they say
that the army's just as cosy at Frederick as a bug in a rug. Yes, sir;
it's in the air that we'll give the rebels rope till springtime.
The ferry-boat touched the northern bank. Here were a little, rocky
shore, an expanse of swampy ground, a towpath, a canal, a road cut
between two hills, and in the background a village with one or two
church spires. The two hills were white with tents, and upon the brow
cannon were planted to rake the river. Here and there, between the
river and the hills, were knots of blue soldiers. A freight boat loaded
with hay passed snail-like down the canal. It was a splendid early
afternoon, cool, still, and bright. The tall Marylander and the three
blue soldiers left the boat, the man from Romney leading his horse.
Where's headquarters? he demanded. I'll go report, and then get
something to eat for both Dandy and myself. We've got to make Frederick
City to-night.
The large wall tents over there on the hill, directed the
sergeant-major. It's a long way to Frederick, but Lord! with that
horse He hesitated for a moment, then spoke up in a courageous,
middle-aged, weather-beaten fashion, I hope you'll have a pleasant
ride, lieutenant! I guess I was a little stiffer'n good manners calls
for, just at first. You see there's been so much talk ofofof
masqueradingand your voice is Southern, if your politics ain't!
'T isn't my usual way.
Lieutenant McNeill smiled. I am sure of that, sergeant! As you say,
there has been a deal of masquerading, and this side of the river
naturally looks askance at the other. But you see, General Kelly is
over there, and he happens, just now, to want to communicate with
General Banks. His smile grew broader. It's perfectly natural, but
it's right hard on the man acting courier! Lord knows I had trouble
enough running Ashby's gauntlet without being fired on from this side!
That's so! that's so! answered the sergeant cordially. Well, good
luck to you getting back! You may find some friends here. We've a
company or two of Virginians from the Ohio.
General Kelly's messenger proceeded to climb the hill to the wall
tents indicated. There was a short delay, then he found himself in the
presence of the colonel commanding at Williamsport. From General Kelly
at Romney? How did you get here?
I left Romney, sir, yesterday morning, and I came by bridle paths
through the mountains. I was sent because I have hunted over every mile
of that country, and I could keep out of Ashby's way. I struck the
river above Bath, and I worked down through the woods to the ferry. I
have a letter for General Banks.
Drawing out a wallet, he opened it and handed to the other the
missive in question. If I was chased I was to destroy it before
capture, he said. The slip with it is a line General Kelly gave me.
The colonel commanding at Williamsport glanced at the latter
document. A native of the South Branch valley, he said crisply.
That's a disaffected region.
Yes, sir. It is. But there are one or two loyal families.
You wish to go on to Frederick this afternoon?
Yes, sir. As soon as my horse is a little rested. My orders are to
use all dispatch back to Romney with General Banks's answer.
The colonel, seated at a table, weighed General Kelly's letter in
his hand, looked at the superscription, turned it over, and studied the
seal. Do the rebels on the other side show any signs of coming
activity? Our secret service men have not been very successfulthey
make statements that it is hard to credit. I should be glad of any
reliable information. What did you see or hear coming through?
The lieutenant studied the floor a moment, shrugged, and spoke out.
Ashby's active enough, sir. Since yesterday I have just grazed three
picket posts. He has vedettes everywhere. The report is that he has
fifteen hundred troopersnearly all valley men, born to the saddle and
knowing every crook and cranny of the land. They move like a whirlwind
and deal in surprises
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold
Only these cohorts are grey, not purple and gold. That's Ashby. On
the other hand, Jackson at Winchester need not, perhaps, be taken into
account. The general impression is that he'll stay where he is until
spring. I managed to extract some information from a mountain man above
Sleepy Creek. Jackson is drilling his men from daylight until dark. It
is said that he is crazy on the subjecton most subjects, in fact;
that he thinks himself a Cromwell, and is bent upon turning his troops
into Ironsides. Of course, should General Banks make any movement to
crosspreparatory, say, to joining with General KellyJackson might
swing out of Winchester and give him check. Otherwise, he'll probably
keep on drilling
The winter's too far advanced, said the colonel, for any such
movement upon our part. As soon as it is spring we'll go over there and
trample out this rebellion. He weighed Kelly's letter once more in his
hand, then restored it to the bearer. It's all right, Lieutenant
McNeill. I'll pass you through.You read Byron?
Yes, said Lieutenant McNeill briefly. He's a great poet. 'Don
Juan,' now, and Suvaroff at Ismail
He made no answer, but he took the city.
The bivouac, too, in Mazeppa. He restored General Kelly's letter
and the accompanying slip to his wallet. Thank you, sir. If I am to
make Frederick before bedtime I had better be going
An aide of General Banks, remarked the colonel, is here, and is
returning to Frederick this afternoon. He is an Englishman, I believe,
of birth. You might ride togetherVery opportunely; here he is!
A tall, blond being, cap-a-pie for the road, had loomed in dark blue
before the tent door. Captain Marchmont, said the colonel, let me
make you acquainted with Lieutenant McNeill, a loyal Virginian
bearing a letter from General Kelly to General Banksa gentleman with
a taste, too, for your great poet Byron. As you are both riding to
Frederick, you may find it pleasant to ride in company.
I must ride rapidly, said McNeill, but if Captain Marchmont
I always ride rapidly, answered the captain. Learned it in Texas
in 1843. At your service, lieutenant, whenever you're ready.
The road to Frederick lay clear over hill and dale, past forest and
stream, through a gap in the mountain, by mill and barn and farmhouse,
straight through a number of miles of crystal afternoon. Out of
Williamsport conversation began. When you want a purchaser for that
horse, I'm your man, said the aide. By any chance, do you want
to sell?
McNeill laughed. Not to-day, captain! He stroked the brown
shoulder. Not to-day, DunDandy!
What's his name? Dundandy?
No, replied the lieutenant. Just Dandy. I'm rather fond of him. I
think we'll see it out together.
Yes, they aren't bad comrades, said the other amicably. In '53,
when I was with Lopez in Cuba, I had a little black mare that was just
as well worth dying for as a woman or a man or most causes, but, damn
me! she died for mecarried me past a murderous ambuscade, got a
bullet for her pains, and never dropped until she reached our camp! He
coughed. What pleasant weather! Was it difficult getting through
Jackson's lines?
Yes, rather.
They rode for a time in silence between fields of dead aster and
goldenrod. When I was in Italy with Garibaldi, said Captain Marchmont
thoughtfully, I saw something of kinsmen divided in war. It looked a
very unnatural thing. You're a Virginian, now?
Yes, I am a Virginian.
And you are fighting against Virginia. Curious!
The other smiled. To be where you are you must believe in the
inviolability of the Union.
Oh, I? answered Marchmont coolly. I believe in it, of course. I
am fighting for it. It chanced, you see, that I was in Franceand out
of service and damnably out at elbows, too!when Europe heard of Bull
Run. I took passage at once in a merchant ship from Havre. It was my
understanding that she was bound for New Orleans, but instead she put
into Boston Harbour. I had no marked preference, fighting being
fighting under whatever banner it occurs, so the next day I offered my
sword to the Governor of Massachusetts. North and South, they're none
of mine. But were I in Englandwhere I haven't been of late yearsand
a row turned up, I should fight with England.
No doubt, answered the other. Your mind travels along the broad
and simple lines of the matter. But with us there are many subtle and
intricate considerations.
Passing now through woods they started a covey of partridges. The
small brown and white shapes vanished in a skurry of dead leaves. No
doubt, no doubt! said the soldier of fortune. At any rate, I have
rubbed off particularity in such matters. Live and let liveand each
man to run the great race according to his inner vision! If he really
conflicts with me, I'll let him know it.
They rode on, now talking, now silent. To either side, beyond stone
walls, the fields ran bare and brown to distant woods. The shadow of
the wayside trees grew longer and the air more deep and cold. They
passed a string of white-covered wagons bearing forage for the army.
The sun touched the western hills, rimming them as with a forest fire.
The horsemen entered a defile between the hills, travelled through
twilight for a while, then emerged upon a world still softly lighted.
In the country at home, said the Englishman, the waits are
practicing Christmas carols.
I wish, answered the Virginian, that we had kept that old custom.
I should like once to hear English carols sung beneath the windows on a
snowy night. As he rode he began to sing aloud, in a voice not
remarkable, but good enough to give pleasure
As Joseph was a-walking,
He heard an angel sing,
'This night shall be born
Our Heavenly King'
Yes, I remember that one quite well, said Captain Marchmont, and
proceeded to sing in an excellent bass,
He neither shall be born
In housen nor in hall,
Nor in the place of Paradise,
But in an ox's stall
Do you know the next verse?
Yes, said McNeill.
He neither shall be clothed
In purple nor in pall,
But all in fair linen
As are babies all!
That's it, nodded the other. And the next goes,
He neither shall be rocked
In silver nor in gold
But in a wooden cradle
That rocks on the mould
Alternately they sang the carol through. The sun went down, but the
pink stayed in the sky and was mirrored in a tranquil stream which they
crossed. It faded at last into the quiet dusk. A cricket chirped from a
field of dried Michaelmas daisies. They overtook and passed an infantry
regiment, coming up, an officer told them, from Harper's Ferry. The
night fell, cold and still, with many stars. We are not far from
Frederick, said Marchmont. You were never here before?
No.
I'll take you at once to General Banks. You go back to Kelly at
Romney to-morrow.
Just as soon as General Banks shall have answered General Kelly's
letter.
You have an occasional fight over there?
Yes, up and down the line. Ashby's command is rather active.
By George! I wish I were returning with you! When you've reported
I'll look after you if you'll allow me. Pleasant enough mess.Major
Hertz, whom I knew in Prussia, Captain Wingate of your old army and one
or two others.
I'm exceedingly obliged, said McNeill, but I have ridden hard of
late, and slept little, and I should prove dull company. Moreover
there's a good priest in Frederick who is a friend of a friend of mine.
I have a message for him, and if General Banks permits, I shall sleep
soundly and quietly at his house to-night.
Very good, said Marchmont. You'll get a better night there,
though I'm sorry not to have you with us.There are the lights of
Frederick, and here's the picket. You have your pass from
Williamsport?
McNeill gave it to a blue soldier, who called a corporal, who read
it by a swinging lantern. Very good. Pass, Lieutenant McNeill.
The two rode on. To left and right were lighted streets of tents,
varied here and there by substantial cabins. Commissary quarters
appeared, sutlers' shops, booths, places of entertainment, guardhouses,
a chapel. Soldiers were everywhere, dimly seen within the tents where
the door flap was fastened back, plain to view about the camp-fires in
open places, clustering like bees in the small squares from which ran
the camp streets, thronging the trodden places before the sutlers,
everywhere apparent in the foreground and divined in the distance. From
somewhere came the strains of Yankee Doodle. A gust of wind blew out
the folds of the stars and stripes, fastened above some regimental
headquarters. The city of tents and of frame structures hasty and
crude, of fires in open places, of sutlers' shops and cantines, and
booths of strolling players, of chapels and hospitals, of fluttering
flags and wandering music, of restless blue soldiers, oscillating like
motes in some searchlight of the giants, persisted for a long distance.
At last it died away; there came a quiet field or two, then the old
Maryland town of Frederick.
CHAPTER XI. AS JOSEPH WAS
A-WALKING
At eleven that night by the Frederick clocks an orderly found an
Englishman, a Prussian, a New Yorker, and a man from somewhere west of
the Mississippi playing poker. General Banks would like to speak to
Captain Marchmont for a moment, sir.
The aide laid down his cards, and adjusted his plumage before a long
mirror. Lieber Gott! said Major Hertz, I wish our general would go
sleep and leafe us play the game.
Captain Marchmont, proceeding to a handsomely furnished apartment,
knocked, entered, saluted, and was greeted by a general in a disturbed
frame of mind. Look here, captain, you rode from Williamsport with
that fellow of Kelly's. Did you notice anything out of the usual?
The aide deliberated. He had a splendid horse, sir. And the man
himself seemed rather a mettled personage. If that's out of the usual,
I noticed that.
Oh, of course he's all right! said the general. Kelly's letter is
perfectly bona fide, and so I make no doubt are McNeill's
passport and paper of instructions. I gave the letter back or I'd show
you the signatures. It's only that I got to thinking, awhile ago, after
he'd gone. He took a turn across the roses upon the carpet. A man
that's been in politics knows there are so many dodges. Our spies say
that General Jackson is very acute. I got to thinking He came back
to the red-covered table. Did you talk of the military situation
coming along?
Very little, sir.
He wasn't inquisitive? Didn't criticise, or draw you on to
talkdidn't ask about my troops and my movements?
He did not, sir.
The general sighed. It's all right, of course. You see, he seemed
an intelligent man, and we got to talking. I wrote my answer to General
Kelly. He has it now, is to start to Romney with it at dawn. Then I
asked some questions, and we got to talking. It's all straight, of
course, but on looking back I find that I said some things. He seemed
an intelligent man, and in his general's confidence. Well, I dismissed
him at last, and he saluted and went off to get some rest before
starting. And then, somehow, I got to thinking. I have never been
South, and all these places are only names to me, but He unrolled
upon the table a map of large dimensions. Look here a moment, captain!
This is a map the department furnishes us. It's black, you see, for the
utterly disloyal sections, shaded for the doubtful, and white where
there are Unionists. All Virginia's black except this northwest
section, and that's largely shaded.
What, asked Marchmont, is this long black patch in the midst of
the shading?
That's the valley of the South Branch of the Potomacsee, it's
marked! Now, this man's from that locality.
Hm! Dark as Erebus, apparently, along the South Branch!
Just so. General Banks paced again the roses. Pshaw! It's all
right. I never saw a straighter looking fellow. I just thought I would
ask you the nature of his talk along the road
It was hardly of military matters, sir. But if you wish to detain
him
General Kelly must have my letter. I'm not to move, and it's
important that he should know it.
Why not question him again?
The general came back to the big chair beside the table. I have no
doubt he's as honest as I am. He looked at the clock. After
midnight!and I've been reviewing troops all day. Do you think it's
worth while, captain?
In war very little things are worth while, sir.
But you were with him all afternoon, and he seemed perfectly all
right
Yes, sir, I liked him very well. He pulled at his long yellow
moustache. There was only one little circumstance.... If you are
doubtful, sirThe papers, of course, might be forged.
The late Governor of Massachusetts rested irresolute. Except that
he was born in Virginia there isn't a reason for suspecting him. And
it's our policy to conciliate all this shaded corner up here. The
clock struck the half-hour. General Banks looked longingly toward his
bedroom. I've been through the mill to-day. It's pretty hard on a man,
this working over time.Where's he lodging?
McNeill, sir? He said he would find quarters with some connection
or othera Catholic priest
A CatholicThere again! The general looked perturbed. Rising, he
took from a desk two or three pages of blue official paper, covered
with writing. I got that from Washington to-day, from the Secret
Service Department. Read it.
Captain Marchmont read: 'Distrust without exception the Catholic
priests in Frederick City. There is reason to believe that the
Catholics throughout Maryland are Secessionists. Distrust all Maryland,
in fact. The Jesuits have a house at Frederick City. They are suspected
of furnishing information. Keep them under such surveillance as your
judgment shall indicate.'Humph!
General Banks sighed, poured out something from a decanter, and
drank it. I guess, captain, you had better go and bring that man from
the South Branch back here. Take a few men and do it quietly. He seems
a gentleman, and there may be absolutely nothing wrong. Tell him I've
something to add to General Kelly's letter. Here's a list of the
priests in Frederick. Father Tierney seems the most looked up to, and I
gave him a subscription yesterday for his orphan asylum.
Half an hour later Marchmont and two men found themselves before a
small, square stone house, standing apart from its neighbours in a
small, square yard. From without the moonbeams flooded it, from within
came no pinpoint of light. It was past the middle of the night, and
almost all the town lay still and dark. Marchmont lifted the brass
knocker and let it fall. The sound, deep and reverberant, should have
reached every ear within, however inattentive. He waited, but there
came no answering footfall. He knocked againno light nor sound;
againonly interstellar quiet. He shook the door. Go around to the
back, Roberts, and see if you can get in. Roberts departed. Marchmont
picked up some pieces of gravel from the path and threw them against
the window panes, to no effect. Roberts came back. That's an awful
heavy door, sir, heavier than this. And the windows are high up.
Very good, said the captain. This one looks stronger than it
really is. Stand back, you two.
He put his shoulder to the doorWait a minute, sir! Somebody's lit
a candle upstairs.
The candle passed leisurely from window to window, was lost for a
minute, and then, through a small fan-light above the door, was
observed descending the stairs. A bolt creaked, then another. The door
opened, and Father Tierney, hastily gowned and blinking, stood before
the invaders. He shaded his candle with his hand, and the light struck
back, showing a strong and rosy and likable face. Faith! he said,
an' I thought I was after hearin' a noise. Good-evenin', gentlemenor
rather good-morning, for it must be toward cockcrow. What
It's not so late as that, interrupted Marchmont. I wish I had
your recipe for sleeping, father. It would be invaluable when a man
didn't want to be waked up. However, my business is not with you,
but
Holy powers! said Father Tierney, did ye not know that I live
here by myself? Father Lavalle is at the other end of town, and Father
O'Hara lives by the Noviciate. Sure, and any one could have told you
Father Lavalle and Father O'Hara, said the aide, are nothing to
the question. You have a guest with you
Father Tierney looked enlightened. Oh! Av coorse! There's always
business on hand between soldiers. Was it Lieutenant McNeill you'll be
looking after?
Marchmont nodded. There are some instructions that General Banks
neglected to give him. It is late, but the general wishes to get it all
straight before he sleeps. I am sorry to disturb Lieutenant McNeill,
for he must be fatigued. But orders are orders, you know
Av coorse, av coorse! agreed Father Tierney. 'A man having
authority,' 'I say unto this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another,
Come, and he cometh'
So, father, if you'll be good enough to explain to Lieutenant
McNeillor if you'll tell me which is his room
The light of the candle showed a faint trouble in Father Tierney's
face. Sure, it's too bad! Do you think, my son, the matter is of
importance? 'T would be after being just a little left-over of
directions?
Perhaps, said Marchmont. But orders are orders, father, and I
must awaken Lieutenant McNeill. Indeed, it's hard to think that he's
asleep
He isn't aslape.
Then will you be so good as to tell him
Indeed, and I wish I could do that same thing, my son, but it isn't
in nature
General Banks's aide made a gesture of impatience. I can't dawdle
here any longer! Either you or I, father. He pushed into the hall.
Where is his room?
Holy Virgin! exclaimed Father Tierney. It's vexed he'll be when
he learns that the general wasn't done with him! There's the room,
captain darlint, but
Marchmont's eyes followed the pointing of the candlestick. There!
he exclaimed. The door was immediately upon the left, not five feet
from the portal he had lately belaboured. Then 't was against his
window that I flung the gravel!
With an oath he crossed the hall and struck his hand against the
panel indicated. No answer. He knocked again with peremptoriness, then
tried the door. It was unlocked, and opened quietly to his touch. All
beyond was silent and dark. Father Tierney, I'll thank you for that
candle! The priest gave it, and the aide held it up, displaying a
chill and vacant chamber, furnished with monastic spareness. There was
a narrow couch that had been slept in. Marchmont crossed the bare
floor, bent, and felt the bedclothing. Quite cold. You've been gone
some time, my friend. Hm! things look rather black for you!
Father Tierney spoke from the middle of the room. It's sorry the
lieutenant will be! Sure, and he thought he had the general's last
word! 'Slape until you wake, my son,' says I. 'Judy will give us
breakfast at eight.' 'No, no, father,' says he. 'General Kelly is
wearying for this letter from General Banks. If I get it through prompt
it will be remembered for me,' he says. ''T will be a point toward
promotion,' he says. 'My horse has had a couple of hours' rest, and
he's a Trojan beside,' he says. 'I'll sleep an hour myself, and then
I'll be taking the road back to Romney. Ashby's over on the other
side,' he says, 'and the sooner I get Ashby off my mind, the better
pleased I'll be,' he says. And thereupon he slept for an hour
Marchmont still regarded the bed. I'll be damned if I know, my
friend, whether you're blue or grey! How long has he been gone?
Father Tierney pondered the question. By the seven holy candles, my
son, I was that deep asleep when you knocked that I don't rightly know
the time of night! Maybe he has been gone an hour, maybe more
And how did he know the countersign?
Faith, and I understood that the general himself gave him the
word
Hm! said Marchmont, and tugged at his moustache. He stood in
silence for a moment, then turned sharply. Blue or grey, which? I'll
be damned if I don't find out! Your horse may be a Trojan, my friend,
but by this time he's a tired Trojan! Roberts!
Yes, sir.
You two go at once to headquarters' stables. Saddle my horsenot
the black I rode yesterdaythe fresh one, Caliph. Get your own horses.
Double-quick now! Ten minutes is all I give you.
The men departed. Marchmont stalked out of the chamber and to the
open front door. Father Tierney, repossessed of the candle, followed
him. Sure, and the night's amazing chill! By good luck, I've a fine
old bottle or twoone of the brigadiers, that's a good son of the
church, having sent me a present. Whist, captain! a little glass to
cheer the heart av ye
I'll not stop now, father, said the aide dryly. Perhaps, upon my
return to Frederick I may call upon you.
Do so, do so, my son, said Father Tierney. And ye're going to
overtake the lieutenant with the general's last words?Faith, and
while I think of ithe let drop that he'd be after not going by the
pike. The old road by the forge, that goes south, and then turns. It's
a dirt road, and easier on his horse, the poor crathur
Thanks. I'll try the pike, said Marchmont, from the doorstep.
Bah! it's turning cold! Had you noticed, father, what exceedingly thin
ice you have around this house?
By all the powers, my son! answered Father Tierney. The
moonlight's desaving you! That isn't waterthat's firm ground. Look
out for the flagstaff at the gate, and presint my respects to the
general. Sure, 't was a fine donation for the orphans he donated!
It was two o'clock of a moonlight night when Captain Marchmont and
his troopers took the road to Williamsport. They passed through the
silent camp, gave the word to the last sentry, and emerged upon the
quiet countryside. Was a courier before them? Yes, sira man on a
great bay horse. Said he had important dispatches.
The moon-flooded road, hard beneath the hoofs of the horses,
stretched south and west, unmarked by any moving creature. Marchmont
rode in advance. His horse was strong and fresh; clear of the pickets,
he put him to the gallop. An hour went by. Nothing but the cold, still
moonshine, the sound of hoofs upon the metalled road, and now and then,
in some wayside house, the stealthy lifting of a sash, as man or woman
looked forth upon the riders. At a tollgate the aide drew rein, leaned
from his saddle, and struck against the door with a pistol butt. A man
opened a window. Has a courier passed, going to Williamsport?
Yes, sir. A man on a great bay horse. Three quarters of an hour
ago.
Was he riding fast?
Yes. Riding fast.
Marchmont galloped on, his two troopers behind him. Their steeds
were good, but not so good as was his. He left them some way behind.
The night grew old. The moon, which had risen late, was high in the
heavens. The Englishman traversed a shadowy wood, then went by silvered
fields. A cabin door creaked; an old negro put out a cautious head.
Has a courier passed, going to Williamsport?
Yaas, sah. Er big man on er big bay. 'Bout half er hour ergo, sah.
Marchmont galloped on. He looked back over his shoulderhis men
were a mile in the rear. And when I come up with you, my friend, what
then? On the whole I don't think I'll ask you to turn with me. We'll go
on to Williamsport, and there we'll hold the court of inquiry.
He touched his horse with the spur. The miles of road ran past, the
air, eager and cold, pressed sharply; there came a feeling of the
morning. He was now upon a level stretch of road, before him, a mile
away, a long, bare hill. He crossed a bridge, hollowly sounding through
the night, and neared the hill. His vision was a trained one, exercised
by war in many lands. There was a dark object on the road before him;
it grew in size, but it grew very slowly; it, too, was moving. You've
a tired horse, though, lieutenant! said the aide. Strain as you may,
I'll catch you up! His own horse devoured the ground, steadily
galloping by the frosty fields, through the air of earliest dawn.
Suddenly, before him, the courier from Kelly halted. Mounted against a
faint light in the southwestern sky, he stood upon the hilltop and
waited for the horseman from Frederick. The latter took at a gallop the
remainder of the level road, but at the foot of the hill changed to a
trot. Above him, the waiting horseman grew life-size. He waited, very
quietly, Marchmont observed, sitting, turned in his saddle, against the
sky of dawn. Damned if I know if you're truly blue or grey! thought
the aide. Did you stop to disarm suspicion, because you saw you'd be
overtaken
Another minute and the two were in speaking distance; another, and
they were together on the hilltop. Good-morning! said McNeill. What
haste to Williamsport? He bent forward in the light that was just
strong enough to see by. WhyIt is yesterday's comrade! Good-morning,
Captain Marchmont!
We must have started, said Marchmont, somewhere near the same
hour. I have a communication from General Banks for the commander at
Williamsport.
If the other raised his brows over the aide's acting courier twice
in twenty-four hours, the action did not appear in the yet uncertain
light. Apparently McNeill took the statement easily, upon its face
value. In that case, he said with amicableness, I shall have the
pleasure of your company a little longer. We must be about six miles
out, I should think.
About that distance, agreed the other. And as at this unearthly
hour I certainly cannot see the colonel, and as your horse is evidently
spent, why go the rest of the way at a gallop?
It was my idea, said McNeill, to pass the river early. If I can
gain the big woods before the day is old, so much the better. Dandy is
tired, it is true, but he has a certain staying quality. However, we
will go more slowly now.
They put themselves in motion. Two men are behind us, remarked the
man from Romney.
Yes. There they come through the fields. Two troopers who are
riding with meRegulars. They'll accommodate their pace to ours.
Very good, said the other with serenity, and the two rode on,
Marchmont's men a little way behind. By now the stars had faded, the
moon looked wan, there was a faint rose in the east. Far in a vale to
the left a cock crew, and was answered from across a stream. To the
south, visible between and above the fringing trees, a ribbon of mist
proclaimed the river. The two men rode, not in silence, but still not
with yesterday's freedom of speech. There was, however, no quietude
that the chill ebb of the hour and the weariness of overwork might not
account for. They spoke of this and that briefly, but amicably. Will
you report at headquarters? asked Marchmont, before attempting the
Virginia shore?
I do not yet know. There is no occasion, as I have all instructions
from General Banks. I wish to make no unnecessary delay.
Have you the countersign?
Yes.
Will you cross by the ferry?
I hardly think so. Ashby may be watching that and the ford below.
There is a place farther up the river that I may try.
That is, after you pass through Williamsport?
Yes, a mile or two beyond.
The light increased. Gold clouds barred the east, the cocks crew,
and crows came cawing from the woods to the vast, brown cornfields. The
road now ran at no great distance from the canal and the river. First
came the canal, mirroring between trodden banks the red east, then the
towpath, a cornfield, a fringe of sycamore, oak, and willow, then the
Potomac veiled with mist. They were drawing near to Williamsport. The
day's travel had begun. They met or overtook workers upon the road,
sutlers' carts, ordnance wagons, a squad of artillerymen conducting a
gun, a country doctor in an old buggy, two boys driving calves yoked
together. The road made a curve to the north, like a sickle. On the
inland side it ran beneath a bluff; on the other a rail fence rimmed a
twelve-foot embankment dropping to a streamlet and a wide field where
the corn stood in shocks. Here, at a cross-roads debouching from the
north into the pike, they encountered a company of infantry.
Marchmont checked his horse. I'm not sure, but I think I know the
officer. Be so good as to await me a moment, lieutenant.
He rode up to the captain in blue, and the two talked in low voices.
The infantrymen broke lines a little, leaned on their rifles, and
discussed arrangements for breakfast. Among them were a number of tall
men, lean and sinewy, with a sweep of line and unconstraint of gesture
that smacked of hunters' ways and mountain exercise. The two troopers
from Frederick City came up. The place of the cross-roads showed
animated and blue. The sun pushed its golden ball above the hilltops,
and all the rifle barrels gleamed in the light. Marchmont and the
new-met captain approached the courier from Kelly, sitting his horse in
the middle of the road. Lieutenant McNeill, said the aide with
quietness, there seemed, at Frederick, some irregularity in your
papers. Doubtless everything can be explained, and your delay in
reaching Romney will be slight. It is my duty to conduct you to
Williamsport headquarters, and to report the matter to the colonel
commanding. I regret the interruptionnot a long continued one, I
trustto our pleasant relations.
McNeill had made a movement of surprise, and his brows had come
together. It was but for an instant, then he smiled, and smiled with
his eyes. If such are your orders, sir, neither you nor I can help the
matter. To headquarters, of coursethe sooner the better! I can have
no possible objection.
He touched his horse and advanced a little farther into the road.
All the blue soldiers were about him. A sergeant-major, brought for the
moment opposite him, uttered an exclamation. You know this officer,
Miller? called the captain of infantry.
Miller saluted. No, sir. But I was in the ferry-boat when he
crossed yesterday. We talked a little. 'You've got a Southern voice,'
says I, and he says, 'Yes. I was born in the valley of the South
Branch.' 'You'll find company here,' says I, 'for we've got some
northwestern Virginians'
By jingo! cried the captain, that's true! There's a squad of them
here. He raised his voice. Men from northwest Virginia, advance!
A detachment swung forward, lean men and tall, stamped as hunters,
eighteenth-century frontiersmen projected to the middle of the
nineteenth. Do any of you men know the South Branch of the Potomac?
Three voices made themselves heard. Know it like a book.Don't
know it like a bookknow it like I know my gun and dawg.Don't know
any good of itthey-uns air all rebels down that-a-way!
Especially, said a fourth voice, the McNeills.
The courier from Kelly glanced at him sharply. And what have you
got, my man, against the McNeills?
I've got something, stated the mountaineer doggedly. Something
ever since afore the Mexican War. Root and branch, I've got something
against them. When I heard, over there in Grant, that they was
hell-bent for the Confederacy, I just went, hell-bent, for the other
side. Root and branch, I know them, and root and branch they're damned
rebels
Do you know, demanded the captain, this one? This is Lieutenant
McNeill.
The man looked, General Kelly's courier facing him squarely. There
was a silence upon the road to Williamsport. The mountaineer spat. He
may be a lieutenant, but he ain't a McNeill. Not from the South Branch
valley, he ain't.
He says he is.
Do you think, my friend, asked the man in question, and he looked
amused, that you really know all the McNeills, or their party? The
valley of the South Branch is long and wide, and the families are
large. One McNeill has simply escaped your observation.
There ain't, said the man, with grimness, a damned one of them
that has escaped my observation, and there ain't one of them that ain't
a damned rebel. They're with Ashby now, and those of them that ain't
with Ashby are with Jackson. And you may be Abraham Lincoln or General
Banks, but you ain't a McNeill!
The ranks opened and there emerged a stout German musician. Herr
Captain! I was in Winchester before I ran away and joined der Union.
Herr Captain, I haf seen this man. I haf seen him in der grey uniform,
with der gold sword and der sash. And, lieber Gott, dot horse is known!
Dot horse is der horse of Captain Richard Cleave. Dot horse is named
Dundee.
'Dundee' exclaimed Marchmont. That's the circumstance. You
started to say 'Dundee.'
He gave an abrupt laugh. On the whole, I like you even better than
I didbut it's a question now for a drumhead and a provost guard. I'm
sorry
The other's hand had been resting upon his horse's neck. Suddenly
there was a motion of his knee, a pressure of this hand, a curious
sound, half speech, half cry, addressed to the bay beneath him. Dundee
backed, gathered himself together, arose in air, cleared the rail
fence, overpassed the embankment and the rivulet beneath, touched the
frosted earth of the cornfield, and was away like an arrow toward the
misty white river. Out of the tumult upon the road rang a shot.
Marchmont, the smoking pistol still in hand, urged his horse to the
leap, touched in turn the field below, and at top speed followed the
bay. He shouted to the troopers behind him; their horses made some
difficulty, but in another moment they, too, were in pursuit. Rifles
flashed from the road, but the bay had reached a copse that gave a
moment's shelter. Horse and rider emerged unhurt from the friendly
walls of cedar and locust. Forward, sharpshooters! cried the infantry
captain. A lieutenant and half a dozen men made all haste across the
fence, down the low bluff, and over the field. As they ran one fired,
then another, but the fleeing horse kept on, the rider close to the
neck, in their sight, beyond the water, the Virginia shore. The bay
moved as though he knew not fatigue, but only a friend's dire need. The
stock told; many a race had been won by his forefathers. What his
rider's hand and voice conveyed cannot be precisely known, but that
which was effected was an access of love, courage, and understanding of
the end desired. He moved with every power drawn to the point in hand.
Marchmont, only a few lengths behind, fired again. The ball went
through Cleave's sleeve, grazing his arm and Dundee's shoulder. The two
shot on, Marchmont behind, then the two mounted men, then the
sharpshooters, running afoot. From the road the remainder of the
company watched with immemorial, white-heat interest the immemorial
incident. He's woundedthe bay's wounded, too! They'll get him at the
canal!Thar's a bridge around the bend, but he don't know it!Climb
atop the fence; ye can see better
The canal, deep between willowy banks, a moat to be overpassed
without drawbridge, lay ahead of the foremost horse and rider. A moment
and the two burst through the screen of willows, another, and from the
high, bare bank they had leaped into the narrow, deep, and sluggish
stream. That horse's woundedhe's sinking! No, by God, he ain't!
Whar's the captain from Frederick! Thar he isthar he is! Marchmont
vanished into the belt of willows. The two troopers had swerved; they
knew of the bridge beyond the turn. Dundee swam the canal. The bank
before him, up to the towpath, was of loose earth and stone, steep and
difficult. He climbed it like a cat-o'-mountain. As he reached the
towpath Marchmont appeared before the willows. His horse, a powerful
sorrel, took the water unhesitatingly, but the opposite bank made
trouble. It was but a short delay; while the soldiers on the road held
their breath he was up and away, across the wide field between canal
and river. The troopers, too, had thundered across the bridge. The
sharpshooters were behind them, blue moving points between the shocked
corn. The field was wide, rough, and furrowed, bordered on its southern
side by a line of sycamores, leafless and tall, a lacework of white
branches against the now brilliant sky. Beyond the sycamores lay the
wide river, beyond the river lay Virginia. Dundee, red of eye and
nostril, foam streaked and quivering, raced on, his rider talking to
him as to a lover. But the bay was sore tired, and the sorrel gained.
Marchmont sent his voice before him. Surrender! You'll never reach the
other side!
I'll try mighty hard, answered Cleave between his teeth. He
caressed his horse, he made their two hearts one, he talked to him, he
crooned an air the stallion knew,
Then fling ope your gates, and let me go free,
For it's up with the bonnets of Bonnie Dundee!
Superbly the bay answered. But the sorrel, too, was a thoroughbred,
fresh when he left Frederick. Stride by stride he gained. Cleave
crashed into the belt of sycamores. Before him was the Potomac, cold,
wide, mist-veiled. He heard Marchmont break into the wood and turned.
The aide's arm was raised, and a shaft of red sunlight struck the
barrel of his pistol. Before his finger could move Cleave fired.
The sorrel, pierced through the shoulder, swerved violently, reared,
and plunged, all but unseating his rider. Marchmont's ball passed
harmlessly between the branches of trees. The bay and his master sprang
from the low bank into the flood. So veiled was it by the heavy mist
that, six strokes from shore, all outlines grew indistinct.
The two troopers reached the shore. Where is he, sir?Out there?
They emptied their pistolsit was firing into a cloud. The
sharpshooters arrived. Skilful and grim, they raised their rifles,
scanned the expanse of woolly white before them, and fired at what, now
here, now there, they conceived might be a moving object. The mist lay
close to the river, like a pall. They fired and fired again. Other
infantrymen, arriving, talked excitedly. Thar!No, thar! That's him,
downs-tream! Fire!Darn it! 'T was a piece of drift. Across the
river, tall against the south, wreathed and linked by lianas of grape,
showed, far withdrawn and shadowy, the trees of the Virginia shore. The
rifles continued to blaze, but the mist held, and there came no
answering scream of horse or cry of man. Marchmont spoke at last,
curtly. That's enough! He's either hit and drowned, or he has reached
home. I wish we were on the same side.
One of the troopers uttered an exclamation. Hear that, sir! He's
across! Damned if he isn't halloaing to tell us so!
Faintly, from the southern shore, came a voice. It was raised in a
line of song,
As Joseph was a-walking,
He heard the angels sing
CHAPTER XII. THE BATH AND ROMNEY
TRIP
Richard Cleave and his horse, two tired wights, turned a corner in
the wood and came with suddenness upon a vedette, posted beneath a
beech tree. The vedette brought his short rifle to bear upon the
apparition. Halt! Halt, you in blue! Halt, I say, or I'll blow your
head off.
Down an aisle of the woods, deep in russet leaves, appeared a grey
figure. Hello, Company F! It's all right! It's all right! It's Captain
Cleave, 65th Virginia. Special service. Musket in hand, Allan came at
a run through the slanting sunshine of the forest. It's all right,
CuninghameColonel Ashby will understand.
Here, said the vedette, is Colonel Ashby now.
From another direction, out of the filmy and amethyst haze that
closed each forest vista, came a milk-white horse, stepping high over
the fallen leaves. The rider, not tall, black-bearded, with a pale,
handsome face, sat like a study for some great sculptor's equestrian
masterpiece. In a land where all rode well, his was superb
horsemanship. The cape of his grey coat was lined with scarlet, his
soft wide hat had a black plume; he wore long boots and white
gauntlets. The three beneath the beech saluted. He spoke in a pensive
and musical voice. A prisoner, Cuninghame? Where did you get him?Ah,
it's Richard Cleave!
The bright December day wore on, sunny and cold in the woods, sunny
and cold above the river. The water, clear now of mist, sparkled, a
stream of diamonds, from shore to shore, except where rose Dam No. 5.
Here the diamonds fell in cataracts. A space of crib-work, then falling
gems, another bit of dry logs in the sun, then again brilliancy and
thunder of water over the dam; this in sequence to the Maryland side.
That side reached, there came a mere ribbon of brown earth, and beyond
this ran the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. To-day boats from Cumberland
were going down the canal with coal and forage, and boats from Harper's
Ferry were coming up with a reinforcing regiment of soldiers for Lander
at Hancock. It was bright and lively weather, and the negroes talked to
the mules on the towpath, and the conductors of coal and forage hailed
the soldiers, and the soldiers shouted back. The banks rang to laughter
and voices. Where're you fellows going?Going to Hancock,no,
don't know where it is!Purty day! Seen any rebels crost the
river?At Williamsport they told us there was a rebel spy got away
this morninggalloped down a cliff like Israel Putnam and took to the
river, and if he was drowned or not they don't know No, he wasn't
drowned; he got away, but he was shot. Anyhow, they say he hadn't been
there long enough to find out anything.Wish I could find out
somethingwish I could find out when we're going to fight!Low
braidge!That's a pretty big dam. What's the troops over there in
the field? Indiana? That's a right nice picnic-ground
'Kiss me good-bye, my dear,' he said;
'When I come back, we will be wed.'
Crying, she kissed him, 'Good-bye, Ned!'
And the soldier followed the drum,
The drum,
The echoing, echoing drum!
Over on the Virginia side, behind the friendly woods paced through
by Ashby's men, the height of the afternoon saw the arrival of the
advance guard of that portion of the Army of the Valley which was to
cover operations against Dam No. 5. Later in the day came Garnett with
the remainder of the Stonewall Brigade and a two-gun detachment of the
Rockbridge Artillery, and by sunset the militia regiments were up. Camp
was pitched behind a line of hills, within the peninsula made by the
curve of the river. This rising ground masked the movement; moreover,
with Ashby between any body of infantry and an enemy not in
unreasonable force, that body worked and ate and slept in peace of
mind. Six miles down the river, over on the Maryland side, was
Williamsport, with an infantry command and with artillery. Opposite Dam
No. 5 in the Maryland fields beyond the canal, troops were posted,
guarding that very stretch of river. From a little hill above the tents
frowned their cannon. At Hancock, at Hagerstown, and at Frederick were
other thousands, and all, from the general of the division to the
corporal drilling an awkward squad in the fields beside the canal,
thought of the Army of the Valley as at Winchester.
With the Confederate advance guard, riding Little Sorrel, his cadet
cap over his eyes, his uniform whole and clean, but discoloured like a
November leaf from rain and dust and dust and rain, with great boots
and heavy cavalry spurs, with his auburn beard and his deep-set
grey-blue eyes, with his forehead broad and high, and his aquiline
nose, and his mouth, wide and thin-lipped, came Jackson. The general's
tent was a rude affair. His soldiers pitched it beneath a pine, beside
a small trickling stream half choked with leaves. The staff was
quartered to right and left, and a clump of pines in the rear served
for an Arcadian kitchen. A camp-stool and a table made of a board laid
upon two stumps of trees furnished the leaf-strewn terrace before the
tent. Here, Cleave, coming to report, found his commander.
Jackson was sitting, feet planted as usual, arms at side as usual,
listening to his chief of staff. He acknowledged Cleave's salute, with
a glance, a slight nod of the head, and a motion of the hand to one
side. The young man waited, standing by a black haw upon the bank of
the little stream. The respectful murmur of the chief of staff came to
an end. Very good, major. You will send a courier back to Falling
Waters to halt General Carson there. He is to be prepared to make a
diversion against Williamsport in the morning. I will give precise
instructions later. What of this mill by the river?
It is a very strong, old, stone mill, sir, with windows. It would
command any short-range attack upon the workers.
Good! good! We will put riflemen there. As soon as General Garnett
is up, send him to me.
From the not-distant road came a heavy rumble of wheels and the
sound of horses' feet. There are the guns, now, sir.
Yes. They must wait until nightfall to get into position. Send
Captain McLaughlin to me in half an hour's time.
Yes, sir. Captain Colston of the 2d is here
Very good. I will see him now. That is all, major.
The chief of staff withdrew. Captain Colston of the 2d approached
from the shadows beyond the big pine and saluted. You are from this
region, captain?
Yes, sir. The Honeywood Colstons.
This stone mill is upon your land?
Yes, sir. My mother owns it.
You have been about the dam as a boy?
Yes, sir. In the water above it and in the water below it. I know
every log, I reckon. It works the mill.
If we break it, it will work the mill no longer. In addition, if
the enemy cross, they will probably destroy the property.
Yes, sir. My mother and I would not let that weigh with us. As I
know the construction I should esteem it an honour, sir, if I might
lead the party. I think I may say that I know where the cribs could be
most easily cut.
Very good then, sir. You will report for duty at nine to-night.
Captain Holliday of the 33d and Captain Robinson of the 27th, with a
number of their men, have volunteered for this service. It is not
without danger, as you know. That is all.
Captain Colston departed. Now, Captain Cleave, said the general.
A few minutes later, the report ended, Jackson refolded General
Banks's letter to General Kelly and put it into his pocket-book. Good!
good! he said, and turned slightly on the camp-stool so as to face the
river and the north. It's all right, captain, it's all right!
I wish, sir, said Cleave, that with ten times the numbers you
have, you were leading us across the river. We might force a peace, I
think, and that right quickly.
Jackson nodded. Yes, sir, I ought to have every soldier in
Virginiaif they could be gotten here in time every soldier in the
Carolinas. There would then be but a streamlet of blood where now there
is going to be a great river. The streamlet should run through the land
of them with whom we are righteously at war. As it is, the great river
will run through ours. He rose. You have done your mission well, sir.
The 65th will be up presently.
* * * * *
It took three days to cut Dam No. 5. On the fourth the brigade went
back to Winchester. A week later came Loring with the Army of the
Kanawha, and on the third of January the whole force found itself again
upon the road.
In the afternoon the weather changed. The New Year had come in
smiling, mild as April, dust in the roads, a blue sky overhead. The
withered goldenrod and gaunt mullein stalks and dead asters by the
wayside almost seemed to bloom again, while the winter wheat gave an
actual vernal touch. The long column, winding somewhereno one knew
where, but anyhow on the Pugh Town Road and in a northwesterly
direction (even Old Jack couldn't keep them from knowing that they were
going northwest!)was in high spirits. At least, the Stonewall Brigade
was in spirits. It was said that Loring's men didn't want to come,
anyhow. The men whistled and sang, laughed, joked, were lavish of
opinions as to all the world in general and the Confederate service in
particular. They were sarcastic. The Confederate private was always
sarcastic, but throughout the morning there had been small sting in
their remarks. Breakfastat early dawnwas good and plentiful.
Three days' rations had been served and cooked, and stowed in
haversacks. But, so lovely was the weather, so oppressive in the
sunshine would be a heavy weight to carry, so obliging were the wagon
drivers, so easy in many regiments the Confederate discipline, that
overcoats, blankets, and, in very many instances haversacks, had been
consigned before starting to the friendly care of the wagons in the
rear. The troops marched light, and in a good humour. True, Old Jack
seemed bent on getting therewherever there wasin a tremendous
hurry. Over every smooth stretch the men were double-timed, and there
was an unusual animus against stragglers. There grew, too, a moral
certitude that from the ten minutes' lawful rest in each hour at least
five minutes was being filched. Another and still more certain
conclusion was that the wagon train was getting very far behind.
However, the morning was still sweet, and the column, as a whole,
cheerful. It was a long columnthe Stonewall Brigade, three brigades
of Loring's, five batteries, and a few cavalry companies; eight
thousand, five hundred men in all.
Mid-day arrived, and the halt for dinner. Alas for the men without
haversacks! They looked as though they had borne all the burdens of the
march. There was hunger within and scant sympathy without. Didn't the
damned fools know that Old Jack always keeps five miles ahead of wagon
trains and hell fire? Here, Saunders! take these corn pones over to
those damned idiots with the compliments of Mess No. 4. We know that
they have Cherrystone oysters, canvas-back ducks, terrapin, and peach
brandy in their haversacks, and that they meant to ask us to join them.
So unfortunate!
The cavalry marched on, the artillery marched on, the infantry
marched on. The bright skies subtly changed. The blue grew fainter; a
haze, white, harsh, and cold, formed gradually, and a slight wind began
to blow. The aster and goldenrod, the dried ironweed and sumach, the
red rose hips and magenta pokeberry stalks looked dead enough now, dead
and dreary upon the weary, weary road. The men sang no more; the more
weakly shivered. Before long the sky was an even greyish-white, and the
wind had much increased. Coming from the northwest, it struck the
column in the face; moreover, it grew colder and colder. All types
shivered now, the strong and the weak, the mounted officer and the
leg-weary private, the men with overcoats, and the men without. The
column moved slower and slower, all heads bent before the wind, which
now blew with violence. It raised, too, a blinding dust. A curt order
ran down the lines for less delay. The regiments changed gait, tried
quick time along a level stretch, and left behind a large number of
stragglers. The burst of speed was for naught, they went the slower
thereafter, and coming to a long, bleak hill, crept up it like
tortoisesbut without protecting shells. By sunset the cold was
intense. Word came back that the head of the column was going into
camp, and a sigh of approbation arose from all. But when brigade by
brigade halted, deployed, and broke ranks, it appeared that going into
camp was rather a barren phrase. The wagons had not come up; there
were no tents, no blankets, no provisions. A northwester was blowing,
and the weather-wise said that there would be snow ere morning. The
regiments spread over bare fields, enclosed by rail fences. There were
a small, rapidly freezing stream and thick woods, skirting the fields.
In the woods were fallen boughs and pine cones enough to make the axes
in the company wagons not greatly missed, and detachments were sent to
gather fagots. The men, cold and exhausted, went, but they looked
wistfully at the rail fences all around them, so easy to demolish, so
splendid to burn! Orders on the subject were stringent. Officers
will be held responsible for any destruction of property. We are here
to protect and defend, not to destroy. The men gathered dead
branches and broke down others, heaped them together in the open
fields, and made their camp-fires. The Rockbridge Artillery occupied a
fallow field covered with fox grass, dead Michaelmas daisy, and drifted
leaves. It was a good place for the poor horses, the battery thought.
But the high wind blew sparks from the fires and lighted the grass. The
flames spread and the horses neighed with terror. The battery was
forced to move, taking up position at last in a ploughed field where
the frozen furrows cut the feet, and the wind had the sweep of an
unchained demon. An infantry regiment fared better. It was in a stretch
of fenced field between the road and the freezing brook. A captain,
native of that region, spoke to the lieutenant-colonel, and the latter
spoke to the men. Captain says that we are camping upon his land,
and he's sorry he can't give us a better welcome! But we can have his
fence rails. Give him a cheer, and build your fires! The men cheered
lustily, and tore the rails apart, and had rousing fires and were
comfortable; but the next morning Stonewall Jackson suspended from duty
the donor of his own fences. The brigades of Loring undoubtedly
suffered the most. They had seen, upon the Monterey line, on the
Kanawha, the Gauley, and the Greenbriar, rough and exhausting service.
And then, just when they were happy at last in winter quarters, they
must pull up stakes and hurry down the Valley to join Fool Tom
Jackson of the Virginia Military Institute and one brief day of glory
at Manassas! Loring, a gallant and dashing officer, was popular with
them. Fool Tom Jackson was not. They complained, and they very
honestly thought that they had upon their side justice, common sense,
and common humanityto say nothing of military insight! The bitter
night was bitterer to them for their discontent. Many were from eastern
Virginia or from the states to the south, not yet inured to the winter
heights and Stonewall Jackson's way. They slept on frozen ground,
surrounded by grim mountains, and they dreamed uneasily of the milder
lowlands, of the yet green tangles of bay and myrtle, of quiet marshes
and wide, unfreezing waters. In the night-time the clouds thickened,
and there came down a fine rain, mixed with snow. In the morning,
fields, hillsides, and road appeared glazed with iceand the wagons
were not up!
The country grew rougher, lonelier, a series of low mountains and
partly cleared levels. To a few in the creeping column it may have
occurred that Jackson chose unfrequented roads, therefore narrow,
therefore worse than other roads, to the end that his policy of utter
secrecy might be the better served; but to the majority his course
seemed sprung from a certain cold wilfulness, a harshness without
object, unless his object were to wear out flesh and bone. The road,
such as it was, was sheeted with ice. The wind blew steadily from the
northwest, striking the face like a whip, and the fine rain and snow
continued to fall and to freeze as it fell. What, the evening before,
had been hardship, now grew to actual misery. The column faltered,
delayed, halted, and still the order came back, The general commanding
wishes the army to press on. The army stumbled to its now bleeding
feet, and did its best with a hill like Calvary. Up and down the column
was heard the report of muskets, men falling and accidentally
discharging their pieces. The company officers lifted monotonous
voices, weary and harsh as reeds by a winter pond. Close up,
menclose upclose up!
In the afternoon Loring, riding at the head of his brigades, sent a
staff officer forward with representations. The latter spurred his
horse, but rapid travelling was impossible upon that ice-sheathed road.
It was long before he overtook the rear of the Stonewall Brigade.
Buffeted by the wind, the grey uniforms pale under a glaze of sleet,
the red of the colours the only gleam of cheer, the line crawled over a
long hill, icy, unwooded, swept by the shrieking wind. Stafford in
passing exchanged greetings with several of the mounted officers. These
were in as bad case as their men, nigh frozen themselves, distressed
for the horses beneath them, and for the staggering ranks, striving for
anger with the many stragglers and finding only compunction, in blank
ignorance as to where they were going and for what, knowing only that
whereas they had made seventeen miles the day before, they were not
likely to make seven to-day. He passed the infantry and came up with
the artillery. The steep road was ice, the horses were smooth shod. The
poor brutes slipped and fell, cutting themselves cruelly. The men were
down in the road, lifting the horses, dragging with them at gun and
caisson. The crest of the hill reached, the carriages must be held
back, kept from sliding sideways in the descent. Going down was worse
than coming up. The horses slipped and fell; the weight of gun and
caisson came upon them; together they rolled to the foot, where they
must be helped up and urged to the next ascent. Oaths went here and
there upon the wind, hurt whinnies, words of encouragement, cracking of
whips, straining and groaning of gun carriages.
Stafford left the artillery behind, slowly climbed another hill, and
more slowly yet picked his way down the glassy slope. Before him lay a
great stretch of meadow, white with sleet, and beyond it he saw the
advance guard disappearing in a fold of the wrinkled hills. As he rode
he tried to turn his thoughts from the physical cold and wretchedness
to some more genial chamber of the brain. He had imaginative power,
ability to build for himself out of the void. It had served him well in
the pastbut not so well the last year or two. He tried now to turn
the ring and pass from the bitter day and road into some haunt of
warmth and peace. Albemarle and summerGreenwood and a quiet garden.
That did not answer! Harassment, longing, sore desire, check and
bitternessunhappiness there as here! He tried other resting places
that once had answered, poets' meadows of asphodel, days and nights
culled like a bouquet from years spent in a foreign land, old snatches
out of boyhood. These answered no longer, nor did a closing of the eyes
and a sinking downward, downward through the stratas of being into some
cavern, reckonless and quiet, of the under-man. It as little served to
front the future and try to climb, like Jack of the Beanstalk, to some
plane above and beyond war and disappointment and denying. He was
unhappy, and he spoke wearily to his horse, then shut his lips and
faced the Siberian road. Entering in his turn the fold of the hills, he
soon came up with the advance. As he passed the men on foot a sudden
swirl of snow came in larger flakes from the leaden skies. Before him
were a dozen horsemen, riding slowly. The air was now filled with the
great white flakes; the men ahead, in their caped overcoats, with their
hats drawn low, plodding on tired horses between the hills, all seen
vaguely through the snow veil, had a sudden wintry, desolate, and
far-away seeming. He said to himself that they were ghosts from fifty
years back, ghosts of the Grand Army in the grasp of General January.
He made what haste he could and came up with Stonewall Jackson, riding
with Ashby and with his staff. All checked their horses, the general a
little advanced, Stafford facing him. From General Loring, sir.
Good! What does he want?
There is much suffering among his men, sir. They have seen hard
service and they have faced it gallantly
Are his men insubordinate?
Not at all, sir. But
You are, I believe, the officer whom General Loring sent me once
before?
Yes, general. Many of the men are without rations. Others are
almost barefoot. The great number are unused to mountain work or to so
rigorous a climate.
The commanding general sat regarding the emissary with a curious
chill blankness. In peace, to the outward eye he was a commonplace man;
in war he changed. The authority with which he was clothed went, no
doubt, for much, but it was rather, perhaps, that a door had been
opened for him. His inner self became visible, and that imposingly. The
man was there; a firm man, indomitable, a thunderbolt of war, a
close-mouthed, far-seeing, praying and worshipping, more or less
ambitious, not always just, patriotically devoted fatalist and
enthusiast, a mysterious and commanding genius of an iron sort. When he
was angered it was as though the offender had managed to antagonize
some natural law, or force or mass. Such an one had to face, not an
irritated human organism, but a Gibraltar armed for the encounter. The
men who found themselves confronted by this anger could and did brace
themselves against it, but it was with some hopelessness of feeling, as
of hostility upon a plane where they were at a disadvantage. The man
now sitting his horse before him on the endless winter road was one not
easily daunted by outward aspects. Nevertheless he had at this moment,
in the back of his head, a weary consciousness that war was roseate
only to young boys and girls, that the day was cold and drear, the
general hostile, the earth overlaid with dull misery, that the
immortals, if there were any, must be clamouring for the curtain to
descend forever upon this shabby human stage, painful and sordid, with
its strutting tragedians and its bellman's cry of World Drama!
The snow came down thickly, in large flakes; a horse shook himself,
rubbed his nose against his fellow's neck, and whinnied mournfully. The
pause, which had seemed long, was not really so. Jackson turned toward
the group of waiting officers. Major Cleave.
Cleave pushed his horse a little into the road. Sir.
You will return with this officer to General Loring's command. It
is far in the rear. You will give General Loring this note. As he
spoke he wrote upon a leaf torn from his pocket-book. The words as he
traced them read: General Jackson's compliments to General Loring.
He has some fault to find with the zeal of General Loring, his officers
and men. General Loring will represent to himself that in war soldiers
are occasionally called upon to travel in winter weather. Campaigns
cannot always be conducted in seasons of roses. General Loring will
urge his men forward, without further complaint. T. J. Jackson,
Major-General.
He folded the leaf and gave it to Richard Cleave, then touched
Little Sorrel with his heavy spur and with Ashby and the staff rode on
through the falling snow, between the hills. The small cavalry advance
passed, too, grey and ghost-like in the grasp of General January,
disappearing within the immense and floating veil of the snow. When all
were gone Stafford and Cleave turned their horses' heads toward the
distant column, vaguely seen in the falling day. Stafford made an
expressive sound.
I am sorry, said Cleave gravely. But when you have been with him
longer you will understand him better.
I think that he is really mad.
The other shook his head. He is not mad. Don't get that idea,
Stafford. It is hard on the troops, poor fellows! How the snow
falls! We had better turn out and let the guns pass.
They moved into the untrodden snow lying in the fence corners and
watched the guns, the horses, and men strain past with a sombre noise.
Officers and men knew Richard Cleave, and several hailed him. Where in
hell are we going, Cleave? Old Jack likes you! Tell him, won't you,
that it's damned hard on the horses, and we haven't much to eat
ourselves? Tell him even the guns are complaining! Tell himYes, sir!
Get up there, Selim! Pull, Flora, pull!Whoa!Damnation! Come lay a
hand to this gun, boys! Where's Hetterich! Hetterich, this damned
wheel's off again!
The delay threatening to be considerable, the two men rode on,
picking their way, keeping to the low bank, or using the verge of the
crowded road. At last they left the artillery, and found themselves
again upon a lonely way. I love that arm, said Cleave. There isn't a
gun there that isn't alive to me. He turned in his saddle and looked
back at the last caisson vanishing over the hill.
Shall you remain with the staff?
No. Only through this campaign. I prefer the line.
The snow fell so fast that the trampled and discoloured road was
again whitening beneath it. Half a mile ahead was visible the Stonewall
Brigade, coming very slowly, beaten by the wind, blinded by the snow, a
spectral grey serpent upon the winding road.
Stafford spoke abruptly. I am in your debt for the arrangements I
found made for me in Winchester. I have had no opportunity to thank
you. You were extremely good so to trouble yourself
It was no trouble. As I told you once before, I am anxious to serve
you.
They met the brigade, Garnett riding at the head. Good-day, Richard
Cleave, he said. We are all bound for Siberia, I think! Company by
company the regiments staggered by, in the whirling snow, the colours
gripped by stiffening hands. There were blood stains on the frozen
ground. Oh, the shoes, the shoes that a non-manufacturing country with
closed ports had to make in haste and send its soldiers! Oh, the
muskets, heavy, dull, ungleaming, weighting the fiercely aching
shoulders! Oh, the snow, mounded on cap, on cartridge box, on rolled
blanket and haversack. Oh, the northwest wind like a lash, the pinched
stomach, the dry lips, the wavering sight, the weariness excessive! The
strong men were breathing hard, their brows drawn together and upward.
The weaker soldiers had a ghastly look, as of life shrunk to a point.
Close up, men! Close upclose up!
Farther down the line, on the white bank to which they tried to
keep, the column almost filling the narrow road, Cleave checked his
horse. I have a brother in this regiment, and he has been ill
A company came stumbling by, heads bent before the bitter wind. He
spoke to its captain, the captain spoke to a lieutenant, the lieutenant
to a private in the colour guard, who at once fell out of line and
sprang somewhat stiffly across the wayside depression to the two
horsemen drawn up upon the bank. Well, Richard! It's snowing.
Have you had anything to eat, Will?
Loads. I had a pone of cornbread and a Mr. Rat in my file had a
piece of bacon. We added them and then divided them, and it was lovely,
so far as it went! He laughed ruefully. Only I've still that typhoid
fever appetite
His brother took from under the cape of his coat a small parcel.
Here are some slices of bread and meat. I hoped I would see you, and
so I saved them. Where is that comforter Miriam knitted you?
The boy's eyes glistened as he put out a gaunt young hand and took
the parcel. Won't Mr. Rat and I have a feast! We were just talking of
old Judge at the Institute, and of how good his warm loaves used to
taste! Seems like an answer to prayer. Thank you, Richard! Miriam's
comforter? There's a fellow, a clerk from the store at Balcony Falls,
who hasn't much stamina and no shoes at all. They were bad when he
started, and one fell to pieces yesterday, and he left most of the
other on that bad piece of road this morning. So at the last halt we
cut my comforter in two and tied up his feet with itI didn't need it,
anyway. He looked over his shoulder. Well, I'd better be catching
up!
Richard put a hand upon his arm. Don't give away any more clothing.
You have your blanket, I see.
Yes, and Mr. Rat has an oilcloth. Oh, we'll sleep. I could sleep
now he spoke dreamily; right in that fence corner. Doesn't it look
soft and white?like a feather bed with lovely clean sheets. The fence
rails make it look like my old crib at home He pulled himself
together with a jerk. You take care of yourself, Richard! I'm all
right. Mr. Rat and I were soldiers before the war broke out! He was
gone, stumbling stiffly across to the road, running stiffly to overtake
his company. His brother looked after him with troubled eyes, then with
a sigh picked up the reins and followed Stafford toward the darkening
east.
The two going one way, the haggard regiments another, the line that
seemed interminable came at last toward its end. The 65th held the
rear. There were greetings from many throats, and from Company A a
cheer. Hairston Breckinridge, now its captain, came across. Judge
Allen's Resolutionshey, Richard! The world has moved since then!
I wish Fincastle could see us nowor rather I don't wish it! Oh, we're
holding out all right! The men are trumps. Mathew Coffin, too, came
up. It doesn't look much, Major Cleave, like the day we marched away!
All the serenading and the flowerswe never thought war could be
ugly. He glanced disconsolately down at a torn cuff and a great smear
of frozen mire adorning his coat. I'm rather glad the ladies can't see
us.
The Stonewall Brigade went by. There was again a stretch of horribly
cut road, empty save for here and there poor stragglers, sitting
dismally huddled together beneath a cedar, or limping on painful feet,
hoping somewhere to overtake the boys. A horse had fallen dead and
had been dragged out of the road and through a gap in the fencing into
a narrow field. Beyond this, on the farther boundary of grey rails,
three buzzards were sitting, seen like hobgoblins through the veiling
snow. The afternoon was closing in; it could only be said that the
world was a dreary one.
The Army of the Kanawha, Loring's three brigades, with the batteries
attached, came into view a long way off, grey streaks upon the road.
Before the two horsemen reached it it had halted for the night, broken
ranks, and flowed into the desolate fields. There was yet an hour of
daylight, but discontent had grown marked, the murmuring loud, and the
halt was made. A few of the wagons were up, and a dark and heavy wood
filling a ravine gave fagots for the gathering. The two aides found
Loring himself, middle-aged and imposing, old Indian fighter, hero of
Contreras, Churubusco, Chapultepec, and Garita de Belen, commander,
since the transference of General Robert E. Lee to South Carolina, of
the Army of the Kanawha, gallant and dashing, with an arm left in
Mexico, with a gift for picturesque phrases, with a past full of
variety and a future of a like composition, with a genuine tenderness
and care for his men, and an entire conviction that both he and his
troops were at present in the convoy of a madmanthey found Loring
seated on a log beside a small fire and engaged in cooling in the snow
a too-hot tin cup of coffee. His negro servant busily toasted hardtack;
a brigadier seated on an opposite log was detailing, half fiercely,
half plaintively, the conditions under which his brigade was
travelling. The two from Jackson dismounted, crunched their way over
the snow and saluted. The general looked up. Good-evening, gentlemen!
Is that you, Stafford? Well, did you do your prettiestand did he
respond?
Yes, sir, he responded, replied Stafford, with grimness. But not
by me.Major Cleave, sir, of his staff.
Cleave came forward, out of the whirling snow, and gave Jackson's
missive. It was so dull and dark a late afternoon that all things were
indistinct. Give me a light here, Jupiter! said Loring, and the negro
by the fire lit a great sliver of pine and held it like a torch above
the page. Loring read, and his face grew purple. With a suppressed oath
he sat a moment, staring at the paper, then with his one hand folded it
against his knee. His fingers shook, not with cold, but with rage.
Very good, very good! That's what he says, isn't it, all the time?
'Very good!' or is it 'Good, good!' He felt himself growing
incoherent, pulled himself sharply together, and with his one hand
thrust the paper into his breast pocket. It's all right, Stafford.
Major Cleave, the Army of the Kanawha welcomes you. Will you stay with
us to-night, or have you fifty miles to make ere dawn?
Cleave, it appeared, had not fifty miles to make, but four. He must
report at the appointed bivouac. Loring tore with his one hand a leaf
from his pocket-book, found his pencil, and using a booted knee for a
table, wrote a line, folded and superscribed it. This for General
Jackson. Ugh, what freezing weather! Sit down and drink a cup of coffee
before you go. You, too, Maury. Here, Jupiter! hot coffee. Major
Cleave, do you remember Aesop's fables?
Yes, sir,a number of them.
A deal of knowledge there of damned human nature! The frog that
swelled and swelled and thought himself an ox. Curious how your boyhood
books come back into your mind! Sit down, gentlemen, sit down!
Reardon's got a box of cigars tucked away somewhere or he isn't
Reardon
Along the edge of the not-distant ravine other small fires had been
built. From the circle about one of these arose a quavering voicea
soldier trying to sing cheer into company.
Dere was an old niggah, dey called him Uncle Ned
He's dead long ago, long ago!
He had no wool on de top ob his head,
De place whar de wool ought to grow.
Den lay down de shubble an de hoe,
Hang up de fiddle an de bow
CHAPTER XIII. FOOL TOM JACKSON
The Reverend Mr. Corbin Wood, chaplain to one of Loring's regiments,
coming down from the hillside where he had spent the night, very
literally like a shepherd, found the little stream at its foot frozen
to the bottom. No morning bath for a lover of cleanliness! There had
been little water, indeed, to expend on any toilet since leaving
Winchester. Corbin Wood tried snow for his face and hands, but the snow
was no longer soft, as it had fallen the day before. It was frozen and
harsh. And the holy hermits and the saints on pillars never had a
bathapparently never wanted one!
Reveille sounded drearily enough from the surrounding mountains. The
fires sprang up, but they did not burn brightly in the livid day. The
little there was to eat was warmed and eaten. When, afterwards, the
rolls were called, there were silences. Mr. Ready-to-halt, Mr. Faint
Heart, Mr. Fearing, and also Mr. Honesty, really too ill to march, were
somewhere on the backward road to Winchester. Length by length, like a
serpent grey and cold, sluggish, unburnished, dull, and bewildered, the
column took the road. Deeply cut the day before by the cavalry, by
Garnett's brigade, and by the artillery, the road was horrible. What
had been ridged snow was now ridged ice.
Corbin Wood and his old grey horse were loved by their regiment. The
chaplain was not, physically, a strong man, and his ways were those of
a scholar, but the regiment found them lovable. Pluto the horse was
very wise, very old, very strong and gentle. Upon the march he was of
use to many beside his master. The regiment had grown accustomed to the
sight of the chaplain walking through dust or mud at the bridle of the
grey, saying now and then a word in a sober and cheerful fashion to the
half-sick or wholly weary private seated in his saddle. He was forever
giving some one a lift along the road. Certain things that have had
small place in the armies of the world were commonplaces in the
Confederate service. The man on horseback was a more fortunate, but not
a better mannot even a better born or educated manthan he on foot.
The long grey lines saw nothing strange in a dismounted officer giving
a cast of the road to a comrade in the ranks. So, to-day, the
chaplain's horse was rather for everybody than for the chaplain
himself. An old college mate slipping stiffly to earth after five
inestimable minutes, remonstrated. I'd like to see you riding, Corbin!
Just give yourself a lift, won't you? Look at Pluto looking at that
rent in your shoe! You'll never be a bishop if you go on this way.
The sleet fell and fell, and it was intensely cold. The wagons were
invisible. It was rumoured that they had taken another road. The
country was almost a wilderness. At long intervals the troops came upon
a lonely farmhouse, or a wayside cabin, a mill, a smithy. Loring sent
ahead a foraging party, with orders to purchase all supplies. Hardly
anything was gotten. Little had been made this year and little stored.
Moreover, latterly, the Yankees at Bath had taken all the stock and
poultry and cornand without paying for it either. Yes, sir, there
are Yankees at Bath. More'n you can shake a stick at!
The foragers brought back the news. There are Yankees at
Batheight miles away! Any number of them. Just as certain as it's
sleeting, that's where Old Jack's going!
The news running along the column awoke a small flare of interest.
But it filled no empty stomachs, nor dissipated the numbing cold. The
momentary enthusiasm passed. Eight miles! Have we got to go eight
miles to-day? We haven't made three miles since dawn. If George
Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Julius Caesar were here they
couldn't get this army eight miles to-day!
The cavalry, the artillery, the Stonewall Brigade, Meems and
Carson's Militia, the three brigades of Loringon wound the sick and
sluggish column. The hills were now grey glass, and all the horses
smooth-shod. In advance a corps of pioneers broke with pickaxes the
solid and treacherous surface, roughening the road so that the poor
brutes might gain foothold. The vanguard, stumbling around a bend of
the road, stumbled upon a Federal ambush, horse and foot. To either
side a wood of cedars blazed and rang. A lieutenant of the 21st
Virginia threw up his arms and pitched forward, dead. A private was
badly wounded. The company charged, but the blue outposts fired another
volley and got away, crashing through the woods to some by-road. It was
impossible to follow; chase could not be given over grey glass.
With the closing in of the ghostly day, in a stretch of fields
beside a frozen stream, the column halted. There were no tents, and
there was scarcely anything to eat. One of the fields was covered by
stacked corn, and it was discovered that the ear had been left. In the
driving sleet the men tore apart the shocks and with numbed fingers
stripped from the grain the sere, rough, and icy husks. They and the
horses ate the yellow corn. All night, stupid with misery, the soldiers
dozed and muttered beside the wretched fires. One, a lawyer's clerk,
cried like a child, with his hands scored till they bled by the frozen
corn husks. Down the stream stood a deserted sawmill, and here the
Rockbridge men found planks with which they made for themselves little
pens. The sleet sounded for hours on the boards that served for roof,
but at last it died away. The exhausted army slept, but when in the
grey dawn it stirred and rose to the wailing of the bugles, it threw
off a weight of snow. All the world was white again beneath a livid
sky.
This day they made four miles. The grey trees were draped with ice,
the grey zigzag of the fences was gliding ice under the hands that
caught at it, the hands of the sick and weak. Motion resolved itself
into a Dead March; few notes and slow, with rests. The army moved and
halted, moved and halted with a weird stateliness. Couriers came back
from the man riding ahead, cadet cap drawn over eyes that saw only what
a giant and iron race might do under a giant and iron dictatorship.
General Jackson says, Press Forward! General Jackson says, Press
Forward, men!
They did not reach Bath that night. They lay down and slept behind a
screen of hills and awoke in an amethyst dawn to a sky of promise. The
light, streaming from the east, made glorious the ice-laden trees and
the far and dazzling wastes of snow. The sunshine cheered the troops.
Bath was just aheadBath and the Yankees! The 1st Tennessee and the
48th Virginia suddenly swung from the main road, and moved across the
fields to the ridges overlooking the town. Apparently they had gathered
their strength into a ball, for they went with energy,
double-quickening over the snow. The afternoon before Carson and Meems
had been detached, disappearing to the right. A rumour ran through the
ranks. This force would be now on the other side of Bath. It's like a
cup, all of us on the rim, and the Yanks at the bottom. If Carson can
hold the roads on the other side we've got them, just like so many
coffee grounds! Fifteen hundred of them in blue, and two guns?Boys, I
feel better!
Old Jackthe men began with suddenness again to call him Old
JackOld Jack divulged nothing. Information, if information it was,
came from scouts, couriers, Ashby's vedettes, chance-met men and women
of the region. Something electric flashed from van to rear. The line
went up the hill with rapidity. When they reached the crest the men saw
the cavalry far before and below them, charging upon the town and
shouting. After the horse came a body of skirmishers, then, pouring
down the hillside the 1st Tennessee and the 48th Virginia, yelling as
they ran. From the town burst a loud rattle of musketry, and from a
height beyond a cannon thundered. All the white sides of the cup echoed
the sound.
The infantry swerved to let the artillery by. The guns, grim beneath
their ice coats, the yelling men, the drivers loudly encouraging the
horses, the horses, red-nostrilled, wide-eyedall came somehow,
helter-skelter down the long windings of the ridge. The infantry
followed; the town was entered; the Federals retreated, firing as they
went, streaming out by two roads. One led toward Sir John's Run, the
other direct to the Potomac with Hancock on the Maryland shore, and at
Hancock General Lander with a considerable force. Carson's men, alack!
had found the winter hills no bagatelle. They were not in time to
secure the roads.
The Confederate cavalry, dividing, followed, full tilt, the
retreating foe. A courier brought back to the artillery a curt order
from Jackson to push on by the Hancock road. As he turned, his mare
slipped, and the two came crashing down upon the icy road. When they
had struggled up and out of the way the batteries passed rumbling
through the town. Old men and boys were out upon the trampled
sidewalks, and at window and door women and children waved
handkerchiefs, clapped hands. At a corner, in the middle of the street,
lay a horse, just lifeless, covered with blood. The sight maddened the
battery horses. They reared and plunged, but at last went trembling by.
From the patriarchs and the eager boys came information. The Yankees
were gone, but not their baggage and stores. Everything had been left
behind. There were army blankets, tents, oilcloths, clothing, shoes, cords of firewood, forage for the horses, flour, and fresh meat,
sugar, coffee, sutlers' stores of every kind, wines, spirits,
cigarsoh, everything! The artillery groaned and swore, but obeyed
orders. Leaving Capua behind, it strained along the Hancock road in the
wake of the pursuing cavalry and the fleeing Federals.
The main body of the latter, well in advance and with no exhausting
march behind them to weaken horse and man, reached the Potomac by the
Hancock road at a point where they had boats moored, and got clean
away, joining Lander on the Maryland shore. The lesser number, making
for Sir John's Run and the Big Cacapon and followed by some companies
of Ashby's, did not so quickly escape. The Confederate advance came,
artillery, horse, and skirmishers, upon the river bank at sunset. All
around were great rolling hills, quite bare of trees and covered with
snow, over which the setting sun threw a crimson tinge. Below was the
river, hoarsely murmuring, and immediately upon the other side, the
clustering Maryland village, with a church spire tall and tapering
against the northern sky. About the village was another village of
tents, and upon a hilltop frowned a line of guns. Dusk as it was, the
Confederate batteries unlimbered, and there opened an artillery duel,
shells screaming from north to south and south to north across the
river yet stained with the sunset glow.
That night the infantry remained at Bath, warmed and comforted by
the captured stores. They came like a gift from the gods, and as is
usual with that gift they disappeared in a twinkling. In the afternoon
the three arms met on the river bank. The sky was again a level grey;
it was evident that a snowstorm was brewing. There was not a house;
except for the fringe along the water's edge there was hardly a tree.
The hills were all bare. The snow was packed so hard and so mingled
with ice that when, in the cannonading, the Federal missiles struck and
tore it up the fragments were as keen and troublesome, almost, as
splinters of shell. There was no shelter, little wood for burning. The
men gazed about them with a frown of uneasiness. The storm set in with
a whirl of snow and with a wind that raved like a madman and broke the
spectral white arms of the sycamores by the river. In a short time
there was a shifting, wonderful, numbing veil streaming silent from the
grey heavens. It was almost a relief when dark came and wrapped the
great, lonely, ghostly countryside. This night the men disregarded the
taboo and burned every available fence rail.
In the morning a boat was put across the half-frozen river. It bore
a summons to Lander to surrender, the alternative being a bombardment
of the town. Retaliation for Shepherdstown read Jackson's missive.
Ashby bore the summons and was led blindfold through the streets to
headquarters. Lander, looking momently for reinforcements from
Williamsport, declined to surrender. Ashby passed blindfolded out of
the town, entered the boat, and came back to Stonewall Jackson. The
latter waited two hours, then began to throw shells into the town.
Since early morning a force had been engaged in constructing, two miles
up the river, a rude bridge by which the troops might cross. The
evening before there had been skirmishes at Sir John's Run and at the
Big Cacapon. A regiment of Loring's destroyed the railroad bridge over
the latter stream. The Federals withdrew across the river, leaving no
command in Morgan County.
Throughout the afternoon McLaughlin's battery dropped shells into
Hancock, but an hour before dark came orders to cease firing. A
scoutAllan Goldbrought tidings of heavy reinforcements pouring into
the town from Williamsport and Hagerstown. So heavy were they that
Jackson, after standing for five minutes with his face to the north,
sent orders to discontinue work upon the bridge. Romney, when all was
said, not Hancock, was his destinationKelly's eight thousand in
Virginia, not Lander's brigades across the line. Doubtless it had been
his hope to capture every Federal in Bath, to reach and cross the
Potomac, inflict damage, and retire before those reinforcements could
come up. But the infantry which he commanded was not yet his foot
cavalry, and neither knew nor trusted him as it was to know and trust.
The forces about him to-day were not homogeneous. They pulled two ways,
they were not moulded and coloured as they were to be moulded and
coloured, not instinct with the one man view as they were to become
instinct. They were not iron as he was iron, nor yet thunderbolts of
war. They could not divine the point and hour of attack, and, sooth to
say, they received scant assistance from the actual wizard. They were
patriot forces, simple and manly souls ready enough to die for their
cause, but few were yet at the arrowhead of concentration as was this
man. They were to attain it, but not yet. He looked at the north and he
looked at his complaining legions, and he strode off to his bivouac
beneath a solitary tree. Here, a little later he gave orders to his
brigadiers. The Army of the Northwest would resume the march at early
dawn.
In the harsh coldness of the morning they retraced the road to Bath,
a frightful road, a road over which an army had passed. At noon they
came to Bath, but there was hardly a pause in the town. Beneath a sky
of lead, in a harsh and freezing wind, the troops swung slowly into a
narrow road running west through a meagre valley. Low hills were on
either sidelow and bleak. Scrub oak and pine grew sparsely, and along
the edges of the road dead milkweed and mullein stood gaunt above the
snow. The troops passed an old cider press and a cabin or two out of
which negroes stared.
Before long they crossed a creek and began to climb. All the
landscape was now mountainous. To the right, as the way mounted, opened
a great view, white dales and meadows, far winter forests, and the
long, long wall of North Mountain. There was small care for the view
among the struggling soldiers. The hills seemed perpendicular, the
earth treacherous glass. Going up, the artillerymen must drag with the
horses at gun and caisson; going down the carriages must be held back,
else they would slide sideways and go crashing over the embankment.
Again and again, going down, the horses slipped and fell. The weight of
metal behind coming upon them, the whole slid in a heap to the bottom.
There they must be gotten to their feet, the poor trembling brutes! and
set to the task of another hill. The long, grey, halting, stumbling,
creeping line saw no beauty in the winter woods, in the arched fern
over the snow, in the vivid, fairy plots of moss, in the smooth, tall
ailanthus stems by the wayside, in the swinging, leafless lianas of
grape, pendent from the highest trees, in the imposing view of the
mountains. The line was sick, sick to the heart, numbed and shivering,
full of pain. Every ambulance and wagon used as ambulance was heavy
laden; at every infrequent cabin or lonely farmhouse were left the too
ill to travel farther. The poor servants, of whom there were some in
each company, were in pitiable plight. No negro likes the cold; for him
all the hot sunshine he can get! They shivered now, in the rear of the
companies, their bodies drawn together, their faces grey. The nature of
most was of an abounding cheerfulness, but it was not possible to be
cheerful on this January road to Romney.
The army crossed Sleepy Creek. It was frozen to the bottom. The
cedars along its shore stood so funereally, so crape-like and dark, the
sycamores were so clay-white and long of arm, the great birds slowly
circling above a neighbouring wood of so dreary a significance, that
the heart sank and sank. Was this war?war, heroic and glorious, with
banners, trumpets, and rewarded enterprise? Manassas had been warfor
one brief summer day! But ever since there was only marching, tenting,
suffering, and fatigueand fatigueand fatigue.
Maury Stafford and the Reverend Mr. Corbin Wood found themselves
riding side by side, with other mounted officers, in advance of
Loring's leading regiment. The chaplain had experienced, the day
before, an ugly fall. His knee was badly wrenched, and so, perforce, he
rode to-day, though, as often as he thought the grey could stand it, he
took up a man behind him. Now, however, he was riding single. Indeed,
for the last mile he had uttered no pitiful comment and given no
invitation. Moreover, he talked persistently and was forever calling
his companion's attention to the beauty of the view. At last, after a
series of short answers, it occurred to Stafford to regard him more
closely. There was a colour in the chaplain's cheek and he swayed ever
so slightly and rhythmically in his saddle. Stafford checked his horse,
drew his hand out of an ice-caked gauntlet, and leaning over laid it on
the other's which was bare. The chaplain's skin was burning hot.
Stafford made a sound of concern and rode forward to the colonel. In a
minute he returned. Now you and I, Mr. Wood, will fall out here and
just quietly wait until the wagons come by. Then the doctor will fix
you up nicely in the ambulance.... Oh, yes, you are! You're ill enough
to want to lie down for awhile. Some one else, you know, can ride
Pluto.
Corbin Wood pondered the matter. That's true, that's very true, my
dear Maury. Fontaine, now, behind us in the ranks, his shoes are all
worn out. Fontaine, eh? Fontaine knows more Greek than any manand
he'll be good to Pluto. Pluto's almost worn out himselfhe's not
immortal like Xanthius and Balius. Do you know, Maury, it's little
wonder that Gulliver found the Houyhnhnms so detesting war? Horses have
a dreadful lot in warand the quarrel never theirs. Do but look at
that stream!how cool and pleasant, winding between the willows
Stafford got him to one side of the road, to a small plateau beneath
an overhanging bank. The column was now crawling through a ravine with
a sheer descent on the right to the frozen creek below. To the left,
covering the mountain-side, were masses of evergreen kalmia, and above
them tall and leafless trees in whose branches the wind made a grating
sound. The sleet was falling againa veil of sleet. The two waiting
for the ambulance looked down upon the grey soldiers, grey, weary, and
bent before the wind. Who would ever have thought, said the chaplain,
that Dante took an idea from Virginia in the middle of the nineteenth
century? I remember things being so happy and comfortablebut it must
have been long ago. Yes, my people, long ago. Dropping the bridle, he
raised his arm in a gesture usual with him in the pulpit. In the fading
light there was about him an illusion of black and white; he moved his
arm as though it were clad in the sleeve of a surplice. I am not often
denunciatory, he said, but I denounce this weary going to and fro,
this turning like a dervish, this finding that every straight line is
but a fraction of a circle, this squirrel cage with the greenwood never
reached, this interminable drama, this dance of midges,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the selfsame spot,
And much of Madness and more of Sin
And Horror the soul of the plot
Is it not wonderful, the gold light on the mountains?
At last the ambulance appeareda good one, captured at Manassas.
The chaplain, still talking, was persuaded stiffly to dismount, to give
Pluto's bridle into Stafford's hand, and to enter. There were other
occupants, two rows of them. Stafford saw his old friend laid in a
corner, on a wisp of straw; then, finding Fontaine in the ranks, gave
over the grey, and joined the staff creeping, creeping on tired horses
through the sleet.
Cavalry and infantry and wagon train wound at the close of day over
a vast bare hilltop toward Unger's Store where, it was known, would be
the bivouac. The artillery in the rear found it impossible to finish
out the march. Two miles from Unger's the halt was ordered. It was full
dark; neither man nor brute could stumble farther. All came to a stand
high up on the wind-swept hill. The guns were left in the road, the
horses led down the slope and picketted in the lee of a poor stable,
placed there, it seemed, by some pitying chance. In the stable there
was even found some hay and corn. The men had no supper, or only such
crumbs as were found in the haversacks. They made their fires on the
hillside and crouched around them, nodding uneasily, trying to sleep
with faces scorched by the flame and freezing backs. They put their
feet in the sodden shoes to the fire, and the poor, worn-out leather
fell into yet greater holes. There was some conjecture as to how far
the thermometer stood below zero. Some put it at forty, but the more
conservative declared for twenty. It was impossible to sleep, and every
one was hungry, and the tobacco was all out. What were they doing at
home, by the fire, after supper, with the children playing about?
At dawn the bugles blew. Stiff and sore, racked with pains and
aches, coughing, limping, savagely hungry, the men rose. Time was to
come when even a dawn like this would be met by the Confederate soldier
with whimsical cheer, with greetings as to an oft-encountered friend,
with a courage quaint, pathetic, and divinely highbut the time was
not yet. The men swore and groaned. The haversacks were quite empty;
there would be no breakfast until the wagons were caught up with at
Unger's. The drivers went down the hillside for the horses. When they
came to the strength that had drawn the guns and looked, there was a
moment's silence. Hetterich the blacksmith was with the party, and
Hetterich wept. If I was God, I wouldn't have itI wouldn't have a
horse treated so! Just look at Florajust look at her knees! Ah, the
poor brute! So frequent had been the falls of the day before, so often
had the animals been cut by the carriages coming upon them, that many
were scarred in a dreadful fashion. The knees of Flora had been badly
cut, and what Hetterich pointed at were long red icicles hanging from
the wounds.
At Unger's the evening before, in a narrow valley between the silver
hills, the infantry stacked arms, broke ranks, and listened with sullen
brows to two pieces of news. At Hanging Rock, between Unger's and
Romney, the advance, composed of a regiment of militia and a section of
artillery, had come into touch with the enemy. The militia had broken,
the two guns had been lost. Fool Tom Jackson was reported to have
said, Good! good! and lifted that right hand of his to the sky. The
other tidings were to the effect that the troops would rest at Unger's
for three days, to the end, chiefly, that the horses might be
rough-shod. Restdelicious sound! But Unger's! To the east the
unutterably bleak hills over which they had toiled, to the west Capon
Mountain high and stark against the livid skies, to the south a dark
forest with the snow beneath the trees, to the north long, low hills,
with faded broomsedge waving in the wind. Upon a hilltop perched a
country store, a blacksmith shop, and one or two farmhouses, forlorn
and lonely in the twilight, and by the woods ran Buffalo Run, ice upon
the shallows to either bank.
In the morning, when the artillery was up, when breakfast was over,
roll called, orders read, the army fell to the duties upon which
paramount stress had been laid. All the farriers, the drivers, the men
who had to do with horses, went to work with these poor, wretched,
lame, and wounded friends, feeding them, currying them, dressing their
hurts and, above all, rough-shoeing them in preparation for the icy
mountains ahead. The clink of iron against iron made a pleasant sound;
moreover, this morning, the sun shone. Very cold as it was, there was
cheer in the sky. Even the crows cawing above the woods did not sound
so dolefully. A Thunder Run man found a tree laden with shrivelled
persimmons. He was up it like a squirrel. Simmon tree! Simmon tree!
Comrades came hurrying over the snow; the fruit was dropped into upheld
caps, lifted toward eager mouths. Suddenly there flamed a generous
impulse. Boys! them poor sick fellows with nothing but hardtack The
persimmons were carried to the hospital tents.
Before the sun was halfway to the meridian a curious spectacle
appeared along the banks of Buffalo Run. Every hundred feet or so was
built a large fire. Over it hung a camp kettle, full of waterwater
hot as the fire could make it. Up and down the stream an improvised
laundry went into operation, while, squad by squad, the men performed
their personal ablutions. It was the eighth of January; they had left
Winchester upon the first, and small, indeed, since then had been the
use of washing water. In the dire cold, with the streams frozen,
cleanliness had not tempted the majority, and indeed, latterly, the men
had been too worn out to care. Sleep and food and warmth had
represented the sum of earthly desire. A number, with ostentation, had
each morning broken the ice from some pool or other and bathed face and
hands, but few extended the laved area. The General Order appointing a
Washerman's Day came none too soon. Up and down Buffalo Run, in the
zero weather, the men stripped and bathed. Soap was not yet the scarce
and valuable commodity it was to become; there was soap enough for all
and the camp kettles were filled from the stream as soon as emptied.
Underclothing, too, flannel and cotton, must be washed.... There came
discoveries, made amid Ughs! of disgust. The more fastidious threw
the whole business, undergarment and parasites into the fire; others,
more reasonable, or without a change of clothing, scalded their apparel
with anxious care. The episode marked a stage in warfare. That night
Lieutenant Coffin, writing a letter on his last scrap of pale blue
paper, sat with scrupulously washed hands well back from the board he
was using as a table. His boyish face flushed, his lips quivered as he
wrote. He wrote of lilies and moss rose-buds and the purity of women,
and he said there was a side of war which Walter Scott had never
painted.
Three bleak, pinched days later the army again took the road to
Romney. Four miles from Unger's they began to climb Sleepy Creek
Mountain, mounting the great, sparsely wooded slope like a long line of
warrior ants. To either hand the view was very fine, North Mountain to
the left, Capon Mountain to the right, in between a sea of hills and
long deep valesvery fine and utterly unappreciated. The earth was
hostile, the sky was hostile, the commanding general was hostile. Snow
began to fall.
Allan Gold, marching with Company A, began to think of Thunder Run,
the schoolhouse, and the tollgate. The 65th was now high upon the
mountain-side and the view had vastly widened. The men looked out and
over toward the great main Valley of Virginia, and they looked
wistfully. To many of the men home was over therehome, wife, child,
motherall hopelessly out of reach. Allan Gold had no wife nor child
nor mother, but he thought of Sairy and Tom, and he wondered if Sairy
were making gingerbread. He tried to smell it again, and to feel the
warmth of her kitchenbut then he knew too well that she was not
making gingerbread! Tom's last letter had spoken of the growing
scarcity; flour so high, sugar so high. Everybody was living very
plainly, and the poor were going to suffer. Allan thought of the
schoolhouse. It was closed. He could see just how it looked; a small
unused building, mournful, deserted, crumbling, while past it rushed
the strong and wintry torrent. He thought suddenly of Christianna. He
saw her plainly, more plainly than ever he had done before. She looked
starved, defeated. He thought of the Country. How long would the war
last? In May they had thought Three months. In the flush of triumph
after Manassas they had said It is over. But it wasn't over. Marching
and camping had followed, fights on the Peninsula, fights on the
Kanawha, at Leesburg, at Cheat Mountain, affairs in the far South; and
now McClellan drilling, organizing, organizing below Washington! with
rumours of another On to Richmond. When would the war be over? Allan
wondered.
The column, turning to the right, began to descend the mountain, a
long, slipping, stumbling downward going, with the snow falling heavily
and the wind screaming like a banshee. At the foot was a stretch of
bottom land, then, steep and rocky, grimly waiting to be crossed, rose
Bear Garden Ridge. High Top loomed behind. The infantry could see the
cavalry, creeping up Bear Garden, moving slowly, slowly, bent before
the blast, wraith-like through the falling snow. From far in the rear,
back of the Stonewall Brigade, back of Loring, came a dull soundthe
artillery and the wagon train climbing Sleepy Creek Mountain. It was
three o'clock in the afternoonoh, leaden weariness, hunger, cold,
sickness, worn-out shoes
Back upon the mountain top, in the ambulance taken at Manassas, Mr.
Corbin Wood, better than he had been for several days, but still
feverish, propped himself upon the straw and smiled across at Will
Cleave, who, half carried by his brother, had appeared beside the
ambulance an hour before. Swaying as he stood, the boy protested to the
last that he could march just as well as the other fellows, that they
would think him a baby, that Richard would ruin his reputation, that he
wasn't giddy, that the doctor in Winchester had told him that after you
got well from typhoid fever you were stronger than you ever had been
before, that Mr. Rat would think he was malingering,
thatthatthatRichard lifted him into the ambulance and laid him
upon the straw which several of the sick pushed forward and patted into
place. The surgeon gave a restorative. The elder brother waited until
the boy's eyes opened, stooped and kissed him on the forehead, and went
away. Now Will said that he was rested, and that it was all a fuss
about nothing anyway, and it was funny, travelling like animals in a
circus, and wasn't it most feeding time anyway? Corbin Wood had a bit
of bread which he shared, and two or three convalescents in a corner
took up the circus idea. There ain't going to be another performance
this year! We're going into winter quartersthat's where we're going.
Yes, siree, up with the polar bears And the living skeletons
Gosh! I'm a warm weather crittur! I'd jest like to peacefully fold the
equator in my arms an' go to sleep. Oh, hell!Beg your pardon, sir,
it just slipped out, like one of the snake charmer's rattlers! Boys,
jes' think of a real circus, with all the women folk, an' the tarletan,
an' the spangles, an' the pink lemonade, an' the little fellers
slipping under the ropes, an' the Grand Parade coming in, an' the big
tent so hot everybody's fanning with their hatsOh, Lord! Yes, and
the clownand the ring master What d'ye think of our ring
master? Who d'ye mean? Him? Think of him? I think he's a
damned clown! Don't they call him Fool Tom
Will rose from the straw. While I am by, I'll allow no man to
reflect upon the general commanding this army
A Georgian of Loring's, tall, gaunt, parched, haggard, a college man
and high private astray from his own brigade, rose to a sitting
posture. What in hell is that young cockerel crowing about? Is it
about the damned individual at the head of this army? I take it that it
is. Then I will answer him. The individual at the head of this army is
not a general; he is a schoolmaster. Napoleon, or Caesar, or
Marlborough, or Eugene, or Cromwell, or Turenne, or Frederick wouldn't
turn their heads to look at him as they passed! But every little
school-yard martinet would! He's a pedagogueby God, he's the Falerian
pedagogue who sold his pupils to the Romans! Oh, the lamb-like pupils,
trooping after him through flowers and sunshinestraight into the
hands of Kelly at Romney, with Rosecrans and twenty thousand just
beyond! Yaaah! A schoolmaster leading Loring and all of us! Let him go
back to Lexington and teach the Rule of Three, for by God, he'll never
demonstrate the Rule of One!
He waved a claw-like hand. Kindly do not interrupt. Stiff, fanatic,
inhuman, callous, cold, half mad and wholly rash, without military
capacity, ambitious as Lucifer and absurd as HudibrasI ask again what
is this person doing at the head of this army? Has any one confidence
in him? Has any one pride in him? Has any one love for him? In all this
frozen waste through which he is dragging us, you couldn't find an echo
to say 'One!' Oh, you needn't shout 'One!' You're not an echo; you're
only a misguided V. M. I. cadet! And you don't count either, chaplain!
With all respect to you, you're a non-combatant. And that Valley man
over therehe doesn't count either. He belongs to the Stonewall
Brigade. He's one of Major-General T. J. Jackson's pet lambs. They're
school-teachers' favourites. All they've got to do is to cheer for
their master.Hip, hip, hooray! Here's Old Jack with his hand lifted
and his old cap pulled low, and his sabre carried oblikely, and
his 'God has been very good to us to-day, men!' YaaahLook out! What
are you about?
The cadet and the Valley man threw themselves across the straw, upon
the Georgian. Corbin Wood crawled over and separated them. Boys, boys!
You're quarrelling just because you're sick and tired and cold and
fretful! Try to be good children. I predict there'll come a day when
we'll all cheer like madour friend from Georgia, tooall
cheer like mad when General Jackson goes by, leading us to victory! Be
good now. I was at the circus once, when I was a little boy, when the
animals got to fighting
The way over Bear Garden was steep, the road a mere track among
boulders. There were many fallen trees. In places they lay across the
road, abatis thrown there by the storm to be removed by half-frozen
hands while the horses stood and whinnied. The winter day was failing
when Stonewall Jackson, Ashby, and a portion of the cavalry with the
small infantry advance, came down by precipitous paths into Bloomery
Gap. Here, in a dim hollow and pass of the mountains, beside a shallow,
frozen creek, they bivouacked.
From the other side of Bear Garden, General Loring again sent
Stafford forward with a statement, couched in terms of courtesy
three-piled and icy. The aidea favourite with his generalhad
ventured to demur. I don't think General Jackson likes me, sir. Would
not some other Loring, the Old Blizzard of two years laterhad
sworn. Damn you, Maury, whom does he like? Not any one out of the
Stonewall Brigade! You've got a limberer wit than most, and he can't
make you cowerby the Lord, I've seen him make others do it! You go
ahead, and when you're there talk indigo Presbyterian!
There was a space of trampled snow underneath a giant pine. A
picket on the eastern side of the stream pointed it out, three hundred
yards away, a dark sentinel towering above the forest. He's thar. His
staff's this side, by the pawpaw bushes. Stafford crossed the stream,
shallow and filled with floating ice, climbed the shelving bank, and
coming to the pawpaw bushes found Richard Cleave stooping over the
small flame that Tullius had kindled and was watchfully feeding with
pine cones. Cleave straightened himself. Good-evening, Stafford! Come
to my tiny, tiny fire. I can't give you coffeeworse luck!but
Tullius has a couple of sweet potatoes.
I can't stay, thank you, said the other. General Jackson is over
yonder?
Yes, by the great pine. I will take you to him. The two stepped
from out the ring of pawpaws, Stafford, walking, leading his horse.
General Loring complains again?
Has he not reason to? Stafford looked about him. Ugh! steppes of
Russia!
You think it a Moscow march? Perhaps it is. But I doubt if Ney
complained.
You think that we complain too much?
What do you think of it?
Stafford stood still. They were beside a dark line of cedars,
skirting the forest, stretching toward the great pine. It was twilight;
all the narrow valley drear and mournful; horses and men like phantoms
on the muffled earth. I think, said Stafford deliberately, that to a
Napoleon General Loring would not complain, nor I bear his message of
complaint, but to General Jackson we will, in the interests of all,
continue to make representations.
In the interests of all! exclaimed Cleave. I beg that you will
qualify that statement. Garnett's Brigade and Ashby's Cavalry have not
complained.
No. Many disagreeable duties are left to the brigades of General
Loring.
I challenge that statement, sir. It is not true.
Stafford laughed. Not true! You will not get us to believe that. I
think you will find that representations will be forwarded to the
government at Richmond
Representations of disaffected soldiers?
No, sir! Representations of gentlemen and patriots. Remonstrances
of brave men against the leadership of a petty tyranta diseased
minda Presbyterian deacon crazed for personal distinction
Cleave let his hand fall on the other's wrist. Stop, sir! You will
remember that I am of Garnett's Brigade, and, at present, of General
Jackson's military family
Stafford jerked his wrist away. He breathed hard. All the pent
weariness, irritation, wrath, of the past most wretched days, all the
chill discomfort of the hour, the enmity toward Cleave of which he was
increasingly conscious, the very unsoundness of his position and
dissatisfaction with his errand, pushed him on. Quarrel was in the air.
Eight thousand men had, to-day, found their temper on edge. It was not
surprising that between these two a flame leaped. Member of Garnett's
Brigade and member of General Jackson's military family to the
contrary, said Stafford, these are Russian steppes, and this is a
march from Moscow, and the general in command is no Napoleon, but a
fool and a pedant
I give you warning!
A crazy Barebones masquerading as a Cromwell
The other's two hands on the shoulders of General Loring's aide had
undoubtedlythe weight of the body being thrown forwardthe
appearance of an assault. Stafford's foot slipped upon the freezing
snow. Down he came to the earth, Cleave upon him. A voice behind them
spoke with a kind of steely curtness, Stand up, and let me see who you
are!
The two arose and faced Stonewall Jackson. He had come upon them
silently, out from the screen of blackening cedars. Now he blocked
their path, his lips iron, his eyes a mere gleaming line. Two
squabblers rolling in the snowtwo staff officers brawling before a
disheartened army! What have you to say for yourselves? Nothing!
Stafford broke the silence. Major Cleave has my leave to explain
his action, sir.
Jackson's eyes drew to a yet narrower line. Your leave is not
necessary, sir. What was this brawl about, Major Cleave?
We quarrelled, sir, said Cleave slowly. Major Stafford gave
utterance to certain sentiments with which I did not agree, and ... we
quarrelled.
What sentiments? Yes, sir, I order you to answer.
Major Stafford made certain statements as to the army and the
campaignstatements which I begged to contradict. I can say no more,
sir.
You will tell me what statements, major.
It is impossible for me to do that, sir.
My orders are always possible of execution, sir. You will answer
me.
Cleave kept silence. The twilight settled closer; the dark wall of
the cedars seemed to advance; a hollow wind blew through the forest.
Why, I will tell you, sir! said Stafford impatiently. I said
Jackson cut him short. Be silent, sir! I have not asked you for
your report. Major Cleave, I am waiting.
Cleave made a slight gesture, sullen, weary, and determined. I am
very sorry, sir. Major Stafford made certain comments which I resented.
Hence the action of a moment. That is all that I can say, sir.
Stafford spoke with curt rapidity. I said that these were Russian
steppes and that this was a march from Moscow, but that we had not a
Napoleon to soften privation for us. I said that the Stonewall Brigade
was unduly favoured, that the general commanding was
He got no further. Silence, sir, said Jackson, or I will bring
you before a court martial! You will come with me now to my tent. I
will hear General Loring's latest communication there. He turned upon
Cleave. As for you, sir, you will consider yourself under arrest,
first for disobedience of orders, second for brawling in camp. You will
march to-morrow in the rear of your regiment.
He towered a moment, then with a jerk of his hand went away, taking
with him the officer from Loring. Stafford had a moment in which to
make a gesture of anger and deprecationa gesture which the other
acknowledged with a nod; then he was gone, looking back once. Cleave
returned to Tullius and the small fire by the pawpaw bushes.
An hour later when his regiment came down into Bloomery Gap, he
found the colonel and made his report. Why, damn it all! said the
colonel. We were backing you for the brush. Hunting weather, and a
clean run and all the dogs of war to fawn upon you at the end! And
here's a paltry three-foot hedge and a bad tumble! Never you mind!
You'll pick yourself up. Old Jack likes you first-rate.
Cleave laughed. It doesn't much look like it, sir! WellI'm back
with the regiment, anyway!
All that night it snowed, snowed hard. When the day broke the valley
had the seeming of a crowded graveyardnumberless white mounds
stretching north and south in the feeble light. A bugle blew, silver
chill;the men beneath the snow stirred, moaned, arose all white. All
that day they marched, and at dusk crossed the Capon and bivouacked
below the shoulder of Sand Mountain. In the morning they went up the
mountain. The road was deep sand, intolerably toilsome. The column
ascended in long curves, through a wood of oak and hickory, with vast
tangles of grape hanging from the trees. Cavalry, infantry, artillery,
wagon train, stragglers, the army came slowly, slowly down Sand
Mountain, crossed the slender levels, and climbed Lovett's Mountain.
Lovett's was long and high, but at last Lovett's, too, was overpassed.
The column crept through a ravine with a stream to the left. Grey
cliffs appeared; fern and laurel growing in the clefts. Below lay deep
snowdrifts with blue shadows. Ahead, overarching the road, appeared a
grey mass that all but choked the gorge. Hanging Rock! quoth some
one. That's where the guns were lost! The army woke to interest.
Hanging Rock!... How're we going to get by? That ain't a road, it's
just a cow path!Powerful good place for an ambush
The column passed the rock, and leaving the pass came into open
country. Before the leading brigade was a creek, an old covered bridge
now almost burned away, and the charred ruin of a house. By the
roadside lay a dead cow; in the field were others, and buzzards were
circling above a piece of woods. A little farther a doga big, brown
shepherdlay in the middle of the road. Its throat had been cut. By
the blackened chimney, on the stone hearth drifted over by the snow,
stood a child's cradle. Nothing living was to be seen; all the
out-houses of the farm and the barn were burned.
It was the beginning of a track of desolation. From Hanging Rock to
Romney the Confederate column traversed a country where Kelly's troops
had been before it. To well-nigh all of the grey rank and file the
vision came with strangeness. They were to grow used to such sights,
used, used! but now they flamed white with wrath, they exclaimed, they
stammered. What! what! Just look at that thar tannery! They've slit
the hides to ribbons!That po' ole white horse! What'd he done, I
wonder?... What's that trampled in the mud? That's a doll baby. O Lord!
Pick it up, Tom!Maybe 'twas a mill once, but won't never any more
water go over that wheel!... Making war on children and doll babies and
dumb animals and mills!
Now as hereafter the immediate effect was almost that of warmth and
rest, food and wine. Suddenly the men began to say, Old Jack. Wait
till Old Jack gets there! Just wait till Old Jack and us gets there. I
reckon there'll be something doing! There'll be some shooting, I
reckon, that ain't practised on a man's oxen!I reckon we'd better
step up, boys!Naw, my foot don't hurt no more!
A mounted officer came by. General Jackson says, 'Press forward,
men!'
The men did their best. It was very cold, with a high, bitter wind.
Another low mountain presented itself; the road edged by banks of
purplish slate, to either hand great stretches of dogwood showing
scarlet berries, or sumach lifting torches in which colour yet
smouldered. The column came down a steep descent, crossed a creek, and
saw before it Jersey Mountain. Jersey Mountain proved ghastly; long,
high, bare, blown against by all the winds. There had been upon Jersey
a few cabins, a smithy, a mountain schoolnow there were only
blackened chimneys. The men panted as they climbed; the wind howled
along the crest, the snow began to swirl. At a turn of the road where
had been a cabin, high upon the bank above the men, stood a mountain
woman, her linsey skirt wrapped about her by the wind, her thick, pale
Saxon hair lifted and carried out to its full length, her arms raised
above her head. Air ye going against them? Air ye going against them?
The lightning go with yeand the fire go with yeand the hearts of
your mothers go with ye! Oh-h!Oh-h-h-h!Oh-h! Shoot them down!
It was as though Jersey would never be overpassed. There grew before
the men's eyes, upon the treeless plateau which marked the summit, a
small country church and graveyard. Inexpressibly lonely they looked
against the stormy sky, lonely and beckoning. From company to company
ran a statement. When you get to that church you're just three miles
from Romney. Up and up they mounted. The cavalry and advance guard,
seen for a moment against a level horizon, disappeared beyond the
church, over the brink of the hill. The main column climbed on through
the wind and the snow; the rear came far behind. The Stonewall Brigade
led the main body. As it reached the crest of Jersey, a horse and
rider, a courier of Jackson's coming from the west, met it, rose in his
stirrups, and shouted, The damned vandals have gone! The Yankees have
gone! They've gotten across the river, away to Cumberland! You weren't
quick enough. General Jackson says, 'By God, you are too slow!' The
courier even in his anger caught himself. I say, 'By God!'
General Jackson says, 'You are too slow.' They've goneonly Ashby at
their heels! They've left their stores in Romney, but they've gone,
every devil of them! By God, General Jackson says, 'you should have
marched faster!'
He was gone, past the brigade, on to Loring's with his tidings. The
Stonewall Brigade left behind the graveyard and the church and began
the long descent. At first a great flame of anger kept up the hearts of
the men. But as they marched, as they toiled down Jersey, as the
realization of the facts pressed upon them, there came a change. The
enemy had been gone from Bath; the enemy had been inaccessible at
Hancock; now the enemy was not at Romney. Cumberland! Cumberland was
many a wintry mile away, on the other side of the Potomac. Here, here
on Jersey, there were cold, hunger, weariness, sickness, clothing grown
ragged, shoes between a laugh and a groan, the snow falling, the wind
rising, the day declining, and misery flapping dark wings above the
head of the Army of the Northwest! Over the troops flowed, resistless,
a wave of reaction, nausea, disappointment, melancholy. The step
changed. Toward the foot of Jersey came another courier. Yes, sir. On
toward New Creek. General Jackson says, 'Press forward!'
The Stonewall Brigade tried to obey, and somewhat dismally failed.
How could it quicken step again? Night was coming, the snow was
falling, everybody was sick at heart, hobbling, limping, dog-tired. The
Close up, men, the Get on, men! of the officers, thin, like
a child's fretful wail, was taken up by the wind and lost. With Romney
well in sight came a third courier. General Jackson says, 'Press
forward!'No, sir. He didn't say anything else. But I've been speaking
with a courier of Ashby's. He says there are three railroad
bridges,one across Patterson's Creek and two across the river. If
they were destroyed the enemy's communications would be cut. He thinks
we're headed that way. It's miles the other side of Romney. He passed
down the column. General Jackson says, 'Press forward!'
Press forwardPress forward! It went like the tolling of a
bell, on and on toward the rear, past the Stonewall Brigade, past the
artillery, on to Loring yet climbing Jersey. Miles beyond Romney!
Railroad bridges to cut!Frozen creeks, frozen rivers, steel in a
world of snowKelly probably already at Cumberland, and Rosecrans
beyond at Wheelinghunger, cold, winter in the spurs of the
Alleghenies, disease, stragglers, weariness, worn-out shoes,
broken-down horses, disappointment, disillusion, a very, very strange
commanding generalSuddenly confidence, heretofore a somewhat limping
attendant of the army, vanished quite away. The shrill, derisive wind,
the grey wraiths of snow, the dusk of the mountains took her, conveyed
her from sight, and left the Army of the Northwest to the task of
following without her Fool Tom Jackson.
CHAPTER XIV. THE IRON-CLADS
Miss Lucy Cary, knitting in hand, stood beside the hearth and
surveyed the large Greenwood parlour. The lining of the window
curtains, she said, is good, stout, small figured chintz. My mother
got it from England. Four windowsfour yards to a sidesay thirty-two
yards. That's enough for a dozen good shirts. The damask itself?I
don't know what use they could make of it, but they can surely do
something. The net curtains will do to stretch over hospital beds. Call
one of the boys, Julius, and have them all taken down.Well, what is
it?
Miss Lucy, chile, when you done sont de curtains ter Richmon', how
is you gwine surmantle de windows?
We will leave them bare, Julius. All the more sunlight.
Unity came in, knitting. Aunt Lucy, the velvet piano cover could
go.
That's a good idea, dear. A capital blanket!
A soldier won't mind the embroidery. What is it, Julius?
Miss Unity, when you done sont dat kiver ter Richmon', what you
gwine investigate dat piano wif?
Why, we'll leave it bare, Julius! The grain of the wood shows
better so.
The bishop, said Miss Lucy thoughtfullythe bishop sent his
study carpet last week. What do you think, Unity?
Unity, her head to one side, studied the carpet. Do you reckon they
would really sleep under those roses and tulips, Aunt Lucy? Just
imagine Edward!But if you think it would do any good
We might wait awhile, seeing that spring is here. If the war should
last until next winter, of course we shall send it.
Unity laughed. Julius looks ten years younger! Why, Uncle Julius,
we have bare floors in summer, anyhow!
Yaas, Miss Unity, said Julius solemnly. An' on de hottes' day ob
July you hab in de back ob yo' haid dat de cyarpets is superimposin' in
de garret, in de cedar closet, ready fer de fust day ob November. How
you gwine feel when you see November on de road, an' de cedar closet
bar ez er bone? Hit ain' right ter take de Greenwood cyarpets an'
curtains, an' my tablecloths an' de blankets an' sheets an' Ole Miss's
fringed counterpanesno'm, hit ain't right eben if de ginerals do
sequesterate supplies! How de house gwine look when marster come home?
Molly entered with her knitting. The forsythia is in bloom! Aunt
Lucy, please show me how to turn this heel. Car'line says you told her
not to make sugar cakes for Sunday?
Yes, dear, I did. I am sorry, for I know that you like them. But
everything is so hard to getand the armiesand the poor people. I've
told Car'line to give us no more desserts.
Oh! cried Molly. I wasn't complaining! It was Car'line who was
fussing. I'd give the army every loaf of sugar, and all the flour. Is
that the way you turn it?
Knitknitknit
The soldiers' feet to fit!
She curled herself up on the long sofa, and her needles went click,
click! Unity lifted the music from the piano lid, drew off the velvet
cover, and began to fold it. Muttering and shaking his head, Julius
left the room. Miss Lucy went over and stood before the portrait of her
mother. Unity, she said, would you send the great coffee urn to
Richmond for the Gunboat Fair, or would you send lace?
Unity pondered the question. The lace would be easier to send, but
maybe they would rather have the silver. I don't see who is to buy at
the Fairevery one is giving. Oh, I wish we had a thousand
gunboats and a hundred Virginias
A door banged in the distance and the windows of the parlour
rattled. The room grew darker. I knew we should have a storm! said
Miss Lucy. If it lightens, put by your needles.
Judith came in suddenly. There's going to be a great storm! The
wind is blowing the elms almost to the ground! There are black clouds
in the east. I hope that there are clouds over the ocean, and over
Chesapeake, and over Hampton Roadsexcept where the Merrimac lies! I
hope that there it is still and sunny. Clouds, and a wind like a
hurricane, a wind that will make high waves and drive the shipsand
drive the Monitor! There will be a great storm. If the elms break,
masts would break, too! Oh, if this night the Federal fleet would only
go to the bottom of the sea!
She crossed the room, opened the French window, and stood, a hand on
either side of the window frame, facing the darkened sky and the
wind-tossed oaks. Behind her, in the large old parlour, there was an
instant's silence. Molly broke it with a shocked cry, Judith
Jacqueline Cary!
Judith did not answer. She stood with her hair lifted by the wind,
her hands wide, touching the window sides, her dark eyes upon the
bending oaks. In the room behind her Miss Lucy spoke. It is they or
us, Molly! They or all we love. The sooner they suffer the sooner they
will let us alone. They have shut up all our ports. God forgive me, but
I am blithe when I hear of their ships gone down at sea!
Yes, said Judith, without turning. Not stranded as they were
before Roanoke Island, but wrecked and sunken. Come, look, Unity, at
the wild storm!
Unity came and stood beside her. The oaks outside, like the elms at
the back of the house, were moving in the blast. Over them hurried the
clouds, black, large, and low. Down the driveway the yellow forsythias,
the red pyrus japonicas showed in blurs of colours. The lightning
flashed, and a long roll of thunder jarred the room. You were the
dreamer, said Unity, and you had most of the milk of human kindness,
and now you have been caught up beyond us all!
Her sister looked at her, but with a distant gaze. It is because I
can dreamno, not dream, see! I follow all the timeI follow with my
mind the troops upon the march, and the ships on the sea. I do not hate
the shipsthey are beautiful, with the green waves about them and the
sea-gulls with shining wings. And yet I wish that they would
sinkdown, down quickly, before there was much suffering, before the
men on them had time for thought. They should go like a stone to the
bottom, without suffering, and they should lie there, peacefully, until
their spirits are called again. And our ports should be open, and less
blood would be shed. Less blood, less anger, less wretchedness, less
pain, less shedding of tears, less watching, watching, watching
Look! cried Unity. The great oak bough is going!
A vast spreading bough, large itself as a tree, snapped by the wind
from the trunk, came crashing down and out upon the lawn. The thunder
rolled again, and large raindrops began to splash on the gravel paths.
Some one is coming up the drive, exclaimed Unity. It's a soldier!
He's singing!
The wind, blowing toward the house, brought the air and the quality
of the voice that sang it.
Beau chevalier qui partez pour la guerre,
Qu'allez-vous faire
Si loin d'ici?
Voyez-vous pas que la nuit est profonde,
Et que le monde
N'est que souci?
Edward! cried Judith. It is Edward!
The Greenwood ladies ran out on the front porch. Around the house
appeared the dogs, then, in the storm, two or three turbaned negresses.
Mammy, coifed and kerchiefed, came down the stairs and through the
house. O my Lawd! Hit's my baby! O glory be! Singin' jes' lak he uster
sing, layin' in my lapmammy singin' ter him, an' he singin' ter
mammy! O Marse Jesus! let me look at him
Beau chevalier qui partez pour la guerre,
Qu'allez-vous faire
Si loin de nous?
Judith ran down the steps and over the grass, through the storm.
Beyond the nearer trees, by the great pyrus japonica bush, flame-red,
she met a ragged spectre, an Orpheus afoot and travel-stained, a
demigod showing signs of service in the trenches, Edward Cary, in
short, beautiful still, but gaunt as any wolf. The two embraced; they
had always been comrades. Edward, Edward
Eleven months, said Edward. Judith, Judith, if you knew how good
home looks
How thin you are, and brown! And walking!Where is Prince
Johnand Jeames?
Didn't I tell you in my last letter? Prince John was killed in a
fight we had on the Warwick River.... Jeames is in Richmond down with
fever. He cried to come, but the doctor said he mustn't. I've only
three days myself. Furloughs are hard to get, but just now the
government will do anything for anybody who was on the MerrimacYou're
worn yourself, Judith, and your eyes are so big and dark!Is it Maury
Stafford or Richard Cleave?
Amid the leaping of the dogs they reached the gravelled space before
the house. Miss Lucy folded her nephew in her arms. God bless you,
Edward She held him off and looked at him. I never saw it
beforebut you're like your grandfather, my dear; you're like my dear
father!O child, how thin you are!
Unity and Molly hung upon him. The papers told us that you were on
the Merrimacthough we don't know how you got there! Did you come from
Richmond? Have you seen father?
Yes, for a few moments. He has come up from the south with General
Lee. General Lee is to be commander of all the forces of the
Confederacy. Father is well. He sent his dear love to you all. I saw
Fauquier, too
Mammy met him at the top of the steps. Oh, my lamb! O glory
hallelujah! What you doin' wid dem worn-out close? An' yo' sh'ut tohn
dat-er-way? What dey been doin' ter youdat's what I wants ter know?
My po' lamb!Marse Edward, don' you laugh kaze mammy done fergit you
ain' er baby still
Edward hugged her. One night in the trenches, not long ago, I swear
I heard you singing, mammy! I couldn't sleep. And at last I said, 'I'll
put my head in mammy's lap, and she'll sing me
The Buzzards and the Butterflies
and I'll go to sleep.' I did it, and I went off like a babyWell,
Julius, and how are you?
Within the parlour there were explanations, ejaculations, questions,
and answers. So short a furloughwhen we have not seen you for almost
a year! Never mindof course, you must get back. We'll have a little
party for you to-morrow night. Oh, how brown you are, and your
uniform's so ragged! Never mindwe've got a bolt of Confederate cloth
and Johnny Bates shall come out to-morrow.... All well. Knitting and
watching, watching and knitting. The house has been full of
refugeesFairfaxes and Fauntleroys. They've gone on to Richmond, and
we're alone just now. We take turn about at the hospitals in
Charlottesvillethere are three hundred sickand we look after the
servants and the place and the poor families whose men are gone, and we
read the papers over and over, every wordand we learn letters off by
heart, and we make lint, and we twist and turn and manage, and we knit
and knit and wait and waitHere's Julius with the wine! And your
room's readyfire and hot water, and young Cato to take Jeames's
place. Car'line is making sugar cakes, and we shall have coffee for
supper.... Hurry down, Edward, Edward darling!
Edward darling came down clean, faintly perfumed, shaven, thin,
extremely handsome and debonair. Supper went off beautifully, with the
last of the coffee poured from the urn that had not yet gone to the
Gunboat Fair, with the Greenwood ladies dressed in the best of their
last year's gowns, with flowers in Judith's hair and at Unity's throat,
with a reckless use of candles, with Julius and Tom, the dining-room
boy, duskily smiling in the background, with the spring rain beating
against the panes, with the light-wood burning on the hearth, with
Churchill and Cary and Dandridge portraits, now in shadow, now in gleam
upon the wallswith all the cheer, the light, the gracious warmth of
Home. None of the women spoke of how seldom they burned candles now, of
how the coffee had been saved against an emergency, and of the luxury
white bread was becoming. They ignored, too, the troubles of the
plantation. They would not trouble their soldier with the growing
difficulty of finding food for the servants and for the stock, of the
plough horses gone, and no seed for the sowing, of the problem it was
to clothe the men, women, and children, with osnaburgh at thirty-eight
cents a yard, with the difficulties of healing the sick, medicine
having been declared contraband of war and the home supply failing.
They would not trouble him with the makeshifts of women, their
forebodings as to shoes, as to letter paper, their windings here and
there through a maze of difficulties strange to them as a landscape of
the moon. They would learn, and it was but little harder than being in
the field. Not that they thought of it in that light; they thought the
field as much harder as it was more glorious. Nothing was too good for
their soldier; they would have starved a week to have given him the
white bread, the loaf sugar, and the Mocha.
Supper over, he went down to the house quarter to speak to the men
and women there; then, in the parlour, at the piano, he played with his
masterly touch The Last Waltz, and then he came to the fire, took his
grandfather's chair, and described to the women the battle at sea.
We were encamped on the Warwick Riverinfantry, and a cavalry
company, and a battalion from New Orleans. Around us were green flats,
black mud, winding creeks, waterfowl, earthworks, and what guns they
could give us. At the mouth of the river, across the channel, we had
sunk twenty canal boats, to the end that Burnside should not get by.
Besides the canal boats and the guns and the waterfowl there was a deal
of fevermalarialof exposure, of wet, of mouldy bread, of
homesickness and general desolation. Some courage existed, too, and
singing at times. We had been down there a long time among the
marshesall winter, in fact. About two weeks ago
Oh, Edward, were you very homesick?
Devilish. For the certain production of a very curious feeling,
give me picket duty on a wet marsh underneath the stars! Poetic
placesmarsheswith a strong suggestion about them of The Last
Man.... Where was I? Down to our camp one morning about two weeks ago
came El Capitan ColoradoGeneral Magruder, you knowgold lace, stars,
and black plume! With him came Lieutenant Wood, C. S. N. We were
paraded
Edward, try as I may, I cannot get over the strangeness of your
being in the ranks!
Edward laughed. There's many a better man than I in them, Aunt
Lucy! They make the best of crows'-nests from which to spy on life, and
that is what I always wanted to doto spy on life!The men were
paraded, and Lieutenant Wood made us a speech. 'The old Merrimac, you
know, men, that was burnt last year when the Yankees left
Norfolk?well, we've raised her, and cut her down to her berth deck,
and made of her what we call an iron-clad. An iron-clad is a new
man-of-war that's going to take the place of the old. The Merrimac is
not a frigate any longer; she's the iron-clad Virginia, and we rather
think she's going to make her name remembered. She's over there at the
Gosport Navy Yard, and she's almost ready. She's covered over with iron
plates, and she's got an iron beak, or ram, and she carries ten guns.
On the whole, she's the ugliest beauty that you ever saw! She's almost
ready to send to Davy Jones's locker a Yankee ship or two. Commodore
Buchanan commands her, and you know who he is! She's got her full quota
of officers, and, the speaker excepted, they're as fine a set as you'll
find on the high seas! But man-of-war's men are scarcer, my friends,
than hen's teeth! It's what comes of having no maritime population.
Every man Jack that isn't on our few little ships is in the armyand
the Virginia wants a crew of three hundred of the bravest of the brave!
Now, I am talking to Virginians and Louisianians. Many of you are from
New Orleans, and that means that some of you may very well have been
seamenseamen at an emergency, anyhow! Anyhow, when it comes to an
emergency Virginians and Louisianians are there to meet iton sea or
on land! Just now there is an emergencythe Virginia's got to have a
crew. General Magruder, for all he's got only a small force with which
to hold a long lineGeneral Magruder, like the patriot that he is, has
said that I may ask this morning for volunteers. Men! any seaman among
you has the chance to gather laurels from the strangest deck of the
strangest ship that ever you saw! No fear for the laurels! They're
fresh and green even under our belching smokestack. The Merrimac is up
like the phoenix; and the last state of her is greater than the first,
and her name is going down in history! Louisianians and Virginians, who
volunteers?'
About two hundred volunteered
Edward, what did you know about seamanship?
Precious little. Chiefly, Unity, what you have read to me from
novels. But the laurels sounded enticing, and I was curious about the
ship. Well, Wood chose about eightyall who had been seamen or gunners
and a baker's dozen of ignoramuses beside. I came in with that portion
of the elect. And off we went, in boats, across the James to the
southern shore and to the Gosport Navy Yard. That was a week before the
battle.
What does it look like, Edwardthe Merrimac?
It looks, Judith, like Hamlet's cloud. Sometimes there is an
appearance of a barn with everything but the roof submergedor of
Noah's Ark, three fourths under water! Sometimes, when the flag is
flying, she has the air of a piece of earthworks, mysteriously floated
off into the river. Ordinarily, though, she is rather like a turtle,
with a chimney sticking up from her shell. The shell is made of pitch
pine and oak, and it is covered with two-inch thick plates of Tredegar
iron. The beak is of cast iron, standing four feet out from the bow;
that, with the rest of the old berth deck, is just awash. Both ends of
the shell are rounded for pivot guns. Over the gun deck is an iron
grating on which you can walk at need. There is the pilot-house covered
with iron, and there is the smokestack. Below are the engines and
boilers, condemned after the Merrimac's last cruise, and, since then,
lying in the ooze at the bottom of the river. They are very wheezy,
trembling, poor old men of the sea! It was hard work to get the coal
for them to eat; it was brought at last from away out in Montgomery
County, from the Price coal-fields. The guns are two 7-inch rifles, two
6-inch rifles, and six 9-inch smoothbores; ten in all.Yes, call her a
turtle, plated with iron; she looks as much like that as like anything
else.
When we eighty men from the Warwick first saw her, she was swarming
with workmen. They continued to cover her over, and to make impossible
any drill or exercise upon her. Hammer, hammer upon belated plates from
the Tredegar! Tinker, tinker with the poor old engines! Make shift here
and make shift there; work through the day and work through the night,
for there was a rumour abroad that the Ericsson, that we knew was
building, was coming down the coast! There was no chance to drill, to
become acquainted with the turtle and her temperament. Her species had
never gone to war before, and when you looked at her there was room for
doubt as to how she would behave! Officers and men were strange to one
anotherand the gunners could not try the guns for the swarming
workmen. There wasn't so much of the Montgomery coal that it could be
wasted on experiments in firing upand, indeed, it seemed wise not to
experiment at all with the ancient engines! So we stood about the navy
yard, and looked down the Elizabeth and across the flats to Hampton
Roads, where we could see the Cumberland, the Congress, and the
Minnesota, Federal ships lying off Newport Newsand the workmen
rivetted the last platesand smoke began to come out of the
smokestackand suddenly Commodore Buchanan, with his lieutenants
behind him, appeared between us and the Merrimacor the Virginia. Most
of us still call her the Merrimac. It was the morning of the eighth.
The sun shone brightly and the water was very blueblue and still.
There were sea-gulls, I remember, flying overhead, screaming as they
flewand the marshes were growing emerald
Yes, yes! What did Commodore Buchanan want?
Don't be impatient, Molly! You women don't in the least look like
Griseldas! Aunt Lucy has the air of her pioneer great-grandmother who
has heard an Indian calling! And as for JudithJudith!
Yes, Edward.
Come back to Greenwood. You looked a listening Jeanne d'Arc. What
did you hear?
I heard the engines working, and the sea fowl screaming, and the
wind in the rigging of the Cumberland. Go on, Edward.
We soldiers turned seamen came to attention. 'Get on board, men,'
said Commodore Buchanan. 'We are going out in the Roads and introduce a
new era.' So off the workmen came and on we wentthe flag officers and
the lieutenants and the midshipmen and the surgeons and the volunteer
aides and the men. The engineers were already below and the gunners
were looking at the guns. The smoke rolled up very black, the ropes
were cast off, a bugle blew, out streamed the stars and bars, all the
workmen on the dock swung their hats, and down the Elizabeth moved the
Merrimac. She moved slowly enough with her poor old engines, and she
steered badly, and she drew twenty-two feet, and she was ugly, ugly,
ugly,poor thing!
Now we were opposite Craney Island, at the mouth of the Elizabeth.
There's a battery there, you know, part of General Colston's line, and
there are forts upon the main along the James. All these were now
crowded with men, hurrahing, waving their caps.... As we passed Craney
they were singing 'Dixie.' So we came out into the James to Hampton
Roads.
Now all the southern shore from Willoughby's Spit to Ragged Island
is as grey as a dove, and all the northern shore from Old Point Comfort
to Newport News is blue where the enemy has settled. In between are the
shining Roads. Between the Rip Raps and Old Point swung at anchor the
Roanoke, the Saint Lawrence, a number of gunboats, store ships, and
transports, and also a French man-of-war. Far and near over the Roads
were many small craft. The Minnesota, a large ship, lay halfway between
Old Point and Newport News. At the latter place there is a large
Federal garrison, and almost in the shadow of its batteries rode at
anchor the frigate Congress and the sloop Cumberland. The first had
fifty guns, the second thirty. The Virginia, or the Merrimac, or the
turtle, creeping out from the Elizabeth, crept slowly and puffing black
smoke into the South Channel. The pilot, in his iron-clad pilot-house
no bigger than a hickory nut, put her head to the northwest. The turtle
began to swim toward Newport News.
Until now not a few of us within her shell, and almost all of the
soldiers and the forts along the shore, had thought her upon a trial
trip only,down the Elizabeth, past Craney Island, turn at Sewell's
Point, and back to the dock of the Gosport Navy Yard! When she did not
turn, the cheering on the shore stopped; you felt the breathlessness.
When she passed the point and took to the South Channel, when her head
turned upstream, when she came abreast of the Middle Ground, when they
saw that the turtle was going to fight, from along the shore to Craney
and from Sewell's Point there arose a yell. Every man in grey yelled.
They swung hat or cap; they shouted themselves hoarse. All the flags
streamed suddenly out, trumpets blared, the sky lifted, and we drank
the sunshine in like wine; that is, some of us did. To others it came
cold like hemlock against the lip. Fear is a horrible sensation. I was
dreadfully afraid
Edward!
Dreadfully. But you see I didn't tell any one I was afraid, and
that makes all the difference! Besides, it wore off.... It was a spring
day and high tide, and the Federal works at Newport News and the
Congress and the Cumberland and the more distant Minnesota all looked
asleep in the calm, sweet weather. Washing day it was on the Congress,
and clothes were drying in the rigging. That aspect as of painted
ships, painted breastworks, a painted sea-piece, lasted until the
turtle reached mid-channel. Then the other side woke up. Upon the shore
appeared a blue swarmmen running to and fro. Bugles signalled. A
commotion, too, arose upon the Congress and the Cumberland. Her head
toward the latter ship, the turtle puffed forth black smoke and
wallowed across the channel. An uglier poor thing you never saw, nor a
bolder! Squat to the water, belching black smoke, her engines wheezing
and repining, unwieldy of management, her bottom scraping every hummock
of sand in all the shoaly Roadsah, she was ugly and courageous! Our
two small gunboats, the Raleigh and the Beaufort, coming from Norfolk,
now overtook us,we went on together. I was forward with the crew of
the 7-inch pivot gun. I could see through the port, above the muzzle.
Officers and men, we were all cooped under the turtle's shell; in order
by the open ports, and the guns all ready.... We came to within a mile
of the Cumberland, tall and graceful with her masts and spars and all
the blue sky above. She looked a swan, and we, the Ugly Duckling....
Our ram, you know, was under waterseventy feet of the old berth deck,
ending in a four-foot beak of cast iron.... We came nearer. At three
quarters of a mile, we opened with the bow gun. The Cumberland
answered, and the Congress, and their gunboats and shore batteries.
Then began a frightful uproar that shook the marshes and sent the sea
birds screaming. Smoke arose, and flashing fire, and an excitementan
excitementan excitement.Then it was, ladies, that I forgot to be
afraid. The turtle swam on, toward the Cumberland, swimming as fast as
Montgomery coal and the engines that had lain at the bottom of the sea
could make her go. There was a frightful noise within her shell, a
humming, a shaking. The Congress, the gunboats and the shore batteries
kept firing broadsides. There was an enormous, thundering noise, and
the air was grown sulphurous cloud. Their shot came pattering like
hail, and like hail it rebounded from the iron-clad. We passed the
Congressvery close to her tall side. She gave us a withering fire. We
returned it, and steered on for the Cumberland. A word ran from end to
end of the turtle's shell, 'We are going to ram herstand by, men!'
Within easy range we fired the pivot gun. I was of her crew; half
naked we were, powder-blackened and streaming with sweat. The shell she
sent burst above the Cumberland's stern pivot, killing or wounding most
of her crew that served it.... We went on.... Through the port I could
now see the Cumberland plainly, her starboard side just ahead of us,
men in the shrouds and running to and fro on her deck. When we were all
but on her, her starboard blazed. That broadside tore up the carriage
of our pivot gun, cut another off at the trunnions, and the muzzle from
a third, riddled the smokestack and steam-pipe, carried away an anchor,
and killed or wounded nineteen men. The Virginia answered with three
guns; a cloud of smoke came between the iron-clad and the armed sloop;
it liftedand we were on her. We struck her under the fore rigging
with a dull and grinding sound. The iron beak with which we were armed
was wrested off.
The Virginia shivered, hung a moment, then backed clear of the
Cumberland, in whose side there was now a ragged and a gaping hole. The
pilot in the iron-clad pilot-house turned her head upstream. The water
was shoal; she had to run up the James some way before she could turn
and come back to attack the Congress. Her keel was in the mud; she was
creeping now like a land turtle, and all the iron shore was firing at
her.... She turned at last in freer water and came down the Roads.
Through the port we could see the Cumberland that we had rammed. She
had listed to port and was sinking. The water had reached her main
deck; all her men were now on the spar deck, where they yet served the
pivot guns. She fought to the last. A man of ours, stepping for one
moment through a port to the outside of the turtle's shell, was cut in
two. As the water rose and rose, the sound of her guns was like a
lessening thunder. One by one they stopped.... To the last she flew her
colours. The Cumberland went down.
By now there had joined us the small, small James River squadron
that had been anchored far up the river. The Patrick Henry had twelve
guns, the Jamestown had two, and the Teaser one. Down they scurried
like three valiant marsh hens to aid the turtle. With the Beaufort and
the Raleigh there were five valiant pygmies, and they fired at the
shore batteries, and the shore batteries answered like an angry Jove
with solid shot, with shell, with grape, and with canister! A shot
wrecked the boiler of the Patrick Henry, scalding to death the men who
were near.... The turtle sank a transport steamer lying alongside the
wharf at Newport News, and then she rounded the point and bore down
upon the Congress.
The frigate had showed discretion, which is the better part of
valour. Noting how deeply we drew, she had slipped her cables and run
aground in the shallows where she was safe from the ram of the
Merrimac. We could get no nearer than two hundred feet. There we took
up position, and there we began to rake her, the Beaufort, the Raleigh,
and the Jamestown giving us what aid they might. She had fifty guns,
and there were the heavy shore batteries, and below her the Minnesota.
This ship, also aground in the Middle Channel, now came into action
with a roar. A hundred guns were trained upon the Merrimac. The iron
hail beat down every point, not iron-clad, that showed above our shell.
The muzzle of two guns were shot away, the stanchions, the boat davits,
the flagstaff. Again and again the flagstaff fell, and again and again
we replaced it. At last we tied the colours to the smokestack. Beside
the nineteen poor fellows that the Cumberland's guns had mowed down, we
now had other killed and wounded. Commodore Buchanan was badly hurt,
and the flag lieutenant, Minor. The hundred guns thundered against the
Merrimac, and the Merrimac thundered against the Congress. The tall
frigate and her fifty guns wished herself an iron-clad; the swan would
have blithely changed with the ugly duckling. We brought down her
mainmast, we disabled her guns, we strewed her decks with blood and
anguish (war is a wild beast, nothing more, and I'll hail the day when
it lies slain). We smashed in her sides and we set her afire. She
hauled down her colours and ran up a white flag. The Merrimac ceased
firing and signalled to the Beaufort. The Beaufort ran alongside, and
the frigate's ranking officer gave up his colours and his sword. The
Beaufort's and the Congress's own boats removed the crew and the
wounded.... The shore batteries, the Minnesota, the picket boat Zouave,
kept up a heavy firing all the while upon the Merrimac, upon the
Raleigh and the Jamestown, and also upon the Beaufort. We waited until
the crew was clear of the Congress, and then we gave her a round of hot
shot that presently set her afire from stem to stern. This done, we
turned to other work.
The Minnesota lay aground in the North Channel. To her aid hurrying
up from Old Point came the Roanoke and the Saint Lawrence. Our own
batteries at Sewell's Point opened upon these two ships as they passed,
and they answered with broadsides. We fed our engines, and under a
billow of black smoke ran down to the Minnesota. Like the Congress, she
lay upon a sand bar, beyond fear of ramming. We could only manoeuvre
for deep water, near enough to her to be deadly. It was now late
afternoon. I could see through the port of the bow pivot the slant
sunlight upon the water, and how the blue of the sky was paling. The
Minnesota lay just ahead; very tall she looked, another of the Congress
breed; the old warships singing their death song. As we came on we
fired the bow gun, then, lying nearer her, began with broadsides. But
we could not get near enough; she was lifted high upon the sand, the
tide was going out, and we drew twenty-three feet. We did her great
harm, but we were not disabling her. An hour passed and the sun drew on
to setting. The Roanoke turned and went back under the guns of Old
Point, but the Saint Lawrence remained to thunder at the turtle's iron
shell. The Merrimac was most unhandy, and on the ebb tide there would
be shoals enough between us and a berth for the night.... The Minnesota
could not get away, at dawn she would be yet aground, and we would then
take her for our prize. 'Stay till dusk, and the blessed old iron box
will ground herself where Noah's flood won't float her!' The pilot
ruled, and in the gold and purple sunset we drew off. As we passed, the
Minnesota blazed with all her guns; we answered her, and answered, too,
the Saint Lawrence. The evening star was shining when we anchored off
Sewell's Point. The wounded were taken ashore, for we had no place for
wounded men under the turtle's shell. Commodore Buchanan leaving us,
Lieutenant Catesby Ap Rice Jones took command.
I do not remember what we had for supper. We had not eaten since
early morning, so we must have had something. But we were too tired to
think or to reason or to remember. We dropped beside our guns and
slept, but not for long. Three hours, perhaps, we slept, and then a
whisper seemed to run through the Merrimac. It was as though the
iron-clad herself had spoken, 'Come! watch the Congress die!' Most of
us arose from beside the guns and mounted to the iron grating above, to
the top of the turtle's shell. It was a night as soft as silk; the
water smooth, in long, faint, olive swells; a half-moon in the sky.
There were lights across at Old Point, lights on the battery at the Rip
Raps, lights in the frightened shipping, huddled under the guns of
Fortress Monroe, lights along either shore. There were lanterns in the
rigging of the Minnesota where she lay upon the sand bar, and lanterns
on the Saint Lawrence and the Roanoke. As we looked a small moving
light, as low as possible to the water, appeared between the Saint
Lawrence and the Minnesota. A man said, 'What's that? Must be a
rowboat.' Another answered, 'It's going too fast for a rowboatfunny!
right on the water like that!' 'A launch, I reckon,' said a third,
'with plenty of rowers. Now it's behind the Minnesota.''Shut up, you
talkers,' said a midshipman, 'I want to look at the Congress!'
Four miles away, off Newport News, lay the burning Congress. In the
still, clear night, she seemed almost at hand. All her masts, her
spars, and her rigging showed black in the heart of a great ring of
firelight. Her hull, lifted high by the sand bank which held her, had
round red eyes. Her ports were windows lit from within. She made a
vision of beauty and of horror. One by one, as they were reached by the
flame, her guns explodeda loud and awful sound in the night above the
Roads. We stood and watched that sea picture, and we watched in
silence. We are seeing giant things, and ere this war is ended we shall
see more. At two o'clock in the morning the fire reached her powder
magazine. She blew up. A column like the Israelite's Pillar shot to the
zenith; there came an earthquake sound, sullen and deep; when all
cleared there was only her hull upborne by the sand and still burning.
It burned until the dawn, when it smouldered and went out.
The narrator arose, walked the length of the parlour, and came back
to the four women. Haven't you had enough for to-night? Unity looks
sleepy, and Judith's knitting has lain this half-hour on the floor.
Judith!
Molly spoke. Judith says that if there is fighting around Richmond
she is going there to the hospitals, to be a nurse. The doctors here
say that she does better than any one
Go on, Edward, said Judith. What happened at dawn?
We got the turtle in order, and those ancient mariners, our
engines, began to work, wheezing and slow. We ran up a new flagstaff,
and every man stood to the guns, and the Merrimac moved from Sewell's
Point, her head turned to the Minnesota, away across, grounded on a
sand bank in the North Channel. The sky was as pink as the inside of a
shell, and a thin white mist hung over the marshes and the shore and
the great stretch of Hampton Roads. It was so thin that the masts of
the ships huddled below Fortress Monroe rose clear of it into the flush
of the coming sun. All their pennants were flyingthe French
man-of-war, and the northern ships. At that hour the sea-gulls are
abroad, searching for their food. They went past the ports, screaming
and moving their silver wings.
The Minnesota grew in size. Every man of us looked eagerlyfrom
the pilot-house, from the bow ports, and as we drew parallel with her
from the ports of the side. We fired the bow gun as we came on and the
shot told. There was some cheering; the morning air was so fine and the
prize so sure! The turtle was in spiritspoor old turtle with her
battered shell and her flag put back as fast as it was torn away! Her
engines, this morning, were mortal slow and weak; they wheezed and
whined, and she drew so deep that, in that shoaly water, she went
aground twice between Sewell's Point and the stretch she had now
reached of smooth pink water, with the sea-gulls dipping between her
and the Minnesota. Despite the engines she was happy, and the gunners
were all ready at the starboard ports
Leaning over, he took the poker and stirred the fire.
The best laid plans of mice and men
Do aften gang agley
Miss Lucy's needles clicked. Yes, the papers told us. The
Ericsson.
There came, said Edward, there came from behind the Minnesota a
cheese-box on a shingle. It had lain there hidden by her bulk since
midnight. It was its single light that we had watched and thought no
more of! A cheese-box on a shingleand now it darted into the open as
though a boy's arm had sent it! It was little beside the Minnesota. It
was little even beside the turtle. There was a silence when we saw it,
a silence of astonishment. It had come so quietly upon the scenea
deus ex machina, indeed, dropped from the clouds between us and our
prey. In a moment we knew it for the Ericssonthe looked-for other
iron-clad we knew to be a-building. The Monitor, they call it.... The
shingle was just awash; the cheese-box turned out to be a revolving
turret, mail-clad and carrying two large, modern guns11-inch. The
whole thing was armoured, had the best of engines, and drew only twelve
feet.... Well, the Merrimac had a startled breath, to be surethere is
no denying the drama of the Monitor's appearanceand then she righted
and began firing. She gave to the cheese-box, or to the armoured
turret, one after the other, three broadsides. The turret blazed and
answered, and the balls rebounded from each armoured champion. He
laughed. By Heaven! it was like our old favourites, Ivanhoe and De
Bois Guilbertthe ugliest squat gnomes of an Ivanhoe and of a Brian de
Bois Guilbert that ever came out of a nightmare! We thundered in the
lists, and then we passed each other, turned, and again encountered.
Sometimes we were a long way apart, and sometimes there was not ten
feet of water between those sunken decks from which arose the iron
shell of the Merrimac and the iron turret of the Monitor. She fired
every seven minutes; we as rapidly as we could load. Now it was the bow
gun, now the after pivot, now a full broadside. Once or twice we
thought her done for, but always her turret revolved, and her 11-inch
guns opened again. In her lighter draught she had a great advantage;
she could turn and wind where we could not. The Minnesota took a hand,
and an iron battery from the shore. We were striving to ram the
Ericsson, but we could not get close to her; our iron beak, too, was
sticking in the side of the sunken Cumberlandwe could only ram with
the blunt prow. The Minnesota, as we passed, gave us all her broadside
gunsa tremendous fusillade at point-blank range, which would have
sunk any ship of the swan breed. The turtle shook off shot and shell,
grape and canister, and answered with her bow gun. The shell which it
threw entered the side of the frigate, and, bursting amidship, exploded
a store of powder and set the ship on fire. Leaving disaster aboard the
Minnesota, we turned and sunk the tugboat Dragon. Then came manoeuvre
and manoeuvre to gain position where we could ram the Monitor....
We got it at last. The engines made an effort like the leap of the
spirit before expiring. 'Go ahead! Full speed!' We went; we bore down
upon the Monitor, now in deeper water. But at the moment that we saw
victory she turned. Our bow, lacking the iron beak, gave but a glancing
stroke. It was heavy as it was; the Monitor shook like a man with the
ague, but she did not share the fate of the Cumberland. There was no
ragged hole in her side; her armour was good, and held. She backed,
gathered herself together, then rushed forward, striving to ram us in
her turn. But our armour, too, was good, and held. Then she came upon
the Merrimac's quarter, laid her bow against the shell, and fired her
11-inch guns twice in succession. We were so close, each to the other,
that it was as though two duelists were standing upon the same cloak.
Frightful enough was the concussion of those guns.
That charge drove in the Merrimac's iron side three inches or more.
The shots struck above the ports of the after guns, and every man at
those guns was knocked down by the impact and bled at the nose and
ears. The Monitor dropped astern, and again we turned and tried to ram
her. But her far lighter draught put her where we could not go; our
bow, too, was now twisted and splintered. Our powder was getting low.
We did not spare it, we could not; we sent shot and shell continuously
against the Monitor, and she answered in kind. Monitor and Merrimac, we
went now this way, now that, the Ericsson much the lighter and
quickest, the Merrimac fettered by her poor old engines, and her great
length, and her twenty-three feet draught. It was two o'clock in the
afternoon.... The duelists stepped from off the cloak, tried operations
at a distance, hung for a moment in the wind of indecision, then put
down the match from the gunners' hands. The Monitor darted from us, her
head toward the shoal water known as the Middle Ground. She reached it
and rested triumphant, out of all danger from our ram, and yet where
she could still protect the Minnesota.... A curious silence fell upon
the Roads; sullen like the hush before a thunderstorm, and yet not like
that, for we had had the thunderstorm. It was the stillness, perhaps,
of exhaustion. It was late afternoon, the fighting had been heavy. The
air was filled with smoke; in the water were floating spars and
wreckage of the ships we had destroyed. The weather was sultry and
still. The dogged booming of a gun from a shore battery sounded lonely
and remote as a bell buoy. The tide was falling; there were sand-bars
enough between us and Sewell's Point. We waited an hour. The Monitor
was rightly content with the Middle Ground, and would not come back for
all our charming. We fired at intervals, upon her and upon the
Minnesota, but at last our powder grew so low that we ceased. The tide
continued to fall, and the pilot had much to say.... The red sun sank
in the west; the engineers fed the ancient mariners with Montgomery
coal; black smoke gushed forth and pilots felt their way into the South
Channel, and slowly, slowly back toward Sewell's Point. The day closed
in a murky evening with a taste of smoke in the air. In the night-time
the Monitor went down the Roads to Fortress Monroe, and in the morning
we took the Merrimac into dry dock at Norfolk. Her armour was dented
all over, though not pierced. Her bow was bent and twisted, the iron
beak lost in the side of the Cumberland. Her boats were gone, and her
smokestack as full of holes as any colander, and the engines at the
last gasp. Several of the guns were injured, and coal and powder and
ammunition all lacked. We put her therethe dear and ugly warship, the
first of the iron-cladswe put her there in dry dock, and there she's
apt to stay for some weeks to come. Lieutenant Wood was sent to
Richmond with the report for the president and the secretary of the
navy. He carried, too, the flag of the Congress, and I was one of the
men detailed for its charge.... And now I have told you of the Merrimac
and the Monitor.
Rising, he went to the piano, sat down and played Malbrook s'en
va-t-en guerre. Miss Lucy took up her knitting, and knitted very
rapidly, her eyes now upon her nephew, now upon her father's portrait.
Judith, rising from the old cross-stitch tabouret where she had been
sitting, laid a fresh log on the fire, then went and stood beside the
long window, looking out upon the rainy night.
What, asked Edward between two chords, what do you hear from the
Valley?
Unity answered: General Banks has crossed the Potomac and entered
Winchesterpoor, poor Winchester! General Jackson hasn't quite five
thousand men. He has withdrawn toward Woodstock. In spite of that
dreadful Romney march, General Johnston and the soldiers seem to have
confidence in him
Molly came in with her soft little voice. Major Stafford has been
transferred. He is with General Ewell on the Rappahannock. He writes to
Judith every week. They are beautiful lettersthey make you see
everything that is done.
What do you hear from Richard Cleave?
He never writes.
Judith came back from the window. It is raining, raining! The
petals are falling from the pyrus japonica, and all the trees are
bending! Edward, war is terrible, but it lifts you up.... She locked
her hands behind her head. It lifts you up, out in the storm or
listening to what the ships have done, or to the stories that are told!
And then you look at the unploughed land, and you wait for the
bulletins, and you go to the hospital down there, ... and you say,
'Neveroh, nevermore let us have war!'
CHAPTER XV. KERNSTOWN
The brigade was halted before a stretch of forest white with
dogwood. Ahead began a slow cannonade. Puffs of smoke rose above the
hill that hid the iron combatants. Ashby's Horse Artillery, said the
men. That's the Blakeley now! Boys, I reckon we're in for it!
An aide passed at a gallop. Shields and nine thousand men. Ashby
was misinformedmore than we thoughtShields and nine thousand men.
Along the line the soldiers slightly moved their feet, moistened
their lips. The 65th occupied a fairy dell where Quaker ladies, blue as
the heavens, bloomed by every stone. A Federal battery opened from a
hill to the right. A screaming shell entered the wood, dug into earth,
and exploded, showering all around with mould. There came a great burst
of musicthe Northern bands playing as the regiments deployed. That's
'Yankee Doodle!' said the men. Everybody's cartridge-box full? Johnny
Lemon, don't you forgit to take your ramrod out before you fire!
The colonel came along the line. Boys, there is going to be a
considerable deer drive!Now, I am going to tell you about this
quarry. Its name is Banks, and it wants to get across country to the
Shenandoah, and so out of the Valley to join McClellan. Now General
Johnston's moving from the Rapidan toward Richmond, and he doesn't want
Banks bothering him. He says, 'Delay the enemy as long as you can.' Now
General Jackson's undertaken to do it. We've got thirty-five hundred
men, and that ought to be enough.Right face! Forward march!
As the troops crossed the Valley pike the men hailed it. Howdy, old
Road! Pleased to meet you again. Lord! jest as fresh as a daisyjest
as though we hadn't tramped them thirty-six miles from New Market since
yesterday daybreak! My Lord! wish I had your staying qualitiesAu
re-vo-ree!
Stone fences bordered the pike. The infantry, moving in double
column, climbed them and entered another strip of springtime woods. The
artilleryMcLaughlin's, Carpenter's, and Waters's batteriesfound a
cross-roads and thundered by, straining to the front. Ashby, together
with Chew's battery of horse artillery, kept the pike the other side of
Kernstown. In front of the infantry stretched a great open marshy
meadow, utterly without cover. Beyond this to the north, rose low
hills, and they were crowned with Federal batteries, while along the
slopes and in the vales between showed masses of blue infantry, clearly
visible, in imposing strength and with bright battle-flags. It was high
noon, beneath a brilliant sky. There were persistent musicians on the
northern side; all the blue regiments came into battle to the sound of
first-rate military bands. The grey listened. They sure are fond of
'Yankee Doodle!' There are three bands playing it at once.... There's
the 'Star Spangled Banner'
Oh, say can you see,
Through the blue shades of evening
I used to love it!... Good Lord, how long ago!
Hairston Breckinridge spoke, walking in front of his company. We're
waiting for the artillery to get ahead. We're going to turn the enemy's
rightShields's division, Kimball commanding. You see that wooded
ridge away across there? That's our objective. That's Pritchard's Hill,
where all the flags areHow many men have they got? Oh, about nine
thousand.There goes the artillery nowthere goes Rockbridge!Yes,
sir!Attention! Fall in!
In double column almost the entire fighting force of the Army of the
Valley crossed the endless open meadow beneath Kimball's batteries.
That the latter's range was poor was a piece of golden fortune. The
shells crossed to the wood or exploded high in blue air. Harmless they
might be, but undeniably they were trying. Involuntarily the men
stared, fascinated, at each round white cloud above them; involuntarily
jerked their heads at each rending explosion. From a furrowed ridge
below the guns, musketry took a hand. The Army of the Valley here first
met with minie balls. The sound with which they came curdled the blood.
What's that? What's that?... That's something new. The infernal
things! Billy Maydew, walking with his eyes on the minies,
stumbled over a fairy's ring and came to his knees. Lieutenant Coffin
swore at him. ! Gawking and gaping as though 'twere Christmas
and Roman candles going off! Getup! Billy arose and marched on. I air
a-going to kill him. Yes, sir; I air a-going to kill him yet. Shoo!
said the man beside him. He don't mean no harm. He's jest as nervous
as a two-year filly, and he's got to take it out on some one! Next
'lection of officers he'll be down and out.Sho! how them things do
screech!
The meadow closed with a wooded hill. The grey lines, reaching
shelter, gasped with relief. The way was steep, however, and the shells
still rained. An oak, struck and split by solid shot, fell across the
way. A line of ambulances coming somehow upon the hillside fared badly.
Up the men strained to the top, which proved to be a wide level. The
Rockbridge battery passed them at a gallop, to be greeted by a shell
thrown from a thirty-two pounder on the Federal right. It struck a
wheel horse of one of the howitzers, burst, and made fearful havoc.
Torn flesh and blood were everywhere; a second horse was mangled, only
less horribly than the first; the third, a strong white mare, was so
covered with the blood of her fellows and from a wound of her own, that
she looked a roan. The driver's spine was crushed, the foot of a gunner
was taken offclean at the ankle as by a scythe. The noise was
dreadful; the shriek that the mare gave echoed through the March woods.
The other guns of the battery, together with Carpenter's and Waters's,
swept round the ruin and over the high open ground toward a stone wall
that ran diagonally across. The infantry followed and came out on an
old field, strewn with rocks and blackberry bushes. In the distance
stretched another long stone wall. Beyond it, on the gentle slopes,
were guns enough and blue soldiers enoughblue soldiers, with bright
flags above them and somewhere still that insistent music. They
huzzahed when they saw the Confederates, and the Confederates answered
with that strangest battle shout, that wild and high and ringing cry
called the rebel yell.
In the woods along the ridge and in the old field itself the
infantry deployed. There were portions of three brigades,Fulkerson's,
Burk's, and the Stonewall. Fulkerson held the left, Burk with the Irish
Battalion the right, and Garnett the centre. The position was
commanding, the Confederate strength massed before the Federal right,
Shields's centre well to the eastward, and his left under Sullivan in
the air, on the other side of the pike. It was Stonewall Jackson's
desire to turn that right flank, to crumple it back upon the centre,
and to sweep by on the road to Winchesterthe loved valley town so
near that one might see its bourgeoning trees, hear its church bells.
He rode, on Little Sorrel, up and down the forming lines, and he
spoke only to give orders, quiet and curt, much in his class-room tone.
He was all brown like a leaf with Valley dust and sun and rain. The old
cadet cap was older yet, the ancient boots as grotesquely large, the
curious lift of his hand to Heaven no less curious than it had always
been. He was as awkward, as hypochondriac, as literal, as strict as
ever. Moreover, there should have hung about him the cloud of disfavour
and hostility raised by that icy march to Romney less than three months
ago. And yetand yet! What had happened since then? Not much, indeed.
The return of the Stonewall Brigade to Winchester, Loring's
representations, the War Department's interference, and Major-General
T. J. Jackson's resignation from the service and request to be returned
to the Virginia Military Institute. General Johnston's remonstrance,
Mr. Benjamin's amende honorable, and the withdrawal of Old
Jack's resignation. There had been some surprise among the men at the
effect upon themselves of this withdrawal. They had greeted the news
with hurrahs; they had been all that day in extraordinary spirits. Why?
To save them they could not have told. He had not won any battles. He
had been harsh, hostile, pedantic, suspected, and detested upon that
unutterable Bath and Romney trip. And yetand yet! He was cheered
when, at Winchester, it was known that the Army of the Valley and not
the Virginia Military Institute was to have Major-General T. J.
Jackson's services. He was cheered when, at short intervals, in the
month or two there in camp, he reviewed his army. He was cheered when,
a month ago, the army left Winchester, left the whole-hearted, loving,
and loved town to be occupied by the enemy, left it and moved southward
to New Market! He was cheered loudly when, two days before, had come
the order to marchto march northward, back along the pike, back
toward Winchester.
He was cheered now as he rode quietly to and fro, forming his line
of battleFulkerson's 23d and 37th Virginia on the left, then the 27th
supported by the 21st, in the second line the 4th, the 33d, the 2d, the
65th, a little back the Irish Battalion, and at the bottom of the ridge
the 5th, keeping touch with Ashby toward the pike. It was two of the
afternoon, beautiful and bright. A brigadier, meeting him, said, We
were not sure, general, that you would fight to-day! It is Sunday.
The other fastened upon him his steady grey-blue eyes. The God of
Battles, sir, as a great general, will understand. I trust that every
regiment may have service to-morrow in Winchester. Advance your
skirmishers, and send a regiment to support Carpenter's battery.
The 27th Virginia, target for a withering artillery fire, crossed
the open and disappeared in a strip of March wood, high and keen and
brown against the fleckless sky. Behind it two long grey lines moved
slowly forward, out now in the old field. The men talked as they went.
Wish there was nice ripe blackberries on these bushes! Wish I was a
little boy again with a straw hat and a tin bucket, gathering
blackberries and listenin' to the June bugs! ZoonZoonZoon! O
Lord! listen to that shell!Sho! that wasn't much. I'm getting to kind
of like the fuss. There ain't so many of them screeching now, anyhow!
A lieutenant raised his voice. Their fire is slackening.Don't
reckon they're tired of it, sir? Hope their ammunition's out!
From the rear galloped a courier. Where's General Jackson?They're
drawing off!a big body, horse and foot, is backing toward
Winchester
Glory hallelujah! said the men. Maybe we won't have to fight on
Sunday after all!
Out of the March woods ahead broke a thunderclap of sound, settling
into a roar of musketry. It endured for some minutes, then forth from
the thickets and shadow of the forest, back from Barton's Woods into
the ragged old field, reeled the 27th Virginia. Its colonel, Colonel
John Echols, was down; badly hurt and half carried now by his men;
there were fifty others, officers and men, killed or wounded. The
wounded, most of them, were helped back by their comrades. The dead lay
where they fell in Barton's Woods, where the arbutus was in bloom and
the purple violets.
The 21st swept forward. The 27th rallied, joined the 21st. The two
charged the wood that was now filling with clouds of blue skirmishers.
Behind came hurrying Garnett with the 2d, the 4th, and the 33d.
Fulkerson on the left, facing Tyler, had two regiments, the 23d and
37th Virginia. He deployed his men under cover, but now they were out
in a great and ragged field, all up and down, with boggy hollows,
scarred too by rail fences and blurred by low-growing briar patches.
Diagonally across it, many yards away, ran one of the stone fences of
the region, a long dike of loosely piled and rounded rock. Beyond it
the ground kept the same nature, but gradually lifted to a fringe of
tall trees. Emerging from this wood came now a Federal line of battle.
It came with pomp and circumstance. The sun shone on a thousand
bayonets; bright colours tossed in the breeze, drums rolled and bugles
blew. Kimball, commanding in Shields's absence, had divined the
Confederate intention. He knew that the man they called Stonewall
Jackson meant to turn his right, and he began to mass his regiments,
and he sent for Sullivan from the left.
The 23d and 37th Virginia eyed the on-coming line and eyed the stone
fence. That's good cover! quoth a hunter from the hills. We'd a long
sight better have it than those fellows!Sh! the colonel's speaking.
Fulkerson's speech was a shout, for there had arisen a deafening
noise of artillery. Run for your lives, mentoward the enemy!
Forward, and take the stone fence!
The two regiments ran, the Federal line of battle ran, the stone
cover the prize. As they ran the grey threw forward their muskets and
fired. That volley was at close range, and it was discharged by born
marksmen. The grey fired again; yet closer. Many a blue soldier fell;
the colour-bearer pitched forward, the line wavered, gave back. The
charging grey reached and took the wall. It was good cover. They knelt
behind it, laid their musket barrels along the stones, and fired. The
blue line withstood that volley, even continued its advance, but a
second fusillade poured in their very faces gave them check at last. In
disorder, colours left upon the field, they surged back to the wood and
to the cover of a fence at right angles with that held by the
Confederates. Now began upon the left the fight of the stone
wallhours of raging battle, of high quarrel for this barrier. The
regiments composing the grey centre found time to cheer for Fulkerson;
the rumour of the fight reached the right where Ashby's squadron held
the pike. Jackson himself came on Little Sorrel, looked at the wall and
the line of men, powder grimed about the lips, plying the ramrods,
shouldering the muskets, keeping back Tyler's regiments, and said
Good! good!
Across a mile of field thundered an artillery duel, loud and
prolonged. The blue had many guns; the grey eighteen in action. There
were indeed but seventeen, for a Tredegar iron gun was disabled in
crossing the meadow. The blue were the stronger cannon, modern,
powerful. The grey were inferior there; also the grey must reach deeper
and deeper into caisson and limber chest, must cast anxious backward
glances toward ordnance wagons growing woefully light. The fire of the
blue was extremely heavy; the fire of the grey as heavy as possible
considering the question of ammunition. Rockbridge worked its guns in a
narrow clearing dotted with straw stacks. A section under Lieutenant
Poague was sent at a gallop, half a mile forward, to a point that
seemed of vantage. Here the unlimbering guns found themselves in
infantry company, a regiment lying flat, awaiting orders. Hello,
65th! said the gunners. Wish people going to church at home could see
us!
A shell fell beside the howitzer and burst with appalling sound. The
gun was blown from position, and out of the smoke came a fearful cry of
wounded men. O God!O God! The smoke cleared. All who had served
that gun were down. Their fellows about the six-pounder, the other gun
of the section, stood stupefied, staring, their lips parted, sponge
staff or rammer or lanyard idle in their hands. A horse came galloping.
An aide of Jackson'sSandy Pendleton it was saidleaped to the
ground. He was joined by Richard Cleave. The two came through the ring
of the wounded and laid hold of the howitzer. Mind the six-pounder,
Poague! We'll serve here. Thunder Run men, three of you, come here and
help!
They drew the howitzer in position, charged it, and fired. In a very
few moments after the horror of the shell, she was steadily sending
canister against the great Parrott on the opposite hill. The
six-pounder beside her worked as steadily. A surgeon came with his
helpers, gathered up the wounded, and carried them beneath a whistling
storm of shot and shell to a field hospital behind the ridge.
Out of the woods came fresh regiments of the enemy. These bore down
upon the guns and upon the 5th Virginia now forming behind them.
Poague's section opened with canister at one hundred and fifty yards.
All the Valley marksmen of the 5th let fall the lids of their cartridge
boxes, lifted their muskets, and fired. The blue withstood the first
volley and the second, but at the third they went back to the wood. An
order arrived from McLaughlin of the Rockbridge, Lieutenant Poague
back to the straw stacks! The battery horses, quiet and steadfast,
were brought from where they had stood and cropped the grass, the guns
were limbered up, Jackson's aide and the men of the 65th fell back, the
six-pounder shared its men with the howitzer, off thundered the guns.
There was a stir in the 65th. Boys, I heard say that when those
fellows show again, we're going to charge!
The battle was now generalFulkerson on the left behind the stone
wall, Garnett in the centre, the artillery and Burk with three
battalions on the right. Against them poured the regiments of Kimball
and Tyler, with Sullivan coming up. The sun, could it have been seen
through the rolling smoke, would have showed low in the heavens. The
musketry was continuous, and the sound of the cannon shook the heart of
Winchester three miles away.
The 65th moved forward. Halfway up the slope, its colonel received
an ugly wound. He staggered and sank. Go on! go on, men! Fine hunt!
Don't let the stag The 65th went on, led by Richard Cleave.
Before it stretched a long bank of springtime turf, a natural
breastwork seized by the blue soldiers as the stone fence on the left
had been taken by Fulkerson. From behind this now came a line of
leaping flame. Several of the grey fell, among them the colour-bearer.
The man nearest snatched the staff. Again the earthwork blazed and
rang, and again the colour-bearer fell, pitching forward, shot through
the heart. Billy Maydew caught the colours. Thar's a durned
sharpshooter a-settin' in that thar tree! Dave, you pick him off.
Again the bank blazed. A western regiment was behind it, a regiment
of hunters and marksmen. Moreover a fresh body of troops could be seen
through the smoke, hurrying down from the tall brown woods. The grey
line broke, then rallied and swept on. The breastwork was now but a few
hundred feet away. A flag waved upon it, the staff planted in the soft
earth. Billy, moving side by side with Allan Gold, clutched closer the
great red battle-flag with the blue cross. His young face was set, his
eyes alight. Iron-sinewed he ran easily, without panting. I air
a-goin', he announced, I air a-goin' to put this here one in the
place of that thar one.
'T isn't going to be easy work, said Allan soberly. What's the
use of ducking, Steve Dagg? If a bullet's going to hit you it's going
to hit you, and if it isn't going to hit you it isn't
A minie ball cut the staff of the flag in two just above Billy's
head. He caught the colours as they came swaying down, Allan jerked a
musket from a dead man's grasp, and together he and Billy somehow
fastened the flag to the bayonet and lifted it high. The line halted
under a momentary cover, made by the rising side of a hollow rimmed by
a few young locust trees. Cleave came along it. Close ranks!Men, all
of you! that earthwork must be taken. The 2d, the 4th, and the 33d are
behind us looking to see us do it. General Jackson himself is looking.
Attention! Fix bayonets! Forward! Charge!
Up out of the hollow, and over the field went the 65th in a wild
charge. The noise of a thousand seas was in the air, and the smoke of
the bottomless pit. The yellow flashes of the guns came through it, and
a blur of colourthe flag on the bank. On went their own great
battle-flag, slanting forward as Billy Maydew ran. The bank flamed and
roared. A bullet passed through the fleshy part of the boy's arm. He
looked sideways at the blood. Those durned bees sure do sting! I air
a-goin' to plant this here flag on that thar bank, jest the same as if
't was a hop pole in Christianna's garden!
Fulkerson fought on grimly by the stone wall; Garnett and the other
Stonewall regiments struggled with desperation to hold the centre, the
artillery thundered from every height. The 65th touched the earthwork.
Cleave mounted first; Allan followed, then Billy and the Thunder Run
men, the regiment pouring after. Hot was the welcome they got, and
fierce was their answering grip. In places men could load and fire, but
bayonet and musket butt did much of the work. There was a great
clamour, the acrid smell of powder, the indescribable taste of battle.
The flag was down; the red battle-flag with the blue cross in its
place. There was a surge of the western regiment toward it, a battle
around it that strewed the bank and the shallow ditch beneath with many
a blue figure, many a grey. Step by step the grey pushed the blue back,
away from the bank, back toward the wood arising, shadowy, from a base
of eddying smoke.
Out of the smoke, suddenly, came hurrahing. It was deep and loud,
issuing from many throats. The western regiment began to hurrah, too.
They're coming to help! They're coming to help! Indiana, ain't
it?Now, you rebs, you go back on the other side!
The blue wave from the wood came to reinforce the blue wave in
front. The 65th struggled with thrice its numbers, and there was a
noise from the wood which portended more. Back, inch by inch, gave the
grey, fighting desperately. They loaded, fired, loaded, fired. They
used bayonet and musket stock. The blue fell thick, but always others
came to take their places. The grey fell, and the ranks must close with
none to reinforce. In the field to the left the 4th and the 33d had
their hands very full; the 2d was gone to Fulkerson's support, the 5th
and the 42d were not yet up. Out of the wood came a third huzzahing
blue line. Cleave, hatless, bleeding from a bayonet thrust in the arm,
ordered the retreat.
On the crest of the bank there was confusion and clamour, shots and
shouts, the groans of the fallen, a horrible uproar. Out of the storm
came a high voice, It air a-goin' to stay, and I air a-goin' to stay
with it!
Billy Maydew had the flag. He stood defiant, half enveloped in its
folds, his torn shirt showing throat and breast, his young head thrown
back against the red ground. I ain't a-goin' to quitI ain't a-goin'
to quit! Thunder Run and Thunder Mountain hear me what I am a-sayin'! I
ain't a-goin' to quit!
Allan Gold laid hold of him. Why, Billy, we're coming back! There's
got to be a lot of times like this in a big war! You come on and carry
the colours out safe. You don't want those fellows to take them!
Billy chanted on, I ain't a-goin' to quit! I put it here jest like
I was putting a hop pole in Christianna's garden, and I ain't a-goin'
to dig it up again
Dave appeared. Billy boy, don't be such a damned fool! You jest
skeedaddle with the rest of us and take it out of them next time. Don't
ye want to see Christianna again, an' maw an' the dogs?Thar, now!
A bullet split the standard, anothera spent ball coming from the
hillsidestruck the bearer in the chest. Billy came to his knees, the
great crimson folds about him. Cleave appeared in the red-lit murk.
Pick him up, Allan, and bring him away.
It was almost dusk to the green and rolling world about the field of
Kernstown. Upon that field, beneath the sulphurous battle cloud, it was
dusk indeed. The fighting line was everywhere, and for the Confederates
there were no reinforcements. Fulkerson yet held the left, Garnett with
conspicuous gallantry the centre with the Stonewall regiments. The
batteries yet thundered upon the right. But ammunition was low, and for
three hours Ashby's mistake as to the enemy's numbers had received full
demonstration. Shields's brigadiers did well and the blue soldiers did
well.
A body of troops coming from the wood and crowding through a gap in
a stone fence descended upon the Rockbridge battery. Four regiments of
the Stonewall brigade clung desperately to the great uneven field which
marked the centre. The musket barrels were burningly hot to the touch
of the men, their fingers must grope for the cartridges rattling in the
cartridge boxes, their weariness was horrible, their eyes were glazed,
their lips baked with thirst. Long ago they had fought in a great,
bright, glaring daytime; then again, long ago, they had begun to fight
in a period of dusk, an age of dusk. The men loaded, fired, loaded,
rammed, fired quite automatically. They had been doing this for a long,
long time. Probably they would do it for a long time to come. Only the
cartridges were not automatically supplied. It even seemed that they
might one day come to an end. The dusk deepened. They had, beneath the
red-lit battle clouds, a glimpse of Garnett, a general chivalric and
loved, standing in his stirrups, looking out and upward toward the dark
wood and Sullivan's fresh regiments.
A sergeant came along the line stretching a haversack open with his
hands. In it were cartridges. I gathered all the dead had. 'T isn't
many. You've got to shoot to kill, boys! A man with a ball through the
end of his spine, lying not far from a hollow of the earth, half pool,
half bog, began to cry aloud in an agonizing fashion. Water! water!
Oh, some one give me water! Water! For the love of God, water! A grey
soldier started out of line toward him; in a second both were killed.
Garnett settled down in his saddle and came back to the irregular,
smoke-wreathed, swaying line. He spoke to his colonels. There are
three thousand fresh bayonets at the back of these woods. General
Jackson does not wish a massacre. I will withdraw the brigade.
The troops were ready to go. They had held the centre very long; the
cartridges were all but spent, the loss was heavy, they were deadly
tired. They wanted water to drink and to hear the command, Break
ranks! Garnett was gallant and brave; they saw that he did what he
did with reason, and their judgment acquiesced. There was momently a
fresh foe. Without much alignment, fighting in squads or singly, firing
as they went from thicket and hollow at the heavy on-coming masses, the
Stonewall Brigade fell back upon the wood to the south. The blue wave
saw victory and burst into a shout of triumph. Kimbal's batteries, too,
began a jubilant thunder.
Over the field, from Fulkerson on the left to the broken centre and
the withdrawing troops came a raw-bone sorrel urged to a furious
gallop; upon it a figure all dusk in the dusk, a Cromwell-Quixote of a
man, angered now to a degree, with an eye like steel and a voice like
ice. He rode up to Garnett, as though he would ride him down. General
Garnett, what are you doing? Go back at once, sir!
As he spoke he threw himself from the saddle and closed his
gauntleted hand with force on the arm of a drummer boy. Beat the
rally! he commanded.
The rapid and continuous rolling filled like a sound of the sea the
ears of the Stonewall Brigade. Garnett, in a strange voice, gave the
counter-order. The men uttered a hard and painful gasp. They looked and
saw Stonewall Jackson lifted above them, an iron figure in a storm of
shot and shell. He jerked his hand into the air; he shouted, Back,
men! Give them the bayonet! The drum beat on. Colonels and captains
and lieutenants strove to aid him and to change the retreat into an
advance. In vain! the commands were shattered; the fighting line all
broken and dispersed. The men did not shamefully flee; they retreated
sullenly, staying here and there where there were yet cartridges, to
fire upon the on-coming foe, but they continued to go back.
The 5th and the 42d with Funsten's small cavalry command came
hastening to the broken centre and there made a desperate fight. The
5th Virginia and the 5th Ohio clanged shields. The 84th Pennsylvania
broke twice, rallied twice, finally gave way. Two Indiana regiments
came up; the 5th Virginia was flanked; other blue reinforcements poured
in. The last grey commands gave way. Fulkerson, too, on the left, his
right now uncovered, must leave his stone fence and save his men as
best he might. Rockbridge and Carpenter and Waters no longer thundered
from the heights. The grey infantry, wildly scattered, came in a slow
surge back through the woods where dead men lay among the spring
flowers, and down the ridge and through the fields, grey and dank in
the March twilight, toward the Valley pike. Night and the lost battle
weighed upon the army. The shadowy ambulances, the lights of the
gatherers of the wounded flitting few and far over the smoke-clouded
field, made for a ghastly depression. Sick at heart, in a daze of
weariness, hunger and thirst, drunk with sleep, mad for rest, command
by command stumbled down the pike or through the fields to where,
several miles to the south, stretched the meadows where their trains
were parked. There was no pursuit. Woods and fields were rough and
pathless; it was now dark night, and Ashby held the pike above.
A camp-fire was built for Stonewall Jackson in a field to the right
of the road, three miles from Kernstown. Here he stood, summoned
Garnett, and put him under arrest. The army understood next day that
heavy charges would be preferred against this general.
To right and left of the pike camp-fires flamed in the windy night.
Passing one of these, Richard Cleave cut short some bewailing on the
part of the ring about it. Don't be so downcast, people! Sometimes a
defeat in one place equals a victory in another. I don't believe that
General Banks will join General McClellan just now. Indeed, it's not
impossible that McClellan will have to part with another division.
Their government's dreadfully uneasy about Washington and the road to
Washington. They didn't beat us easily, and if we can lead them up and
down this Valley for a whileI imagine that's what General Johnston
wants, and what General Jackson will procure.And now you'd better all
go to sleep.
Where are you going, Cleave?
To see about the colonel. They've just brought him to the farmhouse
yonder. Dr. McGuire says he will get welldear old Brooke!
He went, striding over the furrowed field past groups of men
sleeping and moaning as they slept. The stars were very bright in the
clear, cold, windy night. He looked at them and thought of the battle
and of the dead and the wounded, and of Judith and of his mother and
sister, and of Will in the 2d, and of to-morrow's movements, and of
Stonewall Jackson. A dark figure came wandering up to him. It proved to
be that of an old negro. Marster, is you seen Marse Charlie?
Marse Charlie whom, uncle?
Marse Charlie Armetage, sah, mah young marster. I 'spec you done
seed him? I 'spec he come marchin' wif you down de pike f'om dat damn
battlefield? I sure would be 'bleeged ef you could tell me, sah.
I wish I could, said Cleave, with gentleness. I haven't seen him,
but maybe some one else has.
The old negro drew one hand through the other. I's asked erbout
fifty gent'men ... Reckon Marse Charlie so damn tired he jes' lain down
somewhere an' gone ter sleep. Reckon he come down de pike in de
mahnin', shoutin' fer Daniel. Don' you reckon so, marster?
It's not impossible, Daniel. Maybe you'll find him yet.
I 'specs ter, said Daniel. I 'spec ter fin' him howsomever he's
a-lyin'. He wandered off in the darkness, and Cleave heard him
speaking to a picket, Marster, is you seen Marse Charlie?
CHAPTER XVI. RUDE'S HILL
Stonewall Jackson and his army in slow retreat up the valley came,
the second day after Kernstown, to the gorge of Cedar Creek. A bridge
had once been here; there remained the blackened cross-timbers and a
portion of the flooring. The water below was cold, deep, and rapid.
Rather than breast it, the army made shift to cross on the charred
wood. An infantry command, stepping gingerly, heard behind it shots and
shoutsa Federal cavalry charge upon the rear guard. Several of the
men, listening too absorbedly, or not content with the present
snail-like motion, suddenly left the timbers and entered the rough and
swollen creek that poured beneath. Their exclamations in this berth
were piteous, and their comrades fished them out with bayonets and
laughter.
Upon the night of the 26th Banks's troopers occupied the northern
shore of Tom's Brook. Ashby held the southern side, and held it fast.
Behind that safe and vigilant and valiant screen the Army of the Valley
moved quietly and in good spirits to the points its general had in
mind. The army never knew what were these points until it found itself
actually upon the ground. It is morally certain that had he lived, a
recalcitrant, in former days, no amount of peine forte et dure
would have opened the lips of Stonewall Jackson had he willed to keep
them closed. During their earlier acquaintance officers and men alike
had made many an ingenious endeavour to learn the plans they thought
they ought to know. They set quaint traps, they made innocent-seeming
remarks, they guided right, they guided left, they blazed beautiful
trails straight, they thought, to the moment of revelation. It never
came. He walked past and around and over their traps. Inquisitive
officers found themselves not only without a straw of information, but
under displeasure. Brilliant leading remarks shone a moment by their
own brilliancy, then went out. The troops conjectured one roadthey
went by another; natives described the beauties of the village before
which they were sure to break ranksat eve they experienced the
hospitalities of quite another town. Generals in the ranks demonstrated
that they were going to turn on Shields, or that they were going east
by the old Manassas Gap and whip Geary, or northeast and whip
Abercrombie. They did none of the three. They marched on up the valley
to Rude's Hill near Mount Jackson. About this time, or a little later,
men and officers gave it up, began to admire, and to follow blindly. A
sergeant, one evening, put it to his mess. If we don't know, then
Banks and Shields and Fremont and Milroy and McClellan and Lincoln and
Stanton don't know, either! The mess grew thoughtful; presently it
took the pipe from its mouth to answer, Dog-gone it, Martin, that's
true! Never saw it just that way before.
Rude's Hill formed a strong natural position. There was water, there
were woods, there was an excellent space for a drill-ground. Jackson's
directions as to drill-grounds were always characteristically explicit.
Major: You will see that a camp is chosen where there are wood,
water, and a drill-ground emphasis on the drill-ground. At Rude's
Hill they drilled and drilled and drilled. Every morning rang out
adjutant's call, every morning there were infantry evolutions,
artillery evolutions. The artillery had some respite, for, turn by
turn, the sections went forward ten miles to do picket duty for Ashby,
Chew's Horse Artillery being continually engaged with the Federal
outposts. But the infantry drilled on, drilled and wondered at Banks.
One weektwo weeks!and the general in blue with nineteen thousand
men still on the farther side of Tom's Brook!
Despite the drilling the Army of the Valley had a good time at
Rude's Hill. Below brawled the Shenandoah, just to the east sprang the
Massanuttens. There was much rain, but, day by day, through the silver
veil or the shattered golden light, lovelier and more lovely grew the
spring. The army liked to see her coming. In its heart it felt a
springtime, too; a gush of hope and ardour. The men hardly counted
Kernstown a defeat. It was known that Old Jack had said to one of the
aides, I may say that I am satisfied, sir. And Congress had thanked
the Army of the Valley. And all the newspapers sang its praises. The
battle of Pea Ridge in Arkansas, the shelling of Newbern in North
Carolina, the exploits of the Merrimac in Hampton Roads, the battle of
Kernstown in the Valleyso at the moment ran the newspapers. And day
by day recruits were coming in; comrades as well who had been in
hospital or home on furlough. In that fortnight the Army of the Valley
grew to number nearly six thousand men.
At Rude's Hill there was an election of company officers. The
proceedingsamazing enough to the professional soldierput into camp
life three days of excitement and salt. Given a people of strong
political proclivities suddenly turned soldier; given human grudges and
likings, admirations and contempts; given the ballot in military as in
civil life; given a chance to inject champagne into the ennui of camp
existence, and in lieu of gun practice to send off sky-rockets and
catherine wheels; given a warm personal interest in each private's
bosom as to whom, for the next twelfth month (if the war lasted that
long), he was going to obeyand there resulted a shattering of
monotony comparable to a pitched battle.
The elections were held in beautiful, vernal groves. That there
would be changes it was believed; change was in the air! For days
beforehand the character for conduct, courage, and general
agreeableness of every man who wore three bars on his collar, or two,
or one, or who carried chevrons of silk or chevrons of worsted, had
been strictly in the zone of fire. Certain officers nearing certain
camp-fires felt caucuses dissolving at their approach into an innocence
of debating societies engaged with Fabius Maximus or Scipio Africanus.
Certain sergeants and corporals dreamed bars instead of chevrons, and
certain high privates, conscious of merit, saw worsted chevrons, silk
chevrons, and gold bars all in one blissful night.
But when election day dawned bright and clear, with a fine chorus of
birds and an especial performance by the regimental bands, when roll
call was over, and camp duties were over, and morning drill was over
(no relaxation here! There was only one day in the week on which Old
Jack let up on drill, and that wasn't election day!) and the pickets
had reluctantly marched away, leaving their votes behind them, and a
section of artillery had gone off, swearing, to relieve Chew, and the
men could at last get down to work, to happy babbling, happy
speechifying, happy minding the polls, and when in the cool of the
afternoon the returns were announced, there were fewer changes than had
been predicted. After all, most of the officers were satisfactory; why
let them down with a jolt? And the privates were satisfactory, too. Why
take a capital comrade, a good cook and forager and story-teller, and
make him uncomfortable by turning him into an officer? He was nice
enough as he was. Not that there were no alterations. Several companies
had new captains, some lieutenants stepped down, and there was a
shifting of non-commissioned officers. In Company A of the 65th
Lieutenant Mathew Coffin lost out. The men wished to put up Allan Gold
for the lieutenancy, but Allan declined. He had rather, he said, be
scout than lieutenantand what was the use in changing, anyhow?
Lieutenant Coffin was all right. Hadn't he been as brave as a lion at
Kernstownand any man is liable to lose his temper at timesand
wouldn't we hate him to have to write back to that young lady at
home? The last plea almost settled it, for the Confederate heart
might be trusted to melt at the mention of any young lady at home. But
all the Thunder Run men were against Coffin, and Thunder Run turned the
scale. In the main, however, throughout the army, company officers were
retained, and retained because they were efficient. The election was
first-rate fun, and the men cheered the returns, then listened to the
orders of the evening from the same old bars and chevrons. The sun went
down on a veritable love feastspecial rations, special music, special
fires, and, between supper and tattoo, an entertainment in each
regiment.
The 65th had a beautiful programme, its debating and literary
societies, its glee clubs, chess and checker circles, old sledge
associations, Thespians and Greek Letter men all joining forces. The
stage was a piece of earth, purple brown with pine needles. Two huge
fires, one at either side, made a strong, copper-red illumination. The
soldier audience sat in a deep semicircle, and sat at ease, being
accustomed by now to the posture of tailor or Turk. Only recruits
sought logs or stones upon which to sit. Tobacco smoke rose like
incense.
The chief musician sounded on the bugle horn. The Glee Club of
Company C filed on the stage with three banjos and two guitars, bowed
elegantly, and sang the Bonny Blue Flag. The applause was thunderous.
A large bearded man in the front row lifted a voice that boomed like
one of Ashby's cannon. Encore! Encore! Company C sang Listen to the
Mocking Bird. The audience gently sighed, took the pipe from its lips,
and joined in
Listen to the mocking birdListen to the mocking bird....
The mocking bird still singing o'er her grave.
Listen to the mocking birdListen to the mocking bird....
Still singing where the weeping willows wave.
The pine trees took it up, and the hazel copses and the hurrying
Shenandoah.
Twas in the mild SeptemberSeptemberSeptember,
And the mocking bird was singing far and wide.
Far and wide.... That's grand, but it sure is gloomy. Next!
The chief musician, having a carrying voice, made announcements. No.
2. Debate. Which will first recognize the Confederacy, England or
France? With the historic reasons for both doing so. England, Sergeant
Smith. France, Sergeant Duval.The audience is not expected to
participate in the debate otherwise than judicially, at the close.
The close saw it decided by a rising vote that England would come
firstSergeant Smith, indeed, who chanced to be a professor of
belles-lettres at a great school, having declared, with the gesture of
Saint John on Patmos, that he saw approaching our shores a white winged
ship bearing her declaration of amity. No. 3, intoned the first
musician. Recitation by Private Edwin Horsemanden.
Private Edwin Horsemanden gave the title of his selection, a poetic
selection. Some of his fellow privates looked puzzled. 'Oz
Etaliahn?'What does 'Oz Etaliahn' mean? Cherokee or Choctaw, which?
Explain it to us, Eddy. Is it something to eator to drink? ''T is
true, 'tis pity, 'tis pity 'tis 'tis true'but most of us never went
to college!... Oh, an opera house!In Paris, do you say? Go on, Eddy,
go on!
At Paris it was, at the opera there,
And she looked like a queen in a book that night
Never saw one out of a book, did you?... Yes, I saw a gypsy queen
once.... And the queen of the circus.... There's a man in Company D
once saw the queen of England, saw her just as plain! She was wearing a
scoop bonnet with pink roses around her face.... Sh! Shh!
Of all the operas that Verdi wrote.
Who's Verdi?
The best, to my taste, is the 'Trovatore.'
'Trovatore?' Eddy, isn't that the serenading fellow who goes on
singing till they hang him? Oh, Lord, yes! And the anvil chorus! The
anvil chorus comes in there. Go on, Eddy. We feel perfectly at home.
And Mario
Hm! stumped again.
can sooth with a tenor note
The souls in Purgatory.
The large bearded man was up once more. I rise to object. There
isn't any such place. The comcommanding general'll put him in irons
for misrepresenting the sidereal system. There's only heaven, hell, and
the enemy.Yaaaaih, Yaai.... Yaaai, yaaaah, yaaaaih! Certainly,
sergeant. The pleasure is mine, sir. Don't mention it, I beg. Mum's the
word!
The moon on the tower slept soft as snow
Gee-whiz! what a snowball! Didn't the tower break down? No! You
amaze me. Go on, Eddy, go on. We know the natural feelings of a
sophomore.
And who was not thrilled in the strangest way
As we heard him sing, while the gas burned low,
'Non ti scordar di me?'
What's that? Wait a minute, Eddy! Let's get the words. I always did
want a chance at German.Now you say them slowly and we'll repeat....
Why, man alive, you ought to be proud of your linguistic
accomplishments!... Well, I'll begin, and we'll fire by platoons.
Non ti scordar di me?
Attention! Company A!
Non ti scordar di me?
Non ti scordar di me?
Very good! We'll get the meaning after we learn the words. Company
B!
Non ti scordar di me?
Well roared, Bottom! Company C!
Non ti scordar di me?
Look out, or General Banks'll be sending over Tom's Brook to know
what's the matter! Company D!
Non ti scordar di me?
Company D goes to the head of the class! Company E!
Non ti scordar di me?
'Ware pine cones! Company E's shaking them down.... This class's
getting too big. Let's all learn the words together, so's Private
Horsemanden can go on with his piece! Attention, 65th! Make ready! Take
aim! Fire!
NON TI SCORDAR DI ME?
Now Eddy.... Oh, yes, you go on! You aren't going to cheat us that
way. We want to know what happened when they stopped talking German!
Hasn't anything happened yet.
Non ti
Sh! Go on, Eddy boy, and tell us exactly what occurred.
Private Edwin Horsemanden had pluck as well as sentiment, and he
went on. Moreover he had his revenge, for at bottom the 65th was itself
tender-hearted, not to say sentimental. It believed in lost loves and
lost blossoms, muslin dresses, and golden chains, cypress shades and
jasmine flowers,
And the one bird singing alone to his nest,
And the one star over the tower.
The 65th sighed and propped its chin on its hand. Presently the 65th
grew misty-eyed.
Then I smelt the smell of that jasmine flower
She used to wear in her breast
It smelt so faint and it smelt so sweet.
The pipe dropped from the 65th's hand. It sat sorry and pleased.
Private Edwin Horsemanden went on without interruption and finished
with eclat. The chief musician cleared his throat. The Glee Club of
Company H will now
The Glee Club of Company H was a large and popular organization. It
took the stage amid applause. The leader bowed. Gentlemen, we thank
you. Gentlemen, you have just listened to a beautiful noveltya pretty
little foreign song bird brought by the trade-wind, an English
nightingale singing in Virginian forests.Gentlemen, the Glee Club of
Company H will give you what by now is devil a bit of a noveltywhat
promises to be as old as the hills before we have done with itwhat
our grandchildren's grandchildren may sing with pridewhat to the end
of time will carry with it a breath of our armies. Gentlemen, the Glee
Club of Company H gives you the Marseillaise of the South.
Attention!
Way down South in the land of cotton,
'Simmon seed and sandy bottom
The 65th rose to its feet. Its neighbour to the right was the 2d
Virginia, encamped in a great open field; to the left the 5th,
occupying a grove of oaks. These regiments were busied with their own
genial hour, but when the loudly sung air streamed across from the 65th
they suspended their work in hand. They also sung Dixie. Thence it
was taken up by the 4th and the 33d, and then it spread to Burk and
Fulkerson. The batteries held the top of Rude's Hill, up among the
night wind and the stars. The artillerymen took the air from the
infantry. Headquarters was situated on the green bank of the
Shenandoah. Staff and couriers and orderlies hummed or sang. Stonewall
Jackson came to the door of his tent and stood, looking out. All Rude's
Hill throbbed to Dixie.
On went the programme. Marco Bozzaris was well spoken. A
blacksmith and a mule driver wrestled for a prize. Marmion Quitting
the Douglas's Hall was followed by Lula, Lula, Lula is Gone, and
Lula by Lorena, and Lorena by a fencing match. The Thespians
played capitally an act from The Rivals, and a man who had seen
Macready gave Hamlet's Soliloquy. Then they sang a song lately written
by James Randall and already very popular,
I hear the distant thunder hum,
Maryland!
The Old Line bugle, fife and drum
An orderly from headquarters found Richard Cleave. General Jackson
wishes to see you, sir.
The general's tent was not large. There were a table and two stools,
on one of which sat Jackson in his characteristic position, large feet
accurately paralleled. On the table, beside the candle, lay three
booksthe Bible, a dictionary, and Napoleon's Maxims. Jackson was
writing, his hand travelling slowly across a sheet of dim blue, lined,
official paper. The door flap of the tent was fastened back. Cleave,
standing in the opening, saluted.
Take a seat, sir, said the general, and went on to the end of his
page. Having here signed his name, he dropped the quill and slightly
turned so as to face the waiting officer. From under his high bronzed
forehead his blue eyes looked quietly upon Cleave.
The younger man returned the gaze as quietly. This was the first
time he had been thus summoned since that unlucky winter evening at
Bloomery Gap. He remembered that evening, and he did not suppose that
his general had forgotten it. He did not suppose that Jackson forgot
anything. But apparently it was no longer to be counted against him.
Jackson's face wore the quiet, friendly, somewhat sweet expression
usual to it when all was calm within. As for Cleave himself, his nature
owned a certain primal flow and bigness. There were few fixed and rigid
barriers. Injured pride and resentment did not lift themselves into
reefs against which the mind must break in torment. Rather, his being
swept fluid, making no great account of obstacles, accepting all turns
of affairs, drawing them into its main current, and moving onward
toward some goal, hardly self-conjectured, but simple, humane, and
universal. The anger he might have felt at Bloomery Gap had long passed
away. He sat now attentive, collected, broad-browed, and quiet.
Major Cleave, said Jackson, you will take an orderly with you and
ride across the mountains. General Ewell is at Gordonsville with a
somewhat larger force than my own. You will take this letter to him,
he folded it as he spoke, and you will talk to him as one intelligent
man to another.
Do you mean, sir, that I am to answer his questions?
Yes, sir. To the best of your ability. There is impending a
junction between General Ewell and myself. He wishes to know many
things, and seems to think it natural that I should tell him them. I am
not a great letter writer. You will give him all the information that
is common to the army.
Cleave smiled. That, sir, is not a great deal.
Perhaps it is not, sir. You are at liberty to give to General Ewell
your own observations and expectations. You will, however, represent
them as your own.
May I ask, sir, when this junction is to occur?
I have not decided, sir.
Does General Ewell know when it will occur?
Not precisely. He will be told in good time.
Whether, when you move, you move north or west or south or east,
is, I suppose, sir, purely a matter of conjecture?
Purely, sir.
But the morale of the army, its efficiency and spirit, may
be freely praised and imparted?
Yes, sir, freely. Upon your return I shall want from you your
impression of General Ewell and the troops he commands. He drew toward
him a map which lay on the table. You will ride through Massanutton
Gap by Conrad's Store and Swift Run Gap. Thence you will make a detour
to Charlottesville. There are stores there that I wish reported upon
and sent on to Major Harman at Staunton. You will spend one day upon
that business, then go on to Ewell.
CHAPTER XVII. CLEAVE AND JUDITH
The hospital at Charlottesville, unlovely and lovely, ghastly and
vital, brutal, spiritual, a hell of pain and weakness, another region
of endeavour and helpfulness, a place of horror, and also of strange
smiling, even of faint laughter, a country as chill as death and as
warm as lovethe hospital at Charlottesville saw the weary morning
grow to weary noon, the weary noon change toward the weary latter day.
The women who nursed the soldiers said that it was lovely outside, and
that all the peach trees were in bloom. We'll raise you a little
higher, they said, and you can see for yourself. And look! here is
your broth, so good and strengthening! And did you hear? We won on the
Peninsula to-day!
At four o'clock Judith Cary gave to another her place beside a
typhoid pallet and came out into the emerald and rose, the freshness
and fragrance of the spring. The Greenwood carriage was waiting. We'll
go, Isham, said Judith, by the University for Miss Lucy.
Isham held open the door. No'm, Miss Judith. Miss Lucy done sont
wuhd dat de ladies'll be cuttin' out nuniforms clean 'twel dark. She
say don' wait fer herMrs. Carter'll bring her home.
Judith entered the carriage. An old acquaintance, passing, paused to
speak to her. Isn't there a greater stir than usual? she asked.
Some of General Ewell's men are over from Gordonsville. There goes
General Dick Taylor nowthe one in grey and white! He's a son, you
know, of ZacharyOld Rough and Ready. General Jackson, too, has an
officer here to-day, checking the stores that came from Richmond.How
is it at the hospital?
It is very bad, said Judith. When the bands begin to play I laugh
and cry like all the rest, and I wave and clap my hands, and I would
fight on and on like the rest of you, and I do not see that, given
people as they are, the war could have been avoided, and I would die to
win, and I am, I hope, a patriotand yet I do not see any sense in it!
It hurts me as I think it may hurt the earth. She would like, I
believe, something better than being a battlefield.There is music
again! Yesterday a man died, crying for the band to hush. He said it
drowned something he needed to hear.
Yes, yes, replied her friend, nodding his head. That is perfectly
true. That is very true, indeed!That band's coming from the station.
They're looking for a regiment from Richmond.That's a good band! What
are they playing?
Bright flowers spring from the hero's grave,
The craven knows no rest,
Thrice cursed the traitor and the knave,
The hero thrice is blessed
The Greenwood carriage rolled out of the town into the April
country. The fruit trees were in bloom, the woods feathering green, the
quiet and the golden light inestimable after the moaning wards. The
carriage went slowly, for the roads were heavy; moreover the former
carriage horses were gone to the war. These were two from the farm,
somewhat old and stiff, willing, but plodders. They went half asleep in
the soft sunshine, and Isham on the box went half asleep too. Judith
would have been willing to sleep, but she could not. She sat with her
gaze upon the fair spring woods and the amethystine hills rising to
blue skies. The carriage stopped. Isham bent down from the box. Miss
Judith, honey, er gent'man's on de road behin' us, ridin' ter overtek
de kerridge.
Wait for him, then, said Judith. There is some message, perhaps.
While they waited she sat with folded hands, her eyes upon the
purple hills, her thoughts away from Albemarle. The sound that Isham
made of surprise and satisfaction did not reach her. Until she saw
Cleave's face at the window she thought him somewhere in the
Valleyfighting, fighting! in battle and danger, perhaps, that very
day.
Her eyes widened, her face had the hush of dawn; it was turned
toward him, but she sat perfectly still, without speaking. Only the
door was between them, the glass down. He rested his clasped hands on
the ledge, and his dark, moved face looked in upon her. Judith, he
said, I did not know.I thought it was one of the others.... I hope
that you are a little glad to see me.
Judith looked at him a moment longer, then swayed a little forward.
She bent her head. Her cheek touched his clasped hands, he felt her
kiss upon them, and her forehead resting there.
There was a moment's silence, deep, breathless, then Cleave spoke.
Judith ... Am I mad?
I believe that you love me, she said. If you do not, it does not
matter.... I have loved you for two years.
Maury Stafford?
I have never believed that you understoodthough what it was that
made you misunderstand I have never guessed.... There is no Maury
Stafford. There never was.
He opened the door. Come out, he said. Come out with me into the
light. Send the carriage on.
She did so. The road was quiet, deserted, a wide bright path between
the evening hills. Dundee following them, they walked a little way
until they came to a great rock, sunk in the velvet sward that edged a
wood. Here they sat down, the gold light bathing them, behind them
fairy vistas, fountains of living green, stars of the dogwood and
purple sprays of Judas tree. How I misunderstood is no matter now,
said Cleave. I love you, and you say that you love me. Thank God for
it!
They sat with clasped hands, their cheeks touching, their breath
mingling. Judith, Judith, how lovely are you! I have seen you always,
always!... Only I called it 'vision,' 'ideal.' At the top of every deed
I have seen your eyes; from the height of every thought you have
beckoned further! NownowIt is like a wonderful home-coming ... and
yet you are still there, above the mountains, beckoning, drawingThere
and here, here in my arms!... JudithWhat does 'Judith' mean?
It means 'praised.' Oh, Richard, I heard that you were wounded at
Kernstown!
It was nothing. It is healed.... I will write to your father at
once.
He will be glad, I think. He likes you.... Have you a furlough? How
long can you stay?
Love, I cannot stay at all. I am on General Jackson's errand. I
must ride on to GordonsvilleIt would be sweet to stay!
When will you come again?
I do not know. There will be battlesmany battles, perhapsup and
down the Valley. Every man is needed. I am not willing to ask even a
short furlough.
I am not willing that you should.... I know that you are in danger
every day! I hear it in the wind, I see it in every waving bough....
Oh, come back to me, Richard!
I? he answered, I feel immortal. I will come back.
They rose from the rock. The sun is setting. Would you rather I
went on to the house? I must turn at once, but I could speak to them
No. Aunt Lucy is in town, Unity, too.... Let's say good-bye before
we reach the carriage.
They went slowly by the quiet road beneath the flowering trees. The
light was now only on the hilltops; the birds were silent; only the
frogs in the lush meadows kept up their quiring, a sound quaintly
mournful, weirdly charming. A bend of the road showed them Isham, the
farm horses, and the great old carriage waiting beneath a tulip tree.
The lovers stopped, took hands, moved nearer each to the other, rested
each in the other's arms. Her head was thrown back, his lips touched
her hair, her forehead, her lips. Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye!
He put her in the carriage, kissed her hands as they lay on the door
ledge, and stood back. It was not far to the Greenwood gates; the old,
slow horses moved on, the carriage rounded a leafy turn, the road was
left to the soldier and his horse.
Cleave rode to Gordonsville that night as though he carried Heaven
with him. The road was fair, the moon was high. Far-flung, beautiful
odours filled the air; the red ploughed earth sent its share, the
flowering fruit trees theirs, the flowers in the wood, the mint by the
stream. A light wind swung them as from a censer; the moved air touched
the young man's forehead. He took off his hat; he rode rapidly with
head held high. He rode for hours, Dundee taking the way with even
power, a magnificently silent friend. Behind, on an iron grey, came the
orderly. Riding thus together, away from organization and discipline,
the relations between the two men, officer and private, were perfectly
democratic. From Rude's Hill across the Massanuttons and from Swift Run
Gap to Charlottesville they had been simply comrades and fellow
Virginians. They were from adjoining counties, where the one had
practised law and the other had driven a stage. There were differences
in breeding, education, and employment; but around these, recognized by
both, stretched the enormous plane of humanity. They met there in
simple brotherliness. To-night, however, Cleave had spoken for silence.
I want to be quiet for a while, Harris.There is something I have to
think of.
[Illustration: THE LOVERS]
The night was all too short for what he had to think of. The pink
flush of dawn, the distant view of Ewell's tents, came too soon. It was
hard to lower the height and swell of the mind, to push back the
surging thoughts, to leave the lift and wonder, the moonlight, and the
flowering way. Here, however, were the pickets; and while he waited for
the corporal of the guard, standing with Harris on a little hill,
before them the pink sky, below them a peach orchard, pink too, with a
lace-like mist wreathing the trees, he put golden afternoon and
moonlight night in the bottom of his heart and laid duty atop.
Ewell's camp, spread over the rolling hills and lighted by a
splendid sunrise, lay imposingly. To the eyes of the men from the
Valley the ordered white tents of Trimble's and Taylor's and the
Maryland line had an air luxuriously martial. Everything seemed to
gleam and shine. The guns of the parked batteries gave back the light,
the colours seemed silken and fine, the very sunrise gun had a
sonorousness lacking to Chew's Blakeley, or to McLaughlin's
six-pounders, and the bugles blowing reveille a silvery quality most
remarkable. As for the smoke from the camp-firesLord save us! said
Harris, I believe they're broiling partridges! Of all the dandy
places!
Cleave laughed. It's not that they are so fine, but that we are so
weather-beaten and rusty! They're only in good working-day trim. We'll
have to polish up at Rude's Hill.
This is the 1st Maryland on the hillside, said the guide the
corporal had given; there with the blue flag. Mighty fine feathers,
but I reckon they're gamecocks all right! Elzey's Brigade's over beside
the woodsVirginian to the backbone. Trimble's got a fine
lotGeorgians and Alabamians and Mississippians. Here come some of the
2d Virginia Cavalry! Ain't they pretty?
They were. But Harris stood up for the absent Valley. Huh! Ashby's
good enough for me! Ashby's got three stallionsthe white he's fondest
of, and a black like a piece of coal, and a red roan
The guide nodded energetically. Oh, we think a heap of Ashby
ourselves! There ain't anybody that the men listen about more eagerly.
We ain't setting up on this side of the mountains to beat him!
But I reckon the 2d and the 6th'll do right well when they get a
chance. Yes, sir, General Taylor's Brigade. He's got a lot of Frenchmen
from LouisianaAcadians I've heard them calledand they can't speak a
word of English, poor souls!There goes their band again. They're
always playing, dancing, and cooking rice. We call them Parlavoosname
of their county, I reckon.He's got Wheat's Battalion, too. Sorrow a
bit of a Frenchman therethey're Irish Tartars!That's headquarters,
sir. By the apple orchard.
An aide brought Cleave to a fair-sized central tent, set beside a
great wine sap just coming into bloom. Around it was a space of trodden
earth, to one side a cheerful fire and a darky cook, in front a pine
table, over which a coloured boy was spreading a very clean tablecloth.
Out of the tent came a high, piping voice. Good-morning, Hamilton!
What is it? What is it?An officer from General Jackson? All right!
All right! glad to see him. Tell him to waitJim, you black idiot,
what have I done with that button?
The aide smiled, Cleave smiled. There was something in the voice
that announced the person, quaintly rough, lovable and gallant,dear
Dick Ewell. He came out presently, a small man with a round bald head,
hook nose and bright eyes.
This the officer? Glad to see you, MajorMajor Cleave? Stay to
breakfast. Bob, you black rascal, another plate! Can't give you
much,mysterious inward complaint, myself,can't eat anything but
frumenty.Well, sir, how is General Jackson?
Quite well, general.
Most remarkable man! Wants to tie a bandage round everybody's eyes
but his own!all this plaintively treble. Would ask to have it off
if I was facing a firing party, and in the present circumstances don't
like it at all!Did you happen to meet any of my couriers?
Yes, general. One at the foot of the Massanuttons, one in Elk Run
Valley.
Got to send them. Got to ask what to do. By God, out on the plains
with fifty dragoons I'd know! And here President Davis has made me a
major-general, and I don't know!Draw up to the table, sir, draw up!
You can drink coffee; I can't. Can't sleep at night; don't want to lie
down; curl up on the ground and think of my fifty dragoons.Well, sir,
and what does General Jackson say?
I have a letter for you, sir.
He presented it. Ewell, head on one side like a bird, took and
opened the paper. I really do believe the sun's up at last! What does
he say? 'Move in three days by Stanardsville. Take a week's rations.
Rest on Sunday. Other directions will be given as needed.' Hm!
Highly characteristic! Never anything more than a damned dark
lantern!Well, it's something to know that we're going by
Stanardsville and are to rest on Sunday! Where is Stanardsville?
It is a few miles this side of Swift Run Gap.
The general helped his guest to cornbread and himself began upon
frumenty. All right! I'll move, and I suppose when I get there old
Jackson'll vouchsafe another gleam.Bob, you damned Ethiopian, where
are your wits? Fill Major Cleave's cup.Glad to welcome you, major, to
Camp Ewell. Pretty tidy place, don't you think?
I do indeed, sir.
Have you seen Dick Taylor's beautieshis Creoles and Tigers and
Harry Hayes, 7th Louisiana? The Maryland Line, too, and Trimble and
Elzey? Damned fine army! How about yours over there? He indicated the
Blue Ridge with a bird-like jerk, and helped himself again to frumenty.
Your description applies there, too, sir. It's a little rough and
ready, butit's a damned fine army!
Kernstown didn't shake it?
Kernstown was as much a victory as a defeat, sir. No, it didn't
shake it.
Morale good?
Extraordinarily so. That army is all right, sir.
I wish, said Ewell plaintively, that I knew what to make of
General Jackson. What do you make of him, major?
I make a genius, sir.
Ewell raised his shoulder and ducked his head, his bright round eyes
much like a robin's. And he isn't crazy?
Not in the very least.
Well, I've had my doubts. I am glad to hear you say that. I want to
think mighty well of the man who leads me. That Romney trip now?of
course, I only heard Loring's side. He doesn't just wind in and out of
mountains for the fun of doing it?
I think that, generally speaking, he has some other object in view,
sir. I think that acquaintance with General Jackson will show you what
I mean. It develops confidence in a very marked fashion.
Ewell listened bright-eyed. I am glad to hear you say that, for
damn me, confidence is what I want! I want, sir, to be
world-without-end-sure that my commanding officer is forever and
eternally right, and then I want to be let go ahead!I want to be let
feel just as though I were a captain of fifty dragoons, and nothing to
do but to get back to post by the sunset gun and report the work
done!And so you think that when my force and old Jackson's force get
together we'll do big things?
Fairly big, sir. It is fortunate to expect them. They will arrive
the sooner.
Ewell bobbed his head. Yes, yes, that's true! Now, major, I'm going
to review the troops this morning, and then I'll write an answer for
General Jackson, and you'll take it to him and tell him I'm coming on
by Stanardsville, just as he says, and that I'll rest on Sunday. Maybe
even we'll find a churchPresbyterian. He rose. You'd better come
with me.I've got some more questions to ask. Better see my troops,
too. Old Jackson might as well know what beautiful children I've got.
Have you any idea yourself what I'm expected to do at Stanardsville?
I don't know what General Jackson expects, sir. But my own idea is
that you'll not be long at Stanardsville.
He'll whistle again, will he?
I think so. But I speak without authority.
There's an idea abroad that he means to leave the Valleycome
eastcross the mountains himself instead of my crossing them. What do
you think of that?
I am not in his council, sir. The Valley people would hate to see
him go.
Well, all that I can say is that I hope Banks is puzzled,
too!Jim, Jim! damn you, where's my sword and sash?
As they went Ewell talked on in his piping voice. General Jackson
mustn't fling my brigades against windmills or lose them in the
mountains! I'm fair to confess I feel anxious. Out on the plains when
we chase Apaches we chase 'em! We don't go deviating like a love vine
all over creation.That's Harry Hayes's bandplaying some Frenchy
thing or other! Cavalry's over thereI know you've got Ashby, but
Flournoy and Munford are right wicked, too!
TheVirginia is with you, sir?
Yes. Fine regiment. You know it?
I know one of its officersMajor Stafford.
Oh, we all know Maury Stafford! Fine fellow, but damned restless.
General Taylor says he is in love. I was in love once myself, but I
don't remember that I was restless. He is. He was with Loring but
transferred.You went to Romney together?
Yes, we went together.
Fine fellow, but unhappy. Canker somewhere, I should say. Here we
are, and if General Jackson don't treat my army well, I'llI'llI'll
know he's crazy!
The review was at last over. Back under the wine sap Ewell wrote his
answer to Jackson, then, curled in a remarkable attitude on the bench
beneath the tree (I'm a nervous major-general, sir. Can't help it.
Didn't sleep. Can't sleep.), put Cleave through a catechism searching
and shrewd. His piping, treble voice, his varied oaths and quaintly
petulant talk, his roughness of rind and inner sweetness made him,
crumpled under the apple tree, in his grey garb and cavalry boots, with
his bright sash and bright eyes, a figure mellow and olden out of an
ancient story. Cleave also, more largely built, more muscular, a little
taller, with a dark, thin, keen face, the face of a thinking
man-at-arms, clad in grey, clean but worn, seated on a low stool
beneath the tinted boughs, his sword between his knees, his hands
clasped over the hilt, his chin on his handsCleave, too, speaking of
skirmishes, of guns and horsemen, of the massed enemy, of mountain
passes and fordable rivers, had the value of a figure from a Flemish or
Venetian canvas. The form of the moment was of old time, old as the
smell of apple blossoms or the buzzing of the bees; old as these and
yet persistently, too, of the present as were these. The day wore on to
afternoon, and at last the messenger from Jackson was released.
TheVirginia had its encampment upon the edge of a thick and
venerable wood, beech and oak, walnut and hickory. Regimental
headquarters was indeed within the forest, half a dozen tents pitched
in a glade sylvan enough for Robin Hood. Here Cleave found Stafford
sitting, writing, before the adjutant's tent. He looked up, laid down
his pen and rose. Ah! Where did you come from? I thought you in the
Valley, in training for a brigadier! He came forward, holding out his
hand. I am glad to see you. Welcome to Camp Ewell!
Cleave's hand made no motion from his side. Thank you, he said.
It is good when a man can feel that he is truly welcome.
The other was not dull, nor did he usually travel by indirection.
You will not shake hands, he said. I think we have not been thrown
together since that wretched evening at Bloomery Gap. Do you bear
malice for that?
Do you think that I do?
The other shrugged. Why, I should not have thought so. What is it,
then?
Let us go where we can speak without interruption. The woods down
there?
They moved down one of the forest aisles. The earth was carpeted
with dead leaves from beneath which rose the wild flowers. The oak was
putting forth tufts of rose velvet, the beech a veil of pale and satiny
green. The sky above was blue, but, the sun being low, the space
beneath the lacing boughs was shadowy enough. The two men stopped
beside the bole of a giant beech, silver-grey, splashed with lichens.
Quiet enough here, said Stafford. Well, what is it, Richard Cleave?
I have not much to say, said Cleave. I will not keep you many
moments. I will ask you to recall to mind the evening of the
seventeenth of last April.
Well, I have done so. It is not difficult.
No. It would, I imagine, come readily. Upon that evening, Maury
Stafford, you lied to me.
I
Don't! said Cleave. Why should you make it worse? The impression
which, that evening, you deliberately gave me, you on every after
occasion as deliberately strengthened. Your action, then and since,
brands you, sir, for what you are!
And where, demanded Stafford hoarsely, where did you get this
precious informationor misinformation? Who was at the pains to
persuade youno hard matter, I warrant!that I was dealing falsely?
Your informant, sir, was mistaken, and I
A shaft of sunshine, striking between the boughs, flooded the space
in which they stood. It lit Cleave's head and face as by a candle
closely held. The other uttered a sound, a hard and painful gasp. You
have seen her!
Yes.
Did she tell you that?
No. She does not know why I misunderstood. Nor shall I tell her.
You have seen herYou are happy?
Yes, I am happy.
She loves youShe is going to marry you?
Yes.
The wood stood very quiet. The shaft of light drew up among the
boughs. Stafford leaned against the trunk of the beech. He was
breathing heavily; he looked, veritably, a wounded man. I will go
now, said Cleave. I had to speak to you and I had to warn you.
Good-day.
He turned, the leaves crisp beneath his footfall. Wait, said
Stafford. One moment He drew himself up against the beech. I wish
to tell you why Ias you phrase itlied to you. I allowed you to rest
under that impression which I am not sure that I myself gave you,
because I thought her yet trembling between us, and that your
withdrawal would be advantageous to my cause. Not for all of Heaven
would I have had her turn to you! Now that, apparently, I have lost her
irrevocably, I will tell you that you do not love her as I do. Have I
not watched you? Did she die to-day, you would go on to-morrow with
your DutyDutyDuty! For me, I would kill
myself on her grave. Where you and I were rivals and enemies, now we
are enemies. Look out for me, Richard Cleave! He began to laugh, a
broken and mirthless sound. Look out for me, Richard Cleave. Go!
I shall, said Cleave. I will not keep a watch upon you in such a
moment, nor remember it. I doubt neither your passion nor your
suffering. But in one thing, Maury Stafford, you have lied again. I
love as strongly, and I love more highly than you do! As for your
threatsthreatened men live long.
He turned, left the forest glade and came out into the camp lying
now beneath the last rays of the sun. That evening he spent with Ewell
and his staff, passed the night in a friendly tent, and at dawn turned
Dundee's head toward the Blue Ridge.
CHAPTER XVIII. McDOWELL
At Stanardsville he heard from a breathless crowd about the small
hotel news from over the mountains. Banks was at last in motionwas
marching, nineteen thousand strong, up the Valleyhad seized New
Market, and, most astounding and terrific of all to the village boys,
had captured a whole company of Ashby's! General Jackson? General
Jackson had burned the railway station at Mt. Jackson and fallen
backwas believed to be somewhere about Harrisonburg.
Any other news?
Yes, sir! Fremont's pressing south from Moorefield, Milroy east
from Monterey! General Edward Johnson's had to fall back from the
Alleghenies!he's just west of Staunton. He hasn't got but a brigade
and a half.
Anything more?
Stage's just brought the Richmond papers. All about Albert Sydney
Johnston's death at Shiloh. He led the charge and a minie ball struck
him, and he said 'Lay me down. Fight on.'
Fort Pulaski's taken! The darned gunboats battered down the wall.
All of the garrison that ain't dead are prisoners.
News from New Orleans ain't hilarious. Damned mortar boats bombard
and bombard!four ships, they say, against Fort Saint Philip, more
against Fort Jackson. Air full of shells. Farragut may try to run forts
and batteries, Chalmette and all
What else?
Looks downright bad down t' Richmond. McClellan's landed
seventy-five thousand men. Magruder lost a skirmish at Yorktown. All
the Richmond women are making sandbags for the fortifications. Papers
talk awful calm and large, but if Magruder gives way and Johnston can't
keep McClellan back, I reckon there'll be hell to pay! I reckon
Richmond'll fall.
Anything more?
That's all to-day.
The village wag stepped forth, half innocent and half knave. Saay,
colonel! The prospects of this here Confederacy look rather blue.
It is wonderful, said Cleave, how quickly blue can turn to grey.
A portion of that night he spent at a farmhouse at the western mouth
of Swift Run Gap. Between two and three he and Harris and Dundee and
the grey were again upon the road. It wound through forests and by
great mountains, all wreathed in a ghostly mist. The moon shone bright,
but the cold was clinging. It had rained and on the soft wood road the
horses feet fell noiselessly. The two men rode in silence, cloaks drawn
close, hats over their eyes.
Behind them in the east grew slowly the pallor of the dawn. The
stars waned, the moon lost her glitter, in the woods to either side
began a faint peeping of birds. The two came to Conrad's Store, where
the three or four houses lay yet asleep. An old negro, sweeping the
ground before a smithy, hobbled forward at Harris's call. Lawd,
marster, enny news? I specs, sah, I'll hab ter ax you 'bout dat. I ain'
heard none but dat dar wuz er skirmish at Rude's Hill, en er skirmish
at New Market, en er-nurr skirmish at Sparta, en dat Gineral Jackson
hold de foht, sah, at Harrisonburg, en dat de Yankees comin',
lickerty-split, up de Valley, en dat de folk at Magaheysville air
powerful oneasy in dey minds fer fear dey'll deviate dis way.
Howsomever, we's got er home guard ef dey do come, wid ole Mr. Smith
what knew Gin'ral Washington at de haid. En dar wuz some bridges burnt,
I hearn, en Gineral Ashby he had er fight on de South Fork, en I cyarn
think ob no mo' jes now, sah! But Gineral Jackson he sholy holdin' de
foht at Harrisonburg.Yes, sah, dat's de Magaheysville road.
The South Fork of the Shenandoah lay beneath a bed of mist. They
crossed by a wooden bridge and came up again to the chill woods. Dim
purple streaks showed behind them in the east, but there was yet no
glory and no warmth. Before them rose a long, low mountain ridge, a
road running along the crest. That certainly is damn funny! said
Harris; unless I've taken to seeing sights.
Cleave checked his horse. Above them, along the ridge top, was
moving an army. It made no noise on the soft, moist road, artillery
wheel and horse's hoof quiet alike. It seemed to wish to move quietly,
without voice. The quarter of the sky above the ridge was coldly
violet, palely luminous. All these figures stood out against it,
soldiers with their muskets, colour-bearer with furled colours,
officers on foot, officers on horseback, guns, caissons, gunners,
horses, forges, ordnance wagons, commissaryvan, main body and rear,
an army against the daybreak sky.
Well, if ever I saw the like of that! breathed the orderly. What
d'ye reckon it means, sir?
It means that General Jackson is moving east from Harrisonburg.
Not a soundD'ye reckon they're ghosts, sir?
No. They're the Army of the ValleyThere! the advance has made the
turn.
Toward them swung the long column, through the stillness of the
dawn, down the side of the ridge, over the soundless road, into the
mist of the bottom lands. The leading regiment chanced to be the 2d;
colonel and adjutant and others riding at the head. Hello! It's
Richard Cleave!The top of the morning to you, Cleave!knew that Old
Jack had sent you off somewhere, but didn't know where.Where are we
going? By God, if you'll tell us, we'll tell you! Apparently we're
leaving the Valleydamn it all! Train to Richmond by night, I reckon.
We've left Fourth of July, Christmas, and New Year behind usBanks
rubbing his hands, Fremont doing a scalp dance, Milroy choosing
headquarters in Staunton! Well, it doesn't stand thinking of. You had
as well waited for us at the Gap. The general? Just behind, head of
main column. He's jerked that right hand of his into the air sixteen
times since we left Harrisonburg day before yesterday, and the staff
says he prays at night most powerful. Done a little praying myself;
hope the Lord will look after the Valley, seeing we aren't going to do
it ourselves!
Cleave drew his horse to one side. I'll wait here until he comes
upno, not the Lord; General Jackson. I want, too, to speak to Will.
Where in column is the 65th?
Fourth, I think. He's a nice boyWill. It was pretty to watch him
at KernstownV. M. I. airs and precision, and gallantry enough for a
dozen!
I'll tell him you said so, colonel! Good-bye!
Will, too, wanted to knowhe said that Mr. Rat wanted to knowall
the fellows wanted to know, what(I wish you'd let me swear,
Richard!) what it all meant? Mr. Rat and I don't believe he's
responsibleit isn't in the least like his usual conduct! Old Jack
backing away from cannons and suchquitting parade ground before it's
time!marching off to barracks with a beautiful rumpus behind him! It
ain't natural! Mark my words, Richard, and Mr. Rat thinks so, too, it's
General Lee or General Johnston, and he's got to obey and can't help
himself!What do you think?
I think it will turn out all right. Now march on, boy! The colonel
says he watched you at Kernstown; says you did mighty well'gallant
for a dozen!'
General Jackson on Little Sorrel was met with further on.
Imperturbable and self-absorbed, with his weather-stained uniform, his
great boots, his dreadful cap, he exhibited as he rode a demeanour in
which there was neither heaviness nor lightness. Never jovial, seldom
genial, he was on one day much what he was on anothersaving always
battle days. Riding with his steadfast grey-blue eyes level before him,
he communed with himself or with Heavencertainly not with his
dissatisfied troops.
He acknowledged Cleave's salute, and took the letter which the other
produced. Good! good! What did you do at Charlottesville?
I sent the stores on to Major Harman at Staunton, sir. There was a
good deal of munition. He gave a memorandum.
One hundred rifled muskets with bayonets.
Belgian
Fifty flintlocks.
Two hundred pikes.
Five hundred pounds cannon powder.
Two musket
Five thousand rounds of cartridge.
Eight sets artillery harness.
Ten artillery sabres.
One large package of lint.
One small case drugs and surgical instruments.
Good, good, said Jackson. What day?
Monday, sir. Virginia Central that afternoon. I telegraphed to
Major Harman.
Good! He folded the slip of paper between his large fingers and
transferred it to his pocket. I will read General Ewell's letter.
Later I may wish to ask you some questions. That is all, major.
Cleave rode back to the 65th. Presently, the sun now brilliantly up,
the Army of the Valley, in no sunny mood, crossed the bridge over the
Shenandoah. There was a short halt. A company of Ashby's galloped from
the rear and drew off into a strip of level beside the bridge. A
section of artillery followed suit. The army understood that for some
reason or other and for some length of time or other the bridge was to
be guarded, but it understood nothing more. Presently the troops passed
Conrad's Store, where the old negro, reinforced now by the dozen white
inhabitants, gaped at the tramping column. The white men asked
stuttering questions, and as the situation dawned upon them they
indulged in irritating comment. Say, boys, where in the Lord's name
air you going? We want you on this side of the Blue Ridgeyou ain't
got any call to go on the other!if you've got any Tuckahoes, let them
go, but you Cohees stay in your native landValley men ain't got no
right to go! What'd the women say to you along the road?
Clearing out like a passel of yaller dogs afore there's trouble and
leavin' them an' the children to entertain the Yankees!
Harris, coming up with the orderlies, found the old negro at his
mare's bridle. Well, marster, I sholy did think I wuz tellin' de truf,
sah, 'bout Gin'ral Jackson holdin' de foht at Harrisonburg! En now he
done 'vacuate hit, en Gin'ral Banks he prance right in! Hit look
powerful cu'rous, hit sho do. But dar! I done seed de stars all fallin'
way back in '33, en dat wuz powerful cu'rous too, fer de worl' didn't
come ter an eendMebbe, sah, he jes'er drawin' dat gent'man on?
Sullen and sorry, the army marched on, and at noon came to Elk Run
Valley on the edge of Swift Run Gap. When the men stacked arms and
broke ranks, it was upon the supposition that, dinner over, they would
resume the march. They did not so; they stayed ten days in Elk Run
Valley.
All around were the mountains, heavily timbered, bold and pathless.
Beyond Conrad's Store, covering Jackson's front, rushed the Shenandoah,
the bridge guarded by Ashby's men. There were pickets enough between
the river and the camp; north, south, and east rose the mountains, and
on the other side of Swift Run Gap, near Stanardsville, lay Ewell and
his eight thousand. The encampment occupied low and flat ground,
through which ran a swollen creek. The spring had been on the whole
inclement, and now, with suddenness, winter came back for a final word.
One day there was a whirl of snow, another was cold and harsh, on the
third there set in a chilly rain. It rained and rained, and all the
mountain streams came down in torrents and still further swelled the
turbid creek. One night, about halfway through their stay, the creek
came out of its banks and flooded the surrounding land. All tents,
huts, and shelters of boughs for a hundred feet each side acquired a
liquid flooring. There arose an outcry on the midnight air. Wet and
cursing, half naked and all a-shiver, men disentangled themselves from
their soaked blankets, snatched up clothing and accoutrements, and
splashed through a foot of icy water to slightly dryer quarters on the
rising ground.
Snow, rain, freeze, thaw, impatience, listlessness, rabid
conjecture, apathetic acquiescence, quarrels, makeups, discomfort,
ennui, a deal of swearing (carefully suppressed around headquarters),
drill whenever practicable, two Sunday services and one prayer
meeting!the last week of April 1862 in Elk Run Valley was one to be
forgotten without a pang. There was an old barn which the artillery had
seized upon, that leaked like a sieve, and there was a deserted tannery
that still filled the air with an evil odour, and there was change of
pickets, and there were rain-sodden couriers to be observed coming and
going (never anything to be gotten out of them), and there were the
mountains hung with grey clouds. The wood was always wet and would not
burn. Coffee was so low that it was served only every other day,
besides being half chicory, and the commissary had been cheated into
getting a lot of poor tobacco. The guardhouse accommodated more men
than usual. A squad of Ashby's brought in five deserters, all found on
the backward road to the Valley. One said that he was sick and that his
mother had always nursed him; another that he was only going to see
that the Yankees hadn't touched the farm, and meant to come right back;
another that the war was over, anyhow; another that he had had a bad
dream and couldn't rest until he saw that his wife was alive; the fifth
that he was tired of living; and the sixth said nothing at all. Jackson
had the six put in irons, and it was thought that after the court
martial they would be shot.
On the twenty-ninth Ashby, from the other side of the Shenandoah,
made a demonstration in force against the enemy at Harrisonburg, and
the next day, encountering the Federal cavalry, drove them back to the
town. That same afternoon the Army of the Valley, quitting without
regret Elk Run Valley, found itself travelling an apparently bottomless
road that wound along the base of the mountains.
For the Lord's sake, where are we going now?
This is the worst road to Port Republic.
Why are we going to Port Republic?
Boys, I don't know. Anyway, we ain't going through the Gap. We're
still in the Valley.
By gosh, I've heard the captain give some mighty good guesses! I'm
going to ask him.Captain, what d' ye reckon we camped ten days in
that mud hole for?
Hairston Breckinridge gave the question consideration. Well, Tom,
maybe there were reasons, after all. General Ewell, for instancehe
could have joined us there any minute. They say he's going to take our
place at Elk Run to-night!
That so? Wish him joy of the mud hole!
And we could have been quickly reinforced from Richmond. General
Banks would know all that, and 't would make him even less eager than
he seems to be to leave the beaten way and come east himself. Nobody
wants him, you know, on the other side of the Blue Ridge.
That's so
And for all he knew, if he moved north and west to join Fremont we
might pile out and strike Milroy, and if he went south and west to meet
Milroy he might hear of something happening to Fremont.
That's so
And if he moved south on Staunton he might find himself caught like
a scalybark in a nut crackerEdward Johnson on one side and the Army
of the Valley on the other.
That's so
The other day I asked Major Cleave if General Jackson never amused
himself in any waynever played any game, chess for instance. He said,
'Not at allwhich was lucky for the other chess player.'
Well, he ought to know, for he's a mighty good chess player
himself. And you think
I think General Banks has had to stay where he is.
And where are we going nowbesides Port Republic?
I haven't any idea. But I'm willing to bet that we're going
somewhere.
The dirt roads, after the incessant rains, were mud, mud, mud!
ordinarily to the ankles, extraordinarily to the knees of the marching
infantry. The wagon train moved in front, and the heavy wheels made for
the rest a track something like Christian's through the Slough of
Despond. The artillery brought up the rear and fared worst of all. Guns
and caissons slid heavily into deep mud holes. The horses
strainedpoor brutes! but their iron charges stuck fast. The drivers
used whip and voice, the officers swore, there arose calls for Sergeant
Jordan. Appearing, that steed tamer picked his way to the horses'
heads, spoke to them, patted them, and in a reasonable voice said, Get
up! They did it, and the train dragged on to the next bog, deeper than
before. Then da capostuck wheels, straining teams, oaths,
adjuration, at last Sergeant Jordan!
So abominable was the road that the army went like a tortoise, a mud
tortoise. Twilight found it little more than five miles from its
starting-point, and the bivouac that night was by the comfortless
roadside, in the miry bushes, with fires of wet wood, and small and
poor rations. Clouds were lowering and a chilly wind fretted the
forests of the Blue Ridge. Around one of the dismal, smoky fires an
especially dejected mess found a spokesman with a vocabulary rich in
comminations.
Sh! breathed one of the ring. Officer coming by. Heard you too,
Williamsall that about Old Jack.
A figure wrapped in a cloak passed just upon the rim of the
firelight. I don't think, men, said a voice, that you are in a
position to judge. If I have brought you by this road it is for your
own good.
He passed on, the darkness taking him. Day dawned as best it might
through grey sheets of rain. Breakfast was a mockery, damp hardtack
holding the centre of the stage. A very few men had cold coffee in
their canteens, but when they tried to heat it the miserable fire went
out. On marched the Army of the Valley, in and out of the great
rain-drenched, mist-hidden mountains, on the worst road to Port
Republic. Road, surrounding levels, and creek-bed had somehow lost
identity. One was like the other, and none had any bottom. Each gun had
now a corps of pioneers, who, casting stone and brushwood into the
morass, laboriously built a road for the piece. Whole companies of
infantry were put at this work. The officers helped, the staff
dismounted and helped, the commanding general was encountered,
rain-dripping, mud-spattered, a log on his shoulder or a great stone in
his hands. All this day they made but five miles, and at night they
slept in something like a lake, with a gibing wind above to whisper
What's it for?What's it for?
May the second was of a piece with May the first. On the morning of
May the third the clouds broke and the sun came out. It found the
troops bivouacked just east of the village of Port Republic, and it put
into them life and cheer. Something else helped, and that was the fact
that before them, clear and shining in the morning light, stretched,
not the neglected mountain road they had been travelling, but a fair
Valley road, the road to Staunton.
Jackson and his staff had their quarters at the neighbouring house
of General Lewis. At breakfast one of the ladies remarked that the
Staunton road was in good condition, and asked the guest of honour how
long it would take the army to march the eighteen miles.
Is that the exact distance? asked the general. Eighteen miles?
Yes, sir; just about eighteen. You should get there, should you
not, by night?
You are fortunate, said the general, in having a great natural
curiosity at your very doors. I have long wanted to see Weyers's Cave.
A vast cavern like that, hollowed out by God's finger, hung with
stalactites, with shells and banners of stone, filled with sounding
aisles, run through by dark rivers in which swim blind fishhow
wonderful a piece of His handiwork! I have always wished to see itthe
more so that my wife has viewed it and told me of its marvels. I always
wish, madam, to rest my eyes where my wife's have rested.
The bugles ringing Fall in! were positively sweet to the ears of
the soldiers of the Valley. Fall in? with pleasure, sir! Eighteen
miles? What's eighteen miles when you're going home? It's a fine old
road anyhow, with more butterflies on it! We'll double-quick it all the
way if Old Jack wants us!
That man back there says Staunton's awfully anxious. Says people
all think we've gone to reinforce Richmond without caring a damn what
becomes of the Valley. Says Milroy is within ten miles of Staunton, and
Banks's just waiting a little longer before he pulls up stakes at
Harrisonburg and comes down the pike to join him. Says Edward Johnson
ain't got but a handful, and that the Staunton women are hiding their
silver. SaysHere's Old Jack, boys! going to lead us himself back to
Goshen! One cheer ain't enoughthree cheers for General Jackson!
Jackson, stiffly lifting the old forage cap, galloped by upon Little
Sorrel. His staff behind him, he came to the head of the column where
it was drawn up on the fair road leading through Port Republic, south
and west to Staunton. Close on the eastern horizon rose the Blue Ridge.
To this side turned off a rougher, narrower way, piercing at Brown's
Gap the great mountain barrier between the Valley and Piedmont
Virginia.
The column was put into motion, the troops stepping out briskly.
Warm and lovely was the sunshine, mildly still the air. Big cherry
trees were in bloom by the wayside: there was a buzzing of honey bees,
a slow fluttering of yellow butterflies above the fast drying mud
puddles. Throughout the ranks sounded a clearing of throats; it was
evident that the men felt like singing, presently would sing. The head
of the column came to the Brown's Gap Road.
What's that stony old road? asked a Winchester man.
That's a road over the mountains into Albemarle. Thank the Lord
Column left. MARCH!
It rang infernally. Column left. MARCH!Not a freight boat
horn winding up the James at night, not the minie's long screech, not
Gabriel's trump, not anything could have sounded at this moment so
mournfully in the ears of the Army of the Valley. It wheeled to the
left, it turned its back to the Valley, it took the stony road to
Brown's Gap, it deeply tasted the spring of tragic disappointment.
The road climbed and climbed through the brilliant weather. Spur and
wall, the Blue Ridge shimmered in May greenery, was wrapped in happy
light and in sweet odours, was carpeted with wild flowers and ecstatic
with singing birds. Only the Army of the Valley was
melancholydesperately melancholy. Here and there through openings,
like great casements in the foliage, wide views might be had of the
Valley they were leaving. Town and farm and mill with turning wheel
were there, ploughed land and wheat fields, Valley roads and Valley
orchards, green hills and vales and noble woods, all the great vale
between mountain chains, two hundred miles from north to south,
twenty-five from Blue Ridge to Alleghenies! The men looked wistfully,
with grieved, children's faces.
At the top of the mountain there was a short halt. The up-hill pull
had been hard enough, heavy hearts and all! The men dropped upon the
earth between the pine trees of the crest. For the most part they lay
in the sullen silence with which they had climbed. Some put their heads
upon their arms, tilted hat or cap over their eyes. Others chewed a
twig or stalk of grass and gazed upon the Valley they were leaving, or
upon the vast eastward stretch of Piedmont, visible also from the
mountain top. It was bright and quiet up here above the world. The
sunshine drew out the strong, life-giving odour of the pines, the
ground was dry and warm, it should have been a pleasant place to drowse
in and be happy. But the Valley soldiers were not happy. Jackson,
riding by a recumbent group, spoke from the saddle. That's right, men!
You rest all over, lying down. In the morning this group had cheered
him loudly; now it saluted in a genuine Bath to Romney silence. He
rode by, imperturbable. His chief engineer was with him, and they went
on to a flat rock commanding both the great views, east and west. Here
they dismounted, and between them unfurled a large map, weighting its
corners with pine cones. The soldiers below them gazed dully. Old
Jackor Major-General T. J. Jacksonor Fool Tom Jackson was forever
looking at maps. It was a trick of his, as useless as saying Good!
good! or jerking his hand in the air in that old way.
* * * * *
That evening the Army of the Valley slept in emerald meadows beside
Meechum's River in Albemarle. Coming down the mountain it had caught
distant glimpses of white spirals of smoke floating from the overworked
engines of the Virginia Central; and now it lay near a small country
station, and there on the switch were empty cars and empty cars!
cars to go to Richmond on. The army groaned and got its supper, took
out its pipe and began, though reluctantly enough, to regard the
situation with a philosophic eye. What was done was done! The Blue
Ridge lay between it and the Valley, and after all Old Joe must be
wanting soldiers pretty badly down at Richmond! The landscape was
lovely, the evening tranquil and sweet. The army went to bed early, and
went in a frame of mind approaching resignation. This was Saturday
evening; Old Jack would rest to-morrow.
Sunday dawned clear and sweet. Pleasant morningno drill, and light
camp dutiescoffee, hot biscuits, good smokegeneral Sunday
atmospherebugler getting ready to sound Church!regimental
chaplains moving toward chosen grovesOld Hundred in the air.Oh,
come on and go! All the people are going at home.
And, after all, no one in the Army of the Valley went to church! The
bugler blew another call, the chaplains stopped short in their sedate
stride, short as if they had been shot, Old Hundred was not sung.
Break campBreak camp!
The regiments, marching down to Meechum's Station, were of one mind.
Old Jack was losing his religion. Manassas on SundayKernstown on
Sundayforced marches on SundaySunday train to Richmond. Language
failed.
There were long lines of cars, some upon the main track, others on
the siding. The infantry piled in, piled atop. Out of each window came
three or four heads. You fellows on the roof, you're taller'n we are!
Air we the first train? That's good, we'll be the first to say howdy to
McClellan. You all up there, don't dangle your legs that-a-way! You're
as hard to see through as Old Jack!
Company after company filed into the poor old cars that were none
too large, whose ante-bellum days were their best days, who never had
time now to be repaired or repainted, or properly cleaned. Squad by
squad swung itself up to the cindery roof and sat there in rows, feet
over the edge, the central space between heaped with haversacks and
muskets.
2d4th5th65thJerusalem! the whole brigade's going on this
train! Another's coming right behindwhy don't they wait for it?
Crowding gentlemen in this inconsiderate fashion! Oh, ain't it hot?
Wish I was going to Niagara, to a Know-Nothing Convention! Our train's
full. There's the engine coming down the siding! You all on top, can
you see the artillery and the wagons?
Yes. Way over there. Going along a roadnice shady road.
Rockbridge's leading
That's the road to Rockfish Gap.
Rockfish Gap? Go 'way! You've put your compass in the wrong pocket.
Rockfish Gap's back where we came from. Look out!
The backing engine and the waiting cars came together with a
grinding bump. An instant's pause, a gathering of force, a mighty
puffing and, slow and jerkily, the cars began to move. The ground about
Meechum's Station was grey with soldierspart of the Stonewall, most
of Burk's and Fulkerson's brigades, waiting for the second train and
the third train and their turn to fill the cars. They stood or leaned
against the station platform, or they sat upon the warm red earth
beneath the locust trees, white and sweet with hanging bloom.
Good-bye, boys! See you in RichmondRichmond on the James! Don't
fight McClellan till we get there! That engine's just pulling them
beyond the switch. Then that one below there will back up and hitch on
at the eastern end.That's funny! The men sitting on the warm red
earth beneath the locust trees sprang to their feet. That train ain't
coming back! Before the Lord, they're going west!
Back to Meechum's Station, from body and top of the out-going train
floated wild cheering. Staunton! We're going to Staunton! We're going
back to the Valley! We're going home! We're going to get there first!
We're going to whip Banks! We've got Old Jack with us. You all
hurry up. Banks thinks we've gone to Richmond, but we ain't! Yaaaih!
Yaaaaihhh! Yaaaih! Yaaaaaaih!
At Meechum's Station, beneath the locust trees, it was like bees
swarming. Another train was on the main track, the head beautifully,
gloriously westward! Staunton! Good-bye, you little old Richmond, we
ain't going to see you this summer!Feel good? I feel like a shouting
Methodist! My grandmother was a shouting Methodist. I feel I'm going to
shoutanyhow, I've got to sing
A chaplain came by with a beaming face. Why don't we all sing,
boys? I'm sure I feel like it. It's Sunday.
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord
In Staunton it had been a day of indigo gloom. The comfortable
Valley town, fair-sized and prosperous, with its pillared court house,
its old hotel, its stores, its up and down hill streets, its many and
shady trees, its good brick houses, and above the town its quaintly
named mountainsStaunton had had, in the past twelve months, many an
unwonted throb and thrill. To-day it was in a condition of genuine,
dull, steady anxiety, now and then shot through by a fiercer pang.
There had been in town a number of sick and convalescent soldiers. All
these were sent several days before, eastward, across the mountains. In
the place were public and military stores. At the same time, a movement
was made toward hiding these in the woods on the other side of the twin
mountains Betsy Bell and Mary Grey. It was stopped by a courier from
the direction of Swift Run Gap with a peremptory order. Leave those
stores where they are. Staunton grumbled and wondered, but obeyed.
And now the evening before, had come from Port Republic, eighteen miles
toward the Blue Ridge, a breathless boy on a breathless horse, with
tidings that Jackson was at last and finally gone from the Valleyhad
crossed at Brown's Gap that morning! Called to Richmond! groaned the
crowd that accompanied the boy on his progress toward official
Staunton. Reckon Old Joe and General Lee think we're small potatoes
and few in a row. They ain't, either of them, a Valley man. Reckon this
time to-morrow Banks and Milroy'll saunter along and dig us up! There's
old Watkin's bugle! Home Guard, come along and drill!
Staunton did little sleeping that Saturday night. Jackson was
goneAshby with him. There was not a Confederate vedette between the
town and Banks at Harrisonburgthe latter was probably moving down the
pike this very night, in the dark of the moon. Soldiers of Edward
Johnsontall Georgians and 44th Virginianshad been in town that
Saturday, but they two were gone, suddenly recalled to their camp,
seven miles west, on the Parkersburg road. Scouts had reported to
Johnson that Milroy was concentrating at M'Dowell, twenty miles to the
westward, and that Schenck, sent on by Fremont, had joined or would
join him. Any hour they might move eastward on Staunton.
BanksFremontMilroythree armies, forty thousand menall
converging on Staunton and its Home Guard, with the intent to make it
even as Winchester! Staunton felt itself the mark of the gods, a
mournful Rome, an endangered Athens, a tottering Carthage.
Sunday morning, clear and fine, had its church bells. The children
went to Sunday School, where they learned of Goliath and the brook
Hebron, and David and his sling. At church time the pews were well
filledchiefly old men and women and young boys. The singing was
fervent, the prayers were yet more so. The people prayed very humbly
and heartily for their Confederacy, for their President and his
Cabinet, and for Congress, for their Capital, so endangered, for their
armies and their generals, for every soldier who wore the grey, for
their blocked ports, for New Orleans, fallen last week, for Norfolk
that the authorities said must be abandoned, for Johnston and Magruder
on the Peninsulaat that very hour, had they known it, in grips with
Hancock at Williamsburg.
Benediction pronounced, the congregation came out of the churchyards
in time to greet with delight, not unmixed with a sense of the pathos
of it, certain just arrived reinforcements. Four companies of Virginia
Military Institute cadets, who, their teachers at their head, had been
marched down for the emergency from Lexington, thirty-eight miles away.
Flushed, boyish, trig, grey and white uniformed, with shining muskets,
seventeen years old at most, beautifully marching with their band and
their colours, amidst plaudits, tears, laughter, flowers, thrown
kisses, they came down the street, wheeled, and before the court house
were received by the Home Guard, an organization of grey-headed men.
Sunday afternoon brought many rumours. Milroy would march from
McDowell to-morrowBanks was coming down the turnpikeFremont
hovering closer. Excited country people flocked into town. Farmers
whose sons were with Jackson came for advice from leading citizens.
Ought they to bring in the women and children?no end of foreigners
with the blue coats, and foreigners are rough customers! And stock?
Better drive the cows up into the mountains and hide the horses? Tom
Watson says they're awful wanton,take what they want and kill the
rest, and no more think of paying!Says, too, they're burning barns.
What d'you think we'd better do, sir? There were Dunkards in the
Valley who refused to go to war, esteeming it a sin. Some of these were
in town, coming in on horseback or in their white-covered wagons, and
bringing wife or daughter. The men were long-bearded and venerable of
aspect; the women had peaceful Quaker faces, framed by the prim close
bonnet of their peculiar garb. These quiet folk, too, were
anxious-eyed. They would not resist evil, but their homes and barns
were dear to their hearts.
By rights the cadets should have been too leg weary for parade, but
if Staunton (and the young ladies) wished to see how the V. M. I. did
things, why, of course! In the rich afternoon light, band playing,
Major Smith at their head, the newly-arrived Corps of Defence marched
down the street toward a green field fit for evolutions. With it, on
either sidewalk, went the town at large, specifically the supremely
happy, small boy. The pretty girls were already in the field, seated,
full skirted beneath the sweet locust trees.
V. M. I., Home Guard, and attendant throng neared the Virginia
Central. A whistle shrieked down the line, shrieked with enormous
vigourWhat's that? Train due?No. Not due for an houralways
late then! Better halt until it pulls in. Can't imagine
The engine appeared, an old timer of the Virginia Central, excitedly
puffing dark smoke, straining in, like a racer to the goal. Behind it
cars and carscars with men atop! They were all in greythey
were all yellingthe first car had a flag, the battle-flag of the
Confederacy, the dear red ground, and the blue Saint Andrew's Cross and
the white stars. There were hundreds of men! hundreds and hundreds,
companies, regiments, on the roof, on the platforms, half out of the
windows, waving, shoutingno! singing
We're the Stonewall.
Zoom! Zoom!
We're the openers of the ball.
Zoom! Zoom!
Fix bayonets! Charge!
Rip! Rip!
N. P. Banks for our targe.
Zip! Zip!
We wrote it on the way.
Zoom! Zoom!
Hope you like our little lay.
Zoom! Zoom!
For we didn't go to Richmond and we're coming home to stay!
Four days later, on Sitlington's Hill, on the Bull Pasture Mountain,
thirty miles to the west of Staunton, a man sat at nightfall in the
light of a great camp-fire and wrote a dispatch to his Government.
There waited for it a swift riderwatching the stars while the general
wrote, or the surgeons' lanterns, like fireflies, wandering up and down
the long green slopes where the litter bearers lifted the wounded,
friend and foe.
The man seated on the log wrote with slow precision a long dispatch,
covering several pages of paper. Then he read it over, and then he
looked for a minute or two at the flitting lanterns, and then he slowly
tore the dispatch in two, and fed the fire with the pieces. The
courier, watching him write a much shorter message, half put forth his
hand to take it, for his horse whinnied upon the road far below, and
the way to Staunton was long and dark. However, Jackson's eyes again
dwelt on the grey slopes before him and on the Alleghenies, visited by
stars, and then, as slowly as before, he tore this dispatch also across
and across and dropped the pieces on the brands. When they were burned
he wrote a single line, signed and folded it, and gave it to the
courier. The latter, in the first pink light, in the midst of a
jubilant Staunton, read it to the excited operator in the little
telegraph station.
God blessed our arms with victory at McDowell yesterday.
T. J. JACKSON
Major-General.
CHAPTER XIX. THE FLOWERING WOOD
Thank you, ma'am, said Allan. I reckon just so long as there are
such women in the Valley there'll be worth-while men there, too! You've
all surely done your share.
Now, you've got the pot of apple butter, and the bucket with the
honeycomb, and the piece of bacon and the light bread. If you'd come a
little earlier I could have let you have some eggs
I've got a feast for a king.All these fighting men going up and
down the Valley are going to eat you out of house and home.I got some
pay two months ago, and I've enough left to make it fairer
He drew out a Confederate note. The woman on the doorstep looked at
it admiringly, and, taking it from him, examined either side. They
make them pretty as a picture, she said. Once't I was in Richmond and
saw the Capitol. That's a good picture of it. And that statue of
General Washington!My! his horse's just dancing as they say Ashby's
does to music. One of those bronze men around the base is a forbear of
mine. She gave back the note. I had a little mite of real coffee that
I'd have liked to give youbut it's all gone. Howsoever, you won't go
hungry with what you've got. Have you a nice place to sleep in?
The nicest in the world. A bed of oak leaves and a roof all stars.
You could stay here to-night. I've got a spare room.
You're just as good as gold, said Allan. But I want to be out
where I can hear the news. I'm a scout, you see.
I thought that, watching you come up the path. We're learning fast.
Used to be I just thought a soldier was a soldier! I never thought of
there being different kinds. Do you think the army'll come this way?
I shouldn't be surprised, said Allan. Indeed, I'm rather
expecting it. But you never know. How many of your people are in it?
A lot of cousins. But my sons are with Johnston. Richmond's more'n
a hundred miles away, I reckon, but all last night I thought I heard
the cannon. Well, good-bye! I'm mighty glad to see you all again in the
Valley. Be sure to come back for your breakfastand if the army passes
I've got enough for one or two besides. Good-byeGod bless you.
Allan left behind the small brick farmhouse, stopped for a drink at
the spring, then climbed a rail fence and made across a rolling field
of bright green clover to a width of blossoming woods, beyond which ran
the Mt. Solon and Bridgewater road. From the forest issued a curl of
blue vapour and a smell of wood smoke. The scout, entering, found a
cheerful, unnecessarily large fire. Stretched beside it, upon the
carpet of last year's leaves, lay Billy Maydew, for whose company he
had applied upon quitting, a week before, the army between McDowell and
Franklin. Allan snuffed the air. You build too big a fire, Billy!
'Tisn't a good scout's way of doing.
Billy laid down horizontally upon the leaves the stick he had been
whittling. Thar ain't anybody but home folks to smell it. Didn't we
see Ashby on the black stallion draw a line like that thar stick across
the Valley with a picket post for every knot? He sat up. Did you get
anything to eat?
I certainly did. There surely are good women in the land! Allan
disburdened himself. Rake the coals out and get the skillet.
Afterwards they lay prone upon the leaves and talked. They had much
of life in common; they were as at home with each other as two
squirrels frequenting the same tree. Now, as they lay beneath two
clouds from two briar-roots, they dwelt for some time upon Thunder Run,
then from that delectable region turned to the here and now. Allan had
taught Billy, finding him a most unsatisfactory pupil. Billy had in
those days acquired little book learning, but a very real respect for
the blond giant now lying opposite to him. Since coming to the army he
had been led to deplore his deficiencies, and, a week ago, he had
suggested to Allan that in the interim of active scouting the latter
should continue his education. When thar air a chance I want to swap
into the artillery. Three bands of red thar, he drew a long finger
across his sleeve, air my ambition. I reckon then Christianna and all
the Thunder Run girls would stop saying 'Billy.' They'd say 'Sergeant
Maydew.' An artillery sergeant's got to be head in ciphering, and he's
got to be able to read words of mor'n oneone
Syllable.
That's it. Now they aren't any printed books hereabouts, but you've
got it all in your head
I can't teach you much, Allan had said soberly, whispering under
bushes and listening for Schenck's cavalry! We might do something,
though. You were an awful poor speller. Spell 'sergeant'now
'ordnance'now 'ammunition''battery''caisson''Howitzer'
'Napoleon''Tredegar''limber''trail''cannon-powder'
In the week Billy had made progressmore progress than in a session
on Thunder Run. Now, lying in the woods a little west of Mt. Solon,
waiting for the army moving back to the Valley, this time from the
west, from the Allegheny fastnesses, he accomplished with eclat some
oral arithmeticIf two Yankee Parrotts are fired every eight minutes,
and in our battery we serve the howitzer every nine minutes, the
Napoleon every ten, the two six-pounders every eleven, and if the
Yankees limber up and leave at the end of an hour, how many shells will
have been thrown?If it is a hundred and ten miles from Harrisonburg
to the Potomac, and if Old Jack's foot cavalry advances twenty-two
miles a day, and if we lay off a day for a battle, and if we have three
skirmishes each occupying two hours, and if Banks makes a stand of half
a day at Winchester, and if Fremont executes a flank movement and
delays us six hours, just how long will it be before Old Jack pushes
Banks into the Potomac?If Company A had ninety men when it started
('thar war a full hundred') and five men died of measles and pneumonia
(''t were six'), and if we recruited three at Falling Springs, and six
were killed at Manassas and sixteen wounded, half of whom never came
back, and we got twelve recruits at Centreville and seven more at
Winchester, and if five straggled on the Bath and Romney trip and were
never heard of more, and if five were killed at Kernstown and a dozen
are still in the hospital, and if ten more recruits came in at Rude's
Hill and if we left four sick at Magaheysville, and if we lost none at
McDowell, not being engaged, but two in a skirmish since, and if Steve
Dagg straggled three times but was brought back and tried to desert
twice but never got any further than the guardhousehow many men are
in Company A?Ifthis was Billy'sif I have any luck in the next
battle, and if I air found to have a speaking acquaintance with every
damned thousand-legged word the captain asks me about, and I get to be
a sergeant, and I air swapped into the artillery, and thar's a big
fight, and my battery and Company A are near, and Sergeant Mathew
Coffin gets into trouble right next door to me, and he cried out a
hundred times (lying right thar in the zone of fire), 'Boys, come take
me out of hell!' and the company all was forced back, and all the
gunners, and I was left thar serving my gun, just as pretty and
straight, and he cried out anoth'r hundred times, 'Billy Maydew, come
pick me up and carry me out of hell'and I just served on a hundred
times, only looking at him every time the gun thundered and I
straightened up
For shame! cried Allan. I've heard Steve Dagg say something like
that about Richard Cleave. Billy sat up indignant. It air not like
that at all! The major air what he is, and Steve Dagg air what he is!
Sergeant Mathew Coffin air what somebody or other called somebody else
in that thar old history book you used to make us learn! He air 'a
petty tyrant.' He air that, and Thunder Run don't like that kind. He
air not going to tyrannize much longer over Billy Maydew. And don't you
be comparing me to Steve Dagg. I ain't like that, and I never was.
He lay prone again, insulted, and would not go on with the lesson.
Allan took it calmly, made a placating remark or two, and lapsed into a
friendly silence. It was pleasant in the woods, where the birds flitted
to and fro, and the pink honeysuckle grew around, and from a safe
distance a chipmunk daintily watched the intruders. The scout lay,
drowsily happy, the sunshine making spun gold of his hair and beard,
his carbine resting near. Back on Thunder Run, at the moment,
Christianna in her pink sunbonnet, a pansy from the tollgate at her
throat, rested upon her hoe in the garden she was making and looked out
over the great sea of mountains visible from the Thunder Run eyrie.
Shadows of clouds moved over them; then the sun shone out and they lay
beneath in an amethystine dream; Christianna had had her dream the
night before. In her sleep she had come upon a dark pool beneath
alders, and she had knelt upon the black bank and plunged her arms to
the shoulders into the water. It seemed in her dream that there was
something at the bottom that she wanteda breastpin or a piece of
money. And she had drawn up something that weighed heavily and filled
her arms. When she had lifted it halfway out of the water the moon came
out, and it was Allan Gold. She stood now in her steep mountain garden
bordered with phlox and larkspur and looked far out over the long and
many ridges. She knew in which general direction to look, and with her
mind's eye she tried to see the fighting men, the fighting men; and
then she shook her head and bent to her hoeingfar back and high up on
Thunder Run.
Thirty leagues away, in the flowering wood by the Mt. Solon road
Allan sat up. I was nearly asleep, he said, back on the
mountain-side above Thunder Run. He listened. Horses' hoofsa squad
at a trot, coming east! some of Ashby's of course, but you stay here
and put earth on the fire while I take a look. Rifle in hand, he
threaded the thick undergrowth between the camp and the road.
It was late in the afternoon, but the road lay yet in sunshine
between the clover and the wheat, the bloomy orchards and the woods of
May. Allan's precautions had been largely instinctive; there were no
Federals, he had reason to be sure, south of Strasburg. He looked to
see some changing picket post of Ashby's. But the five horsemen who
came in sight, three riding abreast, two a little behind, had not a
Valley air. Tidewater men, said Allan to himself. How far is it to
Swift Run Gap? Shouldn't wonder if General Ewell
A minute later the party came in line with the woods. Allan, after
another deliberate look, stepped from behind a flowering thorn. The
party drew up. Good-afternoon, my man, said the stars and wreath in
the centre in a high, piping voice. Alone, are you?Ain't straggling,
I hope? Far too many stragglerscurse of this servicecivilians
turned soldiers and all that. What's that? You know him, Stafford? One
of General Jackson's scouts?Then do you know, pray, where is General
Jackson? for, by God, I don't!
I came across country myself to-day, sirI and a boy that's with
me. We've been ahead with Ashby, fending off Fremont. General Jackson
is marching very rapidly, and I expect him to-night.
Where's he going, then?
I haven't the least idea, sir.
Well, piped Ewell, I'll be glad to see him. God knows, I don't
know what I'm to do! Am I to strengthen Johnston at Richmond? Am I to
cross into the Valleyby God, it's lovely!and reinforce Jackson?
Damn it, gentlemen, I'm a major-general on a seesaw! Richmond in
dangerValley in danger. 'Better come to me!' says Johnston. Quite
right! He needs every man. 'Better stay with Jackson,' says Lee. Quite
right again! Old Jackson has three armies before him and only a
handful. 'Better gallop across and find out the crazy man's own mind,'
says the major-general in the middle. He turned with the suddenness of
a bird to Allan. By God, I'm hungry as a coyote! Have you got anything
to eat?
I've some bread and bacon and a few eggs and half a pot of apple
butter and a piece of honeycomb, sir
Ewell dismounted. You're the foster brother I've been in search of
for thirty-five years! Maury and John, it sounds as though there were
enough for four. Deane and Edmondson, you ride on to that mill I see in
front of us, and ask if the folks won't give you supper. We'll pick you
up in an hour or so. Now, my friend in need, we'll build a fire and if
you've got a skillet I'll show you how an omelette ought to be made and
generally isn't!
Within the covert Billy made up the fire again, and General Ewell,
beneath the amused eyes of his aides, sliced bacon, broke eggs into the
skillet and produced an omelette which was a triumph. He was, in truth,
a master cookand everything was good and savouryand the trio was
very hungry. Ewell had cigars, and smoked them like a
Spaniardgenerous, toogiving freely to the others. As often as it
burned low Billy threw dried sticks upon the fire. The evening was
cool, the shadows advancing; the crackling light and warmth grateful
enough. The newcomers asked questions. They were eager to knowall the
country was keen-set to knoweye-witnesses of events were duly
appreciated. The scout had been at McDowell?
Yes, but not in the battle, the Stonewall Brigade not being
engaged. 12th Georgia did bestand the 44th Virginia. 12th Georgia
held the crest. There was one man, just a boy like Billy there ('I'm
eighteen!' from Billy)couldn't anybody keep him back, behind the rise
where our troops were lying down. 'We didn't come all this way to hide
from Yankees,' he cried, and he rushed out and down upon thempoor
fellow!
That's the spirit. In the morning you followed on?
Yes, but Milroy and Schenck did not do badly. That was a good fetch
of theirsfiring the forest! Everywhere a great murk with tongues of
flamesmoke in nostril and eyes and the wind blowing fast. It looked
like the end of the world. Old Jackbeg pardon, sir, General
JacksonGeneral Jackson couldn't but smile, it was such excellent
tactics. We drew off at last, near Franklin, and the army went into
camp for a bit. Billy and I have been with a squadron of Ashby's.
Keeping Fremont back?
Yes. General Jackson wanted the passes blocked. We did it pretty
thoroughly.
How?
Burned all the bridges; cut down treesin one place a mile of
themand made abatis, toppled boulders over the cliffs and choked the
roads. If Fremont wants to get through he'll have to go round Robin
Hood's Barn to do it! He's out of the counting for awhile, I reckon. At
least he won't interfere with our communications. Ashby has three
companies toward the mountains, He's picketed the Valley straight
across below Woodstock. Banks can't get even a spy through from
Strasburg. I've heard an officer sayyou know him, Major
StaffordMajor CleaveI've heard him say that General Jackson uses
cavalry as Napoleon did and as no one has done since.
Ewell lit another cigar. Well, I'm free to confess that old Jackson
isn't as crazy as an idiot called Dick Ewell thought him! As Milton
says, 'There's method in his madness'Shakespeare, was it, Morris?
Don't read much out on the plains.
The younger aide had been gleeful throughout the recital.
Stonewall's a good name, by George! but, by George! they ought to call
him the Artful Dodger
Maury Stafford burst into laughter. By Heaven. Morris, you'd better
tell him that! Have you ever seen him?
No. They say he's real pious and as simple as they make thembut
Lord! there hasn't been anything simple about his late proceedings.
Stafford laughed again. Religious as Cromwell, and artless as
Macchiavelli! Begins his orders with an honourable mention of God,
closes them with 'Put all deserters in irons,' and in between gives
points to Reynard the Fox
Ewell took his cigar from his lips. Don't be so damned sarcastic,
Maury! It's worse than drinkWell, Deane?
One of his troopers had appeared. A courier has arrived, general,
with a letter from General Jackson. I left him at the mill and came
back to report. There's a nice little office there with a light and
writing materials.
Dusk filled the forest, the night came, and the stars shone between
the branches. A large white moon uprose and made the neighbouring road
a milky ribbon stretched east and west. A zephyr just stirred the
myriad leaves. Somewhere, deeper in the woods, an owl hooted at
intervals, very solemnly. Billy heaped wood upon the fire, laid his gun
carefully, just so, stretched himself beside it and in three minutes
reached the deepest basin of sleep. Allan sat with his back to the
hickory, and the firelight falling upon the leaves of a book he had
borrowed from some student in the ranks. It was a volume of Shelley,
and the young man read with serious appreciation. He was a lover of
poetry, and he was glad to meet with this poet whose works he had not
been able as yet to put upon his book-shelf, back in the little room,
under the eaves of the tollgate. He read on, bent forward, the
firelight upon his ample frame, gold of hair and beard, and barrel of
the musket lying on the leaves beside him.
O Love! who bewailest
The frailty of all things here,
Why choose you the frailest
For your cradle, your home, and your bier?
Allan made the fire yet brighter, listened a moment to the hooting
of the owl, then read on:
Its passions will rock thee
As the storms rock the ravens on high;
Bright reason will mock thee
He ceased to read, turning his head, for he heard a horse upon the
road, coming from the direction of the mill. It came slowly, with much
of weariness in the very hoof sounds, then left the road for the
woodside and stopped. Ensued a pause while the rider fastened it to
some sapling, then, through the bushes, the former came toward the
camp-fire. He proved to be Maury Stafford. The courier says General
Jackson will reach Mt. Solon about midnight. General Ewell is getting
an hour's sleep at the mill. I am not sleepy and your fire is
attractive. May I keep you company for awhile?
Allan was entirely hospitable. Certainly, sir! Spread your cloak
just therethe wind will blow the smoke the other way. Well, we'll all
be glad to see the army!
What are you reading?
Allan showed him. Humph!
Its passions will rock thee
As the storms rock the ravens on high;
Bright reason will mock thee
Wellwe all know the man was a seer.
He laid the book down upon the grey cloak lined with red and sat
with his chin in his hand, staring at the fire. Some moments elapsed
before he spoke; then, You have known Richard Cleave for a long time?
Yes. Ever since we were both younger than we are now. I like him
better than any one I knowand I think he's fond of me.
He seems to have warm friends.
He has. He's true as steel, and big-minded. He's strong-thewedin
and out.
A little clumsily simple sometimes, do you not think? Lawyer and
soldier grafted on Piers Ploughman, and the seams not well hidden? I
would say there's a lack of grace
I have not noticed it, said Allan dryly. He's a very good
leader.
The other smiled, though only with the lips. Oh, I am not decrying
him! Why should I? I have heard excellent things of him. He is a
favourite, is he not, with General Jackson?
I don't think that General Jackson has favourites.
At least, he is no longer in disfavour. I remember toward the close
of the Romney expedition
Oh, that! said Allan, that was nothing. He put down his pipe.
Let me see if I can explain to you the ways of this army. You don't
know General Jackson as we do, who have been with him ever since a year
ago and Harper's Ferry! In any number of things he's as gentle as a
woman; in a few others heisn't. In some things he's like iron. He's
rigid in his discipline, and he'll tolerate no shade of
insubordination, or disobedience, or neglect of duty. He's got the
defect of his quality, and sometimes he'll see those things where they
are not. He doesn't understand making allowances or forgiving. He'll
rebuke a man in general orders, hold him upif he's an officerbefore
the troops, and all for something that another general would hardly
notice! He'll make an officer march without his sword for whole days in
the rear of his regiment, and all for something that just a reprimand
would have done for! As you say, he made the very man we're talking of
do that from Bloomery Gap to Romneyand nobody ever knew why. Just the
other day there were some poor fools of twelve-month men in one of our
regiments who concluded they didn't want to reenlist. They said they'd
go home and cried out for their discharge. And they had forgotten all
about the conscription act that Congress had just passed. So, when the
discharge was refused they got dreadfully angry, and threw down their
arms. The colonel went to the general, and the general almost put him
under arrest. 'Why does Colonel Grigsby come to me to learn how to deal
with mutineers? Shoot them where they stand.'Kernstown, too. There's
hardly a man of the Stonewall that doesn't think General Garnett
justified in ordering that retreat, and yet look at Garnett! Under
arrest, and the commanding general preferring charges against him! Says
he did not wait for orders, lost the battle and so on. With Garnett it
is a deadly serious matterrank and fame and name for courage all in
peril
I see. But with Richard Cleave it was not serious?
Not in the least. These smaller arrests and censuresnot even the
best can avoid them. I shouldn't think they were pleasant, for
sometimes they are mentioned in reports, and sometimes they get home to
the womenfolk. But his officers understand him by now, and they keep
good discipline, and they had rather be led by Stonewall Jackson than
by an easier man. As for Richard Cleave, I was with him on the march to
McDowell and he looked a happy man.
Ah!
The conversation dropped. The scout, having said his say, easily
relapsed into silence. His visitor, half reclining upon his cloak
beneath an old, gnarled tree, was still. The firelight played strangely
over his face, for now it seemed the face of one man, now that of
another. In the one aspect he looked intent, as though in his mind he
mapped a course. In the other he showed only weariness, dashed with
something tragica handsome, brooding, melancholy face. They stayed
like this for some time, the fire burning before them, the moon
flooding the forest, the owl hooting from his hole in some decaying
tree.
At last, however, another sound intruded, a very low, subdued sound
like a distant ground swell or like thunder without resonance. It grew;
dull yet, it became deep. Allan knocked the ashes from his pipe. That
is a sound, he said, that when you have once heard you don't forget.
The army's coming.
Stafford rose. I must get back to General Ewell! Thank you, Gold,
for your hospitality.
Not at all! Not at all! said Allan heartily. I am glad that I
could put that matter straight for you. It would blight like black
frost to have Stonewall Jackson's hand and mind set against youand
Richard Cleave is not the least in that predicament!
The Army of the Valley, advance and main column, and rearguard,
artillery and wagon train, came down the moon-lighted road, having
marched twenty miles since high noon. On either hand stretched pleasant
pastures, a running stream, fair woods. Company by company the men left
the road, were halted, stacked arms, broke ranks. Cessation from motion
was sweet, sweet the feel of turf beneath their feet. They had had
supper three hours before; now they wanted sleep, and without much
previous ado they lay down and took itStonewall Jackson's foot
cavalry sleeping under the round moon, by Mt. Solon.
At the mill there was a meeting and a conference. A figure in an old
cloak and a shabby forage cap dismounted, ungracefully enough, from a
tired nag, and crossed the uncovered porch to the wide mill door. There
he was met by his future trusty and trusted lieutenantdear Dick
Ewell. Jackson's greeting was simple to baldness. Ewell's had the
precision of a captain of dragoons. Together they entered the small
mill office, where the aides placed lights and writing materials, then
withdrew. The generals sat down, one on this side of the deal table,
one on that. Jackson took from his pocket a lemon, very deliberately
opened a knife, and, cutting the fruit in two, put one half of the sour
treasure to his lips. Ewell fidgeted, then, as the other sucked on,
determined to set the ball rolling. Damn me, general! if I am not glad
to have the pleasure at last
Jackson sent across the table a grey-blue glance, then gently put
down one half of the lemon and took up the other. Why the deuce should
he look at me in that damned reproachful fashion? thought Ewell. He
made another start. There's a damned criss-cross of advices from
Richmond. I hate uncertainty like the devil, and so I thought I'd ride
across
General Ewell, said Jackson gently, you will oblige me by not
swearing. Profanity, sir, is most distasteful to me. Now, you rode
across?
Ewell swallowed. Rode acrossrode acrossI rode across, sir, from
Swift Run Gap, and I brought with me two late dispatches from General
Johnston and General Lee. I thought some expression, perhaps, to them
of your opinionfollowing the late victory and all
The other took and read, laid down the dispatches and applied
himself to his lemon. Presently. I will telegraph to-night to General
Johnston and General Lee. I shall advise that you enter the Valley as
first intended. As for Richmondwe may best serve Richmond by
threatening Washington.
Threatening Washington?
At present you are in my district and form part of my command. You
will at once move your troops forward a day's march. Upon receipt of
advices from General Johnston and General Leeand if they are of the
tenour I expectyou will move with promptness to Luray.
And then?
With promptness to Luray. I strongly value swiftness of movement.
I understand that, sir. Double the distance in half the time.
Good! When instructions are given, it is desirable that those
instructions be followed. I assume the responsibility of giving the
proper instructions.
I understand, general. Obey and ask no questions.
Just so. Be careful of your ammunition wagons, but otherwise as
little impedimenta as possible.
I understand, sir. The road to glory cannot be followed with much
baggage.
Jackson put out his long arm, and gently touched the other's hand.
Good! I should be surprised if we didn't get on very well together.
Now I will write a telegram to General Lee and then you shall get back
to Swift Run Gap. The fewer hours a general is away from his troops the
better. He rose and opened the door. Lieutenant Meade! The aide
appeared. Send me a courierthe one with the freshest horse. Order
General Ewell's horses to be saddled.
This was the seventeenth. Two days later the Army of the Valley,
moving down the Valley pike in a beautiful confidence that it was
hurling itself against Banks at Strasburg, swerved to the east about
New Market, with a suddenness that made it dizzy. Straight across its
path now ran the strange and bold wall of the Massanuttons,
architectural freak of Nature's, planted midway of the smiling Valley.
The army groaned. Always climbing mountains! This time to-morrow, I
reckon, we'll climb it back again. Nothing over on the other side but
the Luray Valley!
Up and up went the army, through luxuriant forests where the laurel
was in bloom, by the cool dash of mountain waters, past one-time haunts
of stag and doe, through fern, over pine needles, under azure
sky,then down it sank, long winding after winding, moss and fern and
richest forest, here velvet shadow, there highest light, down and down
to the lovely Luray Valley, to the crossing of the Shenandoah, to green
meadows and the bugles ringing halt!
How short the time between tattoo and reveille! The dawn was rosy,
still, not cold, the river running near, the men with leave to rid
themselves of the dust of yesterday's long march. In they plunged, all
along the south fork of the Shenandoah, into the cool and wholesome
flood. There were laughters, shoutings, games of dolphins. Then out
they came, and while they cooked their breakfasts they heard the drums
and fifes of Ewell's eight thousand, marching down from Conrad's Store.
The night before at Washington, where there was much security and
much triumph over the certain-to-occur-soon-if-not-already-occurred
Fall of Richmond, the Secretary of War received a dispatch from General
Banks at Strasburg in the Valley of Virginia, thirty miles from
Winchester.
My force at Strasburg is 4476 infantry, two brigades; 1600
cavalry,
10 Parrott guns and 6 smoothbore pieces. I have on the Manassas
Gap
Railroad, between Strasburg and Manassas, 2500 infantry, 6
companies
cavalry, and 6 pieces artillery. There are 5 companies cavalry,
First Maine, near Strasburg. Of the enemy I received information
last night, direct from New Market, that Jackson has returned to
within 8 miles of Harrisonburg, west. I have no doubt that
Jackson's
force is near Harrisonburg, and that Ewell still remains at Swift
Run Gap. I shall communicate more at length the condition of
affairs
and the probable plans of the enemy.
In pursuance of his promise General Banks wrote at length from
Strasburg, the evening of the 22d:
Sir. The return of the rebel forces of General Jackson to the
Valley after his forced march against Generals Milroy and Schenck
increases my anxiety for the safety of the position I occupy....
That he has returned there can be no doubt.... From all the
information I can gatherand I do not wish to excite alarm
unnecessarilyI am compelled to believe that he meditates attack
here. I regard it as certain that he will move north as far as
New
Market, a position which ... enables him also to cooperate with
General Ewell, who is still at Swift Run Gap.... Once at New
Market
they are within twenty-five miles of Strasburg.... I have
forborne
until the last moment to make this representation, well knowing
how
injurious to the public service unfounded alarms become....
The general signed and sent his letter. Standing for a moment, in
the cool of the evening, at the door of headquarters, he looked toward
the east where the first stars were shining. Fourteen miles over there
was his strongest outpost, the village of Front Royal occupied by
Colonel Kenly with a thousand men and two guns. The general could not
see the place; it lay between the Massanuttons and the Blue Ridge, but
it was in his mind. He spoke to an aide. To-morrow I think I will
recall Kenly and send him down the pike to develop the force of the
enemy.
The small town of Strasburg pulsed with flaring lights and with the
manifold sounds of the encamped army. Sutlers showed their wares, guard
details went by, cavalrymen clanked their spurs through the streets,
laughter and talk rang through the place. A company of strolling
players had come down from the North, making its way from Washington to
Harper's Ferry, held by three thousand Federals; from Harper's Ferry to
Winchester, held by fifteen hundred; and from Winchester to Strasburg.
The actors had a canvas booth, where by guttering candles and to the
sound of squeaking fiddles they gave their lurid play of the night, and
they played to a crowded house. Elsewhere there was gambling, elsewhere
praying, elsewhere braggarts spoke of Ajax exploits, elsewhere there
was moaning and tossing in the hospitals, elsewhere some private,
raised above the heads of his fellows, read aloud the Northern papers.
McClellan has one hundred and twelve thousand men. Yesterday his
advance reached the White House on the Pamunkey. McDowell has forty
thousand men, and at last advice was but a few marches from the
treasonable capital. Our gunboats are hurrying up the James. Presumably
at the very hour this goes to press Richmond is fallen.
Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from her high estate,
And weltering in her blood.
Elsewhere brave, true, and simple men attended to their duties,
wrote their letters home, and, going their rounds or walking their
beats, looked upward to the silver stars. They looked at the stars in
the west, over the Alleghenies where Fremont, where Milroy and Schenck
should be; and at those in the south, over the long leagues of the
great Valley, over Harrisonburg, somewhere the other side of which
Stonewall Jackson must be; and at those in the east, over the
Massanuttons, with the Blue Ridge beyond, and Front Royal in between,
where Colonel Kenly was; and at the bright stars in the North, over
home, over Connecticut and Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, over
Wisconsin, Indiana, and Maine.
They who watched the stars from Strasburg dwelt least of all,
perhaps, upon the stars in the east. Yet under those lay that night,
ten miles from Front Royal, Stonewall Jackson and seventeen thousand
men.
CHAPTER XX. FRONT ROYAL
In the hot, bright morning, Cleave, commanding four companies of the
65th thrown out as skirmishers, entered the band of forest lying
between the Blue Ridge and Front Royal. The day was hot, the odour of
the pines strong and heady; high in heaven, in a still and intense
blue, the buzzards were slowly sailing. A long, thin line of picked
men, keen, watchful, the reserve a hundred yards or two behind, the
skirmishers moved forward over a rough cart track and over the opposing
banks. Each man stepped lightly as a cat, each held his gun in the
fashion most convenient to himself, each meant to do good hunting.
Ahead was a thicker belt of trees, and beyond that a gleam of sky, a
promise of a clearing. Suddenly, out of this blue space, rose the neigh
of a horse.
The skirmishers halted beneath the trees. The men waited, bent
forward, holding breath, recognizing the pause on the rim of action,
the moment before the moment. The clearing appeared to be several
hundred yards away. Back from it, upon the idle air, floated loud and
careless talking, then laughter. Allan Gold came out of the thicker
wood, moved, a tawny shadow, across the moss and reported to Cleave.
Two companies, sirinfantryscattered along a little branch. Arms
stacked.
The line entered the wood, the laughter and talking before it
growing louder. Each grey marksman twitched his cartridge box in place,
glanced at his musket, glanced toward his immediate officer. Across the
intervals ran an indefinable spark, a bracing, a tension. Some of the
men moistened their lips, one or two uttered a little sigh, the hearts
of all beat faster. The step had quickened. The trees grew more thinly,
came down to a mere bordering fringe of sumach. Cleave motioned to the
bugler; the latter raised the bugle to his lips.
Forward!CommenceFiring! The two companies in blue, marched down
that morning superfluously to picket a region where was no danger,
received that blast and had their moment of stupour. Laughter died
suddenly. A clock might have ticked twice while they sat or stood as
though that were all there was to do. The woods blazed, a long crackle
of musketry broke the spell. A blue soldier pitched forward, lay with
his head in the water. Another, seated in the shade, his back to a
sugar maple, never more of his own motion left that resting place; a
third, undressing for a bath, ran when the others ran, but haltingly, a
red mark upon his naked thigh. All ran now, ran with cries and oaths
toward the stacked rifles. Ere they could snatch the guns, drop upon
their knees, aim at the shaken sumach bushes and fire, came a second
blaze and rattle and a leaden hail.
Out of the wood burst the long skirmish line. It yelled; it gave the
rebel yell. It rushed on, firing as it came. It leaped the stream, it
swallowed up the verdant mead, it came on, each of its units yelling
death, to envelop the luckless two companies. One of these was very
near at hand, the other, for the moment more fortunate, a little way
down the stream, near the Front Royal road. Cleave reached, a grey
brand, the foremost of the two. Surrender!
The blue captain's sword lay with other paraphernalia on the grass
beneath the trees, but he signified assent to the inevitable. The
reserve, hurrying down from the wood, took the captured in charge. The
attack swept on, tearing across the meadow to the Front Royal road,
where the second company had made a moment's stand, as brave as futile.
It fired two rounds, then broke and tore down the dusty road or through
the bordering fields toward Front Royal. Cleave and his skirmishers
gained. They were mountain men, long of limb; they went like Greek
runners, and they tossed before them round messengers of death. The
greater number of blue soldiers, exhausted, slackened in their pace,
halted, threw down their arms. Presently, trailing their feet, they
returned to the streamlet and their companions in misfortune.
The grey swept on, near now to Front Royal; before them a few blue
fugitives, centre of a swiftly moving cloud of dust, a cloud into which
the Thunder Run men fired at short intervals. Behind them they heard
the tramp of the army. The Louisiana Brigade, leading, was coming at a
double-quick. On a parallel road to the left a dust cloud and dull
thunder proclaimed a battery, making for the front. Out of the wood
which the skirmishers had left came like a whirlwind the 65th Virginia,
Jackson riding with Flournoy at the head.
Little Sorrel swerved toward the skirmishers and paused a moment
abreast of Cleave. Jackson spoke from the saddle. How many?
Two companies, sir. Several killed, the rest prisoners, save six or
eight who will reach the town.
Good! Press on. If they open with artillery, get under cover until
our guns are placed. He jerked his hand into the air and rode on,
galloping stiffly, his feet stuck out from the nag's sides. The cavalry
disappeared to the right in a storm of yellow dust.
The village of Front Royal that had been dozing all the summer
forenoon, woke with a vengeance. Kenly's camp lay a mile or two west,
but in the town was quartered a company or so. Soldiers off duty were
lounging on the shady side of the village street, missing the larger
delights of Strasburg, wondering if Richmond had fallen and where was
Stonewall Jackson, when the fracas, a mile away, broke upon their ears.
Secure indolence woke with a start. Front Royal buzzed like an
overturned hive. In the camp beyond the town bugles blared and the long
roll was furiously beaten. The lounging soldiers jerked up their
muskets; others poured out of houses where they had been billeted. All
put their legs to good use, down the road, back to the camp! Out, too,
came the village people, though not to flee the village. In an instant
men and women were in street or porch or yard, laughing, crying,
hurrahing, clapping hands, waving anything that might serve as a
welcoming banner. Stonewall Jackson! It's Jackson! Stonewall Jackson!
Bless the Lord, O my soul!Can't you all stop and tell a body?No;
you can't, of course. Go along, and God bless you!Their camp's this
side the North Forkabout a thousand of them.Guns? Yes, they've got
two guns. Cavalry? No, no cavalry.Don't let them get away! If they
fall back they'll try to burn the bridges. Don't let them do that. The
North Fork's awful rough and swollen. It'll be hard to get
across.Yes, the railroad bridge and the wagon bridge. I can't keep up
with you any longer. I ain't as young as I once was. You're welcome,
sir.
Cleave and his men came out of the village street at a run. Before
them stretched level fields, gold with sunshine and with blossoming
mustard, crossed and cumbered with numerous rail fences. Beyond these,
from behind rolling ground lightly wooded, rang a great noise of
preparation, drums, trumpets, confused voices. As the skirmishers
poured into the open and again deployed, a cannon planted on a knoll
ahead spoke with vehemence. The shell that it sent struck the road just
in front of the grey, exploded, frightfully tore a man's arm and
covered all with a dun mantle of dust. Another followed, digging up the
earth in the field, uprooting and ruining clover and mustard. A third
burst overhead. A stone wall, overtopped by rusty cedars, ran at right
angles with the road. To this cover Cleave brought the men, and they
lay behind it panting, welcoming the moment's rest and shelter, waiting
for the battery straining across the fields. The Louisianians, led by
Taylor, were pouring through the villageEwell was behindJackson and
the cavalry had quite disappeared.
Lying in the shadow of the wall, waiting for the order forward,
Cleave suddenly saw again and plainly what at the moment he had seen
without notingStafford's face, very handsome beneath soft hat and
plume, riding with the 6th. It came now as though between eyelid and
ball. The eyes, weary and tragic, had rested upon him with intentness
as he stood and spoke with Jackson. Maury StaffordMaury Stafford!
Cleave's hand struck the sun-warmed stone impatiently. He was not fond
of deep unhappinessno, not even in the face of his foe! Why was it
necessary that the man should have felt thus, have thought thus, acted
thus? The fact that he himself could not contemplate without hot anger
that other fact of Stafford's thought still dwelling, dwelling upon
Judith had made him fight with determination any thought of the man at
all. He could not hurt Judith, thank God! nor make between them more
misunderstanding and mischief! Then let him golet him go! with his
beauty and his fatal look, like a figure out of an old, master
canvas!Cleave wrenched his thought to matters more near at hand.
The battery first seen and heard was now up. It took position on a
rise of ground and began firing, but the guns were but smoothbore
six-pounders and the ammunition was ghastly bad. The shells exploded
well before they reached the enemy's lines. The opposing blue
batteryAtwell'sstrongly posted and throwing canister from
ten-pounder Parrottsmight have laughed had there not beenhad there
not been more and more and yet more of grey infantry! Taylor with his
Louisianians, the First Maryland, Ewell, Winder with the Stonewall,
grey, grey, with gleaming steel, with glints of red, pouring from the
woods, through the fieldsthe Pennsylvanians, working the battery, did
not laugh; they were pale, perhaps, beneath the powder grime. But pale
or sanguine they bravely served their guns and threw their canister,
well directed, against the mediaeval engines on the opposite knoll.
Shouting an order, there now galloped to these Jackson's Chief of
Artillery, Colonel Crutchfield. The outclassed smoothbores limbered up
and drew sulkily away; Courtenay's Battery, including a rifled gun,
arrived in dust and thunder to take their place. Behind came
Brockenborough. The reeking battery horses bent to it; the drivers
yelled. The rumbling wheels, the leaping harness, the dust that all
raised, made a cortege and a din as of Dis himself. The wheel stopped,
the men leaped to the ground, the guns were planted, the limbers
dropped, the horses loosed and taken below the hill. A loud cannonade
began.
Behind the screen of smoke, in the level fields, four Louisiana
regiments formed in line of battle. A fifth moved to the left, its
purpose to flank the Federal battery. As for the cavalry, it appeared
to have sunk into the earthand yet, even with the thought, out of the
blue distance toward McCoy's Ford, on the South Fork arose a tremendous
racket! A railway station, Bucktonwas there, and a telegraph line,
and two companies of Pennsylvania infantry, and two locomotives with
steam up. At the moment there were also Ashby and the 7th Virginia,
bent upon burning the railroad bridge, cutting the telegraph, staying
the locomotives, and capturing the Pennsylvanians. The latter tried to
escape by the locomotives; tried twice and failed twice. The forming
infantry before Front Royal knew by the rumpus that Ashby was over
there, below the Massanuttons. There ran a rumour, too, that the 2d
Virginia cavalry under Munford was somewhere to the northeast, blocking
the road to Manassas Gap, closing the steel trap on that quarter. The
6th with Jackson remained sunken.
In the hot sunshine blared the Louisianian trumpets. An aide,
stretched like an Indian along the neck of his galloping horse, came to
the skirmishers. All right, Cleave! Go ahead! The Louisianians are
pawing the ground!Shade of Alexander Hamilton, listen to that!
That was the Marseillaise, grandly played. Tramp, tramp!
the Louisianians came on to its strains. The skirmish line left the
sunny stone fence where slender ferns filled the chinks, and lizards
ran like frightened flames, and brown ants, anxious travellers, sought
a way home. Cleave, quitting the shadow of a young locust tree, touched
with his foot a wren's nest, shaken from the bough above. The eggs lay
in it, unbroken. He stooped swiftly, caught it up and set it on the
bough again, then ran on, he and all his men, under a storm of shot and
shell.
Kenly, a gallant soldier, caught, through no fault of his, in a
powerful trap, manoeuvred ably. His guns were well served, and while
they stayed for a moment the Confederate advance, he made dispositions
for a determined stand. The longer delay here, the greater chance at
Strasburg! A courier dispatched in hot haste to warn the general there
encountered and hurried forward a detachment of the 7th New York
Cavalry as well as a small troop of picked men, led by a sometime aide
of General Banks. These, crossing the wagon bridge over the Shenandoah
and coming down the road at a double, reported to Kenly and were
received by the anxious troops with cheering. The ground hereabouts was
rolling, green eminences at all points breaking the view. Kenly used
the cavalry skilfully, making them appear now here, now there between
the hills, to the end that to the attackers they might appear a
regiment. His guns thundered, and his few companies of infantry fired
with steadiness, greeting with hurrahs every fall of a grey skirmisher.
But the skirmishers pressed on, and behind them came the chanters of
the Marseillaise. Moreover a gasping courier brought news to Kenly.
A great force of cavalry, sirAshby, I reckon, or the devil
himselfon the right! If they get to the river first There was
small need of further saying. If Ashby or the devil got to the river
first, then indeed was the trap closed on the thousand men!
Face to the Rear! March! ordered Kenly. Atwell's Battery
limbered up in hot haste, turned, and dashed in thunder up the road. It
must cross the bridge, seize some height, from there defend the
crossing. Where the battery had been the cavalry now formed the screen,
thin enough and ragged, yet menacing the grey infantry.
The grey skirmishers rallied, fixed bayonets and advanced, the
Louisianians close behind. The blue horsemen attempted a charge, an
action more bold than wise, they were so small a force. The men in grey
sprang at the bridles of the foremost, wrapped long mountain arms about
the riders. Despite sabre, despite pistol, several were dragged down,
horse and man made captive. The most got back to safer ground. Kenly's
bugles rang out again, palpably alarmed, shrilly insistent. Horse and
foot must get across the Shenandoah or there would be the devil to pay!
Beside the imperious trumpet came something else, an acrid smell and
smoke, then a great flame and crackle. Torch had been put to the camp;
all the Federal tents and forage and stores were burning. To the
rear! To the rear!
In the middle of the road, out of one of the scuffling groups, a
whirling pillar of dust and clamour, sabre strokes, rifle and pistol
cracks, oaths, cries, plunging of a maddened horse, Cleave saw a
flushed face lift itself from the ground, a powerful shoulder thrust
away the surging grey shapes, a sabre flash in the sun, a hand from
which blood was streaming catch at the horse's mane. The owner of the
hand swung himself again into the saddle from which Dave Maydew had
plucked him. Remounted, he made a downward thrust with his sabre. Dave,
keeping warily out of reach of the horse's lashing heels, struck up the
arm with his bayonet. The sabre clattered to the ground; with an oath
the manan officerdrew a revolver. The ball whizzed past Cleave's
temple; a second might have found his heart but that Allan Gold,
entering somehow the cleared circle made by the furious horse, hung
upon the arm sleeved in fine blue cloth, and wrenched the Colt's from
the gauntleted hand. Cleave, at the bridle, laughed and took his hands
away. Christmas Carols again! he said.
God save you, merry gentlemen!
Let nothing you dismay
Give him way, men! He's a friend of mine.
Marchmont's horse bounded. Lieutenant McNeill, said the rider. I
profess that in all this dust and smoke I did not at first recognize
you. I am your obedient servant. If my foe, sir, then I dub you my
dearest foe! To our next meeting!
He backed the furious horse, wheeled and was gone like a bolt from a
catapult toward his broken and retiring troop. As he rode he turned in
his saddle, raised his cap, and sang,
As the Yankees were a-marching,
They heard the rebel yell
Close at the heels of Kenly's whole command poured, resistlessly,
the skirmish line, the Louisiana troops, the First Maryland. A light
wind blew before them the dun and rolling smoke from the burning camp.
For all their haste the men found tongue as they passed that dismal
pyre. They sniffed the air. Coffee burning!good Lord, ain't it a
sin?Look at those boxesshoes as I am a Christian man!And all the
wall tentslike 'Laddin's palaces! Geewhilikins! what was that? That
was oil. There might be gunpowder somewhere! Captain, honey, don't you
want us to treble-quick it? They passed the fire and waste and
ruin, rounded a curve, and came upon the long downward slope to the
river. Oh, here we are! Thar they are! Thar's the river. Thar's the
Shenandoah! Thar's the covered bridge! They're on itthey're halfway
over! Their guns are over!We ain't ever going to let them all get
across?Ain't we going down the hill at them?Yes. Forward!
Yaaaih!Yaaih!Yaaaaaaaihh!Yaaaaaih!Thar's the cavalry! Thar's
Old Jack!
Jackson and the 6th Virginia came at a gallop out of the woods, down
the eastern bank of the stream. The skirmishers, First
Maryland,Louisiana, poured down the slope, firing on Kenly as they
ran. A number of his men dropped, but he was halfway across and he
pressed on, the New York cavalry and Marchmont's small troop acting as
rear guard. The battery was already over. The western bank rose steep
and high, commanding the eastern. Up this strained the guns, were
planted, and opened with canister upon the swarming grey upon the other
shore. Company by company Kenly's infantry got across got across, and
once upon the rising ground faced about and opened a determined fire
under cover of which his cavalry entered the bridge. The last trooper
over, his pioneers brought brush and hay, thrust it into the mouth of
the bridge and set all on fire.
Jackson was up just in time to witness the burst of flames. He
turned to the nearest regimentthe 8th Louisiana, Acadians from the
Attakapas. There was in him no longer any slow stiffness of action; his
body moved as though every joint were oiled. He looked a different
creature. He pointed to the railroad bridge just above the wagon
bridge. Cross at once on the ties. The colonel looked, nodded, waved
his sword and explained to his Acadians. Mes enfans! Nous allons
traverser le pont la-bas. En avant! In column of twos he led his
men out on the ties of the trestle bridge. Below, dark, rapid, cold,
rushed the swollen Shenandoah. Musketry and artillery, Kenly opened
upon them. Many a poor fellow, who until this war had never seen a
railroad bridge, threw up his arms, stumbled, slipped between the ties,
went down into the flood and disappeared.
Stonewall Jackson continued his orders. Skirmishers forward! Clear
those combustibles out of the bridge. Cross, Wheat's Battalion! First
Maryland, follow! He looked from beneath the forage cap at the steep
opposite shore, from the narrow level at the water's edge to the ridge
top held by the Federal guns. Rank by rank on this staircase, showed
Kenly's troops, stubbornly firing, trying to break the trap.
Artillery's the need. We must take more of their guns.
It was hot work, as the men of the 65th and Wheat's Tigers speedily
found, crossing the wagon bridge over the Shenandoah! One span was all
afire. The flooring burned their feet, flames licked the wooden sides
of the structure, thick, choking smoke canopied the rafters. With
musket butts the men beat away the planking, hurled into the flood
below burning scantling and brand, and trampled the red out of the
charring cross timbers. Some came out of the western mouth of the
bridge stamping with the pain of burned hands, but the point was that
they did come outthe four companies of the 65th, Wheat's Tigers, the
First Maryland. Back to Jackson, however, went a messenger. Not safe,
sir, for horse! We broke step and got across, but at one place the
supports are burned away
Good! good! said Jackson. We will cross rougher rivers ere we are
done. He turned to Flournoy's bugler. Squadrons. Right front into
line. March!
Kenly, stubbornly firing upon the two columns, that one now
quitting, with a breath of relief, the railway bridge, and that issuing
under an arch of smoke from the wagon bridge, was hailed by a wild-eyed
lieutenant. Colonel Kenly, sir, look at that! As he spoke, he tried
to point, but his hand waved up and down. The Shenandoah, below the two
bridges, was thick with swimming horses.
Kenly looked, pressed his lips together, opened them and gave the
order. Face to the rear. Forward. March! Discretion was at
last entirely the better part of valour. Strasburg was fourteen miles
away; over hill and dale rose and fell the road that ran that way. Off,
off! and some might yet escapeor it might please the gods to let him
meet with reinforcements! His guns ceased with their canister and
limbering up thundered away toward the sun, now low and red in the
heavens. The infantry followed; the small cavalry force bringing up the
rear, now deployed as skirmishers, now rallying and threatening the
grey footmen.
The Shenandoah was impetuous, deep, turbid, with many eddies, lifted
by the spring rains almost level with its banks. The horses liked it
notpoor brutes! They shuddered, whinnied, glared with distended,
bloodshot eyes. Once in, they patiently did their best. Each was owned
by its rider, and was his good friend as well as servant. The
understanding between the two could not be disturbed, no, not even by
the swollen Shenandoah! The trooper, floating free upon the down-stream
side, one hand on mane, or knees upgathered, and carbine held high,
squatting in the saddle on the crossed stirrups, kept up a stream of
encouragementsoft words, pet names, cooing mention of sugar (little
enough in the commissariat!) and of apples. The steed responded. The
god above or beside him wished it thus, and certainly should be obeyed,
and that with love. The rough torrent, the eddies, the violent current
were nothingat least, not much! In column of twos the horses breasted
the river, the gods above them singing of praise and reward. They
neared the western shore and the green, overhanging trees, touched
bottom, plunged a little and came out, wet and shining, every inch of
metal about them glinting in the level rays of the sun.
High on the bank Stonewall Jackson with Flournoy and his aides, the
first to cross, watched that passage of the squadrons. Little Sorrel,
slow and patient, had perhaps been, in his own traversing, the one
steed to hear no especial word of endearment nor much of promise. He
did not seem to miss them; he and Jackson apparently understood each
other. The men said that he could run only one way and that toward the
enemy.
Far down the Front Royal and Winchester turnpike, through a fair
farming country, among cornfields and orchards, the running fight
continued. It was almost sunset; long shadows stretched across the
earth. Scene and hour should have been tranquil-sweetfall of dew,
vesper song of birds, tinkling of cow bells coming home. It was not so;
it was filled with noise and smoke, and in the fields and fence corners
lay dead and wounded men, while in the farmhouses of the region, women
drew the blinds, gathered the children about them and sat trembling.
The blue cavalry was hard put to it. The grey infantrymen were good
marksmen, and their line was long, drawn across the road and the up and
down of the fields. Here and there, now and again, a trooper went down
to the dust, and the riderless horse, galloping to the rear, brought
small comfort to Kenly's retreating companies. At last there rode back
the major commanding the New York squadron. We're losing too heavily,
colonel! There's a feverishnessif they're reinforced I don't know if
I can hold the men
Kenly debated within himself, then. I'll make a stand at the
cross-roads yonder. Atwell shall plant the guns and give them canister.
It is nearly nightif we could hold them off one hour
Richard Cleave, pressing very close with his skirmishers, lost sight
of the blue infantry now behind an orchard-clad undulation. Billy
Maydew! come climb this tree and tell me what you see.
Billy went up the roadside locust like a squirrel. Thar air a man
just tumbled off a black horse with a white star! 'T was Dave hit him,
I reckon. They look powerful droopy, them cavalrymen! The big man you
wouldn't let us take, he air waving his sabre and swearing
The infantry?
The infantry air halted. The road air stuffed with them.
Onetwothreesix companies, stretched out like a black horse's
tail.
Faced which way?
That way. No! by Jiminy, they ain't! They air faced this way! They
air going to make a stand!
They have done well, and they've got a brave officer, whoever he
is. The guns?
Away ahead, but they air turning! They air making for a hilltop
that hangs over the road. Thar's another man off his horse! Threw up
his arm and fell, and his foot caught in the stirrup. I don't know if
't war Dave this time shot himanyhow, 't war not Sergeant Coffin
Is the infantry deploying?
They air still in columnblack as flies in the road. They air
tearing down the fence, so they can get into the fields.
Look behindtoward the river.
Billy obediently turned upon the branch. We air coming on in five
lineslike the bean patch at home. I love them Lou-is-iana Tigers!
What's that?
What?
An awful cloud of dustand a trumpet out of it! The First
Maryland's getting out of the wayNow the Tigers!Oh-h-h!
He scrambled down. By the left flank! shouted Cleave. Double
quick. March!
The 65th, the Louisiana troops, the First Maryland, moved rapidly
west of the road, leaving a space of trampled green between themselves
and it. Out of the dust cloud toward the river now rose a thud of many
hoofsa body of horse coming at a trot. The sound deepened, drew
nearer, changed measure. The horses were galloping, though not at full
speed. They could be seen now, in two lines, under bright guidons,
eating up the waves of earth, galloping toward the sunset in dust and
heat and thunder. At first sight like toy figures, men and horses were
now grown life-size. They threatened, in the act of passing, to become
gigantic. The sun had set, but it left walls and portals of cloud
tinged and rimmed with fire. The horsemen seemed some home-returning
aerial race, so straight they rode into the west. The ground shook, the
dust rose higher, the figures enlarged, the gallop increased. Energy at
its height, of a sudden all the trumpets blew.
[Illustration: bugle call music]
Past the grey infantry, frantically yelling its welcome, swept a
tremendous charge. Knee to knee, shouting, chanting, horse and man one
war shaft, endued with soul and lifted to an ecstasy, they went by,
flecked with foam, in a whirlwind of dust, in an infernal clangour,
with the blare and fury, the port and horror of Mars attended. The
horses stretched neck, shook mane, breathed fire; the horsemen drained
to the lees the encrusted heirloom, the cup of warlike passion.
Frenzied they all rode home.
The small cavalry force opposed, gasped at the apparition. Certainly
their officers tried to rally the men, but certainly they knew it for
futility! Some of the troopers fired their carbines at the approaching
tide, hoar, yelling, coming now so swiftly that every man rode as a
giant and every steed seemed a spectre horseothers did not. All
turned, before the shock, and fled, in a mad gallop of their own.
Kenly's infantry, yet in column, was packed in a road none too wide,
between ragged banks topped by rail fences. Two panels of these had
been taken down preparatory to deploying in the fields, but the
movement was not yet made. Kenly had his face turned to the west,
straining his eyes for the guns or for the reinforcements which happily
General Banks might send. A shout arose. Look out! Look out! Oh, good
Lord!
First there was seen a horrible dust cloud, heard a great thunder of
hoofs. Then out of all came bloodshot eyes of horses, stiffened manes,
blue figures downward bent on the sweat-gleaming necks, oaths, prayers,
sounds of unnerved Nature, here and there of grim fury, impotent in the
torrent as a protesting straw. Into the blue infantry rode the blue
cavalry. All down the soldier-crammed road ensued a dreadful confusion,
danger and uproar. Men sprang for their lives to this side and that.
They caught at jutting roots and pulled themselves out of the road up
the crumbling banks. Where they could they reached the rail fences,
tumbled over them and lay, gasping, close alongside. The majority could
not get out of the road. They pressed themselves flat against the
shelving banks, and let the wedge drive through. Many were caught,
overturned, felt the fierce blows of the hoofs. Regardless of any wreck
behind them, on and over and down the Winchester road tore the maddened
horses, the appalled troopers.
The luckless infantry when, at last, their own had passed, had no
time to form before the Confederate charge was upon them. At the
highest key, the fiercest light, the extremest motion, sound and sight
procuring for them a mighty bass and background, came Jackson's
charging squadrons. They swallowed the road and the fields on either
hand. Kenly, with the foremost company, fired once, a point-blank
volley, received at twenty yards, and emptying ten saddles of the
central squadron. It could not stay the unstayable; in a moment, in a
twinkling of the eye, with indescribable noise, with roaring as of
undammed waters, with a lapse of all colours into red, with smell of
sweat and powder, hot metal and burning cloth, with savour of poisoned
brass in furred mouths, with an impact of body, with sabre blow and
pistol shot, with blood spilled and bone splintered, with pain and
tremendous horror and invading nausea, with delirium, with resurgence
of the brute, with jungle triumph, Berserker rage and battle ecstasy
came the shockthen, in a moment, the melee.
Kenly, vainly striving to rally a handful about the colours, fell,
all but mortally wounded. In the wild quarter of an hour that elapsed
before the surrender of the whole, many of the blue were killed, many
more wounded. Far and wide the men scattered, but far and wide they
were ridden down. One of the guns was taken almost at once, the other a
little later, overtaken a mile or two down the road. A few
artillerymen, a squad or two of cavalry with several officers,
Marchmont among them, got away. They were all who broke the trap. Kenly
himself, twenty officers and nine hundred men, the dead, the wounded,
the surrendered, together with a section of artillery, some unburned
stores, and the Northern colours and guidons, rested in Jackson's
hands. That night in Strasburg, when the stars came out, men looked
toward those that shone in the east.
CHAPTER XXI. STEVEN DAGG
Steven Dagg, waked by the shrill reveille, groaned, raised himself
from his dew-drenched couch, ran his fingers through his hair, kneaded
neck, arms, and ankles, and groaned more heavily yet. He was dreadfully
stiff and sore. In five days the foot cavalry had marched more than
eighty miles. Yesterday the brigade had been afoot from dawn till dark.
And we didn't have the fun of the battle neither, remarked Steve, in
a savagely injured tone. Leastwise none of us but the damned three
companies and a platoon of ours that went ahead to skirmish 'cause they
knew the type of country! Don't I know the type of country, too? Yah!
The man nearest him, combing his beard with ostentation, burst into
a laugh. Did you hear that, fellows? Steve's grumbling because he
wasn't let to do it all! Poor Steve! poor Hotspur! poor Pistol! He
bent, chuckling, over the pool that served him for mirror. You stop
calling me dirty names! growled Steve, and, his toilet ended well-nigh
before begun, slouched across to fire and breakfast. The former was
large, the latter small. Jackson's ammunition wagons, double-teamed,
were up with the army, but all others back somewhere east of Front
Royal.
Breakfast was soon oversorry breakfast! The assembly
sounded, the column was formed, Winder made his brigade a short speech.
Steve listened with growing indignation. General Banks, falling back
from Strasburg, is trying to get off clear to Winchester. ('Well, let
him! I don't give a damn!') We want to intercept him at Middletown.
('Oh, do we?') We want to get there before the head of his column
appears, and then to turn and strike him full. ('O Lord! I ain't a
rattler!') We want to beat him in the middle Valleynever let him get
to Winchester at all! ('I ain't objecting, if you'll give the other
brigades a show and let them do it!') It's only ten miles to
Middletown. ('Only!') A forced march needed. ('O Gawd!') Ashby and
Chew's Battery and a section of the Rockbridge and the skirmishers and
Wheat's Tigers are ahead. ('Well, if they're so brash, let them wipe
out Banks and welcome! And if one damned officer that's ahead gits
killed, I won't mourn him.') Ewell with Trimble's Brigade and the First
Maryland, Courtenay and Brockenborough are off, making as the bird
flies for Winchester! ('We ain't birds. We're men, and awful tired men,
too.') Steuart with the 2d and 6th cavalry are already at Newtown.
('What in hell do I care if they air?') Campbell and Taliaferro and
Elzey and Scott and the Stonewall and the balance of the guns form the
main column, and at Middletown we're going to turn and meet Banks.
('Gawd! more fighting, on an empty stomach, and dog-tired!') General
Jackson says, 'Men, we're going to rid the Valley of Virginia of the
enemy. Press on.' You know what an avalanche is. ('Knowed it before
you was born. It's a place where you hide till the man you hate worse
than pison oak comes by!') Let the Stonewall now turn avalanche; fall
on Banks at Middletown and grind him small!Fours right! Forward!
March! ('Oh, Gawd! my cut foot! It's my lasting hope
thatsh!Fool Tom Jackson'll break you same as he broke Garnett').
The morning, at first divinely cool and sweet, turned hot and
languid, humid and without air. It made the perspiration stream, and
then the dust rose from the road, and the two together caused the most
discomfortable grime! It marked all faces, and it lodged between neck
and neckband and wrist and wristband where it chafed the skin. It got
deep into the shoesthrough holes enough, God knows!and there the
matter became serious, for many a foot was galled and raw. It got into
eyes and they grew red and smarting. It stopped ear and nostril. It
lined the mouth; it sifted down the neck and made the body miserable.
At the starting, as the men quit the green banks of Shenandoah, several
of the aesthetic sort had been heard to comment upon the beauty of the
scenery. Possibly the soul for beauty lasted, but as for the scenery,
it vanished. The brigade was now upon the Front Royal and Winchester
pike, moving in the foot and wheel prints of the advance, and under and
through an extended cirrhus cloud of dirty saffron. The scenery could
not be viewed through itmere red blotches and blurs. It was so heavy
that it served for darkness. Men saw each other dimly at the distance
of ten feet, and mounted officers and couriers went by, dun and
shapeless, through the thick powder.
Steve could not be said to mind grime (Sergeant Mathew Coffin did;
he was forever wiping it away with what remained to him of a
handkerchief), but the stuff in his shoes made his feet hurt horribly.
It was in his mouth besides, where it made him thirsty. He eyed an
object dangling from the belt of the man next him, and since from long
habit it had become easy to him to break the tenth commandment he broke
it againinto a thousand pieces. At last, Where did you get that
canteen?
Picked it up at McDowell. Ef 't warn't covered with dust you could
see the U. S.
Empty, I reckon?
Nop. Buttermilk.
O Gawd! I could drink Thunder Run dry!
Sorry. Reckon we'll come to a stream bimeby. Saving the milk
'gainst an emergency.
It did not appear that we would come to a stream, or a spring, or a
well, or anything liquidto anything but awful miles of dust and heat,
trudged over by anything but three-leagued boots. Despite the spur of
Winder's speech the brigade moved with dispiriting slowness. It was not
the first in column; there were troops ahead and troops behind, and it
would perhaps have said that it was not its part to overpass the one
and outstrip the other. The whole line lagged. Close up, men! close
up! cried the officers, through dust-lined throats. If it's as hot as
ginger, then let the ginger show! Step out! Back from the head of the
column came peremptory aides. Press on! General Jackson says, 'Press
on!'Yes; he knows you marched twenty-six miles yesterday, and that
it's hot weather! All the same we've got to get there!Thank you,
colonel, I will take a swallow! I'm damned tired myself.
Between nine and ten they came to a village. Boys and women stood in
the dusty street with buckets of watera few buckets, a little water.
The women looked pale, as though they would swoon; beads of sweat stood
on the boys' brows and their lips worked. Thousands of soldiers had
passed or were passing; all thirsty, all crying, Water, please! water,
please! Women and boys had with haste drawn bucket after bucket from
the wells of the place, pumped them full from a cistern, or run to a
near-by spring and come panting back to the roadand not one soldier
in ten could get his tin cup filled! They went by, an endless line, a
few refreshed, the vast majority thirstier for the Tantalus failure.
The water bearers were more deadly tired than they; after it was all
over, the last regiment passed, the women went indoors trembling in
every limb. O Jesus! this war is going to be a dreadful thing! The
column marching on and passing a signpost, each unit read what it had
to say. Seven miles to Middletown.Seven miles to hell!
Some time later, the brigade made a discovery. They are
willowsyes, they are!running cross field, through the blur!
Whoever's toting the water bucket, get it ready!
The halt cameJackson's ten minutes out of an hour lie-down-men.
You-rest-all-over-lying-down halt. The water buckets were ready, and
there were the willows that the dust had made as sere as autumn,but
where was the stream? The thin trickle of water had been overpassed,
churned, trampled into mire and dirt, by half the army, horse and foot.
The men stared in blank disappointment. A polecat couldn't drink
here! Try it up and down, said the colonel. It will be clearer away
from the road. But every one of you listen for the Fall-In.
Steve wandered off. He did not wait for clean water. There was a
puddle, not half so bad as thirst! Settling down upon his hands, he
leaned forward and well-nigh drank it up. Refreshed, he rose, got out
of the mire back to the bank, and considered a deeper belt of willows
farther down the stream. They were on the edge of the dust belt, they
had an air faintly green, extremely restful. Steve looked over his
shoulder. All the boys were drinking, or seeking a place to drink, and
the dust was like a red twilight! Furtively swift as any Thunder Run
crittur, he made for the willows. They formed a deep little copse;
nobody within their round and, oh joy! shade and a little miry pool!
Steve sat down and drew off his shoes, taking some pains lest in the
action side and sole part company. Undoubtedly his feet were sore and
swollen, red and fevered. He drank from the miry pool, and then,
trousers rolled to his knees, sunk foot and ankle in the delicious
coolness. Presently he lay back, feet yet in mud and water, body flat
upon cool black earth, overhead a thick screen of willow leaves. Ef I
had a corn pone and never had to move I wouldn't change for heaven. O
Gawd! that damned bugle!
Fall in! Fall in!Fall in! Fall in! With a deep groan Steve
picked up his shoes and dragged himself to the edge of the copse. He
looked out. Danged fools! running back to line like chicks when the
hen squawks 'Hawk!' O Gawd! my foot's too sore to run. He stood
looking cautiously out of an opening he had made in the willow
branches. The regiments were already in column, the leading one, the
4th, formed and disappearing in the dust of the turnpike. Air ye going
now and have every damned officer swearing at you? What do they care if
your foot's cut and your back aches? and you couldn't come no sooner.
I ain't a-going. Steve's eyes filled with tears. He felt sublimely
virtuous; a martyr from the first. What does anybody there care for
me! They wouldn't care if I dropped dead right in line. Well, I
ain't a-going to gratify them! What's war, anyhow? It's a trap to catch
decent folk in! and the decenter you are the quicker you try to get out
of it! He closed the willow branches and stepped back to his lair.
Let 'em bellow for Steve just as loud as they like! I ain't got no
call to fight Banks on this here foot. If a damned provost-guard comes
along, why I just fell asleep and couldn't help it.
So tired was he, and so soothing still his retreat, that to fall
asleep was precisely what he did. The sun was twenty minutes nearer the
zenith when noise roused himvoices up and down the stream. He crawled
across the black earth and looked out. Taliaferro's Brigade getting
watered! All I ask is you'll just let me and my willows alone.
He might ask, but Taliaferro's seemed hardly likely to grant.
Taliaferro's had a harder time even than the Stonewall finding water.
There was less there to find and it was muddier. The men, swearing at
their luck, ranged up and down the stream. It was presently evident
that the search might bring any number around or through Steve's cool
harbour. He cursed them, then, in a sudden panic, picked up his shoes
and slipped out at the copse's back door. Able-bodied stragglers, when
caught, were liable to be carried on and summarily deposited with their
rightful companies. Deserters fared worse. On the whole, Steve
concluded to seek safety in flight. At a little distance rose a belt of
woods roughly parallel with the road. Steve took to the woods, and
found sanctuary behind the bole of an oak. His eye advanced just beyond
the bark, he observed the movement of troops with something like a
grin. On the whole he thought, perhaps, he wouldn't rejoin.
Taliaferro's men hardly seemed happy, up and down the trodden, miry
runlet. Wuz a time they wouldn't think a dog could drink there, and
now just look at them lapping it up! So many fine, stuck-up fellows,
toogentlemen and such.Yah!
The brigade moved on as had done the Stonewall. There grew in the
wood a sound. What's that? Scrambling up, he went forward between the
trees and presently came full upon a narrow wood road, with a thin
growth of forest upon the other side. The sound increased. Steve knew
it well. He stamped upon the moss with the foot that hurt him least.
Artillery coming!and all them damned gunners with eyes like
lynxes
He crossed the road and the farther strip of woods. Behind him the
approaching wheels rumbled loudly; before him a narrow lane stretched
through a ploughed field, to a grassy dooryard and a small house. On
the edge of the wood was a mass of elderbush just coming into bloom. He
worked his way into the centre of this, squatted down and regarded the
house from between the green stems. Smoke rose from the chimney. It
must be near eleven o'clock, thought Steve. She's getting dinner.
Behind him, through the wood, on toward Middletown rumbled the
passing battery. The heavy sound brought a young woman to the door. She
stood looking out, her hands shading her eyes; then, the train
disappearing, went back to her work. Steve waited until the sound was
almost dead, then left the elder, went up the lane and made his
appearance before the open door. The woman turned from the hearth where
she was baking bread. Good-morning, sir.
Morning, miss, said Steve. Could you spare a poor sick soldier a
bite to eat?
He ended with a hollow groan and the weight of his body against the
lintel. The young woman dragged forward a split-bottomed armchair. Sit
right down there! Of course I'll give you something to eat. It ain't
anything catching, is it?
Steve sank into the chair. It was pneumonia, and my strength ain't
come back yet.
I only asked because I have to think of my baby. She glanced
toward a cradle by the window. Pneumonia is dreadful weakening! How
come they let you march?
Why, I didn't, said Steve, want to be left behind. I wanted to be
in the fight with the rest of the boys. So the captain said, says he,
'Well, you can try it, for we need all the good fighters we've got, but
if you find you're too weak to go on, fall out! Maybe some good
Seraphim will give you 'commodation'
I can't give you 'commodation, because there's just the baby and
myself, James being with Ashby. But I can give you dinner (I haven't
got much, but what I've got you're quite welcome to). You kin rest here
till evening. Maybe a wagon'll come along and give you a lift, so's you
can get there in time
Get where, ma'am?
Why, wherever the battle's going to be!
Yaas, yaas, said Steve. It's surely hard lines when those who kin
fight have to take a back seat 'cause of illness and watch the other
kind go front! He groaned again and closed his eyes. I don't suppose
you've got a drop of spirits handy?
The womanshe was hardly more than a girlhesitated. Because the
most were heroic, and for the sake of that most, all Confederate
soldiers wore the garland. It was not in this or any year of the war
that Confederate women lightly doubted the entire heroism of the least
of individuals, so that he wore the grey. It was to them, most nobly,
most pathetically, a sacred investiture. Priest without but brute
within, wolf in shepherd's clothing, were to them not more unlooked-for
nor abhorrent than were coward, traitor, or shirk enwrapped in the pall
and purple of the grey. Fine lines came into the forehead of the girl
standing between Steve and the hearth. She remembered suddenly that
James had said there were plenty of scamps in the army and that not
every straggler was lame or ill. Some were plain deserters.
I haven't got any spirits, she answered. I did have a little
bottle but I gave it to a sick neighbour. Anyhow, it isn't good for
weak lungs.
Steve looked at her with cunning eyes. You didn't give it all
away, he thought. You've got a little hid somewhere. O Gawd! I want a
drink so bad!
I was making potato soup for myself, said the girl, and my father
sent me half a barrel of flour from Harrisonburg and I was baking a
small loaf of bread for to-morrow. It's Sunday. It's done now, and I'll
slice it for you and give you a plate of soup. That's better for you
than. Where do you think we'll fight to-day?
Where?Oh, anywhere the damned fools strike each other. He
stumbled to the table which she was spreading. She glanced at him.
There's a basin and a roller towel on the back porch and the pump's
handy. Wouldn't you like to wash your face and hands?
Steve shook his tousled head. Naw, I'm so burned the skin would
come off. O Gawd! this soup is good.
People getting over fevers and lung troubles don't usually burn.
They stay white and peaked even out of doors in July.
I reckon I ain't that kind. I'll take another plateful. Gawd, what
a pretty arm you've got!
The girl ladled out for him the last spoonful of soup, then went and
stood with her foot upon the cradle rocker. I reckon you ain't that
kind, she said beneath her breath. If you ever had pneumonia I bet it
was before the war!
Steve finished his dinner, leaned back in his chair and stretched
himself. Gawd! if I just had a nip. Look here, ma'am! I don't believe
you gave all that apple brandy away. S'pose you look and see if you
wasn't mistaken.
There isn't any.
You've got too pretty a mouth to be lying that-a-way! Look-a-here,
the doctor prescribed it.
You've had dinner and you've rested. There's a wood road over there
that cuts off a deal of distance to Middletown. It's rough but it's
shady. I believe if you tried you could get to Middletown almost as
soon as the army.
Didn't I tell you I had a furlough? Where'd you keep that peach
brandy when you had it?
I'm looking for James home any minute now. He's patrolling between
here and the pike.
You're lying. You said he was with Ashby, and Ashby's away north to
Newtownthe damned West P'inter that marches at the head of the
brigade said so! You haven't got the truth in you, and that's a pity,
for otherwise I like your looks first-rate. He rose. I'm going
foraging for that mountain dew
The girl moved toward the door, pushing the cradle in front of her.
Steve stepped between, slammed the door and locked it, putting the key
in his pocket. Now you jest stay still where you are or it'll be the
worse for you and for the baby, too! Don't be figuring on the window or
the back door, 'cause I've got eyes in the side of my head and I'll
catch you before you get there! That thar cupboard looks promising.
The cupboard not only promised; it fulfilled. Steve's groping hand
closed upon and drew forth a small old Revolutionary brandy bottle
quite full. Over his shoulder he shot a final look at once
precautionary and triumphant. You purty liar! jest you wait till I've
had my dram! An old lustre mug stood upon the shelf. He filled this
almost to the brim, then lifted it from the board. There was a sound
from by the door, familiar enough to Stevenamely, the cocking of a
trigger. You put that mug down, said the voice of his hostess, or
I'll put a bullet through you! Shut that cupboard door. Go and sit down
in that chair!
'Tain't loaded! I drew the cartridge.
You don't remember whether you did or not! And you aren't willing
for me to try and find out! You set down there! That's it; right there
where I can see you! My grandmother's birthday mug! Yes, and she saw
her mother kill an Indian right here, right where the old log cabin
used to stand! Well, I reckon I can manage a dirty, sneaking hound like
you. Grandmother's cup indeed, that I don't even let James drink out
of! I'll have to scrub it with brick dust to get your finger marks
off
Won't you please put that gun down, ma'am, and listen to reason?
I'm listening to something else. There's three or four horses
coming down the road
Please put that gun down, ma'am. I'll say good-bye and go just as
peaceable
And whether they're blue or grey I hope to God they'll take you off
my hands! There! They've turned up the lane. They're coming by the
house!
She raised a strong young voice. Help! Help! Stop, please! O
soldiers! Soldiers! Help! Soldiers! There! I've made them hear and
waked the baby!
Won't you let me go, ma'am? I didn't mean no harm.
No more did the Indian great-grandmother killed when he broke in
the door! You're a coward and a deserter, and the South don't need you!
Bye, bye, babybye, bye!
A hand tried the door. What's the matter here? Open!
It's locked, sir. Come round to the windowBye, baby, bye!
The dismounted cavalrymanan officerappeared outside the open
window. His eyes rested a moment upon the interior; then he put hands
upon the sill and swung himself up and into the room.
What's all this? Has this soldier annoyed you, madam?
The girl set down the musket and took up the baby. I'm downright
glad somebody came, sir. He's a coward and a deserter and a drunkard
and a frightener of women! He says he's had pneumonia, and I don't
believe him. If I was the South I'd send every man like him right
across Mason and Dixon as fast as they'd take them!I reckon he's my
prisoner, sir, and I give him up to you.
The officer smiled. I'm not the provost, but I'll rid you of him
somehow. He wiped the dust from his face. Have you anything at all
that we could eat? My men and I have had nothing since midnight.
That coward's eaten all I had, sir. I'm sorryIf you could wait a
little, I've some flour and I'll make a pan of biscuits
No. We cannot wait. We must be up with the army before it strikes
the Valley pike.
I've got some cold potatoes, and some scraps of bread crust I was
saving for the chickens
Then won't you take both to the four men out there? Hungry soldiers
like cold potatoes and bread crusts. I'll see to this fellow.Now,
sir, what have you got to say for yourself?
Major, my feet are so sore, and I was kind of light-headed! First
thing I knew, I just somehow got separated from the brigade
We'll try to find it again for you. What were you doing here?
Major, I just asked her for a little licker. And, being
light-headed, maybe I happened to say something or other that she took
up notions about. The first thing I knewand I just as innocent as her
babyshe up and turned my own musket against me
Who locked the door?
Whywhy
Take the key out of your pocket and go open it. Faugh!What's your
brigade?
The Stonewall, sir.
Humph! They'd better stone you out of it. Regiment?
65th, sir. Company A.If you'd be so good just to look at my foot,
sir, you'd see for yourself that I couldn't march
We'll try it with the Rogue's March.65th. Company A. Richard
Cleave's old company.
He ain't my best witness, sir. He's got a grudge against me
Stafford looked at him. Don't put yourself in a fury over it. Have
you one against him?
I have, said Steve, and I don't care who knows it! If he was as
steady against you, sir, as he has proved himself against me
I would do much, you mean. What is your name?
Steven Dagg.
The woman returned. They've eaten it all, sir. I saved you a piece
of bread. I wish it was something better.
Stafford took it from her with thanks. As for this man, my orderly
shall take him up behind, and when we reach Middletown I'll turn him
over with my report to his captain. If any more of his kind come
around, I would advise you just to shoot them at once.Now you, sir!
In front of me.March!
The five horsemen, detail of Flournoy's, sent upon some service the
night before, mounted a hill from which was visible a great stretch of
country. From the east came the Front Royal road; north and south
stretched that great artery, the Valley turnpike. Dust lay over the
Front Royal road. Dust hung above the Valley pikehung from Strasburg
to Middletown, and well beyond Middletown. Out of each extended cloud,
now at right angles, came rumblings as of thunder. The column beneath
the Front Royal cloud was moving rapidly, halts and delays apparently
over, lassitude gone, energy raised to a forward blowing flame. That on
the Valley pike, the six-mile-long retreat from Strasburg, was making,
too, a progress not unrapid, considering the immensity of its wagon
train and the uncertainty of the commanding general as to what, on the
whole, it might be best to do. The Confederate advance, it was evident,
would strike the pike at Middletown in less than fifteen minutes.
Stafford and his men left the hill, entered a body of woods running
toward the village, and three minutes later encountered a detachment of
blue horsemen, flankers of Hatch's large cavalry force convoying the
Federal wagon train. There was a shout, and an interchange of pistol
shots. The blue outnumbered the grey four to one. The latter wheeled
their horses, used spur and voice, outstripped a shower of bullets and
reached Middletown. When, breathless, they drew rein before a street
down which grey infantry poured to the onslaught, one of the men,
pressing up to Stafford, made his report. That damned deserter,
sir!in the scrimmage a moment ago he must have slipped off. I'm
sorrybut I don't reckon he's much loss.
Steve had taken refuge behind the lock of a rail fence draped with
creeper. On the whole, he meant to stay there until the two armies had
wended their ways. When it was all done and over, he would make a
change somehow and creep to the southward and get a doctor's
certificate. All this in the first gasp of relief, at the end of which
moment it became apparent that the blue cavalry had seen him run to
cover. A couple of troopers rode toward the rail fence. Steve stepped
from behind the creepers and surrendered. Thar are Daggs up North
anyway, he explained to the man who took his musket. I've a pack of
third cousins in them parts somewhere. I shouldn't wonder if they
weren't fighting on your side this dog-goned minute! I reckon I'd as
lief fight there myself.
The soldier took him to his officer. It's a damned deserter, sir.
Says he's got cousins with us. Says he'd as soon fight on one side as
the other.
I can't very well fight nowhere, whined Steve. If you'd be so
good as to look at my foot, sir
I see. You deserted and they picked you up. Very well, Mr.
Deserter, I want some information and you're the man to give it to me.
Steve gave it without undue reluctance. What in hell does it
matter, anyway? he thought, they'll find out damned quick anyhow
about numbers and that we aren't only Ewell. Gawd! Old Jack's struck
them this very minute! I hear the guns.
So did the company to which he had deserted. Hell and damnation!
Artillery to shake the earth! Middletown. All the wagons to pass and
the cavalry.It isn't just Ewell's division, he says. He says it's all
of them and Stonewall Jackson!Take the fellow up somebody and bring
him along!Fours right! Forward!
Five minutes later they reached the pike, south of Middletown. It
proved a seething stream of horse and foot and wagon train, forms
shadowy and umber, moving in the whirling dust. Over all hung like a
vast and black streamer a sense of panic. Underneath it every horse was
restive and every voice had an edge. Steve gathered that there were
teamsters who wished to turn and go back to Strasburg. He saw wagon
masters plying long black whips about the shoulders of these unwilling;
he heard officers shouting. The guns ahead boomed out, and there came a
cry of Ashby! The next instant found him violently unseated and
hurled into the dust of the middle road, from which he escaped by
rolling with all the velocity of which he was capable into the
depression at the side. He hardly knew what had happenedthere had
been, he thought, a runaway team dragging an ordnance wagon. He seemed
to remember a moving thickness in the all-pervading dust, and, visible
for an instant, a great U. S. painted on the wagon side. Then shouts,
general scatteration, some kind of a crashHe rubbed a bump upon his
forehead, large as a guinea hen's egg. Gawd! I wish I'd never come
into this here world!
The world was, indeed, to-day rather like a bad dreamlike one of
those dim and tangled streams of things, strange and frightful, at once
grotesquely unfamiliar and sickeningly real, which one neighbours for a
time in sleep. Steve picked himself out of the ditch, being much in
danger, even there, of trampling hoofs or wagons gone amuck, and
attained, how he could not tell, a rank wayside clump of Jamestown weed
and pokeberry. In the midst of this he squatted, gathered into as small
a bunch as was physically possible. He was in a panic; the sweat cold
upon the back of his hands. Action or inaction in this world, sitting,
standing, or going seemed alike ugly and dangerous.
First of all, this world was blue-clad and he was dressed in grey.
It was in a wild hurry; the main stream striving somehow to gain
Middletown, which must be passed, hook or crook, aid of devil or aid of
saint, while a second current surged with increasing strength back
toward Strasburg. All was confusion. They would never stop to listen to
explanations as to a turned coat! Steve was sure that they would simply
shoot him or cut him down before he could say I am one of you! They
would kill him, like a stray bee in the hive, and go their way, one way
or the other, whichever way they were going! The contending motions
made him giddy.
An aide in blue, galloping madly from the front, encountered beside
the pokeberry clump an officer, directing, with his sword. Steve was
morally assured that they had seen him, had stopped, in short, to hale
him forth. As they did notonly excitedly shouted each at the
otherhe drew breath again. He could see the two but dimly, close
though they were, because of the dust. Suddenly there came to him a
rose-coloured thought. That same veil must make him well-nigh
invisible; more than that, the dust lay so thickly on all things that
colour in any uniform was a debatable quality. He didn't believe
anybody was noticing. The extreme height to which his courage ever
attained, was at once his. He felt almost dare-devil.
The aide was shouting, so that he might be heard through the uproar.
Where are the guns? Colonel Hatch says for the good Lord's sake hurry
them up! Hell's broke loose and occupied Middletown. Ashby's there, and
they say Jackson! They've planted gunsthey've strung thousands of men
behind stone fencesthey're using our own wagons for breastworks! The
cavalry was trying to get past. Listen to that!
The other officer shouted also, waving his sword. There's a battery
behindHere it comes!We ought to have started last night. The
general said he must develop the forces of the enemy
He's developing them all right. Well, good-bye! Meet in
Washington!
The battery passed with uproar, clanging toward the front,
scattering men to either side like spray. Steve's wayside bower was
invaded. Get out of here! This ain't no time to be sitting on your
tail, thinking of going fishing! G'lang!
Steve went, covered with dust, the shade of the uniform below never
noticed in the furious excitement of the road. Life there was at fever
point, aware that death was hovering, and struggling to escape. In the
dust and uproar, the blare and panic, he was aware that he was moving
toward Middletown where they were fighting. Fighting was not precisely
that for which he was looking, and yet he was moving that way, and he
could not help it. The noise in front was frightful. The head of the
column of which he now formed an unwilling part, the head of the snake,
must be somewhere near Newtown, the rattling tail just out of
Strasburg. The snake was trying to get clear, trying to get out of the
middle Valley to Winchester, fifteen miles away. It was trying to drag
its painful length through the village just ahead. There were scorpions
in the village, on both sides the pike, on the hills above. Stonewall
Jackson with his old sabre, with his Good! Good! was hacking at the
snake, just there, in its middle. The old sabre had not yet cut quite
through, but there was hopeor fear(the deserter positively did not
know which) that presently it would be done. A tall soldier, beside
whom, in the dream torrent, Steve found himself, began to talk. Got
any water? No. Nobody has. I guess it's pouring down rain in New
Bedford this very minute! All the little streams running. He sighed.
'T ain't no use in fussing. I don't remember to have ever seen you
before, but then we're all mixed up
We are, said Steve. Ain't the racket awful?
Awful. 'T is going to be like running the gauntlet, to run that
town, and we're most there. If I don't get out alive, and if you ever
go to New BedfordWhoa, there! Look out!
Steve, thrust by the press away from the pike into a Middletown
street, looked for a cellar door through which he might descend and be
in darkness. All the street was full of struggling forms. A man on
horseback, tall and horrible in the nightmare, cut at him with a sabre
as long as himself. Steve ducked, went under the horse's belly, and
came up to have a pistol shot take the cap from his head. With a yell
he ran beneath the second horse's arching neck. The animal reared; a
third horseman raised his carbine. There was an overturned Conestoga
wagon in the middle of the street, its white top like a bubble in all
the wild swirl and eddy of the place. Steve and the ball from the
carbine passed under the arch at the same instant, the bullet lodging
somewhere in the wagon bed.
Steve at first thought he might be dead, for it was cool and dark
under the tilted canvas, and there was a momentary effect of quietness.
The carbine had been fired; perhaps the bullet was in his brain. The
uncertainty held but a second; outside the fracas burst forth again,
and beneath him something moved in the straw. It proved to be the
driver of the wagon, wounded, and fallen back from the seat in front.
He spoke now in a curious, dreamy voice. Get off the top of my broken
legdamn you to everlasting hell! Steve squirmed to one side. Sorry.
Gawd knows I wish I wasn't any nearer it than the Peaks of Otter!
There was a triangular tear in the canvas. He drew down the flap and
looked out. They were Ashby's menall those three! He began to cry,
though noiselessly. They hadn't ought to cut at me like
thatshooting, too, without looking! They ought to ha' seen I wasn't
no damned Yank The figure in the straw moved. Steve turned sick with
apprehension. Did you hear what I said? I was just a-joking. Gawd!
It's enough to make a man wish he was a Johnny RebHey, what did you
say?
But the figure in blue said nothing, or only some useless thing
about wanting water. Steve, reassured, looked again out of window. His
refuge lay a few feet from the pike, and the pike was a road through
pandemonium. He could see, upon a height, dimly, through the dust and
smoke the Rockbridge battery. Yellow flashes came from it, then
ear-splitting sound. A Federal force, horse, foot and guns, had hastily
formed in the opposite fields, seized a crest, planted cannon. These
sent screaming shells. In between the iron giants roared the
meleeAshby jousting with Hatch's convoying cavalrythe Louisiana
troops firing in a long battle line, from behind the stone fencesa
horrible jam of wagons, overturned or overturning, panic-stricken
mules, drivers raving out oaths, using mercilessly long, snaky, black
whipsheat, dust, thirst and thunder, wild excitement, blood and
death! There were all manner of wagons. Ambulances were there with
inmates,fantastic sickrooms, with glare for shade, Tartarean heat for
coolness, cannon thunder and shouting for quietness, grey enemies for
nursing women, and for home a battlefield in a hostile land. Heavy
ordnance wagons, far from the guns they were meant to feed, traces cut
and horses gone, rested reef-like for the tides to break against.
Travelling forges kept them company, and wagons bearing officers'
luggage. Beneath several the mules were pinned; dreadful sight could
any there have looked or pitied! Looming through there were the great
supply wagons, with others of lighter stores, holding boxes and barrels
of wines and fruits, commodities of all sorts, gold-leafed fripperies,
luxuries of all manner, poured across the Potomac for her soldiers by
the North. Sutlers' wagons did not lack, garishly stocked, forlorn as
Harlequin in the day's stress. In and around and over all these
stranded hulls roared the opposing forces. Steve saw Ashby, on the
black stallion, directing with a gauntleted hand. Four great draught
horses, drawing a loaded van, without a driver, maddened with fright,
turned into this street up and down which there was much fighting. A
shout arose. Carbines cracked. One of the leaders came down upon his
knees. The other slipped in blood and fell. The van overturned, pinning
beneath it one of the wheel horses. Its fall, immediately beside the
Conestoga, blocked Steve's window. He turned to crawl to the other
side. As he did so the wounded soldier in the straw had a remark to
make. He made it in the dreamy voice he had used before. Don't you
smell cloth burning?
Steve did; in an instant saw it burning as well, first the corner of
the canvas cover, then the straw beneath. He gave a screech. We're on
fire! Gawd! I've got to get out of this!
The man in the straw talked dreamily on. I got a bullet through the
end of my backbone. I can't sit up. I been lying here studying the
scoop of this here old wagon. It looks to me like the firmament at
night, with all the stars a-shining. There's no end of texts about
stars. 'Like as one star differeth from another' He began to cough.
There seems to be smoke. I guess you'll have to drag me out, brother.
At the end of the village a stone fence ran between two houses, on
the other side of a little garden slope planted with potatoes. In the
shadow of the wall a line of men, kneeling, rested rifle barrel upon
the coping and fired on Hatch's cavalry, now much broken, wavering
toward dispersion. At first the line was hidden by a swirl of smoke;
this lifted, and Steve recognized a guidon they had planted, then the
men themselves. They were the Louisiana Tigers, Wheat's Battalion,
upgathered from levee and wharf and New Orleans purlieu, among many of
a better cast, not lacking rufflers and bravos, soldiers of fortune
whom Pappenheim might not have scorned. Their stone wall leaped fire
again.
Steve looked to heaven and earth and as far around as the dun cloud
permitted, then moved with swiftness across the potato patch. All about
in the mingled dust and smoke showed a shifting pageantry of fighting
men; upon the black earth below the rank green leaves and purple blooms
lay in postures hardly conceivable the dead and wounded. In the line by
the stone fence was here and there a gap. Steve, head between
shoulders, made for the breastwork and sank into one of these openings,
his neighbour upon one hand an Irish roustabout, on the other a Creole
from a sugar plantation. He explained his own presence. I got kind of
separated from my companyCompany A, 65th Virginia. I had an awful
fight with three damned Yanks, and a fourth came in and dragged my gun
away! If you don't mind I'll just stay here and help you
Sorra an objection, said the Irishman. Pick up Tim's musket
behind you there and get to wurruk!
Bon jour! said the other side. One camarade ees always zee
welcome!
An order rang down the line. Sthop firing, is it? remarked the
Irishman. And that's the first dacint wurrud I've heard this half
hour! Wid all the plazure in life, captin! He rested his musket
against the stones, drew himself up, and viewed the prospect. Holy
Saint Pathrick! look at them sthramin' off into space! An' look at the
mile of wagons they're afther lavin! Refrishmint in thim, my frind, for
body and sowl!
Steve pulled himself up beside the other. Thar ain't any danger now
of stray bullets, I reckon? There's something awful in seeing a road
like that. There's a man that his mother wouldn't know!horse stepped
on his face, I reckon. Gawd! we have gangs of prisoners!Who's that
coming out of the cloud?
Chew's Horse Artillerywith Ashby, the darlint!
Ashby stopped before the stone house to the right. There are men in
hereofficers with them. Captain, go bid them surrender.
The captain, obeying, found a barred door and no answer. An approach
to the window revealed behind the closed blinds the gleam of a musket
barrel. Go again! Tell them their column's cut and their army
dispersed. If they do not surrender at once I will plant a shell in the
middle of that room.
The captain returned once more. Well?
They said, 'Go to hell,' sir. They said General Banks would be here
in a moment, and they'd taken the house for his headquarters. They've
got something in there beside water, I think.
A sergeant put in a word. There's a score of them. They seized this
empty house, and they've been picking off our men
Double canister, point-blank, Allen.Well, sergeant?
It's not certain it was an empty house, sir. One of the Tigers,
there, thinks there are women in it.
Women!
He don't knowjust thinks so. Thinks he heard a cry when the Yanks
broke inAh!Well, better your hat than you, sir! We'll blow that
sharpshooter where he can look out of window sure enough! Match's
ready, sir.
Ashby put back on his head the soft wide hat with a bullet hole
beside the black plume. No, no, West! We can't take chances like that!
We'll break open the door instead.
The others think that the Tiger was mistaken, sir. They say all the
women went out of the other houses, and they're sure they went out of
this one, too. Shan't we fire, sir?
No, no! We can't take chances. Limber up, lieutenant, and move on
with the others.Volunteers to break open that door!
Ain't nobody looking, thought Steve, behind the wall. Gawd! I
reckon I'll have to try my luck again. 'T won't do to stay here. To
the big Irishman he said, Reckon I'll try again to find my company! I
don't want to be left behind. Old Jack's going to drive them, and he
needs every fighter!
CHAPTER XXII. THE VALLEY PIKE
As he moved away from the stone house, the vicinity of Ashby and the
line of Tigers behind the fence, he became aware that not a small
portion of Wheat's Battalion had broken ranks and was looting the
wagons. There were soldiers like grey ants about a sutler's wagon.
Steve, struggling and shouldering boldly enough now, managed to get
within hailing distance. Men were standing on the wheels, drawing out
boxes and barrels and throwing them down into the road, where the ants
swarmed to the attack. Not the Tigers alone, but a number of Ashby's
men as well engaged in the general business. The latter, either not so
hungry or more valiant to abstain from the smaller rifling, turned to
the plunder of horses. There were horses enough, dead and wounded,
along that frightful road. Others were unhurt, still harnessed to
wagons, or corralled in fence corners, or huddled with prisoners in the
trodden fields. Horses, to the trooper of the Valley, were as horses in
the ten years' war at Troythe prized spoil of battle, the valued
trophies, utilities outweighing all filagree spoil. Each man of Ashby's
owned the horse he rode, burned to provide himself with a second mount,
and flamed to be able to say at home, This horse I took at Middletown,
just before we drove the Yankees out of the Valley and ended the war!
Home, for many of them was not at all distantgallop a few miles,
deposit the prize, return, catch up before Winchester! Wild courage,
much manliness, much chivalry, ardent devotion to Ashby and the cause,
individualism of a citizen soldiery, and a naive indiscipline all their
ownsuch were Ashby's men! Not a few now acted upon the suggestion of
the devil who tempts through horse flesh. In the dust they went by
Steve like figures of a frieze.
Inefficient even in plundering, he found himself possessed of but a
handful of crackers, a tin of sardinesa comestible he had never seen
before and did not like when he tasted itand a bottle of what he
thought wine but proved vinegar. Disgusted, he moved to the next wagon,
overswarmed like the first by grey ants. This time it was ale,
unfamiliar still, but sufficiently to his liking. Gawd! Jest to drink
when you're thirsty, and eat when you're hungry, and sleep when you're
sleepy
A drum beat, a bugle blew. Fall in! Fall in! Officers passed
from wagon to wagon. They were ready enough with the flats of their
swords. For shame, men, for shame! Fall in! Fall in! General
Jackson is beyond Newtown by now. You don't want him to have to wait
for you, do you? Fall in!
The Valley pike, in the region of Middletown, proved a cumbered
path. From stone fence to stone fence, in the middle trough of dust,
and on the bordering of what had been, that morning, dew-gemmed grass
and flower, War the maniac had left marks. Overturned wagons formed
barriers around which the column must wind. Some were afire; the smoke
of burning straw and clothing and foodstuffs mingling with the yet
low-lying powder smoke and with the pall of Valley dust. Horses lay
stark across the way, or, dying, stared with piteous eyes. The sky was
like a bowl of brass, and in the concave buzzards were sailing. All
along there was underfoot much of soldiers' impedimentaknapsacks,
belts, accoutrements of all kinds, rolled blankets and oilcloths,
canteens. Dead men did not lack. They lay in strange postures, and on
all the dust was thick. There were many wounded; the greater number of
these had somehow reached the foul grass and trampled flowers of the
wayside. Prisoners were met; squads brought in from the road, from
fields and woods. There was one group, men and horses covered with the
dust of all time, disarmed, hatless, breathless, several bleeding from
sabre cuts. One among thema small man on a tall horseindulged in
bravado. What are you going to do with us now you've got us? You've
nowhere to take us to! Your damned capital's fallenfell this morning!
Yes, it did! News certain. Rebellion's over and Jack Ketch's waiting
for youwaiting for every last dirty ragamuffin and slave-driver that
calls himself general or president, and for the rest of you, too! Pity
you didn't have just one neck so's he could do the whole damn thirteen
millions of you at once!Jeff Davis and Lee and Johnston were hanged
at noon. This very moment Little Mac's in Richmond, marching down
whatever your damned Pennsylvania Avenue's called
A negro body servant marching in the rear of one of the contemptuous
companies broke ranks and rushed over to the reviling soldier. You
damn po' white trash, shet yo' mouf or I'll mek you! Callin' Main
Street 'Pennsylvania Avenue,' and talkin' 'bout hangin' gent'men what
you ain't got 'bility in you ter mek angry enuff ter swear at you! 'N
Richmon' fallen! Richmon' ain' half as much fallen as you is! Richmon'
ain' never gwine ter fall. I done wait on Marse Robert Lee once't at
Shirley, an he ain't er gwine ter let it! 'Pennsylvania
Avenue!'
Half a mile from Middletown they came up with a forlorn little
company. On a high bank above the road, huddled beneath three cedars,
appeared the theatrical troupe which had amused General Banks's army in
Strasburg. Men and women there were, a dozen actors, and they had with
them a cart bearing their canvas booth and the poor finery of their
wardrobe. One of the women nursed a baby; they all looked down like
wraiths upon the passing soldiers.
Firing broke out ahead. Newtown, said the men beside Steve. I've
got friends there. Told 'em when we came up the Valley after Kernstown
we'd come down again! 'N here we are, bigger 'n life and twice as
natural! That's Rockbridge making that awful noise. Must be a Yankee
batteryThere it opens! Oh, we're going to have a chance, too!
They were moving at double-quick. Steve simulated a stumble, caught
himself, groaned and fell out of line. The wall to the left blazed. He
uttered a yell and sprang back. That's right! said the man. It's
taken most a year to learn it, but you feel a whole heap safer in line
than out of it when firing's going on. That's a nice littlewhat d'ye
call it?they've planted there
Avalanche, panted Steve. O Gawd! A minie ball had pierced the
other's brain. He fell without a sound, and Steve went on.
The troops entered the hamlet at a run, passing two of the
Rockbridge guns planted on a hillock and hurling shell against a
Federal battery at the far end of the street. There was hot fighting
through the place, then the enemy, rallied here, broke again and
dispersed to the westward. The grey soldiers swept through the place,
and the people with tears and laughter cried them welcome. On the porch
of a comfortable house stood a comfortable, comely matron, pale with
ardent patriotism, the happy tears running down her cheeks. Parched as
were their throats the troops found voice to cheer, as always, when
they passed through these Valley towns. They waved their colours
vigorously; their ragged bit of a band played Old Virginny never
tire. The motherly soul on the porch, unconscious of self, uplifted,
tremulous with emotion, opened wide her arms, All of you run here and
kiss me!
Late afternoon came and the army yet skirmished, marched, marched,
skirmished on the Valley pike. The heat decreased, but dust and thirst
remained. Fatigue was the abominable thing. Gawd! thought Steve. I
can't stand it any longer. I got ter quit, and ef I could shoot that
lieutenant, I would. The man whom the closing of the ranks had brought
upon his left began to speak in a slow, refined voice. There was a
book published in England a year or so ago. It brings together old
observations, shoots and theories, welds them, and produces a Thor's
hammer that's likely to crack some heads. Once upon a time, it seems,
we went on four feet. It's a pity to have lost so valuable a faculty.
Oh, Jupiter! we are tired!
A man behind put in his word. To-morrow's Sunday. Two Sundays ago
we were at Meechum's River, and since then we've marched most two
hundred miles, and fought two battles and a heap of skirmishes! I
reckon there'll be a big fight to-morrow, with Old Jack jerking his
hand in the air as they say he's been doing! 'N all to the sound of
church bells! Oh, Moses, I'm tired!
At sunset the bugles blew halt. The men dropped down on the
tarnished earth, on the vast, spectacular road to Winchester. They
cared not so much for supper, faint as they were; they wanted sleep.
Supper they hadall that could be obtained from the far corners of
haversacks and all that, with abounding willingness, the neighbouring
farmhouses could scrape togetherbut when it came to sleep. With
nodding heads the men waited longingly for roll call and tattoo, and
instead there came an order from the front. A night march! O
Lord, have mercy, for Stonewall Jackson never does. Fall in! Fall
in! Column Forward!
When they came to the Opequon they had a skirmish with a
Massachusetts regiment which fired a heavy volley into the cavalry
ahead, driving it back upon the 33d Virginia, next in column. The 33d
broke, then rallied. Other of the Stonewall regiments deployed in the
fields and the 27th advanced against the opposing force, part of
Banks's rearguard. It gave way, disappearing in the darkness of the
woods. The grey column, pushing across the Opequon, came into a zone of
Federal skirmishers and sharpshooters ambushed behind stone fences.
Somewhere about midnight Steve, walking in about the worst dream he
had ever had, determined that no effort was too great if directed
toward waking. It was a magic lantern dreamblack slides painted only
with stars and fireflies, succeeded by slides in which there was a
moment's violent illumination, stone fences leaping into being as the
musket fire ran along. A halta company deployedthe foe dispersed,
streaming off into the darknessthe hurt laid to one side for the
ambulancesColumn Forward! Sometimes a gun was unlimbered,
trained upon the threatening breastwork and fired. Once a shell burst
beneath a wagon that had been drawn into the fields. It held, it
appeared, inflammable stores. Wagon and contents shot into the air with
a great sound and glare, and out of the light about the place came a
frightful crying. Men ran to right and left to escape the rain of
missiles; then the light died out, and the crying ceased. The column
went on slowly, past dark slides. Its progress seemed that of a snail
army. Winchester lay the fewest of miles away, but somewhere there was
legerdemain. The fewest of miles stretched like a rubber band. The
troops marched for three minutes, halted, marched again, halted,
marched, halted. To sleepto sleep! Column Forward!Column
Forward!
There was a bridge to cross over a wide ditch. Steve hardly broke
his dream, but here he changed the current. How he managed he could
scarce have told, but he did find himself under the bridge where at
once he lay down. The mire and weed was like a blissful bed. He closed
his eyes. Three feet above was the flooring, and all the rearguard
passing over. It was like lying curled in the hollow of a drum, a drum
beaten draggingly and slow. Gawd! thought Steve. It sounds like a
Dead March.
He slept, despite the canopy of footsteps. He might have lain like a
log till morning but that at last the flooring of the bridge rebelled.
A section of a battery, kept for some hours at Middletown, found itself
addressed by a courier, jaded, hoarse as a raven of the night. General
Jackson says, 'Bring up these guns.' He says, 'Make haste.' The
battery limbered up and came with a heavy noise down the pike, through
the night. Before it was the rearguard; the artillery heard the changed
sound as the men crossed the wooden bridge. The rearguard went on; the
guns arrived also at the ditch and the overtaxed bridge. The Tredegar
iron gun went over and on, gaining on the foot, with intent to pass.
The howitzer, following, proved the last straw. The bridge broke. A gun
wheel went down, and amid the oaths of the drivers a frightened screech
came from below. O Gawd! lemme get out of this!
Pulled out, he gave an account of his cut foot, piteous enough. The
lieutenant listened. The 65th? Scamp, I reckon, but flesh is weak!
Hasn't been exactly a circus parade for any of us. Let him ride,
menif ever we get this damned wheel out! Keep an eye on him,
Fleming!Now, all together!Pull, White Star!Pull, Red Star!
The column came to Kernstown about three o'clock in the morning.
Dead as were the troops the field roused them. Kernstown! Kernstown!
We're back again.
Here was where we crossed the pikethere's the old ridge. Griffin
tearing up his cardsand Griffin's dead at McDowell.
That was Fulkerson's wallthat shadow over there! There's the bank
where the 65th fought.Kernstown! I'm mighty tired, boys, but I've got
a peaceful certainty that that was the only battle Old Jack's ever
going to lose!
Old Jack didn't lose it. Garnett lost it.
That ain't a Stonewall man said that! General Garnett's in trouble.
I reckon didn't anybody lose it. Shields had nine thousand men, and he
just gained it!Shields the best man they've had in the Valley.
Kernstown!Heard what the boys at Middletown called Banks? Mr.
Commissary Banks. Oh, law! that pesky rearguard again!
The skirmish proved short and sharp. The Federal rearguard gave way,
fell back on Winchester; the Confederate column, advance, main and
rear, heard in the cold and hollow of the night the order: Halt.
Stack arms! Break ranks! From regiment to regiment ran a further
word. One hour. You are to rest one hour, men. Lie down.
In the first grey streak of dawn a battery which had passed in turn
each segment of the column, came up with the van, beyond Kernstown
battlefield, and halted upon a little rise of ground. All around
stretched grey, dew-wet fields and woods, and all around lay an army,
sleeping, strange sight in the still and solemn light, with the birds
cheeping overhead! The guns stopped, the men got down from limber and
caisson, the horses were unhitched. An hour's sleepKernstown
battlefield!
An officer whose command lay in the field to the left, just beyond a
great breach that had been made in the stone fence, arose from the
cloak he had spread in the opening and came over to the guns.
Good-morning, Randolph! Farmers and soldiers see the dawn!
Light thickens; and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood.
The poor guns! Even they look overmarched. As he spoke he stroked
the howitzer as though it had been a living thing.
We've got with us a stray of yours, said the artilleryman. Says
he has a cut foot, but looks like a skulker. Here you, Mr.
Under-the-Bridge! come from behind that caisson
Out of a wood road, a misty opening overarched by tall and misty
trees, came two or three horsemen, the foremost of whom rode up to the
battery. Good-morning, Randolph! General Jackson will be by in a
moment. General Ewell lies over there on the Front Royal road. He has
eaten breakfast, and is clanking his spurs and swearing as they swore
in Flanders. He pointed with his gauntleted hand, turning as he did so
in the saddle. The action brought recognition of Cleave's presence upon
the road. Stafford ceased speaking and sat still, observing the other
with narrowed eyes.
Cleave addressed the figure, which, there being no help for it, had
come from behind the caisson. You, Dagg, of course! Straggling or
desertingI wonder which this time! Are you not ashamed?
Gawd, major! I just couldn't keep up. I got a cut foot
Sit down on that rock.Take off your shoewhat is left of it.
Now, let me see. Is that the cut, that scratch above the ankle?
It ain't how deep it is. It's how it hurts.
There is no infantryman to-day who is not footsore and tired. Only
the straggler or deserter has as few marks as you to show. There is the
company, down the road, in the field. To-night I shall find out if you
have been with it all the day. Go! You disgrace the very mountains
where you were born
Beyond the guns was a misty bend of the road. The light was
stronger, in the east a slender streamer of carnation; the air dank,
cool and still. On the edge of Kernstown battlefield a cock crew; a
second horn came faintly. Very near at hand sounded a jingle of
accoutrement; Stonewall Jackson, two or three of the staff with him,
came around the turn and stopped beside the guns. The men about them
and the horses, and on the roadside, drew themselves up and saluted.
Jackson gave his slow quiet nod. He was all leaf bronze from head to
foot, his eyes just glinting beneath the old forage cap. He addressed
the lieutenant. You will advance, sir, in just three quarters of an
hour. There are batteries in place upon the ridge before us. You will
take position there, and you will not leave until ordered. His eyes
fell upon Stafford. Have you come from General Ewell?
Yes, general. He sends his compliments, and says he is ready.
Good! Good!What is this soldier doing here? He looked at Steve.
It is a straggler, sir, from my regiment. Lieutenant Randolph
picked him up
Found him under a bridge, sir. I'd call him a deserter
Steve writhed as though, literally, the eyes were cold steel and had
pinned him down. Gawd, general! I didn't desert! Cross my heart and
may I go to hell if I did! I was awful tiredhungry and thirstyand
my head swimmingI just dropped out, meaning to catch up after a bit!
I had a sore foot. Major Cleave's awful hard on me
You're a disgrace to your company, said Cleave. If we did not
need even shadows and half men you would be drummed home to Thunder
Run, there to brag, loaf, and rot
Steve began to whine. I meant to catch up, I truly did! His eyes,
shifting from side to side, met those of Stafford. Gawd, I'm lost
Stafford regarded his quondam prisoner curiously enough. His gaze
had in it something of cruelty, of pondering, and of question. Steve
writhed. I ain't any better 'n anybody else. Life's awful! Everybody
in the world's agin me. Gawd knows Major Cleave's so Cleave made a
sound of contempt.
Stafford spoke. I do not think he's actually a deserter. I remember
his face. I met him near Middletown, and he gave me his regiment and
company. There are many stragglers.
Steve could have fallen and worshipped. Don't care whether he did
it for me, or jest 'cause he hates that other one! He does hate him! 'N
I hate him, toosending me to the guardhouse every whip-stitch! This
to himself; outside he tried to look as though he had carried the
colours from Front Royal, only dropping them momentarily at that
unfortunate bridge. Jackson regarded him with a grey-blue eye
unreconciled, but finally made his peculiar gesture of dismissal. The
Thunder Run man saluted and stumbled from the roadside into the field,
the dead Tiger's musket in the hollow of his arm, his face turned
toward Company A. Back in the road Jackson turned his eyes on Cleave.
Major, in half an hour you will advance with your skirmishers. Do as
well as you have done heretofore and you will do wellvery well. The
effect of Colonel Brooke's wound is graver than was thought. He has
asked to be retired. After Winchester you will have your promotion.
With his staff he rode awaya leaf brown figure, looming large in
the misty half light, against the red guidons of the east. Stafford
went with him. Randolph, his cannoneers and drivers dropped beside the
pieces and were immediately asleephalf an hour now was all they had.
The horses cropped the pearled wayside grass. Far away the cocks were
crowing. In the east the red bannerols widened. There came a faint
blowing of bugles. Cleave stooped and took up his cloak.
Steve, stumbling back over the wet field, between the ranks of
sleeping men, found Company Athat portion of it not with the
skirmishers. Every soul was asleep. The men lay heavily, some drawn
into a knot, others with arms flung wide, others on their faces. They
lay in the dank and chilly dawn as though death had reaped the field.
Steve lay down beside them. Gawd! when will this war be over?
He dreamed that he was back at Thunder Run, crouching behind a
certain boulder at a turn of the road that wound up from the Valley. He
had an old flintlock, but in his dream he did not like it, and it
changed to one of the beautiful modern rifles they were beginning to
take from the Yankees. There were no Yankees on Thunder Run. Steve felt
assured of that in his dream; very secure and comfortable. Richard
Cleave came riding up the road on Dundee. Steve lifted the rifle to his
shoulder and sighted very carefully. It seemed that he was not alone
behind the boulder. A shadowy figure with a sword, and a star on his
collar, said, Aim at the heart. In the dream he fired, but before the
smoke could clear so that he might know his luck the sound of the shot
changed to clear trumpets, long and wailing. Steve turned on his side.
Reveille! O Gawd!
The men arose, the ranks were formed. No breakfast?Hairston
Breckinridge explained the situation. We're going to breakfast in
Winchester, men! All the dear old cooks are getting ready for usrolls
and waffles and broiled chicken and poached eggs and coffeeand all
the ladies in muslin and ribbons are putting flowers on the table and
saying, 'The Army of the Valley is coming home!'Isn't that a Sunday
morning breakfast worth waiting for? The sooner we whip Banks the
sooner we'll be eating it.
All right. All right, said the men. We'll whip him all right.
We're sure to whip him now we've got Steve back!
That's so. Where've you been anyway, Steve, and how many did you
kill on the road?
I killed three, said Steve. General Ewell's over thar in the
woods, and he's going to advance 'longside of us, on the Front Royal
road. Rockbridge 'n the rest of the batteries are to hold the ridge up
there, no matter what happens! Banks ain't got but six thousand men,
and it ought ter be an easy job
Good Lord! Steve's been absent at a council of wartalking
familiarly with generals! Always thought there must be more in him than
appeared, since there couldn't well be less
Band's playing! 'The Girl I Left Behind Me'!
That's Winchester! Didn't we have a good time there 'fore and after
Bath and Romney? 'Most the nicest Valley town!and we had to go away
and leave it blue as indigo
I surely will be glad to see Miss Fanny again
Company C over there's most crazy. It all lives there
Three miles! That ain't much. I feel rested. There goes the 2d!
Don't it swing off long and steady? Lord, we've got the hang of it at
last!
Will Cleave's got to be sergeant.'N he's wild about a girl in
Winchester. Says his mother and sister are there, too, and he can't
sleep for thinking of the enemy all about them. Children sure do grow
up quick in war time!
A lot of things grow up quickand a lot of things don't grow at
all. There goes the 4thlong and steady! Our turn next.
Steve again saw from afar the approach of the nightmare. It stood
large on the opposite bank of Abraham's Creek, and he must go to meet
it. He was wedged between comradesSergeant Coffin was looking
straight at him with his melancholy, bad-tempered eyeshe could not
fall out, drop behind! The backs of his hands began to grow cold and
his unwashed forehead was damp beneath matted, red-brown elf locks.
From considerable experience he knew that presently sick stomach would
set in. When the company splashed through Abraham's Creek he would not
look at the running water, but when he looked at the slopes he was
expected presently to climb he saw that there was fighting there and
that the nightmare attended! Steve closed his eyes. O Gawd, take care
of me
Later on, when the ridge was won he found himself, still in the
company of the nightmare, cowering close to the lock of a rail fence
that zigzagged along the crest. How he got there he really did not
know. He had his musket still clutchedhis mountaineer's instinct
served for that. Presently he made the discovery that he had been
firing, had fired thrice, it appeared from his cartridge box. He
remembered neither firing nor loading, though he had some faint
recollection of having been upon his knees behind a low stone wallhe
saw it now at right angles with the rail fence. A clover field he
remembered because some one had said something about four-leaved
clovers, and then a shell had come by and the clover turned red. Seized
with panic he bit a cartridge and loaded. The air was rocking;
moreover, with the heavier waves came a sharp zzzz-ip! zzzzzz-ip!
Heaven and earth blurred together, blended by the giant brush of
eddying smoke. Steve tasted powder, smelled powder. On the other side
of the fence, from a battery lower down the slope to the guns beyond
him two men were runningrunning very swiftly, with bent heads. They
ran like people in a pelting rain, and between them they carried a
large bag or bundle, slung in an oilcloth. They were tall and hardy
men, and they moved with a curious air of determination. Carrying
powder! Gawd! before I'd be sech a fool A shell came, and
burstburst between the two men. There was an explosion,
ear-splitting, heart-rending. A part of the fence was wrecked; a small
cedar tree torn into kindling. Steve put down his musket, laid his
forehead upon the rail before him, and vomited.
The guns were but a few yards above him, planted just below the
crest, their muzzles projecting over. Steve recognized Rockbridge. He
must, he thought, have been running away, not knowing where he was
going, and infernally managed to get up here. The nightmare abode with
him. His joints felt like water, his heart was straightened, stretched,
and corded in his bosom like a man upon the rack. He pressed close into
the angle of the fence, made himself of as little compass as his long
and gangling limbs allowed, and held himself still as an opossum
feigning death. Only his watery blue eyes wanderednot for curiosity,
but that he might see and dodge a coming harm.
Before him the ridge ran steeply down to a narrow depression, a
little vale, two hundred yards across. On the further side the land
rose again to as high a hill. Here was a stone fence, which even as he
looked, leaped fire. Above it were ranged the blue cannonthree
batteries, well served. North and South, muzzle to muzzle, the guns
roared across the green hollow. The blue musketrymen behind the wall
were using minies. Of all death-dealing things Steve most hated these.
They came with so unearthly a soundzzzz-ip! zzzzz-ip!a devil noise,
a death that shrieked, taunted, and triumphed. To-day they made his
blood like water. He crouched close, a mere lump of demoralization,
behind a veil of wild buckwheat.
Rockbridge was suffering heavily, both from the opposing Parrotts
and from sharpshooters behind the wall. A belated gun came straining up
the slope, the horses doing mightily, the men cheering. There was an
opening in a low stone wall across the hillside, below Steve. The gate
had been wrenched away and thrown aside, but the thick gatepost
remained, and it made the passage narrowtoo narrow for the gun team
and the carriage to pass. All stopped and there was a colloquy.
We've got an axe?
Yes, captain.
John Agnor, you've felled many a tree. Take the axe and cut that
post down.
Captain, I will be killed!
Then you will be killed doing your duty, John. Get down.
Agnor got the axe, swung it and began chopping. The stone wall
across the hollow blazed more fiercely; the sharpshooters diverted
their attention from the men and horses higher upon the hill. Agnor
swung the axe with steadiness; the chips flew far. The post was cut
almost through before his bullet came. In falling he clutched the
weakened obstruction, and the two came down together. The gun was free
to pass, and it passed, each cannoneer and driver looking once at John
Agnor, lying dead with a steady face. It found place a few yards above
Steve in his corner, and joined in the roar of its fellows, throwing
solid shot and canister.
A hundred yards and more to the rear stood a barn. The wounded from
all the guns, strung like black beads along the crest, dragged
themselves or were carried to this shelter. Hope rose in Steve's heart.
Gawd! I'll creep through the clover and git there myself. He started
on hands and knees, but once out of his corner and the shrouding mass
of wild buckwheat, terror took him. The minies were singing like so
many birds. A line of blue musketrymen, posted behind cover, somewhat
higher than the grey, were firing alike at gunners, horses, and the men
passing to and fro behind the fighting line. Steve saw a soldier
hobbling to the barn throw up his arms, and pitch forward. Two carrying
a third between them were both struck. The three tried to drag
themselves further, but only the one who had been borne by the others
succeeded. A shell pierced the roof of the barn, burst and set the
whole on fire. Steve turned like a lizard and went back to the lock of
the fence and the tattered buckwheat. He could hear the men talking
around the gun just beyond. They spoke very loud, because the air was
shaken like an ocean in storm. They were all powder-grimed, clad only
in trousers and shirt, the shirt open over the breast, and sleeves
rolled up. They stood straight, or bent, or crept about the guns, all
their movements swift and rhythmic. Sometimes they were seen clearly;
sometimes the smoke swallowed them. When seen they looked larger than
life, when only heard their voices came as though earth and air were
speaking. Sponge out.All right. Fire! Hot while it lasts, but it
won't last long. I have every confidence in Old Jack and Old Dick. Drat
that primer! All right!Three seconds! Jerusalem! that created a
sensation. The Louisianians are coming up that cleft between the hills.
All the Stonewall regiments in the centre. Ewell to flank their left.
Did you ever hear Ewell swear? Look out! wheel's cut through. Lanyard's
shot away. Take handkerchiefs. Haven't got anytear somebody's shirt.
Number 1! Number 2! Look out! look outGive them hell. Good Heaven!
here's Old Jack. General, we hope you'll go away from here! We'll stay
it outgive you our word. Let them enfilade ahead!but you'd better
go back, sir.
Thank you, captain, but I wish to see
A minie ball imbedded itself in a rail beside Steve's cheek. Before
he could recover from this experience a shell burst immediately in
front of his panel. He was covered with earth, a fragment of shell
sheared away the protecting buckwheat and a piece of rail struck him in
the back with force. He yelled, threw down his musket and ran.
He passed John Agnor lying dead by the gateway, and he reached
somehow the foot of the hill and the wide fields between the embattled
ridges and the Valley pike, the woods and the Front Royal road. He now
could see the Federal line of battle, drawn on both sides of the pike,
but preponderantly to the westward. They were there, horse and foot and
bellowing artillery, and they did not look panic-stricken. Their flags
were flying, their muskets gleaming. They had always vastly more and
vastly better bands than had the grey, and they used them more
frequently. They were playing nowa brisk and stirring air, sinking
and swelling as the guns boomed or were silent. The mist was up, the
sun shone bright. Gawd! thought Steve. I'd better be there than
here! We ain't a-goin' to win, anyhow. They've got more cannon, and a
bigger country, and all the ships, and pockets full of money. Once't I
had a chance to move North
He had landed in a fringe of small trees by a little runlet, and
now, under this cover, he moved irresolutely forward. Ef I walked
toward them with my hands up, they surely wouldn't shoot. What's
that?Gawd! Look at Old Jack a-comin'! Reckon I'll stayTold them
once't on Thunder Run I wouldn't move North for nothing! Yaaaihhhh!
Yaaaaihhh
Yaaihhhhh! Yaaihhhhh! Yaaaihh! Yaaaaaaaihhhh! Ten thousand
grey soldiers with the sun on their bayonets
* * * * *
There came by a riderless horse, gentle enough, unfrightened,
wanting only to drink at the little stream. Steve caught him without
difficulty, climbed into the saddle and followed the army. The army was
a clanging, shouting, triumphant thing to followto follow into the
Winchester streets, into a town that was mad with joy. A routed army
was before it, pouring down Loudoun Street, pouring down Main Street,
pouring down every street and lane, pouring out of the northern end of
the town, out upon the Martinsburg pike, upon the road to the frontier,
the road to the Potomac. There was yet firing in narrow side streets, a
sweeping out of single and desperate knots of blue. Church bells were
pealing, women young and old were out of doors, weeping for pure joy,
laughing for the same, praising, blessing, greeting sons, husbands,
lovers, brothers, friends, deliverers. A bearded figure, leaf brown, on
a sorrel nag, answered with a gravity strangely enough not without
sweetness the acclamation with which he was showered, sent an aide to
hasten the batteries, sent another with an order to General George H.
Steuart commanding cavalry, jerked his hand into the air and swept on
in pursuit out by the Martinsburg pike. The infantry followed him,
hurrahing. They tasted to-day the sweets of a patriot soldiery
relieving a patriot town. The guns came thundering through, the horses
doing well, the proud drivers, cannoneers, officers, waving caps and
hats, bowing to half-sobbing hurrahs, thrown kisses, praises,
blessings. Ewell's division poured throughEwell on the flea-bitten
grey, Rifle, swearing his men forward, pithily answering the happy
people, all the while the church bells clanging. The town was in a
clear flame of love, patriotism, martial spirit, every heart enlarged,
every house thrown open to the wounded whom, grey and blue alike, the
grey surgeons were bringing in.
For fear to keep him, Steve had left his captured horse's back and
let him go loose. Now on foot and limping terribly, trying to look
equal parts fire-eater and woe-begone, he applied to a grey-headed
couple in the dooryard of a small clean home. Would they give a hurt
soldier a bed and something to eat? Why, of course, of course they
would! Come right in! What command?
The Stonewall Brigade, sir. You see, 'twas this a-way. I was
helping serve a gun, most of the gunners being strewed around deadand
we infantrymen having to take a hand, and a thirty pound Parrott came
and burst right over us! I was stooping, like this, my thumb on the
vent, like thatand a great piece struck me in the back! I just kin
hobble. Thank you, ma'am! You are better to me than I deserve.
CHAPTER XXIII. MOTHER AND SON
Margaret Cleave drew her arms gently from under the wounded boy she
had been tending. He was asleep; had gone to sleep calling her Maman
and babbling of wild-fowl on the bayou. She kissed him lightly on the
forehead for WillWill, somewhere on the Martinsburg pike, battling
in heat and dust, battling for the Confederacy, driving the foe out of
Virginia, back across the PotomacWill who, little more than a year
ago, had been her baby, whom she kissed each night when he went to
sleep in his little room next hers at Three Oaks. She straightened
herself and looked around for more work. The large room, the chamber
of the old and quiet house in which she and Miriam had stayed on when
in March the army had withdrawn from Winchester, held three wounded.
Upon the four-post bed, between white valance and tester, lay a dying
officer. His wife was with him, and a surgeon, who had found the ball
but could not stop the hemorrhage. A little girl sat on the bed, and
every now and then put forth a hand and timidly stroked her father's
clay-cold wrist. On the floor, on a mattress matching the one on which
the boy lay, was stretched a gaunt giant from some backwoods or
mountain clearing. Margaret knelt beside him and he smiled up at her.
I ain't much hurt, and I ain't sufferin' to amount to nothin'. Ef this
pesky butternut wouldn't stick in this here hurt place She cut the
shirt from a sabre wound with the scissors hanging at her waist, then
bringing water bathed away the grime and dried blood. You're right,
she said. It isn't much of a cut. It will soon heal. They spoke in
whispers, not to disturb the central group. But you don't look easy.
You are still suffering. What is it?
It ain't nothing. It's my foot, that a shell kind of got in the way
of. But don't you tell anybodyfor fear they might want to cut it off,
ma'am.
She looked and made a pitying sound. The officer on the bed had now
breathed his last. She brought the unneeded surgeon to the crushed
ankle, summoned to help him another of the women in the house, then
moved to the four-poster and aided the tearless widow, young and soon
again to become a mother, to lay the dead calm and straight. The little
girl began to shake and shudder. She took her in her arms and carried
her out of the room. She found Miriam helping in the storeroom. Get
the child's doll and take her into the garden for a little while. She
is cold as ice; if she begins to cry don't stop her. When she is
better, give her to Hannah and you go sit beside the boy who is lying
on the floor in the chamber. If he wakes, give him water, but don't let
him lift himself. He looks like Will.
In the hall a second surgeon met her. Madam, will you come help?
I've got to take off a poor fellow's leg. They entered a room
togetherthe parlour this time, with the windows flung wide and the
afternoon sunlight lying in pools among the roses of the carpet. Two
mahogany tables had been put together, and the soldier lay atop, the
crushed leg bared and waiting. The surgeon had an assistant and the
young man's servant was praying in a corner. Margaret uttered a low,
pained exclamation. This young lieutenant had been well liked last
winter in Winchester. He had been much at this house. He had a good
voice and she had played his accompaniments while he sangoh, the most
sentimental of ditties! Miriam had liked him very wellthey had read
togetherThe Pilgrims of the RhineGoldsmithBernardin de Saint
Pierre. He had a trick of serenadingdanced well. She put her cheek
down to his hand. My poor, poor boy! My poor, brave boy!
The lieutenant smiled at herrather a twisted smile, shining out of
a drawn white face. I've got to be brave on one leg. Anyhow, Mrs.
Cleave, I can still sing and read. How is Miss Miriam?
The assistant placed a basin and cloths. The surgeon gave a jerk of
his head. You come on this side, Mrs. Cleave.
No chloroform?
No chloroform. Contraband of war. Damned chivalric contest.
Late in the afternoon, as she was crossing the hall upon some other
of the long day's tasks she heard a group of soldiers talking. There
were infantry officers from the regiments left in town, and a dusty
cavalryman or tworiders from the front with dispatches or orders. One
with an old cut glass goblet of water in his hand talked and drank,
talked and drank.
The aide came to George H. Steuart and said, 'General Jackson
orders you to pursue vigorously. He says lose no time. He says kill and
capture; let as few as possible get to the Potomac. Do your best.' He
filled his glass again from the pitcher standing by. Steuart answers
that he's of General Ewell's Division. Must take his orders from
General Ewell.
West Point notions! Good Lord!
Says the aide, 'General Jackson commands General Ewell, and so may
command you. His orders are that you shall pursue vigorously'Says
Steuart, 'I will send a courier to find General Ewell. If his orders
are corroboratory I will at once press forward'
Good God! did he think Banks would wait?
Old Dick was in front; he wasn't behind. Took the aide two hours to
find him, sitting on Rifle, swearing because he didn't see the cavalry!
Well, he made the air around him blue, and sent back highly
'corroboratory' orders. Steuart promptly 'pressed forward vigorously,'
but Lord! Banks was halfway to the Potomac, his troops streaming by
every cow path, Stonewall and the infantry advance behind himbut
Little Sorrel couldn't do it alone. He put down the glass. Steuart'll
catch it when Old Jack reports. We might have penned and killed the
snake, and now it's gotten away!
Never mind! It's badly hurt and it's quitting Virginia at a high
rate of speed. It's left a good bit of its skin behind, too. Hawks says
he's damned if the army shan't have square meals for a week, and
Crutchfield's smiling over the guns
Falligant says the men are nigh dead, officers nodding in their
saddles, giving orders in their sleep. Falligant says
Margaret touched one of the group upon the arm. He swung round in
the hall that was darkening toward sunset and swept off his hat. Do
you think, sir, that there will be fighting to-night?
I think not, madam. There may be skirmishes of courseour men may
cut off parties of the enemy. But there will be no general battle. It
is agreed that General Banks will get across the Potomac. The troops
will bivouac this side of Martinsburg.
The wounded in the house slept or did not sleep. The young widow sat
beside the dead officer. She would not be drawn awaysaid that she was
quite comfortable, not unhappy, there was so much happiness to
remember. Hannah found a nook for the little girl and put her to bed.
The officers went away. There were a thousand things to do, and, also,
they must snatch some sleep, or the brain would reel. The surgeon,
hollow-eyed, grey with fatigue, dropping for sleep, spoke at the open
front door to the elderly lady of the house and to Margaret Cleave.
Lieutenant Waller will die, I am afraid, though always while there is
life there is hope. No, there is nothingI have given Mrs. Cleave
directions, and his boy is a good nurse. I'll come back myself about
midnight. That Louisiana youngster is all right. You might get two men
and move him from that room. No; the other won't lose the foot. He,
too, might be moved, if you can manage it. I'll be back
I wish you might sleep yourself, doctor.
Shouldn't mind it. I don't expect you women do much sleeping
either. Got to do without like coffee for a while. Funny world, funny
life, funny death, funny universe. Could give whoever made it a few
points myself. Excuse me, ladies, I hardly know what I am saying. Yes,
thank you, I see the step. I'll come back about midnight.
The old yards up and down the old street were much trampled,
shrubbery broken, fences down, the street thick dust, and still strewn
with accoutrements that had been thrown away, with here and there a
broken wagon. Street and pavement, there was passing and repassingthe
life of the rear of an army, and the faring to and fro on many errands
of the people of the relieved town. There were the hospitals and there
were the wounded in private houses. There were the dead, and all the
burials for the morrowthe negroes digging in the old graveyard, and
the children gathering flowers. There were the living to be cared for,
the many hungry to be fed. All the town was exalted, devoted, bent on
servicea little city raised suddenly to a mountain platform, set in a
strange, high light, fanned by one of the oldest winds, and doing well
with a clear intensity.
Miriam came and stood beside her mother, leaning her head upon the
other's breast. The two seemed like elder and younger sister, no more.
There was a white jasmine over the porch, in the yard the fireflies
were beginning to sparkle through the dusk. Dear child, are you very
tired?
I am not tired at all. That Louisiana boy called me
'Zephine''Zephine!' 'Zephine, your eyes are darker, but your lips are
not so red.' He said he kept all my letters over his heartonly he
tore them up before the battle, tore them into little bits and gave
them to the wind, so that if he fell into his hands 'l'ennemi' might
not read them.
The doctor says that he will do well.
He is like Will. Oh, mother, I feel ten thousand years old! I feel
as though I had always lived.
I, too, dear. Always. I have always borne children and they have
always gone forth to war. They say there will be no fighting to-night.
She put her daughter slightly from her and leaned forward,
listening. That is Richard. His foot strikes that way upon the
street.
In the night, in his mother's chamber Cleave waked from three hours
of dreamless sleep. She stood beside him. My poor, dead man, I hated
to keep my word.
He smiled. It would have been as hard to wake up at the end of a
week!Mother, I am so dirty!
The servants have brought you plenty of hot water, and we have done
the best we could with your uniform. Here is fresh underwear, and a
beautiful shirt. I went myself down to the officer in charge of
captured stores. He was extremely good and let me have all I wished.
Tullius is here. He came in an hour ago with Dundee. I will send him
up. When you are dressed come into the hall. I will have something
there for you to eat.
Richard drew her hand to his lips. I wonder who first thought of so
blessed an institution as a mother? Only a mother could have thought of
it, and so there you are again in the circle!
When he was dressed he found in the wide upper hall without his
door, spread upon a small leaf table, a meal frugal and delicate. A
breeze came through the open window, and with it the scent of jasmine.
The wind blew the candle flame until his mother, stepping lightly,
brought a glass shade and set it over the silver stick. Small moths
flew in and out, and like a distant ground swell came the noise of the
fevered town. The house itself was quiet after the turmoil of the day;
large halls and stair in dimness, the ill or wounded quiet or at least
not loudly complaining. Now and then a door softly opened or closed; a
woman's figure or that of some coloured servant passed from dimness to
dimness. They passed and the whole was quiet again. Mother and son
spoke low. I will not wake Miriam until just time to say good-bye. She
is overwrought, poor child! She had counted so on seeing Will.
We will press on now, I think, to Harper's Ferry. But events may
bring us this way again. The 2d is bivouacked by a little stream, and I
saw him fast asleep. He is growing strong, hardy, bronzed. It is
striking twelve. Tullius is saddling Dundee.
There will be no fighting in the morning?
No. Not, perhaps, until we reach Harper's Ferry. Banks will get
across to Williamsport to-night. For the present he is off the board.
Saxton at Harper's Ferry has several thousand men, and he will be at
once heavily reinforced from Washington. It is well for us and for
Richmond that that city is so nervous.
General Jackson is doing wonderful work, is he not, Richard?
Yes. It is strange to see how the heart of the army has turned to
him. 'Old Jack' can do no wrong. But he is not satisfied with to-day's
work.
But if they are out of Virginia
They should be in Virginiaprisoners of war. It was a cavalry
failure.Well, it cannot be helped.
Will you cross at Harper's Ferry?
With all my heart I wish we might! Defensive war should always be
waged in the enemy's territory. But I am certain that we are working
with the explicit purpose of preventing McDowell's junction with
McClellan and the complete investment of Richmond which would follow
that junction. We are going to threaten Washington. The government
there may be trusted, I think, to recall McDowell. Probably also they
will bring upon our rear Fremont from the South Branch. That done, we
must turn and meet them both.
Oh, war! Over a year now it has lasted! There are so many in black,
and the church bells have always a tolling sound. And then the flowers
bloom, and we hear laughter as we knit.
All colours are brighter and all sounds are deeper. If there is
horror, there is also much that is not horror. And there is nobility as
well as baseness. And the mind adapts itself, and the ocean is deeper
than we think. Somewhere, of course, lies the shore of Brotherhood, and
beyond that the shore of Oneness. It is not unlikely, I think, that we
may reinforce Johnston at Richmond.
Then Miriam and I will make our way there also. How long will it
last, Richardthe war?
It may last one year and it may last ten. The probability is
perhaps five.
Five years! All the country will be grey-haired.
War is a forge, mother. Many things will be forgedmore of iron
perhaps than of gold.
You have no doubt of the final victory?
If I ever have I put it from me. I do not doubt the armies nor the
generalsand, God knows, I do not doubt the women at home! If I am not
so sure in all ways of the government, at least no man doubts its
integrity and its purpose. The President, if he is clear and narrow
rather than clear and broad, if he sometimes plays the bigot, if he is
a good field officer rather than the great man of affairs we needyet
he is earnest, disinterested, able, a patriot. And Congress does its
bestis at least eloquent and fires the heart. Our crowding needs are
great and our resources small; it does what it can. The departments
work hard. Benjamin, Mallory, Randolph, Memingerthey are all good
men. And the railroad men and the engineers and the chemists and the
mechanicsall so wonderfully and pathetically ingenious, labouring day
and night, working miracles without material, making bricks without
straw. Arsenals, foundries, powder-mills, workshop, manufactoriesall
in a night, out of the wheat fields! And the runners of blockades, and
the river steamer men, the special agents, the clerks, the workers of
all kinda territory large as Europe and every man and woman in the
field in one aspect or another! If patriotism can save and ability,
fortitude, endurance, we are saved. And yet I think of my old
'Plutarch's Lives,' and of all the causes that have been lost. And
sometimes in the middle of the night, I see all our blocked portsand
the Mississippi, slipping from our hands. I do not believe that England
will come to our help. There is a sentiment for us, undoubtedly, but
like the island mists it stays at home.
He rose from the table. And yet the brave man fights and must hope.
Hope is the sky above himand the skies have never really fallen. I do
not know how I will come out of war! I know how I went into it, but no
man knows with what inner change he will come out. Enough now, being
in, to serve with every fibre.
She shaded her eyes with her hand. With her soft brown hair, with
her slender maturity, with the thin fine bit of lace at her neck,
against the blowing curtains and in the jasmine scent she suggested
something fine and strong and sweet, of old time, of all time. I know
that you will serve with every fibre, she said. I know it because I
also shall serve that way. Presently she dropped her hand and looked
up at him with a face, young, soft, and bright, lit from within. And
so at last, Richard, you are happy in the lovely ways!
He put something in her hand. Would you like to see it? She sent it
to me, two weeks ago. It does not do her justice.
Margaret laughed. They never do! But I agree with youand yet, it
is lovely! Her eyes were always wonderful, and she smiles like some old
picture. I shall love her well, Richard.
And she you. Mother, the country lies on my heart. I see a
dark'ning sky and many graveyards, and I hear, now 'Dixie,' now a Dead
March. And yet, through it all there runs a singing stream, under a
blue Heaven
A little later, Miriam having waked, he said a lingering, fond
good-bye, and leaving them both at the gate in the dead hour before the
dawn, rode away on Dundee, Tullius following him, down the pike, toward
the sleeping army. He passed the pickets and came to the first regiment
before dawn; to the 65th just as the red signals showed in the east. It
was a dawn like yesterday's. Far and wide lay the army, thousands of
men, motionless on the dew-drenched earth, acorns fallen from the tree
of war. He met an officer, plodding through the mist, trying to read in
the dim light a sheaf of orders which he carried. Good-morning,
adjutant.
Good-morning. Richard Cleave, isn't it? Hear you are going to be a
general. Hear Old Jack said so.
Cleave laughed, a vibrant sound, jest and determination both. Of
course I am! I settled that at sixteen, one day when I was ploughing
corn. How they all look, scattered wide like that!
Reveille not until six. The general's going to beat the devil round
the stump. Going to have a Sunday on a Monday. Rest, clean up, divine
service. Need all three, certainly need two. Good record the last few
weeksreason to be thankful. Well, good-bye! Always liked you,
Cleave!
Reveille sounded, and the army arose. Breakfast was a sumptuous
thing, delicately flavoured with compliments upon the taste, range, and
abundance of the Federal commissariat. Roll call followed, with the
moment's full pause after names that were not answered to. A general
order was read.
Within four weeks this army has made long and rapid marches,
fought
six combats and two battles, signally defeating the enemy in
each
one, captured several stands of colours and pieces of
artillery,
with numerous prisoners and vast medical, ordnance, and army
stores;
and finally driven the host that was ravaging our country into
utter
rout. The general commanding would warmly express to the
officers
and men under his command, his joy in their achievements and
his
thanks for their brilliant gallantry in action and their
patient
obedience under the hardship of forced marches; often more
painful
to the brave soldier than the dangers of battle. The
explanation of
the severe exertions to which the commanding general called the
army, which were endured by them with such cheerful confidence
in
him, is now given, in the victory of yesterday. He receives
this
proof of their confidence in the past with pride and gratitude,
and
asks only a similar confidence in the future.
But his chief duty to-day, and that of the army, is to
recognize
devoutly the hand of a protecting providence in the brilliant
successes of the last three days, and to make the oblation of
our
thanks to God for his mercies to us and to our country, in
heartfelt
acts of religious worship. For this purpose the troops will
remain
in camp to-day, suspending as far as practicable all military
exercises; and the chaplains of regiments will hold divine
service
in their several charges at four o'clock P. M.
At four the general went to church with the 37th Virginia. The
doxology sung, the benediction pronounced, he told the chaplain that he
had been edified exceedingly, and he looked it. There were times when
it might be said quite truly that his appearance was that of an awkward
knight of the Holy Grail.
Headquarters was a farmhouse, a small, cosy place, islanded in a
rolling sea of clover. About dusk Allan Gold, arriving here, found
himself admitted to the farmer's parlour. Here were a round table with
lamps, a clerk or two writing, and several members of Jackson's
military family. The general himself came in presently, and sat down at
the table. A dark, wiry man, with a highly intellectual face, who had
been going over papers by a lamp in the corner of the room, came
forward and saluted.
Very well, Jarrow. Have you got the mail bag?
Yes, sir. He laid upon the table a small, old, war-worn leather
pouch. It won't hold much, but enough. Headquarters' mail. Service
over the mountain, to the Manassas Gap for the first Richmond train.
Profound ignorance on General Jackson's part of McDowell's whereabouts.
The latter's pickets gobble up courier, and information meant for
Richmond goes to Washington.
Who is the volunteer, Gold?
A boy named Billy Maydew, sir. Company A, 65th. A Thunder Run man.
He understands that he is to be captured?
Yes, sir. Both he and the mail bag, especially the mail bag. After
it is safe prisoner, and he has given a straight story, he can get away
if he is able. There's no object in his going North?
None at all. Let me see the contents, Jarrow.
Jarrow spread them on the table. I thought it best, sir, to include
a few of a general nature
I thought of that. Here are copies of various letters received from
Richmond. They are now of no special value. I will return them with a
memorandum on the packet, 'Received on such a date and now returned.'
He drew out a packet, tied with red tape. Run them over, Jarrow.
Jarrow read aloud,
MOBILE, March 1st, 1862.
HIS EXCELLENCY JEFFERSON DAVIS,
PRESIDENT OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA:
Sir,The subject of permitting cotton to leave our
Southern ports
clandestinely has had some attention from me, and I have come
to the
conclusion that it is a Yankee trick that should have immediate
attention from the Governmental authorities of this country.
The
pretence is that we must let it go forward to buy arms and
munitions
of war, and I fear the fate of the steamer Calhoun illustrates
the
destination of these arms and munitions of war after they are
bought
with our cotton. Her commander set her on fire and the Yankees
put her
out just in time to secure the prize. This cotton power is a
momentous
question
Very good. The next, Jarrow.
RICHMOND, VA., February 22d.
HON. J. P. BENJAMIN,
SECRETARY OF WAR:
Sir,I have the honour to state there are now many
volunteers from
Maryland who are desirous of organizing themselves as soon as
possible
into companies, regiments, and brigades
Good! good! The next, Jarrow.
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,
MILLEDGEVILLE, GA.
HIS EXCELLENCY JEFFERSON DAVIS:
Sir,I have the pleasure to inform you that in response
to your
requisition on Georgia for twelve additional regiments of
troops she
now tenders you thirteen regiments and three battalions
Good! The next.
HAVANA, March 22d, 1862.
HON. J. P. BENJAMIN,
SECRETARY OF WAR, RICHMOND.
Sir,Our recent reverses in Tennessee and on the
seacoast,
magnified by the Northern press, have had a tendency to create
doubt
in the minds of our foreign friends here as to our ultimate
success.
I have resisted with all my power this ridiculous fear of the
timid
Lay that aside. It might jeopardize the agent. The next.
Copy of a proposed General Order.
WAR DEPARTMENT
ADJT. AND INSP. GENERAL'S OFFICE.
No. 1. General officers and officers in command of departments,
districts, and separate posts will make a detail of men from
their
commands to work the nitre caves which may be situated within
the
limits of their respective commands
Good! The next.
SURGEON GENERAL'S OFFICE,
RICHMOND, VA.
It is the policy of all Nations at all times, especially such as
at
present exist in our Confederacy, to make every effort to
develop
its internal resources, and to diminish its tribute to
foreigners by
supplying its necessities from the productions of its own soil.
This
observation may be considered peculiarly applicable to the
appropriation of our indigenous medicinal substances of the
vegetable kingdom, and with the view of promoting this object
the
inclosed pamphlet embracing many of the more important
medicinal
plants has been issued for distribution to the medical officers
of
the Army of the Confederacy now in the field. You are
particularly
instructed to call the attention of those of your corps to the
propriety of collecting and preparing with care such of the
within
enumerated remedial agents or others found valuable, as their
respective charges may require during the present summer and
coming
winter. Our forests and Savannahs furnish our materia medica
with
a moderate number of narcotics and sedatives, and an abundant
supply
of tonics, astringents, aromatics and demulcents, while the
list of
anodynes, emetics and cathartics remains in a comparative
degree
incomplete
Very good! The next, Jarrow
RICHMOND, FREDERICKSBURG AND POTOMAC RR.
PRESIDENT'S OFFICE.
HON. GEORGE W. RANDOLPH:
Dear Sir,At the risk of seeming tedious, permit me to
say that
my impression that you were mistaken last night in your
recollection
of the extent to which Louis Napoleon used railroads in
transporting
his army into Sardinia is this morning confirmed by a gentleman
who
is a most experienced and well-informed railroad officer, and
is
also the most devoted student of geography and military
history,
with the most accurate and extraordinary memory for every
detail,
however minute, of battles and all other military operations
that I
have ever met with. He is positive in his recollection that not
less
than 100,000 and probably more, of that army were gradually
concentrated at Toulon and sent thence by sea to Genoa, and the
rest
were during some weeks being concentrated at a little town on
the
confines of France and Italy, whence they were transferred,
partly
on foot and partly on a double-track railroad, into Sardinia.
The
capacity of a double-track railroad, adequately equipped like
the
European railroads, may be moderately computed at five times
that of
a single-track road like those of the Confederate States. For
the
sudden and rapid movement of a vanguard of an army, to hold in
check
an enemy till reinforced, or of a rear guard to cover a
retreat, or
of any other portion of an army which must move suddenly and
rapidly, and for the transportation of ordnance, ammunition,
commissary and other military supplies, railroads are available
and
invaluable to an army. And when these objects of prime
necessity are
attained, they can advantageously carry more troops according
to the
amount of the other transportation required, the distance,
their
force, and equipment, etc. But to rely on them as a means of
transporting any large body of troops beside what is needed to
supply and maintain them, is certainly a most dangerous
delusion,
and must inevitably result in the most grievous disappointments
and
fatal consequence.
Very respectfully and truly yours, etc.
P. V. DANIEL, JR.
P. S. As a railroad officer, interest would prompt me to
advocate
the opposite theory about this matter, for troops constitute
the
most profitable, if not the only profitable, part of any
transportation by railroads. But I cannot be less a citizen and
patriot because I am a railroad officer.
Good! good. The next, Jarrow.
Copy of resolutions declaring the sense of Congress.
Whereas the United States are waging war against the
Confederate
States with the avowed purpose of compelling the latter to
reunite
with them under the same constitution and government, and
whereas
the waging of war with such an object is in direct opposition
to the
sound Republican maxim that 'all government rests upon the
consent
of the governed' and can only tend to consolidation in the
general
government and the consequent destruction of the rights of the
States, and whereas, this result being attained the two
sections can
only exist together in the relation of the oppressor and the
oppressed, because of the great preponderance of power in the
Northern section, coupled with dissimilarity of interest; and
whereas we, the Representatives of the people of the
Confederate
States, in Congress assembled, may be presumed to know the
sentiments of said people, having just been elected by them.
Therefore,
Be it resolved by the Congress of the Confederate States of
America
that this Congress do solemnly declare and publish to the world
that it is the unalterable determination of the people of the
Confederate States, in humble reliance upon Almighty God, to
suffer
all the calamities of the most protracted war
Just so. That will do for this packet. Now what have you there?
These are genuine soldiers' letters, sirthe usual
thingincidents of battle, wounds, messages, etc. They are all
optimistic in tone, but for the rest tell no news. I have carefully
opened, gone over, and reclosed them.
Good! good! Let Robinson, there, take a list of the names.
Lieutenant Willis, you will see each of the men and tell them they must
rewrite their letters. These were lost. Now, Jarrow.
These are the ones to the point, sir. I had two written this
morning, one this afternoon. They are all properly addressed and
signed, and dated from this bivouac. The first.
MY DEAR FATHER,A glorious victory yesterday! Little cost to us
and
Banks swept from the Valley. We are in high spirits, confident
that
the tide has turned and that the seat of war will be changed.
Of
late the army has grown like a rolling snowball. Perhaps thirty
thousand here
An aide uttered a startled laugh. Pray be quiet, gentlemen, said
Jackson.
Thirty thousand here, and a large force nearer the mountains.
Recruits are coming in all the time; good, determined men. I
truly
feel that we are invincible. I write in haste, to get this in
the
bag we are sending to the nearest railway station. Dear love to
all.
Aff'y your son,
JOHN SMITH.
Good! said Jackson. Always deceive, mystify, and mislead the
enemy. You may thereby save your Capital city. The next.
From one of Ashby's men, sir.
MY DEAR SISTER,We are now about thirty companiesevery man
from
this region who owns or can beg, borrow, or steal a horse is
coming
in. I got at Staunton the plume for my hat you sent. It is
beautifully long, black, and curling! Imagine me under it,
riding
through Maryland! Forty thousand of us, and the bands playing
Dixie! Old Jack may stand like a stone wall, but by the Lord,
he
moves like a thunderbolt! Best love. Your loving brother,
WILLIAM PATTERSON.
Scratch out the oath, Jarrow. He is writing to a lady, nor should
it be used to a man. The next.
MY DEAR FITZHUGH,Papers, reports, etc., will give you the
details.
Suffice it, that we've had a lovely time. A minie drew some
blood
from menot much, and spilt in a good cause. As you see, I am
writing with my left handthe other arm's in a sling. The
army's in
the highest spiritsSouth going North on a visit.
All the grey bonnets are over the border!
We hear that all of you in and about Richmond are in excellent
health and spirits, and that in the face of the Young Napoleon!
Stronger, too, than he thinks. We hear that McDowell is
somewhere
between you and Fredericksburg. Just keep him there, will you?
We'd
rather not have him up here just yet. Give my love to all my
cousins. Will write from the other side of the water.
Yours as ever,
PETER FRANCISCO.
P. S. Of course this is not official, but the impression is
strong
in the army that the defensive has been dropped and that the
geese
in the other Capitol ought to be cackling if they are not.
Jarrow drew the whole together. I thought the three would be
enough, sir. I never like to overdo.
You have the correct idea, Jarrow. Bring the boy in, Gold. I want
the bag captured early to-morrow.
On May the twenty-eighth, fifteen thousand in all, Winder still in
advance, they moved by Summit Point toward Harper's Ferry, thirty miles
away. Ewell on Rifle led the main column, Jackson and Little Sorrel
marched to-day with the rear, Ashby on the black stallion went far
ahead with his cavalry. The army moved with vigour, in high spirits and
through fine weather, a bright, cool day with round white clouds in an
intense blue sky. When halts were made and the generals rode by the
resting troops they were loudly cheered. The men were talkative; they
indulged in laughter and lifted voice in song. Speculation ran to and
fro, but she wore no anxious mien. The army felt a calm confidence, a
happy-go-lucky mood. It had come into a childlike trust in its
commanding general, and that made all the difference in the world.
Where are we going? Into Maryland? Don't know and don't care! Old Jack
knows. I think we're going to WashingtonAlways did want to see
it. I think so, too. Going to take its attention off Richmond, as the
Irishman said when he walked away with the widow at the wake. Look at
that buzzard up there against that cloud! Kingbird's after him! Right
at his eyes!Say, boys, look at that fight!
In the afternoon the Stonewall came to Charlestown, eight miles from
Harper's Ferry. Here they found, strongly posted in a wood, fifteen
hundred Federals with two guns, sent from Harper's Ferry by Saxton. A
courier went back to Ewell. Winder, without waiting for reinforcements,
attacked. The fight lasted twenty minutes, when the Federal line broke,
retreating in considerable disorder. The Stonewall, pressing after,
came into view, two miles from the Potomac, of the enemy's guns on
Bolivar Heights.
Saxton, now commanding about seven thousand men, had strongly
occupied the hills on the southern side of the Potomac. To the north
the Maryland Heights were held by several regiments and a naval battery
of Dahlgren guns. The brigadier commanding received and sent telegrams.
WASHINGTON.
BRIGADIER-GENERAL SAXTON,
HARPER'S FERRY.
Copy of Secretary of War's dispatch to Governors of States.
Send forward all the troops that you can immediately. Banks
completely routed. Intelligence from various quarters leaves no
doubt that the enemy, in great force, are advancing on
Washington.
You will please organize and forward immediately all the
volunteer
and militia force in your state.
In addition, the President has notified General McClellan that
his
return to Washington may be ordered. City in a panic.
X. Y.
HARPER'S FERRY, VIRGINIA, May 31.
The enemy moved up in force last evening about seven o'clock, in
a
shower of rain, to attack. I opened on them from the position
which
the troops occupy above the town, and from the Dahlgren battery
on
the mountains. The enemy then retired. Their pickets attacked
ours
twice last night within 300 yards of our works. A volley from
General Slough's breastworks drove them back. We lost one man
killed. Enemy had signal-lights on the mountains in every
direction.
Their system of night-signals seems to be perfect. They fire on
our
pickets in every case. My men are overworked. Stood by their
guns
all night in the rain. What has become of Generals Fremont and
McDowell?
R. SAXTON.
HON. E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War.
At Williamsport on the Maryland side, twelve miles above, General
Banks likewise sent a telegram to the Government at Washington.
WILLIAMSPORT, May 28, 1862.
Have received information to-day which I think should be
transmitted, but not published over my name, as I do not credit
it
altogether. A merchant from Martinsburg, well known, came to
inform
me that in a confidential conversation with a very prominent
secessionist, also merchant of that town, he was informed that
the
policy of the South was changed; that they would abandon
Richmond,
Virginia, everything South, and invade Maryland and Washington;
that
every Union soldier would be driven out of the Valley
immediately.
This was on Friday evening, the night of attack on Front Royal.
Names are given me, and the party talking one who might know
the
rebel plans. A prisoner was captured near Martinsburg to-day.
He
told the truth I am satisfied, as far as he pretended to know.
He
was in the fight at Front Royal and passed through Winchester
two
hours after our engagement. He says the rebel force was very
largenot less than twenty-five thousand at Winchester and
6000 or
7000 at Front Royal; that the idea was general among the men
that
they were to invade Maryland. He passed Ashby yesterday, who
had
twenty-eight companies of cavalry under his command; was
returning
from Martinsburg, and moving under orders, his men said, to
Berryville. There were 2000 rebels at Martinsburg when he
passed
that town yesterday. These reports came to me at the same time
I
received General Saxton's dispatch and the statement from my
own
officer that 4000 rebels were near Falling Waters, in my front.
N. P. BANKS,
Major-General Commanding.
HON. E. M. STANTON.
Friday evening the thirtieth was as dark as Erebus. Clouds had been
boiling up since dark. Huge portentous masses rose on all sides and
blotted out the skies. The air was for a time oppressively hot and
still. The smoke from the guns which had wrangled during the day, long
and loud, hung low; the smell of powder clung. The grey troops massed
on Loudoun Heights and along the Shenandoah wiped the sweat from their
brows. Against the piled clouds signal-lights burned dull and red,
stars of war communicating through the sultry night. The clouds rose
higher yet and the lightnings began to play. A stir began in the leaves
of the far-flung forests, blended with the murmur of the rivers and
became rushing sound. Thunder burst, clap after clap, reverberating
through the mountains. The air began to smell of rain, grew suddenly
cool. Through the welcome freshness the grey troops advanced beyond
Bolivar Heights; there followed a long crackle of musketry and a body
of blue troops retreated across the river. The guns opened again; the
grey cannon trained upon the Maryland Heights; the Maryland Heights
answering sullenly. Down came the rain in torrents, the lightning
flashed, the thunder rolled. The lightnings came jaggedly, bayonets of
the storm, stabbing downward; the artillery of the skies dwarfed all
sound below. For an hour there was desultory fighting, then it ceased.
The grey troops awaiting orders, wondered, Aren't we going to cross
the river after them? Oh, let it alone. Old Jack knows.
Toward midnight, in the midst of a great access of lightning, rain,
and thunder, fighting was renewed. It was not for long. The guns fell
silent again upon Loudoun Heights; moreover the long lines of couching
infantry saw by the vivid lightning the battery horses come up, wet and
shining in the rain. From regiment to regiment, under the rolling
thunder, ran the order. Into column! By the left flank! March!
A small stone hut on the side of a hill had formed the shelter of
the general commanding. Here he wrote and gave to two couriers a
message in duplicate.
HARPER'S FERRY,
VIRGINIA.
May 31. Midnight.
HON. GEORGE W. RANDOLPH, Secretary of War:
Under the guidance of God I have demonstrated toward the Potomac
and
drawn off McDowell, who is sending Shields by Front Royal.
Moving
now to meet him and Fremont who comes from the West.
T. J. JACKSON,
Major-General Commanding.
CHAPTER XXIV. THE FOOT CAVALRY
Three armies had for their objective Strasburg in the Valley of
Virginia, eighteen miles below Winchester. One came from the northwest,
under Fremont, and counted ten thousand. One came from the southeast,
Shields's Division from McDowell at Fredericksburg, and numbered
fifteen thousand. These two were blue clad, moving under the stars and
stripes. The third, grey, under the stars and bars, sixteen thousand
muskets, led by a man on a sorrel nag, came from Harper's Ferry.
Fremont, Indian fighter, moved fast; Shields, Irish born, veteran of
the Mexican War, moved fast; but the man in grey, on the sorrel nag,
moved infantry with the rapidity of cavalry. Around the three
converging armies rested or advanced other bodies of blue troops,
hovering, watchful of the chance to strike. Saxton at Harper's Ferry
had seven thousand; Banks at Williamsport had seven thousand. Ord,
commanding McDowell's second division, was at Manassas Gap with nine
thousand. King, the third division, had ten thousand, near Catlett's
Station. At Ashby's Gap was Geary with two thousand; at Thoroughfare,
Bayard with two thousand.
Over a hundred miles away, southeast, tree-embowered upon her seven
hills, lay Richmond, and at her eastern gates, on the marshy
Chickahominy were gathered one hundred and forty thousand men, blue
clad, led by McClellan. Bronzed, soldierly, chivalrous, an able if
over-cautious general, he waited, irresolute, and at last postponed his
battle. He would tarry for McDowell who, obeying orders from
Washington, had turned aside to encounter and crush a sometime
professor of natural philosophy with a gift for travelling like a
meteor, for confusing like a Jack-o'-lantern, and for striking the
bull's-eye of the moment like a silver bullet or a William Tell arrow.
Between Richmond and the many and heavy blue lines, with their siege
train, lay thinner lines of greysixty-five thousand men under the
stars and bars. They, too, watched the turning aside of McDowell,
watched Shields, Ord, King, and Fremont from the west, trappers hot on
the path of the man with the old forage cap, and the sabre tucked under
his arm! All Virginia watched, holding her breath.
Out of Virginia, before Corinth in Tennessee, and at Cumberland Gap,
Armies of the Ohio, of the Mississippi, of the Westone hundred and
ten thousand in blue, eighty thousand in grey, Halleck and
Beauregardlistened for news from Virginia. Has Richmond fallen?
No. McClellan is cautious. Lee and Johnston are between him and the
city. He will not attack until he is further strengthened by McDowell.
Where is McDowell? He was moving south from Fredericksburg. His
outposts almost touched those of McClellan. But now he has been sent
across the Blue Ridge to the Valley, there to put a period to the
activities of Stonewall Jackson. That done, he will turn and join
McClellan. The two will enfold Lee and Jacksonthe Anaconda
Schemeand crush every bone in their bodies. Richmond will fall and
the war end.
Tennessee watched and north Alabama. In Arkansas, on the White River
were twelve thousand men in blue, and, arrayed against them, six
thousand, white men and Indians, clad in grey. Far, far away, outer
edges of the war, they, too, looked toward the east and wondered how it
went in Virginia. Grey and blue, Missouri, Louisiana, New Mexico,
Arizonaat lonely railway or telegraph stations, at river landings,
wherever, in the intervals between skirmishes, papers might be received
or messages read, soldiers in blue or soldiers in grey asked eagerly
What news from Richmond?Stonewall Jackson? Valley of
Virginia?Valley of Virginia! I know!saw it once. God's country.
At New Orleans, on the levees, in the hot streets, under old
balconies and by walled gardens, six thousand men in blue under Butler
watched, and a sad-eyed captive city watched. From the lower
Mississippi, from the blue waters of the Gulf, from the long Atlantic
swells, the ships looked to the land. All the blockading fleets, all
the old line-of-battle ships, the screw-frigates, the corvettes, the
old merchant steamers turned warrior, the strange new iron-clads and
mortar boats, engaged in bottling up the Confederacy, they all looked
for the fall of Richmond. There watched, too, the ram-fitted river
boats, the double-enders, lurking beneath Spanish moss, rocking beside
canebrakes, on the far, sluggish, southern rivers. And the other ships,
the navy all too small, the scattered, shattered, despairing and
courageous ships that flew the stars and bars, they listened, too, for
a last great cry in the night. The blockade-runners listened, the
Gladiators, the Ceciles, the Theodoras, the Ella Warleys faring at
headlong peril to and fro between Nassau in the Bahamas and small and
hidden harbours of the vast coast line, inlets of Georgia, Florida,
Carolina. Danger flew with them always through the rushing brine, but
with the fall of Richmond disaster might be trusted to swoop indeed.
Then woe for all the wares belowthe Enfield rifles, the cannon
powder, the cartridges, the saltpetre, bar steel, nitric acid, leather,
cloth, salt, medicines, surgical instruments! Their outlooks kept sharp
watch for disaster, heaving in sight in the shape of a row of blue
frigates released from patrol duty. Let Richmond fall, and the
Confederacy, war and occupation, freedom, life, might be gone in a
night, blown from existence by McClellan's siege guns!
Over seas the nations watched. Any day might bring a packet with
newsRichmond fallen, fallen, fallen, the Confederacy vanquished,
suing for peaceRichmond not fallen, some happy turn of affairs for
the South, the Peace Party in the North prevailing, the Confederacy
established, the olive planted between the two countries! Anyhow,
anyhow! only end the war and set the cotton jennies spinning!
Most feverishly of all watched Washington on the Potomac. The
latest? It will surely fall to-day. The thing is absurd. It is a
little city From the Valley? Jackson has turned south from Harper's
Ferry. Shields and Fremont will meet at Strasburg long before the
rebels get there. Together they'll make Jackson paygrind the
stonewall small!
The Army of the Valley had its orders from Strasburg the night of
the thirtieth. The main body moved at once, back upon Winchester, where
it gathered up stragglers, prisoners, and the train of captured stores.
Winder with the Stonewall Brigade, left to make a final feint at
Harper's Ferry, was not in motion southward till much later. Of the
main army the 21st Virginia led the column, convoying prisoners and the
prize of stores. There were twenty-three hundred prisoners, men in
blue, tramping sullenly. Stonewall Jackson had made requisition of all
wagons about Winchester. They were now in line, all manner of wagons,
white-covered, uncovered, stout-bodied, ancient, rickety, in every
condition but of fresh paint and new harness. Carts were brought, small
vans of pedlars; there were stranded circus wagons with gold scrolls.
Nor did there lack vehicles meant for human freight. Old family
carriages, high-swung, capacious as the ark, were filled, not with
women and children, belles and beaux, but with bags of powder and boxes
of cartridges. Superannuated mail coaches carried blankets, oilcloths,
sabres, shoes; light spring wagons held Enfield rifles; doctors'
buggies medicine cases corded in with care. All these added themselves
to the regular supply train of the army; great wagons marked C. S. A.
in which, God knows! there was room for stores. The captures of the
past days filled the vacancies; welcome enough were the thirty-five
thousand pounds of bacon, the many barrels of flour, the hardtack,
sugar, canned goods, coffee, the tea and strange delicacies kept for
the sick. More welcome was the capture of the ammunition. The ordnance
officers beamed lovingly upon it and upon the nine thousand excellent
new small arms, and the prisoner Parrotts. There were two hundred
beautiful wagons marked U. S. A.; the surgeons, too, congratulated
themselves upon new ambulances. Horses and mules that had changed
masters might be restless at first; but they soon knew the touch of
experienced hands and turned contented up the Valley. A herd of cattle
was driven bellowing into line.
Seven miles in length, train and convoying troops emerged from
Winchester in the early light and began a rumbling, bellowing, singing,
jesting, determined progress up the Valley pike. Ewell followed with
his brigadiersTaylor, Trimble, Elzey, Scott, and the Maryland Line.
The old Army of the Valley came next in columnall save the Stonewall
Brigade that was yet in the rear double-quicking it on the road from
Harper's Ferry. As far in advance moved Stonewall Jackson's screen of
cavalry, the Valley horsemen under Ashby, a supple, quick-travelling,
keen-eyed, dare-devil horde, an effective cloud behind which to execute
intricate manoeuvres, a drawer-up of information like dew from every
by-road, field, and wood, and an admirable mother of thunderbolts.
Ashby and Ashby's men were alike smarting from a late rebuke,
administered in General Orders. They felt it stingingly. The
Confederate soldier enthroned on high his personal honour, and a slur
there was a slur indeed. Now the memory of the reprimand was a strong
spur to endeavour. The cavalry meant to distinguish itself, and pined
for a sight of Fremont.
The day was showery with strong bursts of sunshine between the
slanting summer rains. All along the great highway, in sun and shade,
women, children, the coloured people, all the white men left by the
drag-net of the war, were out in the ripening fields, by the roadside
wall, before gates, in the village streets. They wept with pride and
joy, they laughed, they embraced. They showered praises, blessings;
they prophesied good fortune. The young women had made bouquets and
garlands. Many a favourite officer rode with flowers at his saddle bow.
Other women had ransacked their storerooms, and now offered delicate
food on salversthe lavish, brave, straightforward Valley women, with
the men gone to the war, the horses gone to the war, the wagons taken
for need, the crops like to be unreaped and the fields to be unplanted,
with the clothes wearing out, with supplies hard to get, with the
children, the old people, the servants, the sick, the wounded on their
hands, in their hearts and minds! They brought food, blessings,
flowers, everything for the army! It has the work to do. The colours
streamed in the wet breeze, glorious in shadow, splendid when the sun
burst forth. The little old bands played
In Dixie Land whar I was born in
Early on one frosty mornin'!
Look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land!
Long, steady, swinging tread, pace of the foot cavalry, the main
column moved up the Valley pike, violet in the shadow, gold in the sun.
The ten-minutes-out-of-an-hour halts were shortened to five minutes.
During one of these rests Jackson came down the line. The men cheered
him. Thirty miles to-day. You must do thirty miles to-day, men. He
went by, galloping forward to the immense and motley convoy. The men
laughed, well pleased with themselves and with him. Old Jack's got to
see if his lemons are all right! If we don't get those lemon wagons
through safe to Staunton there'll be hell to pay! Go 'way! we know he
won't call it hell!
The butcher had a little dog,
And Bingo was his name.
B-i-n-g-o-go-! B-i-n-g-o-go!
And Bingo was his name!
Fall in! Oh, Lord, we just fell out!
Advance, convoy, main column, camped that night around and in
Strasburg, Strasburg jubilant, welcoming, restless through the summer
night. Winder with the Stonewall Brigade bivouacked at Newtown, twelve
miles north. He had made a wonderful march. The men, asleep the instant
they touched the earth, lay like dead. The rest was not long; between
one and two the bugles called and the regiments were again in motion. A
courier had come from Jackson. General Winder, you will press
forward.
Silent, with long, steady, swinging tread, the Stonewall moved up
the Valley. Before it, pale, undulating, mysterious beneath the stars,
ran the turnpike, the wonderful Valley road, the highway that had grown
familiar to the army as its hand. The Army of the Valley endowed the
Valley pike with personality. They spoke of it as her. They blamed
her for mud and dust, for shadeless, waterless stretches, for a habit
she was acquiring of furrows and worn places, for the aid which she
occasionally gave to hostile armies, for the hills which she presented,
for the difficulties of her bordering stone walls when troops must be
deployed, for the weeds and nettles, thistles, and briars, with which
she had a trick of decking her sides, for her length. You kin march
most to Kingdom Come on this here old road! for the heat of the sun,
the chill of the frost, the strength of the blast. In blander moods
they caressed her name. Wish I could see the old pike once
more!Ain't any road in the world like the Valley pike, and never
was! She never behaved herself like this damned
out-of-corduroy-into-mud-hole, bayonet-narrow, drunken, zigzag,
world's-end-and-no-to-morrow cow track!
It was not only the road. All nature had new aspects for the
Confederate soldier; day by day a deeper shade of personality. So much
of him was farmer that he was no stranger to the encampment of the
earth. He was weather-wise, knew the soil, named the trees, could
orientate himself, had a fighting knowledge, too, of blight and
drouth, hail, frost, high wind, flood, too little and too much of sun
fire. Probably he had thought that he knew all that was to be told.
When he volunteered it was not with the expectation of learning any
other manual than that of arms. As is generally the case, he learned
that what he expected was but a mask for what he did not expect. He
learned other manuals, among them that of earth, air, fire, and water.
His ideas of the four underwent modification. First of all he learned
that they were combatants, active participants in the warfare which he
had thought a matter only of armies clad in blue and armies clad in
grey. Apparently nothing was passive, nothing neutral. Bewilderingly,
also, nothing was of a steadfast faith. Sun, moon, darkness and light,
heat and cold, snow, rain, mud, dust, mountain, forest, hill, dale,
stream, bridge, road, wall, house, hay-rick, dew, mist, storm,
everything!they fought first on one side then on the other. Sometimes
they did this in rapid succession, sometimes they seemed to fight on
both sides at once; the only attitude they never took was one
immaterial to the business in hand. Moreover they were vitally for or
against the individual soldier; now his friend, now his foe, now
flattering, caressing, bringing gifts, now snatching away, digging
pitfalls, working wreck and ruin. They were stronger than he, strong
and capricious beyond all reckoning. Sometimes he loved these powers;
sometimes he cursed them. Indifference, only, was gone. He and they
were alike sentient, active, conscious, inextricably mingled.
To-night the pike was cool and hard. There were clouds above, but
not heavy; streams of stars ran between. To either side of the road lay
fields of wheat, of clover, of corn, banded and broken by shadowy
forest. Massanutton loomed ahead. There was a wind blowing. Together
with the sound of marching feet, the jingle of accoutrements, the
striking of the horses' hoofs against loose stones, the heavy noise of
the guns in the rear, it filled the night like the roar of a distant
cataract. The men marched along without speech; now and then a terse
order, nothing more. The main army was before them at Strasburg; they
must catch up. To the west, somewhat near at hand in the darkness,
would be lying Fremont. Somewhere in the darkness to the east was
Shields. Their junction was unmade, Stonewall Jackson and his army
passing between the upper and the nether millstone which should have
joined to crush.
The stars began to pale, the east to redden. Faintly, faintly the
swell and roll of the earth gathered colour. A cock crew from some
distant farmhouse. The Stonewall swung on, the 65th leading, its
colonel, Richard Cleave, at its head. The regiment liked to see him
there; it loved him well and obeyed him well, and he in his turn would
have died for his men. Undoubtedly he was responsible for much of the
regiment's tone and temper. It was good stuff in the beginning, but
something of its firm modelling was due to the man now riding Dundee at
its head. The 65th was acquiring a reputation, and that in a brigade
whose deeds had been ringing, like a great bell, sonorously through the
land. The good conduct of the 65th The 65th, reliable always
The 65th with its accustomed courage The disciplined, intelligent,
and courageous 65th The gallantry of the 65th
The light strengthened; pickets were reached. They belonged to
Taylor's Brigade, lying in the woods to either side of the pike. The
Stonewall passed them, still figures, against the dawn. Ahead lay
Strasburg, its church spires silver-slender in the morning air. Later,
as the sun pushed a red rim above the hills, the brigade stacked arms
in a fair green meadow. Between it and the town lay Taliaferro. Elzey
and Campbell were in the fields to the east. General Jackson and his
staff occupied a knoll just above the road.
The Stonewall fell to getting breakfastbig tin cups of scalding
coffee! sugar! fresh meat! double allowance of meal! They broiled the
meat on sharpened sticks, using the skillets for batter bread; they
grinned at the sugar before they dropped it in, they purred over the
coffee. Mingling with the entrancing odours was the consciousness of
having marched well, fought well, deserved well. Down the pike, where
Taylor kept the rear, burst a rattle of musketry. The Stonewall
scrambled to its feet. What's that? Darn it all! the Virginia Reel's
beginning! An officer hurried by. Sit down, boys. It's just a
minuetreconnoissance of Fremont and Dick Taylor! It's all right.
Those Louisianians are damned good dancers! A courier quitting the
knoll above the pike gave further information. Skirmish back there,
near the Capon road. Just a feeler of Fremont'shis army's three miles
over there in the woods. Old Dick's with General Taylor. Don't need
your help, boysthank you all the same! Fremont won't attack in force.
Old Jack says sositting up there on a hickory stump reading the Book
of Kings!
All right, said the Stonewall. We ain't the kind to go butting in
without an invitation! We're as modest as we are brave. Listen! The
blue coats are using minies.
Down the pike, during an hour of dewy morning, the Louisiana Brigade
and Fremont's advance fired at each other. The woods hereabouts were
dense. At intervals the blue showed; at intervals Ewell dispatched a
regiment which drove them back to cover. Old Dick would have loved to
follow, but he was under orders. He fidgeted to and fro on Rifle. Old
Jackson says I am not to go far from the pike! I want to go after those
men. I want to chase them to the Rio Grande! I am sick of this fiddling
about! Just listen to that, General Taylor! There's a lot of them in
the woods! What's the good of being a major-general if you've got to
stick close to the pike? If Old Jackson were here he would say Go! Why
ain't he here? Bet you anything you like he's sucking a lemon and
holding morning prayer meeting!Oh, here are your men back with
prisoners! Now, you men in blue, what command's that in the woods?
Eh?What? Von Bayern bin ich nach diesem Lande gekommen.
Am Rhein habe ich gehort dass viel bezahlt wird fur.... Take 'em
away! Semmes, you go and tell General Jackson all Europe's here.Mean
you to go? Of course I don't mean you to go, you thundering idiot!
Always could pick Caesar out of the crowd. When I find him I obey him,
I don't send him messages. ! ! They've developed
sharpshooters. Send Wheat over there, General Taylortell him to shake
the pig-nuts out of those trees!
Toward midday the army marched. All the long afternoon it moved to
the sound of musketry up the Valley pike. There was skirmishing in
plentydashes by Fremont's cavalry, repulsed by the grey, a short
stampede of Munford's troopers, driven up the pike and into the
infantry of the rear guard, rapid recovery and a Roland for an Oliver.
The Valley, shimmering in the June light, lay in anything but Sabbath
calm. Farmhouse and village, mill, smithy, tavern, cross-roads store,
held their breathStonewall Jackson coming up the pike, holding
Fremont off with one hand while he passes Shields.
Sunset came, a splendid flare of colour behind the Great North
Mountain. The army halted for the night. The Louisiana Brigade still
formed the rear guard. Drawn upon high ground to either side of the
pike, it lighted no fires and rested on its arms. Next it to the south
lay Winder. The night was clear and dark, the pike a pale limestone
gleam between the shadowy hills. Hour by hour there sounded a
clattering of hoofs, squads of cavalry, reports, couriers, staff. There
was, too, a sense of Stonewall Jackson somewhere on the pike, alert
with grey-blue eyes piercing the dark. Toward one o'clock firing burst
out on the north. It proved an affair of outposts. Later, shots rang
out close at hand, Fremont having ordered a cavalry reconnoissance. The
grey met it with clangour and pushed it back. Wheat's battalion was
ordered northward and went swinging down the pike. The blue cavalry
swarmed again, whereupon the Louisianians deployed, knelt first rank,
fired rear rank, rose and went forward, knelt, fired and dispersed the
swarm. From a ridge to the west opened a Federal gun. It had intent to
rake the pike, but was trained too high. The shells hurtled overhead,
exploding high in air. The cannonade ceased as suddenly as it had
begun. Day began to break in violet and daffodil.
As the hours went on they became fiery hot and dry. The dust cloud
was high again over advance with great wagon train, over main column
and rear. Water was scarce, the men horribly weary; all suffered.
Suffering or ease, pain or pleasure, there was no resting this day.
Fremont, using parallel roads, hung upon the right; he must be pushed
back to the mountains as they passed up the Valley pike. All morning
blue cavalry menaced the Stonewall; to the north a dense southward
moving cloud proclaimed a larger force. Mid-day found Winder deployed
on both sides of the pike, with four guns in position. The Louisianians
sent back to know if they could help. Nowe'll manage. A minute
later Jackson appeared. Wherever matters drew suddenly to a point,
there he was miraculously found. He looked at the guns and jerked his
hand in the air. General Winder, I do not wish an engagement here.
Withdraw your brigade, sir, regiment by regiment. General Ashby is
here. He will keep the rear.
Ashby came at the moment with a body of horse out of the wood to the
east. He checked the black stallion, saluted and made his report. I
have burned the Conrad Store, White House and Columbia bridges, sir. If
Shields wishes to cross he must swim the Shenandoah. It is much
swollen. I have left Massanutton Gap strongly guarded.
Good! good! General Winder, you will follow General Taylor. Tell
the men that I wish them to press on. General Ashby, the march is now
to proceed undisturbed.
The second of June burned onward to its close, through heat, dust,
thirst, and relentlessly rapid marching. In the late afternoon occurred
a monstrous piling up of thunder clouds, a whistling of wind, and a
great downpour of rain. It beat down the wheat and pattered like elfin
bullets on the forest leaves. Through this fusillade the army came down
to the west fork of the Shenandoah. Pioneers laid a bridge of wagons,
and, brigade by brigade, the army crossed. High on the bank in the loud
wind and dashing rain, Jackson on Little Sorrel watched the transit. By
dusk all were over and the bridge was taken up.
On the further shore Ashby now kept guard between Fremont and the
host in grey. As for Shields, he was on the far side of the
Massanuttons, before him a bridgeless, swollen torrent and a guarded
mountain pass. Before becoming dangerous he must move south and round
the Massanuttons. Far from achieving junction, space had widened
between Shields and Fremont. The Army of the Valley had run the
gauntlet, and in doing so had pushed the walls apart. The men, climbing
from the Shenandoah, saluting their general, above them there in the
wind and the rain, thought the voice with which he answered them
unusually gentle. He almost always spoke to his troops gently, but
to-night there was almost a fatherly tone. And though he jerked his
hand into the air, it was meditatively done, a quiet salute to some
observant commander up there.
Later, in the deep darkness, the army bivouacked near New Market.
Headquarters was established in an old mill. Here a dripping courier
unwrapped from a bit of cloth several leaves of the whitey-brown
telegraph paper of the Confederacy and gave them into the general's
hand.
Next morning, at roll call, each colonel spoke to his regiment.
Men! There has been a great battle before Richmondat a place called
Seven Pines. Day before yesterday General Johnston attacked General
McClellan. The battle raged all day with varying fortune. At sunset
General Johnston, in the thickest of the fight, was struck from his
horse by a shell. He is desperately wounded; the country prays not
mortally. General Lee is now in command of the Armies of Virginia. The
battle was resumed yesterday morning and lasted until late in the day.
Each side claims the victory. Our loss is perhaps five thousand; we
hold that the enemy's was as great. General McClellan has returned to
his camp upon the banks of the Chickahominy. Richmond is not
taken.The general commanding the Army of the Valley congratulates his
men upon the part they have played in the operations before our
capital. At seven in the morning the chaplains of the respective
regiments will hold divine services.
CHAPTER XXV. ASHBY
Flournoy and Munford, transferred to Ashby's command, kept with him
in the Confederate rear. The army marching from the Shenandoah left the
cavalry behind in the wind and rain to burn the bridge and delay
Fremont. Ashby, high on the eastern bank, watched the slow flames seize
the timbers, fight with the wet, prevail and mount. The black stallion
planted his fore feet, shook his head, snuffed the air. The wind blew
out his rider's cloak. In the light from the burning bridge the scarlet
lining glowed and gleamed like the battle-flag. The stallion neighed.
Ashby's voice rose ringingly. Chew, get the Blakeley ready! Wyndham's
on the other side!
The flames mounted high, a great pyre streaming up, reddening the
night, the roaring Shenandoah, the wet and glistening woods. Out of the
darkness to the north came Maury Stafford with a scouting party. He
saluted. There is a considerable force over there, sir,
double-quicking through the woods to save the bridge. Cavalry in
frontWyndham, I suppose, still bent on 'bagging' you.
Here they are! said Ashby. But you are too late, Colonel Sir
Percy Wyndham!
The blazing arch across the river threw a wine-red light up and down
and showed cavalry massing beneath walnut, oak, and pine. There were
trumpet signals and a great trampling of hoofs, but the roaring flames,
the swollen torrent, the pattering rain, the flaws of wind somewhat
dulled other sounds. A tall man with sash and sabre, thigh boots and
marvellously long moustaches, sat his horse beneath a dripping,
wind-tossed pine. He pointed to the grey troopers up and down the
southern bank. There's the quarry! Fire!
Two could play at that game. The flash from the northern bank and
the rattle of the carbines were met from the southern by as vivid a
leaping spark, as loud a sound. With the New Jersey squadrons was a
Parrott gun. It was brought up, placed and fired. The shell exploded as
it touched the red-lit water. There was a Versailles fountain costing
nothing. The Blakeley answered. The grey began to sing.
If you want to have a good time
If you want to have a good time
If you want to catch the devil,
Jine the cavalry!
A courier appeared beside Ashby. General Jackson wants to know,
sir, if they can cross?
Look at the bridge and tell him, No.
Then he says to fall back. Ammunition's precious.
The cavalry leader put to his lips the fairy clarion slung from his
shoulder and sounded the retreat. The flaming bridge lit all the place
and showed the great black horse and him upon it. The English
adventurer across the water had with him sharpshooters. In the light
that wavered, leaped and died, and sprang again, these had striven in
vain to reach that high-placed target. Now one succeeded.
The ball entered the black's side. He had stood like a rock, now he
veered like a ship in a storm. Ashby dropped the bugle, threw his leg
over the saddle, and sprang to the earth as the great horse sank. Those
near him came about him. No! I am not hurt, but Black Conrad is. My
poor friend! He stroked Black Conrad, kissed him between the eyes and
drew his pistol. Chew fired the Blakeley again, drowning all lesser
sound. Suddenly the supports of the bridge gave way. A great part of
the roaring mass fell into the stream; the remainder, toward the
southern shore, flamed higher and higher. The long rattle of the
Federal carbines had an angry sound. They might have marched more
swiftly after all, seeing that Stonewall Jackson would not march more
slowly! Build a bridge! How could they build a bridge over the wide
stream, angry itself, hoarsely and violently thrusting its way under an
inky, tempestuous sky! They had no need to spare ammunition, and so
they fired recklessly, cannon, carbine, and revolvers into the night
after the grey, retiring squadrons.
Stafford, no great favourite with the mass of the men, but well
liked by some, rode beside a fellow officer. This was a man genial and
shrewd, who played the game of war as he played that of whist, eyes
half closed and memory holding every card. He spoke cheerfully.
Shenandoah beautifully swollen! Don't believe Fremont has pontoons.
He's out of the reckoning for at least a day and a nightprobably
longer. Nice for us all!
It has been a remarkable campaign.
'Remarkable'! Tell you what it's like, Stafford. It's like
1796Napoleon's Italian campaign.
You think so? Well, it may be true. Hear the wind in the pines!
Tell you what you lack, Stafford. You lack interest in the war. You
are too damned perfunctory. You take orders like an automaton, and you
go execute them like an automaton. I don't say that they're not
beautifully executed; they are. But the soul's not there. The other day
at Tom's Brook I watched you walk your horse up to the muzzle of that
fellow Wyndham's guns, and, by God! I don't believe you knew any more
than an automaton that the guns were there!
Yes, I did
Well, you may have known it with one half of your brain. You didn't
with the other half. To a certain extent, I can read your hand. You've
got a big war of your own, in a country of your owneh?
Perhaps you are not altogether wrong. Such things happen
sometimes.
Yes, they do. But I think it a pity! This warhe jerked his head
toward the environing nightis big enough, with horribly big stakes.
If I were you, I'd drum the individual out of camp.
Think only of the general? I wish I could!
Well, can't you?
No, not yet.
There are only two thingsbarring diseasewhich can so split the
brain in twosend the biggest part off, knight-errant or Saracen, into
some No-Man's Country, and keep the other piece here in Virginia to
crack invaders' skulls! One's love and one's hate
Never both?
Knight-errant and Saracen in one? That's difficult.
Nothing is so difficult as life, nor so strange. And, perhaps, love
and hate are both illnesses. Sometimes I think so.
A happy recovery then! You are too good a fellow
I am not a good fellow.
You are not at least an amiable one to-night! Don't let the fever
get too high!
Will you listen, said Stafford, to the wind in the pines? and did
you ever see the automatic chess-player?
Two days later, Fremont, having bridged the Shenandoah, crossed, and
pushed his cavalry with an infantry support southward by the pike.
About three in the afternoon of the sixth, Ashby's horses were grazing
in the green fields south of Harrisonburg, on the Port Republic road.
To the west stretched a belt of woodland, eastward rose a low ridge
clad with beech and oak. The green valley lay between. The air, to-day,
was soft and sweet, the long billows of the Blue Ridge seen dreamily,
through an amethyst haze. The men lay among dandelions. Some watched
the horses; others read letters from home, or, haversack for desk,
wrote some vivid, short-sentenced scrawl. A number were engaged by the
rim of the clear pool. Naked to the waist, they knelt like washerwomen,
and rubbed the soapless linen against smooth stones, or wrung it
wrathfully, or turning, spread it, grey-white, upon the grass to dry.
Four played poker beneath a tree, one read a Greek New Testament, six
had found a small turtle, and with the happy importance of boys were
preparing a brushwood fire and the camp kettle. Others slept, head
pillowed on arm, soft felt hat drawn over eyes. The rolling woodland
toward Harrisonburg and Fremont was heavily picketed. A man rose from
beside the pool, straightened himself, and holding up the shirt he had
been washing looked at it critically. Apparently it passed muster, for
he painstakingly stretched it upon the grass and taking a pair of
cotton drawers turned again to the water. A blue-eyed Loudoun youth
whistling Swanee River brought a brimming bucket from the stream that
made the pool and poured it gleefully into the kettle. A Prince Edward
man, lying chest downward, blew the fire, another lifted the turtle.
The horses moved toward what seemed lusher grass, one of the poker
players said Damn! the reader turned a leaf of the Greek Testament.
One of the sleepers sat up. I thought I heard a shot
Perhaps he had heard one; at any rate he now heard many. Down the
road and out from under the great trees of the forest in front burst
the pickets driven in by a sudden, well-directed onslaught of blue
cavalryFremont's advance with a brigade of infantry behind. In a
moment all was haste and noise in the green vale. Men leaped to their
feet, left their washing, left the turtle simmering in the pot, the gay
cards upon the greensward, put up the Greek Testament, the home
letters, snatched belt and carbine, caught the horses, saddled them
with speed, swung themselves up, and trotted into line, eyes
frontAshby's men.
The pickets had their tale to tell. Burst out of the woodthe
damned Briton again, sir, with his squadrons from New Jersey! Rode us
downJohn Ferrar killedGilbert capturedYou can see from the
hilltop there. They are forming for a charge. There's infantry
behindBlinker's Dutch from the looks of them!
Blinker's Dutch, said the troopers. 'Hooney,' 'Nix furstay,' 'Bag
Jackson,' 'Kiss und steal,' 'Hide under bed,' 'Rifle bureau drawers,'
'Take lockets und rings'Blinker's Dutch! We should have dog whips!
To the rear was the little ridge clothed with beech and oak. The
road wound up and over it. Ashby's bugle sounded. Right face. Trot!
March! The road went gently up, grass on either side with here and
there a clump of small pines. Butterflies fluttered; all was gay and
sweet in the June sunshine. Ashby rode before on the bay stallion. The
Horse Artillery came also from the meadow where it had been
campedCaptain Chew, aged nineteen, and his three guns and his
threescore men, four of them among the best gunners in the whole army.
All mounted the ridge, halted and deployed. The guns were posted
advantageously, the 6th, the 7th, and the 2d Virginia Cavalry in two
ranks along the ridge. Wide-spreading beech boughs, growing low, small
oak scrub and branchy dogwood made a screen of the best; they looked
down, hidden, upon a gentle slope and the Port Republic road. Ashby's
post was in front of the silver bole of a great beech. With one
gauntleted hand he held the bay stallion quiet, with the other he
shaded his eyes and gazed at the westerly wood into which ran the road.
Chew, to his right, touched the Blakeley lovingly. Gunner number 1
handed the powder. Number 2 rammed it home, took the shell from Number
1 and put it in. All along the ridge the horsemen handled their
carbines, spoke each in a quiet, genial tone to his horse. Sound of the
approaching force made itself heard and increased.
About a thousand, shouldn't you think, sir? asked an aide.
No. Between seven and eight hundred. Do you remember in
'Ivanhoe'
Out of the western wood, in order of charge, issued a body of horse.
It was yet a little distant, horses at a trot, the declining sun making
a stirring picture. Rapidly crescent to eye and ear, they came on.
Their colours flew, the sound of their bugles raised the blood. Their
pace changed to a gallop. The thundering hoofs, the braying trumpets,
shook the air. Colours and guidons grew large.
By God, sir, Wyndham is coming to eat you up! This time he knows
he's caught the hare.
Do all John Bulls ride like that? Shades of the Revolution! did we
all ride like that before we came to Virginia?
God! what a noise!
Ashby spoke. Don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes.
The charge began to swallow up the gentle slope, the sunny road, the
green grass to either hand. The bugles blew at height, the sabres
gleamed, the tall man in front rode rising in his stirrups, his sabre
overhead. Huzzah! huzzah! huzzah! shouted the blue cavalry.
Are you ready, Captain Chew? demanded Ashby. Very well, then, let
them have it!
The Blakeley and the two Parrott guns spoke in one breath. While the
echoes were yet thundering, burst a fierce volley from all the
Confederate short rifles. Down went the Federal colour-bearer, down
went other troopers in the front rank, down went the great gaunt horse
beneath the Englishman! Those behind could not at once check their
headlong gallop; they surged upon and over the fallen. The Blakeley
blazed again and the grey carbines rang. The Englishman was on his
feet, had a trooper's horse and was shouting like a savage, urging the
squadrons on and up. For the third time the woods flamed and rang. The
blue lines wavered. Some horsemen turned. Damn you! On! raged
Wyndham.
Ashby put his bugle to his lips. Clear and sweet rose the notes, a
silver tempest. Ashby! Ashby! shouted the grey lines and
charged. Ashby! Ashby! Out of the woods and down the hill they
came like undyked waters. The two tides met and clashed. There followed
a wild melee, a shouting, an unconscious putting forth of great
muscular energy, a seeing as through red glasses besmirched with powder
smoke, a poisonous odour, a sense of cotton in the mouth, a feeling as
of struggle on a turret, far, far up, with empty space around and
below. The grey prevailed, the blue turned and fled. For a moment it
seemed as though they were flying through the air, falling, falling!
the grey had a sense of dizziness as they struck spur in flank and
pursued headlong. All seemed to be sinking through the air, then,
suddenly, they felt ground, exhaled breath, and went thundering up the
Port Republic road, toward Harrisonburg. In front strained the blue,
presently reaching the wood. A gun boomed from a slope beyond. Ashby
checked the pursuit and listened to the report of a vedette. Fremont
pushing forward. Horse and guns and the German division. Hm! He sat
the bay stallion, looking about him, then, Cuninghame, you go back to
General Ewell. Rear guard can't be more than three miles away. Tell
General Ewell about the Germans and ask him to give me a little
infantry. Hurry now, and if he gives them, bring them up quickly!
The vedette galloped eastward. Ashby and his men rode back to the
ridge, the Horse Artillery, the dead, the wounded, and the prisoners.
The latter numbered four officers and forty men. They were all in a
group in the sunshine, which lay with softness upon the short grass and
the little pine trees. The dead lay huddled, while over them flitted
the butterflies. Ashby's surgeons were busy with the wounded. A man
with a shattered jaw was making signs, deliberately talking in the
deaf-and-dumb alphabet, which perhaps he had learned for some friend or
relative's sake. A younger man, his hand clenched over a wound in the
breast, said monotonously, over and over again, I am from Trenton, New
Jersey, I am from Trenton, New Jersey. A third with glazing eyes made
the sign of the cross, drew himself out of the sun, under one of the
little pine trees, and died. Some of the prisoners were silent. Others
talked with bravado to their captors. Salisbury, North Carolina!
That's not far. Five hundred miles not farBesides, Fremont will make
a rescue presently. And if he doesn't, Shields will to-morrow! Then off
you fellows go to Johnson's Island! The officer who had led the charge
sat on a bank above the road. In the onset he had raged like a
Berserker, now he sat imperturbable, ruddy and stolid, an English
philosopher on a fallen pine. Ashby came back to the road, dismounting,
and leading the bay stallion, advanced. Good-day, Colonel Wyndham.
Good-day, General Ashby. War's a game. Somebody's got to lose. Only
way to stop loss is to stop war. You held the trumpsDamn me! You
played them well, too. His sword lay across his knees. He took it up
and held it out. Ashby made a gesture of refusal. No. I don't want it.
I am about to send you to the rear. If there is anything I can do for
you
Thank you, general, there is nothing. Soldier of fortune. Fortune
of war. Bad place for a charge. Ought to have been more wary. Served me
right. You've got Bob Wheat with you? Know Bob Wheat. Find him in the
rear?
Yes. With General Ewell. And now as I am somewhat in haste
You must bid me good-day! See you are caring for my wounded. Much
obliged. Dead will take care of themselves. Pretty little place!
Flowers, butterflieslarge bronze one on your hat.This our escort?
Perfectly true you'll have a fight presently. There's the New York
cavalry as well as the New Jerseyplenty of infantryPennsylvania
Bucktails and so forth. Wish I could see the scrimmage! Curious world!
Can't wish you good luck. Must wish you ill. However, good luck's
wrapped up in all kinds of curious bundles. Ready, men! General Ashby,
may I present Major Markham, Captain Bondurant, Captain Schmidt,
Lieutenant Colter? They will wish to remember having met you.Now,
gentlemen, at your service!
Prisoners and escort vanished over the hill. Ashby, remounting,
proceeded to make his dispositions, beginning with the Horse Artillery
which he posted on a rise of ground, behind a mask of black thorn and
dogwood. From the east arose the strains of fife and drum. Maryland
Line, said the 6th, the 7th, and the 2d Virginia Cavalry.
I hear the distant thunder hum,
Maryland!
The old line bugle, fife and drum,
Maryland!
She breathes! She burns! she'll come! she'll come
Oh! here's the 58th, too! Give them a cheer, boys! Hurrah! 58th
Virginia! Hurrah! The Maryland Line!
The two infantry regiments came forward at a double-quick, bright
and brisk, rifle barrels and bayonets gleaming in the now late
sunshine, their regimental flags azure and white, and beside them
streaming the red battle-flag with the blue cross. As they approached
there also began to show, at the edge of the forest which cut the
western horizon, the Federal horse and foot. Before these was a space
of rolling fields, then a ragged line of timber, a straggling copse of
underbrush and tall trees cresting a wave of earth. A body of blue
cavalry started out of the wood, across the field. At once Chew opened
with the Blakeley and the two Parrotts. There ensued confusion and the
horse fell back. A blue infantry regiment issued at a run, crossed the
open and attained the cover of the coppice which commanded the road and
the eastern stretch of fields. A second prepared to follow. The
Maryland Line swung through the woods with orders to flank this
movement. Ashby galloped to the 58th. Forward, 58th, and clear that
wood! He rode on to Munford at the head of the squadrons. I am going
to dislodge them from that cover. The moment they leave it sound the
charge!
The 58th advanced steadily over the open. When it was almost upon
the coppice it fired, then fixed bayonets. The discharge had been aimed
at the wood merely. The shadows were lengthening, the undergrowth was
thick; they could not see their opponents. Suddenly the coppice blazed,
a well-directed and fatal volley. The regiment that held this wood had
a good record and meant to-day to better it. Its target was visible
enough, and close, full before it in the last golden light. A grey
officer fell, the sword that he had brandished described a shining
curve before it plunged into a clump of sumach. Five men lay upon the
earth; the colour-bearer reeled, then pitched forward. The man behind
him caught the colours. The 58th fired again, then, desperately,
continued its advance. Smoke and flame burst again from the coppice. A
voice of Stentor was heard. Now Pennsylvania Bucktails, you're making
history! Do your durndest!
Close ranks! shouted the officer of the 58th. Close ranks!
Forward! There came a withering volley. The second colour-bearer sank;
a third seized the standard. Another officer was down; there were gaps
in the ranks and under feet the wounded. The regiment wavered.
From the left came a bay stallion, devouring the earth, legs and
head one tawny line, distended nostril and red-lit eye. The rider
loosened from his shoulders a scarlet-lined cloak, lifted and shook it
in the air. It flared out with the wind of his coming, like a banner,
or a torch. He sent his voice before him, Charge, men, charge!
Spasmodically the 58th started forward. The copse, all dim and
smoky, flowered again, three hundred red points of fire. The sound was
crushing, startling, beating at the ear drum. The Bucktails were
shouting, Come on, Johnny Reb! Go back, Johnny Reb! Don't know what
you want to do, do you, Johnny Reb?
Ashby and the bay reached the front of the regiment. There was
disorder, wavering, from underfoot groans and cries. So wrapped in
smoke was the scene, so dusk, with the ragged and mournful woods hiding
the low sun, that it was hard to distinguish the wounded. It seemed as
though it was the earth herself complaining.
On, on, men! cried Ashby. Help's comingthe Maryland Line!
There was a wavering answer, half cheer, half-wailing cry, Ashby!
Ashby! Two balls pierced the bay stallion. He reared, screamed
loudly, and fell backward. Before he touched the earth the great
horseman of the Valley was clear of him. In the smoke and din Ashby
leaped forward, waving the red-lined cloak above his head. Charge,
men! he cried. For God's sake, charge! A bullet found his heart. He
fell without a groan, his hand and arm wrapped in the red folds.
From rank to rank there passed something like a sobbing cry. The
58th charged. Bradley Johnson with the Maryland Line dislodged the
Bucktails, captured their colonel and many others, killed and wounded
many. The coppice, from soaked mould to smoky treetop, hung in the
twilight like a wood in Hades. It was full dusk when Fremont's advance
drew back, retreating sullenly to its camp at Harrisonburg. The stars
were all out when, having placed the body on a litter, Ashby's men
carried Ashby to Port Republic.
He lay at midnight in a room of an old house of the place. They had
laid him upon a narrow bed, an old, single four-poster, with tester and
valance. The white canopy above, the fall of the white below had an
effect of sculptured stone. The whole looked like an old tomb in some
dim abbey. The room was half in light, half in darkness. The village
women had brought flowers; of these there was no lack. All the blossoms
of June were heaped about him. He lay in uniform, upon the red-lined
cloak, his plumed hat beside him, his sword in his hand. His staff
watched in the room, seated with bowed heads beside the open window. An
hour before dawn some one spoke to the sentry without the door, then
gently turned the handle and entered the chamber. The watchers arose,
stood at salute. Kindly leave General Ashby and me alone together for
a little while, gentlemen, said the visitor. The officers filed out.
The last one turning softly to close the door saw Jackson kneel.
CHAPTER XXVI. THE BRIDGE AT PORT
REPUBLIC
The seventh of June was passed by the Army of the Valley in a quiet
that seemed unnatural. For fifteen days, north from Front Royal to
Harper's Ferry, south from Harper's Ferry to Port Republic, cannon had
thundered, musketry rattled. Battle here and battle there, and endless
skirmishing! One male and three foights a day, said Wheat's Irishmen.
But this Saturday there was no fighting. The cavalry watched both
flanks of the Massanuttons. The main army rested in the rich woods that
covered the hills above the North Fork of the Shenandoah. Headquarters
were in the village across the river, spanned by a covered bridge.
Three miles to the northwest Ewell's division was strongly posted near
the hamlet of Cross Keys. From the great south peak of the Massanuttons
a signal party looked down upon Fremont's road from Harrisonburg, and
upon the road by which Shields must emerge from the Luray Valley. The
signal officer, looking through his glass, saw also a road that ran
from Port Republic by Brown's Gap over the Blue Ridge into Albemarle,
and along this road moved a cortegesoldiers with the body of Ashby.
The dead general's mother was in Winchester. They would have taken him
there, but could not, for Fremont's army was between. So, as seemed
next most fit, they carried him across the mountains into Albemarle, to
the University of Virginia. Up on Massanutton the signal officer's hand
shook. He lowered his glass and cleared his throat: War's a short word
to say all it says
Fremont rested at Harrisonburg after yesterday's repulse. On the
other side of Massanutton was Shields, moving south from Luray under
the remarkable impression that Jackson was at Rude's Hill and Fremont
effectively dealing with the demoralized rebels. On the sixth he
began to concentrate his troops near where had been Columbia Bridge. On
the seventh he issued instructions to his advance guard.
The enemy passed New Market on the 5th. Benker's Division in
pursuit. The enemy has flung away everything, and their stragglers fill
the mountains. They need only a movement on the flank to panic-strike
them, and break them into fragments. No man has had such a chance since
the war commenced. You are within thirty miles of a broken, retreating
enemy, who still hangs together. Ten thousand Germans are on his rear,
who hang on like bull dogs. You have only to throw yourself down on
Waynesborough before him, and your cavalry will capture thousands,
seize his train and abundant supplies.
In chase of this so beautiful a chance Shields set forth down the
eastern side of Massanutton, with intent to round the mountain at Port
Republic, turn north again, and somewhere on the Valley pike make that
will-o'-the-wisp junction with Fremont and stamp out rebellion. But of
late it had rained much, and the roads were muddy and the streams
swollen. His army was split into sections; here a brigade and there a
brigade, the advance south of Conrad's Store, the rear yet at Luray. He
had, however, the advantage of moving through leagues of forest, heavy,
shaggy, dense. It was not easy to observe the details of his
operations.
Sunday morning dawned. A pearly mist wrapped the North Fork and the
South Fork of the Shenandoah, and clung to the shingle roofs and bowery
trees of the village between. The South Fork was shallow and could be
forded. The North Fork was deep and strong and crossed by a covered
bridge. Toward the bridge now, winding down from the near-by height on
which the brigade had camped, came a detail from the 65thtwenty men
led by Sergeant Mathew Coffin. They were chiefly Company A men, and
they were going to relieve the pickets along the South Fork. Thanks to
Mr. Commissary Banks, they had breakfasted well. The men were happy,
not hilariously so, but in a placid, equable fashion. As they came
down, over the wet grass, from the bluff, they talked. Mist over the
Shenandoah's just like mist over the JamesNo, 'tisn't! Nothing's
like mist over the James.Well, the bridge's like the bridge at
home, anyway!'Tisn't much like it. Hasn't got sidewalks
inside.Yes, it has!No, it hasn't!I know better, I've been
through it.I've been through it twice'twas through it after Elk
Run, a month ago!Well, it hasn't got sidewalks, anyway,I tell
you it has.You 're mistaken!I'm not.You never did see
straight nohow!If I was at home I'd thrash you!
Mathew Coffin turned his head. Who's that jowering back there? Stop
it! Sunday morning and all!
He went on, holding his head straight, a trig, slender figure,
breathing irritation. His oval face with its little black moustache was
set as hard as its boyish curves permitted, and his handsome dark eyes
had two parallel lines above them. He marched as he marched always
nowadays, with a mien aggrieved and haughty. He never lost the
consciousness that he was wearing chevrons who had worn bars, and he
was quite convinced that the men continually compared his two states.
The progress down hill to the bridge was short. Before the party the
long, tunnel-like, weather-beaten structure loomed through the mist.
The men entered and found it dusk and warm, smelling of horses, the
river, fifteen feet below, showing through the cracks between the heavy
logs of the floor. The marching feet sounded hollowly, voices
reverberated. Just like our bridgetold you 'twasAin't it like,
Billy Maydew?
It air, said Billy. I air certainly glad that we air a-crossing
on a bridge. The Shenandoah air a prop-o-si-tion to swim.
How did you feel, Billy, when you got away?
At first, just like school was out, said Billy. But when a whole
picket post started after me, 'n' I run fer it, 'n' the trees put out
arms to stop me, 'n' the dewberry, crawling on the ground, said to
itself, 'Hello! Let's make a trap'; 'n' when the rail fences all
hollered out, 'We're goin' to turn agin you!' 'n' when a bit of swamp
hollered louder than any, 'Let's suck down Billy Maydewsuck down
Billy Maydew!' 'n' when a lot o' bamboo vines running over cedars, up
with 'Hold him fast until you hear a bullet whizzing!' 'n' I got to the
Shenandoah and there wa'n't no bridge, 'n' the Shenandoah says 'I'd
just as soon drown men as look at them!'when all them things talked
so, I knew just how the critturs feel in the woods; 'n' I ain't so
crazy about hunting as I wasand I say again this here air a most
con-ve-ni-ent bridge.
With his musket butt he struck the boarded side. The noise was so
resoundingly greater than he had expected that he laughed and the men
with him. Now Sergeant Mathew Coffin was as nervous as a witch. He had
been marching along with his thoughts moodily hovering over the battery
he would take almost single-handed, or the ambush he would dislodge and
so procure promotion indeed. At the noise of the stick he started
violently. Who did that? Oh, I see, and I might have known it! I'll
report you for extra duty
Report ahead, said Billy, under his breath.
Coffin halted. What was that you said, Maydew?
I didn't speak to yousir.
Well, you'll speak to me now. What was it you said then? He came
nearer, his arm thrown up, though but in an angry gesture. If I struck
you, thought Billy, I'd be sorry for it, so I won't do it. But one
thing's sureI certainly should like to!
If you don't answer me, said Coffin thickly, I'll report you for
disobedience as well as for disorderly conduct! What was it you said
then?
I said, 'Report aheadand be damned to you!'
Coffin's lips shut hard. Very good! We'll see how three days of
guardhouse tastes to you!Forward!
The party cleared the bridge and almost immediately found itself in
the straggling village street. The mist clung here as elsewhere, houses
and trees dim shapes, the surrounding hills and the dense woods beyond
the South Fork hardly seen at all. Coffin marched with flushed face and
his brows drawn together. He was mentally writing a letter on pale blue
paper, and in it he was enlarging upon ingratitude. The men sympathized
with Billy and their feet sounded resentfully upon the stones. Billy
alone marched with elaborate lightness, quite as though he were walking
on air and loved the very thought of the guardhouse.
Headquarters was an old corner house that had flung open its doors
to General Jackson with an almost tremulous eagerness. A flag waved
before the door, and there was a knot beneath of couriers and
orderlies, with staff officers coming and going. Opposite was a store,
closed of course upon Sunday, but boasting a deep porch with benches,
to say nothing of convenient kegs and boxes. Here the village youth and
age alike found business to detain them. The grey-headed exchanged
remarks. Sleep? No, I couldn't sleep! Might as well see what's to be
seen! I ain't got long to see anything, and so I told Susan. When's he
coming out?Once't when I was a little shaver like Bob, sitting on the
scales there, I went with my father in the stage-coach to
Fredericksburg, I remember just as welland I was sitting before the
tavern on a man's knee,old man 'twas, for he said he had fought the
Indians,and somebody came riding down the street, with two or three
others. I jus' remember a blue coat and a cocked hat and that his hair
was powderedand the man put me down and got up, and everybody else
before the tavern got upand somebody holloaed out 'Hurrah for General
Washington'
There was a stir about the opposite door. An aide came out, mounted
and rode off toward the bridge. An orderly brought a horse from the
neighbouring stable. That's his! That's General Jackson's!Don't look
like the war horse in Job, does he now?Looks like a doctor's
horseLittle Sorrel's his name. The small boy surged forward. He's
coming out!How do you know him?G' way! You always know generals
when you see them! Great, big men, all trimmed up with gold. Besides, I
saw him last night.You didn't!Yes, I did! Saw his shadow on the
curtain.How did you know 'twas his?My mother said, 'Look, John,
and don't never forget. That's Stonewall Jackson.' And it was a big
shadow walking up and down, and it raised its hand
The church bell rang. A chaplain came out of the house. He had a
Bible in his hand, and he beamed on all around. There's the first
bell, gentlementhe bell, children! Church in a church, just like
before we went to fighting! Trust you'll all come, gentlemen, and you,
too, boys! The general hopes you'll all come.
Within headquarters, in a large bare room, Jackson was having his
customary morning half-hour with his heads of departmentsan
invariably recurring period in his quiet and ordered existence. It was
omitted only when he fought in the morning. He sat as usual, bolt
upright, large feet squarely planted, large hands stiff at sides. On
the table before him were his sabre and Bible. Before him stood a group
of officers. The adjutant, Colonel Paxton, finished his report. The
general nodded. Good! good! Well, Major Harman?
The chief quartermaster saluted. The trains, sir, had a good night.
There are clover fields on either side of the Staunton road and the
horses are eating their fill. A few have sore hoof and may have to be
left behind. I had the ordnance moved as you ordered, nearer the river.
An orderly came back last night from the convoy on the way to Staunton.
Sick and wounded standing it well. Prisoners slow marchers, but
marching. I sent this morning a string of wagons to Cross Keys, to
General Ewell. We had a stampede last night among the negro teamsters.
They were sitting in a ring around the fire, and an owl hooted or a bat
flitted. They had been telling stories of ha'nts, and they swore they
saw General Ashby galloping by on the white stallion.
Poor, simple, ignorant creatures! said Jackson. There is no witch
of Endor can raise that horse and rider!Major Hawks!
The chief commissary came forward. General Banks's stores are
holding out well, sir. We are issuing special rations to the men
to-daySunday dinnerfresh beef, rice and beans, canned fruits,
coffee, sugar
Good! good! They deserve the best.Colonel Crutchfield
I have posted Wooding's battery as you ordered, sir, on the brow of
the hill commanding the bridge. There's a gun of Courtney's disabled. I
have thought he might have the Parrott we captured day before
yesterday. Ammunition has been issued as ordered. Caissons all filled.
Good!Captain BoswellAh, Mr. Hotchkiss.
Captain Boswell is examining the South Fork, sir, with a view to
finding the best place for the foot bridge you ordered constructed. I
have here the map you ordered me to draw.
Good! Put it here on the table.Now, Doctor McGuire.
Very few reported sick this morning, sir. The good women of the
village are caring for those. Three cases of fever, two of pneumonia,
some dysentery, measles among the recruits. The medicines we got at
Winchester are invaluable; they and the better fare the men are
getting. Best of all is the consciousness of victory,the confidence
and exaltation that all feel.
Yes, doctor. God's shield is over us.Captain Wilbourne
I brought the signal party in from Peaked Mountain last night, sir.
A Yankee cavalry company threatened to cut us off. Had we stayed we
should have been captured. I trust, sir, that I acted rightly?
You acted rightly. You saw nothing of General Shields?
Nothing, sir. It is true that the woods for miles are extremely
thick. It would perhaps be possible for a small force to move unseen.
But we made out nothing.
Jackson rose and drew closer the sabre and the Bible. That is all,
gentlemen. After religious services you will return to your respective
duties.
The sun was now above the mountain tops, the mist beginning to lift.
It lay heavily, however, over the deep woods and the bottom lands of
the South Fork, through which ran the Luray road, and on the South Fork
itself.Clatter, clatter! Shots and cries! Shouting the alarm as they
came, splashing through the ford, stopping on the hither bank for one
scattering volley back into the woolly veil, came Confederate infantry
pickets and vedettes. Yankee cavalry! Look out! Look out! Yankees! In
the mist the foremost man ran against the detail from the 65th. Coffin
seized him. Where? where? The other gasped. Coming! Drove us in!
Whole lot of them! Got two guns. All of Shields, I reckon, right
behind! He broke away, tearing with his fellows into the village.
Sergeant Coffin and his men stared into the mist. They heard a great
splashing, a jingling and shouting, and in another instant were aware
of something looming like a herd of elephants. From the village behind
them burst the braying of their own buglesheadquarters summoning,
baggage train on the Staunton road summoning. The sound was shrill,
insistent. The shapes in the mist grew larger. There came a flash of
rifles, pale yellow through the drift as of lawn. Zzzzzz! Zzzzzz! sang
the balls. The twenty men of the 65th proceeded to save themselves.
Some of them tore down a side street, straight before the looming
onrush. Others leaped fences and brushed through gardens, rich and
dank. Others found house doors suddenly and quietly opening before
them, houses with capacious dark garrets and cellars. All the dim
horde, more and more of it, came splashing through the ford. A brazen
rumbling arose, announcing guns. The foremost of the horde, blurred of
outline, preternaturally large, huzzaing and firing, charged into the
streets of Port Republic.
In a twinkling the village passed from her Sunday atmosphere to one
of a highly work-a-day Monday. The blue cavalry began to harry the
place. The townspeople hurried home, trumpets blared, shots rang out,
oaths, shouts of warning! Men in grey belonging with the wagon train
ran headlong toward their posts, others made for headquarters where the
flag was and Stonewall Jackson. A number, headed off, were captured at
once. Others, indoors when the alarm arose, were hidden by the women.
Three staff officers had walked, after leaving Jackson's council,
toward a house holding pretty daughters whom they meant to take to
church. When the clangour broke out they had their first stupefied
moment, after which they turned and ran with all their might toward
headquarters. There was fighting up and down the street. Half a dozen
huzzaing and sabring troopers saw the three and shouted to others
nearer yet. Officers! Cut them off, you there! The three were taken.
A captain, astride of a great reeking horse, towered above them.
Staff? You're staff? Is Jackson in the town?and where? Quick now!
Ehwhat!
That's a lovely horse. Looks exactly, I imagine, like Rozinante
On the whole I should say that McClellan might be finding Richmond
like those mirages travellers tell about. The nearer he gets to it the
further it is away.
It has occurred to me that if after the evacuation of Corinth
Beauregard should come back to Virginia
The captain in blue, hot and breathless, bewildered by the very
success of the dash into town, kept saying, Where is Jackson? What?
Quick there, you! Where Behind him a corporal spoke out cavalierly.
They aren't going to tell you, sir. There's a large house down there
that's got something like a flag before itI think, too, that we ought
to go take the bridge.
The streams of blue troopers flowed toward the principal street and
united there. Some one saw the flag more plainly. That's a
headquarters!What if Jackson were there? Good Lord! what if we took
Jackson? A bugler blew a vehement rally. All of you, come on! All
of you, come on! The stream increased in volume, began to move, a
compact body, down the street. There are horses before that door! Look
at that nag! That's Jackson's horse!No.Yes! Saw it at Kernstown!
Forward!
Stonewall Jackson came out of the house with the flag before it.
Behind him were those of his staff who had not left headquarters when
the invasion occurred, while, holding the horses before the door,
waited, white-lipped, a knot of most anxious orderlies. One brought
Little Sorrel. Jackson mounted with his usual slow deliberation, then,
turning in the saddle, looked back to the shouting blue horsemen. They
saw him and dug spurs into flanks. First he pulled the forage cap over
his eyes and then he jerked his hand into the air. These gestures
executed he touched Little Sorrel with the rowel and, his suite behind
him, started off down the street toward the bridge over the Shenandoah.
One would not have said that he went like a swift arrow. There was,
indeed, an effect of slowness, of a man traversing, in deep thought, a
solitary plain. But for all that, he went so fast that the space
between him and the enemy did not decrease. They came thunderingly on,
a whole Federal chargebut he kept ahead. Seeing that he did so, they
began to discharge carbine and pistol, some aiming at Little Sorrel,
some at the grey figure riding stiffly, bolt upright and elbows out.
Little Sorrel shook his head, snorted, and went on. Ahead loomed the
bridge, a dusky, warm, gold-shot tunnel below an arch of weather-beaten
wood. Under it rolled with a heavy sound the Shenandoah. Across the
river, upon the green hilltops, had arisen a commotion. All the drums
were beating the long roll. Stonewall Jackson and Little Sorrel came on
the trodden rise of earth leading to the bridge mouth. The blue cavalry
shouted and spurred. Their carbines cracked. The balls pockmarked the
wooden arch. Jackson dragged the forage cap lower and disappeared
within the bridge. The four or five with him turned and drew across the
gaping mouth.
The blue cavalry came on, firing as they came. Staff and orderlies,
the grey answered with pistols. Behind, in the bridge, sounded the
hollow thunder of Little Sorrel's hoofs. The sound grew fainter. Horse
and rider were nearly across. Staff and orderlies fired once again,
then, just as the blue were upon them, turned, dug spur, shouted, and
disappeared beneath the arch.
The Federal cavalry, massed before the bridge and in the field to
either side, swore and swore, He's out!Jackson's out! There he
goesup the road! Fire!Damn it all, what's the use? He's charmed. We
almost got him! Good Lord! We'd all have been major-generals!
A patrol galloped up. They've got a great wagon train, sir, at the
other end of the villageordnance reserve, supply, everything! It is
in motion. It's trying to get off by the Staunton road.
The cavalry divided. A strong body stayed by the bridge, while one
as large turned and galloped away. Those staying chafed with
impatience. Why don't the infantry come updamned creeping
snails!Yes, we could cross, but when we got to the other side, what
then?No, don't dare to burn the bridgedon't know what the general
would say.Listen to those drums over there! If Stonewall Jackson
brings all those hornets down on us!If we had a gunSpeak of the
angels!Unlimber right here, lieutenant!Got plenty of canister? Now
if the damned infantry would only come on! Thought it was just behind
us when we crossed the fordWhat's that off there?
That was a sharp sputter of musketry. Firing! Who are they firing
at? There aren't any rebelswe took them all prisoners
There's fighting, anywaywagon escort, maybe. The devil! Look
across the river! Look! All the hornets are coming down
Of the detail from the 65th Coffin and two others stood their ground
until the foremost of the herd was crossing the ford near at hand,
large, threatening, trumpeting. Then the three ran like hares, hearts
pounding at their sides, the ocean roaring in their ears, and in every
cell in their bodies an accurate impression that they had been seen,
and that the trumpeting herd meant to run down, kill or capture every
grey soldier in Port Republic! Underfoot was wet knot grass, difficult
and slippery; around was the shrouding mist. They thought the lane ran
through to another street, but it proved a cul-de-sac. Something rose
mistily before them; it turned out to be a cowshed. They flung
themselves against the door, but the door was padlocked. Behind the
shed, between it and a stout board fence, sprang a great clump of wet
elder, tall and rank, with spreading leaves; underneath, black, miry
earth. Into this they crowded, squatted on the earth, turned face
toward the passage up which they had come, and brought their rifles to
the front. A hundred yards away the main herd went by, gigantic in the
mist. The three in the elder breathed deep. All gone. Gone!No.
There's a squad coming up here.
The three kneeling in the mire, watching through triangular spaces
between the branchy leaves, grew suddenly, amazingly calm. What was the
sense in being frightened? You couldn't get away. Was there anywhere to
go to one might feel agitation enough, but there wasn't! Coffin handled
his rifle with the deliberation of a woman smoothing her long hair. The
man next himJim Wattseven while he settled forward on his knees and
raised his musket, turned his head aside and spat. Derned old fog
always gits in my throat! A branch of elder was cutting Billy Maydew's
line of vision. He broke it off with noiseless care and raised to his
shoulder the Enfield rifle which he had acquired at Winchester. There
loomed, at thirty feet away, colossal beasts bestridden by giants.
Suddenly the mist thinned, lifted. The demon steeds and riders
resolved themselves into six formidable looking Federal troopers. From
the main street rang the Federal bugles, vehemently rallying,
imperative. Shouting, too, broke out, savage, triumphant, pointed with
pistol shots. The bugle called again, Rally to the colours! Rally!
I calculate, said one of the six blue horsemen, that the boys
have found Stonewall.
Then they'll need us all! swore the trooper leading. If anybody's
in the cow-house they can wait.Right about face! Forward! Trot!
The men within the elder settled down on the wet black earth. Might
as well stay here, I suppose, said Coffin. Jim Watts began to shiver.
It's awful damp and cold. I've got an awful pain in the pit of my
stomach. He rolled over and lay groaning. Can't I go, sir? asked
Billy. I kind of feel more natural in the open.
Now Mathew Coffin had just been thinking that while this elder bush
springing from muddy earth, with a manure heap near, was damned
uncomfortable, it was better than being outside while those devils were
slashing and shooting. Perhaps they would ride away, or the army might
come over the bridge, and there would be final salvation. He had even
added a line to the letter he was writing, An elder bush afforded me
some slight cover from which to fire And now Billy Maydew wanted to
go outside and be taken prisoner! Immediately he became angry again.
You're no fonder of the open than I am! he said, and his upper lip
twitched one side away from his white teeth.
Billy, his legs already out of the bush, looked at him with large,
calm grey eyes. Kin I go?
Go where? You'll get killed.
You wouldn't grieve if I did, would you? I kinder thought I might
get by a back street to the wagons. A cousin of mine's a wagon master
and he ain't going ter give up easy. I kinder thought I might help
I'm just waiting, said Coffin, until Jim here gets over his
spasm. Then I'll give the word.
Jim groaned. I feel sicker'n a yaller dog after a fight'n' you
know I didn't mind 'em at all when they were really here! You two go
on, 'n' I'll come after awhile.
Coffin and Billy found the back street. It lay clear, warm, sunny,
empty. They're all down at the bridge, said Billy. Bang! bang!
bang! They came to a house, blinds all closed, shrinking behind its
trees. Houses, like everything else, had personality in this war. A
town occupied changed its mien according to the colour of the uniform
in possession. As the two hurrying grey figures approached, a woman,
starting from the window beside which she had been kneeling, watching
through a crevice, ran out of the house and through the yard to the
gate. You two men, come right in here! Don't you know the Yankees are
in town?
She was young and pretty. Coffin swept off his cap. That's the
reason we're trying to get to the edge of townto help the men with
the wagon train.
Her eyes grew luminous. How brave you are! Go, and God bless you!
The two ran on. Mathew Coffin added another line to his letter: A
lady besought me to enter her house, saying that I would surely be
killed, and that she could conceal me until the enemy was gone. But
I
They were nearly out of townthey could see the long train
hurriedly moving on the Staunton road. There was a sudden burst of
musketry. A voice reached them from the street below. Halt, you two
Confeds running there! Come on over here! Rally to the colours! There
was a flash of the stars and bars, waved vigorously. Oh, ha, ha!
cried Billy, thar was some of us wasn't taken! Aren't you glad we
didn't stay behind the cowshed?
It came into Coffin's head that Billy might tell that his sergeant
had wished to stay behind the cowshed. The blood rushed to his face; he
saw the difficulty of impressing men who knew about the cowshed with
his abilities in the way of storming batteries single-handed. He had
really a very considerable share of physical courage, and naturally he
esteemed it something larger than it was. He began to burn with the
injustice of Billy Maydew's thinking him backward in daring and so
reporting him around camp-fires. As he ran he grew angrier and angrier,
and not far from the shaken flag, in a little grassy hollow which hid
them from view, he called upon the other to halt. Billy's sense of
discipline brought him to a stop, but did not keep him from saying,
What for? They were only two soldiers, out of the presence of others
and in a pretty tight place togetherMathew Coffin but three years
older than he, and no great shakes anyhow. What for? asked Billy.
I just want to say to you, said Coffin thickly, that as to that
shed, it was my duty to protect my men; just as it is my duty as an
officer to report you for disobedience and bad language addressed to an
officer
Billy's brow clouded. I had forgotten all about that. I was going
along very nicely with you. You were really behaving yourselflike
alike a gentleman. The cow-house was all right. You are brave enough
when it comes to fighting. And now you're bringing it all up again
'Gentleman.'Who are you to judge of a gentleman?
Billy looked at him calmly. I air one of them.I air a-judging
from that-a stand.
You are going to the guardhouse for disobedience and bad language
and impertinence.
It would be right hard, said Billy, if I had to leave
su-pe-ri-or-i-ty outside with my musket. But I don't.
Coffin, red in the face, made at him. The Thunder Run man, supple as
a moccasin, swerved aside. Air you finished speaking, sergeant? Fer if
you have, 'n' if you don't mind, I think I'll run alongI air only
fighting Yankees this mornin'!
An aide of Jackson's, cut off from headquarters and taking shelter
in the upper part of the town, crept presently out of hiding, and
finding the invaders' eyes turned toward the bridge, proceeded with
dispatch and quietness to gather others from dark havens. When he had a
score or more he proceeded to bolder operations. In the field and on
the Staunton road all was commotion; wagons with their teams moving in
double column up the road, negro teamsters clamouring with ashen looks,
Dose damn Yanks! Knowed we didn't see dat ghos' fer nothin' las'
night! Wagon masters shouted, guards and sentries looked townward with
anxious eyes. The aide got a flag from the quartermaster's tent; found
moreover a very few artillery reserves and an old cranky howitzer. With
all of these he returned to the head of the main street, and about the
moment the cavalry at the bridge divided, succeeded in getting his
forces admirably placed in a strong defensive position: Coffin and
Billy Maydew joined just as an outpost brought a statement that about
two hundred Yankee cavalry were coming up the street.
The two guns, Federal Parrott, Confederate howitzer, belching smoke,
made in twenty minutes the head of the street all murk. In the first
charge Coffin received a sabre cut over the head. The blood blinded him
at first, and when he had wiped it away, and tied a beautiful new
handkerchief from a Broadway shop about the wound, he found it still
affected sight and hearing. He understood that their first musketry
fire had driven the cavalry back, indeed he saw two or three riderless
horses galloping away. He understood also that the Yankees had brought
up a gun, and that the captain was answering with the superannuated
howitzer. He was sure, too, that he himself was firing his musket with
great precision. Fire!load, fire!load, fire! One, two,one,
two! but his head, he was equally sure, was growing larger. It was
now larger than the globe pictured on the first page of the geography
he had studied at school. It was the globe, and he was Atlas holding
it. Fireload, fireload! Now the head was everything, and all
life was within it. There was a handsome young man named Coffin, very
brave, but misunderstood by all save one. He was brave and handsome. He
could take a tower by himselfFire, loadFire, loadOne, two.
The enemy knew his fame. They said, Coffin! Which is Coffin?
Fire, load, one, two. The grey armies knew this young hero. They
cheered when he went by. They cheeredthey cheeredwhen he went by to
take the tower. They wrote home and lovely women envied the loveliest
woman. Coffin! Coffin! Coffin's going to take the tower! Watch him!
Yaaaaih! Yaaaih!He struck the tower and looked to see it go
down. Instead, with a roar, it sprang, triple brass, height on height
to the skies. The stars fell, and suddenly, in the darkness, an ocean
appeared and went over him. He lay beneath the overturned Federal gun,
and the grey rush that had silenced the gunners and taken the piece
went on.
For a long time he lay in a night without a star, then day began to
break. It broke curiously, palely light for an instant, then obscured
by thick clouds, then faint light again. Some part of his brain began
to think. His head was not now the world; the world was lying on his
shoulder and arm, crushing it. With one piece of his brain he began to
appeal to people; with another piece to answer the first. Mother, take
this thing away! Mother, take this thing away! She's dead. She can't,
however much she wants to. Father! He's dead, too. Rob, CarterJack!
Grown up and moved away. Judge Allen, sir!Mr. Boyd!would you just
give a hand? Here I am, under Purgatory Mountain. Darlingtake this
thing away! DarlingDarling! Men!Colonel Cleave!Boysboys All
the brain began to think. O God, send somebody!
When Purgatory Mountain was lifted from his shoulder and arm he
fainted. Water, brought in a cap from a neighbouring puddle and dashed
in his face, brought him to. Thar now! said Billy, I certainly air
glad to see that you air alive! Coffin groaned. It must ha' hurt
awful! S'pose you let me look before I move you? He took out a knife
and gently slit the coat away. Sho! I know that hurts! But you got
first to the gun! You ran like you was possessed, and you yelled, and
you was the first to touch the gun. Thar now! I air a-tying the
han'kerchief from your head around your arm, 'cause there's more
blood
They'll have to cut it off, moaned Coffin.
No, they won't. Don't you let 'em! Now I air a-going to lift you
and carry you to the nearest house. All the boys have run on after the
Yanks.
He took up his sergeant and moved off with an easy step. Coffin
uttered a short and piteous moaning like a child. They presently met a
number of grey soldiers. We've druv themwe've druv them! The 37th's
down there. Just listen to Rockbridge!Who've you got there?
Sergeant Coffin, said Billy. He air right badly hurt! He was the
first man at the gun. He fired, an' then he got hold of the sponge
staff and laid about himhe was that gallant. The men ought to 'lect
him back. He sure did well.
The nearest house flung open its doors. Bring him right in
hereoh, poor soldier! Right here in the best room!Run, Maria, and
turn down the bed. Oh, poor boy! He looks like my Robert down at
Richmond! This wayget a little blackberry wine, Betty, and the
scissors and my roll of lint
Billy laid him on the bed in the best room. Thar now! You air all
right. The doctor'll come just as soon as I can find him, 'n' then I'll
get back to the boysWaitI didn't hear, I'll put my ear down. You
couldn't lose all that blood and not be awful weak
I'd be ashamed to report now! whispered Coffin. Maybe I was
wrong
Sho! said Billy. We're all wrong more or less. Here, darn you,
drink your wine, and stop bothering!
Across the Shenandoah Stonewall Jackson and the 37th Virginia came
down from the heights with the impetuosity of a torrent. Behind them
poured other grey troops. On the cliff heads Poague and Carpenter came
into position and began with grape and canister. The blue Parrott, full
before the bridge mouth, menacing the lane within, answered with a
shriek of shells. The 37th and Jackson left the road, plunged down the
ragged slope of grass and vines, and came obliquely toward the dark
tunnel. Jackson and Little Sorrel had slipped into their battle aspect.
You would have said that every auburn hair of the general's head and
beard was a vital thing. His eyes glowed as though there were lamps
behind, and his voice rose like a trumpet of promise and doom.
Halt!Aim at the gunners!Fire! Fix bayonets! Charge!
The 37th rushed in column through the bridge. The blue cavalry fired
one volley. The unwounded among the blue artillerymen strove to plant a
shell within the dusky lane. But most of the gunners were down, or the
fuse was wrong. The grey torrent leaped out of the tunnel and upon the
gun. They took it and turned it against the horsemen. The blue cavalry
fled. On the bluff heads above the river three grey batteries came into
action. The 37th Virginia began to sweep the streets of Port Republic.
The blue cavalry, leaving the guns, leaving prisoners they had taken
and their wounded, turned alike from the upper end of the village and
rode, pell-mell, for the South Fork. One and all they splashed through,
not now in covering mist, but in hot sunshine, the 37th volleying at
their heels and from the bluffs above the Shenandoah, Poague and
Carpenter and Wooding strewing their path with grape and canister.
A mile or two in the deep woods they met Shields's infantry advance.
There followed a movement toward the townfutile enough, for as the
vanguard approached, the Confederate batteries across the river
limbered up, trotted or galloped to other positions on the green bluff
heads, and trained the guns on the ground between Port Republic and the
head of the Federal column. Winder's brigade came also and took
position on the heights commanding Lewiston, and Taliaferro's swung
across the bridge and formed upon the townward side of South Fork.
Shields halted. All day he halted, listening to the guns at Cross Keys.
Sitting Little Sorrel at the northern end of the bridge, Stonewall
Jackson watched Taliaferro's men break step and cross. A staff officer
ventured to inquire what the general thought General Shields would do.
I think, sir, that he will stay where he is.
All day, sir?
All day.
He has ten thousand men. Will he not try to attack?
No, sir! No! He cannot do it. I should tear him to pieces.
A heavy sound came into being. The staff officer swung round on his
horse. Listen, sir!
Yes. Artillery firing to the northwest. Fremont will act without
Shields.
A courier came at a gallop. General Ewell's compliments, sir, and
the battle of Cross Keys is beginning.
Good! good! My compliments to General Ewell, and I expect him to
win it.
CHAPTER XXVII. JUDITH AND STAFFORD
The cortege bearing Ashby to his grave wound up and up to the pass
in the Blue Ridge. At the top it halted. The ambulance rested beside a
grey boulder, while the cavalry escort dismounted and let the horses
crop the sweet mountain grass. Below them, to the east, rolled Piedmont
Virginia; below them to the west lay the great Valley whence they had
come. As they rested they heard the cannon of Cross Keys, and with a
glass made out the battle smoke.
For an hour they gazed and listened, anxious and eager; then the
horsemen remounted, the ambulance moved from the boulder, and all went
slowly down the long loops of road. Down and down they wound, from the
cool, blowing air of the heights into the warm June region of red
roads, shady trees and clear streams, tall wheat and ripening cherries,
old houses and gardens. They were moving toward the Virginia Central,
toward Meechum's Station.
A courier had ridden far in advance. At Meechum's was a little crowd
of country people. They're coming! That's an ambulance!Is he in the
ambulance? Everybody take off their hats. Is that his horse behind?
Yes, it is a horse that he sometimes rode, but the three stallions were
killed. How mournful they come! Albert Sidney Johnston is dead, and Old
Joe may die, he is so badly hurtand Bee is dead, and Ashby is dead.
Three women got out of an old carryall. One of you men come help us
lift the flowers! We were up at dawn and gathered all there were
The train from Staunton came inbox cars and a passenger coach. The
coffin, made at Port Republic, was lifted from the ambulance, out of a
bed of fading flowers. It was wrapped in the battle-flag. The crowd
bowed its head. An old minister lifted trembling hand. Godthis Thy
servant! Godthis Thy servant! The three women brought their lilies,
their great sprays of citron aloes. The coffin was placed in the aisle
of the passenger coach, and four officers followed as its guard. The
escort was slight. Never were there many men spared for these duties.
The dead would have been the first to speak against it. Every man in
life was needed at the front. The dozen troopers stalled their horses
in two of the box cars and themselves took possession of a third. The
bell rang, slowly and tollingly. The train moved toward
Charlottesville, and the little crowd of country folk was left in the
June sunshine with the empty ambulance. In the gold afternoon, the bell
slowly ringing, the train crept into Charlottesville.
In this town, convenient for hospitals and stores, midway between
Richmond and the Valley, a halting place for troops moving east and
west, there were soldiers enough for a soldier's escort to his resting
place. The concourse at the station was large, and a long train
followed the bier of the dead general out through the town to the
University of Virginia, and the graveyard beyond.
There were no students now at the University. In the white-pillared
rotunda surgeons held council and divided supplies. In the ranges,
where were the cell-like students' rooms, and in the white-pillared
professors' houses, lay the sick and wounded. From room to room,
between the pillars, moved the nursing women. To-day the rotunda was
cleared. Surgeons and nurses snatched one half-hour, and, with the
families from the professors' houses, and the men about the place and
the servants, gathered upon the rotunda steps, or upon the surrounding
grassy slopes, to watch the return of an old student. It was not long
before they heard the Dead March.
For an hour the body lay between the white columns before the
rotunda that Jefferson had built. Soldiers and civilians, women and
children, passing before the bier, looked upon the marble face and the
hand that clasped the sword. Then, toward sunset, the coffin lid was
closed, the bearers took the coffin up, the Dead March began again, and
all moved toward the graveyard.
Dusk gathered, soft and warm, and filled with fireflies. The
Greenwood carriage, with the three sisters and Miss Lucy, drew slowly
through the scented air up to the dim old house. Julius opened the
door. The ladies stepped out, and in silence went up the steps. Molly
had been crying. The little handkerchief which she dropped, and which
was restored to her by Julius, was quite wet.
Julius, closing the carriage door, looked after the climbing
figures: Fo' de Lawd, you useter could hear dem laughin' befo' dey got
to de big oaks, and when dey outer de kerriage an' went up de steps dey
was chatterin' lak de birds at daybreak! An' now I heah dem sighin' an'
Miss Molly's handkerchief ez wet ez ef 't was in de washtub! De ol'
times is evaporated.
Dat sholy so, agreed Isham, from the box. Des look at me
er-drivin' horses dat once I'd er scorned to tech!An' all de worl'
er-mournin'. Graveyards gitting full an' ginerals lyin' daid. What de
use of dis heah war, anyhow? W'ite folk ought ter hab more sence.
In the Greenwood dining-room they sat at table in silence, scarcely
touching Car'line's supper, but in the parlour afterward Judith turned
at bay. Even Aunt Lucyof all people in the world! Aunt Lucy, if you
do not smile this instant, I hope all the Greenwood shepherdesses will
step from out the roses and disown you! And Unity, if you don't play,
sing, look cheerful, my heart will break! Who calls it loss this
afternoon? He left a thought of him that will guide men on! Who doubts
that to-morrow morning we shall hear that Cross Keys was won? Oh, I
know that you are thinking most of General Ashby!but I am thinking
most of Cross Keys!
Judith, Judith, you are the strongest of us all
Judith, darling; nothing's going to hurt Richard! I just feel it
Hush, Molly! Judith's not afraid.
No. I am not afraid. I think the cannon have stopped at Cross Keys,
and that they are resting on the field.Now, for us women. I do not
think that we do badly now. We serve all day and half the night, and we
keep up the general heart. I think that if in any old romance we read
of women like the women of the South in this war we would say, 'Those
women were heroic.' We have been at war for a year and two months. I
see no end of it. It is a desert, and no one knows how wide it is. We
may travel for years. Beside every marching soldier, there marches
invisible a woman soldier too. We are in the field as they are in the
field, and doing our part. Nowe have not done at all badly, but now
let us give it all! There is a plane where every fibre is heroic. Let
us draw to full height, lift eyes, and travel boldly! We have to cross
the desert, but from the desert one sees all the stars! Let us be too
wise for such another drooping hour! She came and kissed her aunt, and
clung to her. I wasn't scolding, Aunt Lucy! How could I? But to-night
I simply have to be strong. I have to look at the stars, for the desert
is full of terrible shapes. Some one said that the battle with Shields
may be fought to-morrow. I have to look at the stars. She lifted
herself. We finished 'Villette,' didn't we?Oh, yes! I didn't like
the ending. Well, let us begin 'Mansfield Park'Molly, have you seen
my knitting?
Having with his fellows of the escort from Port Republic seen the
earth heaped over the dead cavalry leader, Maury Stafford lay that
night in Charlottesville at an old friend's house. He slept little; the
friend heard him walking up and down in the night. By nine in the
morning he was at the University. Miss Cary? She'll be here in about
half an hour. If you'll wait
I'll wait, said Stafford. He sat down beneath an elm and, with his
eyes upon the road by which must approach the Greenwood carriage,
waited the half-hour. It passed; the carriage drew up and Judith
stepped from it. Her eyes rested upon him with a quiet friendliness. He
had been her suitor; but he was so no longer. Months ago he had his
answer. All the agitation, the strong, controlling interest of his
world must, perforce, have made him forget. She touched his hand. I
saw you yesterday afternoon. I did not know if you had ridden back
No. I shall be kept here until to-morrow. Will you be Sister of
Mercy all day?
I go home to-day about four o'clock.
If I ride over at five may I see you?
Yes, if you wish. I must go nowI am late. Is it true that we won
the battle yesterday? Tell me
We do not know the details yet. It seems that only Ewell's division
was engaged. Trimble's brigade suffered heavily, but it was largely an
artillery battle. I saw a copy of General Jackson's characteristic
telegram to Richmond. 'God gave us the victory to-day at Cross
Keys.'Fremont has drawn off to Harrisonburg. There is a rumour of a
battle to-day with Shields.
He thought that afternoon, as he passed through the road gates and
into the drive between the oaks, that he had never seen the Greenwood
place look so fair. The sun was low and there were shadows, but where
the light rays touched, all lay mellow and warm, golden and gay and
sweet. On the porch he found Unity, sitting with her guitar, singing to
a ragged grey youth, thin and pale, with big hollow eyes. She smiled
and put out her hand. Judith said you were coming. She will be down in
a moment. Major StaffordCaptain HowardGo on singing? Very well,
Soft o'er the fountain, lingering falls the southern moon
Why is it that convalescent soldiers want the very most sentimental
ditties that can be sung?
Far o'er the mountain, breaks the day too soon!
I know that string is going to snap presently! Then where would I
buy guitar strings in a land without a port?
Nita! Juanita! Ask thy soul if we should part
Nita! Juanita! Lean thou on my heart!
Judith came down in a soft old muslin, pale violet, open at the
throat. It went well with that warm column, with the clear beauty of
her face and her dark liquid eyes. She had a scarf in her hand; it
chanced to be the long piece of black lace that Stafford remembered her
wearing that April night.It is a lovely evening. Suppose we walk.
There was a path through the flower garden, down a slope of grass,
across a streamlet in a meadow, then gently up through an ancient wood,
and more steeply to the top of a green hilla hill of hills from which
to watch the sunset. Stafford unlatched the flower-garden gate. The
roses are blooming as though there were no war! said Judith. Look at
George the Fourth and the Seven Sisters and my old Giant of Battle!
Sometimes you are like one flower, answered Stafford, and
sometimes like another. To-day, in that dress, you are like
heliotrope.
Judith wondered. Is it wise to go onif he has forgotten so little
as that? She spoke aloud. I have hardly been in the garden for days.
Suppose we rest on the arbour steps and talk? There is so much I want
to know about the Valley
Stafford looked pleadingly. No, no! let us go the old path and see
the sunset over Greenwood. Always when I ride from here I say to
myself, 'I may never see this place again!'
They walked on between the box. The box has not been clipped this
year. I do not know why, except that all things go unpruned. The garden
itself may go back to wilderness.
You have noticed that? It is always so in times like these. We
leave the artificial. Things have a hardier growthfeeling breaks its
bankscustom is not listened to
It is not so bad as that! said Judith, smiling. And we will not
really let the box grow out of all proportion!Now tell me of the
Valley.
They left the garden and dipped into the green meadow. Stafford
talked of battles and marches, but he spoke in a monotone, distrait and
careless, as of a day-dreaming scholar reciting his lesson. Such as it
was, the recital lasted across the meadow, into the wood, yet lit by
yellow light, a place itself for day dreams. No. I did not see him
fall. He was leading an infantry regiment. He was happy in his death, I
think. One whom the gods loved.Wait! your scarf has caught.
He loosed it from the branch. She lifted the lace, put it over her
head, and held it with her slender hand beneath her chin. He looked at
her, and his breath came sharply. A shaft of light, deeply gold, struck
across the woodland path. He stood within it, on slightly rising ground
that lifted him above her. The quality of the light gave him a singular
aspect. He looked a visitant from another world, a worn spirit, of fine
temper, but somewhat haggard, somewhat stained. Lines came into
Judith's brow. She stepped more quickly, and they passed from out the
wood to a bare hillside, grass and field flowers to the summit. The
little path that zigzagged upward was not wide enough for two. He moved
through the grass and flowers beside her, a little higher still, and
between her and the sun. His figure was dark; no longer lighted as it
was in the wood. Judith sighed inwardly. I am so tired that I am
fanciful. I should not have come. She talked on. When we were
children and read 'Pilgrim's Progress' Unity and I named this the Hill
Difficulty. And we named the Blue Ridge the Delectable MountainsWar
puts a stop to reading.
Yes. The Hill Difficulty! On the other side was the Valley of
Humiliation, was it not?
Yes: where Christian met Apollyon. We are nearly up, and the sunset
will be beautiful.
At the top, around a solitary tree, had been built a bench. The two
sat down. The sun was sinking behind the Blue Ridge. Above the
mountains sailed a fleet of little clouds, in a sea of pale gold shut
in by purple headlands. Here and there on the earth the yellow light
lingered. Judith sat with her head thrown back against the bark of the
tree, her eyes upon the long purple coast and the golden sea. Stafford,
his sword drawn forward, rested his clasped hands upon the hilt and his
cheek on his hands. Are they not like the Delectable Mountains? she
said. Almost you can see the shepherds and the flockshear the
pilgrims singing. Look where that shaft of light is striking!
There is heliotrope all around me, he answered. I see nothing,
know nothing but that!
You do very wrongly, she said. You pain me and you anger me!
Judith! Judith! I cannot help it. If the wildest tempest were
blowing about this hilltop, a leaf upon this tree might strive and
strive to cling to the bough, to remain with its larger selfyet would
it be twisted off and carried whither the wind willed! My passion is
that tempest and my soul is that leaf.
It is more than a year since first I told you that I could not
return your feeling. Last Octoberthat day we rode to the old millI
told you so again, and told you that if we were to remain friends it
could only be on condition that you accepted the truth as truth and let
the storm you speak of die! You promised
Even pale friendship, JudithI wanted that!
If you wish it still, all talk like this must cease. After October
I thought it was quite over. All through the winter those gay,
wonderful letters that you wrote kept us up at Greenwood
I could hear from you only on those terms. I kept them until they,
too, were of no use
When I wrote to you last month
I knew of your happinessbefore you wrote. I learned it from one
nearly concerned. II He put his hand to his throat as if he were
choking, arose, and walked a few paces and came back. It was over
there near Gordonsvilleunder a sunset sky much like this. What did I
do that night? I have a memory of all the hours of blackness that men
have ever passed, lying under forest trees with their faces against the
earth. You see me standing here, but I tell you my face is against the
earth, at your feet
It is madness! said Judith. You see not me, but a goddess of your
own making. It is a chain of the imagination. Break it! True goddesses
do not wish such loveat least, true women do not!
I cannot break it. It is too strong. Sometimes I wish to break it,
sometimes not.
Judith rose. Let us go. The sun is down.
She took the narrow path and he walked beside and above her as
before. Darker crimson had come into the west, but the earth beneath
had yet a glow and warmth. They took a path which led, not by way of
the wood, but by the old Greenwood graveyard, the burying-place of the
Carys. At the foot of the lone tree hill they came again side by side,
and so mounted the next low rise of ground. Forgive me, said
Stafford. I have angered you. I am very wretched. Forgive me.
They were beside the low graveyard wall. She turned, leaning against
it. There were tears in her eyes. You all come, and you go away, and
the next day brings news that such and such an one is dead! With the
sound of Death's wings always in the air, how can any oneI do not
wish to be angry. If you choose we will talk like friendslike a man
and a woman of the South. If you do not, I can but shut my ears and
hasten home and henceforth be too wise to give you opportunity
I go back to the front to-morrow. Be patient with me these few
minutes. And I, JudithI will cling with all my might to the tree
A touch like sunlight came upon him of his old fine grace, charming,
light, and strong. I won't let go! How lovely it is, and stillthe
elm tops dreaming! And beyond that gold sky and the mountains all the
fighting! Let us go through the graveyard. It is so stilland all
their troubles are over.
Within the graveyard, too, was an old bench around an elm. A few
minutes only! pleaded Stafford. Presently I must ride back to
townand in the morning I return to the Valley. They sat down. Before
them was a flat tombstone sunk in ivy, a white rose at the head.
Stafford, leaning forward, drew aside with the point of his scabbard
the dark sprays that mantled the graved coat of arms.
LUDWELL CARY
In part I sleep. I wake within the whole.
He let the ivy swing back. I have seen many die this year who
wished to live. If death were forgetfulness! I do not believe it. I
shall persist, and still feel the blowing wind
Listen to the cow-bells! said Judith. There shows the evening
star.
Can a woman know what love is? This envelope of the soulIf I
could but tear it! Judith, Judith! Power and longing grow in the very
air I breathe!will to move the universe if thereby I might gain
you!your presence always with me in waves of light and sound! and you
cannot truly see nor hear me! Could you do so, deep would surely answer
deep!
Do you not know, she said clearly, that I love Richard Cleave?
You do not attract me. You repel me. There are many souls and many
deeps, and the ocean to which I answer knows not your quarter of the
universe!
Do you love him so? I will work him harm if I can!
She rose. I have been patient long enough.No! not with me, if you
please! I will go alone. Let me pass, Major Stafford!
She was gone, over the dark trailing periwinkle, through the little
gate canopied with honeysuckle. For a minute he stayed beneath the
elms, calling himself fool and treble fool; then he followed, though at
a little distance. She went before him, in her pale violet, through the
gathering dusk, unlatched for herself the garden gate and passed into
the shadow of the box. A few moments later he, too, entered the scented
alley and saw her waiting for him at the gate that gave upon the lawn.
He joined her, and they moved without speaking to the house.
They found the family gathered on the porch, an old horse waiting on
the gravel below, and an elderly, plain man, a neighbouring farmer,
standing halfway up the steps. He was speaking excitedly. Molly
beckoned from above. Oh, Judith, it's news of the battle
Yes'm, said the farmer. Straight from Stauntontelegram to the
colonel in Charlottesville. 'Big fighting at Port Republic. Jackson
whipped Shields. Stonewall Brigade suffered heavily.'No'mThat
was all. We won't hear details till to-morrow.My boy John's in the
Stonewall, you knowbut Lord! John always was a keerful fellow! I
reckon he's safe enoughbut I ain't going to tell his mother about the
battle till to-morrow; she might as well have her sleep.War's
pernicious hard on mothers. I reckon we'll see the bulletin to-morrow.
He was gone, riding in a sturdy, elderly fashion toward his home in
a cleft of the hills. Major Stafford cannot stay to supper, Aunt
Lucy, said Judith clearly. Is that Julius in the hall? Tell one of
the boys to bring Major Stafford's horse around.
As she spoke she turned and went into the house. The group upon the
porch heard her step upon the polished stair. Unity proceeded to make
conversation. A negro brought the horse around. Judith did not return.
Stafford, still and handsome, courteous and self-possessed, left
farewell for her, said good-bye to the other Greenwood ladies, mounted
and rode away. Unity, sitting watching him unlatch the lower gate and
pass out upon the road, hummed a line
Nita! Juanita! Ask thy soul if we should part!
I have a curious feeling about that man, said Miss Lucy, and yet
it is the rarest thing that I distrust anybody!What is it, Molly?
It's no use saying that I romance, said Molly, for I don't. And
when Mr. Hodge said 'the Stonewall Brigade suffered heavily' he looked
glad
Who looked glad?
Major Stafford. It's no use looking incredulous, for he did! There
was the most curious light came into his face. And Judith saw it
MollyMolly
She did! You know how Edward looks when he's white-hot angrystill
and Greek looking? Well, Judith looked like that. And she and Major
Stafford crossed looks, and it was like crossed swords. And then she
sent for his horse and went away, upstairs to her room. She's up there
now praying for the Stonewall Brigade and for Richard.
Molly, you're uncanny! said Unity. Oh me! Love and HateNorth
and Southand we'll not have the bulletin until to-morrow
Miss Lucy rose. I am going upstairs to Judith and tell her that I
simply know Richard is safe. There are too many broken love stories in
the world, and the Carys have had more than their share.
XXVIII
THE LONGEST WAY ROUND
Having, in a month and ten days, marched four hundred miles, fought
four pitched battles and a whole rosary of skirmishes, made of naught
the operations of four armies, threatened its enemy's capital and
relieved its own, the Army of the Valley wound upward toward the Blue
Ridge from the field of Port Republic. It had attended Shields some
distance down the Luray road. Drive them!drive them! had said
Jackson. It had driven them then, turning on its steps it had passed
again the battlefield. Fremont's army, darkening the heights upon the
further side of that river of burned bridges, looked impotently on.
Fremont shelled the meadow and the wheat fields over which ambulances
and surgeons were yet moving, on which yet lay his own wounded, but his
shells could not reach the marching foe. Brigade after brigade, van,
main and rear, cavalry, infantry, artillery, quartermaster, commissary
and ordnance trains, all disappeared in the climbing forest. A cold and
chilling rain came on; night fell, and a drifting mist hid the Army of
the Valley. The next morning Fremont withdrew down the Valley toward
Strasburg. Shields tarried at Luray, and the order from Washington
directing McDowell to make at once his long delayed junction with
McClellan upon the Chickahominy was rescinded.
The rear guard of the Army of the Valley buried the dead of Port
Republic in trenches, and then it, too, vanished. To the last wagon
wheel, to the last poor straggler, all was gone. It was an idiosyncrasy
of Jackson's to gather and take with him every filing. He travelled
like a magnet; all that belonged to him went with him. Long after dark,
high on the mountain-side, an aide appeared in the rain, facing the
head of the rear brigade.
The general says have you brought off every inch of the captured
guns?
Tell him all but one unserviceable caisson. We did not have horses
for that.
The aide galloped forward, reported, turned, and galloped back.
General Jackson says, sir, that if it takes every horse in your
command, that caisson is to be brought up before daylight.
The other swore. All those milesdark and raining!Lieutenant
Parke!Something told me I'd better do it in the first place!
Brigade after brigade the Army of the Valley climbed the Blue Ridge.
At first the rain had been welcome, so weary and heated were the men.
But it never took long for the novelty of rain to wear off. Wet and
silent the troops climbed through the darkness. They had won a victory;
they were going to win others. Old Jack was as great a general as
Napoleon, and two or three hours ago it had seemed possible to his
soldiers that history might rank them with the Old Guard. But the rain
was chill and the night mournfully dark. When had they eaten? They
hardly remembered, and it was an effort to lift one leg after the
other. Numbers of men were dropping with sleep. All shivered; all felt
the reaction. Back on the plain by the river lay in trenches some
hundreds of their comrades. In the rear toiled upwards ambulances
filled with wounded. There were not ambulances enough; the wounded rode
wherever there was room in any wagon. The less badly hurt sat or lay,
dully suffering, on caissons. All as they toiled upward had visions of
the field behind them. It had not been a great battlefield, as to
extent and numbers engaged, but a horrible one. The height where the
six guns had been, the gun which the Louisianians tookthe old
charcoal kiln where the guns had been planted, the ground around, the
side of the ravinethese made an ugly sight between eyelid and ball!
So many dead horses!eighty of them in one placeone standing upright
where he had reared and, dying, had been caught and propped by a
blasted pine. So many dead men, grey and blue, lying as in pattern! And
then the plain beneath, and the Stonewall's desperate fight, and the
battle in the wheat! The Federal cannon had sheared the heads from the
men. The soldiers, mounting through the darkness in the whistling wind
and rain, saw again these headless bodies. One only, the body of a
young soldier of the 2d Virginia, a brother of the colonel of the 65th,
the army was carrying with it. The brother, wounded himself, had begged
the body. At the first village where the army halted, he would get a
coffin and lay the boy in a grave he could mark. His mother and sister
could visit it then. Permission was given. It lay now in an ambulance,
covered with a flag. Cleave lay upon the straw beside it, his arm flung
across the breast. At its feet sat a dark and mournful figure, old
Tullius with his chin propped on his knees.
The rain came down, fine as needles' points and cold. Somewhere far
below a mountain stream was rushing, and in the darkness the wind was
sighing. The road wound higher. The lead horses, drawing a gun, stepped
too near the edge of the road. The wet earth gave way. The unfortunate
brutes plunged, struggled, went down and over the embankment, dragging
the wheel horses after them. Gun, carriage, and caisson followed. The
echoes awoke dismally. The infantry, climbing above, looked down the
far wooded slopes, but incuriously. The infantry was tired, cold, and
famished; it was not interested in artillery accidents. Perhaps at
times the Old Guard had felt thus, with a sick and cold depression,
kibed spirits as well as heels, empty of enthusiasm as of food,
resolution lost somewhere in the darkness, sonority gone even from
l'empereur and la France. Slowly, amid drizzling rain,
brigade after brigade made Brown's Gap and bivouacked within the
dripping forest.
Morning brought a change. The rain yet fell, but the army was
recovering from the battlefield. It took not long, nowadays, to
recover. The army was learning to let the past drop into the abyss and
not to listen for the echoes. It seemed a long time that the country
had been at war, and each day's events drove across and hid the event
of the day before. Speculation as to the morrow remained, but even this
hung loosely upon the Army of the Valley. Wonderment as to the next
move partook less of deep anxiety than of the tantalization of guessing
at a riddle with the answer always just eluding you. The army guessed
and guessedbothering with the riddle made its chief occupation while
it rested for two days and nights, beside smoky camp-fires, in a cold
June rain, in the cramped area of Brown's Gap; but so assured was it
that Old Jack knew the proper answer, and would give it in his own good
time, that the guessing had little fretfulness or edge of temper. By
now, officers and men, the confidence was implicit. Tell General
Jackson that we will go wherever he wishes us to go, and do whatever he
wishes us to do.
On the morning of the twelfth at early dawn the army found itself
again in column. The rain had ceased, the clouds were gone, presently
up rose the sun. The army turned its back upon the sun; the army went
down the western side of the mountains, down again into the great
Valley. The men who had guessed Richmond were crestfallen. They who
had stoutly held that Old Jack had mounted to this eyrie merely the
better again to swoop down upon Fremont, Shields, or Banks crowed
triumphantly. Knew it Tuesday, when the ambulances obliqued at the top
and went on down toward Staunton! He sends his wounded in front, he
never leaves them behind! Knew it wasn't Richmond!
Brigade by brigade the army wound down the mountain, passed below
Port Republic, and came into a lovely verdurous country, soft green
grass and stately trees set well apart. Here it rested five days, and
here the commanding general received letters from Lee.
Your recent successes have been the cause of the liveliest
joy in
this army as well as in the country. The admiration excited by
your
skill and boldness has been constantly mingled with solicitude
for
your situation. The practicability of reinforcing you has been
the
subject of the gravest consideration. It has been determined to
do
so at the expense of weakening this army. Brigadier-General
Lawton
with six regiments from Georgia is on his way to you, and
Brigadier-General Whiting with eight veteran regiments leaves
here
to-day. The object is to enable you to crush the forces opposed
to
you. Leave your enfeebled troops to watch the country and guard
the
passes covered by your artillery and cavalry, and with your
main
body, including Ewell's Division and Lawton's and Whiting's
commands, move rapidly to Ashland, by rail or otherwise as you
find
most advantageous, and sweep down between the Chickahominy and
the
Pamunkey, cutting up the enemy's communications, etc., while
this
army attacks McClellan in front. He will then, I think, be
forced to
come out of his entrenchments where he is strongly posted on
the
Chickahominy, and apparently preparing to move by gradual
approaches
on Richmond.
And of a slightly earlier date.
Should there be nothing requiring your attention in the
Valley, so
as to prevent your leaving it in a few days, and you can make
arrangements to deceive the enemy and impress him with the idea
of
your presence, please let me know, that you may unite at the
decisive moment with the army near Richmond.
It may be safely assumed that these directions could have been given
to no man more scrupulously truthful in the least of his personal
relations, and to no commander in war more gifted in all that pertains
to deceiving the enemy and impressing him with an idea of your
presence. Infantry and artillery, the Army of the Valley rested at Mt.
Meridian under noble trees. The cavalry moved to Harrisonburg. Munford
had succeeded Ashby in command, and Munford came to take his orders
from his general. He found him with the dictionary, the Bible, the
Maxims, and a lemon.
You will draw a cordon quite across, north of Harrisonburg. See,
from here to here. He drew a map toward him and touched two points
with a strong, brown finger.
Very well, sir.
You will arrest all travellers up and down the Valley. None is to
pass, going north or going south.
Very well, sir.
I wish the cavalry outposts to have no communication with the
infantry. If they know nothing of the latter's movements they cannot
accidentally transmit information. You will give this order, and you
will be held accountable for its non-obedience.
Very well, sir.
You will proceed to act with boldness masking caution. Press the
outposts of the enemy and, if possible, drive him still further
northward. He broke off and sucked the lemon.
Very well, sir.
Create in him the impression that you are strongly supported. Drive
it into his mind that I am about to advance against him. General Lee is
sending reinforcements from Richmond. I do not object to his knowing
this, nor to his having an exaggerated idea of their number. You will
regard these instructions as important.
I will do my best, sir.
Good, good! That is all, colonel.
Munford returned to Harrisonburg, drew his cordon across the Valley,
and pushed his outposts twelve miles to the northward. Here they
encountered a Federal flag of truce, an officer with several surgeons,
and a demand from Fremont for the release of his wounded men. The
outposts passed the embassy on to Munford's headquarters at
Harrisonburg. That cavalryman stated that he would take pleasure in
forwarding General Fremont's demand to General Jackson. Far? Oh, no!
it is not far. In the mean time it was hoped that the Federal officers
would find such and such a room comfortable lodging. They found it so,
discovered, too, that it was next to Munford's own quarters, and that
the wall between was thinnothing more, indeed, than a slight
partition. An hour or two later the Federal officers, sitting quietly,
heard the Confederate cavalryman enter, ask for writing materials,
demand of an aide if the courier had yet returned from General Jackson,
place himself at a table and fall to writing. One of the blue soldiers
tiptoed to the wall, found a chair conveniently placed and sat down
with his ear to the boards. For five minutes, scratch, scratch! went
Munford's pen. At the expiration of this time there was heard in the
hall without a jingling of spurs and a clanking of a sabre. The
scratching ceased; the pen was evidently suspended. Come in! The
listeners in the next room heard more jingling, a heavy entrance,
Munford's voice again.
Very good, Gilmer. What did the general say?
He says, sir, that General Fremont is to be told that our surgeons
will continue to attend their wounded. As we are not monsters they will
be as carefully attended to as are our own. The only lack in the matter
will be medicines and anaesthetics.
Very good, Gilmer, I will so report to the officer in charge of the
flag of truce.Well, what is it, man? You look as though you were
bursting with news!
I am, sir! Whiting, and Hood, and Lawton, and the Lord knows who
besides, are coming over the Rockfish Gap! I saw them with my own eyes
on the Staunton road. About fifteen thousand, I reckon, of Lee's best.
Gorgeous batteriesgorgeous troopsHood's Texansthousands of
Georgiansall of them playing 'Dixie,' and hurrahing, and asking
everybody they see to point out Jackson!No, sir, I'm not dreaming! I
know we thought that they couldn't get here for several days yetbut
here they are! Good Lord! I wouldn't, for a pretty, miss the hunting
down the Valley!
The blue soldiers heard Munford and the courier go out. An hour
later they were conducted to the colonel's presence. I am sorry,
major, but General Jackson declines acceding to General Fremont's
request. He says
The party with the flag of truce went back to Fremont. They went
like Lieutenant Gilmer, bursting with news. The next day Munford
pushed his advance to New Market. Fremont promptly broke up his camp,
retired to Strasburg, and began to throw up fortifications. His spies
brought bewilderingly conflicting reports. A deserter, who a little
later deserted back again, confided to him that Stonewall Jackson was
simply another Cromwell; that he was making his soldiers into
Ironsides: that they were Presbyterian to a man, and believed that God
Almighty had planned this campaign and sent Jackson to execute it; that
hethe deserterbeing of cavalier descent, couldn't stand it and got
out. There was an affair of outposts, in which several prisoners were
taken. These acknowledged that a very large force of cavalry occupied
Harrisonburg, and that Jackson was close behind, having rebuilt the
bridge at Fort Republic across the Shenandoah, and advanced by the
Keezletown road. An old negro shambled one morning into the lines.
Yaas, sah, dat's de truf! I ain' moughty unlike ol' Brer Eel. I
cert'ny slipped t'roo dat 'cordion Gineral Jackson am er stretchin'!
How many on de oder side, sah? 'Bout er half er million. Fremont
telegraphed and wrote to Washington. The condition of affairs here
imperatively requires that some position be immediately made strong
enough to be maintained. Reinforcements should be sent here without an
hour's delay. Whether from Richmond or elsewhere, forces of the enemy
are certainly coming into this region. Casualties have reduced my
force. The small corps scattered about the country are exposed to
sudden attack by greatly superior force of an enemy to whom intimate
knowledge of country and universal friendship of inhabitants give the
advantage of rapidity and secrecy of movements. I respectfully submit
this representation to the President, taking it for granted that it is
the duty of his generals to offer for his consideration such
impressions as are made by knowledge gained in operations on the
ground.
South of the impenetrable grey curtain stretched across the Valley
began a curious series of moves. A number of Federal prisoners on their
way from Port Republic to Richmond, saw pass them three veteran
brigades. The guards were good-naturedly communicative. Who are those?
Those are Whiting and Hood and Lawton on their way to reinforce
Stonewall. If we didn't have to leave this railroad you might see
Longstreet's Divisionit's just behind. How can Lee spare it?Oh,
Beauregard's up from the South to take its place! The prisoners
arrived in Richmond. To their surprise and gratification the officers
found themselves paroled, and that at once. They had a glimpse of an
imposing review; they passed, under escort, lines of entrenchments,
batteries, and troops; their passage northward to McDowell's lines at
Fredericksburg was facilitated. In a remarkably short space of time
they were in Washington, insisting that Longstreet had gone to the
Valley, and that Beauregard was up from the Souththey had an
impression that in that glimpse of a big review they had seen him!
Certainly they had seen somebody who looked as though his name ought to
be Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard!
In the mean time Hood, Lawton, and Whiting actually arrived in the
Valley. They came into Staunton, in good order, veteran troops, ready
to march against Shields or Fremont or Banks or Sigel, to keep the
Valley or to proceed against Washington, quite as Stonewall Jackson
should desire! Seven thousand troops, Georgia, Texas, North Carolina,
and Virginia, lean, bronzed, growing ragged, tall men, with eyes set
well apart, good marchers, good fighters, good lovers, and good
haters.There suddenly appeared before them on the pike at Staunton
Stonewall Jackson, ridden through the night from Mt. Meridian.
The three brigades paraded. Jackson rode up and down the line. His
fame had mounted high. To do with a few men and at a little cost what,
by all the rules of war, should have involved strong armies and much
bloodshedthat took a generalship for which the world was beginning to
give him credit. With Cross Keys and Port Republic began that sustained
enthusiasm which accompanied him to the end. Now, on the march and on
the battlefield, when he passed his men cheered him wildly, and
throughout the South the eyes of men and women kindled at his name. At
Staunton the reinforcing troops, the greater number of whom saw him for
the first time, shouted for him and woke the echoes. Grave and
unsmiling, he lifted the forage cap, touched Little Sorrel with the
spur and went on by. It is not to be doubted that he was ambitious, and
it lies not in ambitious man, no, nor in man of any type, to feel no
joy in such a cry of recognition! If he felt it, however, he did not
evince it. He only jerked his hand into the air and went by.
Two hours later he rode back to Mt. Meridian. The three brigades
under orders to follow, stayed only to cook a day's rations and to
repack their wagons. Their certainty was absolute. We will join the
Army of the Valley wherever it may be. Then we will march
against Shields or Fremont, or maybe against Banks or Sigel.
Breaking camp in the afternoon, they moved down the pike, through a
country marvellous to the Georgians and Texans. Sunset came, and still
they marched; dark, and still they marched; midnight, and, extremely
weary, they halted in a region of hills running up to the stars.
Reveille sounded startlingly soon. The troops had breakfast while the
stars were fading, and found themselves in column on the pike under the
first pink streakings of the dawn. They looked around for the Army of
the Valley. A little to the northeast showed a few light curls of
smoke, such as might be made by picket fires. They fancied, too, that
they heard, from behind the screen of hills, faint bugle-calls, bugle
answering bugle, like the cocks at morn. If it were so, they were thin
and far away, horns of elfland. Evidently the three brigades must
restrain their impatience for an hour or two.
In the upshot it proved that they were not yet to fraternize with
the Army of the Valley. When presently, they marched, it was up
the Valley, back along the pike toward Staunton. The three brigadiers
conferred together. Whiting, the senior, a veteran soldier, staunch and
determined, was angry. Reasonable men should not be treated so! 'You
will start at four, General Whiting, and march until midnight, when you
will bivouac. At early dawn a courier will bring you further
instructions.' Very good! We march and bivouac, and here's the courier.
'The brigades of Whiting, Hood, and Lawton will return to Staunton.
There they will receive further instructions.' Whiting swore. We are
getting a taste of his quality with a vengeance! Very well! very well!
It's all rightif he wins through I'll applaud, toobut, by God! he
oughtn't to treat reasonable men so!Column Forward!
Under the stately trees at Mt. Meridian, in the golden June weather,
the Army of the Valley settled to its satisfaction that it was about to
invade Maryland. Quite an unusual number of straws showed which way the
wind was blowing. Northern news arrived by grapevine, and Northern
papers told the army that was what it was going to do,invade
Maryland and move on Washingtonsixty thousand bloody-minded
rebels!Look here, boys, look here. Multiplication by division! The
Yanks have split each of us into four! Richmond papers, received by
way of Staunton, divulged the fact that troops had been sent to the
Valley, and opined that the other side of Mason and Dixon needed all
the men at home. The engineers received an order to prepare a new and
elaborate series of maps of the Valley. They were not told to say
nothing about it, so presently the army knew that Old Jack was having
every rabbit track and rail fence put down on paper. Poor old Valley!
won't she have a scouring!
The sole question was, when would the operations begin. The foot
cavalry grew tired of verdant meads, June flowers, and warbling birds.
True, there were clear streams and Mr. Commissary Banks's soap, and the
clothes got gloriously washed! Uniforms, too, got cleaned and patched.
Going calling. Must make a show! and shoes were cobbled. (Cartridge
boxes surreptitiously cut to pieces for this.) Morning drills occurred
of course, and camp duties and divine services; but for all these
diversions the army wearied of Mt. Meridian, and wanted to march.
Twenty miles a daytwenty-fiveeven thirty if Old Jack put a point on
it! The foot cavalry drew the line at thirty-five. It had tried this
once, and once was enough! In small clasped diaries, the front leaves
given over to a calendar, a table of weights and measures, a few 1850
census returns, and the list of presidents of the United States,
stopping at James Buchanan, the army recorded that nothing of interest
happened at Mt. Meridian and that the boys were tired of loafing.
How long were they going to stay? The men pestered the company
officers, the company asked the regimental, field asked staff, staff
shook its head and had no idea, a brigadier put the question to
Major-General Ewell and Old Dick made a statement which reached the
drummer boys that evening. We are resting here for just a few days
until all the reinforcements are in, and then we will proceed to beat
up Banks's quarters again about Strasburg and Winchester.
On the morning of the seventeenth there was read a general order.
Camp to be more strictly policed. Regimental and brigade drill ordered.
Bridge to be constructed across the Shenandoah. Chapel to be erected.
Day of fasting and prayer for the success of our arms on the
Mississippi.Why, we are going to stay here forever! The
regimental commanders, walking away from drill, each found himself
summoned to the presence of his brigadier. Good-morning, colonel! Just
received this order. 'Cook two days' rations and pack your wagons. Do
it quietly.'
By evening the troops were in motion, Ewell's leading brigade
standing under arms upon a country road, the red sunset thrown back
from every musket barrel. The brigadier approached Old Dick where he
sat Rifle beneath a locust tree. Might I be told in which direction,
sir
Ewell looked at him with his bright round eyes, bobbed his head and
swore. By God! General Taylor! I do not know whether we are to march
north, south, east, or west, or to march at all! There was shouting
down the line. Either Old Jack or a rabbit! Five minutes, and Jackson
came by. You will march south, General Ewell.
The three brigades of Whiting, Hood, and Lawton, having, like the
King of France, though not with thirty thousand men, marched up the
hill and down again, found at Staunton lines of beautifully shabby
Virginia Central cars, the faithful, rickety engines, the faithful,
overworked, thin-faced railroad men, and a sealed order from General
Jackson. Take the cars and go to Gordonsville. Go at once. The
reinforcements from Lee left the Valley of Virginia without having laid
eyes upon the army they were supposed to strengthen. They had heard its
bugles over the hilltopsthat was all.
The Army of the Valley marched south, and at Waynesboro struck the
road through Rockfish Gap. Moving east through magnificent scenery, it
passed the wall of the Blue Ridge and left for a time the Valley of
Virginia. Cavalry went before the main body, cavalry guarded the rear,
far out on the northern flank rode Munford's troopers. At night picket
duty proved heavy. In the morning, before the bivouacs were left, the
troops were ordered to have no conversation with chance-met people upon
the road. If anybody asks you questions, you are to answer, I don't
know. The troops went on through lovely country, through the June
weather, and they did not know whither they were going. Wandering in
the wilderness! said the men. Good Lord! they wandered in the
wilderness for forty years! Oh, that was Moses! Old Jack'll
double-quick us through on half-rations in three days!
The morning of the nineteenth found the army bivouacked near
Charlottesville. An impression prevailedHeaven knows how or whythat
Banks had also crossed the Blue Ridge, and that the army was about to
move to meet him in Madison County. In reality, it moved to
Gordonsville. Here it found Whiting, Hood, and Lawton come in by train
from Staunton. Now they fraternized, and now the army numbered
twenty-two thousand men. At Gordonsville some hours were spent in
wondering. One of the chaplains was, however, content. The Presbyterian
pastor of the place told him in deep confidence that he had gathered at
headquarters that at early dawn the army would move toward Orange Court
House and Culpeper, thence on to Washington. The army moved at early
dawn, but it was toward Louisa Court House.
Cavalry, artillery, and wagon trains proceeded by the red and heavy
roads, but from Gordonsville on the Virginia Central helped the
infantry as best it might. The cars were few and the engine almost as
overworked as the train men, but the road did its best. The trains
moved back and forth, took up in succession the rear brigade and
forwarded them on the march. The men enjoyed these lifts. They
scrambled aboard, hung out of the window, from the platform and from
roof, encouraged the engine, offered to push the train, and made
slighting remarks on the tameness of the scenery. Not like God's
country, back over the mountains! They yelled encouragement to the
toiling column on the red roads. Step spryer! Your turn next!
Being largely Valley of Virginia Virginians, Louisianians,
Georgians, Texans, and North Carolinians, the army had acquaintance
slight or none with the country through which it was passing.
Gordonsville left behind, unfamiliarity began. What's this county?
What's that place over there? What's that river? Can't be the Potomac,
can it? Naw, 't aint wide enough!Gentlemen, I think it is the
Rappahannock.Go away! it is the headwaters of the York.Rapidan
maybe, or Rivanna.Probably Pamunkey, or the Piankatank,
Where the bullfrogs jump from bank to bank.
Why not say the James?Because it isn't. We know the
James.Maybe it's the Chickahominy! I'm sure we've marched far
enough! Think I hear McClellan's cannon, anyhow!Say, captain, is
that the river Dan?Forbidden to give names!Good Lord!
I'd like to seeno, I wouldn't like to see Old Jack in the
Inquisition!I was down here once and I think it is the South
Anna.It couldn't beit couldn't be Acquia Creek, boys?Acquia
Creek! Absurd! You aren't even warm!It might be the North
Anna.Gentlemen, cease this idle discussion. It is the Tiber!
On a sunny morning, somewhere in this terra incognita, one of
Hood's Texans chanced, during a halt, to stray into a by-road where an
ox-heart cherry tree rose lusciously, above a stake and rider fence.
The Texan looked, set his musket against the rails, and proceeded to
mount to a green and leafy world where the cherries bobbed against his
nose. A voice came to him from below. What are you doing up there,
sir?
The Texan settled himself astride a bough. I don't really know.
Don't know! To what command do you belong?
I don't know.
You don't know! What is your State?
Really and truly, I don'tO Lord! The Texan scrambled down,
saluted most shamefacedly. The horseman looked hard and grim enough.
Well, sir, what is the meaning of this? And can you give me any reason
why you should not mount guard for a month?
Tears were in the Texan's eyes. General, general! I didn't know 't
was you! Give you my word, sir, I thought it was just anybody! We've
had orders every morning to say, 'I don't know'and it's gotten to be
a jokeand I was just fooling. Of course, sir, I don't mean that it
has gotten to be a jokeonly that we all say 'I don't know' when we
ask each other questions, and I hope, sir, that you'll understand that
I didn't know that 't was you
I understand, said Jackson. You might get me a handful of
cherries.
On the twenty-first the leading brigades reached Fredericksburg.
To-morrow is Sunday, said the men. That ought to mean a battle!
While wood and water were being gotten that evening, a rumour went like
a zephyr from company to company: We'll wait here until every regiment
is up. Then we'll move north to Fredericksburg and meet McDowell.
The morrow came, a warm, bright Sunday. The last brigade got up, the
artillery arrived, the head of the ammunition train appeared down the
road. There were divine services, but no battle. The men rested,
guessing Fredericksburg and McDowell, guessing Richmond and McClellan,
guessing return to the Valley and Shields, Fremont, Banks, and Sigel.
They knew now that they were within fifty miles of Richmond; but if
they were going there anyhow, whywhywhy in the name of common sense
had General Lee sent Whiting, Hood, and Lawton to the Valley? Was it
reasonable to suppose that he had marched them a hundred and twenty
miles just to march them back a hundred and twenty miles? The men
agreed that it wasn't common sense. Still, a number had Richmond firmly
fixed in their minds. Others conceived it not impossible that the Army
of the Valley might be on its way to Tennessee to take Memphis, or even
to Vicksburg, to sweep the foe from Mississippi. The men lounged
beneath the trees, or watched the weary Virginia Central bringing in
the fag end of things. Fredericksburg was now the road's terminus;
beyond, the line had been destroyed by a cavalry raid of McClellan's.
Stonewall Jackson made his headquarters in a quiet home, shaded with
trees and with flowers in the yard. Sunday evening the lady of the
house sent a servant to the room where he sat with his chief of staff.
Ole Miss, she say, gineral, dat she hope fer de honour ob yo'
brekfastin' wif her
The general rolled a map and tied it with a bit of pink tape. Tell
Mrs. Harris, with my compliments, that if I am here at breakfast time I
shall be most happy to take it with her.
Thank you, sah. An' what hour she say, gineral, will suit you
bes'?
Tell her, with my compliments, that I trust she will breakfast at
the usual hour.
Morning came and breakfast time. Ole Miss sent to notify the
general. The servant found the room empty and the bed unslept inonly
the dictionary and Napoleon's Maxims (the Bible was gone) on the table
to testify to its late occupancy. Jim, the general's body servant,
emerged from an inner room. Gineral Jackson? Fo' de Lawd, niggah! yo'
ain't looking ter fin' de gineral heah at dis heah hour? He done clar
out 'roun' er bout midnight. Reckon by now he's whipping de Yankees in
de Valley!
In the dark night, several miles from Frederickshall, two riders,
one leading, one following, came upon a picket. Halt! There sounded
the click of a musket. The two halted.
Jest two of you? Advance, number one, and give the countersign!
I am an officer bearing dispatches
That air not the point! Give the countersign!
I have a pass from General Whiting
This air a Stonewall picket. Ef you've got the word, give it, and
ef you haven't got it my hand air getting mighty wobbly on this gun!
I am upon an important mission from General Jackson
It air not any more important than my orders air! You get down from
that thar horse and mark time!
That is not necessary. Call your officer of guard.
Thank you for the sug-ges-tion, said Billy politely. And don't
you move while I carry it out! He put his fingers to his lips and
whistled shrilly. A sergeant and two men came tumbling out of the
darkness. What is it, Maydew?
It air a man trying to get by without the countersign.
The first horseman moved a little to one side. Come here, sergeant!
Have you got a light? Wait, I will strike a match.
He struck it, and it flared up, making for an instant a space of
light. Both the sergeant and Billy saw his face. The sergeant's hand
went up to his cap with an involuntary jerk; he fell back from the rein
he had been holding. Billy almost dropped his musket. He gasped weakly,
then grew burning red. Jackson threw down the match. Good! good! I see
that I can trust my pickets. What is the young man named?
Billy Maydew, sir. Company A, 65th Virginia.
Good! good! Obedience to orders is a soldier's first, last, and
best lesson! He will do well. He gathered up the reins. There are
four men here. You will all forget that you have seen me, sergeant.
Yes, sir.
Good! Good-night.
He was gone, followed by the courier. Billy drew an almost sobbing
breath. I gave him such a damned lot of impudence! He was hiding his
voice, and not riding Little Sorrel, or I would have known him.
The sergeant comforted him. Just so you were obeying orders and
watching and handling your gun all right, he didn't care! I gather you
didn't use any cuss words. He seemed kind of satisfied with you.
The night was dark, Louisa County roads none of the best. As the
cocks were crowing, a worthy farmer, living near the road, was awakened
by the sound of horses. Wonder who's that?Tired horsesone of
them's gone lame. They're stopping here.
He slipped out of bed and went to the window. Just light enough to
see by. Who's there?
Two Confederate officers on important business. Our horses are
tired. Have you two good fresh ones?
If I've got them, I don't lend them to every straggler claiming to
be a Confederate officer on important business! You'd better go
further. Good-night!
I have an order from General Whiting authorizing me to impress
horses.
The farmer came out of the house, into the chill dawn. One of the
two strangers took the stable key and went off to the building looming
in the background. The other sat stark and stiff in the grey light. The
first returned. Two in very good condition, sir. If you'll dismount
I'll change saddles and leave our two in the stalls.
The officer addressed took his large feet out of the stirrups,
tucked his sabre under his arm, and stiffly dismounted. Waiting for the
fresh horses, he looked at the angry farmer. It is for the good of the
State, sir. Moreover, we leave you ours in their places.
I am as good a Virginian as any, sir, with plenty of my folks in
the army! And one horse ain't as good as anothernot when one of yours
is your daughter's and you've ridden the other to the Court House and
to church for twelve years
That is so true, sir, answered the officer, that I shall take
pleasure in seeing that, when this need is past, your horses are
returned to you. I promise you that you shall have them back in a very
few days. What church do you attend?
The second soldier returned with the horses. The first mounted
stiffly, pulled a forage cap over his eyes, and gathered up the reins.
The light had now really strengthened. All things were less like
shadows. The Louisa County man saw his visitor somewhat plainly, and it
came into his mind that he had seen him before, though where or
whenHe was all wrapped up in a cloak, with a cap over his eyes. The
two hurried away, down the Richmond road, and the despoiled farmer
began to think: Where'd I see himRichmond? No, 't wasn't Richmond.
After Manassa |